ABUSE TRACKER

NEW YORK
The L Magazine

Posted by Audrey Ference on Tue, Apr 24, 2012

Late last year, Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes announced that over the past three years, his department had arrested 85 Orthodox Jewish men and women for sex-related crimes, including crimes against children, but refused to release the suspects’ names. He would not even name the 14 people who had been found guilty of crimes and sentenced.

After continued press inquiry, including a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Jewish Daily Forward, Hynes’s office released a statement today to the Forward to explain his continued withholding of information.

“The circumstances here are unique,” Assistant District Attorney Morgan Dennehy wrote in an April 16 letter to the Forward. “Because all of the requested defendant names relate to Hasidic men who are alleged to have committed sex crimes against Hasidic victims within a very tight-knit and insular Brooklyn community, there is a significant danger that the disclosure of the defendants’ names would lead members of that community to discern the identities of the victims.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Eugene Cullen Kennedy on Apr. 24, 2012 Bulletins from the Human Side

The sound you hear all across Catholic America today is that of Rachel’s weeping again over the unnecessary and undeserved suffering that has been heaped by a righteous-sounding Cardinal William Levada, the pope’s man at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on the women religious of this country.

This event is one of epic sadness because it symbolizes how an organized church undercuts the immense good it does at its best by doing near to its hypocritical worst in an attack as coordinated as a terrorist strike on the heroic women who deserve credit for building the church in America into the most successful realization of Catholicism in history.

Only ambitious men “making,” in the apt Italian phrase, “a career in the church” could have designed this bad-faith betrayal of the leaders of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious who had arrived in Rome for a dialogue with Cardinal Levada only to learn that the news of the empowering of a panel of bishops to supervise them had already been sent to the American bishops for public distribution. …

Archbishop Sartain, who has just politicized his parishes by delegating them to gather signatures against legislation on same-sex marriage, according to the website Christian Child Abuse, played a still-unclarified role while bishop of Joliet, Ill., in ordaining as a priest a seminarian on whose computer gay porn with young boys had been found a few months before. This priest was convicted the next year of sexual assault of an underage boy. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP, observed: “Sartain, in our view, had a moral obligation to postpone the ordination, send [the priest] for treatment and inform the public.” SNAP president Dave Clohessy later said Sartain “did none of that.”

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AUSTRIA
Austrian Independent

A critical Catholic movement from Austria has received a renowned award in Switzerland.

The Austrian Preachers’ Initiative – which consists of 400 preachers – was decorated with this year’s Herbert Haag Prize. The presentation took place in the city of Lucerne. Hans Küng, one of Europe’s best-known critics of the Vatican, lauded the Austrian movement for calling on priests across Europe to be disobedient towards conservative Church leaders. Küng said a well-argued appeal for disobedience by people who had trust in the future of the Roman Catholic Church was more credible and sensible than any kind of “pseudo-obedience”.

Helmut Schüller, who founded the Preachers’ Initiative in June 2011, said Küng was one of the most influential voices of a critical theology with intentions to lead the Church into a bright future in our modern society. The Herbert Haag Prize features a donation of 10,000 Euros. Schüller said he had not yet decided about how to use the money.

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TOLEDO (OH)
Ohio News Network

Tuesday April 24, 2012

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest convicted of killing a nun in a hospital chapel in Ohio is making another appeal for a new trial.

The Blade newspaper (http://bit.ly/JsGUNr ) in Toledo reports that an attorney for the Rev. Gerald Robinson wants a state appeals court to throw out the priest’s conviction because police reports discovered after his trial could have changed the outcome.

A county judge in Toledo ruled in January that the police reports didn’t contain any relevant information.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Apr. 24, 2012
By Tom Roberts

Commentary

It is almost instinctively that one reaches, when attempting to explain what is going on today in the Catholic church, for metaphors out of the natural world — storms, earthquakes, seismic shifts — to get at the magnitude of events.

We search for the terms that explain what we’re experiencing: phenomena beyond the ordinary disturbances we’ve learned to weather one season to the next. Just as seismologists or climatologists begin to put together patterns over time, to construct a mega-image of what is happening, so are we. Another piece of the puzzle has just fallen into place for us with the delivery last week from the Vatican of the “Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.”

The 5.8 earthquake that hit the East Coast in August was insignificant by West Coast standards, yet it was felt hundreds of miles from its epicenter in Virginia. Geologists explained that the earth’s crust in this part of the world is more dense and less disturbed and fractured than that in the usual earthquake zones, allowing the seismic waves to travel further than they would, say, in Los Angeles or San Francisco.

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PHILADLEPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

April 24, 2012 by Susan Matthews

Click here to read: “What the Cardinal Knew, Or How to Hoover A Pedophile,” by Ralph Cipriano, The Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog, April 23, 2012

Excerpt: “Why would Cardinal Bevilacqua knowingly consort with two known pedophile priests, and indeed allow his Archdiocese PR machine to parade the two abusers out in public with him? Maybe because the cardinal thought he owned these guys, in the tradition of J. Edgar Hoover. Both Sicoli and Gana knew that their crimes were documented in the archdiocese’s secret archives, and that they served at the whim of the archbishop, who, at the scrawl of a pen, could send them packing. So when it came to Sicoli and Gana, the cardinal had them “Hoovered,” he had their unquestioned loyalty.”

Editor’s note: I had the “privilege” of covering Cardinal Bevilacqua in the 90s as an editor with The Catholic Standard & Times and later as a freelancer for a now defunct Philadelphia monthly magazine called The Player. To say The Tierney Group was hands-on regarding coverage is an extreme understatement. I always attributed it to Bevilacqua’s enormous ego and Machiavellian style. Ralph Cipriano is dead on. In hindsight, it’s clear Bevilacqua used pedophiles to aid in his publicity spin. I hope Brian Tierney and Jay Devine were not aware of the depth his depravity. They might as well have been billing the devil.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Union Democrat

Written by Union Democrat staff
April 23, 2012

The Catholic Diocese of Stockton, which includes parishes in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties, has agreed to settle for $3.75 million a legal claim by a Fairfax man who argued former priest Michael Kelly molested him as a youth.

In exchange for the settlement, the plaintiff has agreed to drop his case against the diocese and Kelly, according to a statement from Bishop Stephen Blaire.

“The settlement brings an end to litigation that began more than 4 1/2 years ago and that has occupied a great deal of time and focus,” he said. “We respect the right of everyone to have their day in court and we abide by the decisions that were made.”

The settlement was the latest development in a week full of surprises in the case.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Central

By
ANTOINETTE KELLY,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The Catholic priest at the center of a gay porn controversy has taken temporary leave from his duties as the parish priest of Pomeroy in County Tyrone.

According to the Irish Times, Father Martin McVeigh asked the Primate of All-Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady for a temporary leave after a meeting between local parents and the representatives of the archdiocese on Friday night proved ‘inconclusive.’

The archdiocese, in an attempt to address the controversy, has reportedly been conducting an inquiry into how 16 pornographic images were ‘inadvertently’ shown by the priest to a group of about thirty parents and one child during a powerpoint presentation on children’s first Confessions on March 26.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
U-T San Diego

Written by
Greg Moran

SAN DIEGO — A Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty on Friday to a misdemeanor charge that he groped a woman in December did so only to put the case behind him and spare the community a trial, his lawyer said Monday.

The Rev. Jose Alexis Davila, 53, was placed on three years’ probation, fined $200, and ordered to do 150 hours of community service. He was also ordered to stay away from the now 20-year-old woman who initially complained that he had groped her when she visited his home on Dec. 30.

Earll Pott, one of Davila’s lawyers, said Monday that the priest entered his plea under a legal provision that allows someone to plead guilty, even though the person does not admit to the truth of the charges.

The plea has the same force and effect as a standard guilty plea, according to the San Diego City Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Jamie L Manson on Apr. 23, 2012 Grace on the Margins

In his Holy Thursday sermon, Pope Benedict XVI made headlines for criticizing those who refuse to obey the church’s position on the ordination of celibate men. He traced his argument back to Christ’s obedience to the will of God.

“His concern was for true obedience,” Benedict said, “as opposed to human caprice.”

Of course, the pontiff fails to point out that Jesus was obeying God while also radically disobeying the religious leaders and laws of his time. Like so many archconservative Roman Catholics, he is confusing God with the institutional church and its doctrine.

I suppose the pope is using some of this same logic in his treatment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. He views the sisters’ unwillingness to condemn gays and lesbians or contraception or women who feel called ordained ministry as an act of “caprice.”

But the basis on which the sisters focus their ministries is anything but shallow and whimsical. Their devotion is founded on a radical obedience to the voice of God as it emerges from the voices of the poor, the sick, the abandoned and the broken.

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TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade

BY DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

Toledo priest Gerald Robinson has again asked the Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals to toss out his 2006 conviction for the 1980 murder of a nun, saying the state withheld key documents and his trial attorneys failed to adequately pursue “the most obvious” suspect, serial killer Coral Eugene Watts.

The latest filing states that Robinson’s trial attorneys mistakenly thought Watts was in prison on April 5, 1980, when Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was found brutally slain in the sacristy of the former Mercy Hospital near downtown Toledo. But Watts was a free man “in his killing spree or ‘on a rampage’ at the time,” living in Michigan about 40 miles from Toledo, the appeal states.

The appeals court in January, 2008, rejected Robinson’s direct appeal, and, 11 months later, the Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Robinson then began pursuing an amended petition for postconviction relief, which, unlike a direct appeal, allows the court to consider information other than what was included in the trial.

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NEW JERSEY
Patch

By Laura Silvius

Law enforcement officials, elected representatives and family and friends of crime victims gathered in St. Patrick Church in Chatham Borough Monday to honor victims of crimes from Morris County.

Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi said each year the Prosecutor’s Office chooses one victim, usually a homocide victim from a prominent trial case the year before, to honor in their Recognition and Remembrance Ceremony held each April during Crime Victims’ Rights Week.

This year, the Prosecutor’s Office chose to honor the Rev. Edward Hinds, the former pastor of St. Patrick Church. Hinds, who was known to his congregation as “Father Ed,” was stabbed 44 times by Jose Feliciano, the church custodian.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

SEÁN FREYNE

RITE & REASON: Vatican style of government models itself on pre-Christian Roman imperialism

THE RESULTS of the survey conducted by the Association of Catholic Priests, when taken in conjunction with the national census figures of those who still consider themselves as Roman Catholic, has opened a window on the state of Irish Catholicism that is alarming, yet altogether predictable.

There is of course an obvious explanation for some of this disaffection, namely the clerical sex abuse scandals and the cover-up by some bishops and senior clergy of the atrocities to protect the institution. However, this explanation should not excuse church leaders from any deeper analysis of what has been happening to religious belief and practice here, for several decades now.

The anaemic summary of the findings of the Apostolic Visitation that has been published shows just how out of touch Rome and the Irish bishops are with the real feelings of the vast majority of Catholics here. Nor could one place too much confidence in the upcoming Eucharistic Congress to address the core issues that are at stake for many people.

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NEDERLAND
RKnieuws

BREDA (RKnieuws.net) – Rector Schnell van de Priester- en Diakenopleiding Bovendonk was vrijdag te gast bij het bestuur van het bisdom van Breda om te spreken over de wijze waarop de priesteropleiding aandacht geeft aan de persoonsvorming van studenten.

Directe aanleiding voor het gesprek is een rapportage die het bisdombestuur voorbereidt vanwege de voorgenomen start van de Diocesane voortgangscommissie inzake seksueel misbruik. Na de presentatie van het Eindrapport van de Onderzoekscommissie (de ‘Commissie Deetman’) maakte het bisdom het voornemen bekend zo’n voortgangscommissie in te willen richten.

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CANADA
CFRA

Josh Pringle
Tuesday, April 24, 2012

A Pembroke priest is now facing 12 charges in relation into historic sexual assault allegations dating back 40 years.

Ontario Provincial Police charged Daniel Miller in February for alleged offences that occurred against then pre-teenage boys and an adult male between 1970 and 1980.

The OPP says the 67-year-old Miller was charged on Friday with six additional changes related to 3 additional victims in Arnprior, Deep River and Eganville dating back to 1969.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

A priest has denied indecently assaulting a woman 20 years ago.

Fr Eugene Boland, whose address was given on court papers as Parochial House, Killyclogher Road, Omagh, denied five charges of indecent assault alleged to have occured between June 28, 1990 and June 30, 1992.

The 65-year-old, who appeared in the dock in his collar, replied “not guilty” as each of the charges were put to him.

Derry Crown Court heard the trial, which is expected to last one week, had been listed for next month.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo

The trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn, secretary for clergy under a late Philadelphia cardinal, exposes every day what Pope Benedict XVI has called “the filth of the church.” As the New York Times explained, Lynn is “the first Roman Catholic supervisor in the country to be tried on felony charges of endangering children and conspiracy — not on allegations that he molested children himself.” If the allegations that Lynn ignored child sexual abuse are true, file the Philadelphia case as another clerical cover-up that will have irrevocably stained the church’s image.

If this major scandal were not enough, other Catholic news haunts the conscience: According to a report by Reuters, JP Morgan closed the Vatican’s bank account for “lack of transparency.” Catholic nuns in America, who power the nation’s Catholic hospitals, schools and social service organizations are under attack from the Vatican. Pedophilia has put mighty Irish Catholicism “at the breaking point.”

Facing the scope of these stories, Catholics can legitimately ask: “Is the church corrupt?”

The answer to that question depends on perspective. If people join the church as sinners in order to become saints, human failures are no big surprise. If most priests and faithful live the Gospel, why label the whole institution as “corrupt”? Haven’t we heard this charge many times in history?

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UNITED STATES
The Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board

The Vatican, in its infinite wisdom, has spoken: American nuns, out there on the front lines helping the sick and suffering, are spending way too much time fighting poverty and economic injustice, and not enough time agitating against abortion and gay marriage. Instead, they should just do what the bishops tell them to.

It even assigned an archbishop to knock all the wayward sisters back in line. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the most prominent U.S. Catholic nuns’ group, said it was “stunned” by the crackdown. But it shouldn’t be. This isn’t about faith. It’s about dogma and it’s about politics.

Problem is, American nuns have become too educated. They now lead their schools, hospitals and charities. They minister to people on the margins of society, those who are discriminated against. And they recognize the church hierarchy for what it is: woefully out of touch, hypocritical and determined to stifle any dissent about the priorities of the male leadership.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Erie Times-News

Pat Cuneo

‘Vatican orders crackdown on American nuns,” the headline blared in last Wednesday’s Washington Post. The group representing most of America’s 55,000 Catholic nuns was “not speaking out strongly enough against gay marriage, abortion and women’s ordination,” the story read.

So, Rome named conservative Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain to overhaul the governance and plans of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and its relationship with “certain groups the Vatican finds suspect.”

The LCWR does not directly represent the sisters in the Erie region, incidentally.

It’s an inside fight, right? It’s just a squabble about the uppity nuns’ obsession with a “prevalence of certain radical feminist themes (that are) incompatible with the Catholic faith,” as Rome pointed out. Religious groups can do whatever they want, right? Absolutely. Yet just how far will this kind of crackdown go before a good chunk of American Catholics, especially American Catholic women, tell Rome to go take a hike. I sense the last straw will be a lot sooner than I ever thought possible.

It turns out that the nuns’ advocacy for fairness on issues large and small is the true target. So is their audacity of having an opinion where it isn’t welcome. And so it is that Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine scholar, writer, lecturer and recognized as one of the world’s most respected moralists, was left “deeply distraught” by the news.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

Lenore Taylor

The statement last night by Tony Nutt, a former advisor to John Howard, is a timely reminder of exactly what Mr Slipper is charged with, and what he isn’t.

Mr James Hunter Ashby’s claim is about sexual harassment. It deserves to be taken seriously. It will be heard in court.

But Mr Slipper is not on trial – at least not in any court – for the allegation that he sought sexual relationships outside his marriage, however distasteful people might find that idea.

The lawsuit is not about consensual extra-marital sex, gay or straight. But the allegation that a conservative MP, married to a woman, who serves as a priest in the Anglican High church, sought a homosexual affair does seem to be a big part of the charges being debated in the court of public opinion.

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AUSTRALIA
The Daily Telegraph

Janet Fife-Yeomans
The Daily Telegraph
April 24, 2012

PROSECUTORS this morning dropped charges of perverting the course of justice against one of the leading members of the Church of Scientology, Jan Eastgate.

Downing Centre Local Court was given no reasons for the decision behind the withdrawal of the charges that alleged Ms Eastgate had intimidated a then 11-year-old young girl and her mother who wanted to report sexual abuse allegations within the church back in 1985.

Ms Eastgate, who was instrumental in revealing the horrors of deep sleep therapy at the former Chelmsford Hospital in Sydney’s north in the 1980s, is international president of the Scientology-linked Citizens Commission on Human Rights, which attacks psychology.

Now based in Los Angeles where she counts Tom Cruise and John Travolta among her friends, Ms Eastgate released a statement to The Daily Telegraph.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Ilawarra

By court reporter Jamelle Wells

New South Wales prosecutors have dropped charges against a Scientologist who was accused of telling a child she should deny charges of sex abuse against another church member.

Jan Eastgate is the head of the church’s Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a group that works to discredit conventional psychiatric treatments.

In 2011 she was charged with perverting the course of justice.

Police claimed that in 1985 she told an 11-year-old girl she should deny any charges of sexual abuse to police and officers from the Department of Social Services.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

CHARGES against a senior member of the Church of Scientology accused of coaching a child to lie about sex abuse have been dropped in a Sydney court.

Janice Meyer, an Australian citizen who lives in the US, had been charged with two counts of an act intending to pervert the course of justice in 1985 in Sydney.

She also goes by the name of Jan Eastgate.

The allegation involved threatening and intimidating an 11-year-old girl, causing her to give false information about being abused by a Scientologist to investigating police, the court has previously heard.

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AUSTRALIA
Launceston Times

PAUL BIBBY

The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions has dropped its charges against a senior Scientologist who had been accused of telling an 11-year-old girl she should deny charges of sexual abuse against another member of the church.

Janice Meyer, also known as Jan Eastgate, is the head of the church’s Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a group which works to discredit a number of conventional psychiatric treatments, including the use of medications such as Ritalin and Prozac.

In May last year, Ms Meyer was charged with two counts of perverting the course of justice over an alleged incident in 1985. Police had claimed that Ms Meyer told the 11-year-old girl she should deny any charges of sexual abuse to police and officers from the Department of Social Services.

However, in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court this morning, a representative of the DPP informed the magistrate that they had dropped all charges against her.

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KENTUCKY
The Gleaner

By Beth Smith

A former youth pastor charged here and in Colorado on sexual abuse charges will not go to trial here in May.

In Henderson Circuit Court on Monday, Ike Norment, defense attorney for John H. Brothers Jr., 42, asked Judge Karen Wilson to vacate the May 17 trial date, since Brothers is currently in custody in Colorado on sex abuse-related charges.

Norment said Brothers’ has a preliminary hearing in a Colorado court in late May and asked Wilson to grant a pretrial date of July 2. Norment said by that time, he and local prosecutors hopefully would know more about what’s happening with the Colorado case.

Wilson granted the July 2 pretrial date.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Edward Avery might be gone from the defense table at the landmark clergy-sex-abuse trial involving Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests, but he remains a pivotal figure in the case.

On Monday, prosecutors and defense lawyers clashed over what jurors could and should be told about Avery, a defrocked priest who was removed as a defendant last month after his last-minute plea to charges that he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy.

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina suggested that jurors could even hear from Avery himself.

The issue emerged as prosecutors signaled plans to call to the witness stand this week a former altar boy who said he was abused in the late 1990s by Avery and another priest, the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, when both were at St. Jerome’s Church in Northeast Philadelphia. Engelhardt faces a separate trial later this year because he belongs to an independent religious order, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Kevin Manahan/The Star-Ledger

MORRIS TOWNSHIP —The attorney for the Rev. Luke Travers, the former Delbarton School headmaster facing allegations of sexual misconduct, said today that Travers has taken and passed two polygraph exams regarding the accusations.

Gerard Hanlon, a criminal attorney in Morristown, said Travers passed a lie detector test ordered by St. Mary’s Abbey in January, then passed another, set up by Hanlon, in March.

“Luke was so adamant about what he hadn’t done, so I set up the second one with an expert who has worked with me and (is) someone I trust,” Hanlon said. “It’s the first time I’ve talked about this, but maybe it’s timely.”

Abbey spokesman Anthony Cicatiello said the abbey “will not comment any further on matters related to Father Luke.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

The judge in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse trial left open the possibility Monday that prosecutors may be allowed to haul into court a former priest who, on the eve of trial, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and rape of a 10-year-old boy.

Edward V. Avery, a defrocked former archdiocese priest, is now serving a prison sentence of between 2 1/2 to 5 years. But his chief accuser, namely the former altar boy that he raped, is due in court on Wednesday. The question is whether defense attorneys in the case will be allowed to challenge the victim’s credibility on cross-examination.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington told Judge M. Teresa Sarmina that if she rules that defense lawyers can challenge the victim’s credibility, “We’re back to square one, with Avery on trial here.” That’s when the judge suggested that the prosecution had the option of seeking permission to haul Avery back in court.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CNN

By Sarah Hoye, CNN

updated 7:09 PM EDT, Mon April 23, 2012

Philadelphia (CNN) — Attorneys in the child sexual abuse and conspiracy trial of two Philadelphia priests debated Monday over which potential witnesses jurors would be allowed to hear regarding a third defendant who pleaded guilty to molesting boys just days before opening remarks.

Defrocked priest Edward Avery of the Philadelphia Archdiocese pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of child after admitting that he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy during his 1998-1999 school year. Avery, 69, was sentenced to two-and-a-half to five years.

Rev. James Brennan is accused of attempted rape of a 14-year-old, and Monsignor William Lynn is accused of covering it up. Lynn is the first high-ranking church figure charged with child endangerment for shuffling predator priests from parish to parish.

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UNITED STATES
NPR

[with audio]

The Vatican reprimanded America’s largest organization of Catholic nuns, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. The Holy See charged the LCWR with promoting programs with “radical feminist themes” that are incompatible with doctrine on issues ranging from homosexuality to women’s ordination.

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I’m Neal Conan, in Washington. Last week, the Vatican reprimanded America’s largest organization of Catholic nuns, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. While praising what it called a great contribution in schools, hospitals and among the poor, the Holy See charged the group with promotion of radical feminist themes incompatible with the faith on issues like contraception and abortion, gay and lesbian rights and the ordination of women.

Leaders of the group expressed shock and outrage. Other Catholics supported the church’s obligation to ensure that its organizations uphold its doctrine. And some pointed to this dispute as the latest example of a disconnect between the Vatican and large parts of its American congregation.

We want to hear from Catholics today: How does church doctrine inform your choices? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That’s at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

April 24, 2012
Opinion

Dick Gross

It was embarrassing to observe Australian society trying to avert its gaze from the deaths of more than 40 young men. These men are purportedly suicide victims whose deaths appear to be consequent to sexual abuse in their churches. As the faces of the deceased stared out at me from reports in The Age, I felt that this loss of young life could surely not go unexamined in any civilised society.

I blogged on this matter last year based on some personal testimony I had heard about the suicide of a young victim relative of an abusing priest. Now my anecdotal evidence appears to have found support in police investigations. This is an epidemic of self-slaughter that cannot be ignored.

Yet without constant advocacy and evidence from affected Catholic parents, police and some innocent clergy, the dead and their stories would have gone unexamined. Now the growing forensic evidence of a link between Catholic child abuse and the apparent suicides of victims raises issues of church and state that could no longer be ignored.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Blaine on April 23, 2012

We are here today representing three different groups who want a Board member of Loyola University’s Board of Trustees to resign. The three groups are SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, CCC, Coalition of Concerned Catholics and VOTF, Voice of the Faithful.

Newly-revealed church documents show that Father Bradley Schaeffer did little or nothing to stop a notorious child molesting priest under his supervision. The cleric, Father Donald McGuire, is now serving a twenty-five year sentence in federal prison. But Schaefer could have and did not stop McGuire.

Sitting on the Board of Trustees of Loyola University is a position that Schaefer should not hold. Honoring men like this is hurtful in two ways. First, it rubs salt into the wounds of already-suffering victims and already-betrayed Catholics. Second, it sends a chilling, and depressing, message to victims, witnesses and whistleblowers: “Speak up if you want to, but know that nothing will change and wrongdoers will still be tolerated, praised and promoted in this organization.” So honors like this essentially discourage those with knowledge and information about heinous child sex crimes and cover-ups from stepping forward, calling police, reporting wrongdoing, protecting kids and preventing crimes.

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CALIFORNIA
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler
April 23, 2012

It’s a coincidence, no doubt, that the Stockton diocese settled a sex-abuse case just before Cardinal Roger Mahony, the former Bishop of Stockton, was scheduled to testify.

Actually Cardinal Mahony wasn’t ready to take questions. He had left for Rome, ignoring his date with the court, and the plaintiff’s lawyer was threatening to have the cardinal held in contempt. That threat went by the boards when the case was settled.

Stockton’s Bishop Stephen Blaire says that it was “in the best interest of everybody” to reach the mutually agreeable deal, in which the diocese paid $3.75 million to a single plaintiff. The bishop hopes that no one will think the settlement is an indication that the diocese admits culpability. And certainly we can all understand that sometimes it’s better to avoid a protracted legal dispute. But $3.75 million—payable to one alleged victim—is an awfully steep price to pay for avoiding the aggravation of a trial, especially when you consider that the trial was already underway.

The diocese was in an awkward position, of course, because another key witness in the case—beside Cardinal Mahony, I mean—had gone missing. Father Michael Kelly, the priest whose alleged misconduct had triggered the lawsuit, had also skipped town, flying home to his native Ireland just before he was supposed to testify. Bishop Blaire said that he was shocked by the priest’s flight.

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AUSTRALIA
Maroondah Weekly

BY MELISSA CUNNINGHAM

24 Apr, 2012

A YARRA Ranges parent has welcomed news of a parliamentary inquiry into the handling of alleged criminal abuse of children by religious organisations.

Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu announced the inquiry last week and said it would focus on abuse not only in religious organisations but also at children’s homes.

The inquiry was sparked by the recommendations of the landmark Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry conducted by retired Supreme Court justice Philip Cummins.

Healesville’s Ian Lawther, whose son was abused by a convicted St Brigid’s parish priest more than

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic Online

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
4/23/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

It has been a month since the start of a high-profile trial in Philadelphia where Monsignor William Lynn stands accused of mishandling allegations of child abuse by priests. He is the highest-ranking church official to date to stand trial in the United States.

PHILADELPHIA, PA (Catholic Online) – Attorneys for Monsignor Lynn readily acknowledge the multiple cases of abuse, including the allegation of abuse by Rev. James Brennan who allegedly raped a 14-year-old boy in 1996.

Lynn was responsible for managing 800 priests throughout the archdiocese of Philadelphia and allegations of abuse landed on his desk. It was his responsibility to handle those notifications including those regarding Brennan.

Accusers say the Monsignor did not handle them correctly. Monsignor Lynn is accused of covering up the allegations and transferring accused priests to other parishes without notifying the parishioners.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

April 23, 2012 .

An attorney for 350 alleged victims in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy has appealed the judge’s April 5 decision to keep sealed depositions of retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland and Richard Sklba, along with related documents.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley refused to unseal the evidence saying it contains scandalous information and could inadvertently identify victims who are named in the documents. Weakland and Sklba, who also is retired, handled the archdiocese’s sex abuse cases for nearly three decades.

Minnesota attorney Jeffrey Anderson had argued that all names and identifying information would be redacted. He filed the appeal late last week, calling the release of the information a “public imperative.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Palm Beach Post

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — A Catholic priest admitting a sexual relationship with a teen said he had been the victim of an attempted gang rape by fellow seminarians, according to testimony in a clergy-abuse trial.

Testimony on Monday also mentioned Pope Benedict XVI, who weighed in on the priest’s 2005 censure when he was a Vatican official known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Documents show the priest had admitted to the Philadelphia archdiocese in 1992 that he had sex with the high school student for several years. An archdiocesan treatment center concluded the priest was not a pedophile, but was affected by his “traumatic sexual development.” He remained in ministry for another decade.

It’s not clear if the trauma reference was to the alleged seminary assault. The priest told a therapist he had been tied down by several seminarians who tried to rape him and that a friend came to his rescue. But the same friend later twice abused him, the priest told the therapist, according to documents read in court.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
13 News

PHILADELPHIA —

(AP) — In a story April 21 about the priest abuse trial in Philadelphia, The Associated Press erroneously reported the name of the law school where Timothy Lytton teaches. It is Albany Law School, not the University of Albany law school.

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NETHERLANDS
Catholic Church Conservation

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Kerk drong bij chirurgen aan op castratie homo’s :: nrc.nl

The Roman Catholic Church in the fifties and sixties urged surgeons to castrate homosexual boys and men. This is evident from statements made by scientists who were interviewed this morning by the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament.

Professor of medical history, Mart van Lieburg reported that he had spoken with two surgeons. They confirmed that they received direct orders from a bishop to perform castration. van Lieburg did not identify the bishop. After the hearing van Lieburg nuanced his statement: “I spoke with two surgeons. From one of them I heard that the bishop, who incidentally is still alive, called for the castration of a homosexual man.” (Cathcon- seems he thought “order” was a bit strong- but, that said, in the

Historian Marnix Koolhaas also reported that priests who acted as confessors to homosexual boys referred them directly to surgeons. That numbers are involved, Koolhaas does not known. “But it could have been a practice that was not unusual,” said Koolhaas.

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GERMANY
The Eponymous Flower

The director of the Institute for Psychology at the Jesuit Gregorian University in Rome has spoken.

(kreuz.net) Child abuse isn’t a problem for the Catholic Church.

This is what the Vice Rector of the Jesuit led Papal University of the Gregorian in Rome, Father Hans Zollner, said to Polish news ‘Rzeczpospolita’.

The Jesuit leads the ‘Institute for Psychology’ at the Gregorian.

This is independent of the Church

For example the Jesuit mentioned the Islamic Schools in England, in which five hundred children were sexually abused in 2011.

The abuse of children is a general problem — independent of religious back ground.

Seventy percent of the cases occur in the family.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the way some are reacting to the Vatican’s decision to reform the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR):

Over the years, I have met many nuns who have been distraught over the way some in their ranks have lost their way. Now that the Vatican is seeking reforms, these nuns feel vindicated. That is why it is disturbing to read the way some of the Vatican’s critics are trying to defend the indefensible. Keep in mind that only 3% of the 55,000 nuns in the U.S. actually belong to the LCWR, though one would never know this by reading the secular press. But facts don’t matter to those gone loopy.

Joan Vennochi of the Boston Globe wants to know why the pope doesn’t “crack down on protectors of pedophile priests” instead of nuns. But there is nothing to crack down about. As the latest report on priestly sexual abuse shows, no credible accusations were made in 2011 against 99.98% of the priests. Besides, the problem has been homosexuality, not pedophilia (less than 5% of the old cases dealt with pedophilia).

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

April 23, 2012 11:28 am | Author: Jerry Berger

SNAP plans to appeal a KC judge’s ruling that the group must turn over hundreds or thousands of pages of communications between its leaders and victims, witnesses, whistleblowers, police, prosecutors and journalists. The group’s outreach director Barbara Dorris, who has been subpoenaed by Archbishop Robert Carlson’s lawyers in a clergy sex suit involving Fr. Joseph Ross, detects a double standard: “Bishops blast President Barak Obama saying it’s wrong to allegedly try to force someone to violate his or her conscience. But that’s precisely what Missouri Catholic officials are trying to do to us – by forcing us to turn over confidential communications from hundreds of deeply wounded child sex abuse victims, victims who have been promised – and who deserve – privacy.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The decree issued on 25 January which renewed Vatican financial laws according to the 2010 anti money laundering standards has been confirmed before the 90 day deadline. There has been ongoing controversy over the power given to the Vatican Financial Information Authority (AIF) led by Cardinal Nicora

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

Emergency decree No. 159 which contains the new anti money laundering laws published last 25 January has been an ordinary law since last 2 April, when it was confirmed as such by the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State. The law is to be published officially tomorrow, one day before the end of the 90 day deadline given for its enforcement (after which it would have lapsed, had it not been approved).

No significant modifications have apparently been made to last January’s version of the text – which Vatican Insider had published in full. The Council of Europe’s Moneyval team (a Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism) is currently monitoring the Vatican’s conformance to international financial standards. Meanwhile, the Vatican is hoping to be added to the “white list” of “virtuous” Countries.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
National Catholic Reporter

by Brian Roewe on Apr. 23, 2012 NCR Today

The fifth week in the trial of two Philadelphia clergy began this morning, following a week that presented more stories of abuse by former priests, as well as a surprising accusation.

The trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn is the first against a church official for the cover-up of sex abuse. He is charged with child endangerment and conspiracy for his role in an alleged cover-up of sexual abuse by priests in the Philadelphia archdiocese during his tenure as secretary of clergy from 1992-2004 under the late former archbishop Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

Lynn’s co-defendant in the trial is Rev. James J. Brennan, a priest accused of a 1996 attempted rape of 14-year-old boy. Both he and Lynn have pleaded not guilty.

The biggest stir from last week’s testimony centered on a West Virginia bishop, the Most Rev. Michael Bransfield of the Wheeling-Charleston diocese. On Wednesday, multiple reports told of a witness who testified that he had been sexually abused by the Rev. Charles Gana inside a home owned by Bransfield, and that Gana had told him that Bransfield, who was a friend from their seminary days, was having sex with a boy.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Prosecutors and defense lawyers at the conspiracy and child-sex abuse trial of two Philadelphia priests battled Monday over whether and what jurors can be told about a third defendant who was accused of assaulting multiple boys and pleaded guilty days before the trial began.

That defendant, defrocked priest Edward Avery, was sentenced to 2 ½ to five years in prison after admitting that he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy in the late 1990s.

Avery also pleaded guilty to conspiring with Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former Archdiocese of Philadelphia official on trial for allegedly endangering children by allowing Avery and another priest, the Rev. James J. Brennan, to live at parishes despite signs they might abuse minors.

The jurors have been told that Avery is no longer a defendant at the trial, but they have not been told why. His guilty plea did not require him to cooperate with investigators or testify at the trial.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

By MARYCLAIRE DALE

Monday, Apr 23, 2012

A Catholic priest admitting a sexual relationship with a teen said he had been the victim of an attempted gang rape by fellow seminarians in Philadelphia.

Testimony in a clergy-abuse case Monday also mentioned the pope, who weighed in on the priest’s 2005 censure before becoming Pope Benedict XVI.

Documents show the priest admitted to Monsignor William Lynn in 1992 that he had sex with the high school student for years. A church-run hospital concluded the priest was not a pedophile, and he stayed in ministry until the priest-abuse crisis broke in 2002.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Another stunning allegation was disclosed during testimony today in the Philadelphia clergy sex abuse case: an attempted gang rape at the St. Charles Borromeo seminary several decades ago.

The newest testimony was presented as the prosecution tries to show that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and some of its officials had a history of failing to act against alleged sexual predators.

The evidence from the church’s “secret archive” file said that a Father Thomas Wisniewski remained in active ministry for a decade after admitting in 1992 that he had had sex with a teenage boy for years.

During therapy after Wisniewski’s alleged admission, according to the archives, the priest claimed that he had been the target of an attack by other seminarians when he was at St. Charles Borromeo. He said a group of seminarians held him down and tried to have sex with him, but a friend saved him from the attack.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Courier

By Senator Lena C. Taylor

Since becoming a mother twelve years ago, I have found a new and unexpected concern for the safety of my child and thousands of children like him. This is not to say that men or younger women cannot or do not worry about the safety of children. That said, the stress and great joy of motherhood has greatly shaped my priorities as both a private citizen and a public servant.

The matter of child abuse weighs heavily upon my mind. I have been disturbed the stories I have been reading. For example, Philip Caminiti, formerly a pastor at Aleitheia Bible Church here in Milwaukee, was found guilty of instructing congregants at his church that infants and toddlers were never too young to be beaten with wooden rods.

Caminiti claimed his teachings were in accordance with the Bible, but any true Christian would say that Caminiti knows nothing about the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Bible I read, Jesus proclaimed peace even against feared enemies. Caminiti distorted our faith and used it to excuse violence against children! In recent months, few news stories have so greatly affected me. How could this happen?

Though encouraging others to harm children is most certainly a terrible crime, I believe that protecting abusers may be a worse offense. Reverend Lawrence Murphy, who taught at a Milwaukee school for the deaf, died in 1998. He was accused of sexually abusing about 200 boys.

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ARLINGTON (VA)
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: Specht was placed on administrative leave in April 2012, due to an allegation that he had engaged in “sexual misconduct” with a teenage boy in the late 1990s. Specht was ordained in 1996, after a 21-year Navy career, where he worked on submarines. As a priest he was a high school chaplain and assistant principal, as well as the diocese’s director of the Office of Child Protection and Safety, from 2004-2011. At the time of his removal from active ministry Specht was a parish pastor. Police launched a criminal investigation. Specht denied the allegations.

Ordained: 1996
Incardinated: Arlington diocese

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DEUTSCHLAND
Queer

Der Vizerektor der Päpstlichen Universität Gregoriana in Rom warnt davor, dass sich Homosexuelle grundsätzlich eher an Kinder vergehen als Heteros.

Im Interview mit der polnischen Tageszeitung “Rzeczpospolita” erklärte der aus Regensburg stammende Psychologieprofessor Hans Zollner zwar, dass nicht jeder Schwule ein Kinderschänder sei und es auch “keinen direkten kausalen Zusammenhang” zwischen Homosexualität und dem sexuellen Missbrauch von Jungs gebe. Allerdings gehe von Schwulen ein “höheres Risiko” aus, Kinder sexuell zu belästigen. Aus diesem Grund müsse die Katholische Kirche bei der Auswahl von Priestern besonders auf die sexuelle Orientierung achten, erklärte der Jesuit. Er begründet seine Aussage damit, dass nach Angaben der vatikanischen Glaubenskongregation 70 Prozent der Opfer von Übergriffen durch katholische Geistliche Jungen gewesen seien.

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SOUTH EUCLID (OH)
Fox 8

April 23, 2012, by Ted Achladis

SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio — Another closed Catholic church is planning to appeal to the Vatican, Fox 8 News reports.

Saint Margaret Mary in South Euclid announced on Sunday night that it had begun the appeals process.

The parish was closed by Bishop Richard Lennon back in 2010.

Members believe that the church was on the original list of closings overturned by Vatican decree. Just last week, Lennon announced that he would not appeal the ruling and reopen 12 churches. Parishioners say Lennon’s announcement was the first time they heard that the appeal had been denied for Saint Margaret Mary. They claim the Diocese of Cleveland knew since early March, but neglected to say anything.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

BY JOANNE MCCARTHY

24 Apr, 2012

A CATHOLIC priest defending lurid child sex allegations has accused his alleged victims of fabricating claims against him to obtain compensation from the Church.
The priest, who cannot be identified, says at least one of four men who made statements to police about alleged offences against them in the 1980s and 1990s made up claims.

The priest alleged known Catholic paedophile priests could have sexually assaulted the two men.

But a Sydney District Court jury heard yesterday it would have been easier for the men to obtain compensation if they had made allegations against the known paedophile priests.

‘‘If it was his motive to get money, why wouldn’t he [the alleged victim] just say [the name of a known paedophile priest]?’’ a barrister for the Crown said during summing up at the end of the five-week trial.

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UNITED STATES
The Washington Times

DALLAS, April 22, 2012 – Since March 14, 1950 the FBI’s most wanted list has displayed the faces that instill fear in our hearts and exposed the evil glare of America’s most despised criminals. The FBI selects individuals for this list only after careful consideration by FBI officials and in concert with the many field offices throughout the country.

After US troops killed the man behind the attack on the World Trade Center, convicted terrorist Osama bin Laden, the most wanted list had a vacancy.

Last week, the FBI filled the spot that had once held the name of the most hated man in America with Child Pornographer Eric Justin Toth.

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NEW YORK
Broadway World

Impetus Ensemble will add Lucia Grillo to the cast of this special presentation of an ambitious new play, Vatican Falls, written by Frank J. Avella (author of “Consent”) and set against the backdrop of the Catholic sex abuse scandal. The staged reading will be presenTed May 15, 2012 at 6:45PM at the National Comedy Theatre. All proceeds from the play will benefit SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests).

Based on factual material, “VATICAN FALLS” follows the life of one survivor who struggles with understanding how those closest to him could damage him the deepest. The multi-genre, non-linear play probes the conflicting feelings involved in most sexual abuse situations and dares to confront the truth about the ever-growing scandal and the Church’s complicity in it.

“VATICAN FALLS” was set to have its World Premiere in Rome, Italy, last May but was cancelled the night before opening amidst controversy and claims of death threats. This will mark the first U.S. presentation of the play to an audience since the last workshop in 2010. We hope to raise awareness about the real facts concerning the scandal and about this very important group that has provided a safe haven for survivors since 1988.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
New Jersey Herald

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – PHILADELPHIA – The defense in a clergy-abuse trial is between a rock and a hard place in deciding whether to challenge the credibility of a man who says he was raped by two Catholic priests and his fifth-grade teacher.

If they do, a judge is likely to let jurors hear that 1 of the priests has pleaded guilty.

The accuser is set to testify Wednesday in the child-endangerment trial of Monsignor William Lynn.

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AUSTRALIA
Asia One

AFP
Monday, Apr 23, 2012

SYDNEY – Prime Minister Julia Gillard Monday defended her appointment of Peter Slipper as Australia’s speaker as court documents alleged he used his position to pursue sexual relations with male employees.

The married Slipper, 62, stood aside from his role on Sunday after claims he harassed former aide James Ashby, 33, with explicit text messages, unwanted advances and inappropriate comments between January and March this year.

He is also accused of fraudulently misusing taxpayer-funded taxi services.

In Federal Court documents published Monday, Ashby accused Slipper, an ordained Anglican priest, of “using his position to pursue relationships of a sexual nature with young male employees”.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Controversial MP Peter Slipper could return to the Speaker’s chair with Gillard government support before the sexual harassment claims against him are resolved.

The former Liberal turned independent MP stood aside as Speaker pending a possible criminal probe into allegations he misused taxpayer-funded Cabcharge vouchers.

He also faces civil claims – to be heard by the Federal Court next month – that he sexually harassed a former male aide. He strenuously denies all the allegations.

The scandal on Monday overshadowed the first day of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s trip to Singapore.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Jared Owens
From:The Australian
April 24, 2012

PETER Slipper’s ambition to serve as a parish priest could still be realised, despite the sex and fraud scandals engulfing him, the leader of Australia’s Traditional Anglican Communion affirmed yesterday.

The independent MP, who has stood aside as Speaker while allegations of abusing public entitlements are tested, is already an ordained priest in Australia’s breakaway conservative Anglican movement and acts as “chancellor” — a senior legal adviser — to primate John Hepworth and his pro-Rome synod.

Speaking from Adelaide, Archbishop Hepworth yesterday reaffirmed he would ensure that Mr Slipper stood aside from that role until allegations of sexual harassment were resolved. But he also described Mr Slipper as a devout Christian of “enormous ability” and said he was welcome to train for a public role in the church, including that of parish priest, if he was cleared of the complaint.

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UNITED STATES
Another Voice

Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior using force or coercion to afflict others.

Bullying consists of three basic types of abuse – emotional, verbal, and physical. It can use subtle methods of coercion such as intimidation or not so subtle methods involving condemnation and punishment. It is always destructive and demeaning. Bullying has no place within the community of faith.

Bullying can range from simple one-to-one bullying to more complex institutionalized bullying in which the bully may have one or many “lieutenants” who assist the primary bully in his or her bullying activities.

Reviewing events of the past couple weeks, it is clear that contemporary Roman Catholic leadership in Rome, along with the Vatican’s lieutenants in the USCCB, have launched an aggressive program of Catholic bullying.

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UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Magazine

Sandy Hingston

As if the Catholic Church didn’t have enough on its plate, it just announced that it’s appointing an archbishop to whip its wayward American religious sisters into line. That’s right! Instead of worrying about, say, which of its clergy are repeat pedophiliac abusers, or its latest money-laundering scandal, or the “Vatileaks” corruption kerfuffle, the Holy See sees fit to drill down on those rowdy, rambunctious women in black and white.

Actually, they don’t wear black and white much anymore, which is part of the problem, apparently. A few years back, the New York Times ran a piece on the Vatican’s multi-year investigation, known as an “Apostolic Visitation,” into whether American nuns were going astray. That article stated that some sisters “surmise that the Vatican and even some American bishops are trying to shift them back into living in convents, wearing habits or at least identifiable religious garb, ordering their schedules around daily prayers and working primarily in Roman Catholic institutions, like schools and hospitals.” How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen American social injustice, right?

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

Garry O’Sullivan

An 88-year-old nun/sister wrote to me this week congratulating the paper’s coverage of the Fr Flannery/Vatican controversy (we broke the story) and signed off saying, “Thank God, He is in charge.” Amen sister!

I couldn’t agree more and although I’m less than half her age, I share her tiredness. Self-described Vatican II liberals lining up to bash their heads against the equally stubborn heads of more conservative priests and bishops and Vatican officials. It’s all a bit predictable.

The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) are of course right that the Church should permit discussion and dialogue and it is also true that the Vatican are having a PR nightmare by failing to communicate their point of view leaving the secular media to have a field day thrashing the Church.

Others have pointed out that Fr Flannery et al have had the last 40 years to discuss these issues unfettered in the religious press and in an inviting secular press.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

Michael Kelly

There is “deep unease” among some members of the hierarchy over Vatican plans to slash the number of Irish dioceses, The Irish Catholic understands.

Despite this, however, the Vatican is intent on pushing ahead with the reform a well-placed source has confirmed.

In comments to this paper, theologian Fr Vincent Twomey has also predicted that “they [Irish bishops] will resist it tooth and nail”.

The proposal – which could see the current 26 dioceses cut to just 11 – has been a key part of the Vatican’s plan for reform of the Church in Ireland.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

By Ralph Cipriano

As the religion reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer in the early 1990s, my assignment was to profile Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua.

At the time, I was negotiating with the cardinal’s PR guys for a face-to-face interview with Bevilacqua. The cardinal’s men offered some suggestions. If I wanted to do a story about the cardinal, I should see him in action first. They wanted me to accompany the cardinal on one of his famous, carefully choreographed “parish visits.”

These were glorified photo ops where Bevilacqua would visit a local parish, say Mass, and then mug for the cameras. It was all part of the cardinal’s public image as an energetic, charismatic shepherd out among his adoring flock. The cardinal’s PR guys also suggested several priests in the archdiocese who would be good to interview about the cardinal, boosters who would say positive things about what a wonderful job the cardinal was doing to re-energize the archdiocese.

It took months for the cardinal’s PR people to settle on just the right parish, and just the right pastor, for the cardinal’s parish visit, which would be the subject of photos for a big Sunday spread in the Inquirer profiling the new archbishop.

There were some ground rules for my participation in the parish visit. One, I could not travel with the cardinal; I would have to follow in the car behind the cardinal’s chauffeur-driven Ford Crown Victoria. Two, I could not speak to the cardinal unless he addressed me first. And last, if he did deign to speak to me, I had to refer to him as His Eminence. Not Cardinal, not Cardinal Bevilacqua, but His Eminence.

The parish visit went off as scheduled. The parish we visited was Our Mother of Sorrows, an ethnic Slavak church in Bridgeport, Montgomery County. The pastor of the parish was Father Stanley M. Gana.

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UNITED STATES
USA Today

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

Have you tweeted at #WhatSistersMeanToMe about the nuns in your life?

Rev. James Martin, culture editor for America magazine, wrote an ode to the sisters and launched a the hashtag to rally praise for them after the major group of women religious (their proper title although nuns and sisters fit headlines and Twitter counts better) now that some are under fire.

The Vatican wants the powerful women’s voices to stress the Catholic vision for marriage and sexuality and to spend more time campaigning against abortion,gay marriage, and women’s ordination.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Agency

Washington D.C., Apr 22, 2012 / 04:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An expert on religious women in America believes that renewal within the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) will require “very strong self-evaluation” and cooperation with the Vatican’s recent call for reform.

“After having studied this for many years, I think it was 40 years in the making,” said Ann Carey, author of the 1997 book “Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women’s Religious Communities.”

Carey told CNA on April 20 that ever since the LCWR revised its statutes in 1971, it has had a rocky relationship with the Vatican.

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OHIO
WOIO

SOUTH EUCLID, OH (WOIO) –
Parishioners of the Saint Margaret Mary Church located at 4217 Bluestone Road in South Euclid, informed Bishop Richard G. Lennon of the Diocese of Cleveland that they have begun proceedings to appeal his decision not to reopen their church.

Bishop Lennon was informed of the appeal on Sunday, April 23rd, 2012.

It was widely reported on March 7, 2012 that the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy has issued 13 decrees calling for the reopening of the churches who appealed their closure. St. Margaret Mary was listed as one of the thirteen to be reopened. The Congregation specifically ruled that the Bishop erred both legally and procedurally in his church closing actions.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Gone Mild

Dear Mom and Dad,

I’m not Catholic anymore. I feel like I owe you an explanation, and I hope that if you’re somehow able to hear and react to me anymore, that you’ll understand.

Catholicism was a huge part of who you were. You worked so hard and sacrificed so much to send me to Catholic schools. You were so proud of me when I made my First Communion, and my Confirmation. Dad, I remember you leading us in the Rosary when we went on long trips. I remember going to Church every Sunday morning, and singing the hymns. Dad, I remember your deep voice booming a vibration I could actually feel, standing next to you.

Church was at the center of everything. Dad, I remember you being part of the men’s club of Ascension Parish – the Ascenders. And Mom, I remember you being president of the Mother’s club of our school.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Anglocat on the Prowl

In the absence of a written order, it’s a little hard to know what to make of this story. On the one hand, the judge in the lawsuit against Fr. Joseph Tierney and the Diocese of Kansas City-St.Joseph has ordered a second deposition of David Clohessy, Director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (“SNAP”). As I wrote in my prior post discussing the first day of the deposition, not only did Catholic League President William Donoghue misstate the testimony and its legal import in his eagerness to brand Clohessy a “con man,” but many of the questions did not go to relevant issues in the litigation, and seemed to me to be more aimed at discrediting SNAP than at eliciting evidence for the case against Tierney and the Diocese, and suggested to me that the deposition was abused to harass SNAP.

On the other hand, the judge has said that she intends to “limit the original document request to several broad categories related to sexual misconduct by priests in the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese,” focusing on the question of repressed memory, specifically regarding the plaintiff’s claim that he had repressed his memories of the abuse, and was therefore, under Missouri law, entitled to a tolling–a partial judicial waiver–off the statute of limitations. s the judge is quoted as saying, “I believe they [lawyers for Tierney and the diocese] are entitled to have information on repressed memory.” In another article, from the Kansas City Star, the judge is quoted as saying “that she planned to order another deposition for Clohessy and possibly have a retired judge sit in to rule on disputes over whether documents or answers could be properly disclosed and answered.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

Das Kriminologische Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen stößt bei der Aufarbeitung des Missbrauchsskandals in der katholischen Kirche immer noch auf Widerstand. Im vergangenen Sommer hatte die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz das Institut beauftragt, in einem dreijährigen Forschungsprojekt die Personalakten der Kirche auf Missbrauchsfälle zu untersuchen. Die Bistümer Hildesheim und Trier stellten Akten für erste Auswertungen zur Verfügung; inwieweit die anderen 25 deutschen Diözesen ihre Personalakten übergeben, ist aber immer noch nicht ganz geklärt. Viele Pfarrer fürchten offenbar, dass bei Weitergabe der Akten an die Wissenschaftler vertrauliche Daten an die Öffentlichkeit geraten. Seinen Mitarbeitern würden “doch überhaupt keine Akten direkt ausgehändigt”, beschwichtigt Institutsleiter Christian Pfeiffer die Kleriker.

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OSTERREICH
Non

VON MARTIN GEBHART

Auch wenn es das Zentrum der katholischen Weltkirche ist: In Rom sorgt das kleine Österreich derzeit für einigen Gesprächsstoff, in erster Linie wegen der Pfarrerinitiative und deren Aufruf zum Ungehorsam. Dass es deswegen einen direkten Dialog zwischen Papst Benedikt XVI. und dem Proponenten der Initiative, Pfarrer Helmut Schüller, geben wird, sieht man im Vatikan eher als unwahrscheinlich an. „Wenn es ein Problem in einem Land gibt, wird der Papst zu den Bischöfen sagen: Das ist eure Arbeit, diese Probleme zu lösen“, so Pater Frederico Lombardi SJ, Leiter des Vatikanischen Presseamtes zu österreichischen Journalisten.

Auf den direkten Dialog hatte ja Helmut Schüller gehofft, nachdem Papst Benedikt bei der Chrisam-Messe am Gründonnerstag den „Aufruf zum Ungehorsam“ in seiner Predigt direkt ansprach. Mit der Frage: „Ist Ungehorsam ein Weg, um die Kirche zu ermutigen?“ Ein Satz, der in Rom als rein rhetorische Frage gedeutet wird, als klare Verurteilung des Ungehorsams. Der Grazer Bischof Egon Kapellari zum Text in der Papst-Predigt: „Der Text war moderat, hat keine Türe zugeschlagen, niemanden verletzt, ist aber keine Einladung an die Initiative, auf diesem Weg fortzufahren.“ Er sieht das Wort „Ungehorsam“ als Tabubruch an.

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BELGIE
Kerknieuws

MA 23 apr 2012 | 11.15
Veel slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik door priesters “blijven lijden onder dit misbruik omdat de paus de feiten ongestraft laat voortwoekeren”, aldus de Belgische Werkgroep Mensenrechten in de Kerk in de Belgische krant Het Laatste Nieuws.

Maandag 23 april is het precies twee jaar geleden dat de Belgische bisschop Roger Vangheluwe ontslag nam nadat bekend was geworden dat hij twee neefjes seksueel had misbruikt. Deze datum grijpt de werkgroep aan om zich kritisch uit te laten over de manier waarop de kerk omgaat met het misbruik.

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OSTERREICH
News

Erhitzte Situation! So bezeichnet die Erzdiözese Wien die “Causa Stützenhofen”. Die Auseinandersetzungen in der katholischen Kirche Österreichs werden auch weiter vom Vatikan scharf beobachtet. Am Dienstag verlautete aus informierten Kreisen in Rom, der Kardinal könnte die Bitte erhalten, “die Sache Stützenhofen dem Heiligen Stuhl näher zu erklären”. Ebenso, wie es mit Helmut Schüllers “aufmüpfiger Pfarrer-Initiative” weitergehen soll, die offenbar keine Chance auf ein persönliches Gespräch mit dem Papst hat. Was im NEWS-Gespräch auch Christoph Kardinal Schönborn durchblicken lässt.

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OSTERREICH
News

Der Sprecher der Pfarrerinitiative, Helmut Schüller, hat in Luzern den “Herbert-Haag-Preis 2012 für Freiheit in der Kirche” verliehen bekommen. Der Vorsitzende der gleichnamigen Stiftung, der Theologe und Kirchenkritiker Hans Küng, würdigte in seiner Laudatio Schüllers “Widerstandskraft”. Der Geehrte bedankte sich seinerseits für die “neuen Impulse” und nahm neben den ermutigenden Worten auch 10.000 Euro für die Pfarrerinitiative mit.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 21 April 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed the following cardinals, created in the consistory of 18 February as members of dicasteries and offices of the Roman Curia:

1. Cardinal George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly of the Syro-Malabars, India; Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, and Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, as members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

2. Cardinal George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly of the Syro-Malabars, India; Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, archbishop of New York, U.S.A.; Cardinal Lucian Muresan, major archbishop of Fagaras and Alba Julia of the Romanians, Romania; Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, and Cardinal Edwin Frederick O’Brien, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, as members of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

3. Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, as member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

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UNITED STATES
Seattle Times

Jerry Large
Seattle Times staff columnist

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the pioneering American feminist, found the Bible degrading to women, so she wrote her own version, The Woman’s Bible.

She paid a price for her audacity, and it looks like a lot of contemporary women are being punished for asserting themselves in much milder ways than Stanton did.

Last week The Vatican announced it has picked J. Peter Sartain, the archbishop of Seattle, to take control of the largest organization of Roman Catholic sisters. The church has been investigating sisters and nuns for the past few years and concluded there is some radical feminist stuff going on.

Some sisters even think women ought to be ordained; some, the church believes, have spent too much time on social justice and too little fighting abortion and gay marriage.

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UNITED STATES
Renew America

By Matt C. Abbott

In light of recent headlines involving the Vatican’s announced “house-cleaning” of the modernist Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), I’m publishing excerpts from the introduction to Father Mitch Pacwa’s book Catholics and the New Age.

Originally published in 1992, Father Pacwa’s book is still timely, especially given that many religious communities have, over the last few decades, become infected by the New Age Movement (among other things) and have lost the true faith.

Thanks to Kathleen M. Carroll of Franciscan Media for allowing me to publish this material in my column. Click here to order a copy of the book.

————————

A campus chaplain at a Catholic university recommends crystals, the energy source of Atlantis, for personal help.

A Catholic women’s college offers workshops in Wicca (witchcraft) and the goddess within. Astrology columns appear in the school paper….

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Jane Lee
April 23, 2012

THE state government has been urged to widen the inquiry into sex abuse by priests to consider how to make it easier for victims to sue the Catholic Church.

Premier Ted Baillieu last week announced that a parliamentary committee would investigate the handling of the criminal abuse of children in churches and other organisations.

However, the inquiry’s terms of reference do not cover the church’s immunity from civil lawsuits for past sexual abuse.

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NEW JERSEY
Times of Trenton

Published: Monday, April 23, 2012

By Times of Trenton Editorial Board

The testimony during the ongoing clerical abuse trial in Philadelphia has been as graphic as it’s been heartbreaking.

Powerless victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests are now old enough to tell their stories – and be heard. They have described methodical and brazen predators, freely roaming among vulnerable children.

Closer to home, New Jersey State Police have rounded up more than two dozen people who are suspected to have traded in child pornography.

As a society, we are more vigilant. We have learned, painfully, that priests should no longer be considered sacrosanct. And the state police have developed a high-tech means of identifying distributors of child pornography.

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CALIFORNIA
Bay Citizen

By Tim Lennon |April 22, 2012

Why does the church pay to settle cases of sexual abuse of children by clergy? And why do they pay so much? These questions can be answered by asking another question: what does Bishop Blaire of Stockton Diocese accomplish by stopping the civil trial?

Stopping the trial halts the testimony of church officials who would no longer be able to hide behind their high positions to avoid testifying. It is no accident that Cardinal Mahony was next up to testify, they wanted to avoid that at all costs. Cardinal Mahony has a sordid history of coverup ups of clergy abuse both in Stockton diocese where he was bishop but also in Los Angeles where he was Archbishop. His sordid history would be exposed to the public for all to see.

Church officials would have been be forced to testify under oath. Stopping the trial allows these church officials to keep hidden their decades long practice of endangering the children of the area.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Hull Daily Mail

Monday, April 23, 2012

THE Bishop of Hull has backed calls by a charity for an inquiry into child abuse by the clergy.

Bishop Richard Frith told the Mail he would support any inquiry and would co-operate “fully” with any requests made.

His support comes after solicitor David Greenwood, who is representing more than 150 victims of abuse at a notorious East Yorkshire care home for boys, launched a campaign for an inquiry.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Stephen Rogers

Monday, April 23, 2012

A Californian diocese has agreed to pay $3.75m (€2.8m) to a man abused as a child by the Tipperary priest who last week fled the US to return to Ireland.

On Apr 6, Fr Michael Kelly, who maintains his innocence, was found “liable” of sexual misconduct against the then 10-year-old boy in the Stockton diocese more than 20 years ago.

The victim has now waived his anonymity and identified himself as Travis Trotter, a former altar boy at the Cathedral of the Annunciation.

Fr Kelly is also separately under criminal investigation by US authorities over accusations of abuse in another county.

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STOCKTON (CA)
California Catholic Daily

The Diocese of Stockton has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit for $3.75 million after the priest involved — whom the bishop previously said he believed to be innocent — fled the country.

On April 6, a San Joaquin County Superior Court jury found Fr. Michael Kelly, 62, liable for damages in a civil suit filed against him alleging he sexually molested a former altar boy in the mid-1980s at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton.

A second phase of the trial — in which Fr. Kelly was expected to be a key witness — had been scheduled to begin on April 16, but Fr. Kelly left the country the day before for his native Ireland, leaving behind a letter for Stockton Bishop Stephen Blaire explaining why. The second phase was scheduled to assess whether the diocese was financially responsible for Fr. Kelly’s alleged misconduct.

As a consequence of Fr. Kelly’s departure, the trial had to be postponed. In the interim, the diocese and the plaintiff reached an out-of-court settlement.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Irish Times

GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor

A CATHOLIC priest embroiled in controversy over the display of gay pornographic images has taken temporary leave from his duties as parish priest of Pomeroy in Co Tyrone.

Fr Martin McVeigh requested and was granted temporary leave by Primate of All-Ireland Cardinal Seán Brady after a meeting in Pomeroy between local parents and representatives of the archdiocese of Armagh on Friday night proved “inconclusive”.

The archdiocese has been conducting an inquiry into how the images were “inadvertently” shown by the priest to a group of parents and one child on March 26th.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

What is believed to be one of the largest individual settlements in the history of the US clerical sexual abuse scandal involved a priest who recently absconded to Ireland in the middle of court proceedings there.

The settlement of $3.75 million (€2.83 million) between the Californian diocese of Stockton and a man now in his 30s was announced on Friday and involved Fr Michael Kelly (62), a native of Tipperary.

Fr Kelly was removed from ministry in the US on April 6th after a jury found unanimously against him in this case alleging sexual abuse in the 1980s.

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UNITED STATES
Lez Get Real

Posted by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on April 22, 2012

If you want to know how a war is going, do not talk to the generals. Anyone who is not in the field or just tours the front lines occasionally won’t really know how things are going. Why? Because they are not there every day. To them, the casualties are numbers and at arm’s length. When was the last time that General David Petraus held a rifle and fired at someone in the Taliban? When was the last time that Marine Commandant General John Amos did the same?

Really, don’t bother asking anyone above the rank of Captain how the war is going because they will have, at best, a fuzzy idea of how things are going, and their jobs largely depend upon not knowing if the battle on the ground is a major fuck up.

So, if you want to know just how healthy the Catholic Church is, the last person you want to talk to is the Pope. After that, you don’t want to talk Cardinals, Archbishops or bishops. Don’t bother talking to them. They don’t have a clue what is going on, and their ignorance is bliss for them because they honestly do not want to know. All they want to know is that their jobs and their positions are secure.

Thus, it is not surprising that Pope Benedict is going after the nuns. It is also not surprising to note that, as John Zogby writes at the Huffington Post, “the bishops have adopted a Nixon-like ‘circle the wagons’ defensive posture during their disgraceful ‘defend the institution at all costs’ approach to the pedophile scandal, making us wince in shame at their outrageous behavior, it was our women religious figures who held high the social gospel, in word and deed — reminding us why we could still be proud of the Catholic church and its teachings.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Independent (United Kingdom)

Roger Maynard
Sydney
Monday 23 April 2012

Australia’s minority Labour government was embroiled in a crisis last night after the Speaker of the Federal Parliament agreed to step aside, pending an investigation into allegations he sexually harassed a male member of his staff and misused travel entitlements.

Peter Slipper, who resigned from the Liberal coalition last November after accepting Labour’s invitation to become Speaker in the House of Representatives, was accused of making “unwelcome advances”to his media adviser and abusing his taxi vouchers.

A father-of-three and ordained priest in the Traditional Anglican Communion Church, Mr Slipper “emphatically”denied the allegations but said it was appropriate to stand aside until the criminal investigation was resolved. “Once it is clear they are untrue, I shall return to the Speakership,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Vatican attacks American nuns: A compilation. USA nuns live Gospel, serve the poor and sick…while Benedict XVI lives in luxury out-of-touch-with-reality in Vatican Bank Tower

Paris Arrow

Benedict XVI has returned to his original nature as God’s Rottweiler mauling anyone who disagrees with him and this time on his 7th anniversary as Pope he is mauling American nuns. Upon his return from the communist Cuba where he acted as God’s representative and lectured Fidel Castro, he is turning out to be worse than his old self Cardinal Ratzinger by silencing Irish priest Fr. Tony Flaherty and other liberal Irish priests and now he wants to “change” American nuns according to his Vatican mindset which is really out-of-touch-with-reality because all he does all day is count the Vatican Billions as he dress up to have his face covered with movie-star make-up foundations to hide his ugly face and dress up in papal robes that could feed 10 African villages for 10 years to have his photo-op taken with European royalties and world millionnaires and billionnaires. Sister

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Michael Mullins April 22, 2012

We do not criticise the police force as a whole when there are revelations of corruption. We tend to believe that police men and women protect us and do at least a fair job of upholding the law. Our condemnation is confined to police drug rings and the like and, most importantly, the evil culture that sustains them.

There is every reason why we should apply the same principle in our response to sexual abuse within the Church. In other words, let’s avoid scapegoating the Church in general and focus instead on convicted abusers and, most particularly, the culture that has sanctioned their actions, even if identifying it is a lengthy and costly process.

Bishop James Moriarty led the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin in Ireland until he resigned in 2009 after he was criticised in the Murphy Report into the handling of clerical child sex abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese. He was one of many church leaders who effectively allowed sexual abuse to occur under his watch.

‘With the benefit of hindsight, I accept that, from the time I became an auxiliary bishop, I should have challenged the prevailing culture,’ he said in his statement of resignation.

Identifying and describing the culture that prevailed should count for almost everything in the investigation of clergy sex abuse (as indeed with corrupt behaviour in the police force and other professions). Individual abusers, and those in authority who failed to act, were a product of a culture that accepted, at best, the existence of sexual abuse as an abhorrent fact of life and, at worst – among offenders – that sexual gratification at the expense of those subject to one’s authority was a ‘perk’ of the job (like funds from crime for corrupt police).

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sunday Leader

By Emma Wallace – reporting from London

The rape and sexual abuse cases against Ven. Pahalagama Somaratana, chief monk of Selsdon Buddhist Temple in London, continued proceedings at Isleworth Crown Court this week.

When Somaratana first arrived in England, in 1978, he was 32 years old. He was part of Chiswick Temple from 1978 to 1981, and thereafter went on to create his own Temple in Selsdon, South Croydon, where he remains today.

Key prosecution witnesses took to the stand to tell their account of what had allegedly occurred during 1978-79 and 1984-86. Both witnesses were aged between 9 and 10 when the first was allegedly raped and both were sexually abused.

The court heard that a majority of the alleged rape and indecent assaults occurred primarily after the Temple’s Sunday school. The accused would routinely visit classes where approximately 20 children, aged between 4 to 16, attended each week.

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OSTERREICH
kathweb

Wien, 22.04.2012 (KAP) Die österreichische “Pfarrer-Initiative” hat am Sonntagabend in Luzern den Herbert-Haag-Preis 2012 für Freiheit in der Kirche erhalten. Obmann Helmut Schüller nahm die mit 10.000 Euro dotierte Auszeichnung stellvertretend entgegen. Ausgezeichnet werde die Pfarrer-Initiative, weil sie die “Not in der Seelsorge” aufgreife, hieß es in der Begründung der Schweizer Stiftung. Ihr “Aufruf zum Ungehorsam” vom Juni 2011 greife “die Not der Seelsorge auf, die in der katholischen Kirche immer weniger durch Priester gewährleistet werden” könne und trete ihr “mit klaren Postulaten und entschiedenem Handeln mutig und unerschrocken” entgegen”, so die Stiftung.

Gemeinsam mit der Pfarrer-Initiative zeichnete die Stiftung stellvertretend die drei Schweizer Laienseelsorger Monika Hungerbühler (Basel), Monika Schmid (Zürich-Effretikon) und Charlie Wenk (St. Gallen) aus, die in priesterlosen Gemeinden als Gemeindeleiterinnen und Gemeindeleiterinnen sowie in der City-Seelsorge Dienst tun.

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OOSTENRIJK
RKnieuws (Nederland)

LUZERN / WENEN (RKnieuws.net) – Het Oostenrijkse Pharrer-Initiatieve, dat opgeroepen heeft tot ongehoorzaamheid in de Kerk, heeft zondag in Luzern de prestigieuse Herbert Haag Prijs 2012 voor vrijheid in de Kerk gekregen. De Herbert Haag Stichting, die de prijs toekent, wijst op de grote weerklank die het Oostenrijkse initiatief in het buitenland genoot.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Ook ik ben slachtoffer van misbruik in een internaat. Ik ben na een hoorzitting in mijn gelijk gesteld en kom in aanmerking voor een compensatie regeling. Nu is er echter het grote prbleem dat de kerk probeert ons in hokjes te plaatsen (categorie schadevergoeding misbruik) Ik heb hier heel veel moeite mee want wie bepaalt wat mijn immateriele schade is die ik geleden heb na het misbruik.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Zijn is waargenomen worden

Beitel het in de muren
brand het in de glasramen
kap het in de gebinten
van hun kathedralen

Stuur hen op foto
schrijf hen in brief
dicht hen in bundel
jouw gekerkerd verdriet

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According to Sister Campbell, the questions raised against those who announce the Gospel through their own life are incorrect

Vatican Insider staff
Rome

Speaking to the BBC, Sister Simone Campbell, head of en/homepage/news/detail/articolo/suore-nuns-monja-stati-uniti-united-states-estados-unidos-8087/“Network”, a Catholic association which promotes social justice, responded to the indications given by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in relation to the tough doctrinal evaluation which dealt a strong blow to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the association representing the majority of Catholic women religious in the United States.

The document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith speaks of the “dissent” shown by American nuns, whom it accuses of ignoring or questioning the Catholic Church teachings on abortion, homosexuality and priesthood. As a result, they face being “monitored” for five years by the Bishop of Seattle.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

Today 20th April We are Church Ireland announces a silent vigil in support of those silenced priests , Sean Fagan, Tony Flannery, Gerry Moloney , Owen OSullivan and others who wish to remain anonymous.

It will take place at the residence of the Papal Nuncio to Ireland , Archbishop Charles Brown, the Apostolic Nunciature , 183 Navan Road , Dublin 7 on Sunday 29th April 2012 at 16.00 hours.

It is important that Irish committed Catholics show their solidarity with these priests who are articulating the views of the majority of Irish Catholics as evidenced in the recent Amarach survey.

We call for the revocation of these silences by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which punished these men without due process and through secretive procedures with no right of Appeal.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Thomas C. Fox on Apr. 21, 2012 NCR Today

The Los Angeles Times has chimed in, adding another incredulous voice to many more certain to come, as reasonable observers consider the Vatican’s destructive attack on U.S. women religious last week.

Columnist Steve Lopez writes that when he first heard of the Vatican doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the umbrella group of 80 percent of U.S. women religious now under attack by Rome, he thought it was some kind of satire, “a parody of the out-of-touch Vatican patriarchy.”

No, Steve, the men in Rome seem to think that without ever entering into serious conversation with LCWR they can order these women into some kind of straight jacket Vatican think. Get on the band wagon, they command the women. Condemn same sex liaisons; stand up for our failed anti-abortion political campaign; step away from the programs which have an actual track record of reducing abortions while assisting women raise children.

So very strange. The men in gowns don’t speak to the women in pants.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Injury Board Blog Network

by Mike Bryant
April 22, 2012

The February bankruptcy of Archdiocese of Milwaukee was something I have written about before. What wasn’t found out until the filing was the magnitude of the abused children involved. The report disclosed at least 8,000 instances of child sexual abuse and 100 alleged offenders – 75 of them priests – who have not previously been named by the archdiocese.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which has been covering the ongoing story reported :

Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests speculated that some are likely members of religious orders, such as Capuchins or Franciscans. Order officials do not typically make public the names of their accused members, and the archdiocese claims it is not responsible for them, though they have historically helped to staff its parishes and schools.

“This is a public safety crisis, a child safety crisis that needs to be investigated,” Isely said at a news conference on the federal courthouse steps, surrounded by fellow survivors and reporters.

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WEST VIRGINIA
News and Sentinel

April 21, 2012

By JOHN McCABE , The Wheeling Intelligencer

WHEELING – Monsignor Kevin Quirk, an aide to the Most Rev. Michael J. Bransfield, bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, will testify in the clergy sex abuse trial currently under way in Philadelphia, a judge has ruled.

Ohio County Circuit Judge Ronald Wilson issued the four-page ruling late Thursday. He said Quirk “is a material witness and that his live testimony at this trial, where he will be subject to direct and cross examination, is essential to ascertaining the truth.”

Wheeling attorney William Kolibash, who is representing Quirk, confirmed his client will now testify in the case of the Rev. James Brennan, who’s on trial in Philadelphia for an alleged 1996 child-sex assault. Brennan has denied those charges.

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CAMDEN (NJ)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By David O’Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

When he took charge of the Diocese of Camden on April 30, 2004, Bishop Joseph A. Galante had no plan to close parishes – let alone embark on the most sweeping reorganization any Catholic diocese in the nation has ever seen.

Four years after arriving here from Dallas, however, he stunned his 500,000-member flock with news he was closing or merging nearly half the 124 parishes in the six counties.

Likening the process to the quick sting of “pulling off a Band-Aid,” he conceded his “radical” approach would cause grief and anger. But in years to come, he promised, it would bring community, “vibrancy,” and financial solvency to the congregations.

Today, the 73-year-old bishop says his stewardship of the ambitious overhaul might end sooner than he once expected. Poor health could force him to step down well before his scheduled retirement in 15 months.

After a decade battling the Type-2 diabetes he “inherited from my father and grandfather,” Galante has entered what he calls “end-stage” kidney failure. Two months ago, he began dialysis treatments three days a week at a Camden clinic.

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MALTA
The Malta Independent

We will start by saying that the judge in the appeal filed by the Attorney General in relation to the rape of a boy by a defrocked priest was absolutely correct in terms of law.

The case refers to Godwin Scerri, who was cleared by the Magistrates’ Court, and subsequently the appeals court, of raping a young boy who was in his care. The victim had testified that he was raped in Santa Venera, but the charge sheet issued by the prosecution referred to the location as being Mtarfa. In appealing, the Attorney General’s Office argued that the accused could still be found guilty, irrespective of where the act took place.

The judge, on the other hand, observed that the prosecution had plenty of time to rectify the mistake, and did not do so. As we said, this is completely correct in terms of law, but we also have to say that it is a grave miscarriage of justice. Godwin Scerri, 75, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for abusing this same and other boys in his care. But he has been cleared of what is the most serious charge of all – the rape of a young boy, in his care, and all down to some anomaly in our legal texts.

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