ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Vatican Insider

Salvatore Cordileone, has admitted his blood-alcohol level was above the legal limit when police arrested him, and has publicly apologized for “the disgrace” he has brought on the Church.

Gerard O’Connell
Rome

The Archbishop-elect of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, was jailed for 11 hours last Saturday, August 25, on suspicion of driving under the influence of drink, after failing a sobriety test administered by the police who stopped him.

In a statement issued by his diocese, Cordileone, a native of San Diego and currently bishop of Oakland, acknowledged that his blood-alcohol level was found to be over the legal limit. He apologized for his “error in judgment”, and said he felt “shame for the disgrace I have brought upon the Church and myself.”

He explained that he had dined earlier that evening with friends and another priest and was driving his mother home from the gathering when he was arrested.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Lauren Farrow

A former NSW police officer and church youth worker told detectives that turning photographs of underage girls into pornographic images was “an artist thing”, a Sydney court has been told.

Wayne Paul Mason, 42, allegedly kissed a 15-year-old girl during a church sleepover and groomed a 13-year-old for sex while he headed a youth group at a Sydney Baptist church, his trial has heard.

Mason has pleaded not guilty to 37 counts of sexually assaulting four girls between 1996 and 2005 and 14 counts of producing and disseminating child pornography.

In a recording of a police interview shown at his trial on Tuesday, Mason is shown a series of photographs, of which he said some had the “real” faces of underage girls, but “fake” bodies.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

Kevin Fagan

Updated 11:04 p.m., Monday, August 27, 2012

The man set to become the next archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco was arrested Saturday in San Diego on suspicion of drunken driving as he was taking his elderly mother home after having dinner with friends.

Oakland Diocese Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, 56, was headed along San Diego State University’s southern edge when he encountered a sobriety checkpoint, said Officer Mark McCullough. Cordileone was amiable but appeared intoxicated and was arrested at 12:26 a.m., McCullough said.

The bishop was released from jail shortly before noon after posting $2,500 bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor charge on Oct. 9.

Cordileone issued a contrite statement Monday, saying he “was found to be over the California legal blood alcohol level.”

“I apologize for my error in judgment and feel shame for the disgrace I have brought upon the Church and myself,” the bishop said. “I will repay my debt to society and I ask forgiveness from my family and my friends and co-workers at the Diocese of Oakland and the Archdiocese of San Francisco.”

Visiting friends

Cordileone said he had been visiting friends with his 88-year-old mother and was driving her to her residence near the university after a meal together.

“I pray that God, in His inscrutable wisdom, will bring some good out of this,” he wrote.

The area where he was arrested has a large number of fraternity and sorority houses, and police routinely run checkpoints on weekends. McCullough said 10 others were arrested at the same checkpoint that night.

“He was very calm, somewhat apologetic at the time,” said the officer, who ran the checkpoint that morning. “He said he’d been drinking. But he wasn’t a stumbling, falling-down drunk.”

The archbishop-designee’s driving record is clean except for one ticket he got on Dec. 23 for failure to stop at a stop sign, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles. If convicted of this latest offense, he could be sentenced to three years’ probation, a fine of $1,800, two days in jail and sobriety counseling.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Louise Hall
Court Reporter

A former police officer who has admitted doctoring photos of teenage girls he met through a church youth group and posted them on a pornographic website says he likes to think of himself as an “artist”.

Wayne Paul Mason, 42, is charged with more than 50 child sex and pornography charges after one of his alleged victims found on a website explicit photos of herself and other girls taken by him nearly a decade earlier.

Mr Mason, who was an officer with the NSW Police between 1997 and 2003, has pleaded not guilty.

The prosecution claims Mr Mason had sexual relationships with at least two 14- and 15-year-old girls he met through his role as a youth group leader and karate teacher at a Baptist Church in Sydney’s south-west.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
Toronto Star

Elliot Spagat and Lisa Leff
The Associated Press

SAN DIEGO—The Roman Catholic archbishop-elect of San Francisco has apologized for his arrest on suspicion of drunken driving, behaviour that he said brought “shame” and “disgrace” on himself and the church, though legal experts said was unlikely to derail his promotion.

The Rev. Salvatore Cordileone said in a statement issued Monday by his office that he was driving home from a dinner with friends in San Diego with his mother and a visiting priest friend early Saturday when he was pulled over at a checkpoint near San Diego State University.

The statement said a sobriety test showed his blood-alcohol level to be above the legal limit, although Cordileone did not reveal by how much.

“I apologize for my error in judgment and feel shame for the disgrace I have brought upon the Church and myself,” he said. “I pray that God, in His inscrutable wisdom, will bring some good out of this.” …

Cordileone took a breath test that confirmed his blood alcohol content exceeded California’s legal limit of 0.08 per cent, said Officer Mark McCullough, who declined to say by how much.

Cordileone, one of 11 people arrested at the checkpoint that night, identified himself as a priest, said McCullough. An officer did an Internet search and learned he was archbishop-elect.

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KENTUCKY
Cincinnati.com

Written by
Jim Hannah

A Northern Kentucky lawyer and past president of the Kentucky Bar Association has lost her battle to share in the about $18.5 million in fees famed Cincinnati attorney Stan Chesley received from the Diocese of Covington sex-abuse settlement.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Barbara Bonar, who has a law office in Covington, was not entitled to a portion of the attorney’s fees in the class-action settlement.

An attorney for Chesley, James Gary of Louisville, said he was pleased with the decision but declined further comment.

Bonar sued Chesley, his firm and another lawyer in the firm, Robert Steinberg, five years ago in Boone Circuit Court. She claimed Chesley forced her out of the sex-abuse litigation and refused to pay her for critical work that brought about the class-action settlement. The roughly $84 million settlement was distributed among about 200 people, with the amount each received determined by the severity of the abuse.

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OREGON
Miami Herald

The Associated Press

REEDSPORT, Ore. — The archbishop of Portland issued an apology that was read at Sunday Mass to a woman who settled a lawsuit claiming she was sexually abused by a priest in the 1980s.

Carolee Horning, 41, was at St. John the Apostle Parish in Reedsport when the letter from Archbishop John Vlazny was read, the Eugene Register-Guard (bit.ly/Nxzh51) reported.

The priest, the Rev. Edward Altstock, was a family friend when he headed the parish from 1984 to 1986, and Horning was a teenager who had been an altar girl.

She said she was flattered by gifts and attention from such a figure of authority, and he pursued her for years, even visiting her in Corvallis when she was a student at Oregon State University.

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CALIFORNIA
The Modesto Bee

By Sue Nowicki
snowicki@modbee.com

A Stanislaus County Superior Court judge will hear arguments this morning as to whether the only Oliver O’Grady lawsuit ever filed in this county should continue.

The lawsuit names Sacred Heart Parish in Turlock, contending that the Catholic parish — as well as the Stockton Diocese, also named as a defendant — should have known that O’Grady was a pedophile, one who later admitted sexually assaulting more than 23 children of both sexes and sleeping with two mothers to get access to their children.

The lawsuit contends that if one of the world’s most notorious pedophiles had been removed from the priesthood in Turlock instead of shuffled from parish to parish, the alleged victim never would have been molested years later at Stockton’s Church of the Presentation, said Vince Finaldi, an attorney with Manly and Stewart in Southern California, who filed the action.

The victim in the case is a 40-year-old man “who was 11 or 12” when the abuse occurred, Finaldi said. He has two younger siblings — a sister and brother — who filed similar lawsuits in 2005 and 2008; those were settled in 2011 for a combined $2 million in damages. The current lawsuit was filed in 2009.

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DARIEN (CT)
Patch

Roman Catholic officials say they have never received specific allegations about the behavior of the Rev. Robert Post, a priest at the St. Thomas More Church in Darien, and the lawyer for three men accusing him won’t make their accusations public.

By David Gurliacci

The Rev. Robert Post has been accused publicly of having sexually abused three teenagers when he was a member of the Irish Christian Brothers in New York state, before he became a priest 30 years ago.

But specific, detailed allegations, the credibility of which might be judged, have not been made public. Nor has Post, a priest at St. Thomas More Church, been arrested or prosecuted.

Instead, Robert M. Hoatson, a former Catholic priest who now runs Road to Recovery, an organization that describes itself as offering “compassionate counseling and referral services to survivors of clergy sexual abuse,” made himself one half of a two-man demonstration Saturday in front of St. Thomas More as parishioners entered and then left the church for Saturday afternoon Mass.

The two held a news conference afterward where they said they wanted the Bridgeport Diocese to remove Post from his position as it investigates the priest’s past.

“[T]hree men have come forward to claim that they were abused by Br. Robert Post,” the organization said in a news release. “Not one, not two, THREE.”

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CALIFORNIA
Marin Independent Journal

By Mark Prado
Marin Independent Journal
marinij.com

San Rafael priest jailed in lewdness case after sting at China CampA San Rafael priest pleaded innocent Monday to two misdemeanor charges in connection with allegations he exposed himself to an undercover investigator during a crackdown on lewd behavior at China Camp State Park.

The Rev. Feliciano Torres Mofan, 58, appeared in Marin Superior Court on charges of lewd conduct in public and being nude in a state park, according to the Marin district attorney’s office. If convicted, Mofan faces up to six months in Marin County Jail.

Mofan was held in custody over the weekend and was released on his own recognizance after the hearing. He is due back in court next Tuesday.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Chicago Tribune

By Ronnie Cohen

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 27 (Reuters) – The Roman Catholic bishop newly chosen by the Vatican to lead the archdiocese of San Francisco and two other Bay Area counties publicly apologized on Monday after he was arrested and held behind bars over the weekend on suspicion of drunken driving.

Salvatore Cordileone, 56, appointed in July by Pope Benedict XVI to preside over more than 500,000 Catholics as metropolitan archbishop of San Francisco, was taken into custody on Saturday near San Diego State University, according to the San Diego Police Department.

He was jailed on suspicion of driving under the influence after he was stopped at a police checkpoint and failed a field sobriety test, police spokesman Detective Gary Hassen said. The bishop was released on $2,500 bail, about 11 hours after his arrest, he said.

Cordileone, a San Diego native who currently is bishop of Oakland, had dined earlier that evening with friends and another priest and was driving his mother home from the gathering when he was arrested, he said in a statement released by his diocese.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
San Diego 6

By Lindsay Hood

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – A San Diego native recently appointed Metropolitan Archbishop of San Francisco was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in his hometown over the weekend, authorities confirmed Monday.

Salvatore Joseph Cordileone, 55, of Oakland was arrested on suspicion of DUI about 12:30 a.m. Saturday at a checkpoint in the 5100 block of College Avenue near the San Diego State University campus, according to San Diego police Officer Mark McCullough.

Cordileone — one of 11 arrested at the checkpoint — failed a field sobriety test, then consented to an optional preliminary alcohol screening device which measured a blood-alcohol level higher than the legal limit of .08 percent, McCullough said.

Cordileone was then placed under arrest and given the option of an official blood or breath test at the checkpoint. He chose a breath test that confirmed a blood-alcohol level higher than the legal limit, McCullough said.

Cordileone’s mother, who was a passenger, was allowed to drive the mid-size black car home following her son’s arrest after officers made sure she had not been drinking and had a valid license, McCullough said.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

Kevin Fagan

Updated 3:34 p.m., Monday, August 27, 2012

(08-27) 14:47 PDT SAN DIEGO — The bishop who is due to take the reins of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco was arrested early Saturday morning on suspicion of drunken driving, according to the San Diego Police Department.

Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, 56, was driving along the edge of San Diego State University when he encountered a sobriety checkpoint, said Detective Gary Hassen. Cordileone appeared drunk and was arrested at 12:26 a.m., Hassen said.

The bishop was released from jail shortly before noon after posting $2,500 bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor charge on Oct. 9.

“He’s probably our highest profile DUI arrest in awhile,” Hassen said.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
National Catholic Register

by CNA/EWTN NEWS08/27/2012

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Police Department verified the weekend arrest of Archbishop-designate Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco for driving under the influence of alcohol.

San Diego police spokesman Detective Gary Hassen confirmed Aug. 26 that Archbishop-designate Cordileone was arrested just after midnight on Aug. 25 and held in county jail.

After passing through a DUI checkpoint near the San Diego State University, the former bishop of Oakland, Calif., was further evaluated by the police and then taken into custody.

Just before noon that same day, he was released on bail, Hassen said. The legal blood-alcohol-content limit for California is 0.08%.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
New York Daily News

By Christine Roberts / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Monday, August 27, 2012

The newly-appointed Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco was arrested this weekend on suspicion of drunk driving, San Diego police said.

Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, 56, was arrested early Saturday morning after he was stopped by cops at a checkpoint near the San Diego State University campus, police spokesman Detective Gary Hassen said.

Hassen did not say whether the San Diego native took a sobriety test.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
U-T San Diego

Written by
Debbi Baker

SAN DIEGO — The archbishop-elect of San Francisco for the Roman Catholic Church was arrested and jailed over the weekend in San Diego on suspicion of drunken driving, police said.

Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, 56, who was appointed archbishop in July, was taken into custody Saturday at 12:26 a.m. after being stopped on College Avenue near Montezuma Road, police said.

Cordileone, who is a San Diego native, was booked into county jail on a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence and later posted bail.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
SF Weekly

By Albert Samaha
Mon., Aug. 27 2012

Salvatore Cordileone, who was named the new Archbishop in late July, allegedly took one too many sips of the Blood of Christ before getting behind the wheel this weekend.

The newly minted leader was reportedly arrested for a driving under the influence in San Diego at 12:26 a.m. Saturday, the San Diego Union-Tribune first reported.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

Kevin Fagan

Published 12:52 p.m., Monday, August 27, 2012

(08-27) 12:49 PDT SAN DIEGO — The bishop who is due to take the reins of the Archdiocese of San Francisco next month was arrested Saturday in San Diego on suspicion of drunken driving, according to officials at the San Diego Police Department.

Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, 56, has been bishop of Oakland since 2009 and was named in July by the Vatican to become the new archbishop in San Francisco on Oct. 4.

The bishop has longtime roots in San Diego. He was born there, studied at the St. Francis Seminary there and serve as an official for many years in its diocese. He was appointed auxiliary bishop of San Diego in 2002, was ordained a bishop later that year, and then was appointed bishop of Oakland on March 23, 2009.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
KGO

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The newly appointed archbishop of San Francisco was arrested for DUI over the weekend.

Police in San Diego say Bishop Salvatore Cordileone was arrested over the weekend for driving under the influence. Police say it happened in San Diego’s College District just before 12:30 Saturday morning.

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OREGON
Catholic Sentinel

REEDSPORT — Msgr. Dennis O’Donovan, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Portland, traveled to St. John the Apostle Church here to deliver a dramatic apology from Archbishop John Vlazny.

The expression of regret was made from the pulpit at Sunday Mass. It was in response to an incident of sexual abuse that happened in the mid-1980s at the parish here by the parish priest at the time, Father Edward Altstock.

The victim, 41-year-old Carolee Horning, was abused in the mid-1980s by Father Altstock. Horning now lives in Eugene, but her family still belongs to St. John the Apostle, a small church set in the woods off Highway 101.

Father Altstock became a family friend and Horning was an altar girl. Horning told the Register Guard newspaper that her life has been harmed by the encounters with the priest, now 79, and living in Beaverton.

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SAGINAW (MI)
MLive

Monday, August 27, 2012, 11:20 AM

By Justin Engel | jengel1@mlive.com

SAGINAW, MI — Attorneys plan to name the leader of the Diocese of Saginaw in a lawsuit surrounding clergy sex abuse allegations at his former assignment in Philadelphia, media reports indicate.

Bishop Joseph Cistone earlier this year was not named in any criminal indictments, but lawyers say Cistone and others will be named in a civil case brought on by a former Philadelphia altar boy who claimed sexual abuse in 1992, CBS Philly reports.

“My best description of them is that they were the kingpins,” Slade McLaughlin, a Philadelphia attorney, told the news station when describing Cistone and another former Catholic administrator in Philadelphia.

Attorneys during a criminal trial this year claimed Archdiocese of Philadelphia administrators shredded documents naming priests accused of sexual abuse while allowing one priest to remain in active ministry with the Northeast Philadelphia parish, where the 10-year-old altar boy was abused, media reports indicate.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Michael D’Antonio

Long a bouquet of shy wallflowers compared with evangelicals, Catholic bishops are at last joining the dance at the Republican party. The big step forward will be made as New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan says the closing benediction at the GOP convention this week. His appearance marks the first time in 40 years that an American cardinal has traveled cross-country for this purpose, and it comes as the churchmen reveal themselves to be more like politicians — in style and substance — than ever before.

The Republicans have danced to this song many times before. Since 1980, the party has used evangelicals to win elections but denied them most of what they want in policy from restoration of school prayer to a nationwide ban on abortion. With Mitt Romney’s selection of the fiercely anti-abortion Paul Ryan, he signaled the party is now taking conservative Catholics for a whirl. However, everything in Romney’s flip-flopping character suggests that once again, religiously motivated voters will give up their votes and get little in return.

For their part, the Catholic hierarchs are abandoning the restraint that once made them credible as moral leaders above the partisan fray. The danger in this choice is evident when you consider that a majority of Catholics disagree with their leaders. They use contraception and oppose the GOP’s “no exceptions” abortion stand. Polls also show Catholics support gay rights and marriage at about the same rate as the general population. These Catholics are not pleased to see their bishops lining up with party hacks or with an evangelical movement that includes a significant number of anti-Catholic bigots.

The fact that Timothy Dolan is leading the bishops in a partisan direction is not a surprise. Take away the clerical clothes and the cardinal is the central casting version of an old pol, glad-handing and joking in one minute and deflecting and deceiving in the next. As Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times reported in May, the cardinal lied about money paid to Wisconsin priests who had been accused of sexual abuse when he was their bishop. He described the money as “charity” when it was intended to induce them to leave the priesthood as quickly as possible. When documents surfaced contradicting Dolan, local Church officials admitted as much. New York’s prelate chose to attack the suggestion that something was amiss as “false, preposterous and unjust.”

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By R. Scott Moxley
Mon., Aug. 27 2012

A onetime prominent priest with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County finally will pay for repeatedly molesting a seven-year-old boy inside a parish rectory and church sacristy in the 1990s.

According to prosecutors, Denis Lyons pleaded guilty in March and last week received his punishment: one year in jail, five years of formal probation and 400 hours of community service.

The 78-year-old serial molester must also register for the rest of his life as a sex offender and won’t be allowed to visit places where children congregate.

In 2008, the victim filed a complaint with the Costa Mesa Police Department and officials arrested Lyons the following year at Leisure World in Seal Beach.

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BELGIUM
RT

Psychiatrists will be helping trainee priests in Belgium to avoid potentially dangerous situations at work. Special “anti-pedophile” training is the new measure to help prevent child abuse by priests.

­According to Belgium’s RTL online, psychiatrists will teach aspiring priests “the correct attitude in the presence of a child”.

“The goal of the training? Not to repeat the errors of the past,” Guy Harpigny, Bishop of Tournai told Belgium’s SudInfo daily.

“The challenge is simple: prevention and protection of our young ones,” he added.

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BELGIE
De Morgen

Bewerkt door: Steven Alen − 23/08/12

Voor de beveiliging van het klooster van Malonne, dat Michelle Martin zal opvangen als ze voorwaardelijk wordt vrijgelaten, zullen dertig voltijdse agenten van de federale politie gemobiliseerd moeten worden, meldt de vakbond VSOA-politie. Volgens de bond is dit “geen redelijke oplossing” wegens de hoge maatschappelijke kosten. .

“Iedereen is het ermee eens dat de geïntegreerde politie lijdt onder een groot personeelstekort. Ook gaat iedereen ermee akkoord dat de federale politie dit personeelstekort het meeste voelt. Maar op vraag van de politiezone Namen zal de federale politie 30 ‘full times’ ter beschikking stellen gedurende onbekende tijd om het klooster van Malonne te beveiligen. De logica is ver te zoeken”, klaagt de politievakbond.

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BELGIE
De Morgen

De federale regering zal snel stappen ondernemen om de voorwaarden voor voorwaardelijke invrijheidstelling in bepaalde gevallen te verstrengen en om de gevallen waarin een zwaardere straf wordt toegekend omwille van recidive uit te breiden. Dat meldt premier Elio Di Rupo na een onderhoud met Jean-Denis Lejeune en Paul Marchal, waarbij ook de procureur-generaal van Bergen, Claude Michaux, aanwezig was. .

Het gesprek met de vaders van Julie Lejeune en An Marchal, beiden slachtoffers van Marc Dutroux, kwam er naar aanleiding van de mogelijke voorwaardelijke vrijlating van Michelle Martin, de ex-vrouw van Dutroux. De premier, die het over een “zeer constructief en openhartig” gesprek heeft, zegt de emoties van de familie en de bevolking te begrijpen. “De verschrikkelijke daden waarover het gaat, zijn nog steeds zeer aanwezig in onze herinneringen en het leed van de families blijft ons allemaal raken”, aldus Di Rupo.

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BELGIE
De Morgen

Bewerkt door: Steven Peeters − 27/08/12

In Namen zijn de lokale autoriteiten klaar voor de komst van Michelle Martin, de ex-vrouw van Marc Dutroux, naar het klooster van de Arme Klaren in Malonne. Het Hof van Cassatie spreekt zich morgen uit over het beroep dat de burgerlijke partijen en de procureur-generaal van Bergen hebben aangetekend tegen de voorwaardelijke vrijlating van Martin, maar algemeen wordt aangenomen dat ze morgen vrijkomt. .

“Om veiligheidsredenen kunnen we geen details kwijt over de inzet van de politie”, zei burgemeester van Namen Maxime Prévot. “Ik kan wel zeggen dat deze agenten niet enkel zullen instaan voor de bescherming van mevrouw Martin, maar voor de openbare orde.”

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

CWN – August 27, 2012

Vatican investigators could investigate 20 more people in the connection with the leaks of confidential papal documents, the Italian news service ANSA reports.

Citing “well-placed Vatican sources,” ANSA said that after indicting two people—Paolo Gabriele, the Pope’s former valet, and Claudio Sciarpelleti, a computer technician in the Secretariat of State—investigators are preparing a new phase of their investigation, in which at least 20 people will be examined.

The Vatican has not commented on the ANSA report.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

by Mark Shea Sunday, August 26, 2012

A reader writes:

Read some of your blog. I know their are some good people that are Catholics. Just don’t understand why organized religion becomes perverted and the leadership condones the behavior. Wait, I do understand, it’s all about “power over.” The culture of the church is corrupt and sanctions this aberrant behavior. Puts all the good people in such a bad place, don’t you think? The church has had a “power over” relationship with the people for centuries. Watched this in action during Semana Santa in Sevilla about 30 years back. It was a disgusting display of “power over” and yet apologists for the church condone and encourage this behavior.

First, thank you for the acknowledgement that “some” good people are Catholics. I would even go so far as to say most Catholics are good people. That is, we are average schlubs trying to get by in life. As you may recall, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is engaged in a great struggle.” It turns out Catholics are remarkably like human beings and are not more prone to evil than the general population, nor do their IQ levels deviate from the norm for the general population.

Why then, do they remain Catholic when members of their communion do great evil?

Answer: Because Catholic faith does not stand or fall with the moral quality of our bishops. It stands on Jesus Christ. I’m a Catholic because I believe Jesus is the Son of God and that he established a Church as the sacrament of salvation–a Church composed entirely of sinful people–especially me. I don’t place my faith in the personal sanctity of any bishop (though some are very good people and others are, in my view, scoundrels). I place it in Jesus to guide his Church because he is gracious to dunderheads and sinners. There is no option of escaping grave sin in this world. You meet it everywhere, including the mirror. The only option is to stick with Jesus–or not. Some people imagine you can stick with Jesus but ditch the Church. Not possible. Christ is the head and the Church is his body.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

VATICAN CITY, August 27, 2012 – “The activity of the Holy See” is the title of a weighty volume that year after year offers the account of the actions undertaken by the pope, the Roman curia, and other Vatican offices. It is an “unofficial publication,” as specified on the frontispiece, but – compiled by the secretariat of state – contains a substantial amount of information and not a few curiosities, often unpublished elsewhere.

The latest edition, concerning the activities of 2011, was published at the end of July by Libreria Editrice Vaticana. It is 1,366 pages long, and costs 80 euro.

In it we learn, for example:

– that among the activities of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith must also be included the republication in the November 30, 2011 issue of “L’Osservatore Romano” of the text by then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger published in 1998 in a volume “On the pastoral care of the divorced and remarried.” This republication – it is explained – was intended to “draw the attention of pastors” to that volume, “unfortunately little known,” which reiterates the traditional Catholic position on the argument and in which, among other things, it is confirmed that the practice of the Orthodox Churches of admitting under certain conditions a second and third marriage after the failure of the first remains “unacceptable for doctrinal reasons.”

– that last year, the disciplinary office of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith opened 599 new procedures, 440 of them concerning “delicta graviora,” and that the most numerous of these, 404 to be exact, are cases of abuse perpetrated by clergy against minors. With regard to this, the volume points out that “in the year 2011, with respect to the year 2010, the disciplinary office received fewer notifications,” but that nonetheless “with respect to previous years (for example, the period of 2005–2009) the number of cases has risen considerably.” Also in this area, moreover, the congregation for the doctrine of the faith submitted to the pope a request for the removal “ex officio” from the clerical state of 125 subjects, and for another 135 a request for dispensation from priestly obligations.

– that during the same period, the congregation for the clergy – for reasons other than “delicta graviora” – issued 540 certifications of dispensation from priestly obligations for 49 diocesan deacons, 26 religious deacons, 280 secular priests, and 185 religious.

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
Manila Standard Today

By Ferdinand Fabella | Posted on August 27, 2012

A laity group in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Parañaque criticized Bishop Jesse Mercado for snubbing a public forum on Monday where he was invited to explain the disposition of more than P3 million in diocesan funds that were meant to be given to disaster victims, but purportedly did not reach the beneficiaries.

Dr. Erwin Carabeo, a leader of the Lay Initiative for Transparency and Accountability, expressed disappointment at the bishop’s apparent refusal to face the public and clarify the allegations hurled against him.

“We want to hear it directly from the bishop. These people, the ordinary parishioners and the faithful, have questions that we church workers also could not answer,” said Carabeo, a former president of the pastoral council of St. Andrew’s Cathedral, the seat of the Parañaque diocese.

Carabeo told Manila Standard Today at the forum held at the Elorde Sports Complex on Sucat Road in Parañaque that he resigned as council president when the alleged irregularity broke out because the bishop has done nothing to explain the matter but issue “blanket denials.”

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UNITED STATES
History News Network – George Mason University

By Bruce Chadwick
8-27-12

Bruce Chadwick lectures on history and film at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He also teaches writing at New Jersey City University. He holds his PhD from Rutgers and was a former editor for the New York Daily News. Mr. Chadwick can be reached at bchadwick@njcu.edu.

Magdalen

New York International Fringe Festival
Gene Frankel Theater
24 Bond Street
New York, N.Y.

From 1765 through 1996, the Catholic Church in Ireland ran a chain of large laundries supervised by nuns called the Magdalene laundries. The workers, over 30,000 of them over the centuries, were all prostitutes, rape victims, sexually abused girls, troubled girls and, in later years, the mentally challenged. They were sent to the laundries by their families and the courts in the belief that hard work cleanses the soul and that the good sisters would rehabilitate the women.

They did not. Revelations in the 1990s finally illustrated that the women worked like dogs and lived like prisoners in workhouses attached to the laundries. Many spent years there and some their entire lives. The nuns were overly harsh in their treatment of the girls and many of the girls were physically, sexually and psychologically abused. The centuries of abuse came to light in 1993 when contractors who dug up a convent courtyard discovered 155 skeletons belonging to the girls at the laundries. Following that discovery, many of the girls finally went public and told their sordid stories. A national scandal followed. Several years later, another church sex scandal ensued when it was revealed that many young Irish boys were molested by priests.

The story of the girls, and the nuns, is told in a scorching new play, Magdalen, at the New York International Film Festival, that opened last week. The star of the one-woman play is Erin Layton, who delivers a heartwrenching and thunderous performance that both shocks brings tears. The theme of her electric show is how on earth could the nuns and priests get away with this for over two centuries. Minute after minute, like a slowly lit fuse, the play heats up, hotter and hotter, until it explodes like a criminal and sexual volcano at the end.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Cambria County priest has been placed on leave amid allegations of sexual abuse involving children several decades ago.

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown said Friday that the Rev. George Koharchik, pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, will not be permitted to function as a priest and won’t have contact with children while he is on leave.

Diocese spokesman Tony DeGol said the alleged sexual misconduct allegedly took place in the late 1970s. The alleged victims brought it to the attention of the church recently.

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OREGON
The Register-Guard

By Bob Keefer
The Register-Guard

[with copy of a letter from Bishop John G. Vlasny]

Published: August 27, 2012

REEDSPORT — What Carolee Horning wanted most was for her former church to say it was sorry. On Sunday, when she came to Mass, she got not only an extraordinary apology but also found, amid her taut nerves and copious tears, a sense of homecoming and liberation.

Horning, 41, has lived in Eugene for a decade. She was even born here. But a quarter-century ago, when she was a girl growing up in Reedsport, she was molested by a Catholic priest at St. John the Apostle Parish, where her family was and still is part of the congregation.

Father Edward Altstock became a trusted family friend when he headed the parish from 1984 to 1986. Horning, then a young teenager who had been an altar girl, came under his sway, flattered by gifts and attention from such a figure of authority. He pursued her sexually for years, even visiting her in Corvallis when she was a student at Oregon State University.

Decades after the abuse started, she says, her romantic life remains wrecked by what happened with Altstock, who is retired and living near Portland. Because of the statute of limitations, he never was charged with a crime.

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IOWA
Quad-City Times

Brian Wellner

An Iowa woman contemplating a return to the Roman Catholic Church last year agreed to meet with a priest on one condition — he remove his collar.

“Roman collars still frighten me,” Kathleen Bowman, 47, told the priest.

She then emerged from four decades of silence, having only ever shared with a therapist her story of alleged abuse as a child by three priests because the memories were making her suicidal.

“I didn’t know I could report,” Bowman told the Quad-City Times, her first time speaking publicly about the alleged abuse. “It was taking everything just to maintain life.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Western Massachusetts Catholics

a. What Is The Petition?
b. Why Is This Petition Important?
c. How Can I Help?
a. What Is The Petition?

The owners of the Western Mass Catholics blog (Robert Kelly and Brody Hale) started a petition on Change.Org.

You can sign the petition here.

The petition asks Massachusetts Secretary of State William Francis Galvin to reinstitute a requirement that the Corporation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts provide annual financial statements to state officials.

It is critical to understand two things:

1. this petition is NOT directed at religious organizations in general; it is directed at the Corporation of the Springfield Diocese.

2. this corporation is NOT a religious entity.

Corporate sole gives the diocese civil standing. Through corporate sole, diocesan officials buy and sell property, file lawsuits (see links below for five recent lawsuits), lobby the state legislature, and donate to political parties and special interest groups. Deed restrictions on real property are especially important in the Springfield Diocese because they are by far the most restrictive in the state. If the requirement for “annual returns” were reintroduced, citizens would learn about:

– source and list of diocesan money and assets.
– what the money and assets are used for.
– how much money is used for civil suits and political donations.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

John Ferguson, Victorian political editor
From:The Australian
August 25, 2012

THE nation’s most powerful Catholic, Sydney archbishop George Pell, is embroiled in a damaging controversy over the handling of church-related child sex assaults in Victoria, with demands that he appear before a new inquiry to explain what he knew and when about some of the worst abuses committed anywhere in the world.

Under the powers afforded the state parliamentary inquiry, Cardinal Pell and other senior members of the church can be compelled to appear before the committee as it is set to investigate the systematic abuse of probably hundreds of children in the Catholic diocese of Ballarat, where Cardinal Pell began his career.

The Weekend Australian can reveal that the inquiry is poised to undertake regional sittings, with victims from Ballarat preparing submissions and inquiry members describing as inevitable that the committee will sit in the regional city, 110km west of Melbourne.

A senior state Labor MP, Ann Barker, who has studied the church’s Irish response, told The Weekend Australian that Cardinal Pell should appear before the inquiry in his role overseeing the church’s initial response to Catholic abuse in Melbourne but that incumbent Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart also should give evidence.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Change.org

by Robert M. Kelly

The people of Massachusetts deserve to know how corporations licensed and regulated by the state spend money, especially when they influence elections, advocate social change, and conduct civil lawsuits. It is past time to broaden this right-to-know to the spending habits of religious corporations.

Petition Letter
Dear Secretary of State Galvin,

I just signed a petition asking you to require the Corporation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts to file annual financial reports with the state. Here’s why:

– the civil corporation started in 1898 and was required to file annual reports, but the requirement lapsed under the assumption that religious groups did not need oversight. Today, most citizens agree that corporations have too much influence on politics and social change; that the laws governing religious corporations are outmoded; and that self-policing simply does not work.

– the diocese has made contributions to PAC’s, special-interest, and other advocacy groups for political (not religious) reasons; yet there are no laws requiring public disclosure of these funds.

– the diocese regularly files lawsuits which seek to enforce its worldview in civil courts, yet the lawsuits are not religious in nature, and are often not supported by parishioners. Instead, diocesan lawsuits are aimed at corporate property rights, corporate damage and settlement awards for third-party insurance claims, or corporate privacy rights.

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NEDERLAND
RKnieuws

MAASTRICHT (RKnieuws.net) – Stichting Mea Culpa sleept drie voormalige broeders van het voormalige jongenspensionaat in Bleijerheide voor de rechter.

De vereniging van slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik binnen de katholieke kerk zegt dat de drie geestelijken die nog in leven zijn snel door de politie gehoord moeten worden. Volgens de stichting houden ze informatie achter over seksueel misbruik op het jongenspensionaat in de jaren zestig.
Mea Culpa heeft ook aangifte gedaan tegen de congregatie die de scepter zwaaide in het pensionaat. De stichting wil inzage in de archieven om informatie te krijgen over andere broeders die in Bleijerheide werkten.

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DARIEN (CT)
Patch

By Patrick Barnard

A small group of protestors reportedly gathered on Saturday at St. Thomas More church in Darien to call for the removal the church’s parochial vicar, the Rev. Robert Post, on allegations of past clergy abuse.

According to a report in the Stamford Advocate, Robert M. Hoatson, a former priest who now heads Road to Recovery, a group that assists victims of clergy abuse, along with Kevin Waldrip, who claims to be a victim of past clergy abuse by another priest while in New Jersey, handed out flyers and wore placards calling for the Rev. Post’s removal.

Hoatson is a former priest with the Irish Christian Brothers and Waldrip is a former student at one of the Christian Brothers’ high schools, according to the report. They are reportedly calling for the Rev. Post’s removal in light of a federal bankruptcy suit pending in White Plains, N.Y., that contains some 462 allegations of abuse allegedly committed by members of the Irish Christian Brothers. According to the report, three of those allegations are against the Rev. Post, with those incidents allegedly occurring some 30 years ago.

In an earlier report in The Darien Times, Brian Wallace, spokesman for The Diocese of Bridgeport, said Hoatson’s accusations are “baseless and misleading.”

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on August 26, 2012

Fr. J. Michael Henry has a hall in his honor. And the number of his alleged victims just keeps growing.

Fr. Joseph Michael Henry (also known as J. Michael Henry and Mike Henry), was a longtime priest in the Diocese of Honolulu. Most of his time was spent at St. Anthony’s Parish in Kailua on Oahu’s Windward Coast—a small-town parish with a school, preschool and active charity league.

Fr. Henry was first exposed as a predator in 1991 lawsuit by a Kailua boy named David Figueroa. In addition, Figueroa charged that after Henry abused him, another priest at the parish, Joseph Ferrario, took advantage of the vulnerable boy and began to abuse him as well. Fr. Joseph Ferrario became Bishop of Honolulu in 1978. Henry died in 1974. Ferrario died in 2003.

Soon after Figueroa came forward, another Kailua boy stepped forward to say that he, too, had been molested by both priests. The initial reason Mark Pinkosh came forward was to support David. Later, he realized that it was vital for his own healing and keeping other kids safe. David’s case was thrown out on the statute of limitations, NOT the merits of the case.

Fortunately for Mark and other victims of child sexual abuse in Hawaii, a new civil law, sponsored by Senator Maile Shimabukuro, gives Mark a chance to use the courts to seek justice, truth and accountability. While both Ferrario and Henry are dead, the people who covered up for them are not. Neither is the legacy of pain they caused.

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OSTERREICH
Der Standard

23. August 2012

Die Opferschutzstellen der Bundesländer arbeiten unterschiedlich – Generelle Richtlinien fehlen, da es sich um freiwillige Einrichtungen der Länder handelt

Bregenz/Innsbruck/Linz/Wien – Opfer von Gewalt in staatlichen und kirchlichen Einrichtungen können sich seit 2010 in allen Bundesländern an Opferschutzkommissionen wenden. Eingerichtet wurden die mit Experten besetzten Kommissionen von den Ländern, einheitliche Richtlinien für die Arbeit der Kommissionen gibt es nicht.

Zur Festlegung der Entschädigungen habe man sich zwar die Richtlinien der Unabhängigen Opferschutzanwaltschaft, besser bekannt als “Klasnic-Kommission”, zum Vorbild genommen, sagt Herwig Hösele, Sprecher der Anwaltschaft, “ansonsten arbeiten sie aber autonom”. Da die Kommissionen freiwillige Einrichtungen der Länder seien, gebe es auch keinen Instanzenzug.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kreiszeitung

Verden · Ein Jugendwart der Freiwilligen Feuerwehr Verden soll mehrere Jungen missbraucht und ein Kreisjugenddiakon der evangelischen Kirche in Verden kinderpornografische Bilder besessen haben. In beiden Verfahren haben die Staatsanwaltschaften Verden und Hannover lange ermittelt.

Nun sind die Ermittlungen abgeschlossen. Im Fall des Jugendwartes wurde bereits Anklage erhoben. Es sind zwei völlig getrennt voneinander laufende Verfahren, die aber beide im März 2011 publik geworden sind. Der Kreisjugenddiakon war durch ein Ermittlungsverfahren in einem anderen Bundesland ins Visier der Ermittler geraten. Durch Gesprächsinhalte in einem Internet-Chat hatten sich konkrete Verdachtsmomente gegen den Diakon ergeben. Am 10. März 2011 waren dann die Privaträume des Verdeners und seine Diensträume in der St. Nikolai-Gemeinde durchsucht und Beweismaterial sichergestellt worden.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

[Reforming the Statute of Limitations for Child Sex Abuse: New York’s Child Victims Act Shouldn’t Be Political, But It Is Findlaw – Marcia A. Hamilton

Excerpt from this 2010 story: In the Codes Committee, three Democrats joined the Republicans in voting against letting the bill go to the floor, though none appeared at the Committee meeting, voting only in absentia. Sen. Shirley Huntley, whose website claims she has been a strong advocate for children, was a particular disappointment.]

By THOMAS KAPLAN and RANDY LEONARD

Published: August 25, 2012

Adding to the long list of Albany lawmakers accused of misusing their offices, a Democratic state senator from Queens said on Saturday that she expected to be arrested as part of an ongoing corruption investigation.

The senator, Shirley L. Huntley, said she would surrender to the authorities on Monday. She said she did not know the charges, but her announcement came months after one of her aides and three others were charged with stealing taxpayer money that had been directed to a nonprofit group that Ms. Huntley founded.

Ms. Huntley spoke to reporters on the street in front of her home in Jamaica, Queens, surrounded by several dozen supporters, some of them holding campaign signs. The senator’s spokeswoman had e-mailed reporters late Friday, urging them to attend “an emergency news conference.”

“I want my day in court,” Ms. Huntley said. “I don’t know the charges. I have no idea what this is about.”

Ms. Huntley’s announcement, which comes after the censure of Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez on Friday because of allegations of sexual harassment, suggests that Albany’s string of corruption and ethics scandals has not ended.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

There are few crimes more revolting than the abuse of a child.

Naturally, an allegation of child abuse provokes public outrage and anger. So it’s hard to imagine just how devastating it must be to be wrongly accused of abuse.

A priest who hits the headlines when he is accused of abuse can justifiably feel aggrieved when little or no attention is paid if he is declared innocent or found to have no case to answer.

As has been demonstrated in numerous reports, the Catholic Church, when confronted with allegations of abuse against clerics over many decades, failed to act.

The devastated lives are a constant reminder of this cowardly reaction.

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OREGON
The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

Virginia Jones

I was in Eastern and Southern Oregon walking through small, rural towns and on scenic trails to raise awareness about abuse when the news came about an abusive priest, Fr. Angel Armando Perez, in Woodburn, Oregon. The abuse was very recent and the child reported it, and his family supported him, and the police supported him, and the priest was arrested.

The family support and the arrest frequently did not happen in the past.

We’ve made progress, real progress. The abuse happened, but at least most of the response to the abuse was appropriate.

I could not comment on what had happened when I was walking through towns and on trails in the distant parts of Oregon. My internet access was intermittent, and I had my two teenagers to care for and a schedule to keep, and the two teenagers didn’t want to share the computer with me.

When I returned home to Portland, I read Abuse Tracker and saw Randy Ellison’s blog on the case. Randy is the Board President of the child sex abuse survivor advocacy group, Oregon Abuse Advocates and Survivors in Service (OAASIS). Randy reported in his blog that a group of parishioners showed up to support the priest in court

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DARIEN (CT)
CT Post

By Michael P. Mayko

DARIEN — Handing out fliers and wearing placards, a former Catholic priest and an abuse victim stood at the entrance of St. Thomas More church Saturday, demanding the Diocese of Bridgeport remove an elderly priest for allegedly abusing three high school students some 30 years ago.

The demonstration was directed at the Rev. Robert Post, who is assigned St. Thomas More as the parochial vicar and serves as the chaplain of the Stamford Fire and Rescue Department. Demanding his removal were Robert M. Hoatson, who served with the Rev. Post in the Irish Christian Brothers, but now heads Road to Recovery, which assists victims of clergy abuse. Handing out leaflets with Hoatson was Kevin Waldrip, who said he was abused on his 13th birthday by the late Rev. Richard Galdon, who was convicted and sentenced to prison for abusing children in New Jersey. Waldrip’s abuse is not linked to Rev. Post.

The three complaints against the Rev. Post are part of a federal bankruptcy suit pending in White Plains, N.Y., against the Irish Christian Brothers. That suit contains some 462 allegations of abuse allegedly committed by numerous members of the Irish Christian Brothers across North America.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Dianne Williamson
dwilliamson@telegram.com

Andrew J. Myers, 34, sat passively at the defense table during a brief hearing at U.S. District Court. Short, bespectacled and unassuming, he glanced behind him just once, apparently searching for his parents. As he left the courtroom, he mouthed “I love you,” to his mom, who covered her face and broke down in tears.

The scene was heart-wrenching. Within days, Myers’ mother has witnessed the public transformation of her son from likable local lawyer and Boy Scout leader to one of the most despised members of society — a suspected pedophile.

The Northbridge man is just the latest suspect to catch everyone by surprise, even though we’ve grown somewhat accustomed to revelations that otherwise “normal” adults are harboring a dark, secret sex life. In Meyers’ case, the U.S. Department of Justice alleges he communicated with minors by email and offered to perform sex acts. He also received emails containing pictures of prepubescent boys exposing their genitals.

“I don’t know what to think,” his mother said softly, before her son was led into court.

Neither do the experts. Recently, though, some fascinating studies are debunking some long-held views about pedophilia.

For years, we’ve been told that pedophilia is an addiction or a horrible illness or a manifestation of an abusive adult seeking power and control. It’s a failure of character, an evil predilection. Of course, we’ve learned long ago that pedophiles tend not to be monsters lurking in bushes but more often our fathers, our priests, our police, our teachers. Frequently, they’re upstanding members of the community, well-regarded and respected.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Greg Harkin

Saturday August 25 2012

A brisk wind batters Fr Eugene Boland’s face as he walks along the shoreline on Co Donegal’s remote Inishowen peninsula. But the breeze doesn’t bother him.

He is just glad to be breathing the sea air and enjoying the stunning views offered by Ballyliffin beach after enduring his own very personal storm over the past two years.

For most of that time, the Catholic priest has been forced to live under a cloud after being accused of sexually assaulting a teenager.

It was a devastating period for him — one that ended only when a jury found him innocent following an eight-day trial in June.

He was forced to step aside from his parish work while police investigated claims made by a now 37-year-old woman that he had indecently assaulted her over two decades earlier when she was just 14.

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UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Inquirer

Render Unto Rome
The Secret Life of Money
in the Catholic Church

By Jason Berry
Broadway Paperback. 420 pp. $16

Reviewed by Kenneth A. Briggs

While some Catholic bishops and lay people have been waging a campaign to convince the public that their religious freedom is being threatened, Jason Berry’s book stands as a formidable reminder of how much the church needs to learn from the “secular” realm that it often scorns.

Like common-law justice for sex abusers.

And certified public accounting of obscure church finances.

Combining superior investigative skills and adroit analysis, Berry links clergy sexual abuse of children – a subject he helped push onto a national stage in an earlier book – with the tactics designed to cover legal and psychiatric damages resulting from it in a crisis that has cost the church more than $3 billion in settlements, according to the advocacy group BishopAccountability. The chief cause he identifies is appalling moral failure by top church officials, including Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Abuse and its cover-up, widespread and hidden, became a nightmare when Berry in Louisiana and a blockbuster series later in the Boston Globe exposed the scope and horror of the scandal. Expenditures on legal fees and suits quickly became astronomical. Strapped for funds, bishops resorted to various schemes.

The reflexive response in settings like Boston, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, was to sell off church property. That often meant killing a parish that was the cherished spiritual home to neighborhood Catholics. Asking them, in effect, to pay for clergy abuse sparked protest.

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OREGON/CALIFORNIA
The Oregonian

By Kimberly A.C. Wilson, The Oregonian

For most of their lives, the paths of Angel Perez and Uriel Ojeda ran along parallel lines, from devout boyhoods in Western Mexico, through years of prayer and education at Oregon’s Mount Angel Seminary and, finally, onto the pulpits of their own Catholic churches outside Portland and Sacramento.

They became the best of friends.

Now both priests are accused of crimes 500 miles apart that could ultimately send them to prison and jeopardize the collars that once told the world they were brothers.

The tales of Father Angel and Father Uriel, as their parishioners know them, offer windows into how two neighboring dioceses are addressing a relatively new phenomenon for the Roman Catholic Church: a real-time criminal investigation into alleged child sexual abuse by a priest.

Charges against Perez, 46, and Ojeda, 33 — acclaimed in both the Archdiocese of Portland and Diocese of Sacramento as dynamic, committed, Spanish-speaking pastors beloved by their immigrant congregations — have added fresh woes to a church made hyper-vigilant after settling hundreds of priest sex abuse lawsuits.

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

Honolulu Star-Adveriser

Damien Memorial School and St. Anthony are hit with accusations of molestation

By Rob Perez
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Aug 24, 2012

Twelve former students at Damien high school on Oahu have filed claims in a New York bankruptcy court alleging that they were sexually abused by clergy who were working at the private Catholic school in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

The allegations were disclosed Thursday by a California attorney who is representing the alleged victims in their claims against the North American branch of the Congregation of Christian Brothers, which runs Catholic schools around the country and supplies some staff to what is now called Damien Memorial School.

Michael Reck of the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates said officials overseeing the school during that period were aware of the abuse problem but covered it up for years.”It’s really a conspiracy of silence and abuse that’s most troubling,” Reck said.

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on August 25, 2012

Last spring, I met a man named Mark Pinkosh. Yesterday, he became a hero.

Mark charges that he was sexually abused by Hawaii priest J. Michael Henry (Also known as Joseph Henry) when Mark was just a boy attending Kailua’s St. Anthony’s church. When Mark reached out to other adults, trying to get someone to help him, another priest befriended the boy. That priest, Joseph Ferrario, then began to abuse the boy himself. Joseph Ferrario later became the Bishop of Honolulu.

Mark’s accusations were not the first against both men. Another boy, David Figueroa, came forward in 1991 and filed a lawsuit against both priests. The suit was dismissed because of an archaic statute of limitations, NOT the merits of the case. Mark came forward then to help David, but in the end, both boys were shunned in their communities for coming forward and speaking out about what had happened to them. Mark was eventually chased out of Hawaii, his home. David passed away, never able to get justice for the boy who was abused.

Earlier this year, the law changed. Victims of child sexual abuse now have the next two years to come forward and use the civil courts to expose their abusers, punish those who covered up abuse, and get justice and accountability. Thanks to Senator Maile Shimabukuro, victims can get justice and children are safer from abuse. Mark filed a lawsuit to get to the truth of what the Diocese of Honolulu knew about abusers, when they knew it, how they covered it up.

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.

CALIFORNIA
Inside Bay Area

San Rafael priest jailed in lewdness case after sting at China Camp

By Gary Klien, Marin Independent Journal
contracostatimes.com
Posted: 08/24/2012

A San Rafael priest was arrested on allegations he exposed himself to an undercover investigator during a crackdown on lewd behavior at China Camp State Park, a state parks ranger said Friday.

The Rev. Feliciano Torres Mofan, 58, was booked into Marin County Jail on suspicion of indecent exposure, soliciting a lewd act and nudity in a state park. He remained in custody Friday night in lieu of $2,500 bail.

The arrest occurred during a sting operation targeting lewd conduct in the park, said Supervising Ranger Ryen Goering. He said rangers have recently received a spike of reports about sexual activity in public, found Internet postings seeking sexual meetups in the park and cleaned up condoms, clothes and waste left on the grounds.

On Thursday evening, a plainclothes ranger was walking at Chicken Coop Hill, in the shoreline area off North San Pedro Road, when a man approached and propositioned him for sex, Goering said. Then the man allegedly exposed himself to the ranger.

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CALIFORNIA
Modesto Bee

The Associated Press

CHINA CAMP STATE PARK, Calif. — A priest has been arrested after authorities say he exposed himself to an undercover agent at China Camp State Park.

The Marin Independent Journal reports (http://bit.ly/QAUbk9) that 58-year-old Rev. Feliciano Mofan was being held in jail on Friday in lieu of $2,500 bail.

Supervising Ranger Ryen Goering said Mofan’s arrest happened during a sting caused by an increase in reports of sexual activity.

Goering said Mofan propositioned the undercover ranger and exposed himself.

Mofan is a “priest in residence” at the Church of St. Isabella, part of the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Stuart Pfeifer, Los Angeles Times

August 25, 2012
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles suspended a priest Friday amid allegations that he stole nearly $300,000 from an elderly widow who was a member of his parish.

Michalena Jones, 79, filed a lawsuit this week that accused Father Peter Valdez of befriending her after her husband’s death and using his influence to steal $284,000 over a seven-year period.

The archdiocese placed Valdez on administrative leave, “pending the resolution of this matter,” said Tod Tamberg, an archdiocese spokesman.

Jones said she met Valdez at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Palmdale after her husband died in 2003. The priest persuaded Jones to give him $150,000 to buy a home in Downey and added his name to her checking account, which he used to make mortgage payments, the lawsuit said.

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WEST JAVA
Jakarta Globe

Bogor, West Java. Police have arrested a Koran recitation teacher in the Wanaherang village in Gunung Putri, Bogor, after he admitted to having sexually molested 13 of his students over the course of two years.

The case was revealed after the parents of one of the kids, nine-year-old Bunga (who has chosen to go by an alias), reported the teacher, Nana Suryana, 47, to police. Bunga’s mother, Suwarti (also going by an alias) said she had learned about the alleged molestation from Bunga’s younger sister.

“Suwarti first heard about it from [Bunga’s sister], and then she asked Bunga for confirmation, after which she reported Nana to the police,” the head of Bogor Police’s child protection unit, First Insp. F. X. Suyadi, said in Bogor on Saturday.

“[Nana] admitted to molesting 13 children during the past two years, with the ages of the victims ranging from five to nine years old,” he added.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on August 24, 2012

For the devastation he’s caused, a year in jail is a paltry sentence for Fr. Lyons. Still, we’re grateful he’ll be locked up and for years afterwards will be on probation.

We hope that Fr. Denis Lyons is given the maximum sentence. Harshly sentencing Lyons sends a powerful message. It warns other would be predators that if you harm children, you will be punished. It offers victims and their loved ones a sense of justice. And it keeps a dangerous predator from harming more kids.

Kids are safest when pedophiles are behind bars. And kids are even safer when every single person who saw, suspected or suffered a predator’s crimes comes forward. We are grateful to the brave victims of Fr. Lyons who came forward.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

[with video]

By Pat Ciarrocchi
PHILADELPHIA (CBS)

– With the second clergy sex abuse trial in Philadelphia set to begin in early September, lawyers for the abuse victim in that case are preparing civil litigation.

This week the attorneys told the court they intend to amend their lawsuit and also go after two bishops with Philadelphia ties.

“This won’t be the last of it. This is groundbreaking,” said Philadelphia Attorney Slade McLaughlin.
McLaughlin, of McLaughlin & Lauricella, P.C., intends to name Bishop Joseph Cistone, the current Bishop of Saginaw, Michigan and Bishop Edward Cullen, the former Bishop of Allentown, as he proceeds in a civil case, on behalf of a former altar boy who was sexually abused in 1992.

“My best description of them is that they were the kingpins,” said McLaughlin in an exclusive interview with Eyewitness News.

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UNITED STATES
John Paul II Millstone

Updated August 24, 2012

Paris Arrow

New sex abuse allegations are coming out against retired Bishop Roger Vangheluwe who bragged on television (read related articles below) to sexually abusing his own young nephews and who was the longest reigning Bishop of Belgium for over 25 years. Another clone of John Paul II (who was the longest reigning pope for over 25 years) Bishop Roger Vangheluwe is one of the highest ranking pedophile in the JP2 Army-John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army . This capacity to be priests no matter how heinous the crimes one has commited prove that the Eucharist makes amoral the consciences of men claiming to represent and re-incarnating Christ’s flesh. That is why the Vatican proved itself amoral for over half a century as it covered-up thousands of pedophile priests.

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COLORADO
San Francisco Chronicle

DENVER (AP) — A former interim pastor at a church in Greeley is scheduled for a status conference in September on child pornography charges.

A federal grand jury indicted 68-year-old Richard Howard Craft, of Thornton, this week on charges alleging he distributed, received and possessed child pornography during a period between July 2007 and December 2009.

Craft is a former interim pastor of Family of Christ Presbyterian Church of Greeley.

An affidavit for a search warrant says an undercover FBI special agent saw numerous child pornography files via a publicly available online file-sharing program that were tracked to Craft’s home computer.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

August 25, 2012 by Susan Matthews

I’ve often wondered why the Grand Jury Reports didn’t result in massive archdiocesan employee resignations. However, it never dawned on me that the cover up of clergy child sex abuse might lead to embezzlement. With Guzzardi’s line of reasoning, Catholics should be mugging Bishops and raiding the collection baskets. What a load of …. Quit the institution. Give your money elsewhere. Don’t become what you purport to hate – a liar and a thief.

I am, however, struck by the fact her sentence is more harsh than many child abusers face. Our society values money more than children.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

August 24, 2012|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer

Amid the cries and sobs of relatives who packed the courtroom, the former chief financial officer for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was sentenced this morning to 2 to 7 years in prison for her admitted embezzlement of more than $906,000 from the church treasury.

Anita Guzzardi turned and looked at her husband Angelo and mouthed the words “I’m sorry” as Common Pleas Court Judge Ellen Ceisler imposed the sentence.

Guzzardi, 42, of Barrington in Camden County, pleaded guilty in July to stealing more than $906,000 during a seven-year period from 2004 until she was caught last year.

Guzzardi’s attorney, Louis R. Busico, had urged Ceisler to impose probation so Guzzardi could continue working to pay back the Archdiocese. He said she has paid $260,000 since her arrest in March.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

There is no place in the New York State Legislature for a man who committed the gross sexual misconduct ascribed to Brooklyn Assemblyman and Democratic boss Vito Lopez by his colleagues.

Lopez must resign — or immediately prove that he’s innocent of preying on young female aides with the sort of physical contact that demands criminal investigation.

Most grotesquely, as recounted in a letter to Lopez from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, “ You put your hand on her leg, she removed your hand and you put your hand on her upper thighs, putting your hand as far up between her legs as you could go.”

Silver also writes that a staffer who was forced to join Lopez on a trip to Atlantic City reported “that you attempted to kiss her, that she struggled to fend you off before you stopped and that on the drive back . . . you again put your hand between her legs.”

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NEW YORK
Staten Island Advance

By Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Advance

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Officials on Staten Island and elsewhere called for Assemblyman Vito Lopez to resign as Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman after the Assembly Committee on Ethics and Guidance found Friday that he violated the chamber’s sexual harassment policy, and stripped him of his committee chairmanship and seniority.

“For the good of the party, he should step aside as party chairman,” said state Sen. Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn), whose district crosses into Kings County.

The bipartisan eight-member committee unanimously found that Lopez, 71, created a hostile workplace, including verbal and physical sexual abuse, and that his response to the allegations was “not credible.”

Complaints by two staff members included repeated unwelcome comments about their bodies and attire, as well as attempts to kiss and put his hands between the legs of one of them when he required that she travel with him to Atlantic City, N.J., in July.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

NY State Assemblyman Vito Lopez, Brooklyn’s Democratic Party boss and power broker, has lost his committee chairmanship, enjoined from employing people under 21-years-old or from having interns, and has been censured after the Assembly’s Ethics Committeefound that Lopez had repeatedly sexually harassed two younf female employees in June and July. Lopez blocked passage of the Markey Bill (Child Victims Act) meant to make pedophiles accountable for their crimes, working closely with the Catholic Church and Satmar to ensure the bill’s failure.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: August 24, 2012

ALBANY — Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, one of the last powerful Democratic Party bosses in New York City, was abruptly stripped of his committee chairmanship and censured Friday after he was accused of sexually harassing two women who worked in his district office this summer.

Mr. Lopez, 71, is a longtime fixture of Brooklyn politics, and an irascible kingmaker: he has served in the Assembly since 1984, and has headed the Brooklyn Democratic Party since 2005.

But on Friday, he faced what had once been unimaginable: widespread calls for his resignation, after charges that he verbally harassed, groped and kissed the women without their consent.

Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, who has in the past been criticized for mishandling sexual misconduct claims against lawmakers, surprised the local political world Friday with a sharply worded rebuke of Mr. Lopez, who had been an ally. Mr. Silver not only removed Mr. Lopez as chairman of the Assembly’s Housing Committee, but reduced the size of his staff, barred him from employing interns or anyone under the age of 21 and denied him any perquisites he had accrued based on his seniority.

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UNITED STATES
Baptist Standard

By Ken Camp, Managing Editor

Published: August 24, 2012

Memories so strong they produce heart-stopping nightmares simultaneously remain so repressed and clouded she cannot pinpoint the time when abuse began. But Janice—who prefers to withhold her last name—knows three male relatives conspired to abuse her sexually over an extended time when she was a small child.

“My mother knew and did not protect me. … An aunt told me not to be a tattletale. … It was as if everybody in my little world either molested me or knew I was being molested,” she said.

At an early age, Janice became convinced she was unloved. “I knew I had no value,” she said.

But a Sunday school teacher told her otherwise.

“She said, ‘God loves you.’ She didn’t know how powerful that message was to me. She didn’t know I was being molested,” Janice recalled.

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IOWA
KCCI

ADEL, Iowa —
A jury announced its verdict Friday in the trial of former Pella pastor Patrick Edouard.

The jury found Edouard not guilty of three counts of third-degree sexual abuse.

The jury found him guilty of all four counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor, therapist, school employee or clergy. They also found him guilty of having a pattern, practice or scheme to sexually exploit.

Four women in Edouard’s former congregation at Covenant Reform Church in Pella said he used his influence as a pastor and counselor to draw them into having sexual relations. Three of the women said the first sexual encounter with Edouard was rape.

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IOWA
San Antonio Express-News

ADEL, Iowa (AP) — A former Pella pastor has been convicted by a jury of sexually exploiting women in his congregation.

The Des Moines Register reports (http://dmreg.co/PHrl3k) 42-year-old Patrick Edouard will be sentenced in October on four counts of sexual exploitation and of having a pattern, practice, or scheme to sexually exploit.

The maximum penalty is nine years in prison.

The jury, which returned its verdict on Friday, acquitted Edouard on three counts of third-degree sexual abuse.

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IOWA
Journal Express

By Clint Brown
CNHI

Adel — After deliberating for almost another 6 hours on Friday, the jury in the State of Iowa v. Patrick Edouard presented their verdict.

Edouard had been charged with three counts of third-degree sexual abuse and four counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist. He allegedly had forced sexual contact on at least three women while serving as a minister from 2003-10.

The jury found Edouard not guilty on all three charges of sexual abuse, but found the former pastor guilty on all four of the sexual exploitation charges – including an additional charge of entering into a pattern/scheme/practice to engage in sexual exploitation as a counselor or therapist, a Class D felony. The last charge came as a result of being found guilty of two or more of the original sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist charges in which he violated law banning sex between people who provide “mental health services” and those who come to seek guidance from them.

“We (the State) are very pleased with the outcome,” Assistant Iowa Attorney General Scott Brown said following the announcement of the verdict. “In my mind the sexual exploitation charges were the most critical with the pattern he (Edouard) engaged in during that time. It was a successful case, even with the not guilty verdict on the sexual assault charges. We knew those charges would be an uphill battle with the circumstances. It’s been difficult for everyone (the case), but we couldn’t be more pleased.”

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IOWA
Des Moines Register

Written by
Jeff Eckhoff

ADEL, IA. — Former Pella pastor Patrick Edouard illegally exploited his female parishioners for sex, but he never forced sex upon them, a Dallas County jury ruled Friday afternoon.

Edouard, pastor at Pella’s Covenant Reformed Church until his multiple extramarital affairs came to light in December 2010, was convicted Friday of four charges that he violated a law banning sex between people who provide “mental health services” and those who come to seek guidance from them. He was also found guilty of having a pattern or practice of exploitation.

Edouard was acquitted, however, of three more-serious rape charges — apparently because jurors agreed with defense arguments that the women were never physically forced to start the affairs.

Edouard now faces between five and nine years in prison when he’s formally sentenced on Oct. 19. He remains free on $45,000 bond. Neither Edouard nor his victims agreed to comment Friday.

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CANADA
CBC News

The Catholic Diocese of Bathurst has taken out a half-page newspaper ad, defending itself against criticism over a conciliation process offered to 80 sexual abuse victims.

An Ontario lawyer and some of the victims, abused by clerics between the 1950s and 1980s, have argued there wasn’t enough transparency in the process, but in the newspaper statement, the diocese maintains it did everything right.

It hired retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Michel Bastarache a couple of years ago to oversee the process, which included compensation and apologies.

“Eighty out of 86 victims of sexual abuse by Levi Noel, and other clerics of the Bathurst Diocese, participated in the process and accepted awards made, representing a 93 per cent success rate, one of the highest ever achieved in such a process,” the statement, signed by Most Rev. Valery Vienneau, the bishop-administrator of Bathurst states.

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CALIFORNIA
Contra Costa Times

By City News Service
dailybreeze.com
Posted: 08/24/2012

SANTA ANA – A former Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to molesting an altar boy in the 1990s at St. John the Baptist Church in Costa Mesa, was sentenced today to a year in jail.

Seventy-eight-year-old Denis Lyons — who left the priesthood in April 2004 — also was put on five years of formal probation. Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno, who accepted the plea agreement the defendant reached with prosecutors, also ordered Lyons to complete 400 hours of community service and register for the rest of life as a sex offender.

As a registered sex offender, there is only one nonprofit organization Lyons can do his community service with, so if that falls through then he would pay a fine instead.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By John Crandall

August 24, 2012

Before a judge could sentence him to a year in jail for molesting a second-grader almost 20 years ago, retired priest Denis Lyons of Leisure World had to listen to the anguished words of those he hurt.

“Today is the day I finally have closure. I have spent the last 16 years living in pain, living in shame. He took away my innocence as a child. This man has ruined my life and many others besides me,” his now grownup victim said Friday in a victim’s impact statement. “He has changed my perception of religion, life, and right and wrong. Him pleading guilty not only gives me closure but gives other victims closure as well. He is a bad person, a bad man.”

Those words hung in the air as a judge sentenced Lyons, formerly employed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County to one year in jail, five years of formal probation, 400 hours of community service and lifetime sex offender registration.

The victim’s mother also shared her pain and the depth of betrayal she felt when a man of the cloth abused her son.

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UNITED STATES
Josh Zepps

[with video]

Where does accountability begin and end? I hosted a heated HuffPost Live discussion about that question with Marci Hamilton, a lawyer trying to hold the Vatican accountable for pedophile priests.

This week, the Church won a victory over Hamilton when an Oregon federal court ruled that the Holy See is not the “employer” of molester priests. The case could shield the Church from possible monetary damages, although Hamilton says she’ll appeal.

The Vatican’s responsibility for the actions of priests on the other side the world is not just a legal question. It’s a moral one. Defending the Vatican on HuffPost Live was writer-reporter James Marshall Crotty, who asked: “Is the Pope responsible for every action of anybody who works in a church? … Is the Pope responsible for the part-time guy who helps in a church with the liturgy and does something wrong? Is the Pope responsible for the person who volunteers at a shelter that’s overseen by the Church?”

No. He has a point. The Church can only be held responsible for what it should reasonably have known. The problem for Crotty and the Church’s other defenders is… it knew a lot. The Vatican is not an impartial head office, detached from the daily workings of its dioceses. Nor does it lack moral influence over its global franchise. It is a deeply engaged institution — and it has systematically enabled child rapists to escape justice and freely rape again. When Pope Benedict ran the diocese of Munich and Freising in 1980 as Archbishop Ratzinger, it came to his attention that one of his priests had taken an 11-year-old boy into the mountains, fed him alcohol, locked him up, stripped him naked, and forced the boy to give him a blow job. Ratzinger’s response was to send the priest off for “therapy.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

August 24, 2012

The Associated Press

A Cambria County priest has been placed on leave amid allegations of sexual abuse involving children several decades ago.

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown said today that the Rev. George Koharchik, pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, will not be permitted to function as a priest and won’t have contact with children while he is on leave.

Diocese spokesman Tony DeGol said the alleged sexual misconduct took place in the late 1970s. The alleged victims brought it to the attention of the church recently.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

By Rich Wisniewski

MOUNT UNION, Pa —

Shock and disgust surrounded the neighborhood of Mount Union, near the Saint Catherine of Sienna Parish. When residents in this small town heard that the priest at the church was accused of allegedely molesting kids three decades ago.Donald Kullen: “As far as I’m concerned he was an outstanding priest,” said David Kullen, a part time janitor at the school.

“I think it’s disgusting,” said Curry Dashbach, a resident of the town.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

August 25, 2012

By Zach Geiger (zgeiger@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

A Huntingdon County priest has been removed from active ministry after allegations of sexual misconduct involving minors were reported to church officials, the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown said.

The Rev. George D. Koharchik, 63, was placed on leave from his position as pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, Tony DeGol, diocese secretary for communications, said on Friday.

Multiple individuals approached the diocese to report alleged sexual misconduct by Koharchik, DeGol said.

The alleged incidents occurred as far back as 30 years ago during Koharchik’s time as a priest at various Cambria County parishes, DeGol said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Press TV (Iran)

An American priest allegedly involved in sexual abuse of minors several decades ago, has been placed on leave.

The offending priest Rev. George Koharchik, who is from western Pennsylvania, went on leave on Friday.

This is while according to the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Koharchik, pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, a borough in Pennsylvania, is prevented from making contact with children while he is on leave.

He is also not allowed to function as a priest due to the sexual misconduct which allegedly occurred in the late 1970s.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

A retired Roman Catholic priest in Orange County was sentenced to a year in jail, probation and community service and will be forced to register as a sex offender for molesting a grade-school student in the parish rectory and inside the church more than a decade ago, Orange County prosecutors said.

Denis Lyons, 78, pleaded guilty in March to four felony counts of lewd acts with a child under 14 on four occasions in which, prosecutors said, Lyons sexually assaulted the student at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Costa Mesa. The boy was in second and third grade when the assaults occurred.

Prosecutors said the molestations occurred between Jan. 1, 1992 and Dec. 31, 1995, when the boy was between 7 and 9 years old. Prosecutors said Lyons, a priest in the Diocese of Orange, molested the boy twice in Lyons’ room in the church rectory and twice in the sacristy, a room within the church where religious garments and sacred vessels are stored.

In addition to the year in jail, Lyons was sentenced to five years of formal probation, 400 hours of community service and will register as a lifetime sex offender, according to a statement from the Orange County district attorney’s office.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Breeze

The following information was released by the Orange County District Attorney.

A retired priest with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County was sentenced today for molesting a young boy almost two decades ago in the rectory and sacristy at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Costa Mesa. Denis Lyons, 78, Seal Beach, pleaded guilty March 23, 2012, to four felony counts of lewd acts on a child under 14. He was sentenced to one year in jail, five years of formal probation, 400 hours of community service, and lifetime sex offender registration.

Sexual Assault of John Doe

Between Jan. 1, 1992, and Dec. 31, 1995, Lyons molested a young male student, John Doe, while the victim was a second and third grade student at St. John the Baptist Catholic School. The school was part of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Costa Mesa, where Lyons served as a priest.

On four occasions, Lyons sexually assaulted the 7 to 9-year-old John Doe by engaging in masturbation with the victim twice in his room in the parish rectory and twice in the church sacristy. A rectory is the residence and administrative office for the parish priests of a church. A sacristy is a room inside the church used to store religious garments, church documents, and sacred vessels.

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VIRGINIA
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A former British Baptist pastor convicted last year of sexual abuse has been transferred to custody of the Virginia Department of Corrections.

Robert DandoRobert Dando, former senior minister at Worcester Park Baptist Church in suburban London, is now in custody at Powhatan Reception and Classification Center in State Farm, Va. The facility’s role is to intake offenders from the local jails and process them into the state prison system.

Dando served the first year of his eight-year prison sentence in the adult detention center of Fairfax County, where he pleaded guilty in November of 2010 to four counts of aggravated sexual battery against two male victims who were under the age of 13 when the crimes were committed.

He was arrested the previous July in Oakton, Va., after the alleged victims, then ages 21 and 17, claimed that Dando sexually abused them over a five-year period during visits to a family friend in the United States.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Tribune-Democrat

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. — A Mount Union pastor has been placed on leave after 30-year-old allegations of sexual misconduct with minors in Cambria County surfaced on Friday.

Rev. George Koharchik, 63, Pastor of the Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union has been removed from the active ministry, according to a press release from the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. According to the Most Rev. Mark Bartchak, Bishop of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, Koharchik will not be permitted to function as a priest and “will reside at a place where he has no contact with children.”

Bartchak said these actions are pursuant to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, put in place in 2002 to address allegations of sexual abuse within the clergy. Bartchak has reportedly informed the office of Cambria County District Attorney Kelly Callihan but there has been no word yet on official charges.

Daily Mass at Koharchik’s parish will not take place next week and Bartchak said he will appoint a temporary administrator to handle the daily affairs of the parish.

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CALIFORNIA
The Orange County Register

By PETER LARSON / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – A mother cried Friday morning as an Orange County judge sentenced the retired priest who pleaded guilty to molesting her son and another boy almost 20 years ago.

Denis Lyons, 78, of Seal Beach previously admitted to charges of molesting a 7- to 9-year-old boy at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Costa Mesa between 1992 and 1995, for four felony counts of lewd conduct with a child younger than 14.

Lyons pleaded guilty in an agreement with prosecutors that allowed him to avoid a potential 14-year prison sentence if convicted at trial.

Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno ordered Lyons on Friday to serve one year in county jail beginning Oct. 12, followed by five years probation. He must also complete lifetime sex offender registration and serve 400 hours of community service.

Deputy District Attorney Heather Brown said in March when Lyons pleaded guilty that her office considered the victims’ wishes to resolve the case without going through the ordeal of a publicized trial.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Pilot

By Lauren Williams

August 24, 2012 | 1:03 p.m.
A former Costa Mesa priest was sentenced Friday to one year in jail and five years formal probation for committing lewd acts on a child younger than 14 while he served at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, according to prosecutors.

Denis Lyons, 78, previously pleaded guilty in March to four felony counts of lewd acts on a child younger than 14 between 1992 and 1995 while he served as a priest at the Costa Mesa church, the Orange County district attorney’s office said.

Lyons molested the boy for three years when the child, a student at the church’s school, was between 7 and 9 years old, prosecutors said. The victim reported the abuse to Costa Mesa police in 2008, and Lyons was arrested while playing cards at a community center near his Seal Beach Leisure World home, according to the D.A.’s office.

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BRIDGEPORT (CT)
Darien Times

By Susan Shultz on August 24, 2012

A protest against the Diocese of Bridgeport is being organized by Road to Recovery founder Robert Hoatson and others who allege past abuse by St. Thomas More’s parochial vicar.

According to a press release, the Saturday afternoon protest has been organized to call on the Diocese of Bridgeport to remove Father Robert Post “and keep him away from kids.”

The further purpose of the demonstration is to “alert parishioners and the public to the accusations of sexual abuse” against Father Post. …

Brian Wallace, spokesman for the Diocese of Bridgeport, said the diocese was not aware of the the planned protest but said that information on Hoatson’s website, the Road to Recovery, has been challenged in terms of accuracy and the motivations behind it have been questioned. Calls to the office and the pastor at St. Thomas More were not immediately returned.

Wallace said Hoatson’s website was investigated and it was “full of inaccuracies and misrepresentations” and said a 2005 lawsuit filed by Hoatson was thrown out of court and and his attorney was sanctioned.

“Father Post is a priest in very good standing in our diocese and has served there for 20 years without a blemish or any impropriety,” Wallace said, adding Hoatson’s alleged accusations are “baseless and misleading.” Wallace added that Father Post had stepped down from his advisory position this summer because he had other responsibilities to attend to and clarified it had nothing to do with any of the allegations.

According to the press release, Hoatson said it took “three years of whistleblowing” to get Father Post transferred “because of Post’s behavior around teenage boys.” Hoatson claims he was then retaliated against for his whistleblowing and was transferred himself.

Hoatson reports that the abuse allegations come from three adult men, at least one is a former student at Blessed Sacrament. Hoatson outlined his experiences with Father Post, his observations and the retaliation he experienced in another lawsuit filed in 2007 that named the Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Newark and the Diocese of Albany among its defendants.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

A 78-year-old former Catholic priest from Leisure World who pleaded guilty to molesting an altar boy in the 1990s at St. John the Baptist Church in Costa Mesa, beginning when the victim was 9 years old, is scheduled to be sentenced today.

Denis Lyons, who left the priesthood in April 2004, is expected to be sentenced to a year in jail and five years probation. Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno, who accepted the plea agreement the defendant reached with prosecutors, is also expected to order Lyons to complete 400 hours of community service or pay a fine.

Lyons could have faced up to 14 years in prison had he gone to trial.

The trial has been delayed multiple times.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Nancy Haught, The Oregonian

Portland’s Catholic archbishop, the Most Rev. John G. Vlazny, defended his decision Thursday to loan the Rev. Angel Armando Perez money pay for an attorney in his criminal case. Perez is being held without bail in Marion County, facing charges that include first-degree sexual abuse and abuse of a child in the display of sexually explicit conduct.

In a statement published online in the Catholic Sentinel, the archdiocesan newspaper, Vlazny said he was “deeply saddened and troubled” by accusations against Perez.

“The behavior Father is accused of is sinful, wrong and can never be tolerated,” Vlazny said. “Criminal charges in this case, as in all similar cases, require both prosecution and defense in court before judgment is rendered.”

The archbishop said Perez, a priest of the archdiocese, “requested assistance for his defense.”

“Father has committed his life to priestly service and is respected and well-liked by his parishioners,” Vlazny said. “Who of us would not do what we could to help a beloved brother, sister or child in tragic circumstances?” Noting that priests are paid “modestly” and “rely on us for financial assistance in extraordinary circumstances,” Vlazny said he offered to assist Perez.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Centre Daily Times

By Anne Danahy adanahy@centredaily.com — State College – Centre Daily Times

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has placed a Mount Union priest on leave after allegations of sexual abuse involving children came to light.

According to the diocese, the allegations involve minors and date back more than 30 years. George Koharchik, pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, will not work as a priest and will not have contact with children.

Bishop Mark L. Bartchak has notified the Cambria County district Attorney of the accusations. According to a statement from the diocese, Koharchik’s status “will be determined at the appropriate time after consulting with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

By WJAC Web Staff

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. —

The Bishop of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has placed Rev. George D. Koharchik, pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, on leave from active ministry in the priesthood after allegations of sexual misconduct involving minors in Cambria County dating back more than 30 years.

While on leave, Koharchik, 63, will not be permitted to function as a priest and he will reside at a place where he has no contact with children, according to a news release from the diocese.

The decision is in compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People established by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.

“Children are a precious gift from God, and we must always take the necessary steps to ensure their protection in the Catholic Church,” said the Most Rev. Mark L. Bartchak, Bishop of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, in the release. “I pray for the alleged victims in this case and for all children who have suffered sexual abuse in our society. May the Lord grant them healing, comfort, and peace. Let us also remember the parish family of Saint Catherine of Siena in Mount Union during these difficult days. As Diocesan Bishop, I pledge my continued prayers and support to that faith community and the entire Church of Altoona-Johnstown.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. —

August 24, 2012

Diocesan Priest Placed on Leave Following Allegations of Sexual Misconduct

The Most Rev. Mark L. Bartchak, Bishop of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, has placed Rev. George D. Koharchik, Pastor of Saint Catherine of SienaParish in Mount Union, on leave from active ministry in the Priesthood. The action comes after allegations of sexual misconduct involving minors in Cambria County dating back more than 30 years. While on leave, Father Koharchik, 63, will not be permitted to function as a priest, and he will reside at a place where he has no contact with children.

In compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (established by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy), Bishop Bartchak has notified the Cambria County District Attorney of the accusations against Father Koharchik. Father Koharchik’s future status will be determined at the appropriate time after consulting with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican. The Bishop’s report to the Vatican will not interfere with the jurisdiction of the District Attorney’s office in this matter.

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NETHERLANDS
Dutch News

Friday 24 August 2012

A foundation representing victims of sexual abuse by Catholic church officials has made a police complaint against three monks who worked in the former Bleijerheide residential school in Kerkrade.

A spokesman for the Mea Culpa foundation told the Telegraaf the three men ‘deliberately and knowingly’ kept secret about crucial information about the abuse of their pupils.

‘All three monks should be questioned by the police as quickly as possible,’ Bert Smeets said.

Youth worker

One of the three is Maastricht minister Jan S who is already the subject of an investigation into sexual abuse. He has been suspended by the bishop of Roermond.

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COLORADO
TheDenverChannel

[with video]

Deb Stanley, New Media Producer

DENVER — Prosecutors said a former pastor has been indicted on child pornography charges.
Richard Howard Craft, 68, of Thornton, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of distribution, receipt and possession of child pornography, prosecutors said.

Craft previously served as interim pastor of Family of Christ Presbyterian Church of Greeley.

The indictment alleges that Craft knowingly distributed and attempted to distribute child pornography between July 2007 and January 2008 as well as in December 2009.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Sacramento Bee

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press

Published: Friday, Aug. 24, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — The former top finance officer of the Philadelphia archdiocese is going to prison for two to seven years for embezzling $900,000.

A lawyer for 42-year-old Anita Guzzardi says she succumbed to gambling and shopping addictions after feeling betrayed by the church over the priest sex-abuse scandal.

Guzzardi had worked at the Roman Catholic archdiocese since she was 20, and was making $124,000 a year as chief financial officer when she was fired last year.

Prosecutors say she took relatives on trips to Hawaii, the Caribbean and San Francisco, and spent lavishly on herself and others.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Dan Box
From:The Australian
August 25, 2012

A PEDOPHILE priest who abused boys as young as eight in northern NSW told one of his victims that the treatment suffered at his hands “was what God wanted”, a court has heard.

The priest, identified as DO for legal reasons, smiled and waved to his supporters in the public gallery of a Sydney court during his sentencing hearing yesterday, before two victims’ impact statements were read out.

“I don’t sleep very well at all. I wake up from nightmares of memories of the abuse,” one of these read.

“(DO) stated that what he was doing – touching my body and penis with his hands and mouth – was what God wanted.

“I was bought up in a very religious family. I had a very strong, committed faith . . . I feel I have lost all my faith in God, the priests and the church.”

DO is one of eight people, including six priests, charged in NSW’s Hunter Valley.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By David Gibson| Religion News Service, Published: August 23

The news that New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the nation’s most prominent Catholic prelate, will deliver the closing blessing to the Republican National Convention in Florida next week was seen as a huge coup for Mitt Romney, the party’s presumptive nominee. But the move has also prompted a sharp debate within the church over the increasingly close ties between leading bishops and the GOP.

“The cozy relationship between a sizable portion of U.S. bishops and the Republican Party should be cause for concern, and not just among progressive Catholics,” Michael O’Loughlin wrote in a post on the website of America magazine, a leading Catholic weekly published by the Jesuits.

“Cardinal Dolan’s appearance in Tampa will damage the church’s ability to be a moral and legitimate voice for voiceless, as those who view the Catholic Church as being a shill for the GOP have just a bit more evidence to prove their case,” O’Loughlin concluded.

Similarly, David Cruz-Uribe, a member of the Secular Franciscan Order and a professor of mathematics at Trinity College, wrote on the Vox Nova blog that Dolan’s decision “will only drag the Church further into a partisan divide and fuel the perception (true or not) that the Catholic Church wants to replace the Episcopalians as the Republican party on its knees.”

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UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Times

By Michael McGough

August 23, 2012

He didn’t ask my opinion, but I think Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, should have declined an invitation to deliver the closing prayer at next week’s Republican National Convention. I say that knowing that Dolan also was willing, if asked, to pray at the Democratic convention and that (to some considerable flak from conservative Roman Catholics) the cardinal has invited the president as well as Mitt Romney to address the famous Al Smith Dinner in October. That’s the charity event at which, in 1960, John F. Kennedy famously bested Richard M. Nixon

Here’s the problem: Dolan is not just any bishop; he’s the leader of the national conference, which has been feuding with the Obama administration over whether its mandate for contraceptive coverage is a war on religious liberty. The bishops’ campaign has led to understandable complaints that it is taking sides in the presidential election, not to mention placing the church’s opposition to contraception above its advocacy of compassion for the poor (a cause at least some bishops see as incompatible with Paul Ryan’s budget).

Dolan’s motives may be pure, but I’m not so sure about Mitt Romney’s. A featured role for America’s No. 1 Catholic prelate at the GOP convention is a not very subtle way for the party to appeal to Catholic voters, especially conservative Catholics. (Romney announced the Dolan gig in an interview on EWTN, the right-wing Catholic TV network.)

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UNITED STATES
New York Post

By CARL CAMPANILE

WASHINGTON — President Obama turned down a chance to have Timothy Cardinal Dolan deliver a prayer at the Democratic National Convention after Dolan told Democrats he would be “grateful” to deliver a blessing in Charlotte.

Dolan — considered the top Catholic official in the nation, as head of the Archdiocese of New York and president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops — tipped off Democrats a few weeks ago that he had agreed to deliver the prime-time benediction at the Republican convention in Tampa next week, Dolan’s spokesman Joseph Zwilling told The Post.

“He wanted to make sure that they knew that this was not a partisan act on his part and that he would be just as happy and grateful to accept an invitation from the Democrats as he would to have received one from the Republicans,” said Zwilling.

“He has not been contacted by them” since, he added.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Aug. 24, 2012
By Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON — The announcement that New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan would deliver a benediction at the Republican National Convention made him the latest in a long string of prelates to offer prayers at the major party conventions.

Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the New York Archdiocese, said Thursday that Dolan accepted an invitation to offer the closing prayer at the Aug. 27-30 convention in Tampa, Fla. On the program for the evening, the benediction immediately follows the major address by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, accepting the nomination for president. The convention is to be gaveled to a close after the prayer.

Greek Orthodox Archbishop Demetrios is scheduled to offer a benediction Aug. 29, and the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, an Assembly of God minister who heads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, is scheduled to do the same Aug. 27.

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