ABUSE TRACKER

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

[with list of the merged parishes]

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced today that Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. has approved the recommendations of the Archdiocesan Strategic Planning Committee to merge several parishes across the Archdiocese in Coatesville, Germantown, and Manayunk. This ongoing restructuring will ultimately strengthen parish communities positioning them for future growth and sustainability.

“Restructuring our parishes will be a challenge for many families and individuals. Change is rarely easy. But we do need to take these steps to help every parish more effectively promote the Gospel and strengthen the future of our Catholic life together,” said Archbishop Chaput.

The recommendations and resulting mergers are an outcome of the Archdiocesan-wide Parish Pastoral Planning Area initiative, which began in 2011. Parishioners at all affected parishes learned of the final decisions through letters mailed to all registered parishioners as well as announcements made at all Masses this past weekend. It is hoped that the planning and restructuring process will result in revitalized parishes throughout the Archdiocese that are better equipped to meet the spiritual and pastoral needs of future generations.

The mergers announced today were based on a combination of factors, including, but not limited to, demographic shifts in Catholic populations, concentrated density of parishes in a limited geographic area, history of declining Mass attendance and sacramental activity, increasing economic challenges that threaten sustainability, a decrease in the availability of clergy to staff parishes, and a review of facilities.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: April 15, 2012 – 3:02 pm

PHILADELPHIA — The Archdiocese of Philadelphia says a dozen Philadelphia-area parishes will be merged into five beginning this summer.

The decisions, announced at Sunday Masses, involve parishes in Manayunk and Germantown in the city and in Coatesville in Chester County.

Archbishop Charles Chaput told congregations that “change is rarely easy” but the steps are needed.

Cited as factors in the mergers are demographic shifts in Catholic populations and concentrated density of parishes in a limited geographic area.

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ALBANY (NY)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany

News Release
Contact: Ken Goldfarb 518 453-6618 (H) 518 943-2430
For immediate release: April 14, 2012

ALBANY, N.Y. — The Albany Roman Catholic Diocese has placed a Greene County priest on administrative leave from ministry pending the outcome of investigations into allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. The Diocese has referred the allegations to the Greene County District Attorney’s Office.

Rev. Jeremiah Nunan, 74, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Cairo and Our Lady of Knock Mission in East Durham, is temporarily barred from officiating at any sacraments, wearing clerical garb, or presenting himself as a priest. The Diocese’s action is being announced at weekend Masses at the two parishes.

The Diocese acted after a civil lawsuit was filed claiming that Rev. Nunan sexually abused an individual between 1996 and 2003 when the individual was a minor and between 2007 and 2011 when the individual was an adult. The lawsuit named as defendants Rev. Nunan, one of the parishes and the Diocese. Rev. Nunan has denied the allegations.

The Albany Diocese has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse of children by clerics. Any priest or deacon against whom an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor is substantiated at any time is permanently removed from ministry.

This is the second time Rev. Nunan has been placed on administrative leave by the Diocese during an investigation of an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor. The previous allegation, received in 2006 and involving alleged abuse in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Hudson, was investigated by the Independent Mediation Assistance Program, and could not be substantiated. As a result, the Diocese restored Rev. Nunan to ministry.

Rev. Nunan joined the Albany Diocese in 1963 after graduating from a seminary in Ireland, and has served at St. Henry’s in Averill Park, St. Mary’s in Little Falls, Assumption parish in Latham, St. Mary’s in Hudson, and as chaplain for the Columbia Memorial Hospital School for Nursing.

The Albany Diocese is arranging for other priests to celebrate Mass and perform other ministerial duties at the two parishes in Rev. Nunan’s absence.

The Albany Diocese urges anyone who as a child was sexually abused by a Catholic priest or deacon to report the matter to a law enforcement agency or to the Diocese. To report an incident of abuse or to seek help, please contact the Diocese’s assistance coordinator, Theresa F. Rodrigues, at (518) 453-6646 or by e-mail at assistance.coordinator@rcda.org.

###

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany is one of eight such dioceses in New York State. It is comprised of 14 counties and covers an area of more than 10,400 square miles in and around the Capital Region of New York. There are more than 360,000 Catholics residing in the Diocese, who are served by more than 125 parishes.

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ROME
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

The Vatican has nothing to hide and is willing to work with investigators to solve the baffling mystery surrounding the disappearance of a teenage girl almost 30 years ago, Vatican media spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.

By Josephine McKenna, Rome
3:35PM BST 15 Apr 2012

Father Lombardi also rejected suggestions of a cover-up regarding the fate of .

In a statement released on Saturday, Father Lombardi said there were “no secrets” at the Vatican and officials were co-operating fully with the investigation when required.

“Nothing has been hidden, nor are there any ‘secrets’ in the Vatican to be revealed on this topic,” Father Lombardi said.

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UNITED STATES
New Engel Publishing

Randy Engel

While it is true that the floodgates of homosexuality in AmChurch were opened ever wider after the Second Vatican Council and the pontificate of Pope Paul VI, the moral rot had taken root decades, even centuries, before. …

Chapter 12 is a tale of intergenerational homosexuality in AmChurch during the first half of the 20th century. It highlights the lives of three prominent homosexual prelates, Cardinal William O’Connell of Boston, Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York, and Bishop (later Cardinal) John Wright of Worcester and their heirs in AmChurch through the next two
generations.

It is no coincidence that the earliest pederast/homosexual scandals in AmChurch occurred in the greater Boston area where Cardinals O’Connell, Spellman and Wright once plied their vice. These three prelates produced an entire contingent of homosexual bishops and cardinals, some of whom continue to hold positions of power in the American hierarchy today.

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NEW YORK
YNN

[with video]

GREENE COUNTY, N.Y. — A Greene County priest has been placed on administrative leave after allegations he sexually abused a minor.

Reverend Jeremiah Nunan, 74, is the pastor at the Sacred Heart Parish in Cairo, and at Our Lady of Knock Mission in East Durham. During the suspension, he is prohibited from officiating any ceremonies, wearing clerical clothing, or presenting himself as a priest.

The victim claims Nunan abused him as a child between 1996 and 2003, and when he was an adult between 2007 and 2011.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

When I heard that the Redemptorist priest Fr Tony Flannery was under some kind of Vatican probe, I thought it was an April fools day joke. It couldnt be true, my thinking went, because such a move would be seen as unnecessarily interventionist, and given his position with the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), it would inevitably be seen as something more than just an examination of theological orthodoxy.

And all respect to Fr Tony and Reality magazine, but Ive never met anyone who said to me did you see what Fr Flannery wrote in Reality?

As a Vatican II liberal, Fr Flannerys views are well known and hardly startling. So I assumed the Vatican, so lucky to recover some goodwill after the Taoiseachs speech last year, would show prudence and not shoot itself in the foot. I was wrong.

Surely there is a more transparent and gentle way of dealing with priests who express a contrary but sincerely held view on Church teaching?

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AUSTRIA
Vatican Insider

The co-founder of the “We are Church” movement on a collision course with the Vatican

GIACOMO GALEAZZI
Vatican Insider

Martha Heizer, teacher of religion in Innsbruck, co-founder and director of “We are Church”, challenges the Vatican and announces her intention to celebrate Mass even at the risk of excommunication. In reality, the issue is definitively closed as a result of the answer of the then prefect of the former Sant’ Uffizio, Jospeh Ratzinger, about the doctrine of the apostolic letter “Ordinatio sacerdotalis”.

Doubt was raised regarding the faculty of the Church to confer sacerdotal ordination to women. The “no” of the doctrine to women priests, clarified the current Pontiff, is “definitive” because such doctrine is founded on the Word of God written and constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church from the beginning. The doctrine has been proposed infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (dogmatic constitution “Lumen gentium” by the Second Vatican Council). Rooted in the New Testament, the Christian sacerdotal ministry, from the beginning, was conferred only to men. The Tyrolean theologian Martha Heizer and her group of believers propose to render the Eucharist possible without clergymen, thanks to private forms of celebration. It is a procedure that needs to be referred immediately to the Holy See because it figures among the delicta graviora. “The seven points contained in the appeal to disobedience by the parish priests promoting the Pfarrer-initiatives are to be examined individually and not like a package,” emphasizes Adista, the catholic news agency. “Communion to re-married divorced people, for example, could be granted only under determined conditions.” In April of 1995, a small group of Innsbruck Catholics, led by Thomas Plankesteiner and Martha Heizer, promoted an “Appeal from the people of God” in five points (more democracy in the Church, greater role of women, optional celibacy for the priests, different sexual moral). It was appealed directly to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church hoping to obtain concrete answers.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on April 13, 2012

For the second time in his career, Los Angeles’ Cardinal Roger Mahony will testify in open court in a child sex abuse and cover up case in Stockton, a diocese he headed for years before coming to LA.

The case centers around the diocese’s handling of Fr. Michael Kelly, a priest who just last week was found civilly liable by a 12-person jury of abusing a child in the mid-1980s. Despite the fact that allegations of abuse at the hands of Fr. Kelly have been known to the diocese for years, Fr. Kelly was only removed from ministry as of Friday (he had been removed from ministry once before in 2007, but the diocese reinstated him in 2008.

In 1998, Mahony testified in a civil trial involving notorious predator priest Oliver O’Grady who spent time in prison and was extradited. At the end of those proceeding, one juror pointedly told reporters that Mahony was “utterly unbelievable” and another juror went so far as to say “I didn’t believe Mahony . . . I think it is pretty obvious that none of us did.”

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

How did the 40th anniversary of the 1971 Synod on Justice in the World, relate to the current debates in the Church? If you go to the Holy See site and click on Synods, it gives the document inPortuguese which doesn’t help me. It was such an important document as it tacked, to some degree, the area of practicing justice in the church.

Some quotes are below:

40.While the Church is bound to give witness to justice, she recognizes that anyone who ventures to speak to people about justice must first be just in their eyes. Hence we must undertake an examination of the modes of acting andof the possessions and life style found within the Church herself.

41.Within the Church rights must be preserved. No one should be deprived of his ordinary rights because he is associated with the Church in one way or another. Those who serve the Church by their labor, including priests and religious, should receive a sufficient livelihood and enjoy that social security which is customary in their region. Lay people should be given fair wages and a system for promotion. We reiterate the recommendations that lay people should exercisemore important functions with regard to Church property and should share in its administration.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

In the hope that Fr Tony Flannery is allowed to read even if not allowed to speak I write to express my great sadness at the attempt to ‘silence’ those who Rome decrees are not ‘toeing the party line’. I am one of almost fifty priests in the archdiocese of Tuam who are registered members of the ACP and I am working as a priest for the past thirty two years. Like my co-diocesan Colm Kilcoyne who put it so eloquently on radio recently, I too was surprised and stunned by the announcement on Holy Thursday that the Pope is going to come down heavy on those promoting women priests ! Yes indeed Holy Week was almost wiped out !

Yesterday in Ballintubber Abbey at a funeral Mass I struggled with a colleague to read the ‘unreadable’ English in the awful translation that is the new missal. Tomorrow for ‘Low’ Sunday I will offer Mass in my home parish for my mother who is twenty years dead – the same church that she was secretly ‘churched’ after the joy of giving birth to each of her fourteen children. With regard to the role of women in our church has anything really changed ! Other colleagues expressed it well when they said that he church can be a ‘cold place’ for those of us who have a different view on the new missal or married clergy or the procedures used when colleagues are asked to ‘step aside’ from ministry.

Still we are an Easter people. We live in hope. Just as the Holy Spirit was at work at the AGM of our association a few months back when the Good News came through that RTE had apologised for its horrific libelling of our colleague Fr Kevin Reynolds. Maybe the attempt to ‘silence’ Fr Tony Flannery is the Holy Spirit giving us new energy as we move ‘Towards an Assembly of the Irish Catholic Church’ ! Looking forward to lively and respectful debate on the 7th May in the Regency Hotel !

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

[subscription is required]

[See other McGuire documents – BishopAccountability.org]

Even after the clergy abuse scandal exploded a decade ago, the Catholic order failed repeatedly to rein in offending priests. A current Boston College trustee was one who could have, should have done much more — and he admits it.

By Michael Rezendes
| Globe Staff
April 15, 2012

The Rev. Bradley M. Schaeffer, a Boston College trustee and rector of a major Jesuit training program in Brighton, failed to stop a predator priest associated with Mother Teresa of Calcutta during the 1990s, personally reviewing sexual abuse allegations and allowing him to continue to travel with boys. A judge has found that Schaeffer could have prevented years of abuse if he had taken stronger action against the Rev. Donald J. McGuire.

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ESPANA
Europa Press

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, 8 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –

El teólogo Andrés Torres Queiruga ha defendido que su teología es “tremendamente ortodoxa y moderada” y ha manifestado que el “toque” que le dieron “va mal orientado” porque “el grupo que elaboró el documento no entendió” su obra.

En una entrevista en Radio Nacional, recogida por Europa Press, Torres Queiruga ha comentado que la notificación recibida de la Conferencia Episcopal “es una especie de aviso” para decir “tenga usted cuidado, puede lesionar en algún momento la fe de la Iglesia”.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
PATRICK COUNIHAN,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Sunday, April 15, 2012

Parishioners in Dublin will be asked to dig deeper at mass collections as their diocese heads for bankruptcy.

Catholic church leaders in the Irish capital have admitted that the diocese is close to financial ruin.

Priests face a further 25 per cent cut to their meagre wages as the Dublin church attempts to come to terms with a near $15million deficit.

Settlements in clerical abuse cases added to growing costs and falling contributions have led to the latest crisis.

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SPANIEN
Religions Philosophischer

15. Apr 2012

Zum Geburtstag des Papstes: Ein prominenter spanischer Theologe wird verurteilt

Von Christian Modehn

Pünktlich zum 85. Geburtstag von Papst Benedikt XVI. wird die Öffentlichkeit von der Verurteilung eines großen katholischen Theologen informiert: Wichtige Aussagen von Prof. Andrés Torres Queiruga, einem der bedeutendsten spanischen Theologen, werden gleichermaßen von der römischen Glaubensbehörde wie von der spanischen Bischofskonferenz verurteilt: Prof. Andrés Torres Queiruga (Jahrgang 1940) arbeitete an der Universität von Santiago de Compostela und ist Autor zahlreicher international verbreiteter Bücher sowie Mitglied des Direktionskomitees der führenden katholisch – theologischen Zeitschrift CONCILIUM.

Was werfen ihm Rom und die Bischöfe vor ? Andrés Torres Queiruga „negiert den Realismus der Auferstehung Jesu Christi als ein historisches wunderbares und transzendentes Ereignis. Außerdem leugnet er die Einzigkeit und die Universalität der für das Heil nötigen Vermittlung durch Christus und die Kirche“ (zit. nach der Tagezeitung El Mundo, 31. 3. 2012).

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

Zehntausende Opfer, so eine unabhängige Untersuchungskommission, habe der Missbrauch von Kindern in den Niederlanden gefordert; Tausende Kinder seien vergewaltigt worden, und die kirchliche Hierarchie habe Täter systematisch geschützt und die Reputation der Kirche über das Leid der Opfer gestellt. Als wären die Folgerungen der „Deetman-Kommission“, geleitet von einem protestantischen Politiker, für Hollands Katholizismus noch nicht vernichtend genug, gerät nun ein weiterer furchtbarer Aspekt katholischer Sexualpolitik ins Gesichtsfeld: Zeitzeugen melden den Fall eines jungen Mannes, der in den fünfziger Jahren seine sexuelle Ausbeutung in einem katholischen Heim bei der Polizei anzeigte, danach in eine katholische Klinik eingewiesen und schließlich als Minderjähriger kastriert wurde. Die Begründung damals: Der Junge habe als perverser Homosexueller die Patres verführt.

Warum es bis heute dauerte, dass die Geschichte von Henk Heithuis an die Öffentlichkeit kam, liegt an der Mutlosigkeit zweier Zeugen. Inzwischen um die achtzig Jahre alt, beteuern die Brüder Cornelius und Ijsbrand Rogge, dass sie schon Ende der fünfziger Jahre die Kastration von Heithuis vor Gericht und in die Medien bringen wollten. Doch erst verhinderte der mysteriöse Tod des Missbrauchsopfers bei einem Verkehrsunfall geplante Veröffentlichungen; auch die Justiz unternahm keine weiteren Schritte. Danach habe ihnen niemand glauben wollen. Erst die Sensibilität nach dem Deetman-Bericht brachte die Brüder Rogge dazu, Dokumente und Erinnerungen zum Fall Heithuis der Zeitung „NRC Handelsblad“ zur Auswertung zu übergeben.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY | Sun Apr 15, 2012

(Reuters) – Pope Benedict marks two milestones this week and while his health appears stable, signs of frailty have again prompted speculation over whether he will be the first pontiff in seven centuries to resign.

Benedict, one of the oldest popes in history, turns 85 on Monday, and on Thursday he marks the seventh anniversary of his election as successor to the immensely popular John Paul II.

Speaking to pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square on Sunday, he noted Thursday’s anniversary and asked for prayers “so that the Lord may give me the strength to carry out the mission he has entrusted to me”.

Benedict is already older than John Paul was when he died in 2005 and is now the oldest reigning pope since Leo XIII, who died aged 93 in 1903 after reigning for 25 years.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
IrishCentral Contributer

Published Sunday, April 15, 2012

The following was supplied by an Irish Catholic priest known to the Irish Central editors who did not want his name used for fear of retribution

Fr Tony Flannery, a founder member of the Association of Catholic Priests, has been “invited” by Rome to take some time out to consider his position.

He has been one of those who have been calling for reform in the Catholic Church in such areas as the role of women, ecumenism etc. It is not possible to speak about “reform” in the Church , be it in Ireland or elsewhere, without bearing in mind the ever present elephant in the room, namely the roman Curia and the Papacy.

The need for reform here has been and remains paramount. No question in contemporary Catholicism, however, is proving more intractable and more acutely sensitive.

Roman control of the Church is now more centralised and rigid than ever before. It would seem that they now demand total conformity with papal ideas and ideals in all things and not merely in those which are essential to the unity of the Catholic and Christian faith. Those who hold this position seek to derive their theological, political, and even cultural ideals from the Pope and Curia of their time.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WOWK

By Jessie Shafer, Reporter

From 2005 – 2011, David McAteer and his alma mater and current employer, Wheeling Jesuit University, billed expenses to federal grant programs. This is according to new court records. McAteer was hand-picked by then WV governor, now US senator Joe Manchin to oversee independent investigations of three coal mine disasters since 2006.. Those include the Sago explosion, the Alma number 1 mine fire, and the Upper Big Branch explosion.

An agent in the NASA office of Inspector General obtained search warrants, after light was shed by several unidentified witnesses that funds were being misused.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
WKYC

Written by
Dick Russ

CLEVELAND — A national figure in the Catholic Church closing controversy hosted a meeting in Cleveland Saturday.

Peter Borre of Boston’s Council of Parishes met with representatives of 12 of the 13 Northeast Ohio churches which the Vatican recently ordered to re-open. Borre has led a similar fight in Boston for more than seven years.

“In Boston we had to build on failure, namely our churches were shut down and we didn’t know what to do,” Borre told WKYC. “Here in Cleveland these groups will be building on success.”

“They’ve won some battles but they have not won they war,” he said of the 13 local parishes which have been fighting their closure. “But wow, this is the most encouraging thing I have seen on the Catholic beat in eight years.”

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LOUISIANA
The Advocate

by Robert Stewart
Advocate staff writer

April 15, 2012

J. Nathan Stansbury, a district attorney for 22 years in the Lafayette area, died Saturday morning.

He was 76.

Stansbury served as district attorney for the 15th Judicial District, which covers Lafayette, Acadia and Vermilion parishes.

Stansbury prosecuted Dalton Prejean, who eventually was convicted of shooting and killing State Trooper Donald Cleveland in 1977. Prejean was executed in 1990.

Stansbury also helped arrange a 20-year plea deal sentence in 1985 for the Rev. Gilbert Gauthe, a former Lafayette Catholic priest who served about half of that sentence for 33 sex-related criminal charges involving 11 of his former altar boys.

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IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Sunday April 15 2012

What is meant by a Catholic education? It should mean an education that passes on official Church teaching without dilution, and trains children to accept it. It’s why so many non-Catholics do not want their children to attend Catholic schools.

Because Catholic teaching is not in line with modern-day thinking and lifestyles. The Catholic Church in Ireland has long since ceased to spell out Catholic teaching in schools, perhaps because it fears that parents will walk away. Children attending are not taught Church teaching on homosexuality for instance: that it is a misfortune to be born homosexual, but gravely sinful to indulge your freakish nature. Homosexual practice condemns the sinner to hell.

Fornication and adultery are both grave sins, and those who die without having abandoned their sinful way and sought forgiveness will also merit eternal hellfire. Fornication is sexual congress outside sacramental marriage. Adultery is sexual congress by a married person with a partner other than their wife/husband. No second relationships are permitted. Marriage is for life.And those openly living in sin are supposed to be refused the sacraments.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

The Director of the Holy See’s Press Office, Federico Lombardi SJ issued a Note written in Italian on Saturday responding to the reprisal of interest in a nearly three decade-old missing persons case involving a citizen of Vatican City State, Emanuela Orlandi, who was 15 years old at the time of her disappearance.

After a thorough presentation of the known facts in the case, including a detailed description of Vatican officials’ co-operation with investigators from the Italian civil authorities, Fr Lombardi repeats that there are no secrets hidden in the Vatican. He goes on to stress that Vatican officials are ready and willing to continue co-operating with investigators, whenever they might be asked.

Fr Lombardi also recalls the great personal care and attention of Blessed John Paul II to the case and to the family of the victim – including his numerous public appeals in her behalf and his visit to the family’s home to console Emanuela’s parents and four siblings.

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VATICAN CITY
The Mainichi (Japan)

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican insisted Saturday it has done everything possible to try to resolve the 1983 disappearance of an employee’s teenage daughter and has no objections to allowing inspection of the basilica tomb of a reputed mobster from a gang purportedly linked to her presumed kidnapping.

Its chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, made the assertion following media speculation that the Vatican knows something it has not revealed about the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi in Rome. Sparking the speculation was a Good Friday homily on April 6 in St. Peter’s Basilica by the papal preacher, who decried that many “atrocious” crimes go unsolved.

With Pope Benedict XVI among those listening, the preacher, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, included this ringing appeal in his homily: “Don’t carry your secret to the grave with you!”

The priest didn’t name any names or specify any crimes, but his unusual choice for Good Friday reflection immediately sparked speculation that the appeal must have been meant for some Vatican official with knowledge about the Orlandi case, which the Vatican has viewed as a kidnapping.

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WEST VIRGINIA
The Intelligencer

April 15, 2012

From Staff, AP Dispatches

WHEELING – J. Davitt McAteer has been accused by a NASA fraud investigator of conspiring with Wheeling Jesuit University to use millions of federal grant dollars for personal gain and the school’s benefit.

The allegations are contained in an affidavit that an agent in the NASA Office of Inspector General used to obtain search warrants in an active criminal investigation against McAteer and his alma mater and current employer, Wheeling Jesuit University.

Court records on file with the U.S. District Court in Wheeling show investigators believe McAteer and the school fraudulently billed expenses to federal grant programs or cooperative agreements from 2005 through 2011.

The sworn affidavit by an agent who works at NASA’s Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Md., said those expenses range from McAteer’s salary – which surged from $130,300 in 2006 to $230,659 by 2008 – to cellphones, computers, technical support and salaries for other staff, including a secretary in McAteer’s Shepherdstown private law office.

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NEW YORK
Albany Times Union

By Bryan Fitzgerald

Updated 09:35 p.m., Saturday, April 14, 2012

ALBANY — A 74-year-old Greene County priest cleared six years ago of allegations that he sexually abused a minor has been placed on administrative leave as new claims of abuse are investigated, the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese said Saturday.

The Rev. Jeremiah Nunan, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Cairo and Our Lady of Knock Mission in East Durham, will be barred from officiating at any sacraments, wearing clerical garb or presenting himself as a priest, according to a statement from the diocese. The action was scheduled to be announced at weekend Masses at the two parishes.

The diocese acted after a civil lawsuit was filed claiming that Nunan sexually abused one individual for 15 years. The alleged abused occurred between 1996 and 2003, when the alleged victim was a minor, and from 2007 and 2011, when the individual was an adult. The lawsuit named as defendants Nunan, one of the parishes and the diocese. Nunan could not be reached for comment Saturday. The diocese, which has referred the allegations to the Greene County district attorney’s office, said that Nunan has denied the allegations.

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IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Sunday April 15 2012

A SURVEY released last week shows that the majority of Irish Catholics find teachings of the Catholic Church on some matters, such as sex and women priests, irrelevant or wrong.

Yet the Vatican has taken action to silence a couple of Irish priests who expressed opinions that are shared in Ireland among lay Catholics. One of them, Fr Tony Flannery, is a founder of the Association of Catholic Priests, which commissioned the revealing survey.

Rome’s clampdown is a reminder of the bad old days of hysterical Irish censorship, when the self-appointed guardians of public morality scoured bookshops and libraries with coloured pencils. They underlined bits of books that they wanted banned and removed from shelves, then sent those books to censors.

Last week Fr Adrian Egan, head of the Irish Redemptorists, expressed concern that there were “people sitting in churches on a daily basis that are almost listening to hear you express an opinion that might be seen as dissenting and they will report you”.

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NEDERLAND
Tubantia

OLDENZAAL – Het nieuws over het seksueel misbruik door een kapelaan van de toenmalige Antoniusparochie is vandaag in Oldenzaal ingeslagen als een bom. Het is het gesprek van de dag. Het bestuur van de Plechelmusparochie waar de Antoniuskerk nu onder valt, had nog zo gehoopt er in hun parochie gevrijwaard van te blijven. Maar nu dat niet het geval blijkt te zijn, komt de klap extra hard aan.

Pastoor Reerink heeft maar één woord nodig als hij zijn gevoel beschrijft met betrekking tot het slachtoffer van het seksueel misbruik eind jaren ’60: compassie. Hij trekt onmiddellijk het boetekleed aan. „Het is verschrikkelijk wat die man is overkomen. Dat had nooit mogen gebeuren.”

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UNITED STATES
The Politics Blog

[Bishops Issue Call To Action To Defend Religious Liberty – U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops]

By Charles P. Pierce

Are these idiots kidding me? The Letter From Birmingham Jail?

May god forgive them for such towering, impious self-regard, because I have no intention of doing so.

The Clan of the Red Beanie went celibate balls to the wailing wall on Thursday, issuing a Statement on Religious Liberty that turns the English language inside-out, repositions religious repression and pious bigotry as statements of freedom, makes a mockery of the informed consciences of a good slice of the American Catholic laity, and is a statement of meddling in the secular government that would be almost tragic, if it didn’t drip so garishly with lachrymose sanctimony about how heavily these ermined layabouts have been oppressed by the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, and by the fact that some states have decided that, no, they can no longer function as tax-free havens for discrimination on the basis of who does what to whom with their sexyparts. …

Moreover, King was in the jail because, as part of his belief in non-violent protest, he had to be there. One of the essential elements of his strategy was to break the secular law and to accept the secular punishment. Now, I don’t think I have to explain in too much detail how, over the last five decades or so, accepting the secular punishment for breaking the secular law never has been high on the priority list for America’s Catholic bishops. Don’t believe me? Take it up with Bernard Cardinal Law there, who ran off to Rome to preside over the Basilica Of Our Lady Of The Clean Getaway….

To be sure, history shows that the Catholic hierarchy has yet to learn its lesson when dealing with pedophile priests. When the problem hit Boston in 1992 — after Massachusetts priest James Porter was convicted of molesting 28 children in three Bristol parishes in the 1960s — scrutiny of the Church grew so intense that Law infamously called down “God’s power on the media.” But despite the negative headlines, the cardinal, we now know, did little to rid his archdiocese of sexual predators and thus prevent further public-relations fiascoes. When the Diocese of Dallas fell to its knees in 1997 — after a jury awarded 11 clergy sex-abuse victims $119.6 million for its negligent supervision – American bishops lamented that the award would cripple the American Catholic Church. But despite the financial threat, the bishops, we now know, did little to set up a system-wide policy to root out abusive clergy.

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SCRANTON (PA)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton

On Wednesday, April 11, 2012, Diocesan officials received an accusation of sexual misconduct involving a minor against the Reverend Russell E. Motsay. The accusation is reported to have occurred when the accuser, now an adult, was a minor. In response, Diocesan officials immediately cooperated with the Wayne County District Attorney’s Office, the county where the abuse is reported to have taken place, and the Pennsylvania State Police, Troop R Dunmore, Honesdale Station. In addition, the Diocese removed the accused cleric from ministry and suspended his faculties to exercise priestly ministries within the Diocese pending an investigation of the accusation. The Diocese of Scranton will continue to cooperate fully with all civil authorities in their investigation of this matter.

Ordained in 1972, the accused cleric has served as pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Carbondale since 1996. His prior appointments included serving as pastor at St. Juliana, Rock Lake; pastor at St. James, Pleasant Mount; assistant pastor at Holy Name, Swoyersville; assistant pastor at St. John the Evangelist, Wilkes-Barre; assistant pastor at Our Lady of Grace, Hazleton; assistant pastor at Sacred Heart, Peckville; catechist at Bishop Neumann High School, Williamsport; assistant pastor at St. Aloysius, Wilkes-Barre; and assistant pastor at Most Precious Blood, Hazleton.

The Diocese of Scranton encourages anyone who has been sexually abused by a member of the clergy or anyone else, to immediately notify local law enforcement authorities, including in this particular case Trooper John Decker, Pennsylvania State Police, Honesdale at (570) 253-7126; and to contact Joan Holmes, Victim’s Assistance Coordinator, at (570) 344-5216; or Diocesan officials, including Reverend Thomas M. Muldowney, V.E., Episcopal Vicar for Clergy, or Teresa Osborne, Chancellor, at (570) 207-2216.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

. .Tuesday is the next “hand down” from the Missouri Supreme Court. That’s when barrister Gerald Noce may learn whether his “extraordinary writ” will be granted. He represents the St. Lous Marianists, headed by Fr. Martin Solma. They’re being sued by Clayton attorney Ken Chackes over alleged child sex crimes by Brother William Mueller who taught at Chaminade and Vianney. .

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Baloney, ‘David Quinn: The beliefs of the church are not going to change by poll’…but the Pope apologizes centuries later for Pope Crimes and Vatican Evils

Paris Arrow

The sooner The Hague puts Benedict XVI for his crimes against humanity into trial, the better, and we will see how the Vatican Dream Team will try to defend him for his ‘unchanging beliefs’ that it was all right to cover-up thousands of pedophile priests as Cardinal Ratzinger during the 27 years papacy of John Paul II. John Paul II apologized for Pope Crimes and Vatican Evils but he was hiding inside his papal evil Achilles Heels Fr. Marcial Maciel and Cardinal Bernard Law who confessed in public that he transferred from one parish to another 80 pedophile priests in Boston, read our related article, Heil Satanas JP2 Patron Saint of Pedophiles, Pederasts Rapists-Priests! John Paul II is the same yesterday and today– he cannot protect children.

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NEW YORK
WRGB

According to the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese, a Greene County priest, Rev. Jeremiah Nunan, is on administrative leave from ministry as the Diocese investigates allegations he sexually abused a minor. A spokesman for the diocese says the Greene County District Attorney’s Office has been notified.

Nunan is 74 years old and pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Cairo and Our Lady of Knock Mission in East Durham. He is temporarily barred from officiating at any sacraments, wearing clerical garb, or presenting himself as a priest.

The suspension follows a civil lawsuit that claims Nunan abused someone between 1996 and 2003 when that person was a minor and between 2007 and 2011 when the plaintiff was an adult. According to the spokesman for the Diocese, Nunan has denied the allegations.

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ALBANY (NY)
Albany Times Union

ALBANY — The Albany Roman Catholic Diocese has placed a Greene County priest on administrative leave pending the outcome of investigations into allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. The Diocese has referred the allegations to the Greene County District Attorney’s Office.

Rev. Jeremiah Nunan, 74, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Cairo and Our Lady of Knock Mission in East Durham, is temporarily barred from officiating at any sacraments, wearing clerical garb, or presenting himself as a priest, according to a statement from the diocese. The action is being announced at weekend Masses at the two parishes.

The diocese acted after a civil lawsuit was filed claiming that Nunan sexually abused an individual between 1996 and 2003 when the individual was a minor and between 2007 and 2011 when the individual was an adult. The lawsuit named as defendants Nunan, one of the parishes and the diocese. Nunan has denied the allegations.

This is the second time Nunan has been placed on administrative leave by the diocese during an investigation of an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor. The previous allegation, received in 2006 and involving alleged abuse in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Hudson, was investigated by the diocese’s Independent Mediation Assistance Program, and could not be substantiated, the diocese stated. As a result, the diocese restored Nunan to ministry.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conall Ó Fátharta

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Justice minister Alan Shatter has backtracked on the question of State involvement in the Magdalene Laundries, despite saying in opposition there was “irrefutable evidence” of such collusion.

Speaking in the Dáil last month, Mr Shatter appeared to row back on previous comments by stating State involvement in committing women to Magdalene Laundries had a “very complicated” background that did not have a “simple, straightforward explanation”.

However, speaking in the Dáil as justice spokesperson when in opposition in 2009, Mr Shatter stated there was “irrefutable evidence” within the department he now heads up of such State involvement.

“There is now irrefutable evidence available from the Department of Justice that this State and the courts colluded in sending young women to what were then known as the Magdalene asylums and they ended up in the Magdalene Laundries and they were treated appallingly. Some of them have never recovered from the manner in which they were treated and their lives have been permanently blighted,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on April 14, 2012

I am a huge fan of the US justice system. After more than 200 years, our impartial courts have “gotten it right” a vast majority of the time. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best in the world.

Here’s a great example:

Last week, a jury unanimously found that Fr. Michael Kelly was liable for abusing a boy in the 1980s. The trial is currently in its second phase to determine whether or not the Diocese of Stockton knew about the abuse and covered it up. It took the alleged victim years to get the case in front of a jury, and 12 impartial citizens made their decisions based on the evidence. (One of Kelly’s supporters has been accused of jury tampering. Let’s hope that if true, that person is punished to the fullest extent of the law).

And another:

A Missouri judge has refused to drop misdemeanor criminal charges against Kansas City- St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn and the Diocese. The charges stem from allegations that Finn knew that one of his priests possessed child pornography. Instead of reporting to law enforcement (possession of child pornography is a federal crime, remember?), Finn allegedly sat on the information, sent the priest out of state (?!), and didn’t warn local families that their kids may have been victims of abuse. The priest who took and kept the photos has been indicted on 13 counts of exploiting five children ages 2 to 13.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WTOV

By NEWS9 and Philip Stahl

WHEELING, W.Va. —

Court documents show NASA is the federal agency that has been investigating Wheeling Jesuit University and the university’s vice president of sponsored programs.

Investigators claim in the affidavit that J. Davitt McAteer unlawfully diverted federal funds from federal grants that the university received to nonfederal-sponsored programs.

A 35-page document was released recently. Parts were redacted — blacked out to protect the identities of investigators, witnesses and the subjects under investigation.

According to the affidavit, NASA’s Office of Inspector General has been investigating the university and McAteer since May 2010.

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SPAIN
Times of Malta

An 80-year-old Spanish nun was jeered as she arrived in court this week, the first person to go before a judge over cases of babies allegedly stolen from their mothers during and after the Franco era.

Sr Maria Gomez Valbuena went before a judge investigating her role in the kidnapping of a newborn girl from a Madrid hospital three decades ago, one of thousands of cases of alleged theft of babies by nuns, priests and doctors.

Wearing the blue habit of her Sisters of Charity order, she refused to testify and left the court accompanied by another nun from her convent as police shielded her from the crush of reporters.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Friday April 13 2012

I grew up hearing that a Catholic priest needed to be celibate so he could focus exclusively on his flock. It was presented as a boon for congregations to have clergymen with no distractions beyond their spiritual welfare.

How burdensome celibacy might be for the priest was glossed over, as the price he had to pay for being entrusted with the care of others’ souls. People knew, in theory, there were religions that allowed ministers to marry, but it seemed a poor sort of vocation. The consensus was that other faiths had lower standards than Catholicism.

Sometimes, a priest might find the condition of celibacy to be troublesome, and whispers would circulate about him leaving the priesthood. Generally, there was a woman involved, and parishioners agreed it was a mortal pity she couldn’t leave the poor man in peace.

When I was in my teens, one of the priests in the parish acquired a puppy, and people began to comment on the amount of affection and attention he lavished on it. Dog-lovers become attached to their pets, but this was exceptional: that animal filled a void in his life.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Friday April 13 2012

The findings of the survey commissioned by the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) are not even in the tiniest bit surprising. We have known for years that on issue after issue many or most Catholics, even weekly Mass-going Catholics, do not believe what their church believes.

The press release by the ACP says the survey “reveals a significant disconnect between official Catholic Church teaching and what Catholics actually believe”.

That is absolutely correct, but the question is what should be done about it? Does the church alter its teachings in line with the latest opinion poll or must it instead do a much better job explaining to Catholics and the general public why it believes what it believes?

The poll zeroed in on the teachings liberal Catholics want to see changed, for example celibacy, women priests and on sexuality generally.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Colm Kelpie

Friday April 13 2012

SENIOR church figures were last night trying to come to terms with the stark findings of a report which lays bare massive alienation among huge numbers of Catholics.

The survey, for an 800-strong group of priests, found most Catholics are at odds with the hierarchy over several issues.

The vast majority of those surveyed disagreed with the Vatican’s thinking on women clergy, homosexuality and celibacy for priests. …

Monsignor Brendan Byrne, the diocesan administrator of the Kildare and Leighlin Diocese, said: “I’m sure the bishops will look at it seriously. They will take a serious view of it, will reflect upon it and try to respond to it.”

Yesterday the Catholic hierarchy issued a short statement in which it recognised that there was a “rapidly changing social and cultural environment in Ireland today”.

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UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

Post by Peter Montgomery

While the Catholic Bishops are ramping up their political campaign to portray marriage equality and requirements that insurance coverage include contraception (among other topics) as dire threats to religious liberty, some priests and parishes are beginning to resist publicly.

In Pittsburgh, four priests met with Bishop David Zubik to tell him that his rhetoric—Zubik accused the Obama administration of telling Catholics to “To Hell with you!”—was angering parishioners. Fr. Neil McCaulley spoke with National Catholic Reporter:

McCaulley, who is retired after serving 46 years as a parish priest in the Pittsburgh area, said the idea for the meeting with Zubik first came as members of his group talked with others and decided “we owed it to the people… of the church to let the bishop know that not everybody out there agrees with the bishops.”

Pointing to a number of studies that show that about 90 percent of Catholics don’t follow the church’s official teaching on birth control, McCaulley said the group thought that since the bishop is “always willing to meet with priests,” they could raise the issue with Zubik and ask him to meet with laypeople, as “we didn’t feel competent to speak on women’s issues.”

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WEST VIRGINIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Saturday, April 14, 2012

By VICKI SMITH , The Associated Press

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.–One of the world’s foremost experts on mine safety–from gold mines in Chile to the coal mines of southern West Virginia–stands accused by a NASA fraud investigator of conspiring with the Catholic college where he now works to use millions of federal grant dollars for personal gain and the school’s benefit.

The allegations are contained in an affidavit that an agent in the NASA Office of Inspector General used to obtain search warrants in an active criminal investigation of former U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration director J. Davitt McAteer, and his alma mater and current employer, Wheeling Jesuit University.

Court records show investigators believe Mr. McAteer and the school fraudulently billed expenses to federal grant programs or cooperative agreements from 2005 through 2011.

The sworn affidavit by an agent who works out of the Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Md., said those expenses range from Mr. McAteer’s salary–which surged from $130,300 in 2006 to $230,659 by 2008–to cellphones, computers, technical support and salaries for other staff, including a secretary in Mr. McAteer’s Shepherdstown private law office.

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WEST VIRGINIA
The Intelligencer

April 13, 2012

From Staff, AP Dispatches

WHEELING – A federal investigation into J. Davitt McAteer and Wheeling Jesuit University appears to center on whether the university illegally diverted federal funds between 2005 and 2011 by fraudulently billing expenses to grant programs or cooperative agreements, court documents indicate. U.S. Magistrate James E. Seibert on Thursday extended the government’s request to keep search warrants, affidavits and other information supporting those warrants sealed for another 60 days.

But motions by both parties on whether to unseal them reveal information about the focus of the probe.

They show that NASA, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General and other agencies seized documents from McAteer’s offices in Wheeling and Shepherdstown on Feb. 16. McAteer, an attorney and former head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, runs the university’s Office of Sponsored Programs.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

By Associated Press
Saturday, April 14, 2012

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Federal documents filed by a NASA fraud investigator indicate a former head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration and the Catholic college in West Virginia where he works conspired for six years to misuse millions of grant dollars from the space agency for personal gain and the school’s benefit.

The allegations are contained in an affidavit that an agent in the NASA Office of Inspector General used to obtain search warrants in an active criminal investigation of mine safety expert J. Davitt McAteer and his alma mater and current employer, Wheeling Jesuit University.

Court records show investigators believe McAteer, who has been vice president of the school since 2005, and the school fraudulently billed expenses to federal grant programs or cooperative agreements from 2005 through 2011.

The sworn affidavit by an agent — who works out of the Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Md. — said those expenses range from McAteer’s salary — which surged from $130,300 in 2006 to $230,659 by 2008 — to cellphones, computers, technical support and salaries for other staff, including a secretary in McAteer’s Shepherdstown private law office.

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IRELAND
Limerick Leader

By Alan Owens
Published on Saturday 14 April 2012

THE HEAD of the Redemptorist Order in Limerick has said he is “sad” and “disappointed” at the action taken against fellow priest Fr Tony Flannery by the Vatican.

Fr Flannery – who was himself rector in Limerick for six years in the mid-90s – has been silenced by the Vatican for his outspoken views on reform in the Catholic Church. The Athenry-based priest, who wrote a column in the Redemptorists’ Reality magazine for 14 years, has now been advised to go to a monastery and “reflect on his situation” for a six-week period.

Rome had earlier put an end to Fr Flannery’s monthly column in Reality, which is edited by Doon priest, Fr Gerry Moloney, who is also allegedly the subject of scrutiny from the Vatican. Fr Moloney is believed to have been told not to print any articles on celibacy, the use of contraception and the involvement of women in the clergy, for an unspecified period.

While stressing that he was “speaking on my own behalf”, Fr Egan told the Limerick Leader he was disappointed at how the situation had been handled.

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VATICAN CITY
Fox News

Published April 14, 2012

Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican says it has done everything possible to try to resolve the 1983 disappearance of an employee’s daughter and isn’t hiding anything.

Its chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, made the assertion Saturday following media speculation the Vatican knows something it’s not revealing about the case. Sparking the speculation was a Good Friday homily in St. Peter’s Basilica by the papal preacher, who decried that many atrocious crimes go unsolved and urged those who could help, not to go to their tombs with secrets.

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SPAIN
Time

By Lisa Abend / Madrid
Friday, Apr. 13, 2012

The elderly woman who left Madrid’s courthouse on Thursday morning looked stooped and ghostly, but neither her obvious frailty nor the plain blue habit she wore kept the small crowd of onlookers from screaming at her. “Shameless!” one woman shouted. “How could you cause so much suffering?”

Thursday was supposed to be the day that began to bring resolution to those who believe themselves victims of decades of baby robbing in Spain. The nun called to testify, Sor María Gómez Valbuena, is the first person indicted for her alleged involvement in a scheme which supposedly saw thousands of newborns taken from their mothers and sold to adoptive parents. But once in front of the judge, Gómez exercised her right to remain silent. And later that day at a meeting with representatives of victims’ associations, Spanish government officials admitted that, although they would dedicate administrative resources to attempting to reunite mothers and children, the chances for bringing to justice those who had separated the families were slim.

Some 1,500 accusations of baby stealing, dating from the late 1950s until mid-1980s, have been filed in Spain in the past year or two. Most follow the same chilling narrative: a single mother or a married woman who already had several children gave birth to an apparently healthy child, but was soon told — often by a nun who worked as a nurse — that the baby had died. Although the adoptive parents frequently paid significant amounts of money for their child, ideology more than greed appears to have been behind the thefts. “These are nuns and priests who strongly believed that the child would be better off with a more traditional or more ‘moral,’ family,” explains journalist Natalia Junquera, who has led the newspaper El País’s investigation of the thefts. “They honestly thought they were doing the right thing.”

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STATI UNITI
da Piazzetta Comunista (Italia)

Sono 700, di cui 21 minorenni, coloro che, l’anno scorso, hanno accusato di abusi sessuali membri del clero cattolico americano.

E’ quanto emerge dal nono rapporto annuale pubblicato dalla Conferenza Episcopale Statunitense, dove si precisa che la maggior parte delle accuse risale a fatti avvenuti nei decenni scorsi.

Ma anche se gli abusi si riferiscono al passato la ”Chiesa deve restare vigile e fare tutto il possibile affinche’ gli abusi non si ripetano” afferma il cardinale Timothy Dolan, presidente della Conferenza Episcopale statunitense. ”683 adulti vittime di abusi nel passato hanno denunciato i fatti per la prima volta” nel 2011, si legge nel rapporto.

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SPAIN
News that Matters

A Spanish nun has become the first person to appear in court in connection with the alleged theft of newborn babies, mostly in the Franco era.

Sister Maria Gomez Valbuena, 80, is accused of stealing a mother’s newborn daughter at a Madrid hospital in 1982.

Appearing before a judge on Thursday, Sister Maria refused to testify.

Thousands of babies are thought to have been taken from parents in hospitals and given to other families during the Franco dictatorship and later.

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DEUTSCHLAND
domradio

Der sexuelle Missbrauch in katholischen Einrichtungen soll während der Heilig-Rock-Wallfahrt nicht ausgespart werden. Sexueller Missbrauch in der Kirche werde nicht verschwiegen, sondern in Fürbitten für die Opfer in Wallfahrtsgottesdiensten aufgegriffen, sagte der Trierer Bischof Stephan Ackermann am Dienstag, drei Tage vor Beginn der öffentlichen Ausstellung der Reliquie. Zur Wallfahrt zwischen dem 13. April und dem 13. Mai werden mehr als eine halbe Million Pilger in Trier erwartet.

Zum sexuellen Missbrauch sagte Ackermann, wichtiger als rituelle kirchliche Bußriten und -akte sei der respektvolle Umgang mit den Reaktionen der Betroffenen. “Die Betroffenen haben ein Recht, unversöhnt zu bleiben”, sagte der Bischof, der Beauftragter der Bischofskonferenz für alle Fragen im Zusammenhang des sexuellen Missbrauchs Minderjähriger im kirchlichen Bereich ist. Es werde eine Ausstellung über das Missbrauchs-Thema geben sowie Gesprächsangebote. “Ich hoffe, dass das Thema die Wallfahrt nicht überschattet.”

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CHILE
Religion Digital

La Iglesia de Santiago de Chile resolvió disolver la Pía Unión del sacerdote Fernando Karadima, sin especificar qué ocurrirá con sus cerca de 40 miembros, ni tampoco con las propiedades que estaban a su nombre y entre las cuales se encuentra la propia iglesia de El Bosque avaluada por el fisco en U$ 10 millones. Esta es la historia de un colectivo eclesiástico que se creó para adorar a Cristo y que Karadima terminó usando para su propia adoración.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

[with video]

Organizers with non-profit MaleSurvivor offered a free screening of the documentary “Boys and Men Healing” and provided awareness training for campus counselors and psychologists on the University Park campus Wednesday night.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pocono Record

April 14, 2012

The Diocese of Scranton said officials were notified Wednesday of sexual misconduct involving a minor against The Rev. Russell E. Motsay. The accusation is reported to have occurred when the accuser, now an adult, was a minor.

In response, Diocesan officials immediately cooperated with the Wayne County District Attorney’s Office, the county where the abuse is reported to have taken place, and the Pennsylvania State Police, Troop R Dunmore, Honesdale Station.

In addition, the Diocese removed the accused cleric from ministry and suspended his faculties to exercise priestly ministries within the Diocese pending an investigation of the accusation.

Ordained in 1972, Motsay has served as pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Carbondale since 1996. His prior appointments included serving as pastor at St. Juliana, Rock Lake; pastor at St. James, Pleasant Mount; assistant pastor at Holy Name, Swoyersville; assistant pastor at St. John the Evangelist, Wilkes-Barre; assistant pastor at Our Lady of Grace, Hazleton; assistant pastor at Sacred Heart, Peckville; catechist at Bishop Neumann High School, Williamsport; assistant pastor at St. Aloysius, Wilkes-Barre; and assistant pastor at Most Precious Blood, Hazleton.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

I have just read the results of your survey of catholic opinion on the internet. Firstly, let me congratulate you on this timely undertaking. Many of the findings are interesting if not unexpected. We need to know exactly where we stand.

Let me state my own particular interest. I am a retired secondary school teacher who taught, among other subjects, religion to junior and senior levels. There’s another subject worthy of thorough research – the status of religion teaching in our secondary schools – but that’s for another day. I am closely involved with liturgy in my local church, particularly that involving young people aged from sixteen to late twenties; I am a member of the parish liturgy committee and of the diocesan liturgy commission.

And now to my particular interest in your survey. Granted, any survey must be limited in the number of questions it can put, but I would have liked a few more on the liturgy. My own experience is that a sizeable minority of lay people are willing to be involved, but from my experience of dealing with school chaplains over a forty year period and with parish clergy over a longer period I have come to the regrettable conclusion the priests in general are just not interested in liturgy, with the exception of a few who are willing to ‘let you get on with it’ and even fewer who give active support and encouragement.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

Tertullian, in or about the year 200, tackled the imperial magisterium of his fellow Roman African, Septimius Severus, with all the zeal of the newly converted but with the pungent wit of one who wasn’t going to put up with any silencing or persecution from those who thought his newly espoused sect of Christians, or his own Montanist denomination of choice, should offer sacrifice (even if with a mental reservation) to some recently deified dead emperor in distant Rome.

Where the hell would you be without us? he went on in his definitely unapologetic ‘Apologeticum’. Who do you think has been keeping a bit of moral backbone in all your offices of state in your far-flung outposts, since all we’ve left you are your silly temples? We are and wish to remain at the very heart of the Empire – but if you do martyr us remember: “semen est sanguis Christianorum”.

The blood of martyrs certainly seems to have given the ACP a spurt of Easter growth over the past few days, if we are to judge from the 200+ comments over half a dozen threads on this site and a scatter of letters in the Dublin papers. Let’s hope this new growth doesn’t all melt away like snow off a ditch when the story moves on. I guess Fr Flannery’s witness, and that of his colleagues both in ‘Reality’ and the ACP, would count as what used be called ‘white martyrdom’. Those of us who were reared on Redemptorist parish missions of the 1940s/’50s variety will appreciate the journey Fr Tony and (many of) his confreres have travelled over the decades to supply us with new wine in reassuringly old redemptorist bottles. Rome’s Holy Office-imposed Silentium is a badge he can wear with pride. Congar and many others were here before him. Shouldn’t it be up to all those who have benefited from his missions, retreats, conferences, books, Reality columns and ACP website posts and moderation over decades to persuade Levada’s lot to face reality?

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

At a meeting of the Kerry Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) held in Killarney on 13 April, dismay and concern was felt and expressed at the treatment of Fr Tony Flannery.

As priests we have long known and valued Fr Flannery’s mission work in the diocese and his contribution to the faith life of the people of the diocese.

On a daily basis we are meeting concerned lay people who are surprised and disturbed at what they would consider the harsh treatment of a man who brought God alive amoung them.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Breda Heffernan

Saturday April 14 2012

FR Paddy Byrne, at 38, is the youngest priest in his diocese.

It is a title he has held, much to his disappointment, for the past 11 years.

He would like to be able to marry and is a supporter of women entering the priesthood and, therefore, finds himself at odds with the leadership of the Catholic Church.

He said yesterday he hoped the hierarchy would consider the results of the survey by the Association of Catholic Priests, although he was not holding his breath.

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LAS VEGAS (NV)
Las Vegas Sun

By Richard N. Velotta

On the day that Monsignor Kevin McAuliffe reported to the La Tuna Prison in Anthony, Texas, his embezzlement of $650,000 from the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Las Vegas — and his compulsive gambling problem — was the subject a keynote address and a panel at the close of the sixth-annual Nevada State Conference on Problem Gambling on Friday.

An expert witness in McAuliffe’s court case, UCLA Gambling Studies Program co-director Timothy Fong, and three other panelists discussed some of the Nevada court cases that have brought compulsive gambling behavior to the public eye in recent months.

Another of the panelists was Douglas Crawford, a disgraced former attorney who was the first problem gambling defendant in Clark County to receive diversion to a three-year program of treatment under a new statute approved last year by the Nevada Legislature. Crawford is eligible to reapply for his license to practice law in the state in May.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Abington Journal

Times Leader Staff

SCRANTON – The Diocese of Scranton Friday said a priest accused of sexual misconduct with a minor in Wayne County was removed from his ministry pending the investigation into the accusation.

The diocese said it was notified Wednesday of the accusation against the Rev. Russell E. Motsay.

The alleged victim is now an adult and the Wayne County District Attorney’s Office and state police in Honesdale are investigating.

Motsay was ordained in 1972 and was serving as pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Carbondale since 1996.

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CARBONDALE (PA)
The Times-Tribune

A priest who served at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Carbondale for 16 years is being investigated for sexually abusing a minor, according to an announcement by the Diocese of Scranton late Friday.

The announcement, which was released about 11:20 p.m., said the Diocese of Scranton received information on Wednesday about the accusation against the Rev. Russell E. Motsay.

Reached by phone late Friday night, diocesan spokesman Bill Genello confirmed the investigation of the Rev. Motsay.

According to the diocese, the Wayne County district attorney’s office and the state police are investigating the allegations made by the accuser, who is now an adult.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Tyrone Times

Published on Saturday 14 April 2012

THE Archdiocese of Armagh has been urged to speak with parents who saw 16 pornographic images on a projector screen during a presentation by the Parish Priest of Pomeroy, and make its position clear about whether the cleric will be taking part in First Communion and Confirmation ceremonies in the area.

Details of the incident, which took place a fortnight ago at St Mary’s Primary School in the village, have made headlines around the world, with the concerned parents demanding to know why Fr Martin McVeigh has not been suspended pending the outcome of a church investigation.

Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, said: “inappropriate imagery was inadvertently shown by a priest at the beginning of a Powerpoint presentation,”

He added: “The priest has stated that he had no knowledge of the offending imagery. The archdiocese immediately sought the advice of the PSNI who indicated that, on the basis of the evidence available, no crime had been committed. The priest is co-operating with an investigation of the matter on the part of the archdiocese.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

Date: Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Our Mother of Consolation Parish
The Parish Hall
7 East Chestnut Hill Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19118
215-247-0430
www.omcparish.com
Time: 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM

The Psychology of Sexual Abuse
This event will feature two mental health professionals sharing their expertise in the field of sexual abuse as therapists, researchers, and educators. The purpose of this session is to help us to better understand the psychological aspects of this issue, for both those who have been sexually abused as well as those who have committed sexual abuse. There will be an opportunity for questions.

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IRELAND
Catholic Herald (United Kingdom)

The Irish Association of Catholic Priests should stop using Vatican II to justify its defiance of papal teaching: some of us know what the Council actually said

[click here for the story]

By William Oddie on Friday, 13 April 2012

I see that the Irish so-called Association of Catholic Priests (a title which misleadingly implies that it is representative of the views of most Irish clergy) is in the papers again, this time for expressing its support for Father Tony Flannery, who has been “silenced” by “The Vatican”: that is, he has been told to stop writing articles attacking the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church, which he consistently describes as being simply the views of a clique of reactionary clergy who have seized power in the Roman curia, and have decided to suppress as far as they are able the freedom of speech of everyone else.

Father Flannery, it may be remembered, came out in support of the Taioseach, Enda Kenny, when he scurrilously attacked the Pope last year: “I was happy with the Taoiseach’s statement”, he said; “Many of us priests are frustrated with the way the Vatican conducts its business.” Maybe he was more than just “happy” with the statement: indeed, David Quinn, of the Iona Community, former editor of the Irish Catholic, asked an interesting question “Did a priest angry at Rome [i.e. Fr Flannery] help him write the speech?…. One could perhaps be forgiven for thinking that he was trying to encourage the creation of an Irish Catholic Church, as distinct from the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland.”

Quinn’s theory, so far as I know, was never denied, and it has a certain plausibility. One of the Taioseach’s top advisers is one Frank Flannery, Fr Flannery’s brother; and Fr Flannery is one of the founders of the aforementioned Association of Catholic Priests., which calls for the establishment of a national Church, separate from Rome, that would be conducted “democratically”. The ACP was formed less than 2 years ago, and kicked off by demanding that the Church should “re-evaluate” a number of its teachings, notably those on the ordination of women, artificial birth control and priestly celibacy.

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IRELAND
The Nenagh Guardian

(14/04/2012)

By Peter Gleeson

A Nenagh born priest has this week asserted that he is at odds with the Vatican on the issue of marriage for priests and the ordination of women.

Fr Sean McDonagh said advocating to allow priests to marry was not contrary to the teachings of the church.

And he said teenagers he had spoken to in secondary schools could not understand why the Vatican would not allow women to be ordained as priests and forbid clerics from marrying.

Fr McDonagh, said his own late mother, a long serving primary school teacher in Saint Mary’s Boys National School who died ten years ago, and who was “a very pious woman”, could not understand why the Catholic Church did not allow priests to marry and women to be ordained.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

Victoria Police has criticised the Catholic Church for not referring sexual abuse cases for criminal investigation, with growing calls for a Royal Commission into abuse in the church.

Hamish Fitzsimmons

Transcript

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Victoria Police has criticised the Catholic Church for not referring sexual abuse cases for criminal investigation. The church says many victims don’t want to go to police and it has dealt with hundreds of abuse complaints internally. But now there are calls for a Royal Commission into sexual abuse in the church.

Hamish Fitzsimmons reports from Melbourne.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS, REPORTER: Police say the church could do better in referring sex crimes to them for criminal investigation.

GRAHAM ASHTON, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, VICTORIA POLICE: It’s not fair to say that they have been holding things back in terms of things we’ve asked for, but we believe there’s also an onus the church when they see matters to let us know about them, rather than wait for victims to come directly to us.

DENIS HART, CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF MELBOURNE: I want to make it emphatically clear that the investigation of crimes is a matter for the police. All crimes should be investigated by police, that is their role.

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IRELAND/KENYA
Irish Independent

[click here to read the story]

By Edel Kennedy

Saturday April 14 2012

THE woman at the centre of the Fr Kevin Reynolds libel case has broken her silence, to say her comments about who fathered her child were misinterpreted.

Veneranda Mudi, who lives in a shanty town on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, confirmed that the father of her eldest daughter, Sheila, is Kenyan.

“Sheila has got her own father. He is a Luhya (member of a Kenyan tribe),” she told the Irish Independent.

RTE has vigorously denied that the interviews were misinterpreted in any way.

Veneranda’s son Nelson backed her comments, saying her words on ‘Mission To Prey’ had been “miscommunicated”.

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CANADA
CTV

By: Dirk Meissner, The Canadian Press

Date: Friday Apr. 13, 2012

One of British Columbia’s most prominent aboriginal leaders wept uncontrollably Friday as he told Canada’s truth and reconciliation commission that he never fully realized the impact of Indian residential schools on his life until he heard survivors recount their own experiences at the hearings.

Grand Chief Ed John, leader of the First Nations Summit, said the stories he heard while the commission was in Inuvik, N.W.T., tore open wounds he never realized were there.

“I never realized the depth of my own story until I heard their stories,” said John, who stood back from the podium, tried to start speaking again, but couldn’t as the tears flowed.

“It haunts me.”

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IRELAND
Herald

Friday April 13 2012

THE new survey that says that Irish Catholics have “liberal” views on clergy having sex is hardly startling. Christians have always been preoccupied with what goes on in the pants department.

Some of the early Christians held views that would make Pope Benedict look like a liberal. Take the Gospel of Thomas, for instance, which advocates celibacy and tells the story of how the Apostle convinced an Indian princess to plead a bad headache to her husband after hearing Thomas wax lyrical about “filthy intercourse”.

The Church, in fairness, has taught that this is heresy, but in its history has come close to these extreme views on sex, not least in the Ireland of the 1930s up to the 1960s.

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UNITED STATES
New York Daily News

By Nina Mandell / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, April 13, 2012

A former polygamist sect wife who played a major role in putting Fundamentalist LDS leader Warren Jeffs behind bars spoke outside of the courtroom this week for the first time.

Rebecca Musser, who became one of Rulon Jeffs’ 65 wives at the age of 19, said she lived in a constant state of fear and misery from the time she was given away to the 85-year-old man by her father until the time she escaped after his death.

“My father sold my innocence,” Musser told a group of women at an event in Salt Lake City called Overcoming Obstacles, the Deseret News reported. “My life there was a constant state of fear, unknown … silence.”

She said she had been told to always obey her husband and was never given the option of saying no to his sexual advances, despite the enormous age difference.

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IRELAND
The Independent (United Kingdom)

David McKittrick

Saturday 14 April 2012

Ireland, once regarded as the land of the especially faithful, has become largely disconnected from the previously powerful Roman Catholic church, a survey reveals. An overwhelming majority is in fundamental disagreement with church doctrine, favouring women priests and an end to priestly celibacy.

Three-quarters of Catholics say the church’s teachings on sexuality are irrelevant to their lives. Almost 90 per cent believe priests should be allowed to marry while a similar number say divorced or separated people should be allowed to take communion. More than 70 per cent say married men should be ordained. A third of Catholics still attend mass at least once a week. But the survey confirms that most have parted company with the church they were born into, certainly in terms of looking to it for guidance on such matters.

The poll was organised by the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), a body with liberal leanings. But there is no sign that the church will make any moves to accommodate its disaffected flock or those priests who are pressing for change. Only last week, Father Tony Flannery, one of the ACP’s founders, was silenced by the Vatican because of his views on issues including celibacy, contraception and the ordination of women. He was ordered to a monastery for six weeks to “pray and reflect”. He and Father Gerard Moloney, editor of an Irish magazine, are now banned from writing on such issues.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

IRELAND REMAINS overwhelmingly Catholic in identity but has become alienated from church teaching on sexual matters. The 2011 census found that 84 per cent of people in this State regarded themselves as Catholics. However, the great majority of Catholics in a more recent survey rejected papal teaching on who should be priests, on divorce, homosexuality and contraception. The emergence of such an a la carte approach reflects a loss of authority within the church caused by sex abuse scandals and extensive cover-ups, along with the emphasis placed on personal conscience by Vatican II.

The fact that a controversial survey involving religious beliefs was commissioned and published by the Association of Catholic Priests is, perhaps, the most significant development. It follows the silencing of Tony Flannery, one of the association’s four leaders, by Rome and the release of an edited version of a “path of renewal” for the Irish church, drawn up by Vatican churchmen who visited here last year. Brendan Hoban may protest they are not dissenting priests and that the association is merely reflecting the views of parishioners. Rome may not regard their behaviour in that light.

There has been an increasing emphasis in recent years on centralised Vatican discipline and religious orthodoxy. An integral part of that process has involved the selection and promotion of suitably compliant bishops in “local churches” throughout the world. Renewed control by Rome and a crackdown on liberal theological discourse has generated resistance in some European countries, but with little effect.

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AUSTRALIA
WAToday

Judy Courtin

THE reasons for a royal commission of inquiry into the Catholic Church in Victoria are multiple.

Sex crimes against children and vulnerable adults by Catholic clergy are prevalent. There are possibly thousands of victims in this state. Victims were raped and tortured, some by more than one offender. When these brave and terrified children spoke up to get help, they were further punished by being threatened or beaten. They were silenced.

These crimes continue to be deliberately concealed by the church authorities. Vast numbers of documents about these crimes and the offenders are locked away in church buildings.

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CHARLESTON (SC)
The Post and Courier

The Catholic Diocese of Charleston will offer a special Mass at 5:15 p.m. Sunday in observation of National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

The Mass, held at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist on Broad Street, “will be offered for the healing of child sexual abuse victims and their families, and in recognition of the diocese’s newly adopted policy that addresses sexual abuse allegations,” the diocese said in a news release.

The Catholic Church has been coping for decades with allegations of abuse at the hands of pedophile priests and church employees, as well as accusations of cover-ups and obfuscation. The scandal first burst onto the public stage in the U.S. in the 1980s and has since embroiled church officials in European countries, Canada, Mexico and elsewhere.

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STOCKTON (CA)
The Modesto Bee

By Jennie Rodriguez-Moore
The Record (Stockton)

STOCKTON — Before rape allegations against Catholic priest Michael Kelly surfaced in 2007, a board charged with reviewing sexual misconduct in the Diocese of Stockton had discussed Kelly six to eight times on other complaints, Monsignor Richard Ryan told a civil jury Friday.

The jury has found Kelly liable of sexual misconduct against a plaintiff identified in court papers as John TZ Doe. Now the jury is trying to determine whether the diocese carries any blame. The diocese removed Kelly from ministry after the April 6 verdict in favor of Doe, a former altar boy who said he was molested and raped by Kelly more than 20 years ago.

Church officials did not notify police or child protection in 2007 because none of the concerns raised by parents were deemed sexual in nature by the church, Ryan said.

Bishop Stephen Blaire said in a statement that although his view of the evidence has not changed, he removed Kelly this month to respect the jury’s decision and in accordance with the church’s charter to protect children.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Chip Le Grand and Pia Akerman
From:The Australian
April 14, 2012

THE Catholic Church says it has “nothing to hide” if the Victorian government establishes an independent inquiry into its treatment of sexual abuse victims.

The church was also prepared for its priests to be subject to the same mandatory reporting laws as govern teachers, doctors and other professionals.

But despite vowing to co-operate “generously and fully” with any inquiry, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart yesterday took aim at Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton for the leaking of a report cataloguing at least 40 cases of suicide by victims of priests.

“It appears that a confidential report has been given to the media,” Archbishop Hart said in response to a report in The Age that accused the church of choosing to remain silent over its knowledge of the deaths.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

PETER COLLINS

14 Apr, 2012

South-west Victorian men are among those who committed suicide because of Catholic clergy sexual abuse.

Confidential police reports listing at least 40 suicides of abuse victims across the state are believed to be only a fraction of the total tragic toll.

Premier Ted Baillieu yesterday hinted he may call for a full inquiry into the abuses, which occurred across the state for decades, and Victoria Police is preparing a brief for the coroner on links between suicides and abuses.

Reports by a Ballarat detective, highlighted this week in The Age newspaper, said investigators discovered “an inordinate number of suicides which appear to be a consequence of sexual offending”.

Convicted former priests Gerald Ridsdale, Bryan Coffey and Paul Ryan and former CBC brother Robert Best all served in the south-west.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

PETER COLLINS

14 Apr, 2012

A NIGHT out at the local Catholic presbytery left mental scars that haunted Peter Watson to his death.

He died aged of 24 after spiralling into a pattern of self-destructive behaviour of alcohol and drugs shortly after leaving secondary school.

Yesterday his mother, Helen Watson of Ballarat, told The Standard how her son had been a normal fun-loving boy growing up in a farming community until his life was scarred by events at the Ararat Catholic presbytery when he was 15.

Local parish priest Father Paul David Ryan had invited some boys to an evening of cars, a blue movie and alcohol. Court evidence later revealed the priest had sexually abused the boys.

Ms Watson’s evidence assisted Warrnambool’s Detective Senior Constable Colin Ryan in bringing charges against Ryan, who was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to 18 months’ jail. “Peter has been a normal young boy growing up, but after the abuse was a different person,” his mother said.

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IRELAND
Edmonton Journal

Agence France-Presse April 13, 2012

An Irish priest was summoned to Rome and asked to retire to a monastery last month after he voiced views in favour of liberal reforms for the Catholic Church.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the main guardian of the Church’s dogma, did not reportedly take kindly to Father Tony Flannery’s pronouncements on contraception, the marriage of priests and women’s ordination.

The Vatican Insider website, citing informed sources, said the 65-year-old priest, one of the founders of the Association of Irish Priests, was called back to Rome by the superior general of his Redemptorist order, Father Michael Brehl.

The alleged incident happened last month before the Vatican published a report on its eight-month inspection of the Irish Catholic Church following a wave of thousands of abuse scandals that has badly shaken faith in the Church.

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CHILE
La Tercera

Arzobispado de Santiago anuncia cierre canónico de la Unión Sacerdotal, organización liderada por Fernando Karadima

El Arzobispado de Santiago anunció hoy que el día 5 de abril, se decretó el cierre canónico de la Unión Sacerdotal, agrupación a la que pertenecía el sacerdote Fernando Karadima, quien fue condenado por la Iglesia por abusos sexuales reiterados.

De acuerdo a lo informado por la Iglesia en un comunicado, “el Señor Arzobispo de Santiago, independientemente de la Visita Canónica realizada por Mons. Carlos Colazzi, Obispo de Mercedes – Uruguay, cuyas conclusiones obran en poder de la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, oído el parecer favorable del Consejo Directivo de la Unión Sacerdotal y la petición de sus miembros, ha decidido cancelar el reconocimiento canónico que se le había otorgado con Decreto Arzobispal del 21 de Agosto de 1928, renovado con Decreto 417, del 23 de Diciembre de 1989”.

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CANADA
Metro

By Staff The Canadian Press

SYDNEY, N.S. – Police have dropped their investigation into a complaint against a priest who headed up a rehabilitation centre for addicts in Cape Breton.

The Cape Breton Regional Police say they have no basis to pursue any criminal charges involving the former employee of Talbot House in Sydney.

Rev. Paul Abbass confirmed in an email that he was the person being investigated, and that police have ended the probe.

Abbass took a leave of absence from his position as executive director of the facility after an unspecified allegation surfaced in February.

The centre has since closed.

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CANADA
The Chroncile-Herald

By EVA HOARE Staff Reporter

UPDATED 5:44 p.m.

A high-ranking member of the Catholic Church in Nova Scotia accused of misconduct is no longer under investigation by police.

Late Friday afternoon, Cape Breton Regional Police issued a news release saying they would not pursue any further investigations about an unnamed employee for Talbot House, an addiction treatment facility in Frenchvale.

“Based on the information (from) our investigation, there was no grounds to pursue criminal charges,” police department spokeswoman Desiree Vassallo said in an interview.

Vassallo would not reveal the subject of the investigation, but Rev. Paul Abbass confirmed in an email to The Canadian Press that he was the person being investigated, and that police have ended the probe.

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CANADA
Guelph Mercury

GUELPH — One of the sex assault victims of defrocked Guelph priest James Boudreau says his life spiraled downward from the abuse like a blow from a “wrecking ball” from which he still hasn’t recovered.

“It left me completely devastated and forever changed,” the victim, who cannot be identified, said in a victim impact statement offered Friday at a sentencing hearing for Bourdreau. To this day, he struggles with depression, isolation, loss of faith, despair and shame, court heard. He’s lost friends and fears his identity becoming public.

The victim, 17 at the time of the offence, during the 1980s, termed the assault “an act of betrayal,” from a priest he greatly admired. “I became the unwitting victim of a cunning aggressor” who wanted him for “his perverse sexual pleasure,” court was told.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

The headline on the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reads like good news: “Child Protection Audits Find Nearly All Dioceses Compliant.”

What they were complying with, as the accompanying press release explained, was a set of zero-tolerance policies the bishops conference put in place a decade ago in response to the unfolding scandal involving the sexual abuse of children by clergy members.

The view from Kansas City is far less consoling. In September, their bishop will stand trial in criminal court for failing to report suspected child sexual abuse. Bishop Robert Finn will be the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official to be tried on such charges. The case stems from how the bishop handled the case of a priest now charged with possessing and producing pornographic photos of young girls, some of which were taken around churches and schools.

Many outraged Catholics in Kansas City are wondering how this could have happened. The church has argued — and, indeed, it does so in the just-released annual audit report — that the worst of its child sexual abuse problem is in the past. New allegations of abuse are made each year, but three-fourths of the credible new allegations made in 2011 were from adults reporting incidents long ago, from 1960 to 1984.

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CANADA
Cape Breton Post

SYDNEY, N.S. — Police have dropped their investigation into a complaint against a priest who headed up a rehabilitation centre for addicts in Cape Breton.

The Cape Breton Regional Police say they have no basis to pursue any criminal charges involving the former employee of Talbot House in Sydney.

Rev. Paul Abbass confirmed in an email that he was the person being investigated, and that police have ended the probe.

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CANADA
CBC News

Cape Breton Regional Police say there will be no criminal charges against the priest in Cape Breton who has spoken for the Diocese of Antigonish in recent years.

Police had received an unspecified complaint against Rev. Paul Abbass — who used to run Talbot House — a men’s addiction and rehabilitation facility outside Sydney.

They began looking into the case in February to see if there was enough information to launch a criminal investigation, said Cape Breton Regional Police spokeswoman Desiree Vassallo.

“Based on the information we received and gathered since then, we have found no basis to pursue any criminal charges at this point,” Vassallo said in a statement.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Tom Roberts on Apr. 13, 2012 NCR Today

“Traditional Catholicism is winning,” blared a headline on a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Anne Hendershott and Christopher White.

Whether that conclusion is warranted only time, and what one means by “traditional Catholicism,” will tell. It is the claims underpinning the conclusion that merit comment. “There were 467 new priestly ordinations in the U.S. last year, and Boston’s seminary had to turn away applicants,” read the subhead beneath the declaration that traditional Catholicism was racking up the most points on the ecclesial scoreboard.

The article went on to note that a new seminary was being built in North Carolina and that Boston’s seminary was so full it had to turn applicants away. And, it reported, there were 5,000 more priests worldwide in 2009 than there were in 1999.

Problem solved, right?

When I read the piece, which is whipping ’round the ether, I contacted Mary Gautier, senior research associate at the Center for Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

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CANADA
CKTB

Siobhan Morris, 610 CKTB News

4/13/2012

The lawyer of 3 men molested by a local priest as boys, says the parishioners of the St. Catharines Diocese should revolt.

Robert Talach represents Mike Blum, James Hennessey & a man who can’t be named because of a publication ban. All 3 were victimized by Father Donald Grecco in the 1970s & 80s.

In December 2010, Grecco was sentenced to 18-months behind bars after pleading guilty to 3 counts of gross indecency. The man, now in his 70s was recently released from prison & is serving 2 years probation. His name & DNA are now on the national sex offender registry.

Talach says between Grecco’s case &that of Father James Kneale, who in 2010 plead guilty to performing oral sex on a 16-year-old boy—there should be pickets in the streets of Niagara.

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AUSTRALIA
Blacktown Sun

NICK MCKENZIE, RICHARD BAKER, JOSH GORDON

14 Apr, 2012

AT LEAST five people killed themselves after allegedly being sexually abused by paedophile priest Ronald Pickering between 1960 and 1980, new research says.

The deaths in Melbourne, uncovered by lawyer Judy Courtin, add to the 40 suicides by victims of clergy paedophiles documented in a police report.

The revelations have forced the Victorian Premier, Ted Baillieu, to bring forward plans to respond to the growing church abuse scandal. It is understood the government will announce a broad investigation – potentially with powers to compel witnesses to give evidence – into the criminal abuse of children by religious organisations.

But demands for a full-scale royal commission are unlikely to be met, with the government concerned about the potential cost.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

Von Julia Jüttner, Würzburg

Max H. hat sich an Mädchen vergangen, Uwe B. hat sich mit Kinderpornografie stimuliert. Die psychotherapeutische Fachambulanz Würzburg hilft den beiden Sexualstraftätern bei der Resozialisierung, unterstützt von der katholischen Kirche. Ein Besuch.

Jede Sexualstraftat hat eine Vorgeschichte. Oft schlummert der Auslöser ganz weit in der Vergangenheit. Klaus Weths Aufgabe ist es, ihn zu finden. Er ist Leiter der psychotherapeutischen Fachambulanz Würzburg. Seit einem Jahr betreut er 85 Täter aus Franken.

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OSTERREICH
APA OTS

Wien (OTS) – Christoph Riedl präsentiert im ORF-Religionsmagazin “Orientierung” am Sonntag, dem 15. April 2012, um 12.30 Uhr in ORF 2 folgende Beiträge:

Missbrauch im Kloster-Internat: Ein Kremsmünster-Opfer berichtet

Er gehört zu jenen insgesamt mindestens 45 mutmaßlichen Opfern, die im Stiftsgymnasium von Kremsmünster ab den 1970er Jahren bis in die 1990er Jahre gedemütigt, geschlagen und sexuell missbraucht worden sind: der heute 46-jährige evangelische Pfarrer Jürgen Öllinger. Von “grauenhaften Dingen” berichtet er, von Scham und heftigen Verletzungen, die jungen Menschen durch Lehrer – durch Ordensmänner – zugefügt worden sind. Vor allem an Pater Alfons erinnert er sich.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Stern

Spekulationen über seinen Gesundheitszustand, unverhohlene Kritik an seinem Staatssekretär und die obskure Nachricht über ein Mordkomplott: Papst Benedikt erlebt ein “annus horribilis”. Von Luisa Brandl, Rom

Sie sollen sehr vertraulich miteinander gesprochen haben: der “lider máximo”, seit 50 Jahren unangefochtener kommunistischer Herrscher Kubas, und das Oberhaupt der katholischen Kirche. Fidel Castro habe sich nach den Aufgaben eines Papstes erkundigt, berichtete das “Wall Street Journal”. Der alte bärtige Mann habe seinen gleichaltrigen Gast auch gefragt, wie er es denn schaffe, in seinem Alter die Kirche zu führen. Was Joseph Ratzinger geantwortet hat, ist nicht kolportiert. Aber die Frage muss ihm einen Stich versetzt haben, denn daheim im Vatikan entgleiten dem Kirchenchef allmählich die Zügel.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 13, 2012

Twice in a matter of weeks, a supporter of Fr. Michael Kelly has attempted to sway a juror. This is a crime, and deserves to be punished as such. It is one thing to pray for a priest and believe he is innocent (though a 12 person jury found him guilty of molesting a boy). It is quite another to actively attempt to persuade a juror towards your point of view.

This individual clearly has no respect for the justice system. The judge should, at a minimum, hold this person in contempt of court to teach the lesson that ought to be common sense: jury tampering should never be acceptable.

And we renew our call to Stockton’s Bishop Blaire to rein in his parishioners who are publicly supporting Kelly, both at the courthouse and elsewhere. These church-goers and Bishop Blaire should let the justice system run its course and put an end to these public display that intimidate victims – adults and teens – into staying silent.

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UNITED STATES
Newswise

Newswise — Parents generally teach their children about “stranger danger” from an early age, telling them not to talk to, walk with or take gifts or candy from strangers. But statistics show danger often lurks closer to home. According to numbers provided by the National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, the vast majority of children who are sexually abused are abused by someone they know – most often a family member, an adult the family trusts or, in some instances, another child.

Parents can help protect their children from sexual abuse by talking frankly to them about abuse, starting at a young age with age-appropriate information.

“It’s essential that parents have a continuing conversation with their children about sexual abuse,” said Kay Knaff, clinical services program manager for Youth Villages, a private nonprofit organization that helps children with emotional, behavioral and mental health issues, as well as children who have been abused or neglected. “This may seem hard to do, but it’s the best way to protect your child. It’s best to start talking to your children about child abuse as early as age 3 or 4.”

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IRELAND
Catholic News Service

By Michael Kelly
Catholic News Service

DUBLIN (CNS) — Three out of four Irish who identified themselves as Catholics find the church’s teaching on sexuality “irrelevant,” according to new research published by the Association of Catholic Priests.

The survey — conducted by the research association Amarach — also showed that almost 90 percent of those surveyed believe that divorced or separated Catholics in a stable second relationship ought to be able to receive Communion at Mass. Under church law, divorced and remarried Catholics who have received an annulment may receive Communion.

The figures were compiled from a sample of 1,000 Catholics and, according to researchers, have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

According to the results, 35 percent of those surveyed attend Mass at least once a week; 51 percent attend at least once a month. Five percent of Irish who identify themselves as Catholics never attend Mass.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Gisteren schreef Willem over de netelige bijbelbelt waar hij met zijn vrouw Anita doorreed (gas geven jongens) en waar iedere seksuele drive angstig klopt onder een ijzeren discipline. Er is nog niet zoveel bekend uit die streken, ze hangen daar niet de vuile was buiten zoals bij die arme katholieke kerk die door het celibaat, hun seksuele masker moeten afzetten. De kerk en Deetman willen ons bij gelegenheid erop wijzen dat geweld en seksuele onvrijheid in alle lagen van de maatschappij voorkomt. Wij hebben nooit ontkend dat het geen wereldlijk probleem is, universeel onze ziel schuurt, dat de onschuldigen even schuldig zijn als de rest, de farizeeërs, de artsen, de kardinalen, de bijbelbelters, the rock and roll boys and girls, pastoortje of broedertje en al die de maagdelijke nonnetjes. Ook ik ben wel eens te ver gegaan, zij was volwassen, had met haar al meerdere malen gevreeën, zij wilde die keer niet, ben weliswaar gestopt maar had toch een grens overschreden. Diepe spijt, vooral dat ik haar als vriendin een tijd ben kwijt geraakt.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Vanmiddag, tweede paasdag2012, Anita afgezet bij een vriendin in Ochten.

Vanuit Rhenen de Rijnbrug over, de radio stond aan en het nieuws van 1 uur werd aangekondigd.

Er werd bericht over de emotionele herdenking in Alphen aan de Rijn, waar precies een jaar geleden een totaal gestoorde idioot een bloedbad aanrichtte.

Direct hierna de berichtgeving over kardinaal Eijk, hij heeft een beeld onthult als “ herdenkingsmonument” tegen kindermisbruik “ in het algemeen” , dus niet alleen binnen de rooms katholieke kerk.

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NEDERLAND
Tubantia

OLDENZAAL – Omdat hij zou hebben gezoend met een meisje uit zijn klas moest hij op het matje komen bij de kapelaan. Die strafte hem voor het vermeende onzedelijke gedrag door hem drie maanden lang stelselmatig seksueel te misbruiken.

Bijna 45 jaar na dato doet de nu 58-jarige oud-Oldenzaler Bob Alders een boekje open over wat er destijds met hem gebeurde in de kamer van kapelaan Frans B. in de pastorie van de Antoniusparochie aan de Spoorstraat in Oldenzaal. Het misbruik had grote negatieve invloed op de rest van zijn leven. Al die jaren zweeg Alders over was hem was aangedaan maar in de stortvloed van onthullingen over seksueel misbruik in de katholieke kerk doet hij nu zijn mond open en heeft hij aangifte gedaan. In de hoop in het reine te komen met zijn verzwegen verleden maar hij hoopt ook dat eventuele andere slachtoffers naar buiten komen. ‘Want het bestaat niet dat ik de enige ben.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Wicked Local

GateHouse News Service

Posted Apr 12, 2012

BOSTON —

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has reached settlements in sexual abuse cases involving two priests, including a priest at St. Colman Church in Brockton during the 1950s and 1960s who later served at Sacred Heart in Weymouth.

The Rev. Richard J. O’Donovan died in August 2000, before the allegation was raised against him.

The other case involved the Rev. James Lane, a former Boston police chaplain whose only previous connection with the scandal was as a whistleblower.

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ESPANA
Canal Sur

Así lo ha manifestado Alcalde a los periodistas antes de entrar a declarar ante el titular del Juzgado de Instrucción número 47 de Madrid, Adolfo Carretero, que tras tomar ayer declaración a la religiosa María Gómez Valbuena mantiene su imputación por los delitos de detención ilegal y falsedad en documento público.

Alcalde, que comparece en calidad de testigo, ha explicado que no abonó ninguna cantidad por adoptar a la niña y que se limitó a pagar las facturas de la estancia de la madre biológica en la clínica Santa Cristina de Madrid.

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