ABUSE TRACKER

CANADA
CBC News

Eric Jose Dejaeger will appear before the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit today.

The Roman Catholic priest, who served in Igloolik in the late 70s and 80s, is accused of sex crimes. He faces more than 35 charges.

In February, his appearance was delayed as police were doing an investigation in Igloolik.

He has also been charged in incidents that are alleged to have occurred in Edmonton between 1975 and 1978.

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IRELAND
BBC News

Cardinal Sean Brady has said he wants to personally apologise to a man who was abused as a 14-year-old boy by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

Cardinal Brady has come under pressure after a BBC documentary.

It accused him of failing to act on abuse allegations when he was a young priest.

He said he had no intention of stepping aside but hoped an assistant – with succession rights – would be quickly appointed to his archdiocese.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on editorials that appear today in the New York Times and Washington Post:

Both of these newspapers misstate the facts, fail to mention relevant data, and then make unfair accusations against the Catholic Church on the issue of sexual abuse.

Both newspapers today editorialize on the subject of “pedophile priests.” It is one of the biggest myths of our time that the Catholic Church has had a problem with pedophile priests: as the John Jay College for Criminal Justice showed in its 2011 report on this subject, less than 5 percent of the abusers were pedophiles. In almost all cases, the victims were adolescent males who were inappropriately touched by homosexual priests. Both newspapers cover this up, thus perpetuating a lie.

Today’s New York Times criticizes Timothy Cardinal Dolan for opposing legislation by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey which would lift the statute of limitations for one year on civil lawsuits involving the sexual abuse of a minor. Once again, we have a cover-up: what the editorial does not say is that this bill does not apply to the public schools.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Fox News

Published May 07, 2012

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA – A former FBI agent hired by the Philadelphia archdiocese has testified that one priest accuser and his family had money and legal problems.

Prosecutors called Jack Rossiter to testify Monday about his 2006 interviews with the Rev. James Brennan. Brennan is on trial for the alleged 1996 sexual assault of a teenage boy.

Rossiter said he found the accuser credible, even though the man’s criminal record gave him pause.

On cross-examination, Rossiter said the man’s family had money problems when they came forward with the decade-old allegation about Brennan.

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MISSOURI
News-Tribune

By Gerry Tritz

Monday, May 7, 2012

A group dedicated to helping victims of clergy sex abuse is inviting the public to a roundtable discussion this evening on “pedophile priest culture and the diocese of Jefferson City.”

The event will be held from 7-9 p.m. at Lincoln University’s Inman Page Library.

It will be hosted by Come to the Stable/The Stephen Spalding Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Marion, Iowa.

Wegs’ group also says it plans a 10 a.m. news conference today to identify six new predatory priests and to review the casework of eight new victims of former Bishop Anthony J. O’Connell. On Sunday, Michael Wegs, the group’s secretary-treasurer, handed out leaflets to Immaculate Conception Church parishioners as they left church. The leaflets urged Catholic leaders to “break the silence” on the sexual molestation that took place at the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Hannibal.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

May. 07, 2012
By Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea

COMMENTARY

The Catholic hierarchy from the papacy on down seems to be roiling through a series of manic episodes in which they execute perverted power plays against those perceived as enemies. This kind of mania often is exhibited by large identity groups whose power has been threatened and who are unable to respond adaptively to that loss through a process of healthy mourning.

For decades now, the power of the Catholic monarchy to control the social, spiritual, and political lives of its members has been in decline. While Humane Vitae, the 1968 papal encyclical that upheld the church’s traditional ban on artificial contraceptioin, placed Catholic dissension (or perhaps spiritual maturation) in relief in the late 1960s, the sexual abuse crisis returned it to center stage throughout the past decade. In fact, Humane Vitae was only superficially about birth control and the sexual abuse crisis was only partially about sexual abuse. Both crises were fundamentally about power: who holds it, over whom, to what extent, in what areas of life.

Along with victims and advocates who have aggressively brought the church to task for the crimes of power inherent in sexual abuse, religious women — usually much closer to actual human beings trying to live their lives than are the ecclesiastical nobles — have raised powerful voices exhorting the Catholic community to attend better to the world’s suffering, especially that of the most marginalized. Even more recently, priests in some quarters have assumed a power to insist that attention be paid to the need and the rightness of expanding priestly ministry to the married and the female. In other words, the common citizens of the realm are calling out the royals on their failures to care well for those most in need — victims of hierarchical neglect and abuse inherent in the sexual abuse crisis; priests who cannot meet the needs of the flock; women speaking on behalf of women and children, minorities, the Earth, and the poor.

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IRELAND
TIME – Global Spin

By William Lee Adams | @willyleeadams | May 7, 2012

During the four decades that pedophile priest Brendan Smyth abused children, he frequently took them on driving excursions across Ireland. Brendan Boland, one of his victims, began going on those trips in the early 1970s when he was just 11 years old. On one outing, Father Smyth drove a group of children from Belfast, Northern Ireland, to Cavan, Ireland, some two hours away. He checked them in to a bed and breakfast. “There was two bedrooms…one for the girls and one for Father Smyth and the two boys,” Boland remembers in the BBC documentary The Shame of the Catholic Church. Boland was one of the boys sharing a room with Smyth. “He called me over first and he abused me the way he did before. And when he was finished with me I went back to the bed and then he called the other boy over and done the same with him and I — this time I was — I was in the bed watching. Well I was listening, I didn’t want to watch.”

Smyth, Ireland’s most notorious pedophile, died of a heart attack in 1997 while serving a 12-year sentence for abusing some 20 children. But time doesn’t heal all wounds. The BBC documentary, which aired on May 1, has re-ignited the furor over Smyth’s crimes—and the church’s alleged conspiracy in covering them up. Critics—who include former victims and top Irish politicians—now want Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of Ireland’s Catholic Church, to resign. That’s because in 1975 Boland came forward about the abuse. As the documentary reveals, Boland, then 14, gave testimony to Brady, then a canon lawyer, which included the names and addresses of other children Smyth had abused. Boland was sworn to secrecy about the hearing. And Brady never reported the information to police—or to the children’s parents.

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IRELAND
RTE nEWS

Cardinal Seán Brady has publicly apologised to Brendan Boland, a survivor of paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth.

Seán Brady has no intention of stepping aside

Speaking at Lough Derg following a penitential pilgrimage in advance of next month’s Eucharistic Congress, Dr Brady also said he had no intention of stepping aside, despite continuing calls for his resignation.

He said there had also been “many many calls from people who want me to stay on.”

But he said he hoped a coadjutor – with succession rights – would be appointed to his archdiocese as soon as possible.

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GERMANY
The Local

A German Catholic boys’ school is fighting for its right to give its pupil’s suppositories, in the face of a city council report on the use of rectally-administered medication.

The Collegium Josephinum (CoJoBo) in Bonn, a private school for around 1,200 boys, is struggling to maintain its reputation for excellence. One of the teachers, who was also a priest, was recently suspended pending an investigation into allegations that he sexually abused two of its pupils.

The investigation threw a spotlight on the school’s medical service. For decades, the school followed the practice, common in Germany, of giving children painkiller suppositories for a variety of non-specific ailments – migraines, stomach aches, sprained joints.

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NEW YORK
Newd

By Alicia Ramsay
From celebrities to average individuals, friends to family members, sexual abuse and domestic violence have scarred the lives of thousands across the world. Many victims are forever silenced while some find the voice within them to speak up.

Take Back the Night, hosted by CUNY Lehman College in the Bronx, New York on Tuesday, April 24 served to support survivors, console them as they heal as well as bring awareness to students.

After introductory remarks by a campus counselor Nicole Madonna Rosario and Lehman’s vice president Jose Magdeleno and Dean John Holloway, attendees were reeled into the program with a student theatrical production called “The Witness.” It was written by Andre Bell and performed and directed by Lehman students.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Jewel Topsfield
May 8, 2012

ONE of Australia’s leading rabbis told a man whose son had been allegedly sexually abused by a youth group leader at a Melbourne Jewish school that the child would not need counselling because he was under eight years old, court documents say.

David Samuel Cyprys, a former security guard at the Yeshivah Centre in St Kilda East, has been charged with 53 offences, including six counts of rape, allegedly committed against 12 boys between 1982 and 1991.

He is contesting the allegations at a committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

In court documents, the parents of two separate boys said they went to Yeshivah Centre director Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner in the 1980s to complain about alleged molestation.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

Politicians have shown a lack of “statesmanship” over the position of Cardinal Sean Brady, according to the Auxiliary Bishop of Down and Connor.

Bishop Donal McKeown said he was disappointed no-one had “dared to suggest that we might lift the focus from that narrow resignation question”.

Writing on his Facebook page, he said: “How many of us, who have lived in the NI glasshouse, are in a position to throw stones?

“That sort of comment would have been painfully honest, and helped us to face our very messy past.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Bilgrimage

As the week begins, another powerful and informative statement by Jerry Slevin. Jerry is commenting in this posting on the news conference of Philadelphia archbishop Chaput last Friday. What follows is Jerry’s posting:

In 1776 in Philadelphia the key grievances stressed in the Declaration of Independence included (1) the British monarch’s interference in the justice process, especially in law cases involving his officials’ misconduct, and (2) the monarch’s imposition of unjust legislation by undemocratic means. I t was then, and remains yet today, among the fundamental principles of natural justice that (A) one cannot be a fair judge of one’s own crimes or of crimes of others who serve on one’s behalf, and (B) the governed must have a meaningful say in making laws that govern them.

After a bloody Revolutionary War against a monarchy, the fundamental principles of an independent judiciary and a democratic legislature were soon incorporated into the US Constitution, along with related protections for freedom of speech and the press and for religious liberty, balanced by an obligatory separation of church and state. The Founding Fathers had painfully learned their lessons about European monarchical tyranny and religious zealotry and wanted to expel these evils forever from America’s shores.

In 2012 also in Philadelphia several of these U.S. Constitutional principles are being substantially challenged by the current papal monarch acting through his bishops, especially Archbishop Chaput, leader of the Philadelphia Archdiocese (the “Philly AD”). The pope and his subordinates are, in effect, interfering in Pennsylvania in the administration of justice in sexual abuse cases involving clerics; as well as opposing by excessive lobbying the popularly supported enactment of needed reforms of related child sexual abuse statute of limitation laws, often under the cynical guise of “religious liberty.”

These challenges were made abundantly clear in Chaput’s recent “press conference,” available in its entirety in audio here and in summary in video in this national CBS Evening News Report from Scott Pelley available here.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
PATRICK COUNIHAN,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Monday, May 7, 2012

A church leader who has admitted his failure in the Brendan Smyth case has refused to absolve Cardinal Sean Brady from blame and believes the Primate of All-Ireland should quit.

Father Kevin Smith was the abbot who transferred vile paedophile Smyth from parish to parish even after he was accused of child abuse.

The former head of the Norbertine Order, Fr Smith has confessed that he is partly responsible for the hundreds of rapes committed by the late Smyth.

Now he says that Cardinal Brady, leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, must share some of the blame for failing to report the paedophile priest to the civil authorities.

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ROME
Vatican Insider

No peace for the movement now seeking new leaders

Andrés Beltramo Álvarez
Vatican City

The female branch of the Catholic movement Regnum Christi is seeking a few things. These days, the consecrated women must choose their new superior – but that is the least of their problems. For them, the real challenge will be to regain the serenity lost in an internal crisis that some members have been unable to withstand, falling into chronic physical illness or depression.

The “Regno” (as is well-known by now) is undergoing reforms, as are the Legionaries of Christ, the congregation it is tied to. The two institutions have been going through a true dark night of the soul because of the immoral actions of their founder, the Mexican priest Marcial Maciel Degollado. This has been publicly acknowledged by Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, the delegate appointed by the Pope to complete the transformation.

The crisis struck the Legion first, and then spread to Regnum Christi. In recent months, De Paolis pushed for some changes in the movement, but then lost control of the situation. Over the past three years, more than 200 consecrated have abandoned the work, but many others find themselves on the outside of their communities for the purposes of discernment.

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IRELAND
Vatican Insider

Diarmuid Martin has called for an independent commission to investigate the case of Father Brendan Smyth who abused more than 100 children over 40 years. Top politicians have called for Cardinal Brady’s resignation because of his involvement in this case

Gerard O’Connell
Rome

As the dramatic crisis in the Irish Catholic Church deepened with calls for Cardinal Brady’s resignation over his role in an inquiry into the abuse of children by the notorious pedophile priest – Fr Brendan Smyth, the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin has called for the setting up of “an independent commission of investigation” into the abuse of children by that priest as the best way to arrive at the whole truth.

Archbishop Martin made his proposal when responding to questions from journalists on the crisis after celebrating Mass at St. Francis Xavier church in Dublin, Sunday, May 6. Hours later, a spokesman for Cardinal Brady said he “welcomed and supported” the proposal.

“I really believe that we need an independent Commission of investigation into the activities of Brendan Smyth and how he was allowed to abuse for so many years,” Archbishop Martin stated.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Hannover Zeitung

Hannover – Was führt zu Pädophilie, was zu sexuellem Kindesmissbrauch? Diesen Fragen widmen sich Wissenschaftler von fünf Universitäten in einem Forschungsprojekt, das Professor Dr. Tillmann Krüger von der Medizinischen Hochschule Hannover (MHH) koordiniert. Das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) bewilligte für das Vorhaben “Neurobiologische Grundlagen von Pädophilie und sexuellem Missbrauchsverhalten gegen Kinder” (NeMUP) zwei Millionen Euro. Das Projekt beginnt im Mai 2012 und dauert drei Jahre.

“Wir wollen die Grundlagen von Pädophilie sowie von sexuellem Kindesmissbrauch besser verstehen, um die Diagnostik und die Therapie zu verbessern und Minderjährige vor sexuellen Übergriffen zu schützen”, sagt Professor Krüger, Oberarzt der MHH-Klinik für Psychiatrie, Sozialpsychiatrie und Psychotherapie.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

Von Julia Jüttner

Eine katholische Jungenschule in Bonn verabreichte kranken Schülern jahrelang Zäpfchen. Die umstrittene Praxis wurde zwar eingestellt, ein Konzept zur Prävention von sexualisierter Gewalt erarbeitet. Doch die steht ausgerechnet unter der Leitung des Paters, der die Zäpfchen-Medikation befürwortete.

Das Collegium Josephinum im Norden von Bonn, CoJoBo genannt, kämpft um seinen bislang exzellenten Ruf. An der staatlich anerkannten katholischen Privatschule werden nur Jungen unterrichtet, 1200 insgesamt. Träger ist der Redemptoristenorden, einige Lehrer sind Patres. Einer von ihnen ist derzeit suspendiert. Zwei Elternpaare haben Anzeige erstattet, weil der Pater ihre Kinder missbraucht haben soll. Die Staatsanwaltschaft Bonn ermittelt.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Greg Harkin

Monday May 07 2012

THE abbot who moved paedophile priest Brendan Smyth from diocese to diocese but failed to prevent him abusing more children has said Cardinal Sean Brady must share some of the blame.

Father Kevin Smith is, by his own admission, partly responsible for the hundreds of crimes of child rape and abuse committed by Smyth.

But the former head of the Norbertine Order was also spreading the blame at the weekend.

Now 81 and forced out of his position as head of the order to which Smyth belonged, he called for Dr Brady to resign.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Paul Melia and Fiach Kelly

Monday May 07 2012

ALL staff involved in the production and broadcast of the ‘Prime Time Investigates’ programme into Fr Kevin Reynolds will be questioned as part of a probe into the affair.

The third and final probe into the Fr Kevin Reynolds affair is expected to be completed within the next month.

An external inquiry commissioned by RTE to examine personnel matters arising from the ‘Mission to Prey’ programme is expected to make its recommendations before the summer, it emerged last night.

Chaired by former senator and Northern Ireland ombudsman, Maurice Hayes, it was asked last month to investigate and make recommendations about RTE personnel involved in the programme.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sentinel

DETECTIVES have closed their investigation into paedophile priest Bede Walsh – unless any more victims come forward.

Walsh is currently serving 22 years in prison after sexually abusing eight boys during an 18-year period.

Four more men came forward during the course of this year’s trial at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court to claim they had also been sexually abused by Walsh.

But Staffordshire Police today confirmed they are not pursuing those complaints.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY and GERRY MORIARTY

CATHOLIC PRIMATE Cardinal Seán Brady has welcomed yesterday’s call for an independent inquiry into Fr Brendan Smyth’s abuse of children in Ireland and elsewhere over a 40-year period.

A spokesman for the cardinal said last night that he “welcomed and supported” the proposal made by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin.

Speaking after Mass at St Francis Xavier Church on Dublin’s Gardiner Street, Dr Martin said: “We’re getting all these bits and pieces of information about a horrible situation, what Brendan Smyth did to children.”

He believed “that until all of this story in its entirety comes out, we are not doing justice to those who were abused and we’re not really getting at the truth”.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Alf McCreary
Monday, 7 May 2012

One of the saddest sights this week has been watching Cardinal Sean Brady trying to defend the indefensible. He is a good man caught up in a public struggle for the soul of the Irish Catholic Church, and he is now well out of his depth.

Two years ago when the story broke about his involvement in a secret meeting with a young victim of the paedophile Brendan Smyth, I was one of the few commentators to suggest publicly that Cardinal Brady should resign.

Even then it was obvious to me that the game was up, and afterwards a number of prominent people told me privately that they agreed with my view.

However, Cardinal Brady chose to struggle on, in an attempt to spearhead reforms as a “wounded healer”. He has tried to do so with dignity and courage, and his many friends inside and outside the Catholic Church wince for this decent human being who became the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Katie Johnston
Globe Staff / May 7, 2012

The state on Monday launches a new online system to check criminal backgrounds that would provide wider and easier access for employers, but limit their searches of criminal history to 10 years back.

That limit, part of a new law that updates the system known as CORI, for Criminal Offender Record Information, is sparking a debate that pits the rights of employers to know the history of job applicants against the needs of people with decades-old convictions to work and move ahead with their lives.

It is also raising questions about the role of lightly regulated background-screening companies, which can dig far back into court records, sometimes reporting erroneous information about applicants to employers.

A coalition of 125 community organizations, religious institutions, and labor unions has proposed barring screening companies from using the state’s central system if they continue to rely on court records to gather more information than they can get in the registry. No other state has prohibited screening companies from using its CORI system if they also use the courts.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Published on Monday 7 May 2012

THIS is what I wrote in this column on March 22, 2010: “It has been an awfully bad week for the Catholic Church: which is really saying something when you consider its centuries’ long history of brutality, bullying, intimidation, suppression, corruption, war-mongering and persecution.

“I know one should always avoid the temptation to judge any organisation or religion by the actions of a few individuals, but what do you do when hundreds (maybe thousands) of individuals have betrayed their positions of trust and responsibility and when there is very clear evidence that their activities have been covered-up by their superiors?

“And what do you do when it is equally clear that the needs of the Catholic Church outweigh the hurt of the abuse victims?

“This isn’t just about a ‘few rotten apples’ in the bottom of the barrel, either. This is a scandal which embraces every level of the Catholic Church from the Pope himself to priests in the backs of cars and in the laundry rooms of orphanages. It’s about a culture of secrecy. It’s about the systematic abuse of the vulnerable.

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IRELAND
BBC News

An organisation which represents more than 850 priests in Ireland will hold a meeting on Monday to discuss the future direction of the Catholic Church.

The Vatican has recently criticised leading members of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) for expressing views which contradict Church teaching.

The ACP meeting comes at a turbulent time for the Church in Ireland.

Its leader, Cardinal Sean Brady, is facing calls to resign over his handling of a clerical sex abuse case.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Louise Hogan and Sean Ryan

Monday May 07 2012

A PRIEST has returned to the pulpit after taking a leave of absence while an allegation against him was investigated.

A large congregation gathered in the Church of the Assumption in Mooncoin, Co Kilkenny, as parish priest, Fr Peter Muldowney, returned to perform Mass for the first time since stepping down last September.

Fr Muldowney said last night he was “absolutely delighted, relieved and very happy to be back”.

Bishop Seamus Freeman, from the Diocese of Ossory, confirmed Fr Muldowney had sought a leave of absence from ministry to allow the diocese to investigate a “safeguarding matter” it had received concerning him. The bishop yesterday confirmed the “safeguarding matter has been withdrawn”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

BY PAT NOLAN AND THE AGE

07 May, 2012

THE parliamentary inquiry into clergy sexual abuse has had its funding cut, upsetting Ballarat-based victims and advocacy groups.

Victims say it is hardly a surprise to hear of the cut, claiming the inquiry was doomed to fail from the start.

Budget papers reveal the parliamentary committee in charge of the long-awaited inquiry into clergy sexual abuse has had its budget slashed by $200,000. Funding for all State Parliament committees has been trimmed from $6.9 million this financial year to $6.7 million for next financial year.

The cuts come just weeks after Premier Ted Baillieu announced the inquiry would take place.

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IRELAND
Scotsman

Published on Monday 7 May 2012

One of the highest ranking members of the Catholic Church in Ireland has called for an independent investigation into past allegations of clerical sex abuse.

As Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin spoke out against the past failings of the Church, another bishop defended Cardinal Sean Brady, whose involvement in a secret 1975 probe into allegations of abuse has come under fire.

Archbishop Martin said a commission should be set up to examine all accusations against paedophile priest Brendan Smyth. …

But Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise Colm O’Reilly said while the abuse carried out by Smyth was appalling, Cardinal Brady acted appropriately and should not resign.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

Editorial

Hawaii significantly strengthened its protections against child sexual abuse last month when Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed a measure extending the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits filed by child victims. At least as important, it opens a one-time two-year window to allow victims to file suits against their abusers even if the time limit had expired under the old law.

Like similar laws in California and Delaware, the Hawaii measure recognizes some wrenching realities. It can take many years, even decades, before child abuse victims are emotionally ready to come forward and tell their stories in court. But by then, they may be barred from suing by the statute of limitations. For example, many suits against the Catholic Church have been blocked because the church’s covering up for pedophile priests made it hard for victims to come forward until long past the time limit for bringing civil claims.

Hawaii’s new law allows child victims to bring suits up to the age of 26 (it was 20), or three years from the time the victim realizes the abuse caused injury. The law’s leading opponent was the Roman Catholic Church, which has been working hard to defeat statute of limitations reform across the country.

Lobbying by the church recently succeeded in blocking reform in Pennsylvania. But lawmakers in Massachusetts seem ready to follow Hawaii’s example by passing similar reforms.

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IRELAND
RTE News

At least 900 people are expected to attend a conference in Dublin today which aims to plot a way forward for the Catholic Church here.

The event’s main organiser is the Association of Catholic Priests, which has been at the centre of controversy in recent weeks

Its principal organiser, the Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland, has been at the centre of controversy since it became known that the Vatican has been censoring at least five of its members.

The principal organiser, Fr Tony Flannery, will not be speaking because he has been silenced by the Vatican and ordered to spend six weeks praying and reflecting on some of his writings, which Rome consider unorthodox.

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MARYLAND
Patch

By Brian Hooks

Mary-Marguerite Kohn, co-rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Ellicott City, has died of injuries suffered in a shooting Thursday night in which a church administrator was also killed, Howard County police said Sunday.

A man whose body was found nearby is believed to have shot the women and then turned the gun on himself, police said.

Kohn, 62, of Arbutus, was pronounced dead at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma unit Saturday night, police said. …

Kohn was listed as an affiliate faculty member at the Loyola Graduate School of pastoral counseling. Part of her studies involved researching the needs of survivors of clergy sexual abuse, according to the Sirdan Institute, a non-profit organization based in Brooklandville that helps people recover from traumatic events.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KSDK

Written by
Courtney Gousman

St. Louis (KSDK)– Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York City, is also facing some scrutiny from a national group that deals with sexual abuse allegations surrounding Catholic clergy, while returning home to St. Louis. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priest, or S.N.A.P., protested Sunday afternoon outside Cardinal Dolan’s mass.

Sunday, it became very clear that both Cardinal Dolan and S.N.A.P. have their differences.

About a half dozen people backing S.N.A.P. protested outside the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis this afternoon. Leaders of the group handed out about 200 flyers to parishioners on their way into mass. The flyers expressed the group’s disapproval with Cardinal Dolan’s track record when involved with clergy sexual abuse cases.

S.N.A.P. supporters spoke specifically of one case based out of New York City that they believe Cardinal Dolan is not taking seriously.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Times

Published: Monday, May 07, 2012

There is no simple way to ease the pain of child abuse.

When the source of that abuse is one of the most trusted figures in a child’s life, it would seem recovery is almost an impossible task.

So Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput should not be surprised if the faithful in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia are less than thrilled by the progress made in the archdiocese’s investigation of 26 priests suspended last year over allegations of sexual misconduct with children.

On Friday, nearly 14 months after former Philadelphia archbishop Cardinal Justin Rigali placed the 26 priests on administrative leave while complaints against them were reviewed by a team headed by former Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Gina Maisto Smith, Chaput announced that only eight cases had been resolved.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Coventry Telegraph

By Tina Junday
May 7 2012

A LETTER has revealed the Catholic Church knew a paedophile priest had an “unwholesome relationship” with a man – 25 years before he was jailed for sexually abusing boys.

James Robinson, who worked as a priest in several parishes across the Midlands, including St Elizabeth’s Church, in Foleshill, Coventry fled to America in 1985 – days after police were first alerted by a victim about being abused by the ex-priest when he was a child.

But in October that year, a letter – which has been obtained by the Sunday Mercury – was sent on behalf of the Archbishop of Birmingham, Maurice Couve de Murville to Reverend Monsignor John Rawden, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

It was written by Monsignor Canon Daniel Leonard, Vicar General of the Archdiocese, who made no reference to the shocking allegations of child sexual abuse against Robinson and later proven, in his correspondence.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

SEÁN KEANE

A CO KILKENNY priest falsely accused of child abuse has returned to his parish after taking leave of absence while the matter was investigated.

The Church of the Assumption in Mooncoin was full on Saturday night as Fr Peter Muldowney returned to say Mass for the first time since September 24th, 2011, when he asked for leave.

He was assisted in the Mass by his bishop, Dr Séamus Freeman, who welcomed the Kilmanagh native back to the parish.

Addressing parishioners, Fr Muldowney thanked them for their support and invited everyone back to the parochial house. He received a round of applause from the congregation.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE CONFERENCE room at the Regency Hotel on Dublin’s Swords Road has a capacity of 735. It is where an event the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) entitles “Towards an Assembly of the Irish Catholic Church” is to take place from today.

The room may not be big enough this morning. Aimed at laity and clergy alike, it is expected to be “a sellout”, as one priest said at the weekend. Bishops, too, have been invited.

There are 815 priest members of the association alone. But, following recent disclosures of the censuring of Irish priests by Rome in the BBC This World documentary last week, which detailed Cardinal Seán Brady’s inquiries into serial paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth, what was expected to be a well-attended event now looks like being overcrowded.

That one of those priests censured by Rome is Fr Tony Flannery of the ACP leadership team will serve as just another incentive for restive Catholics to attend this gathering on what is also a bank holiday Monday.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

IT WAS June 7th, 2001, at the cathedral in Cavan town and the Catholic primate Archbishop (as he still was) Seán Brady was in jovial mood. At a Mass marking the golden jubilee of the ordination of his old boss Bishop Francis McKiernan, who retired in 1998, he began a warm tribute by saying he was “tempted to offer the prayer of the man who fell into the vat of stout in Guinness’s brewery. He prayed, ‘Lord give me a mouth worthy of this glorious opportunity’.”

Archbishop Brady recalled that it was “some 49 years since I first met the then Fr McKiernan. He was in St Patrick’s College, [Cavan] for the second time, I, for the first – he as teacher, I as student”. As Fr Brady, he returned to teach at St Patrick’s in 1967 and was there until 1980. During that time he was secretary to Bishop McKiernan, based too in Cavan town. In 1975, Fr Brady conducted the two inquiries which led to faculties to minister in Kilmore diocese being withdrawn from child abuser Brendan Smyth.

But apart from the teacher-pupil, bishop-secretary relationship he had with Bishop McKiernan, in June 2001 Archbishop Brady had another reason to be grateful to his old mentor. Bishop McKiernan had kept his name out of the loop when the sky fell in following the 1994 jailing of Fr Brendan Smyth in Belfast.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Irish Times

GERRY MORIARTY Northern Editor, in Armagh

“THERE IS too much Churchianity in the Catholic Church and not enough Christianity,” said Mary O Vallely outside St Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh as Mass-goers left 11.30am Mass yesterday.

There was no sign of Catholic Primate of All Ireland Cardinal Seán Brady at either of the two morning Masses in the cathedral, 9am or 11.30am. The chief celebrant for the later Mass was the cathedral’s administrator, Fr Eugene Sweeney.

A spokesman for the cardinal said he was in the diocese and had celebrated Mass yesterday, although he did not know where.

Fr Sweeney made no reference to the controversy surrounding Cardinal Brady to the hundreds of people in the cathedral, except obliquely during the prayers of the faithful when he prayed for all those who were anxious and hurt at the “legacy” of the clerical child sex abuse scandals.

There were mixed views among the faithful outside the cathedral. Some would not offer any comments apart from criticising the media for covering the issue. Others felt he had failed children who were abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth, while others again felt fault lay not with him but with superiors to whom he reported the abuse in 1975.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

MARIE O’HALLORAN

UNION REACTION: THE Broadcasting Authority of Ireland report into RTÉ’s Mission to Prey programme gave the impression that reporter Aoife Kavanagh had a “degree of executive responsibility that she did not have”, according to National Union of Journalists Irish secretary Séamus Dooley.

“You could get the impression from the report that Aoife Kavanagh was going on some kind of solo run in the legal aspects of the programme, and nothing could be further from the truth,” said Mr Dooley, who is the union representative for Ms Kavanagh and former current affairs editor Ken O’Shea.

The Prime Time Investigates documentary libelled Fr Kevin Reynolds, claiming he had sexually abused a young girl and fathered her child while a missionary in Kenya. The BAI report was highly critical of journalistic standards involved in the broadcast and found a significant failure of editorial and managerial control within RTÉ.

“Our concern is in relation to post-transmission events,” Mr Dooley said. He said one of the issues involved a letter in reply to Fr Reynolds’s solicitors Fair & Murtagh that was signed by the reporter.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

HARRY McGEE

BACKGROUND: Four members of ‘Mission to Prey’ team argued over findings on journalistic standards

SUBMISSIONS MADE by the team involved with RTÉ’s Mission to Prey to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland made detailed defences of its journalistic standards and some key editorial decisions, while conceding the programme had seriously defamed Fr Kevin Reynolds.

Four members of the production team made submissions following the completion of a draft report by investigating officer Anne Carragher in February and took issue with some of its findings. The submissions were made by reporter Aoife Kavanagh; producer Mark Lappin; executive producer Brian Páircéir; and head of current affairs Ken O’Shea.

The submissions were not released by the authority but the details strongly defended key decision-making processes and challenged conclusions reached by Ms Carragher’s draft reports. None of the submissions altered the final report or findings, save for a brief paragraph summarising what was said.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

MARIE O’HALLORAN

THE MEETING between Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte and the RTÉ board tomorrow should not be turned into a sacking issue, said Simon Coveney.

The Minister for Agriculture said Mr Rabbitte would come to Cabinet with “some views and recommendations” after the meeting. It follows publication of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s investigation report into the Mission to Prey documentary, which libelled Fr Kevin Reynolds.

“Legally the position is clear,” Mr Coveney said. “The board and board members ultimately have responsibility for editorial management and programming in RTÉ.” But “that isn’t to suggest that sacking the board will solve all problems”.

Mr Coveney said on RTÉ radio: “I don’t think people should build this up into whether or not the board is going to be sacked.”

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Editorial Board, Sunday, May 6

BY THE CATHOLIC Church’s reckoning, it has undergone a sea change since the days when sexual predators in clerical collars sexually abused young boys with scant fear of dismissal, reprimand or even excessive concern by their supervisors. American dioceses have paid billions of dollars in compensation to victims, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued what amounts to a zero-tolerance policy and Pope Benedict XVI has apologized to victims of clergy sexual abuse here and in Ireland.

Yet despite the hierarchy’s insistence that it is investigating and rooting out sex criminals, the church often seems stuck in a defensive crouch. Too often it has failed to move against abusers and those who tolerate them until forced to do so by legal action or the threat of full-blown scandal.

In its reluctance to discipline Catholic leaders who covered up or ignored sex crimes, the church also deepens the impression that it remains focused more on safeguarding its image than protecting victims.

That’s the lesson in the story of the Rev. Bradley M. Schaeffer, for many years one of the most prominent Jesuit leaders in America. As the Boston Globe reported last month, Mr. Schaeffer, as leader of the Jesuits in Chicago in the 1990s, was presented with credible complaints from family members that a priest under his supervision was sexually abusing young boys. The priest, Donald J. McGuire, had been the subject of similar reports going back to the 1960s.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

A photo caption with a chart in Saturday’s Inquirer misstated the background of a suspended priest who has been restored to active ministry. Msgr. Michael Flood has been pastor of St. Luke the Evangelist Church in Glenside, Montgomery County, since 1995.

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GLENSIDE (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Jeremy Roebuck
Inquirer Staff Writer

“We are born from the darkness,” read the sign out front at St. Luke the Evangelist Church on Saturday, a reference to the Catholic teachings of original sin and salvation.

But a day after the Glenside parish’s popular pastor, Msgr. Michael Flood, was cleared to return to his post, the message could have described the mood of his waiting congregants as well.

“It’s like we’ve been under this dark cloud,” said John Ginty, 48, a lifelong parishioner. “I can’t wait to see him again and give him a big hug.”

Flood, 72, was one of three priests reinstated Friday after archdiocesan officials cleared them of allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct with minors. And though the monsignor did not attend Saturday Mass in his parish – the first since his restoration to active ministry – his presence permeated the service.

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SALINA (KS)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Salina

Written by Doug Weller

Thursday, 26 April 2012

Salina — Bishop-elect Edward Weisenburger celebrated all of the weekend Masses at Sacred Heart Cathedral and took the opportunity to talk to parishioners about their pastor, Father Allen Scheer, who has been placed on administrative leave.

Father Scheer, 49, was charged April 18 with a misdemeanor count of inappropriate sexual contact with an adult man in Salina.

He pleaded not guilty April 20 in Saline County District Court and requested a jury trial, which was set for 9 a.m. Aug. 15.

Father Randall Weber, who is moderator of the diocesan curia, was named temporary administrator of the cathedral parish after Father Scheer was placed on leave, in accord with standard diocesan policies.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE ARCHBISHOP OF Dublin has called for an independent commission to investigate the abuse of children by Fr Brendan Smyth.

Diarmuid Martin said only a full inquiry would reveal the “full story” of Fr Smyth’s crimes, and how he was allowed to continue abusing for so long.

He said the abuse was of “such a dimension” – taking place in the Republic, Northern Ireland and the US – that only an international investigation would be sufficient.

Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week, Martin said he was calling for:

An independent commission of investigation into the activities of Brendan Smyth, as to how he was allowed to abuse for so many years. A commission that would look north and south, Church and State.

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IRELAND
RTE News

The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, has called for an independent international commission of inquiry into the crimes of Fr Brendan Smyth, the late paedophile priest.

Dr Martin said such an inquiry was owed to victims and that it would be in the public interest that the full story, and not bits and pieces, should come out.

Meanwhile, Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise Colm O’Reilly has described as “bizarre” the interview methods used by Cardinal Seán Brady during a Church inquiry into clerical child sexual abuse in the 1970s.

However, he said he felt Cardinal Brady should not stand aside as Catholic Primate of Ireland as he believed the then Fr Brady acted conscientiously.

Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week, Bishop O’Reilly also said he did not know why there is a difficulty with Cardinal Brady making a public apology to Brendan Boland, who was abused by Fr Smyth.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Sunday, May 06, 2012

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has called for an independent investigation into past allegations of clerical sex abuse.

As Archbishop Martin spoke out against the past failings of the Church, another bishop defended Cardinal Sean Brady, whose involvement in a secret 1975 probe into allegations of abuse has come under fire.

Archbishop Martin said a commission should be set up to examine all accusations against paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

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IRELAND
The Independent (United Kingdom)

Lyndsey Telford

Sunday 06 May 2012

One of the highest ranking members of the Catholic Church in Ireland has called for an independent investigation into past allegations of clerical sex abuse.

As Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin spoke out against the past failings of the Church, another bishop defended Cardinal Sean Brady, whose involvement in a secret 1975 probe into allegations of abuse has come under fire.

Archbishop Martin said a commission should be set up to examine all accusations against paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

“I know it’s not fashionable to talk about commissions, but I believe an independent commission to investigate the activities of Brendan Smyth, as to how he was allowed to abuse for so many years – north and south, church and state,” Archbishop Martin told RTE.

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ROME
Irish Central

By
DARA KELLY,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Sunday, May 6, 2012

Controversial former Boston archbishop Cardinal Bernard F. Law reportedly pressed the Vatican to investigate the largest association of Catholic nuns in the United States, according to Boston.com.

On April 18, the Vatican announced its initiative to ensure U.S. nuns conform to Church doctrine.

The Vatican has accused the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which is based in Silver Spring, Md., and represents about 57,000 nuns, of undermining Roman Catholic teaching on the priesthood and homosexuality.

Robert Mickens, a columnist for The Tablet, a British Catholic weekly, reported that the Vatican’s crackdown was petitioned by Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori and that Law was “the person in Rome most forcefully supporting Bishop Lori’s proposal.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Tyrone Times

Published on Sunday 6 May 2012

A POMEROY priest, who “inadvertently” showed indecent images during a presentation at a primary school, is to take sabbatical leave from his parish.

In a statement which was published in the weekend church bulletin, Fr Martin

McVeigh said he had asked Cardinal Sean Brady to allow him to leave the parish of Pomeroy and to take sabbatical leave.

He said the last month had been “the most difficult of my life”.

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NEDERLAND
Katholiek Nieuws

Wim Deetman had het al gezegd: het seksueel misbruik in de katholieke Kerk vormt ‘slechts’ een fractie van een veel bredere maatschappelijke realiteit. En dat je het celibaat niet de schuld van het misbruik kunt geven.

‘Dat zegt ie natuurlijk om zijn kerkelijke opdrachtgevers een beetje te troosten’, hoorde je sommigen denken. Maar is seksueel misbruik voornamelijk een ding uit het verleden; toen de roomse nog onaantastbare clerici nog veel invloed hadden op alle plekken in de samenleving?

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BELGIE
De Standaard

[mit video]

De Katholieke Universiteit Leuven heeft vier proffen weggestuurd door klachten over seksueel misbruik. De zaken zijn ondertussen verjaard. De slachtoffers kwamen er pas een paar jaar geleden mee naar buiten. Ze deden dat in de nasleep van andere gevallen van seksueel misbruik, zoals de pedofilieschandalen in de kerk. De universiteit sluit niet uit dat er nu nog andere gevallen zullen opduiken. Ze verzekeren dat ze alle klachten serieus zullen nemen.

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VATICAN CITY
Canada.com

Agence France-Presse
May 6, 2012

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI called Sunday on charities to join the fight against child abuse, singling out an Italian anti-pedophilia group for praise.

“I address my cordial salute in particular to the association Meter, which promotes engagement in favour of child victims of violence,” the pope told thousands of worshippers gathered at Saint Peter’s Square on a rainy Sunday.

The Catholic community has been rocked by sex-abuse scandals dating back decades, and Meter is a pioneer in Italy in terms of work against abuse by priests.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
CATHY HAYES,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Sunday, May 6, 2012,

Young and old alike were signing a national petition launched on Friday by concerned local people in Donegal calling on Cardinal Sean Brady to resign from his post as Primate of All Ireland.

The online version of the petition has already been by people within Ireland, but also in England, Spain and the United States. Aside from individual concerns, no specific organization or group was behind the initiative, which comes at a time of social and spiritual uncertainty in the county and the country.

Entitled the “Peoples’ Petition,” the campaign was launched in the town of Falcarragh in the western part of the county, an area where multiple instances of child sex abuse by priests has taken place over the years, especially at the hands of convicted pedophile and former priest Eugene Green, found to have abused more than 26 children.

Sean Hillen one of the leaders behind the initiative, explained the reason for what he termed the “Peoples’ Petition.”

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IRELAND
BBC News

The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, has called for an independent international commission of inquiry into the crimes of paedophile priest, the late Fr Brendan Smyth.

Dr Diarmuid Martin said Smyth’s victims were owed such an inquiry.

It would be in the public interest that the full story came out, not bits and pieces, he told RTE Radio 1 on Sunday.

His comments follow a week when the Irish Primate came under pressure over his role in a 1975 inquiry into Smyth.

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UNITED KINGDOM/UNITED STATES
BBC News

The Catholic Archdiocese in Birmingham has defended the way it deals with cases of sexual abuse involving priests.

It comes after a letter leaked to the media suggesting the church knew a former Coventry priest had been in an “unwholesome relationship”.

The letter concerned former priest James Robinson who was jailed in 2010 for 21 years over sexual offences.

Peter Jennings from the diocese told the BBC he knew nothing of the letter.

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IRELAND
UTV

Published Sunday, 06 May 2012

The Archbishop of Dublin is calling for a full independent inquiry into the activities of paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth.

It comes in the wake of this week’s BBC documentary, centred on All-Ireland primate Cardinal Sean Brady’s role in the church’s initial investigation in 1975.

The programme included claims that then Fr Brady failed to adequately protect children against the notorious child molester.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin says a full commission of investigation should take place, covering both Northern Ireland and the Republic.

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IRELAND
Huffington Post

One of the highest ranking members of the Catholic Church in Ireland has called for an independent investigation into past allegations of clerical sex abuse.

As Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin spoke out against the past failings of the Church, another bishop defended Cardinal Sean Brady, whose involvement in a secret 1975 probe into allegations of abuse has come under fire.

Archbishop Martin said a commission should be set up to examine all accusations against paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

“I know it’s not fashionable to talk about commissions, but I believe an independent commission to investigate the activities of Brendan Smyth, as to how he was allowed to abuse for so many years – north and south, church and state,” Archbishop Martin told RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

Patsy McGarry Religious Affairs Correspondent

An independent commission of investigation ought to be set up to inquire into the abuse of children by Fr Brendan Smyth, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said. This was necessary as “the Brendan Smyth story is of such a dimension,” he said earlier today.

Where Cardinal Brady was concerned he said “I’ve never called for anybody’s resignation, I’ve never done that. Everybody has to make their own decisions.”

Asked about the censuring of Irish priests by the Vatican he believed the best way to deal with such cases was to address them first in Ireland. “I think the Theological Commission of the Irish bishops has not been carrying out its function as in other countries where this dialogue would take place as a first stage and then be resolved without it necessarily being dealt with from Rome directly,” he said. He “would have preferred that these matters be dealt with in a dialogue…in a robust dialogue within the Irish church.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Cormac McQuinn

Saturday May 05 2012

As the parents and children of the sleepy northern village of Pomeroy gather today for this year’s First Holy Communion ceremony, they will be doing so without local priest Fr Martin McVeigh.

A pillar of the community who was highly respected in Tyrone GAA circles, Fr McVeigh has been on “sabbatical leave” after becoming embroiled in controversy after inadvertently showing gay pornographic slides to a group of parents.

Fr McVeigh denies the images were his and the PSNI says he has no case to answer.

But the controversy has refused to go away — with a bizarre series of subsequent events further adding to the intrigue.

These include the theft of a laptop and the circulation of rumours that Fr McVeigh was “set up” by persons unknown.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Eyewitness News

Theo Nkonki | 06 May 2012
JOHANNESBURG – Police on Sunday said they are hopeful that they will soon arrest a priest who allegedly raped a ten-year-old girl, during a night prayer in Braamfischerville, Soweto.

The incident allegedly happened on 14 April but the girl only reported the matter to police on Friday.

She claimed that during the vigil, the man took her to another room to pray for her, but then raped her.

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IRELAND
Breaking News

06/05/2012

The solicitor for Fr Kevin Reynolds has said the chairman of RTE Tom Savage is ultimately responsible for the errors in the ‘Mission to Prey’ programme which libelled the priest.

According to a report in today’s Sunday Independent, Solicitor Robert Dore said: “The buck stops with the head of the board.”

Mr Dore said he was not calling for the chairman’s resignation, but said Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte would have his full support if he felt that there was a need for resignations.

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UNITED STATES/UNITED KINGDOM
Sunday Mercury

Catholic church knew pervert priest had “unwholesome relationship” 25 years before he was jailed for sexually abusing boys

May 6 2012 by Jonny Greatrex, Sunday Mercury

THIS is the letter that sensationally reveals that the Catholic Church KNEW a paedophile priest had “an unwholesome relationship” – 25 years BEFORE he was jailed for sexually abusing six boys.

James Robinson, who worked in parishes across the Midlands, fled to America in 1985 – days after police were first alerted by a victim that he had been abused by the ex-priest when he was a child.

Yet in October of that year a letter was sent on behalf of the then Archbishop of Birmingham, Maurice Couve de Murville, by Monsignor Canon Daniel Leonard, Vicar General of the Archdiocese, to Reverend Monsignor John Rawden, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The Birmingham Vicar General made no reference to the shocking allegations of child sex abuse that had been levelled against Robinson, and were later proven, in his correspondence.

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IRELAND
Limerick Post

by Rebekah Commane

Monday, 30 April 2012

SURVIVORS of institutional abuse are calling for the reopening of The Redress Board and for more transparency on plans for a €110 million trust fund. The Right of Place/Second Chance Group believes that many people were not ready to come forward to the Board and apply for compensation while it was open, but they may now want to do so. In its recently published annual report, the group also called on the government to publish plans for the trust fund contributed to by 18 religious congregations. Right of Place/Second Chance Outreach Co-ordinator for HSE West, Val Groarke, said the group is worried that the government are dragging their feet in coming up with criteria for recipients of the fund.

He urged the government to supplement the fund on an annual basis to allow survivors who have not yet come forward, to access it.

“I believe that there are a lot of people out there who didn’t get the redress,” Mr. Groarke told the Limerick Post.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sunday May 06 2012

CONTEMPT for authority has become so ubiquitous these days that it’s the self-proclaimed individualists who all end up thinking and sounding alike, and those who, by remaining faithful to tradition, are actually the last remaining non-conformists.

All the same, the fact remains. Ours is an age which worships mavericks. Free thinking and iconoclasm are held up as ideals. Duty and obedience are scorned.

It’s Archbishop Sean Brady’s misfortune to be caught in the pincer movement between those two forces and to find himself radically at odds with his society as a result. He is clearly a man who needs the comfort and solidarity that comes from subsuming one’s identity into a greater whole; who is temperamentally suited to belonging. Many priests are.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By DON LAVERY

Sunday May 06 2012

Vatican likely to appoint coadjutor bishop for top churchman under fire over documentary

CARDINAL Sean Brady — under increasing pressure over his failure as a priest to report child rape allegations to civil authorities — will effectively be replaced by a coadjutor bishop within months when Rome finally acts to deal with the latest fallout from the activities of notorious paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth.

Despite a week of unrelenting demands for Dr Brady to resign from Smyth’s victims, child abuse groups, politicians, and some clergy, the indications were yesterday that the cardinal has no intention of resigning, particularly as he will play a role in the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin next month.

However, with just two years to go to his retirement age of 75, the Vatican, which will also consider reports from the Papal Nuncio’s office, is to appoint a coadjutor bishop this year who will be a successor to the cardinal.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Thursday May 03 2012

Almost two decades after playing a major role in the collapse of the 1993-4 Fianna Fail/Labour coalition, the crimes of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth continue to cast a long shadow over Irish life.

Now, not for the first time, Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland’s Catholics, finds himself forced to explain his role in the Church’s investigation into Fr Smyth’s crimes.

In 1975, the then Fr Sean Brady was called upon to assist in the investigation of allegations of sexual abuse made by several children against Fr Smyth. His role in the investigation was a relatively junior one. He first acted as a notetaker in the interview of one of Fr Smyth’s victims and subsequently interviewed a second child who had been identified as a victim of Fr Smyth in the first interview.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sunday May 06 2012

The betrayal of trust that has led to the national broadcaster and self-styled watchdog of the citizen being found guilty by the BAI of the same ‘groupthink’ that characterised the rest of our discredited institutions is bad enough.

What should be of even greater concern, however, is that the station is behaving in the same manner as some FF minister caught with his hand in the ‘greasy till’. All of last week’s Fianna Fail-speak about “grave errors”, “lessons learnt”, “regrettable period in our history”, and most importantly of all, from the viewpoint of RTE, the need to move on, does not disguise the fact that despite its current sheep’s clothing of sorrow, RTE still runs with the ideological wolves.

RTE, however, should not be allowed to move on quite as quickly as it wants to. The libelling of Fr Reynolds did not, to borrow one of the favoured phrases of the Minister for Communications, grow like Topsy. It was instead merely the worse efflorescence of a systemic culture of arrogance, which reached its apotheosis in the even more disturbing Sean Gallagher/Frontline affair. RTE’s Mission to Prey is just one sordid example of how that station has used its protected state to drive a liberal-centred Kulturkampf into the living rooms of a trusting citizenry. The station may publicly cherish its impartiality but the reality is best summarised by the Elizabeth Barrett Browning sonnet about “How do I love thee, let me count the ways”.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Eilis O’Hanlon

Sunday May 06 2012

Lawyers are the bane of a journalist’s life. Sometimes it seems as if their only function is to stop us saying what we really want to say. They even quibble over commas.

Theirs may be one of the most important jobs in journalism — saving us all from making fools of ourselves and paupering the organs for which we work — but oh, the frustration.

In that respect, the most alarming finding from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) report into the defaming of Fr Kevin Reynolds, published on Friday, has to be that the RTE legal department only became involved in that fateful edition of Prime Time Investigates a mere two weeks before the programme was due to broadcast false allegations that he had fathered a child with a minor whilst on a mission in Africa.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Maeve Sheehan

Sunday May 06 2012

In October 2010, the Prime Time Investigates team kicked around ideas for programmes the following spring. Aoife Kavanagh went to Brian Pairceir, the programme editor, with an idea: a show looking at Irish missionaries in Africa, in the context of an alleged clerical abuse.

She was an experienced reporter and on an upward trajectory in RTE. Originally from Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, she cut her teeth on the Examiner and moved from there to RTE in 1996. She worked on the flagship morning news show, Morning Ireland, as well as covering foreign news for television, including American elections, African elections, and fronted a whole series on Ireland’s overseas development programme.

Her biography on RTE’s website describes her “passion for Africa” and her “slightly warped fondness” for the difficulties of travelling and working in hot spots.

Given her background, it wasn’t surprising that Pairceir should take her idea seriously. She hadn’t worked on Prime Time Investigates before but her record spoke for itself.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By JEROME REILLY

Sunday May 06 2012

THE record fine of €200,000 imposed on RTE over the Fr Reynolds fiasco will end up in the hands of Finance Minister Michael Noonan.

According to Section 55 of the 2009 Broadcasting Act all fines made to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) have to be paid into or disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer “in such manner as the Minister for Finance may direct”.

The BAI had the option of imposing a fine of up to €250,000, but the sanction against the national broadcaster is still the biggest ever.

With RTE already facing a financial crisis, it will ultimately be the taxpayer who will have to pay the fine via the TV licence fee.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Jody Corcoran

Sunday May 06 2012

THE approach of RTE to the controversies which have dogged News and Current Affairs in recent months has been one of pre-emptive containment.

Each step of the way, the broadcaster has shown itself to do just about enough to meet the obvious requirement for action in the face of damning evidence.

This approach was again evident on Friday upon publication of the Broadcasting Association of Ireland (BAI) findings, and the report of the investigator, Anna Carragher, into the Prime Time Investigates: A Mission to Prey programme.

The timing of that publication, at the start of a bank holiday weekend, at a time when the media, and the public in general, were focussed on another significant issue, is a curious aspect in itself.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By RONALD QUINLAN

Sunday May 06 2012

AHASCRAGH in Co Galway was a picture of innocence and tranquillity yesterday as the small, tightly knit community came together in St Cuan’s Church to celebrate the first holy communion of 21 children drawn from the town and surrounding countryside.

Presiding over what one local described as the “happiest day of the year” was Fr Kevin Reynolds. What a difference a year makes.

For one year ago to the very day, the quiet and unassuming parish priest had his world, life’s work and vocation turned upside down by the appalling misdeeds of State broadcaster RTE’s Prime Time Investigates team and its programme A Mission to Prey.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By NIAMH HORAN

Sunday May 06 2012

RTE JOURNALIST Aoife Kavanagh chose to resign from her highly paid job as a Morning Ireland presenter rather than languish in the archive unit, an RTE source said. Her resignation, announced by the NUJ, took management by surprise.

High-level discussions will take place early next week on her severance terms.

The reporter has worked in RTE for the last 15 years in News and Current Affairs.

Sources close to Ms Kavanagh said that there was “no question” of her taking a legal case against the state broadcaster. Other RTE personnel involved in the programme have either stepped down or moved sideways.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By NIAMH HORAN EXCLUSIVE

Sunday May 06 2012

THE solicitor for Fr Kevin Reynolds has piled pressure on RTE chairman Tom Savage to resign by insisting that he is ultimately responsible for the catastrophic errors of the Prime Time Investigates programme A Mission To Prey.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent yesterday, Robert Dore said: “The buck stops with the head man in RTE. The head of the board.”

He added: “If there are defective procedures within RTE that permitted this to happen, the responsibility for those defective procedures must go to the very top.”

The solicitor’s comments follow the publication of a damning report on the RTE programme by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), which criticised journalistic standards and a lack of editorial and managerial controls.

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IRELAND
Kilkenny People

Published on Sunday 6 May 2012

A KILKENNY priest falsely accused of child abuse has returned to his parish after taking a leave of absence while the matter was sorted out writes Sean Keane. The Church of The Assumption in Mooncoin in the south of the county was full on Saturday night as Fr Peter Muldowney, returned to say Mass for the first time since September 24, 2010 when he asked for a leave of absence. He was assisted in the Mass by his bishop, Dr Seamus Freeman who welcomed the Kilmanagh native back to the parish where he has been doing great work for the last number of years.

Addressing the parishioners, Fr Muldowney thanked them for their support and invited everyone back to the parochial house after the service for tea and sandwiches. He received a round of applause from the congregation.

Speaking to the Kilkenny People, he said he was relieved and happy to be back and that everyone who knew him was aware that he was innocent. He bears no grudges over what happened.

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FLORIDA
Orlando Sentinel

By Erika Pesantes and Mike Clary, Sun Sentinel

He called his unlicensed foster home “London’s Hotel,” and there were always plenty of young boys checking in.

As a counselor at the Boys & Girls Club, a mentor at his Sistrunk Boulevard church and then a dean at a Lauderdale Lakes charter school, Jeffery London had access to dozens of poor and often-neglected kids who were too much for their financially strapped parents or other relatives to handle.

“Me and the boys. We became a family,” London said in a 2004 interview.

But inside London’s Hotel, say Broward prosecutors, at least some of the boys were subjected to a horrifying regime of sexual abuse occurring even as one of Broward County’s most respected charities paid for his Lauderdale Lakes home, bankrolled trips to colleges and the Grand Canyon, and funded his position as Eagle Academy dean of students.

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UNITED STATES
Tulsa World

By GINNIE GRAHAM World Staff Writer

Child sexual abuse is woefully under-reported and harder to detect, says a Tulsa woman who created an abuse prevention program.

“The biggest difference is that other types of physical abuse can occur in public, and sex abuse is a private crime,” Sharon Doty said. “The prevention and treatment of sex abuse is something distinctly different. The reporting is outrageously low, especially for boys.”

Sexual abuse of a child represented about 5 percent of substantiated abuse and neglect cases in fiscal year 2011, according to statistics from the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.

Doty created a sex abuse prevention program that has been adopted in 122 Catholic dioceses in the nation, with about 1.5 million people going through the workshops. It focuses on understanding the behavior of predators and how to intervene.

She created the nonprofit group Empowering Adults – Protecting Children, and has written the book “Evil in Our Midst” to spread the word of prevention.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sunday May 06 2012

Senior church figures in the Vatican have come, once again, to the defence of the now intensely beleaguered Cardinal Sean Brady.

In 1975 Fr Sean Brady, a 36-year-old canon lawyer, was appointed to be one of three churchmen conducting an inquiry into the sexual molestation of children by the Norbertine priest Brendan Smyth. Sean Brady says now, as he said after the publication of the Murphy report in 2009, that he had believed the children’s allegations. And that he presumed that when he passed his report to his superiors, he believed in good faith that it would be followed up to protect those children and others. At the time, after one session in company with the other religious lawyers, and one where he questioned at least one child alone, he swore them to secrecy about their abuse. He did nothing further.

Those are the bones of the actions which the Vatican was defending last week, saying he “acted correctly”. And that is the core of the problem. He did act “correctly” according to canon law. He did not act compassionately; he did not act responsibly; he did not act justly.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Colum Kenny: ‘You never got to like it?’ The answer to that sinister, suspicious, insinuating, abusive question remains ‘No’

By Colum Kenny

Sunday May 06 2012

‘You never got to like it?” That was one of the remarkable questions put to Brendan Boland when he was interrogated by priests in 1975 after reporting to the Catholic Church his sexual abuse at the hands of Fr Brendan Smyth.

“You never got to like it?” The question itself is abusive. It serves no obvious good purpose. I sought an explanation for it last week, but was told only that the entire exercise was intended “to gather evidence against the criminal priest”.

A spokesperson for Cardinal Sean Brady, who was present as a priest at that investigation in 1975, told me that Brady “did not construct those questions or ask those questions”. But he was there and he signed off on them (as plain “John” and not “Sean” Brady).

“You never got to like it?” Being abused, that is. The answer that Boland gave to the three priests was an absolute “No”.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

A new reference book on the Archdiocese of Dublin which lists every priest who served there up to 2011 leaves out some important names.

The 400-page book, The Archbishops, Bishops and Priests who served in the Archdiocese of Dublin 1900-2011, gives the names and CVs of the nearly 2,000 priests who have served since 1900 — except those guilty of sex abuse, who have been airbrushed from history.

The book is written by Fr J Anthony Gaughan, author, historian, former UCD chaplain and retired parish priest in Blackrock, Co Dublin. It includes a foreword by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, praising the work as giving due recognition to the ordinary priests who would not otherwise be recorded in the annals of history.

To date, the Dublin Archdiocese has paid out over €13.5m in compensation to victims of abuse, well over 500 victims have been identified, at least eight priests have faced criminal cases and civil actions have been brought against 35 priests, all of whom were part of the archdiocese.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

Dianne Williamson
dwilliamson@telegram.com

The Rev. Donald J. Peters sat outside the crowded courtroom, his tall frame folded and hunched, as though single-handedly absorbing the pain of a parish in torment.

“This is one of the saddest days of my life,” he said softly. “But it’s also one of the most important. It’s about truth, which is a basic tenet of orthodox theology. … I truly believe that almost every person in that room feels the pain in a different way.”

He was referring to Room 24 of Central District Court, which was filled, quite literally, with a church divided. On one side sat those loyal to the Rev. Charles Michael Abdelahad, 55, pastor on leave of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral, now a criminal defendant in a bizarre sexual assault case. On the other side, supporters of the alleged victim sat in unity behind her parents, on wooden benches as unyielding as church pews.

On Thursday, Rev. Peters was waiting to take the stand as the star witness in a case that has pitted families against families, friends against friends and priest against priest. It’s a case rife with reference to demons and exorcism, a case that includes photographs of a woman bruised, battered and bitten, allegedly at the hands of a priest she had turned to for counseling.

Rev. Peters, once associate pastor under Rev. Abdelahad, would be called by the prosecution to testify about what he saw and heard in the pastor’s office, and his testimony would draw gasps from the crowd, many of them senior citizens who refuse to believe that the man known affectionately as “Father Mike” could abuse anyone. Father Mike, after all, had baptized their children. He reigned for years over a large, close-knit parish with a proud tradition. He was, quite simply, incapable of cruelty or violence.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

In recent weeks I have found myself thinking of and praying for Fr John Dermody. Born in the parish of Cappatagle in the diocese of Clonfert some 160 years ago, stories about him are still legion within the parishes he served. Older people will swear he was born with a “cross on his back” made of hair, which they firmly believe presaged his “powers.”

On one occasion, having been summoned by a displeased Bishop John Healy to give an account of himself, Dermody reportedly grew so irate that he created from thin air a hive of angry, swarming wasps which chased the bishop and his terror-stricken aides from the room. Such stories are, of course, the stuff of nonsense.

One of the real reasons people recall his memory so vividly is because he was `silenced.` A tendency to speak too plainly and, sadly, a fondness for `the jar` conspired against him.

One would imagine that things have changed radically in the Church since then but have they? I find it disturbing that clerical students are to be virtually sequestered within St Patrick`s College, Maynooth, and consider it a regressive move. How does one live a semi-cloistered existence for seven years and then face into the hurly-burly of an urban parish?

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

Dear Friends in The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,

You may be aware that we in Ireland have a special reverence for our Saint Columbanus. He was one of our saints who disagreed with a Pope and said so. You may be more acquainted with Saint Catherine of Siena who did the same, although she had the disadvantage of having to disagree with three possible popes at one time.

Some of us view with dismay then, but no great alarm, your decision to censor some of our fellow citizens and fellow members of the Catholic Church who have done nothing at all so serious.

We are puzzled – naturally and supernaturally – by the fact that you and we preach the presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit and then you tell us, so inspired, to stop talking – as if we had nothing important to say. This is not a matter of doctrine, it is one of logic and we in Ireland are inclined to judge these things by logic as well as doctrine and not too often by emotion. We remember the Gamaliel principle – you remember it too, when forced to make a decision, he told his colleagues, If this be of God it’s useless to oppose it, if it be of human planning it will fade away in any case, so we should not take extraordinary measures for ordinary happenings.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

May 5, 2012
By Marilyn S. D’Angelo

The Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests spent the morning handing out fliers that asked the Philadelphia archbishop to secure abusive priests in treatment centers.

Members from SNAP handed out literature to parishioners who attended this morning’s mass at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. Members from the advocacy group are asking that Philadelphia’s Archbishop Chaput “be more honest with his flock” in regards to the recent allegations of sexual abuse.

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

Predator priest who worked in Milwaukee to be early released on legal technicality; victims fear he still poses danger

Donald Buzanowski, sentenced to 32 years in 2005 for child sex abuse acts in the 1980’s has admitted to sexually assaulting at least 14 boys

Survivors to flier congregation where Buzanowski lived in 1990’s

WHERE
St. Pius X Parish, 2506 Wauwatosa Avenue, Wauwatosa

WHEN
­Sunday May 6, fliering will begin after the 10:00 a.m. Mass (approximately 11 a.m.)

WHAT
Wisconsin leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, will be joined by David Schauer, a victim of childhood sexual assault by Green Bay priest Fr. Donald Buzanowski, who will flier the St. Pius Congregation following morning Mass. Survivors will alert parishioners to the release of Buzanowski who lived and likely ministered at the church after being secretly transferred from the Green Bay diocese in the early 1990’s. Buzanowski continued to live and work with youth in Milwaukee until his arrest in 2005 in various social service agencies.

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IRELAND
RTE News

It has emerged that the Diocese of Kilmore allowed paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth to return to hearing confession and saying Mass in public in 1984.

This came nine years after a 1975 inquiry led to him being banned from doing so. Cardinal Sean Brady, then a priest, participated in that inquiry.

According to a statement issued to RTÉ News this evening by the current Bishop of the diocese, Dr Leo O’Reilly, in 1984 Smyth asked the then Bishop, the late Dr Francis MacKiernan, to lift the ban.

Following consultations with the then Abbott of Smyth’s monastery, Bishop MacKiernan acceded to Smyth’s request.

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MINNSOTA
MN SNAP via YouTube

Survivors in Minnesota this past May 1st delivered “May Baskets” with a list of Minnesota’s accused villainous clerics, nuns and church staff to chancery’s across the state. The following video identifies these actions and the various media reports.

The organizationa also established a page on the MN SNAP blog displaying the media reports and video’s of the events. The title and electronic address for the page is:

Minnesota’s Villainous Clerics

http://mnsnap.wordpress.com/minnesota-villainous-clerics/

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

May 5, 2012 11:05 am | Author: Jerry Berger

Look for SNAP to protest and hand out leaflets tomorrow (Sunday) at a special mass at the Cathedral honoring hometowner Cardinal Timothy Dolan. SNAP says Dolan, on his blog, attacks a 16 year-old girl who reported being molested last August by her Bronx pastor. Dolan calls the charges “surreal” but the priest, Fr. Jaime Duenas,, has been arrested. SNAP’s also upset about Archbishop Robert Carlson’s legal maneuvers to try to get access to any private emails between a local teen who says she was sexually assaulted by Fr. Joseph Ross.

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IRELAND
Herald

By Fiona Dillon

Saturday May 05 2012

THE Vatican is expected to quickly appoint a Bishop to assist Cardinal Sean Brady as he battles calls for him to resign as Primate of All Ireland.

Pressure is being ratcheted up on him to step down over his handling of the allegations against paedophile priest Brendan Smyth in 1975.

However, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore has vehemently denied that some politicians were trying to hound Cardinal Brady out of office.

He said it was the responsibility of the Church and not the Government to decide who remains in or leaves a position.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conor Ryan

Saturday, May 05, 2012

On May 23 last year Fr Kevin Reynolds had his life and reputation torn apart when a high profile television investigation branded him a child rapist.

Prime Time Investigates said his victim, who he met while working as a missionary in Kenya, had a child as a result of his abuse. And it said he secretly transferred money to cover the parenting costs.

RTÉ has since accepted all of these allegations were false and the programme should never have been aired. It has apologised to Fr Reynolds, a priest of 40 years, and it has paid him compensation believed to have been in excess of €1m.

The allegations were first put to him outside his church in Ahascragh, Galway, on May 7, 2011. Reporter Aoife Kavanagh approached Fr Reynolds after a Communion Mass he officiated at and laid out the allegations.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Saturday May 05 2012

The solicitor who represents Fr Kevin Reynolds, the priest libelled in the RTE Prime Time Investigates programme, ‘Mission to Prey’, is sorry “on a human level” that the programme’s reporter, Aoife Kavanagh, has had to resign.

However, he said that in light of section four of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland report into the programme, she had no other option.

The report found that RTE had seriously breached the Broadcasting Act.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Blaine on May 04, 2012

We are shocked that fourteen months after a grand jury raised concerns over 37 accused priests only 8 of these cases are resolved.

Catholics, citizens, children and the accused priests deserve better.

This weekend Chaput should start visiting churches where the three priests with “unsubstantiated” allegations worked. He should beg victims, whistle-blowers and witnesses to come forward, share information, and get help.

Parishioners and the public should continue to be highly skeptical of the secretive internal church processes and redouble their efforts to get victims and witness to contact police and prosecutors.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Saturday May 05 2012

The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland report on the RTE programme ‘Mission to Prey’, which grievously libelled Fr Kevin Reynolds, does not portray the national broadcaster, which is funded by TV licence payers, in a flattering light.

In the organisation’s own statement on the report, RTE director general Noel Curran admitted: “We are not proud of the picture presented in the findings.”

Mr Curran then goes on to acknowledge that RTE made “grave errors” in the making of the programme. That’s almost certainly an understatement.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Saturday May 05 2012

ED Mulhall had been tipped as a potential candidate for director general of RTE, making his resignation from the broadcaster all that more significant.

When he retired as head of news and current affairs last month, it was a dark day for staff at Montrose.

For over two decades at the helm, Mr Mulhall was considered to be the major force behind investigative programming.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Louise Hogan

Saturday May 05 2012

THE PROBE into the failings of the ‘Mission to Prey’ broadcast criticised an “almost complete absence” of documentary evidence behind the high-risk programme. Former BBC controller in Northern Ireland, Anna Carragher, was highly critical of a lack of “scrutiny and challenge” within RTE’s current affairs department. The following are the key areas where RTE fell down:

Note Taking

Ms Carragher found fault with the standards of the production team on the ground — Aoife Kavanagh and Mark Lappin — describing these as falling short of what should be expected. Among the failures highlighted was an “almost complete absence of documentary evidence” and a failure to document interviews with significant sources.

There were no notes or minutes kept of key editorial meetings between executive editor Brian Pairceir, head of current affairs Ken O’Shea and director of news Ed Mulhall, the probe found.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Mark Hilliard

Saturday May 05 2012

RTE reporter Aoife Kavanagh resigned last night after a damning report was published into the defamatory ‘Prime Time Investigates’ programme.

She also apologised to Fr Kevin Reynolds, the priest she wrongly accused of fathering a child with a woman in Kenya.Fr Reynolds received an estimated €1m in a libel settlement last year after being falsely accused of rape in the ‘Mission To Prey’ programme.Ms Kavanagh’s decision to quit came after the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) released a report that severely criticised RTE.The state broadcaster was fined €200,000. It claimed last night it was introducing sweeping reforms. In the first investigation of its kind, the BAI probed how the programme was put together. It found “one of the most significant errors made in broadcasting history”.

The report also found:

– Secret filming of Fr Reynolds and a doorstep interview was an unreasonable breach of privacy.

– Credibility of key sources was not sufficiently questioned.

– RTE’s legal affairs department became involved very late in the process.

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IRELAND/UNITED STATES
The Irish Sun

By AOIFE FINNERAN

PRESSURE on embattled Cardinal Sean Brady to resign increased after a victim of paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth claimed he should face a criminal investigation.

US lawyer Helen McGonigle, who was abused by Smyth in the Sixties in Rhode Island, said Cardinal Brady’s failure to protect victims was “unforgivable”.

She blasted the cleric for his “arrogance and insensitivity” after it emerged that he did not tell authorities about at least five children who were victims of Smyth.

Brady was a priest in 1975 when he took part in a church inquiry into allegations by Brendan Boland, then 14, that he had been abused by Smyth.

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