ABUSE TRACKER

CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Michael P. Mayko

Updated 6:00 p.m., Friday, August 10, 2012

HARTFORD — Lawyers seeking hundreds of millions of dollars for 23 Haitian street boys who claim they were sexually abused by Fairfield University alumnus Douglas Perlitz asked a federal judge late Thursday to reassign the cases because of his Jesuit ties.

U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny, who’s presiding over the case, has a law degree from Georgetown University, which is operated by the Society of Jesus’ Maryland Province. The Society of Jesus’ New England Province is one of the defendants in the case.

Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston lawyer who heads the plaintiffs’ legal team, requested that the cases be assigned to U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven.

Arterton handled Perlitz’s criminal case and sentenced Perlitz to 19 years and seven months in prison for traveling overseas to engage in sex with a minor.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Leadership Conference of Women Religious

At the annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) held in St. Louis, MO, August 7-10, the more than 900 participants planned their response to the doctrinal assessment of the organization by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

LCWR 2012 Assembly Press Release – 8-10-12

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Aug. 10, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

ST. LOUIS — The organization which represents the majority of U.S. Catholic sisters said Friday afternoon it would continue discussions with church officials regarding a Vatican-ordered takeover, but “will reconsider” if it “is forced to compromise the integrity of its mission.”

The statement by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents some 80 percent of U.S. sisters, came at the end of the group’s annual assembly, held this week in St. Louis.

The sisters were responding to an April 18 mandate by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that ordered the group to revise and place itself under the authority of three U.S. bishops.

Reading aloud from a prepared statement, which came after approval from the 900 sisters gathered at the assembly, LCWR’s president, Franciscan Sr. Pat Farrell, said LCWR membership wanted to use the occasion of the Vatican order “to explain to church leaders LCWR’s mission, values and operating principles.”

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UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Aaron Falk
The Salt Lake Tribune

A jury Friday convicted a fake marriage counselor of sexually abusing a woman during their sessions.

The 3rd District Court jury returned the guilty verdict on one count of forcible sexual abuse, but jurors could not reach a decision on an identical charge involving another woman’s allegations.

Tenorio faces up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced on the single count in October.

Earlier this week, two women from the same LDS church testified they were referred to Arturo Tenorio, 59, by their bishop for marriage counseling. The sessions soon turned sexual, they said, as Tenorio made comments that made them uneasy, and eventually started touching the women.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Keene Sentinel

By Kaitlin Mulhere Sentinel Staff

A former Rindge police officer and employee of the Conval Regional School District was arrested Thursday morning and charged with attempted felonious sexual assault on a teenage girl.

John Vargas-Cifrino, 35, of Chesham Road in Harrisville is accused of touching the victim’s genitalia and breasts while she pretended to be asleep, according to an affidavit prepared by Keene police detective Jennifer M. Ramey. The incident took place in May and the alleged victim, who knew Vargas-Cifrino, was between 13 and 16 years old, the affidavit said. …

Acting Rindge Police Chief Frank C. Morrill said the department received a complaint about Vargas-Cifrino late Saturday night and began an internal investigation on Sunday in accordance with the department’s policy. According to the affidavit, Vargas-Cifrino talked about the alleged incident with a priest, who then notified Rindge police.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: A Michigan native, Joseph Keith Symons was ordained in 1958 for the St. Augustine diocese, where he became a member of the diocesan Tribunal and an Episcopal Vicar. Symons was known for recruiting young people to the church and for his progressive outreach programs. He directed several camps for children, one of which he had founded. When the diocese split in 1968, Symons ministered for the diocese of St. Petersburg. He held numerous chancery positions in his new diocese. While serving as St. Petersburg’s Chancellor in the early 1970s, he accepted into the diocese a known perpetrator of sexual abuse of children; Symons quietly left cash for the mother of two of that priest’s victims when she confronted him years later. He denied knowing the priest was a perpetrator. Symons was elevated to Auxiliary Bishop in 1981, and was appointed Bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee in 1983. In 1990 he became Bishop of Palm Beach. In 1995 Symons admitted to having sexually abused a boy years earlier, after the victim came forward; Symons said he this was his only victim and was allowed to remain in ministry. Another man disclosed sexual abuse as a child by Symons in 1998. Symons resigned several days later and admitted to having sexually abused five boys early in his career. Bishop Symons returned to his home state of Michigan where he lived in a convent and led adult spiritual retreats.

Ordained: 1958
Ordained bishop: March 19, 1981.

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FLORIDA
Palm Beach Post

By Daphne Duret
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

WEST PALM BEACH —

A 64-year-old Belle Glade community leader and clergyman is on suicide watch following his attempt to swallow a handful of pills Thursday after a jury convicted him of lewd and lascivious battery, promoting the sexual performance of a child and other charges that could land him in prison for up to 80 years.

The Rev. James Richard Harris’ suicide attempt punctuated a three-day trial in his case on charges that he molested a 15-year-old boy, directed him to perform lewd acts on camera and in a separate incident taped two teens having sex at his house.

Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputies who tackled Harris in the Palm Beach County courtroom Thursday afternoon said that he told them that he would be “in heaven” by the day’s end.

Instead, Harris woke up Friday morning an inmate at the Palm Beach County Jail, where he is on a level of suicide watch so high that sheriff’s deputies thought it too risky to bring him to court Friday while defense attorney Christopher Haddad argued his claim that jurors in Harris’ trial this week should not have been allowed to view the videos in the case.

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FLORIDA
New York Daily News

By Philip Caulfield / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, August 10, 2012

A Florida pastor convicted of sex crimes against a 15-year-old boy gobbled a handful of pills after receiving his sentence on Thursday in an apparent courtroom suicide attempt.

West Palm Beach court deputies immediately pounced on Rev. James Harris and wrestled him to the ground while ordering him to spit out the suspected poison pills.

“Oh, my God, it’s cyanide,” the Palm Beach Post quoted a group of court interns whispering, as the officers worked to subdue the convicted sex fiend.

The 64-year-old Belle Glade minister was eventually wheeled from the courtroom in a stretcher, handcuffed, barefoot and with his white shirt unbuttoned, according to photos shot by the Post.

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FLORIDA
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

The coward’s way out: Dramatic moment ex-pastor tries to commit suicide by swallowing pills in court after he’s found guilty of sex acts involving teenagers

An ex-pastor who was found guilty of sex crimes against juveniles allegedly tried to commit suicide in court by swallowing several white pills after the judge told him he would be going straight to jail.

Rev. James Richard Harris, of Belle Glade, Florida, was accused of trapping his young victims by abusing his connection to Glades Central High School’s football program.

He was found guilty of performing two sex acts on a 15-year-old boy he had lured with promises of introductions to football scouts and trainers to further the teen’s chances of NFL stardom.

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DEUTSCHLAND/POLEN
T-Online

Ein katholischer Priester ist in Polen tot aufgefunden worden. Die verbrannte Leiche des polnischen Geistlichen lag vor dem Grab seiner Familie im Dorf Lopiennik Nadrzeczny im Südosten des Landes, teilte die Staatanwaltschaft mit.

Gegen den 53-Jährigen lief ein Prozess wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs eines Messdieners im niederbayrischen Pocking in den Jahren 2004 und 2005. Zudem stand er nach Angaben der Ermittler im Verdacht, im polnischen Turka zwei Zehnjährige missbraucht zu haben.

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CANADA
CBC News

A former Anglican priest and Boy Scout leader in the northwest has pleaded guilty to another seven counts of sex-related crimes.

Ralph Rowe, 72, appeared in a Kenora court this week. The charges related to assaults between 1973 and 1986 that occurred in Fort Severn, Kitchuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, Wunnumin Lake and Kingfisher Lake.

Rowe was given a two-year conditional sentence and will be under house arrest between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. daily. During those hours he cannot leave his residence. The court also imposed a lifetime ban on being in any public place where minors are likely to be present, such as parks and beaches.

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

Offener Brief an:

Bundesministerin für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend
Dr. Kristina Schröder
Platz der Republik 1
11011 Berlin
Fax: 030 18555 4400

Sehr geehrte Frau Dr. Schröder,

Wir nehmen Bezug auf Ihr Schreiben vom 01.08.2012 in dem Sie uns mitteilen, dass es Ihnen nicht möglich ist, unseren Antrag auf Kostenübernahme im Rahmen der Unterstützung von Betroffenen-Initiativen zu unterstützen.

Zur Koordination der über 500 Opfervereine gründete sich am 20. August 2011 die Bundesinitiative der Betroffenen von sexualisierter Gewalt und Missbrauch im Kindesalter e.V. (BI) und wurde am 2. Dezember 2011 im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichtes Charlottenburg eingetragen unter: 95 VR 31053 B. Anspruch war es, den aufwändigen Dialog zwischen den Betroffenen zu koordinieren und eine einheitliche Position der verschiedenen Betroffenenverbände für den Runden Tisch zu erfassen. Es dürfte klar sein, dass sich allein aus diesem Anspruch noch kein Alleinvertretungsanspruch der BI für die Betroffenen ergab. Ein halbes Jahr nach Gründung der BI steht die Einlösung des Anspruchs dieser Initiative mehr als in Frage. Gerade fünf Vereine sind noch Mitglied. Dennoch gilt die Initiative der Regierung als repräsentative Stimme der Betroffenen und wird nun mit mehr als 27.000 Euro finanziert.

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ROCHESTER (NY)
Democrat and Chronicle

A Rochester man who was molested by a local priest two decades ago is now facing child pornography charges.

Federal authorities allege that Paul Hearty, 36, had on his telephone images of infant boys and girls being molested. When 16 years old, Hearty was molested by the Rev. William Lum, a local priest who later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual abuse.

Hearty appeared Friday in U.S. District Court in Rochester. His bail hearing is set for Aug. 27.

Both Hearty’s family and his attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Mark Hosken, declined comment this week.

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POLAND/GERMANY
The Express Tribune

WARSAW: A Polish Catholic priest accused of paedophilia in Germany and of similar crimes in his home country was found dead Friday, his body badly burned, at the foot of his family grave.

Identified only as Boguslaw P, he had been on trial in Poland for offences allegedly committed in 2004 and 2005 against a child in Pocking in the German state of Bavaria, where he had served as a priest.

He was also suspected of having committed criminal acts against two boys a decade ago in Turka, southeastern Poland.

“The body was identified by a friend,” Miroslaw Buczek, a prosecutor in Zamosc, eastern Poland, told AFP. He said a suicide could neither be confirmed nor ruled out.

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POLAND
NPR

by The Associated Press

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A charred body was found at a cemetery in eastern Poland and is believed to be that of a priest suspected of pedophilia in Germany and in Poland, a prosecutor said Friday.

Deputy chief prosecutor in Zamosc, Miroslaw Buczek, said that authorities are 99 percent sure the body is that of the priest, identified only as Boguslaw P. Earlier this week prosecutors charged him with sexually abusing two teenage boys 10 years ago in his eastern Polish parish of Turka. The priest denied the charges, which could have brought a 12-year prison term. A court had ordered him to stay in his village and regularly report to the local police station.

The priest was also on trial in another Polish town, Krasnystaw, on charges of molesting an altar boy in Germany, where he worked in 2004 and 2005.

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DEARBORN (MI)
Press & Guide

By Jule Walker-Altesleben
Press & Guide Newspapers

DEARBORN — The Rev. Peter Petroske is scheduled to appear in 19th District Court at 1 p.m. Sept. 13 on charges of indecent exposure and operating under the influence of alcohol.

Petroske, the now-suspended head pastor at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, is to appear before Judge Richard Wygonik.

According to a police report, Petroske was naked when his vehicle was pulled over at about 11 p.m. Aug. 2 near Garrison and Howe streets in Dearborn. He also told the officer that he liked to drive naked.

“I was uhhh … hot … I like to drive around naked,” Petroske said, according to the report, then adding, “… I don’t know what to say. … I’m embarrassed.”

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POLAND/GERMANY
Expatica

A Polish Catholic priest accused of paedophilia in Germany and of similar crimes in his home country was found dead Friday, his body badly burned, at the foot of his family grave.

Identified only as Boguslaw P., he had been on trial in Poland for offences allegedly committed in 2004 and 2005 against a child in Pocking in the German state of Bavaria, where he had served as a priest.

He was also suspected of having committed criminal acts against two boys a decade ago in Turka, southeastern Poland.

“The body was identified by a friend,” Miroslaw Buczek, a prosecutor in Zamosc, eastern Poland, told AFP. He said a suicide could neither be confirmed nor ruled out.

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POLSKA
Kurier Lubelski

Ksiądz Bogusław P. może spędzić w więzieniu kolejne trzy miesiące. Prokuratura Rejonowa w Lublinie wystąpiła o areszt dla 53-letniego duchownego. Kapłan został zatrzymany pod zarzutem molestowania dwóch ministrantów. W Sądzie Rejonowym w Krasnymstawie przeciwko duchownemu toczy się już sprawa o molestowanie ministranta.

53-letni ksiądz Bogusław P. został zatrzymany przez policję i doprowadzony do prokuratury we wtorek rano.

– Potwierdzam, że w tej chwili trwają czynności z udziałem duchownego – mówi Beata Syk-Jankowska, rzecznik prasowa Prokuratury Okręgowej w Lublinie.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Updated August 10, 2012

A former Victorian sex crimes squad detective says many clergy abuse victims are too scared to make submissions to a parliamentary inquiry.

Glen Davies is heading a forum in Ballarat next week to help people better understand the submission process.

A state wide inquiry was launched earlier this year after it was revealed more than 40 Victorians have committed suicide after being abused by clergy.

Mr Davies says many victims are worried about how their stories will be used.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

Christine M. Flowers
Philadelphia Daily News

THE LAW is not always just. Sometimes, it can be downright spiteful.

Take the case of Monsignor William Lynn, the first (but probably not the last) high-ranking clergyman to be convicted of child endangerment.

To our knowledge, Lynn never laid a finger on an altar boy, never downloaded porn to his computer, and never did any of the other horrific things that we now know happened over the past few decades. But he is being held responsible for those who did those things, because he didn’t do enough to protect the innocent from in-house predators. I get that there is a desire to hold someone accountable for the pain and grief caused by ignorance and omission.

What I don’t get is how a law that was never intended to apply retroactively could be used to convict a man who had a right to due process. The D.A.’s Office stretched it to its definitional limit by applying it to a supervisor like Lynn, particularly since the law in effect when the defendant was supposed to have looked the other way never contemplated that kind of prosecution.

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BOSTON (MA)
NECN

[with video]

(NECN) – Last week, a Massachusetts rabbi, who served as an instructor at a school years ago in Brookline, plead guilty to four counts of child sex abuse.

Stanley Levitt could have gotten 40 years in prison. Instead, he was sentenced to 10 years probation.

Levitt’s victims were in court – and were outraged.

Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney specializing in sex abuse cases, is the advocate for one of the victims.

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

Posted by Barbara Dorris on August 09, 2012

A fish rots from the head down. No matter how well intentioned Ms. Valenti may be, she’s yet another Catholic lawyer hired by – and answering to – a reckless, deceitful and callous Catholic bishop. No matter how many new lawyers Bishop Finn hires, Bishop Finn still calls the shots.

We’re told that at least 42 Catholic employees were named in abuse complaints last year. But church officials are refusing to name them in this report. This is the same old secrecy, dressed up in fancy clothes by another new lawyer on the bishop’s payroll.

The Catholic hierarchy will claim these alleged wrongdoers are no longer on the job. Even if that’s true, it’s little consolation. They likely aren’t in jail or being carefully monitored so they may well be molesting children today. And unless parents, parishioners, the police and the public are told who they are, Catholic officials are continuing to put their selfish interests above the safety of others.

(Reminder – Fr. Shawn Ratigan was no longer on the job between December and May. Church officials claimed they were “monitoring” him. Yet he continued to hurt young girls during that time.)

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BELGIE
De Morgen

[mit video]

Michelle Martin staat sinds het begin van deze eeuw in contact met de Arme Klaren van Malonne. Dat zegt een van haar neven in het magazine Paris Match. Zo bezochten de zusters haar in de gevangenis. Bovendien werden meubels en andere spullen die ze bij de erfenis van haar moeder kreeg, in 2001 naar het klooster gebracht, aldus het familielid van Dutroux’ ex.

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BELGIE
De Morgen

[mit video]

Inge Ringoot

De zusters van het klooster van de Arme Klaren in Malonne, een deelgemeente van Namen, blijven bereid Michelle Martin op te vangen in het kader van haar voorwaardelijke vrijlating. Dat heeft Tommy Scholtes, de woordvoerder van de bischoppenconferentie, gezegd. .

Eerder vandaag zei Paul Marchal, de vader van de vermoorde An, dat de zusters hun beslissing zouden herbekijken en opnieuw zouden stemmen over de opvang voor Martin.

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BELGIE
RKnieuws

BRUSSEL (RKnieuws.net) – ‘Met hun beslissing om Michelle Martin, de ex-vrouw van Marc Dutroux, op te vangen in hun klooster in Malonne bij Namen hebben de zusters clarissen volkomen gehandeld in de geest van het Evangelie. De zusters,die al meerdere maanden met Martin contact hadden zodra er sprake was van een eventuele vervroegde vrijlating,hebben hun beslissing na rijp beraad en kennis van zaken genomen’.

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AUSTRALIA
Lawyers Weekly

The abuse and alleged cover-up of abuse by some clergy in the Roman Catholic Church warrants a transparent, national inquiry, not just another internal inquiry, writes Dr Andrew Morrison.

The appointment by the Roman Catholic Church of Tony Whitlam QC, retired Federal Court judge, to head an inquiry into its handling of the Father F affair does not make the inquiry adequate or acceptable.

Tony Whitlam QC is both honourable and able, and will no doubt do his best; however, the problems he faces are formidable.

Cardinal Pell has pointed out on a number of occasions that the authority of a bishop does not extend beyond his diocese. The inquiry is only by the Bishops of Armidale and Parramatta. They do not have the power to compel the attendance of clergy (or other persons) from outside their own diocese, and cannot even compel answers from clergy within their own diocese. They do not have power to require the production of documents from outside the diocese. It is noteworthy that, to date, St Mary’s Cathedral has declined to produce the records of the 1992 meeting (between Father F and Fathers Brian Lucas, Wayne Peters and John Usher).

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
20 Pounds of Headlines

The Ombudsman for the Kansas City Catholic Diocese says she checked into 79 cases of abuse, or suspected abuse in the Diocese in its first year of her operation, Ombudsman Jenifer Valenti was appointed to the newly created post a year ago by Bishop Robert Finn.

Finn created the position after the Fr. Shawn Ratigan sex abuse scandal rocked the Kansas City Diocese and led to calls for its Bishop Finn to step down. He remain at his post.

“This report shows my commitment to being open and honest”, Valenti told KMBC 9 news.

Valenti’s report says they looked at 20 claims of sexual abuse by priests, diocese employees or church volunteers.

Seven cases were ‘substantiated”, according to the report.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Time

By Associated Press | August 10, 2012

(ST. LOUIS) — At a pivotal national meeting, members of the largest group for American nuns have been weighing whether they should accept or challenge a Vatican order to reform.

The national assembly is the first since a Vatican review concluded the Roman Catholic sisters had tolerated dissent about the all-male priesthood, birth control and homosexuality, while remaining nearly silent in the fight against abortion. Officials at the Holy See want a full-scale overhaul of the organization under the authority of U.S. bishops.

The 900 sisters at this week’s meeting in St. Louis “are asking God to show us to the next best step we can take,” said Sister Mary Waskowiak, director of development for the Mercy International Association in Burlingame, Calif. The executives of the group have called the Vatican report flawed.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious represents about 80 percent of the 57,000 American sisters. The rebuke from the Holy See, issued in April, prompted an outpouring of support for the sisters nationwide, including parish vigils, protests outside the Vatican embassy in Washington and a resolution in Congress commending the sisters for their service to the country. A spokeswoman for the nuns group said Thursday they had received more than 1,500 cards from supporters from around the world, some of which were placed on tables at the meeting.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Equities

PR Newswire
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Sister Mary Hughes of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an association representing about 80 percent of U.S. Catholic nuns, will discuss her organization’s dispute with the Vatican during a National Press Club Luncheon on Aug. 16 . The coalition’s national Assembly is taking place now through Aug. 10 in St. Louis. During this gathering, members are debating how to deal with a critical report issued this year by the Vatican, recommending that the nuns’ organization be overhauled by bishops — at the direction of the Holy See.

Sister Mary Hughes, past president of LCWR and Prioress of the Sisters of St. Dominic in Amityville, N.Y., will discuss the Leadership Conference’s mission and the results of its national Assembly event. In an interview on PBS last month, Sister Mary said there is a “profound sense of sadness” over the tension with the Vatican, but added that asking questions “does not mean we are against Church teaching.”

The Vatican began investigating LCWR over ecclesiastical and doctrinal issues and alleged radical feminism in 2008. The Vatican report released in April said the group was not speaking out strongly enough against abortion, gay marriage and the ordination of women. Many members of LCWR endorsed President Barack Obama’s health care reform plan in 2010.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KCUR

[the report]

[with audio]

By Steve Bell

The ombudsman for the people of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic diocese to look into accusations of sexual abuse by clergy has released her first annual report. Jennifer Valenti received 79 reports of suspected sexual abuse and boundary violations in her first year of duty,

Almost half of of the total of 79 incidents reported involved suspected abuse in the home, according to the article published in the Catholic Key on Thursday. But ombudsman Jennifer Valentii says she did uncover 7 substantiated reports of church-relaed incidents of sexual abuse.

Valenti’s report says five persons that were named as abusers and that all of them were removed from whatever type of servivce.

But Valenti emphasizes that they weren’t all priests. Some were volunteers, she says, some members of religious orders. In cases where actual sexual abuse was suspected, she says law enforcement officials led any further investigation, but she, herself, looked into non-criminal cases of “boundary violations.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Examiner

By Maria Sudekem
The Associated Press

Kansas City, MO —

The ombudsman appointed to investigate abuse allegations for the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph said in a report Thursday that sexual abuse claims have been substantiated against five people, though it didn’t indicate whether those individuals were clergy, employees or someone outside the diocese.

Diocese ombudsman Jenifer Valenti said in the report that her office received 79 allegations of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior, but nearly half involved people outside the diocese such as a school official calling to report the possible abuse of a student.

Since those cases were outside her jurisdiction, they were referred to civil authorities, administrative staff and caseworkers, according to the report. But the report didn’t clarify who those authorities or agencies were.

Valenti, a former Jackson County assistant prosecutor, didn’t return phone messages and an email Thursday seeking clarification on aspects of the report.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Fox 4

[with video]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The ombudsman appointed by the Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese in the fallout of a priest abuse case says that only a few of the allegations of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior reported in the last year have been substantiated.

The report from diocese ombudsman Jenifer Valenti says that of those 40 allegations, 20 were reported cases of sexual abuse that involved clergy, diocese employees, religious orders or volunteers, and that only seven of those cases were substantiated, and involved five people.

Click here to read the report (PDF).

Valenti says that in each case, if a crime were committed then law enforcement was notified.

“In the past our members were encouraged to report abuse. But now our members are encouraged to know the warning sings of abuse and know what kind of behaviors are suspicious, and we’re asking people to report those so we can be proactive and look into those behaviors,” said Valenti.

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LOUISIANA
KPLC

By Cedric Haynes
By Elona Weston

LAKE CHARLES, LA (KPLC) –
The former Lake Area priest accused of sexually assaulting several children decades ago was indicted Thursday by a Calcasieu Parish grand jury on 10 sex-related charges.

Mark Anthony Broussard, 56, faces three counts of molestation of a juvenile, two counts of aggravated oral sexual battery, two counts of aggravated sexual battery, two counts of rape and one count of sexual battery.

Broussard was a priest at St. Henry Catholic Church in Lake Charles. He left the church in 1992 and relocated to St. Eugene Catholic Church in Grand Chenier. He resigned from the priesthood in 1994.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Tom Rastrelli

People don’t expect their priests and bishops to lie, but as Michelangelo Signorile’s recent post illustrated, clerics do lie. Some even make a virtue of it. I know this from experience, for I was ordained a Catholic priest on a lie.

In spring 2002 I walked with my spiritual director along the blacktop road encircling the seminary. He’d been my confessor and guide for two years, helping me discern God’s presence in all aspects of my life, intimate and mundane. Over our heads, a canopy of newborn leaves rustled in a sunny breeze, a welcome relief from the bitter fog that had engulfed the church and my vocational surety.

For the previous two months an unprecedented number of bishops and priests, starting with Cardinal Law of Boston, had fallen from grace for participation in the sexual abuse of children and the ensuing cover-up. Their duplicity was palpable in my knotted back and abdomen. In a few months I’d be ordained a priest. I didn’t want to do so on a lie.

“I’m coming out of the closet,” I said. …

When I’d applied for seminary, the director of seminarians — the priest who’d recruited me — explained that orientation didn’t matter, only celibacy. But on my intake interviews he’d told me to answer “yes” when the archdiocesan psychologist asked if I was attracted to women, and “no” when he asked if I was attracted to men. It was for the greater good, he said. Frightened of being cast out and ashamed of my true nature, I had lied as instructed.

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IRELAND
Huffington Post

Religiosity Plummets In Ireland And Declines Worldwide; Atheism On The Rise

By Dominique Mosbergen

Rocked in recent years by sex-abuse scandals and crises in leadership, the Catholic Church in the Republic of Ireland has been struggling to keep its members close.

But this week, a new global survey on faith and atheism has revealed that the crisis of faith in Ireland may be much worse than previously thought.

According to the poll released by WIN-Gallup International, the traditionally Catholic country has seen one of the steepest drops worldwide in religiosity.

The poll — which was based on interviews with more than 50,000 people selected from 57 countries — asked participants, “irrespective of whether they attended a place of worship, if they considered themselves to be religious, not religious, or an atheist.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KCTV

[with video]

[the report]

By Chris Oberholtz, Multimedia Producer
By Heather Staggers, Reporter

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) –
The newly appointed ombudsman for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph to investigate reports of sexual abuse or sexual misconduct released her findings Thursday.

In her report, diocesan ombudsman Jenifer Valenti stated there were 20 reports of sexual abuse, seven of which were removed from public ministry or employment.

Two of the reports were cleared, and eight were found to be inconclusive. The report also found that an investigation is pending in one case while one another was removed and referred to religious order.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KOAM

[the report]

Posted: Aug 09, 2012

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – The ombudsman for the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City reports getting nearly 80 reports in the past year alleging various types of abuse or suspicious behavior among clergy, volunteers and people unaffiliated with the diocese.

Jenifer Valenti says in the report released Thursday that of 79 allegations of sexual abuse, sexual misconduct or “boundary violations,” 20 cases involved clergy and 17 involved employees. Of the rest, 11 involved family members, seven were about volunteers, five were about religious orders and 12 involved unknown people.

The two-page report also says nine people were removed from “ministry, employment or volunteer service” over substantiated claims. The report doesn’t specify if any of those were clergy.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph

Dear Members of the Diocese,

Just last year, Bishop Robert Finn made a series of promises to the people of our diocese. In his Five-Point Plan, he pledged to appoint an ombudsman and public liaison to fi eld and independently investigate reports of abuse, suspicious or inappropriate behavior (boundary violations), or sexual misconduct. His call for independence resonated with me. I immediately asked to be considered for this role.

As a mother of young children, my heart was invested in a just outcome for those among us who come forward to report abuse. As a lifelong Catholic, I believe that everyone shares in the responsibility to protect children and vulnerable adults. As a former team leader with the
Jackson County Prosecutor’s Offi ce, I wanted to offer my experience in investigating and prosecuting thousands of cases of physical and emotional abuse.

After meeting with Bishop Finn and asking and answering questions, I accepted the offer to become your ombudsman. I was assured that I had the authority and responsibility to consult with law enforcement or social services at any point in an investigation. My appointment gave me a responsibility to investigate your concerns – about a priest, an employee, or volunteer – whether it
occurred yesterday or decades ago. I promised to honor the trust you have placed in me by being open and honest about my work.

This report documents how I am keeping this promise.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By GLENN E. RICE
The Kansas City Star

In her first year of the job, the ombudsman for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph handled 79 reports of sexual abuse, sexual misconduct or suspicious behavior by clergy, lay staff, volunteers and people not affiliated with the diocese.

About a fourth of the cases involved allegations against people working or volunteering in diocesan activities, according to a report released today by Jenifer Valenti, the diocesan ombudsman and public liaison officer who previously worked as a Jackson County assistant prosecutor.

Bishop Robert W. Finn made the appointment in July 2011 as part of a five-point plan that the diocese offered as a response to lawsuits and allegations of sexual misconduct by clergy.

Her two-page report covers July 1, 2011, through June 30.

The 79 complaints involved 72 people, including 20 clergy, 17 lay employees, seven volunteers and five members of “religious orders.”

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DEARBORN (MI)
Detroit Free Press

By Jim Schaefer
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

The pastor of a Catholic parish in Dearborn was completely undressed and told city police “I like to drive around naked” after he was pulled over last week on suspicion of drunken driving, according to the arresting officer’s report on the incident.

“I was, uh, hot … I like to drive around naked,” A Dearborn officer quoted Rev. Peter Petroske as saying after he was stopped at 11:18 p.m. on Aug. 2. Police said Petroske’s clothes were scattered across the inside of his Volkswagen Passat and he was allowed to get dressed before stepping out of the vehicle for sobriety tests.

“I don’t know want to say. I’m embarrassed,” police quoted the 57-year-old priest as saying.

The police report, obtained by the Free Press under a Freedom of Information Act request, said officers detected a strong odor of alcohol in the vehicle and that Petroske was unable to recite the alphabet or count backwards. A chemical test showed his blood-alcohol level was .09, just over the limit for drunken driving, the report said.

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DEARBORN (MI)
The Detroit News

By George Hunter and Christine Ferretti
The Detroit News

Dearborn— A Catholic priest accused of driving through the city in the nude while intoxicated last week told the officer who pulled him over that he liked “to drive around naked,” according to a police report.

The Rev. Peter Petroske, 57, who is now on administrative leave from his post at Sacred Heart Parish, was questioned by Dearborn Officer Robert Gafford after police were called at 11:18 p.m. Aug. 2 to the Garrison and Haigh area.

According to the report, Petroske had a blood alcohol content level of .09.

“I approached the driver’s side vehicle and observed Petroske to be completely naked. Petroske is attempting to grab clothing scattered around the vehicle,” according to Gafford’s report.

Gafford allowed Petroske to put on his clothes and began further questioning, inquiring about his nudity.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Berlin Daily Sun

Written by Melissa Grima

BERLIN — A local man with a claim of abuse pending against the Diocese of Manchester hopes that telling his story will help bring the focus of the church sex abuse scandal onto the victims rather than the abusers.

Frank Laferrier, a Berlin resident who grew up on the Seacoast, said he was raped by a priest as a young teen in Durham as he sought refuge at St. Thomas More Parish after running away from an abusive foster home. Laferrier said that although he has a claim pending with the diocese, he is coming forward to tell his story publicly because he believes Catholics “really need to see what was done to the victims.”

“I think if someone like me tells them what I went through, they would understand what the victims went through,” Laferrier said.

Careful to point out that he does not blame all Roman Catholics for the abuse he sustained, only the priest who did it, Laferrier said he recognizes that not all priests and parish leaders are like this. “I’ve met some really good people,” he said.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Aug. 09, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

ST. LOUIS — As Catholic sisters from across the country were sequestered in meeting rooms Wednesday to discuss broad issues of the place of women and men in the church, specifically their relationships with bishops following a harsh Vatican rebuke, five people stood outside the building.

Their focus was on issues sadly familiar to Catholics: Sexual abuse of minors, followed by denial and confusion.

For two of those standing outside the annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), however, the alleged abusers didn’t wear clerical collars. They were Catholic sisters.

The group outside the LCWR assembly in the humid Missouri heat were representatives of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the leading advocate for victims of clergy sex abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Anti-Catholic League

By David Fortwengler

Two groups affiliated with the Catholic Church consider the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) so dangerous and evil that they are using the same warlike tactics as the CIA. Last year Bill Donohue of the Catholic League planted two of his troops surreptitiously into enemy-held territory when he had them register for and attend the SNAP National Conference in Washington, DC. This year Dave Pierre of the catholic bishop apology group The Media Report sent spies to take up positions inside the group that advocates for survivors child sexual abuse.

The Catholic League’s and The Media Report’s hatred of SNAP is so intense they are willing to use some convoluted version of the “just war theory” to infiltrate SNAP’s conference. Donohue claims the registration for the conference was open to the public so he believes his spies did nothing morally wrong or sinful by lying about their presence. The SNAP convention advertises its meeting as a gathering of survivors, their supporters and advocates. Since SNAP does not make attendees go to confession to explain their presence Donohue and Pierre believe their spies are entitled to lie about their motives and report on the inner workings of SNAP the same way the CIA spies on Al Qaeda and terrorist groups.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By MARY SANCHEZ
The Kansas City Star

Today, the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese takes another step toward transparency and common sense.

The first report by the Catholic diocese’s new ombudsman will be released. Jenifer Valenti’s two-page report will outline allegations of sexual misconduct or suspicious behavior she has received in her first year, her assessments and the status of each case.

Less encouraging are filings in some of the legal proceedings against the diocese and Bishop Robert Finn. There, officials appear to be clinging to the excuse-making that helped create this horrible situation — the Rev. Shawn Ratigan guilty of child pornography charges and the diocese and Finn facing further legal troubles.

Understandably, the bishop’s legal team will use any viable argument to defend Finn in the civil suits and on the criminal misdemeanor charge of failing to report suspicions of child abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

The Vatican will announce on August 13 whether Paolo Gabriele, the Pope’s valet, will face trial for stealing confidential papal documents.

Gabriele’s lawyer has already conceded that it is unlikely his client will be cleared of all charges. Gabriele has insisted that he acted alone, and his motive was to help Pope Benedict XVI. His lawyer has said that a fuller explanation would emerge at his trial.

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UTAH
Deseret News

By Emiley Morgan, Deseret News
Published: Wednesday, Aug. 8 2012

SALT LAKE CITY — Arturo Tenorio was like a father to the two women he inappropriately touched while “counseling” them on their marriage problems, they testified Wednesday.

Both of the man’s alleged victims took the stand Wednesday on the first day of Tenorio’s trial in 3rd District Court. He is accused of using his reputation and influence in the LDS Church to gain work as a marriage “counselor” and then manipulating that trust to take advantage of two clients.

Tenorio, 59, is charged with two counts of forcible sexual abuse, a second-degree felony.

Both women said they were referred to Tenorio by their LDS bishop and their first few sessions with Tenorio also involved their husbands. Later, they said, Tenorio told them he needed to meet with them “one on one.”

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UTAH
KSL

MILLCREEK — A Sandy man has been charged with sexually abusing a mother and her daughter and biting the woman’s son in a sexual assault in their home.

The man was serving as branch president of an LDS Spanish-speaking branch in Midvale and was released from his church position after the incident, LDS church officials confirmed.

A 13-year-old girl told police that on May 8, “family friend” Efrey Antonio Guzman, 46, knocked on her door when she and her older brother were home alone. When Guzman learned that the brother was in the shower, “the defendant suddenly grabbed her, hugged her tightly and would not let her go,” charges filed in 3rd District Court state.

The teen said Guzman started kissing her and grabbed her buttocks, but left when her brother entered the room.

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SANDY (UT)
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Cimaron Neugebauer
| The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published Aug 08 2012

A church leader in Sandy was promptly released from his calling after allegedly biting another man’s penis and sexually abusing that man’s little sister.

Prosecutors charged Efrey Guzman, 46, of Sandy, on Tuesday in 3rd District Court for aggravated sexual assault, aggravated burglary, both first-degree felonies, and sexual abuse of a child and forcible sexual abuse, both second-degree felonies.

Guzman was an LDS branch president of a Latino congregation in Sandy. A branch is smaller than a ward.

In a statement from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spokesman Scott Trotter wrote, “The church has zero tolerance for abuse of any kind. Mr. Guzman has been released from his church duties effective immediately and faces further church discipline following the legal process.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Leader

BY LINTON BESSER, JOANNE MCCARTHY

09 Aug, 2012

THE church prematurely terminated an investigation last year into the alleged failure of a top Catholic education official to take action over the sexual assault of an 11-year-old boy in the 1970s by a lay teacher.

A former principal of St Patrick’s at Sutherland, Brother Anthony Peter Whelan, had been accused by Robert Lipari of failing to take action against a science teacher, Thomas Keady, after he reported being molested by the man at a caravan park.

Shortly before being employed at the school, Keady had completed a three-year jail term in Victoria for child sex offences.

The church commissioned an investigation by the former NSW Police assistant commissioner Norm Maroney, who substantiated the 1976 assault, and the fact it was reported to another senior teacher at the school, Brother John Vincent Roberts.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

By Brad Bumsted

HARRISBURG — Two high-profile criminal cases helped increase the number of complaints alleging child sex abuse since fall, and some advocacy groups for victims are struggling with strained budgets, prosecutors and advocates said on Wednesday.

Calls to the Department of Public Welfare’s 24-hour Child Line jumped about 5 percent from November through the end of June, compared with the same period in 2011, agency spokeswoman Donna Morgan said.

Those months were marked by publicity about the arrest and conviction of former Penn State University football defensive coach Jerry Sandusky, who awaits sentencing for his June conviction of molesting 10 boys, and a case in Philadelphia in which jurors convicted Roman Catholic Church supervisor Msgr. William Lynn of sending abusive priests from church to church. Lynn was sentenced to three to six years in prison.

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TEXAS
Houston Chronicle

Chad Foster, 32, a former youth pastor has reached a plea deal in a child sexual assault case, according to a report from KHOU.

Foster is accused of raping a 16-year-old girl who, according to the report, he met while working at the Community of Faith Church on Becker Road in Cypress.

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TENNESSEE
The Tennessean

Nashville pastor headed to prison for sexually assaulting church member

John T. Vine, a former South Nashville pastor, will serve 22 years in prison for sexually assaulting a teenage girl who attended his church.

In May, a jury found Vine, 68, former pastor at Lake Providence Missionary Baptist Church, guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of solicitation of a minor.

Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Seth Norman delivered the sentence on Wednesday.

Vine met the victim at the Baptist church when the victim was a small child. He was an associate pastor at the church, according to a Metro police report.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
U-T San Diego

San Diego

The Rock Church on Wednesday confirmed that one of its former teachers has been accused by some students’ families of sexual abuse.

The allegedly inappropriate physical contact at Rock Church Academy — rubbing and fondling young girls — was first reported two years ago. Church leaders fired the instructor, a man who has not been identified, after verifying his behavior, Rock Church senior pastor Miles McPherson said in a statement Wednesday evening.

He also said the church reported the initial allegations to the San Diego Police Department for investigation, and recently forwarded new claims of abuse made by parents of other students involving the same suspect. “We will continue to cooperate as we have since the beginning,” McPherson said.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

By Jay Tokasz
News Staff Reporter

The surprise in Maine among people who worked closely with Bishop Richard J. Malone was that he hadn’t moved sooner to a larger diocese.

Malone is a rising star in the rarefied world of the Catholic hierarchy.

Not only can he manage people effectively, he radiates confidence in explaining Catholic beliefs under a media microscope. He has juggled a massive reorganization of parishes in the mostly rural Diocese of Portland, while raising more than $40 million in capital funds. …

Pope John Paul II named him an auxiliary bishop in 2000, a post that put him in charge of the Boston archdiocese’s south region. Two years later, the archdiocese was in the throes of the devastating clergy sexual abuse scandal that ended up rippling from Boston across many of the nation’s Catholic dioceses.

Malone’s superior, Cardinal Bernard Law, resigned in disgrace over the manner in which the hierarchy had handled abuse complaints.

Questions arose, too, about Law’s inner circle and what role its members might have played in shuffling abusive priests.

Early on in Portland, Malone was peppered with questions about whether he was complicit in the cover-ups.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Washington Post

Nun leaders believe most sisters don’t want to submit to Vatican oversight

By Michelle Boorstein

Early reports on this week’s meeting of the country’s largest group of Catholic nuns show the women are in for an intense few days.

Executives of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious reportedly believe most members — who make up 80 percent of U.S. nuns — do not want to submit to a proposed Vatican takeover of their group. Regional meetings around the country this summer seem to show most women “do not ‘necessarily’ need to be part of formal church structures,” said a report in the National Catholic Reporter Tuesday, as the meeting in St. Louis began.

The sisters this week are considering how to respond to a Vatican plan to “reform” the Silver Spring, Md.-based organization, which bishops say is straying too far from official doctrine on things like the possibility of women priests and not focusing enough on abortion and traditional marriage.

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OHIO
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: Brown was ordained in 1939 for the Columbus diocese, which split in 1944. He was thereafter a priest of the Steubenville diocese. By 1964 he had achieved Monsignor status; he held several chancery positions throughout his career. In 2005 a woman testified at the Ohio state house during a hearing regarding the statute of limitations on sex crimes against children that Brown sexually abused her brother in the late 1960s, when her brother was 16 years-old. She stated that Brown also sexually abused their three young cousins. In August 2006 the Steubenville diocese announced that it had received a credible allegation that Brown and a church volunteer sexually abused a boy in the late 1970s. Brown retired in 1984 and died in 1991.

Ordained: 1939
Retired: 1984
Died: Oct. 7, 1991

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

The large drop over the past seven years in the proportion of Irish people describing themselves as religious is almost certainly part of the fallout from the Catholic hierarchy’s disastrous mishandling of the clerical child sex abuse scandal.

Since 2005 the percentage of Irish people describing themselves as “a religious person” has fallen from 69pc to just 47pc.

Over the same period the proportion of Irish people describing themselves as either “a convinced atheist” or “not a religious person” has almost doubled.

These results are contained in the latest WIN-Gallup global index of Religion and Atheism, which surveyed people in 57 countries, including Ireland, on their religious beliefs.

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VIRGINIA
The Roanoke Times

By Duncan Adams | The Roanoke Times

Salem resident Guy Adam Ritter, 92, faces an additional indictment related to charges of child sexual abuse of boys that allegedly occurred decades ago in Botetourt County.

Ritter is a prominent alumnus of Roanoke College, a former professor there and an ordained Lutheran minister, according to a college biography of him.

A Botetourt County grand jury indicted Ritter Monday for crimes against nature, which was the relevant statute at the time of the alleged offense, reported to have occurred in the county in 1958.

A county grand jury indicted Ritter June 4 by on five counts of taking indecent liberties with a child. Those offenses allegedly occurred during the 1970s.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KMOX

ST. LOUIS–(KMOX)–The clergy abuse survivor’s group SNAP was picketing outside a nationwide conventions of nuns here, calling for changes in the way U.S. nuns handle allegations of child sexual abuse.

SNAP’s David Clohessy says the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) has failed to match the standard set by U.S. Bishops to handle allegations against its members.

“At least the Bishops do have a national policy where they’ve made some promises to try to do better to protect kids and heal victims,” Clohessy said, “Collectively, America’s nuns haven’t even done that.”

A KMOX reporter visited the nun’s convention hotel, seeking comment from their media spokesman. The security team said no spokesperson was available to comment on the SNAP protest.

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MICHIGAN
Huffington Post

Peter Petroske, Michigan Catholic Priest, Suspended After Alleged Naked DUI

After a Catholic priest allegedly drove through Dearborn, Mich., intoxicated and naked, the Archdiocese of Detroit has put him under indefinite suspension.

Rev. Peter Petroske, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish, was arrested late Thursday night, according to the Detroit News, and faces charges of disorderly/obscene conduct and operating while intoxicated.

When he was arrested, Petroske was alone in the vehicle with a laptop, according to the Detroit Free Press, and was just over the legal limit.

His arrest didn’t stop him from performing Mass to his parishioners on Sunday, according to WDIV, before the Archdiocese learned about incident.

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CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

By DAVE ALTIMARI, daltimar@courant.com
The Hartford Courant

4:14 p.m. EDT, August 8, 2012
HARTFORD – —
A New London woman who says she was molested as a 12-year-old by a now-deceased priest is seeking at least $1.1 million in damages from the Norwich Diocese.

Identified as Jane Doe in court document, the woman alleges she was abused by Father Thomas Shea in 1976 when he was pastor at St. Joseph’s Church in New London. She is claiming that diocese officials, including former Bishop Daniel Reilly, knew Shea had a history of previous abuse allegations and moved him from parish to parish.

Shea is suspected of abusing as many as 15 girls in 11 different parishes from 1953 through the 1970’s. He died in 2006.

Superior Court Judge Marshall Berger ordered jury selection to start Wednesday afternoon in Hartford after denying a motion by the diocese attorneys to postpone the trial until late October. Evidence in the case is slated to begin Sept. 5.

Among the reasons diocese attorney Gary Kaisen cited in a motion to delay was the $60 million fine levied against Penn State by the NCAA following the conviction on sexual abuse charges of former coach Jerry Sandusky. The diocese attorneys argued the large fine could desensitize jurors in this case or impact potential damages.

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CONNECTICUT
The Day

By Karen Florin

Published 08/08/2012

Hartford – Lawyers for a New London woman say she will tell a Superior Court jury next month that Father Thomas W. Shea, who is now deceased, molested her when she was 12 years old.

The now 49-year-old woman is prepared to say that Shea forced her to perform a sex act inside the choir loft at St. Joseph’s Church in New London one day and that he also fondled her and kissed her.

Her attorneys, Robert I. Reardon and Kelly E. Reardon, introduced their client only as “Jane Doe” Wednesday as jury selection got under way in Hartford before Judge Marshall K. Berger Jr. She was in court with her husband and sister.

The woman is suing the Diocese of Norwich, Monsignor Thomas Bride and retired Bishop Daniel P. Reilly for lost earnings and medical expenses, past and future. She has undergone years of treatment and still requires care for severe depression and other psychological problems, according to her attorneys. She is seeking at least $1.1 million, according to testimony.

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NEW YORK
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

Reuters in New York
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 August 2012

A New York judge found no evidence of juror misconduct during a trial in which a Brooklyn rabbi was acquitted of violating an order barring him from interacting with a young boy who had accused him of sexual molestation.

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office said that on the final day of the four-day trial, the mother of juror No 6 was spotted having a “spirited conversation” with defendant Joel Kolko outside the courtroom.

However, Kings County criminal judge Michael Gerstein held in a July 30 order that he saw no basis for questioning the juror and her mother about possible misconduct.

“The behavior of juror No 6’s mother may easily be characterized as unusual,” Gerstein wrote. “But there has been no showing, let alone a colorable showing, that the mother’s conduct impugned the integrity of the trial process.”

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CANTON (GA)
Patch

By Rodney Thrash

First Baptist Canton allowed a fired employee with a history of sexual misconduct against children to return to the church as a volunteer, a misstep that led to the sexual battery of a teenage boy, the parents of the victim allege in a civil suit.

The boy’s parents are suing the church, senior pastor George Anderson and former church employee Shawn Finch, alleging that they not only failed to properly supervise the volunteer and the children in their care, but tried to “downplay” the abuse in a meeting at the church.

A Cherokee County grand jury in April 2011 indicted the volunteer, 29-year-old Matthew Brent Sheffield of Canton, in the June 2010 sexual battery of the boy, who was 14 years old at the time. Sheffield faces two felony counts of child molestation.

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CANTON (GA)
CBS Atlanta

By Mandi Milligan – email

CANTON, GA (CBS ATLANTA) –
The parents of a young boy have filed a lawsuit against a Baptist church in Canton on claims the church failed to protect him from a church volunteer who sexually assaulted him.

The lawsuit against First Baptist Church of Canton was filed Aug. 1 in the Superior Court of Cherokee County.

The boy’s parents, who are not being identified to protect the child, claim senior pastor George Anderson and church employee Shawn Finch knew of Matthew Brent Sheffield’s history of sexual misconduct with minors.

Sheffield was employed by First Baptist to supervise children in various church services and was also employed by the Cherokee County Board of Education as a substitute teacher.

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.

CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

By DAVE ALTIMARI, daltimar@courant.com
The Hartford Courant

1:54 p.m. EDT, August 8, 2012
HARTFORD -—
A Superior Court judge Wednesday denied a motion by attorneys from the Norwich Diocese to delay the start of a trial involing sexual abuse allegations against a former priest.

The church had requested a delay, in part because it claimed negative publicity from the recent Penn State sex-abuse scandal could make it difficult to find impartial jurors.

National Collegiate Athletic Association Jury selection is expected to start later Wednesday. An unidentified woman filed the suit, claiming she was abused by now-deceased priest Thomas Shea when she was 12 in 1976. She is claiming that the diocese knew Shea had a history of previous abuse allegations and moved him from parish to parish.

Shea is suspected of abusing as many as 15 girls in 11 different parishes from 1953 through the 1970’s. He died in 2006.

Among the reasons that attorney Gary Kaisen cited in a motion to delay the trial until late October was the $60 million fine levied against Penn State by the NCAA. The diocese attorneys argued the large fine could desensitize jurors in this case or impact potential damages.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Aug. 08, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

ST. LOUIS — The much-anticipated gathering of 900 U.S. Catholic sisters who make up the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) opened here Tuesday night with song, prayer, and references big, small, and in-between to the Vatican’s attempted take-over of the group.

References to the Vatican’s critique of the group, which came in an April 18 announcement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, came early in the two-hour event, with LCWR president Franciscan Sr. Pat Farrell telling the assembled that “we don’t have to remind you that our gathering this week is an historic time in the life of this organization.”

The opening of the annual assembly of LCWR, which represents some 80 percent of U.S. women religious, also included a welcome by St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson and details about how the group’s members would discern steps forward during the gathering, which continues through Friday night. …

During an address Tuesday night, Farrell outlined the process by which the group’s members would discuss the Vatican’s mandate in their gathering, saying they want to “gather the collective wisdom of this group to make a response that we hope can be for the good of the church, for the good of LCWR, for the good of religious life throughout the world, and ultimately for the good of the human family.”

Starting Wednesday, LCWR is to host a number of closed door “executive sessions” where members are to discuss the Vatican mandate.

Those meetings, said Farrell, will involve a process “that will be sort of like a seamless garment of discernment.”

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UTAH
Fox 13

August 8, 2012, by Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

The trial begins Wednesday for a man accused of posing as a marriage counselor and sexually abusing his patients.

Arturo Tenorio, 59, faces two counts of felony sex abuse.

Tenorio is the brother of a general authority of the LDS Church and his accusers say they were refered to him by their bishop.

Last year, two women came forward, saying Tenorio was their counselor and that he made inappropriate comments and sexual advances toward them.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on August 08, 2012

An Iowa man who says he was molested as a boy by a nun is prodding the largest group of US Catholic sisters to do more to “protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.”

Steve Theisen and other members of a self-help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org) are spending much of this week on a sidewalk outside a St. Louis Missouri hotel where Catholic nuns are meeting. SNAP is urging the 900 sisters, here for the annual meeting of the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR), to “act more prudently to prevent future child sex crimes by nuns and more compassionately towards those who have been hurt by past child sex crimes by nuns.”

“Tragically, nuns are moving even more slowly and timidly to deal with child molesters in their midst than bishops are,” said Theisen. “No one knows how many nuns have victimized kids, but no one’s even trying to find out. Nor is anyone really taking any real steps to prevent such devastating crimes in the future.”

According to BishopAccountability.org, there are at least 77 US nuns who have been publicly accused of child sex crimes. SNAP says it has heard from several hundred adult men and women who report having been sexually assaulted as youngsters by nuns.

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NEW YORK
Thomson Reuters News & Insight

NEW YORK, Aug 7 (Reuters) – A New York judge found no evidence of juror misconduct during a trial in which a Brooklyn rabbi was acquitted of violating an order barring him from interacting with a young boy who had accused him of sexual molestation.

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office said that on the final day of the four-day trial, the mother of juror No. 6 was spotted having a “spirited conversation” with defendant Joel Kolko outside the courtroom.

However, Kings County Criminal Judge Michael Gerstein held in a July 30 order that he saw no basis for questioning the juror and her mother about possible misconduct.

“(T)he behavior of Juror No. 6’s mother may easily be characterized as unusual,” Gerstein wrote. “But there has been no showing, let alone a colorable showing, that the mother’s conduct impugned the integrity of the trial process.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

By Robert Blair Kaiser

COMMENTARY

Over the weekend, an editor on the Internet observed that many events this year commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council “seem to be wakes, lamenting and grieving over the lost opportunity.”

Rather than wring our hands over what the church has become under back-to-back popes who have acted in an arrogant and authoritarian manner, we should celebrate what Vatican II has already done for us.

It has given us a new view of ourselves. It’s made us more free, more human and more at the service of a world that Jesus loved.

It has given us a new view of the church. It’s our church, not the pope’s church, or the bishops’ church, or a priest’s church.

It has given us a new view of our place in it. We can think, we can speak, we can act as followers of Jesus in a world that needs us.

Rather than whine over what daddy won’t let us do, we can put the Council into play ourselves.

American nuns showed us how.

In 1979, Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane, then the president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, told Pope John Paul II the church ought to be ordaining women. Doing that, she implied, the church could break the stained-glass ceiling and give first-class citizenship to half of its membership, the women in the church.

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

IRELAND
The Irish Times

GORDON DEEGAN

THERE WAS a significant reduction in payments by Killaloe’s Catholic diocese arising from clerical sex abuse, according to diocesan accounts for 2011 published yesterday.

They show that €20,748 was paid under that heading last year compared to €428,162 in 2009 and 2010. It brings to €2.44 million the total paid to survivors of clerical abuse there since 2003.

Diocesan spokesman Fr Brendan Quinlivan said yesterday that such payments to survivors came from a special fund, called the Bishop’s House donation, established from the sale of six acres of land beside the Bishop’s House in Ennis.

The 2011 accounts also show that the diocese received over €1 million from a will which stipulated that the money could not be used for the day-to-day running of the diocese.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on August 7, 2012

I am guilty of instantly running to the defense of American nuns after the Vatican announced that women religious in the United States had ”a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” Like most people, I remembered American nuns working with the most dejected among us – helping the poor, the sick, the homeless, and the fringes of society … and my junior AP English teacher Sr. Lorraine, who was in way over her head.

But I had forgotten something: The leadership of American nuns in the United States is also no stranger to child sex abuse and cover up.

Since 2004, SNAP has been trying to get the Leadership Conference of Religious Women (LCRW) to make some kind of statement on behalf of children who were sexually abused by nuns. There are a number of SNAP members and leaders who were sexually abused by women religious, and many of them feel like their plight is ignored. Eight years later, SNAP has received no response. Victims have been simply shut out of the conversation.

This week, the LCRW is meeting in St. Louis where they will figure out how they will respond to the Vatican report.

Outside of the meeting, members of SNAP and victims of sex abuse by nuns will be holding a press conference, asking that the bishops “appointed to ‘supervise the overhaul’ of their organization” carefully evaluate the cover-up of sexual abuse by nuns and secret settlements with victims.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

On the opening night of SNAP’s recent annual conference, National Director David Clohessy attempted to convince his audience that SNAP “does not hate churches,” suggesting that the group does not have any particular animus against the Catholic Church.

Clohessy’s denial rings hollow, however, in light of an alarming presentation later delivered at the conference by Judy Braun, a writer raised in an ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn. (Braun has also written under the pseudonym, Eishes Chayil (“woman of valor”), and her name has more often appeared as “Judy Brown.”)

Braun’s talk was oddly titled, “Monotheism and Child Sacrifice.” According to Braun:

“For centuries the Catholics and Jews have been sworn enemies. Only now after two millennia of distrust and contempt, the world’s ancient religions have finally come together as leaders of these religions, both popes and rabbis, are united in rare agreement that child sexual abuse is allowed, as long as it is done in secret and its victims are buried deep under the fear of God.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Breda Heffernan and Colm Kelpie

Wednesday August 08 2012

THE scale of the crisis facing the church in Ireland is laid bare today in a stark survey which reveals that religious faith is plummeting.

Irish people are abandoning religion faster than almost every other country worldwide, the massive global survey on faith reveals.

Only Vietnam has seen a bigger drop in people declaring themselves to be religious over the past seven years, a period when the Catholic Church in Ireland has been rocked by sex-abuse scandals and a crisis of leadership.

Red C interviewed more than 51,000 people worldwide, including just over 1,000 people in Ireland.

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VATICAN CITY
The Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW

THE HOLY See has rejected the man nominated as next Bulgarian ambassador to the Vatican because of a steamy gay scene in a best-selling novel recently written by him, it is alleged in the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.

On paper, Kiril Maritchkov (39) looks the perfect choice.

He is married to an Italian, he is the father of two children and a graduate in law and political sciences.

He not only speaks five languages but he is also an expert in post-Berlin Wall eastern Europe.

The problem is that Mr Maritchkov is also a novelist.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2012) — Medieval clerics did not relish the prospect of giving up sex when the Papacy tried to introduce the principle of celibacy. Resistance was widespread, it was revealed at an academic conference at the University of Huddersfield where two historians are playing a key role in developing the burgeoning study area of medieval masculinity.

Dr Pat Cullum an Dr Katherine Lewis organised the conference, entitled ‘Religious Men in the Middle Ages’. It was attended by 50 delegates from 14 countries.

Now Dr Cullum and Dr Lewis — in tandem with Dr Philippa Hoskin and Dr Joanna Huntington of the University of Lincoln — have announced the formation of a network named ‘The Bishop’s Eye’.

Dr Lewis explained: “This network will foster new research into the lives, experiences and representation of medieval religious men, both those following a professional vocation — bishops, monks and priests for example — and laymen.

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CANTON (GA)
Courthouse News Service

By LISA COSTON

CANTON, Ga. (CN) – A Baptist Church failed to protect a boy from a church volunteer who sexually assaulted him, though the senior pastor knew of the man’s history of sexual misconduct with minors, the boy’s parents claim in court.

Brian and Carmen Aaron sued the First Baptist Church of Canton, its senior pastor George Anderson, church employee Shawn Finch, and the alleged assailant, Matthew Brent Sheffield, in Cherokee County Superior Court.

“Defendant Sheffield sexually abused multiple victims, while working for the Cherokee County Board of Education and through his employment and volunteer work with First Baptist,” according to the complaint. “His continued sexual abuse was enabled by the negligent oversight of Sheffield by defendant First Baptist, defendant Dr. George Anderson and defendant Shawn Finch.”

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MONTANA
Beartooth NBC

By Aniseh Hamour

The lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena was amended Monday, bringing the total number of plaintiffs in the case to 200.

The amended complaint includes 10 new alleged sexual offenders and eight new sexual abuse victims. There are now 26 accused in the case.

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LONG BEACH (CA)
Contra Costa Times

By Tracy Manzer, Staff Writer
presstelegram.com

August 7, 2012

LONG BEACH — A Catholic priest once assigned to a North Long Beach church who now faces sexual assault charges appeared briefly in court Tuesday for a preliminary hearing setting.

The Rev. Luis Jose Cuevas, the former parish priest at St. Athanasius Catholic Church, 5390 Linden Ave., is no longer in custody after his release on $260,000 bond on July 27.

The 67-year-old is scheduled to return to the Long Beach Superior Court on Sept. 11, when a preliminary hearing is scheduled to be set, according to court staff.

Cuevas has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of sexual assault following accusations from three alleged victims. His attorney, George Bird, has repeatedly denied the allegations against his client, noting the massive community support for the defendant, demonstrated by nearly 100 members of the church where he once served attending his arraignment.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Aug. 07, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

ST. LOUIS — As representatives of Catholic sisters from across the country gathered here Tuesday for a meeting expected to formulate a formal response to harsh critique from the Vatican, current and past presidents of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious met in closed session to share experiences and lay a foundation for that response.

The meeting, which was attended by about 20 women and lasted just over two hours, was full of great energy and feelings of solidarity, several of the women who attended the session told NCR. But they also expressed feelings of uncertainty because of questions left unanswered.

The overall opinion of the group was that the LCWR could not unconditionally accept the Vatican’s mandate that the leadership conference reform its statutes and structures but neither did the group want to walk away from the canonical structure of the LCWR.

The leaders hope to find a middle path, NCR was told, but that they also want to give the Vatican a firm expression of how they understand themselves as religious, suggesting that the sisters do not “necessarily” need to be part of formal church structures.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Pfalzischer Merkur

Lebach/Trier. Ein Pfarrer aus Lebach, der wegen des Verdachts auf sexuellen Missbrauch zurzeit beurlaubt ist, hat trotz eines vom Bistum Trier ausgesprochenen Verbotes eine Messe gefeiert. Einen Tag, nachdem das Bistum ihn beurlaubt hatte, hielt der 65-Jährige am vergangenen Dienstag ein Sterbeamt und eine anschließende Beerdigung ab, wie Bistumssprecher Stephan Kronenburg gestern der SZ bestätigte. “Das ist aus unserer Sicht nicht in Ordnung”, sagte Kronenburg. Das Bistum habe, als es davon erfahren habe, Kontakt zu dem Geistlichen aufgenommen. Dieser habe versichert, er werde sich an das Verbot halten. Im konkreten Fall habe er allerdings – so schildert das Bistum die Aussage des Pfarrers – eine Ausnahme gemacht: Zu einem Zeitpunkt, als er noch nicht beurlaubt gewesen sei, habe er den Angehörigen des Verstorbenen versprochen, das Sterbeamt zu halten. Kronenburg sagte, dies sei mit dem Bistum nicht abgesprochen gewesen.

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POLEN
Reformatorisch Dagblad (Nederland)

WARSCHAU – Uit een sociologisch onderzoek blijkt dat meer dan 60 procent van de priesters in Polen het celibaat met de voeten treedt door het hebben van een relatie. Ongeveer 10 tot 15 procent heeft kinderen en is daar ook (financieel) verantwoordelijk voor.

Dat maakte de Poolse uitgave van het weekblad Newsweek onlangs bekend. Godsdienstsocioloog Jozef Baniak van de Universiteit van Poznan bracht de cijfers naar buiten. Een paar geleden schatte Baniak het aantal priesters met een relatie op ongeveer 15 procent.

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LONG BEACH (CA)
KABC

LONG BEACH, Calif. (KABC) — A Long Beach Catholic priest accused of inappropriate behavior with three church members was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday.

Father Luis Jose Cuevas was arrested in July after two women filed a police report accusing the 67-year-old of sexual battery. A 17-year-old female then came forward claiming she also was inappropriately touched by Cuevas.

The district attorney filed eight misdemeanor charges in July against Cuevas and one felony count involving lewd acts with a child.

Through his attorney, Father Jose Luis Cuevas entered a plea of not guilty July 25 in a Long Beach courtroom overflowing with supporters of Cuevas.

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MICHIGAN
CBS Detroit

DEARBORN (WWJ) – The pastor of a Dearborn church was suspended after being arrested for drunk driving.

The Archdiocese of Detroit said Pastor Peter Petroske of Sacred Heart Parish was charged with driving under the influence and indecent exposure in Dearborn.

Reports are that Petroske was not wearing any clothes when he was arrested.

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BELLEVILLE (IL)
The Record

8/7/2012 5:17 PM By Kelly Holleran

An Illinois man has filed suit against the diocese that he says hired a former Catholic priest who has already settled numerous lawsuits for millions of dollars. In the lawsuit, the man alleges he was abused by the priest for six months.

The man, identified only as John Doe S., claims former priest Raymond Kownacki sexually abused him in 1985 while Doe was a parishoner at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Valmeyer.

Before Kownacki was appointed to St. Mary’s, he had served at numerous churches throughout the region, according to the complaint filed July 26 in St. Clair County Circuit Court. The diocese had received reports of various instances of child abuse involving Kownacki, but continued to allow him to work around children, the complaint says. In addition, it failed to warn parishioners of the reports, Doe claims.

Because of the diocese’s failure to advise people of the alleged abuse, Doe claims he and his family trusted Kownacki. Doe began staying with Kownacki at the rectory, according to the complaint.

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MICHIGAN
Patch

By John Hetzler

The Archdiocese of Detroit has suspended the Rev. Peter Petroske, a priest at Sacred Heart Parish in Dearborn, following his arrest on drunken driving and indecent exposure charges.

Petroske was placed on administrative leave on Monday, according to a statement from the archdiocese.

Dearborn police arrested Petroske on Thursday, Aug. 2, for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol and indecent exposure, the archdiocese said. He was alone in his vehicle.

According to the Detroit News, the Archdiocese confirmed that Petroske was naked when police pulled him over.

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MICHIGAN
ClickonDetroit

[with video]

DETROIT –
A Catholic priest who serves as a pastor of a church in Dearborn was arrested for driving under the influence while naked and carrying a laptop computer.

A statement from the Archdiocese of Detroit indicates Father Peter Petroske, pastor of Sacred Heart parish in Dearborn, was stopped and arrested by police last Thursday on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Petroske is facing charges of indecent exposure because he was naked at the time he was arrested. He also reportedly had a laptop computer with him in the car.

The Archdiocese has suspended Petroske indefinitely from his duties as pastor. He is not allowed on church property. He cannot live in the rectory. He cannot present himself as a priest.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Fr. Z’s Blog – What Does The Prayer Really Say?

SNAP to protest LCWR meeting in St. Louis (schedule posted)

Posted on 7 August 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is planning on protesting outside the hotel where the Leadership Conference of Women Religious are meeting in their annual assembly. Why? For years they have been trying to work with the LCWR to prevent abuse of children by nuns.

My emphases and comments.

MO – Sex abuse victims to protest outside nuns’ conference
POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY

As hundreds of American Catholic nuns meeting this week in St. Louis, clergy sex abuse victims will protest outside urging them to address the under-reported issue of clergy sex crimes and cover ups by nuns. [UNDER-REPORTED]

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

U.S. nuns meet to discuss Vatican criticism, their affiliation with Rome

By Michelle Boorstein

It seems hard to imagine, but it’s possible this week that American nuns could take a huge — if symbolic — step away from the Vatican.

Many, many Catholic eyes are on St. Louis as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, by far the largest representative body of U.S. nuns, has their annual meeting. On the agenda for the Silver Spring, Md.-based organization: Whether the group should remain an official arm of Rome, or become independent.

This is their first meeting since April, when the Vatican’s doctrine-guarding arm issued a report saying the Conference isn’t focusing enough on abortion and traditional marriage and is dabbling dangerously in “radical feminist” ideas such as whether women could be priests. The report said the group needs to be “reformed” and is calling for essentially a takeover and monitoring of the Conference, whose members represent about 80 percent of the country’s sisters.

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MONTANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on August 07, 2012

These brave victims from the Blackfeet Indian reservation deserve gratitude for coming forward and reporting heinous child se crimes. It could not have been easy, but we are glad that, by speaking out, these victims are helping to expose at least 26 child molesting clerics. We hope that others who may have been abused by those clergy or any other Catholic employee in Montana will find the courage to break their silence and add their name to the list of these survivors.

Bishop George Thomas and Bishop Michael Warfel should immediately use all of their resources – websites, newsletters, parish bulletins and personal appeals – to reach out to others within Montana who may be hurting. They should urge those who saw, suspected, or suffered clergy abuse to immediately contact police, so that those who commit and conceal child sex crimes can be prosecuted and so that kids can better be protected, and so that victims can better heal.

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MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

By Christine Ferretti and George Hunter
The Detroit News

Dearborn— A Catholic priest has been suspended after he was arrested last week on allegations of drunken driving and indecent exposure.

The Archdiocese of Detroit in a Tuesday statement said Father Peter Petroske, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Dearborn, was placed on administrative leave Monday.

The 57-year-old is charged with misdemeanor counts of operating while intoxicated and disorderly/obscene conduct, according to officials with Dearborn’s 19th District Court.

The Archdiocese said Petroske was arrested by Dearborn Police late Thursday while driving unaccompanied in his vehicle

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MICHIGAN
Press & Guide

By Julie Walker Altesleben
Press & Guide Newspapers

DEARBORN — The Rev. Peter Petroske was arrested Thursday and charged with drunken driving and indecent exposure, according to reports.

Petroske is the head pastor at Sacred Heart Catholic Church and School in Dearborn. He was placed on administrative leave Monday by the Archdiocese of Detroit.

Petroske joined Sacred Heart in 2008.

Calls and emails Tuesday morning to Sacred Heart and to Petroske were not returned. The archdiocese released the following statement:

“Father Peter Petroske, pastor of Sacred Heart parish in Dearborn, was placed on administrative leave of absence on Monday.

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Palash R. Ghosh

August 7, 2012

The Vatican has rejected a proposed ambassador from Bulgaria, because the candidate wrote a novel that featured the themes of homosexuality and prostitution.

Kiril Marichkov’s highly successful novel, “Clandestination,” offended Vatican officials, placing his nomination to the Holy See in jeopardy.

The 39-year-old attorney, who speaks five languages and is married to an Italian woman, is also the grandson of the first Bulgarian ambassador appointed to the Vatican after the fall of communism.

Despite his sterling credentials, the Vatican will not approve his appointment.

His book is about illegal immigrants who escape Eastern Europe for Rome after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The principle character, a man named Ivan, is forced by poverty to sell himself to men for sex on the streets.

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VATICAN CITY
Jakarta Globe

The Vatican said Tuesday it has not accepted Bulgaria’s proposed ambassador to the Holy See, apparently rejecting diplomat Kiril Marichkov for writing a racy novel featuring gay sex and prostitution.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said that “the proposal has not been agreed to,” leading observers to surmise that Marichkov had been rejected over a graphic scene in his successful 2005 novel “Clandestination”.

The book, based on the lives of illegal immigrants in Italy, features one scene where a desperate young eastern European man prostitutes himself with a man he picks up on a Rome street, before begging God’s forgiveness.

Lombardi would not comment on Sofia’s chosen candidate for the post, but confirmed there was no current Bulgarian ambassador at the Vatican.

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CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

By DAVE ALTIMARI, daltimar@courant.com
The Hartford Courant

3:01 p.m. EDT, August 7, 2012
The Norwich diocese is arguing that a civil trial involving charges that one of its priests sexually abused a 12-year-old girl should be postponed because of publicity surrounding the Penn State sex abuse scandal.

Attorneys for the church requested the delay to at least October, arguing that publicity surrounding the Penn State case “creates an adverse and hostile public sentiment” that would make it hard for the diocese to get a fair trial. The civil trial is scheduled to start in Hartford Superior Court this week. The judge has not ruled on the request for a delay.

The case involves now-deceased priest Thomas W. Shea. It was filed by a woman who claims Shea abused her more than 35 years ago.

West Hartford In his motion, attorney Kevin G. Smith of Milano & Wanat argued that in nearly all of the articles written about the Penn State case “the media equates the Pennn State situation to sexual abuse allegations against the Catholic Church.”

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INDIANA
Post-Tribune

By Teresa Auch Schultz tauch@post-trib.com
August 7, 2012

A Valparaiso man will serve a 10 year sentence in connection with trying to entice a 15-year-old boy.

Wayne E. Wigglesworth, 71, said little during his sentencing Tuesday morning at the U.S. District Court in Hammond and looked down as U.S. District Judge James Moody read his sentence.

“No, I do not your honor,” Wigglesworth said when he was asked if he had anything to say on his behalf.

Wigglesworth, who was an ordained priest in Baltimore in the 1960s through the 1980s, was originally arrested in 2009 in Chicago when police pulled him over for a traffic stop. They discovered the 15-year-old boy in the car with him, and the boy eventually told police he had met Wigglesworth on a website for teenagers. The two exchanged phone numbers, and Wigglesworth asked the boy to meet him to perform sex acts.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on August 07, 2012

■SNAP will try to hand deliver letter to head of nuns’ group
■They want names of predatory Catholic sisters posted on line
■And victims urge nuns – “Don’t investigate crimes internally”
■An independent source cites at least 77 sexually abusive women religious

WHAT:
Holding signs and childhood pictures, outside a hotel where Catholic nuns are meeting, clergy sex abuse victims will hold a news conference, urging the sisters to post, on their websites,

— notices urging victims and witnesses to report child sex crimes to police, not church officials, and
–the names, photos and whereabouts of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting nuns on church websites.
They will also prod nuns to
–stop requiring gag orders when civil lawsuits against abusive nuns are settled, and
–actively reach out to victims of nun abuse

They will try to hand deliver a letter to the head of the nuns’ organization expressing frustration over the unwillingness of Catholic sisters to take proactive steps to address nuns’ sex crimes, heal the wounded and protect the vulnerable.

WHEN:
Tuesday, August 7,—-1:00 p.m.

WHERE:
Outside the Millennium Hotel, 200 S. Fourth (between Clark & Walnut) in downtown St. Louis.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

Posted: Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:37 by Alistair McBay

Back in 2009, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, held a private seminar entitled “Leadership in the financial sector: a moral and spiritual challenge?” for top City financiers to explore the relevance of Pope Benedict’s encyclical on social teaching, Caritas in Veritate, for the financial sector. The Pope even sent a personal message to the meeting, the underlying theme of which was to see how the financial sector would be much more ethical with Christian principles.

The list of delegates to that 2009 City seminar now makes interesting reading. For example, you will find the Catholic Marcus Agius, then chairman of Barclays Bank, now soon to be its ex-chairman in the wake of the Libor-fixing scandal that was clearly well established by the time of that seminar but about which Agius says he knew nothing at that point. Another delegate was Stephen Green, (no, not that one!) then Group Chairman, HSBC Holdings and now Lord Green, Coalition Minister for Trade & Investment. Much has been made of Lord Green’s Christian belief — he is an Anglican lay preacher or ‘non-stipendiary minister’ — in influencing his business career, not least in his own book Serving God, Serving Mammon. In a typically obsequious piece in the Times (one of several, including one titled “The banker with God on his side”) the Anglican journalist Ruth Gledhill said “A senior manager (in the banking industry) told The Times that he believed it no accident that the world’s strongest private-sector bank, HSBC, criticised in the “good times” for being too conservative but now well placed to survive the crisis, is headed by an Anglican lay preacher, Stephen Green. Mr Green has made no secret of how his religious convictions inform his business life.” The inference here is all too clear.

But how does it stack up three years on, I wonder?

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