ABUSE TRACKER

CALIFORNIA
Courthouse News Service

By WILLIAM DOTINGA

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – Pastors and police officers facing claims that they enabled the decades-long sexual abuse of children in an evangelical Christian home have pointed to the statute of limitations to dodge liability.

The seven biological and foster children of Zion and Glenda Lea Dutro, all of whom are now adult women, filed their complaint anonymously in late 2011. Zion Dutro was sentenced to 300 years in prison after admitting that he sexually abused his children between 1982 and 2003. His wife was sentenced to 15 years for her role in the psychological, physical and verbal abuse.

An amended complaint that the sisters filed in May revealed their names and a host of individuals or entities who allegedly knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop it.

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CANADA
Calgary Herald

By Stephane Massinon, Calgary Herald
June 19, 2012

Police say no charges will be laid against current or former staff at the Prairie Bible Institute after they wrapped up an investigation into claims of sexual abuse made by a former student.

Both RCMP and the Three Hills-based Christian college launched their own reviews last year after a former student claimed years of sexual abuse at the hands of her father. She also said that 70 alleged victims had come forward to her with stories of sexual abuse suffered there.

Three Hills RCMP Sgt. Joe Sangster said Tuesday police recently concluded their investigation and are planning on providing a public update as early as next week.

He said no charges have been laid and estimated that approximately 10 people came forward to police.

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NEW YORK
Auburn Citizen

The state Senate has again failed the people of New York by refusing to follow the Assembly in approving legislation extending the statute of limitations on civil suits in cases of child sexual abuse.

Changing the rules would add five years to the allowable time people could sue individuals — and entities such as schools and churches — for abuse they suffered as a minor. It would also open a one-time window for people to sue over wrongs committed decades ago.

Statues of limitations, in most cases, make good sense. Nobody should live in fear of being sued over a 30-year-old car accident or a disputed real estate deal.

But we’ve learned that young victims of sexual abuse are often scared, confused or otherwise unprepared to talk about what happened to them for many years, if they come forward at all. And the psychological trauma has shown to be long-term, so it just isn’t fair to have such a short period of time in which to hold abusers accountable.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Times

Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2012

While the world awaits the verdict on the Philadelphia clerical sexual abuse trial in which the first church official in the United States is charged with endangering children for allegedly protecting the abusers, 14 nuns are on a national bus tour protesting proposed federal budget cuts because of their ill effects on the poor.

These nuns were organized by Network, a Washington-based Catholic social justice group recently criticized by Pope Benedict XVI — aka “The Vatican” — for focusing too much on economic injustice and not enough on abortion and same-sex marriage protests. This is the same pope who recently told Irish Catholics in a videotaped message that the cause of decades of child abuse in parishes, schools and other church-run institutions was a “mystery.”

This is also the same pope who, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, once headed the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and oversaw all abuse cases, allowing many to fester. For example, the future pope reportedly allowed an Arizona priest, who a church tribunal determined molested children as far back as the late 1970s, to remain a priest until 2004, more than 12 years after learning of the man’s predilection for youngsters.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Post

A FORMER Bristol magistrate has been spared prison, despite sexually abusing a teenage boy.

James Hennah, who was also a lay pastor at the Bristol Community Church in Kingswood and a Bristol Grammar School counsellor, was given a suspended sentence at Exeter Crown Court yesterday.

The 39-year-old admitted two charges of sexually touching a boy and one of gaining sexual gratification by watching him do a “private act”, having asked him to try on some new underwear.

Prosecuting, Emily Pitts told the court the offences had devastated the boy. His self-confidence had been shattered and he had lost trust in adults.

In a statement to the court, the youngster said: “I never want to speak to him or see him again.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

Evangelical church tried to cover up abuse of boy, 14, by pervert pastor who claimed to be ‘bringing him peace’

By Graham Smith

PUBLISHED:03:15 EST, 20 June 2012

An evangelical church tried to cover up sexual abuse by one of its pastors by pressuring the parents of a 14-year-old boy not to report his attacks.

Youth leader James Hennah, 39, abused the boy after befriending him and his family at the church group which he ran in Bristol.

He was also a local magistrate and school counsellor and used his respected position in the community to win the trust of his victim.

Hennah first abused the boy at his parents’ home when the teenager became upset and he was supposedly praying with him.

He claimed to be ‘bringing him peace’ but instead slipped his hand inside the boy’s underwear and touched his bottom.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By Martin Henderson

Attorneys for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange have settled in court with a decorated military pilot over an alleged sexual abuse incident that took place about 25 years ago.

The diocese agreed to pay John Doe $2 million, ending a civil suit centered around Michael Harris, who at the time was the principal at Mater Dei High in Santa Ana.

Harris, who was also a priest, went on to become the founding principal at Santa Margarita Catholic High, which opened in 1987.

Jury selection was supposed to begin Tuesday in the Orange County Superior courtroom of Judge Ronald L. Bauer. The pretrial settlement was reached about 9:30 p.m. Monday, after hours of negotiating.

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UNITED STATES
Stop Baptist Predators

The Southern Baptist Convention is convening its annual ballyhoo in New Orleans this week, but it doesn’t look as though they will make any progress on protecting kids against clergy sex abuse.

Since 2006, clergy abuse survivors, and others, have been asking the Southern Baptist Convention to implement denominational safeguards against clergy child molesters. Southern Baptists have refused.

The requests are nothing radical. We asked for the sorts of safeguards that already exist in other major faith groups in this country. We asked that the denomination provide (1) a safe place where people may report abusive ministers, (2) a denominational panel for responsibly assessing abuse reports (particularly those that cannot be criminally prosecuted), and (3) an effective means, such as a database, of assuring that assessment information reaches people in the pews.

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UNITED STATES
New Jersey Newsroom

BY ROBERT KINKEAD
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Pope Benedict XVI added a new mystery to the Catholic faith last Sunday.

Speaking about the abuse of children by priests and other religious figures, the Pontiff said, “How are we to explain the fact that people who regularly received the Lord’s body and confessed their sins in the Sacrament of Penance have offended in this way? It remains a mystery.”

The papal comments were made in a recorded TV address delivered at the close of an outdoor Mass attended by 75,000 Catholics, many from overseas, in Ireland’s largest sports stadium. Ireland’s prime minister and president attended the Mass, the final event of a Eucharistic Congress aimed at shoring up flagging faith.

Not everyone agreed with the Pope.

“The pontiff’s wrong: there’s little mystery here,” said Barbara Dorris in an emailed statement reported by the Associated Press.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 18, 2012
By An NCR Editorial

It’s as bad as we thought it could get. Maybe worse. In an interview with NCR shortly after meeting with the leaders of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, confirmed our worst fears: that this Holy Office is hell-bent on bringing U.S. women religious to heel.

Franciscan Sr. Pat Farrell, president of the leadership conference, and St. Joseph Sr. Janet Mock, the group’s executive director, went to Rome at the request of the conference’s board to seek some understanding from Levada and Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, the apostolic delegate, about the April 18 Vatican order that the women’s group revise its statutes and programs. The Vatican order, which followed a nearly four-year investigation of the group, also appointed three bishops to oversee this reform: Sartain, Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, and Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill.

Farrell and Mock were hopeful going into the meeting, calling it a continuation of a conversation already begun. On the other side of the meeting, Levada wondered if he were engaged in a “dialogue of the deaf.” He’s not convinced that the women’s group is taking the Vatican’s concerns to heart.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Trials of Jerry Sandusky and William Lynn: Coaches, Cardinals, Cowardice and Courage in Pennsylvania

By Mathew N. Schmalz and He wrote this article for On Faith.

Over the last few weeks, Pennsylvania and the nation have been transfixed and troubled by the trials of Jerry Sandusky and Monsignor William Lynn.

The connections between the trials are clear. Both concern sexual abuse: In one the alleged abuser is on trial; in the other, the man on trial is accused of allowing abuse to continue. Both trials reveal how institutions responded more sensitively to the alleged abusers than to the victims.

Both trials also force us to reflect on the difference between moral cowardice and moral courage.

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CALIFORNIA
The Orange County Register

By GREG HARDESTY / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange settled a sex-abuse and cover-up lawsuit Monday night with an accuser of former Monsignor Michael Harris, agreeing to pay an unusually high amount of $2 million to end a case that alleged a single incident of abuse.

The settlement in Orange County Superior Court came at around 9:30 p.m. after hours of negotiations on a day when jury selection was set to begin before Superior Court Judge Ronald L. Bauer.

Harris’ accuser is a decorated combat pilot in the Air Force who lives in Nevada. The 41-year-old married father of two young children, who is not being publicly identified by the Register, accused Harris of abusing him in late 1986 or early 1987 when Harris was principal of Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana and he was a student there.

Harris’ attorney, James Ingram, was not immediately available for comment.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Reporter

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia jury is set to return for a 12th day of deliberations Wednesday in a novel clergy-abuse case, but there’s been no word the panel is at a stalemate.

The case is the first in the country in which a Roman Catholic church official is charged over his handling of abuse complaints.

Prosecutors say Monsignor William Lynn conspired to endanger children by taking part in an alleged cover-up. Lynn served as secretary for clergy at the Philadelphia archdiocese from 1992 to 2004.

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IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 19, 2012
By David Gibson, Religion News Service

NEW YORK — Cardinal Timothy Dolan loves to play up his Irish roots, which is no surprise given Dolan’s famous Gaelic gregariousness and his role as spiritual leader of such a prominent community of Irish-American Catholics.

But in the wake of Dolan’s scathing verdict on the orthodoxy of a major Irish seminary and the sharp pushback by Ireland’s leading bishops, America’s best-known churchman might want to stick to his throne at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and steer clear of the old sod for a while.

Dolan’s report on the flagship Irish seminary in Rome — contained in a review commissioned by the Vatican — was marked by “a deep prejudice” that “led to the hostile tone and content of the report,” Ireland’s four archbishops said in the draft of a joint reply to the Vatican.

The reply, published by The Irish Times on Friday, also said Dolan’s report contained “significant errors of fact.”

In 2010, as revelations of the widespread sexual abuse of children by clergy rocked deeply Catholic Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI asked Dolan to a lead a team that would inspect Ireland’s Catholic seminaries to make sure they were preparing men properly for the priesthood. (The pontiff also named Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley and other churchmen to review Ireland’s four archdioceses.)

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on June 19, 2012

After years of litigation and on the eve of what was going to be a blockbuster trial, the Diocese of Orange has settled its most recent case against notorious former priest and Mater Dei/Santa Margarita High School principal Michael Harris for $2 million.

The victim is a decorated Air Force pilot. He risked a lot more than most victims by coming forward.

Just think: if Msgr. John Urell and Bp. Michael Driscoll had done the right thing, Harris would be in jail. But no … that would have been the RIGHT thing to do.

Something tells me that this is not the end of the story ….

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on June 19, 2012

We applaud Pennsylvania lawmakers who are pushing a discharge petition so that a crucial bill to help expose child predators can move forward.

If ever there’s a compelling reason for an unusual legislative move, protecting hundreds or thousands of innocent kids from child predators is that reason.

One or two politicians shouldn’t deny 250 PA lawmakers a chance to vote – up or down – on a matter of public safety and child protection.

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SCRANTON (PA)
The Moscow Villager

By Staff reports
The Villager

Posted Jun 19, 2012

Scranton —

On Friday, June 15, Diocesan officials learned that charges have been filed against Father Thomas Shoback.

In November 2011, the Diocese of Scranton notified the Tioga County District Attorney’s Office that an allegation of sexual abuse was reported to the Diocese.

At that time, the Diocese immediately removed the cleric from ministry and suspended his faculties to exercise priestly ministries within the Diocese pending an investigation of the accusation.

The Diocese has cooperated with law enforcement and will continue to do so in pursuit of justice.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano
Tue., Jun. 19 2012

Just got word from John Manly, the badass attorney who has for the past decade exposed the Catholic Diocese of Orange for the pedo-protection racket that it is, that the trial he was all ready to start on today involving the notorious Michael Harris ain’t going to trial anymore. That’s because representatives for Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown approached him last night and offered to settle before the public embarrassment that would’ve been the man nicknamed “Mad Dog” grilling Harris, Brown, and all the other cretins in cassocks came to be.

Settlement amount? $2 million.

Harris, of course, was the former principal of Mater Dei and Santa Margarita high schools, a darling of the Republican Party, and a clinically diagnosed boy lover. Here’s Manly’s statement:

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CALIFORNIA
The Sentinel

Associated Press | Posted: Tuesday, June 19, 2012

A man charged with attacking a Jesuit priest who he says molested him decades ago is going to trial.

Opening statements begin Wednesday for 44-year-old San Francisco resident William Lynch, who faces charges of felony assault and elder abuse for the attack on Jerold Lindner.

Authorities say Lynch beat Lindner in the lobby of the priest’s retirement home in May 2010.

Lynch says he intends to use his own trial to raise awareness about clergy sexual abuse. He faces four years in prison if convicted.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

Published on Tuesday 19 June 2012

A woman who claims she was indecently assaulted by a priest as a teenage girl has told a Derry Crown Court jury she felt “totally betrayed”.

The woman, who cannot be identified, was giving evidence at the trial of 66-year-old Fr Eugene Boland.

Fr Boland, whose address was given in court papers as Parochial House, Killyclogher Road, Omagh, denies five charges of indecent assault between June 28, 1990 and June 30, 1992.

It is alleged the abuse took place in the parochial house of St Joseph’s Church, Galliagh, when the complainant was aged around 14-years-old

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IRELAND
Donegal Democrat

Published on Tuesday 19 June 2012

A Moville born priest told a woman who claims she was indecently assaulted by him as a teenage girl that it was only when he came to Derry and saw good looking women that he realised it was ‘too late’ for him.

The woman told a Derry Crown Court jury yesterday she felt “totally betrayed” by the alleged actions of the priest.

The woman who cannot be identified was giving evidence at the trial of 66-year-old Fr. Eugene Boland.

Boland, whose address was given on court papers as Parochial House, Killyclogher Road, Omagh, denies five charges of indecent assault between June 28, 1990 and June 30, 1992.

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CALIFORNIA
OpEd News

By
Joey Piscitelli

A landmark event is scheduled to shake California this week, and it’s not the typical quake felt rumbling along the coast near Los Gatos. It is the trial of Will Lynch, a man who has trembled in agony himself for the last 37 years. Will was only 7 when he said he was violated by Fr. Jerold Lindner, the infamous Jesuit priest who has been responsible for millions of dollars of sex abuse settlement claims in the past decade.

Will is accused of going to the home of Fr. Lindner at the plush Los Gatos Estate called the Sacred Heart Retirement Center in May of 2010, where the serial accused rapist lives in luxury, overlooking a stunning vineyard and magnificent landscape. During that visit, Lynch admits he attacked and beat the Priest, and he states that he looks forward to his day in court. He is being represented by attorney Mark Geragos of Los Angeles. Lynch has refused to accept a plea bargain, and the DA’s office of Santa Clara is prosecuting Lynch in a court trial beginning on June 20 th .

The Jesuit Sacred Heart Center is cynically referred to as the “Pedophiles Paradise” by sex abuse victims who have protested outside the courthouse this week; a stark reminder that the retreat location has housed many Jesuit sex molesters for decades.

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MALTA
The Malta Independent

Dr Philip Galea Farrugia criticised the defence of the defrocked priests found guilty of sexual abuse, for their personal attack against one of the victims, Lawrence Grech, against whom they were showing hatred.

Dr Galea Farrugia, and Dr Elaine Rizzo, are representing the attorney general in the appeal launched by the two priests, being heard by Mr Justice David Scicluna. Godwin Scerri and Carmel Pulis, the former priests, were last August sentenced to five years and six years in jail for the sexual abuse of boys who were living at Dar San Guzepp, Sta Venera.

Mr Pulis was found guilty of abusing nine boys, Mr Scerri of corrupting two boys.

Dr Galea Farrugia’s claim of hatred was strongly denied by Dr Giannella de Marco, who lodged the appeal with Dr Joseph Giglio. She said the application had been written tongue in cheek and with sarcasm.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Philly

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – A jury weighing child-endangerment charges against two Roman Catholic priests has been working quietly this week after a flurry of earlier questions.

The jury has been deliberating for 11 days, after getting the case June 1 and taking a few days off.

The groundbreaking case involves a priest charged with attempted rape and an official charged with covering up abuse claims.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin and Joseph A. Slobodzian

Day 11 of jury deliberations has begun in the clergy sex-abuse trial at the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia.

Day 10 was uneventful, as the panel of seven men and five women met behind closed doors, never asking Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina any questions, never rehearing any testimony, never prompting arguments between judge and attorneys.

The jury convened Monday for nearly six hours — bringing the total so far to about 36 hours — offering no clues to their progress in the landmark case against two Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests.

Judge Sarmina took the bench at 4 p.m. simply to tell the lawyers: “They have asked to leave for the day.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The Vatican Secretary of State who is “at the centre of the fray” is on the attack, particularly against the press

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

The Vatican Secretary of State set four key things straight in yesterday’s interview with Italian Pauline magazine Famiglia Cristiana. The title on the magazine’s front cover – a quotation of a comment made by the Pope’s right hand man was unequivocal: “Poison pen letter writers and the Vatican bank…pure slander”. The cardinal made his stance known after the Substitute for General Affairs to the Secretary of State, Angelo Becciu and the Dean, Cardinal Angelo Sodano expressed their own positions (both published in the Vatican daily broadsheet L’Osservatore Romano). His stance shows a continuity with the messages he has been sending out both inside and outside the Roman Curia, recalling the unity of those close to the Pope and denying the existence of clashing factions among them.

During the interview, the Secretary of State attributed most of the blame for the Vatileaks scandal and the controversies over the dismissal of the Vatican bank’s president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, to newspapers – particularly Italian ones. He claimed it was these Dan Brown wannabe journalists, with their inaccurate and poisonous information, their “pettiness” and “lies spread over the past few months”, who portrayed the Vatican as a place mired in power struggles and tensions. Information which is simply not true. “In actual fact, there is a unity in terms of objectives and a collegiality among the Secretariat of State’s collaborators that cannot be found elsewhere.” “Personally – the cardinal said – I see no sign of any cardinals being involved or of a mysterious power struggle between ecclesiastical figures.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

In an interview with Italian Pauline magazine “Famiglia Cristiana”, Cardinal Bertone speaks about the Vatican document leak and IOR scandals: “There is no sign of any cardinals being involved or of disputes between clerics”

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope’s main collaborator spoke again about the Vatican leak scandal following his visit to Poland, where he “experienced a totally different climate from the foul play and lies spread in recent months.” He did so in a long interview with Fr. Antonio Sciortino, director of Italian Pauline magazine Famiglia Cristiana.

“We are facing difficult times. None of us intends to hide the shadows and defects of the Church. Te Holy Father continues to invite all of us, starting with those with roles of responsibility to change their lives around. Not just by purifying our behaviour but also through our increased dedication to doing good.” But Bertone also pointed out that “we find ourselves in an Italian context which is spread universally, to parts of the world where the echoes are muted. Other countries find it difficult to understand the fierceness of certain Italian newspapers.” According to the Secretary of State, abroad “one gets a better idea of how the publication of a number of letters and documents sent to the Holy Father by people who have a right to privacy, constitutes – as we have stressed a number of times – an immoral act of unprecedented gravity. It is an offense against a right which is explicitly recognized by the Italian constitution, which should be severely observed and enforced.”

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PHILIPPINES
Vatican Insider

Priests say the bishop misused huge sums of money intended as donations for victims of typhoons and disasters

Mauro Pianta
Rome

Bishop Jesse Mercado is facing some heavy accusations. The man in charge of the Diocese of Parañaque, one of the richest in the Philippines, allegedly diverted multimillion donations for victims of typhoons and other disasters. The news was reported by UCAN Philippines news service. Although the article cites the website rappler.com, it does not give the exact figure but speaks generally of “millions”. It does not specify where the donations were diverted to either.

What is certain, is that a number of lay people and priests have asked the Apostolic Nuncio in the Philippines, Mgr. Giuseppe Pinto to intervene and remove the bishop from office. After a couple of meetings, Mgr. Pinto said he intended to bring the Mercado dossier to the attention of the Roman Curia.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The troika of cardinals has listened to 23 people so far and Paolo Gabriele is still behind bars

Alessandro Speciale
Vatican City

The Commission of three cardinals appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to conduct a full scale investigation into the Vatileaks case has heard 23 people so far. Among them is the Pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, who is the only one to have been formally accused to date.

The three elderly cardinals – The Spaniard Julian Herranz, a member of the Opus Dei and former president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, the Slovak, Josef Tomko, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples and the Italian Salvatore De Giorgi, former Archbishop of Palermo, all over 80 – reported to Pope Benedict XVI Saturday afternoon.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

The jury in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse trial deliberated for a tenth day Monday without reaching a verdict.

Judge M. Teresa Sarmina sent the jury home shortly after 4 p.m. They asked no questions. The jurors did not appear angry, as some reporters have previously noted, but they weren’t smiling either as they were dismissed for the day.

Meanwhile, the bored press corps staking out Courtroom 304 was entertained by Pat Ciarrocchi of CBS 3 Eyewitness News. Ciarrocchi, employing her dramatic broadcast voice, read horoscopes from the Philadelphia Daily News for the court crier and several reporters on hand. Sadly, there were no predictions about any pending dramatic announcements.

Victims’ advocates, however, who attend the trial daily, saw a silver lining. At least the jury wasn’t telling the judge that they were deadlocked.

Outside the Criminal Justice Center, TV camera crews and news photographers chased Msgr. William J. Lynn, his lawyers, and Lynn’s relatives down Filbert Street.

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VEREINIGTE STAATEN
Humanistischer Pressedienst

AMHERST, NY. (hpd) Eine in der aktuellen Ausgabe der Zeitschrift Free Inquiry veröffentlichte Studie hat das mögliche Ausmaß der staatlichen Subventionierung der US-Kirchen aufgezeigt. Den Berechnungen unter Federführung des Soziologen Ryan T. Cragun zufolge belaufen sich die Begünstigungen auf einen Betrag von mehr als 71 Milliarden US-Dollar jährlich.

Die in den USA seit 1980 erscheinende Zeitschrift Free Inquiry hat eine Auflage von rund 35.000 Exemplaren und wird vom Council for Secular Humanism in Amherst im US-Bundesstaat New York herausgegeben. Chefredakteur ist der emeritierte Philosophieprofessor Paul Kurtz.

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DEUTSCHLAND
RP

Interview Der neue Generalvikar Stefan Heße setzt für das Erzbistum Köln auf Leuchttürme des Glaubens

Köln Seit März ist Prälat Stefan Heße (45) Generalvikar und damit Leiter der erzbischöflichen Verwaltung von Joachim Kardinal Meisner. Er leitete bislang die Hauptabteilung Seelsorge-Personal. Als Chef des Generalvikariats (500 Mitarbeiter) wünscht sich Heße, der eigentlich Gemeindepfarrer werden wollte, eine missionarische Kirche.

Ihr Amt ist an die Amtszeit des Bischofs gebunden. Wie gestalten Sie die Aufgabe vor dem Hintergrund, dass 2013 Kardinal Meisner 80 Jahre alt wird und dann zurücktreten könnte?

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ROM
der Standard

Wolfgang Bergmann, 18. Juni 2012

“Wenn ein Katholik mit dem Papst in Rom spricht, dann hat er die Pflicht, sich so zu öffnen als stünde er Gott gegenüber…”

Ich muss gestehen, dass mir dieses Gebot ziemlich neu ist. Aber die Formulierung kam dieser Tage direkt aus dem vatikanischen Staatssekretariat, aus dem Munde von Erzbischof Angelo Becciu, dem Subsitituten des Staatssekretariates, (l’Osservatore Romano Nr.23).

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

Scharbeutz/Berlin – Mit einem persönlichen Schreiben an Norbert Denef meldet sich nun auch Burkhart Lischka zu Wort. Erst vor kurzem musste netzwerkB ihn damit konfrontieren, dass gerade die standardisierten Mails, die die SPD auf Anfragen von Betroffenen verschickt, nicht der Wahrheit entsprechen. In diesen Mails hieß es, dass Burkhart Lischka schon mit netzwerkB Kontakt aufgenommen hätte. Korrekt war dies nicht, vor allem da netzwerkB es war, die den Kontakt aufnahmen und Lischka sich bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt des Hungerstreiks bei netzwerkB nicht gemeldet hatte.

Nach dieser Kritik blieb Lischka wenig anderes übrig als einen persönlichen, handschriftlich verfassten Brief an netzwerkB zu senden, der nun signalisiert, dass der dringende Änderungsbedarf bei den Verjährungsfristen im Bundestag nochmal diskutiert werden müsse.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Tuesday, June 19, 2012 by
Waylon Johnston

The magistrate who convicted two priests of child abuse was yesterday accused of having been selective in his appreciation of evidence by trying to discredit the men and making sure they were found guilty.

Defence lawyer Joseph Giglio questioned how Magistrate Saviour Demicoli could be morally convinced of the men’s guilt when the victims were contradictory and inconsistent in their testimony.

On the other hand, the lawyer from the Attorney General’s Office, Phillip Galea Farrugia, said that it was precisely the discrepancies that made the victims so believable.

The 11 boys had been subjected to abuse every day, 18 years before they testified, so it was obvious that they could not remember every single detail but rather the substance of what they were put through, Dr Galea Farrugia said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
CBS Philly

By Tony Romeo

HARRISBURG, Pa.(CBS) — Some state lawmakers from Philadelphia are using a rarely-invoked parliamentary procedure in an effort to get a pair of child sex abuse bills to the House floor for a vote.

Philadelphia House Democrat Michael McGeehan says a “discharge resolution” aimed at forcing movement on bills bottled up in committee has only been used a few times in the current session.

“This extraordinary move that we’re taking takes on some of the most powerful interests in this capitol and in this Commonwealth … starting with the insurance industry … starting with the most powerful secular and religious organizations,” McGeehan explained.

But even if ultimately successful, with a limited number of session days before summer recess, a vote might not come until fall.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WHTM

[with video]

By Mark Hall

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) –
Philadelphia State Representatives Michael McGeehan and Louise Bishop said the House Judiciary Committee has had 15 months to take action on two bills that would strengthen out dated child sexual abuse laws.

McGeehan’s bill is calling for a special two-year window for filing civil action in a childhood sexual abuse case. Bishop, a victim of sexual abuse as a child, is pushing a bill that would remove the statute of limitations for filing criminal charges for sexual offenses.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

June 18, 2012|By Amy Worden and INQUIRER HARRISBURG BUREAU

HARRISBURG — Two Philadelphia lawmakers are making an end run around the legislative process to try to get their stalled child-abuse protection bills to a House floor vote.

State Reps. Michael McGeehan and Louise Williams Bishop, both Democrats, say the overlapping trials of two Philadelphia Archdiocese priests and former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky are reason enough to consider their bills, which seek to expand the statutes of limitations for civil and criminal liability in claims of past assaults on children.

“Sexual abuse of children is at the forefront in the Capitol right now, from the highest reaches of the Catholic Church in Philadelphia and one of the most prestigious secular institutions in Pennsylvania,” McGeehan said at a news conference in the Capitol.

Both bills have languished in the House Judiciary Committee for 15 months without a hearing or a vote. On Monday, McGeehan and Bishop introduced rarely used “discharge resolutions” that would essentially force their bills to a floor vote as early as Wednesday — unless the committee chairman, Rep. Ron Marsico (R., Dauphin), decides to shift the bills to another committee.

Marsico did not return a phone call seeking comment.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 19, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — If a report in Italy’s leading daily is accurate, it’s a rare bit of good news lately for the Vatican: Apparently, the Vatican is poised to pass a looming European anti-money laundering evaluation, touted by friends and foes alike as the first real measure of whether Benedict XVI’s financial reforms are for real.

According to the June 19 story in Corriere della Sera, evaluators from Moneyval, the European anti-money laundering task force, are set to give the Vatican a score of only “partially compliant” or “non-compliant” on just eight of its 16 “key and core” benchmarks. That’s enough for the Vatican to avoid being considered a problem state, which requires low scores on ten of the standards.

If a country drops below that threshold, it typically faces a more rigid review for “high-risk states” led by the Financial Action Task Force, considered the leading global body in the fight against money laundering.

While Moneyval does not issue an overall verdict of “pass” or “fail”, many observers informally consider avoiding that process as a pass. Countries which have recently been subjected to the aggressive review include Bolivia, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Syria and Turkey.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Caryl Rivers

Until quite recently, I had believed that the world of my novel, “Virgins,” about Catholic girls growing up in the 1950s, was a giant step away from contemporary reality.

After all, in those days, nuns wore habits with skirts to the floor and were expected to be passive and obedient. Catholic women were never supposed to speak about contraception, even in whispers. Families were often overjoyed when a son chose the priesthood as his vocation.

Today, nuns have tossed away the habit and run their own social welfare programs. Catholic women use contraception at the same rates as other American women. And in the wake of the pedophilia scandal in the church, coupled with the Vatican’s refusal to let priests marry or to admit women, the church can barely scrape up applicants for the roman collar,

But this month, as my novel is about to be re-published online, some wisps of the world I thought had vanished seem to be seeping back into the present through the permeable walls of time.

One again, nuns are being told to be quiet and obedient. The Vatican has called the sisters “radical feminists. ” It has proclaimed that they are spending too much time helping the poor, the halt and the lame, and too little time battling the Vatican’s demons, gay marriage and family planning.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By Rachel Zoll
| Associated Press
June 19, 2012

NEW YORK – The leader of the group representing most American nuns challenged the Vatican’s reasons for disciplining her organization, insisting that raising questions about church doctrine should not be seen as rebellion.

Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said Monday that Catholics should be able to search for answers about faith without fear.

“I don’t think this is a healthy environment for the church,’’ Farrell said in a phone interview. “We can use this event to help move things in that direction – where it’s possible to pose questions that will not be seen as defiance or opposition.’’

Farrell’s remarks are her first since she met last week in Rome with the Vatican orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which concluded in April that the group had strayed broadly from church teaching.

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CALIFORNIA
GetReligion

You may have read last week about a California jury awarding $28 million in damages to a Candace Conti, a woman who said the Jehovah’s Witnesses allowed an adult member of her congregation to molest her when she was a child.

The media tend to highlight stories about random predators, even though almost everyone abused as a child was abused by someone in a position of trust. This usually means a family member or someone in a relationship with a family member. But it also happens in schools or other institutions of trust. We’ve seen most of the media interest in this topic focused on the Roman Catholic Church, although there’s no evidence that it had a greater incidence of abuse than the general population. What it does have, however, is bigger pockets than most. It’s much harder to get millions of dollars from your mom’s ex-boyfriend or your math teacher from the 7th grade than it is from large, centralized entities.

This story deals with another church. It’s a huge settlement and one of the keys to the large award was a church policy. Here’s how the Associated Press put it:

Ms. Conti also said in her lawsuit that the Christian denomination’s national leaders formed a policy in 1989 that instructed the church’s elders to keep child sex abuse accusations secret. Congregation elders followed that policy when Mr. Kendrick was convicted in 1994 of misdemeanor child molestation in Alameda County, according to Mr. Simons.

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NEW YORK
CNN

[with video]

Areas of Brooklyn, N.Y. feel like a trip back in time. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities live a lifestyle that mirrors their ancestors from centuries ago. The dress, hair, language, education, food, values, prayers, traditions and community structure have been passed down and preserved through many generations and across oceans. All of those are an expression of the residents’ profound faith in God.

What is not visible are shameful secrets: Child sex abuse scandals have been making headlines for years and bringing unwanted attention to a group bent on privacy.

For Hasidim, every waking act is defined by the laws of the Torah; they depend on the teachings of rabbis to guide them in all parts of their day. Influence from the secular world threatens to invade their insular community.

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ARKANSAS
Press Argus-Courier

by TANIAH TUDOR, Press Argus-Courier Staff
Monday, June 18, 2012

A former Alma youth pastor was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to seven counts of sexual assault in Crawford County Circuit Court.

Michael Brandon Lenzini, 35, of Van Buren was arrested Nov. 3 after police received reports that he had engaged in sexual conduct on multiple occasions between Oct. 1 and Nov. 3 with a girl he met through his work as a youth pastor at Crossroads Church in Alma, according to a Van Buren Police report.

Van Buren police began investigating Lenzini after receiving information from the National Child Abuse Hotline that the girl was leaving school to meet with him for sexual encounters. Police did not disclose the age of the victim.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

A parish priest from the Derry diocese has gone on trial at the city’s Crown Court charged with sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl 20 years ago.

Fr Eugene Boland (66), originally from Moville, Co Donegal, and who served as a priest on both sides of the Border in the diocese, denies five charges of indecently assaulting the complainant between June 1990 and June 1992.

Fr Boland, Parochial House, Killyclogher Road, Omagh, is alleged to have committed the offences at the White Chapel parochial house in the Galliagh area of Derry, where the complainant worked on a voluntary basis.

Opening the prosecution case to the jury of eight women and four men, barrister Russell Connell said when the allegations were put to Fr Boland in Omagh police station in April 2010, he denied all of the offences.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 18, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — On the Vatican leaks front, the figure widely presumed to be the major target of the scandal, Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, has accused journalists covering the story of “playing at the imitation of Dan Brown,” inventing “fables and legends,” but insisted that he has “the real church” on his side.

Bertone, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, also said he has “no signal” of “the involvement of cardinals” in the affair, and rejected that the leaks scandal reveals “struggles among ecclesiastical personalities for the conquest of a phantom power.”

Bertone spoke in an interview with Famiglia Christiana, a widely read newsweekly in Italy.

“The publication of a multiplicity of letters and documents sent to the Holy Father by persons who have a right to privacy constitutes, as we have affirmed several times, an immoral act of unprecedented gravity,” Bertone said.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 18, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — As a journalist, I pride myself on trying to see things based on the facts as they stand, not as I or someone else might like them to be.

Thus whenever I get the “next pope” question, I try to stay tethered to reality, not floating long-shots that might excite one constituency or another, but pointing to figures who seem to have the best chance of actually being elected.

The problem is that when it comes to the essentially unknowable, it’s tough to be confident about what “reality” actually is. There are no polls, no fundraising reports, no ad buys, nothing empirical other than “buzz” to separate serious contenders from the crowd. Recent history suggests that sometimes those perceived front-runners come through, as in Paul VI and Benedict XVI, but other times dark horses emerge, as in John XXIII and John Paul II.

This is by way of introducing a new papal candidate, who I freely confess has not been featured in any of the latest round-ups of contenders (including my own), and someone who would probably be an afterthought in most conversations in Rome about who might come next.

(For the record, there’s no sign of a health crisis around Benedict which would suggest a transition is imminent. It’s just that with an 85-year-old pope, the question can’t help but come up.)

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

Several states are mulling legislative efforts to lift the statutes of limitations in cases of sex abuse for a one or two-year period. These so-called “window statutes,” pushed by left-wing legislators and left-wing pundits, would enable people to sue organizations for abuse no matter how long ago the alleged incidents occurred.

These “window statutes,” if enacted, would have a devastating financial impact upon the Catholic Church, as scores of anonymous claimants would line up to make decades-old allegations against now-deceased offenders.

But there’s a catch: Public schools are exempt from these legislative proposals. So if a teacher raped, sodomized, or molested a student – even in recent memory – the victim has no legal recourse whatsoever. (In New York, for example, the statute of limitations to file a civil suit against a public school institution is a mere 90 days.)

But if a person alleges that a Catholic priest – even one that is now long ago deceased – molested him 65 years ago, that accuser could receive a sizable cash settlement.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

Man who ‘beat up priest for molesting him when he was seven’ sobs as he recounts the horrific abuse – and says he is looking forward to facing attacker in court

By Lydia Warren

PUBLISHED:15:48 EST, 18 June

A man accused of beating up a priest who he says molested him as a seven-year-old boy sobbed as he recounted the horrific details of the alleged abuse.

In the heartbreaking interview, Will Lynch added that he is looking forward to facing his abuser in court at the assault trial this week – as he was never dragged before a judge for his alleged crimes.

‘I’ve always wanted the opportunity to bring the truth into the light,’ said Lynch, who now lives in San Fransisco, California. ‘I did [it] for compelling reasons. There’s a system here that’s broken.’

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

It was another day of deliberations Monday without a verdict in the landmark Philadelphia priest-abuse trial.

A Philadelphia jury is set to return for an 11th day of deliberations Tuesday in the groundbreaking clergy-abuse trial of two Roman Catholic priests.

Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged over his handling of child sexual abuse complaints as an aide to the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Seattle Times

The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA —
A Philadelphia jury is set to return for an 11th day of deliberations Tuesday in the groundbreaking clergy-abuse trial of two Roman Catholic priests.

Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged over his handling of child sexual abuse complaints as an aide to the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: A priest of the California province of the Jesuit order, Lindner is accused of the sexual abuse of at least 12 children, ages 4-11, male and female. His accusers include his own sister, three nieces and a nephew. His abusive behavior is said to have first been discovered when he was a 10 year-old boy, in the 1950s, when his mother walked in on him molesting his 5 year-old sister. The Jesuits claim to have first learned of Lindner’s alleged behavior in 1992 when Lindner’s brother reported to them that Lindner had sexually abused his daughters. Lindner was sent for a psychiatric evaluation, the Jesuits deemed the allegations to be not credible, and he was put back in ministry. In 1997 Lindner was removed from ministry and sent to treatment after a man told the Jesuits that he and his brother were sexually assaulted by Lindner in the 1975, when the boys were 7 and 4 years old. Lindner is said to have sodomized them, forced them to perform oral sex on each other, and to have threatened them. Lindner has denied all accusations. In May 2010 the man who accused him of sexually assaulting him and his little brother in 1975 physically assaulted him at a Jesuit retirement center in Los Gatos, CA, where Lindner was living. The man was arrested and is scheduled for trial in June 2012.

Ordained: 1976

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AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now

David Jean

June 18, 2012

THE priest accused of raping Archbishop John Hepworth 40 years ago remains suspended from duties six months after the allegations were raised.

Monsignor Ian Dempsey, the parish priest at Hallett Cove and Brighton has been unable to return to his work because the police investigation remains open.

An Adelaide priest, speaking to The Advertiser on the condition on anonymity, has criticised the Adelaide Archdiocese’s handling of the incident, saying Monsignor Dempsey, Archbishop Hepworth and the Church had all suffered as a result.

Monsignor Dempsey’s suspension comes despite the fact a church investigation cleared him of the allegations in November last year.

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UNITED STATES
St. Anthony Messenger

By Rachel Zawila
Clergy sex abuse affects a victim’s entire family. Ginny Hoehne’s son David (pictured) was twelve when he was abused by his parish priest. More than two decades later, the family still struggles with the pain. It’s the summer of 2002. Ginny Hoehne is sitting in a hotel lobby in Charleston, South Carolina, her family milling about nearby, waiting for the police. Having their car stolen was not on the vacation itinerary.

Now all they can do is wait. And watch the hotel TV, which airs a meeting of the U.S. Catholic bishops in Dallas regarding the Church’s sex-abuse scandal. Ever since the Boston Globe published its expansive investigative report into the matter in January, the media coverage has been seemingly nonstop. By now for most people, a passing glance would suffice, but Hoehne’s eyes remain fixed on the screen.

Hoehne’s son David was twelve when he was sexually assaulted by his parish priest in the early 1980s. Their house was just across the parking lot from the church in Fort Loramie, Ohio, and the family shared a neighborly rapport with the priests. “Unfortunately, our son was taken advantage of because of that,” she says.

She and her husband, Larry, didn’t learn of the abuse until more than a decade later, however, when David came to them in 1995. Their son’s secret then became their own, as David begged his parents to stay silent. “He was just so emotionally fragile that there wasn’t too much we could do,” Hoehne recalls.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

Published on Monday 18 June 2012

A priest has gone on trial at Derry Crown Court accused of indecently assaulting a teenage girl at a parochial house in the city twenty years ago.

Fr Eugene Boland, whose address was given on court papers as Parochial House, Killyclogher Road, Omagh, denies five charges of indecently assaulting the girl between June 28, 1990 and June 30, 1992.

Opening the trial to a jury of four men and eight women, prosecuting counsel Russell Connell said the incidents were allegedly committed in the Parochial House of the White Chapel, Galliagh.

He told the jury they would hear evidence that the girl, who was around 14-years-old at the time, was asked by the priest to “help out” in the Parochial House.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Jacqueline Williams, Graham Downie
June 19, 2012

Pat Power would never support a cause he didn’t passionately believe in. And while he went into his role as Auxiliary Bishop in 1986 with reluctance, he looks back on the past 26 years with no regrets.

After becoming a bishop at 44, he now leaves the role at 70 as the longest-serving Australian bishop.

But he still regards himself as ”young at heart” and stays so by mixing with different people and keeping abreast of what’s going on in the world.

Advertisement: Story continues below

The openly progressive Catholic bishop is never afraid to criticise his church. He hoped reform in the church would come from the grass roots level.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on June 18, 2012

Again, the pope alludes only to pedophile priests, not corrupt bishops.

Again, he focuses on the harm to the church, not the innocent, wounded children.

Again, he speaks in vague platitudes, refusing to even accurately name the crisis.

Again, he refuses to even recommend, much less take, a single effective prevention step.

Pope Benedict claims ‘mystery’ surrounding why priests abuse. The pontiff’s wrong: there’s little mystery here. In 1887, Lord Acton explained it best: “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Priest have long had power, sometimes almost absolute power, over devout and defenseless kids. So they’ve abused that power and those kids.

And even now, bishops have nearly absolute power over their dioceses, staff and in some places, their flocks. So they abuse that power, and ignore, hide and enable heinous crimes against kids.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Monday June 18 2012

THE Pope’s address was not the highlight of the Eucharistic Congress — and he was right to keep it that way. The congress was always going to be understated. This allowed a realistic check on the state of the church in Ireland.

An old priest told me that the Eucharistic Congress in the RDS last week was the best sense of being an Irish Catholic he has had since his ordination.

That says a lot about the starvation Irish Catholics have suffered at the hands of an institutional church.

The workshops surprised the organisers, such was the swell of participants for the main talks, and many went away disappointed despite paying for the privilege of being there.

This confusion is not really the fault of the organisers — and much credit to Fr Kevin Doran, who organised the congress — but it is the fault of a church that lost its way sacramentally, liturgically and while preaching justice denied to the most vulnerable — children.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Sarah O’Leary

There is no statute of limitation (i.e., a time frame set by government in which a crime may be prosecuted) in the U.S. for murder. So why are there state-by-state time limits for sexual assault, and why is the Catholic Church actively attempting to protect sex offenders from prosecution?

The New York Times reported this week that the Catholic Church has been lobbying politicians regarding time limits on sexual assault. And, rather than make it easier for victims to face their perpetrators, the Church may be hoping to do just the opposite. It seems the Church doesn’t want children who were sexually abused to have the opportunity to prosecute the priests who they claim have harmed them. What about the risks posed by fuzzy memories or evidence contamination, after all? According to the Church, these are two of the many reasons that boys and girls molested by priests shouldn’t get their days in court.

But alas, this Catholic fears the Catholic Church’s reasoning is simply (and pathetically) nothing more than a flimsy, convenient façade. Catholic leaders want the horrific crimes perpetrated by priests on little boys and girls to go away because it hurts the Church, not because evidence gets old or memories fade. Catholic leadership doesn’t want to admit to the abuse, or risk exposing how many in its ranks looked the other way or actively hide the abuses they witnessed. The Church doesn’t want to deal with the emotional backlash of these God-less crimes against children, or pay these once trusting victims for their pain and suffering. With over $2 billion spent by the church in legal fees, victim payouts and the like, it’s safe to assume the Church wants to limit the damage to the coffers as well.

Rather than do what is Christ-like — what is right and what is good — the Catholic Church hired outside consultants to make it even harder for victims to face their alleged perpetrators in criminal court. And, by protecting its own selfish interests, it inadvertently provides safe haven for rapists and pedophiles the nation over who benefit from time elapsing on their crimes.

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VATICAN CITY
AFP

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s number two, the reported target of a power struggle in the Church, alleged divisive forces at work on Monday as the Holy See said 23 people had been questioned in a leaks scandal.

In a rare outburst, the Vatican’s Secretary of State appeared to lash out at those who, according to religious observers, have been orchestrating the leak of secret documents from the tiny state in an attempt to oust him.

Tarcisio Bertone told the Famiglia Cristiana magazine that there was “a fierce and relentless attempt to create divisions between the Holy Father and his collaborators, and between the collaborators themselves.”

In interview extracts published Monday, Bertone turned on the alleged plotters, saying there was “something unjust” in wanting “to attack those who dedicate themselves with great passion and personal toil to the Church’s good.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Irish Times

A senior Vatican official has accused the media of trying “to imitate Dan Brown” in their coverage of the so-called VatiLeaks scandal and said the Roman Catholic Church’s latest travails were part of attempts to destabilise it.

The interview with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who ranks second only to Pope Benedict in the Vatican’s hierarchy, was the latest attempt at damage control by senior Vatican officials since the leaks scandal began in January.

In a rare interview with the Italian Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana, Dr Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, accused the media of “intentionally ignoring” the good things the church does while dwelling on scandals.

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VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

Philip Pullella
Reuters

10:58 a.m. CDT, June 18, 2012

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican’s number 2 accused the media on Monday of trying “to imitate Dan Brown” in their coverage of the VatiLeaks scandal and said the Roman Catholic Church’s latest travails were part of the Devil’s attempt to destabilize it.

The interview with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who ranks second only to Pope Benedict in the Vatican’s hierarchy, was the latest attempt at damage control by senior Vatican officials since the leaks scandal began in January.

In a rare interview with the Italian Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana, Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, accused the media of “intentionally ignoring” the good things the Church does while dwelling on scandals.

“Many journalists are playing the game of trying to imitate Dan Brown,” said Bertone, referring to the best-selling author of novels such as “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons”.

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VATICAN CITY
New York Post

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Last Updated: 11:21 AM, June 18, 2012

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is blaming the media for fueling the latest scandal over leaked Vatican documents and is insisting that there are no power struggles or problems of unity in the Holy See’s governance.

Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone told an Italian Catholic weekly that journalists reporting on the leaks scandal are “pretending to be Dan Brown … inventing stories and replaying legends.”

The reference to Brown is particularly acute; Brown wrote “The Da Vinci Code,” the best-selling fictional account of power struggles and scandals inside the Vatican.

The Vatican has been on the defensive ever since sensitive documents alleging corruption and exposing power struggles began appearing in the Italian media in January.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

Editorial

There has been no shortage of child sex abuse scandals during the legislative session that is going into its final week in Albany — the Penn State case and the cover-up trial of Msgr. William Lynn in Pennsylvania and, closer to home, the abuse allegations at Syracuse University and the private Horace Mann School in New York. That makes it all the worse that lawmakers have done little to fix New York’s weak laws for protecting children from sexual predators and providing victims with justice.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo could have done a lot more to lead the way. On Friday, he appeared to reach agreement with the State Assembly and the Senate on a new measure to require coaches in sports programs at universities in New York to report child sex abuse both internally and to law enforcement officials, beginning to fill a glaring reporting gap in state law.

All the more disappointing, then, is that Mr. Cuomo has declined to get behind a more urgent and politically challenging step: expanding New York’s egregiously short statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases, which tilts the legal playing field against accountability, fairness and public safety.

Recent highly visible allegations of sex abuse are a reminder that victims can easily be many years into adulthood before they are ready psychologically and emotionally to talk about what was done to them. This is especially true when they are up against powerful institutions — like the Roman Catholic Church or Penn State — bent on keeping secrets buried.

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NEW YORK
Catholic League

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an editorial in yesterday’s New York Times:

The June 17 editorial in the New York Times on the sexual abuse of minors is aptly titled, “The Children Deserve Justice.” Too bad the editorial board doesn’t really believe it. That’s a strong charge, deserving of proof. Here it is.

The editorial gives half-baked kudos to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo for pressing a new measure that would require college coaches to report child sex abuse (the Times says he could have done more). It also praises New York State Assemblywoman Margaret Markey for proposing a bill that would allow an accuser 10 years after turning 18 to press charges (instead of the current five-year period); it would also allow a one-year window for alleged victims to file suit in civil claims in cases where they were previously barred from doing so.

The editorial is right to say that Gov. Cuomo could be doing more: he could support mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse to apply to all professionals, including counselors. It’s not the bishops who are holding back this needed change: it’s Family Planning Advocates, the lobbying arm of Planned Parenthood, and the New York Civil Liberties Union. Why the resistance? Because Planned Parenthood counselors learn of cases of statutory rape all the time, and they don’t want to be blanketed with a mandatory reporting law. But don’t look for the Times to press for this change. So much for the justice that children deserve.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian and John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The jury has reported for a tenth day of deliberations in the child sex-abuse trial of two Philadelphia Catholic priests.

Court observers wait to see if they Philadelphia Common Pleas Court panel of seven men and five women will continue to have requests for clarifications and re-reading of testimony.

On Friday, the jury heard part of the trial testimony of Msgr. William J. Lynn, the first Catholic Church official criminally charged for his supervisory role over deviate priests. The testimony centered on whether Lynn knowingly put minors in danger of being sexually abused by allowing reassignments of pedophile priests to parishes where they would have access to children.

Also on trial is the Rev. James J. Brennan, 48, charged with attempted rape and one count of child endangerment involving a 14-year-old boy who visited his apartment in 1996.

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UNITED STATES
New Internationalist

By Mark Engler

They run hospitals, schools, and social programs. They are stalwart leaders in many spiritual communities. And they are contributing vital insights to the Christian theological discussion. If nuns went on strike, many of the institutions of the Catholic Church would grind to a standstill.

Sure, a work stoppage of this sort is a long shot. But I’d love to see it. Having witnessed both priests and nuns in action, there’s no doubt in my mind which group dominates in the getting-shit-done department. It would be a fine show watching the bishops try to scramble and pick up the slack if the sisters said ‘enough.’

Certainly, the nuns would have good reason to do so. A storm has been brewing since April, when the Vatican released a statement condemning American nuns for showing too much independence of thought and not adequately deferring to the bishops, who, Rome tells us, ‘are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.’ A remarkable June 1 story in the New York Times recounted how the Vatican criticized the sisters for ‘focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping ‘silent’ on abortion and same-sex marriage.’

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 18, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

Franciscan Sr. Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), told NCR Monday she’s “not sure” of the best way for her group to continue its conversations with Vatican officials regarding their order that the group revise and place itself under the control of three bishops.

In a 10-minute interview, Farrell said a conversation with the LCWR board June 15 following a meeting with Vatican officials had an atmosphere of “sober attentiveness” as the group decides “our best way forward together in this.”

Farrell’s comments come just hours after LCWR, which represents some 80 percent of U.S. women religious, issued its first statement following the June 12 meeting between Farrell and St. Joseph Janet Mock, LCWR’s executive director, and Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), and Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain, who has been given wide-ranging authority of the sisters’ group.

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UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Farah Stockman

In 1899, a contingent of nuns journeyed into the malarial forests of southern Africa to set up missionary schools. They mastered the clicking language of the Ndebele tribe, baked communion bread in brick ovens they built themselves, and steered clear of the subject of monogamy so as not to enrage the polygamous local chief.

In 1911, another group of sister-pioneers set sail for the islands of Fiji to run a clinic for lepers. In 1929, nuns in black habits rode a steamship up the Yangtze River into the heart of China, braving insufferable heat, flying termites, and warring generals.

Without these extraordinary women, the Catholic Church would never have been able to spread its teachings around the globe or staff its unwieldy empire. So the Vatican’s denunciation of the largest group of American nuns for “radical feminist” ideas is not only shockingly out of touch with the modern world, but also willfully blind to the church’s history.

Long before Betty Friedan kicked off the modern feminist movement, nuns were earning medical degrees and running complex institutions. Just look at the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, founded in 1804 to educate impoverished girls. When a bishop forbade them to expand their work, they refused to obey and were kicked out of France. They relocated to Namur, Belgium, and went on to build schools in 17 countries.

It’s not surprising that religious orders attracted such women. For centuries, the convent was the only respectable place for girls who aspired to travel and make a difference.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Leader of Catholic nuns’ group under Vatican-ordered overhaul calls Rome meeting ‘difficult’

By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, June 18

NEW YORK — The leader of the group representing most American nuns challenged the Vatican’s reasons for disciplining her organization, insisting that raising questions about church doctrine should not be seen as rebellion.

Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said Monday that Catholics should be able to search for answers about faith without fear.

“I don’t think this is a healthy environment for the church,” Farrell said in a phone interview. “We can use this event to help move things in that direction — where it’s possible to pose questions that will not be seen as defiance or opposition.”

Farrell’s remarks are her first since she met last week in Rome with the Vatican orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which concluded in April that the group had strayed broadly from church teaching. The Vatican has appointed three American bishops to conduct a full-scale overhaul of the organization, sparking protests globally in support of the sisters.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Welt

Die beiden großen Kirchen in Deutschland haben sich schriftlich zum weiteren Schutz von Kindern vor sexuellem Missbrauch verpflichtet. Vertreter der evangelischen und der katholischen Kirche unterzeichneten in Berlin entsprechende Vereinbarungen mit dem Missbrauchsbeauftragten der Bundesregierung. Damit sollen die Empfehlungen des Runden Tisches zum sexuellen Kindesmissbrauch umgesetzt werden.

Die Vereinbarungen enthalten Vorgaben dazu, wie sexueller Missbrauch zu verhindern ist und was im Missbrauchsfall zu tun ist. Die beiden Kirchen erklären sich außerdem bereit, dem Missbrauchsbeauftragten der Bundesregierung zwei bundesweite Befragungen in den kirchlichen Strukturen zu ermöglichen. Dabei geht es um eine Bestandaufnahme der bisherigen Maßnahmen und die Frage nach eventuellem weiteren Handlungsbedarf.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit

Berlin (AFP) Die beiden großen Kirchen in Deutschland haben sich schriftlich zum weiteren Schutz von Kindern vor sexuellem Missbrauch verpflichtet. Vertreter der evangelischen und der katholischen Kirche unterzeichneten am Montag in Berlin entsprechende Vereinbarungen mit dem Missbrauchsbeauftragten der Bundesregierung. Damit sollen die Empfehlungen des Runden Tisches zum sexuellen Kindesmissbrauch umgesetzt werden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Unabhangiger Beauftragter

Kaum etwas kann das Leben und die Entwicklung eines Menschen so schwer und umfassend belasten, wie sexuelle Gewalt in der Kindheit. Oft sind es sehr nahestehende Personen, die diese schrecklichen Taten begehen, Personen, zu denen das Kind Vertrauen hat. Es muss unser Ziel sein, die Orte, an denen sich Kinder aufhalten, sicherer zu machen. Dies gilt für Institutionen ebenso wie für die Familie selbst. Dieser Aufgabe fühle ich mich als Unabhängiger Beauftragter verpflichtet.

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NEBRASKA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on June 18, 2012

A Catholic official is promising to visit Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz and push him to comply with the church’s national abuse policy, which Bruskewitz has “consistently broken for a decade,” a victims group says.

Al Notzon, who heads a church panel overseeing the church hierarchy’s abuse crisis, publicly pledged to personally visit the Lincoln diocese and try to make sure that local church officials obey the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children, adopted in 2002. He made the comments last week at the bishops’ summer meeting in Atlanta.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“We’re grateful for this promised effort, but doubt it will succeed,” said Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director for a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “Bruskewitz and his staff have been flouting this allegedly binding policy for a decade. We suspect he won’t quit now.”

Bruskewitz has been one of the biggest opponents of the bishops’ abuse procedures (colloquially referred to as the “Dallas Charter). He has publicly admonished the USCCB for allegedly forcing bishops to honor it – something Bruskewitz believes is not in their power to do. He has also repeatedly balked at allowing church-hired consultants into his diocese to “audit” their systems, policies and practices.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Defence counsel for two priests who have appealed against child abuse convictions, argued in court today that the court had been selective in its appreciation of the evidence presented in the case.

Godwin Scerri and Charles Pulis, both members of the Missionary Society of St Paul, were sentenced to five and six years in prison respectively for sexually abusing 11 young boys in their care.

Their appeal started being heard last Friday.

Picking up where Dr Giannella de Marco left off last week, Dr Joe Giglio said there were several discrepancies in the evidence of two victims and he therefore wondered how the magistrate had arrived at the moral certainty required for a conviction.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

Monday, June 18, 2012

BY DEENA YELLIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record

HAWORTH — A local priest is providing a rare, intensive look inside a Roman Catholic priesthood tarred and shaken by the child sex-abuse scandals.

The crisis didn’t just harm victims and test the faith of believers, asserts the Rev. Stephen Fichter, pastor of Sacred Heart parish. It also affected priests innocent of any wrongdoing.

Some priests were angered at diocesan leaders for their lack of action, and others felt shame for the church and for themselves as its representatives. There was paranoia they could be accused falsely, and many said the incidents made them wary of interactions with congregants, especially kids. Some even stopped wearing their collars in public for fear of heckling.

Those are among the findings of the recently published book, “Same Call, Different Men: The Evolution of the Priesthood Since Vatican II,” (Liturgical Press 2012), in which Fichter and co-authors explored changes in the priesthood over the past 40 years through interviews with hundreds of priests nationwide.

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IRELAND
Catholic Herald (United Kingdom)

By Mary O’Regan on Monday, 18 June 2012

At the entrance to the final Mass of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress, a man and a woman in their 30s held signs saying “RTÉ is anti-Catholic” and “Abortion: thou shalt not kill”. A middle-aged man had “Arrest Cardinal Brady, Protector of Paedophiles” on four different signs which hung from his shoulders. Streams of thousands of people were unaffected by the few demonstrators and filed past them. In all 80,000 people were present for the Mass, which Cardinal Brady concelebrated.

I met some people who had given up the faith, but came yesterday and said that at the very least it was a sublime occasion to hear Ireland’s top musical talents. The Three Tenors, The Priests and soprano Celine Byrne have voices that would melt marble. One thing I found frustrating was that the RTÉ Concert Orchestra did take over and it was hard to hear the Palestrina Choir. One young pilgrim brought an enormous 1932 Eucharistic Congress flag that had been preserved by his family until now. People saw the flag’s antiquity and gathered round to hear how it had been passed down through the generations in his family.

The Congress could prove to Rome that Ireland is ready for a papal visit. It showed that despite a few objectors, thousands of Irish people can gather in loving adoration of Christ in the Eucharist, that they can engage with people from different parts of the world; that we can put aside our bitterness about the Irish Church’s mishandling of the abuse cases, and rejoice in that which unites all the 1.4 billion Catholics: Christ in the Eucharist.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A parish priest has gone on trial at Londonderry Crown Court charged with sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl.

Fr Eugene Boland, 66, and originally from Moville in County Donegal, denies five charges of indecently assaulting the girl from June 1990 to June 1992.

He is alleged to have committed the offences in a parochial house in Derry’s Galliagh area where the complainant did voluntary work.

The allegations were reported to police in 2010.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Sacramento Bee

The Associated Press

Published: Monday, Jun. 18, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia jury is resuming deliberations for a 10th day on the fate of two Roman Catholic priests.

Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged over his handling of child sexual abuse complaints. He faces up to 21 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy and child endangerment for allegedly helping the Philadelphia archdiocese cover up the complaints. However, an appeal seems likely if he’s convicted.

The Rev. James Brennan is charged with attempted rape and child endangerment. His accuser says he was molested in 1996. Brennan’s lawyer calls him a con man.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee on Jun. 18, 2012 NCR Today

A meeting last week between Vatican officials and leaders of the organization representing most U.S. women religious was “difficult” because of “differing perspectives” the two sides have over a harsh Vatican critique of the sisters’ group, the organization said in a statement Monday morning.

The statement, issued by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), is the first from the group since a meeting in Rome June 12 between its leaders and Cardinal William Levada, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

It was that congregation which in April ordered LCWR, which represents some 80 percent of U.S. women religious, to revise its statutes, programs and affiliations and place itself under the authority of Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain.

Monday’s statement says that following their meeting with Levada and Sartain, LCWR’s president, Franciscan Sr. Pat Farrell, and executive director, St. Joseph Sr. Janet Mock, spoke to LCWR board members June 15 about the event.

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UNITED STATES
Leadership Conference of Women Religious

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 18, 2012

[Silver Spring, MD] The board members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) held a special session on Friday night, June 15, where they were briefed by conference president Sister Pat Farrell, OSF and executive director Sister Janet Mock, CSJ on their June 12 meeting in Rome with officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). The LCWR leaders had requested the meeting at the Vatican to address their concerns about the doctrinal assessment report of LCWR conducted by CDF and released on April 18.

While the LCWR officers reported that they were able to express their concerns during the meeting with openness and honesty, they acknowledged that the meeting was difficult because of the differing perspectives the CDF officials and the LCWR representatives hold on the matters raised in the report.

Since the release of the findings in April, some Vatican officials and US bishops have publicly claimed that the report is not a reflection on all US Catholic sisters and is directed only to LCWR, the organization of leaders. The board noted that the actions of CDF are keenly felt by the vast majority of Catholic sisters who have elected, and therefore feel a close identity with, their leaders. Moreover, the statements and gestures of solidarity from men religious and from conferences of Catholic sisters in other countries, as well as the letters and petitions from thousands of lay supporters worldwide, indicate that many others are also concerned about how to live as people of faith in the complexities of these times. The concerns they have shared with LCWR will be part of the conference’s discernment of its response to the CDF report.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 18, 2012 NCR Today

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the main umbrella group for leaders of women’s religious orders in the United States, today released a statement on a June 12 meeting in Rome between LCWR representatives and officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by American Cardinal William Levada.

The statement describes the meeting as “open” but “difficult because of the differing perspectives the CDF officials and the LCWR representatives hold.”

The meeting was requested by LCWR officials in the wake of an April 18 doctrinal assessment from the doctrinal congregation accusing LCWR of “serious doctrinal problems” on issues such as the ordination of women to the priesthood, same-sex marriage, and the inroads of “radical feminism.”

The LCWR statement follows.

* * *
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 18, 2012

[Silver Spring, MD] The board members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) held a special session on Friday night, June 15, where they were briefed by conference president Sister Pat Farrell, OSF and executive director Sister Janet Mock, CSJ on their June 12 meeting in Rome with officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). The LCWR leaders had requested the meeting at the Vatican to address their concerns about the doctrinal assessment report of LCWR conducted by CDF and released on April 18.

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PHILIPPINES
Rappler

by Aries Rufo

Posted on 06/18/2012

MANILA, Philippines – Tempest is brewing in one of the richest dioceses in the Philippines.

Priests and lay leaders have asked the Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines, Archbishop Giuseppi Pinto, to look into the finances of the Diocese of Parañaque under Bishop Jesse Mercado for alleged misuse of funds.

They also want Mercado removed, for sowing division among the clergy for his double-standard policy.

After meeting with the papal representative a few times, the group finally secured a commitment from Pinto that he will refer the complaint to the Curia in Rome.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 18 June 2012 (VIS) – A video message from Benedict XVI, transmitted at the end of a Mass attended by thousands of people in Dublin yesterday evening, brought to a close the fiftieth International Eucharistic Congress. The Congress – which was held in the Irish capital over the course of last week on the theme: “The Eucharist. Communion with Christ and with One Another” – coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Vatican Council II, and the choice of theme was associated with that anniversary, as the Holy Father explained in his message, extracts of which are given below.

“From the earliest times the notion of ‘koinonia’ or ‘communio’ has been at the core of the Church’s understanding of herself, her relationship to Christ her founder, and the Sacraments she celebrates, above all the Eucharist. Through our Baptism, we are incorporated into Christ’s death, reborn into the great family of the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ; through Confirmation we receive the seal of the Holy Spirit; and by our sharing in the Eucharist, we come into communion with Christ and each other visibly here on earth. We also receive the pledge of eternal life to come.

“The Congress also occurs at a time when the Church throughout the world is preparing to celebrate the Year of Faith to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Vatican Council II, an event which launched the most extensive renewal of the Roman Rite ever known. Based upon a deepening appreciation of the sources of the liturgy, the Council promoted the full and active participation of the faithful in the Eucharistic sacrifice. At our distance today from the Council Fathers’ expressed desires regarding liturgical renewal, and in the light of the universal Church’s experience in the intervening period, it is clear that a great deal has been achieved; but it is equally clear that there have been many misunderstandings and irregularities. The renewal of external forms, desired by the Council Fathers, was intended to make it easier to enter into the inner depth of the mystery. Its true purpose was to lead people to a personal encounter with the Lord, present in the Eucharist, and thus with the living God, so that through this contact with Christ’s love, the love of His brothers and sisters for one another might also grow. Yet not infrequently, the revision of liturgical forms has remained at an external level, and “active participation” has been confused with external activity. Hence much still remains to be done on the path of real liturgical renewal. In a changed world, increasingly fixated on material things, we must learn to recognise anew the mysterious presence of the Risen Lord, which alone can give breadth and depth to our life.

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ROME
RKnieuws (Nederland)

ROME (RKnieuws.net) – In een boodschap aan de deelnemers van het internationaal eucharististisch congres in Dublin (Ierland) betreurde paus Benedictus XVI zondag dat de pedofiele geestelijken het vertrouwen in de Kerk zwaar hebben ondermijnd. De paus betreurde dat geestelijken en religieuzen seksueel misbruik maakten van personen die aan hun zorgen waren toevertrouwd.

‘In plaats van hen de weg naar Christus en naar God te tonen en getuigenis af te leggen van Zijn goedheid hebben zij deze personen misbruikt en de geloofwaardigheid van de boodschap van de Kerk ondermijnd’, aldus de paus.

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UNITED STATES
The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

Virginia Jones

Background Information: Louis Bauschard: A Life Dedicated to Breaking the Cycle of Abuse

Louise Baushcard started her adult life as a stay at home mother before going back to school during the flowering of the feminist movement in the 1960s and 70s. She studied Social Work with an emphasis on Women’s Studies.

Her studies and her mentors inspired her to open a Women’s Self Help Center in St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1976, to bring women together and empower them to create positive changes in their lives — a noble goal that would soon be subsumed by specific problems of an overwhelming nature. Within a short time, phone calls came in to the Center seeking help for physical abuse and sexual abuse, and the mission of the center transformed to that of a hotline for domestic violence and child sex abuse survivors.

The problem of abuse, that has surely always been with us, was just coming out into the open in the 1970s. Much secrecy, guilt and shame surrounds abuse, causing victims to remain silent even today, but at least today we know that 1 in 4 girls is a victim of child sex abuse and 1 in 4 women will become a victim of domestic violence at some point during her lifetime. Men and boys also experience both physical and sexual, albeit in smaller numbers. In the 1970s, no one knew how prevalent these problems were.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By BILL KELLER

Published: June 17, 2012

I CAN’T believe I’m saying this, but Bill Donohue is right. Donohue, the chronically peeved president of the Catholic League, and I rarely see eye to eye, but he is right about one very big thing: how to resolve the crisis in Catholicism. My endorsement may horrify him as much as it surprises me.

Donohue, for those of you without cable TV, is the Vatican’s most vociferous American apologist. Any time a critic — especially a Catholic critic — casts doubt on the wisdom of the Catholic hierarchy, Donohue fires off a press release attacking the attacker or otherwise changing the subject. Bring up pedophile priests and he’ll talk about pedophile public-school teachers or pedophile Orthodox Jews. That nun who is under a Vatican cloud lately for having written a book with decidedly liberal views on sexuality? Donohue’s response bypassed her arguments and focused on the fact that she sometimes cites Michel Foucault, the creepy French philosopher known as an acolyte of the Marquis de Sade and a darling of the radical left. (Guilt by footnote.)

Another ferocious defender of the faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, used to be known as “God’s Rottweiler.” Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI, and Bill Donohue is the Rottweiler’s Rottweiler.

In person, Donohue — a big, 64-year-old Long Island Irishman, divorced father of two grown daughters — has the genial manner of the parish priest he almost became. Instead he digressed to military school, the Air Force, and the sociology faculty of a Catholic college in Pennsylvania. He is more likable one-on-one than his notorious sound bites, which have an Ann Coulterish reductiveness: Hollywood is “controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity.” President Obama “supports selective infanticide.” Progressive Catholics are “termites.” The title of his 2009 book catches the snarly Donohue: “Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America.”

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IRELAND
Scotsman

Published on Monday 18 June 2012

Paedophile priests who abused those in their care undermined the credibility of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI has said.

In an address to almost 80,000 pilgrims in Dublin, he said the legacy of Irish Catholicism has been shaken by the clerical sexual abuse of children, adding it remained a mystery how clergy could commit such sins.

The Pope told the congregation attending the closing Mass of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress their forebears in the church in Ireland knew how to strive for holiness and constancy in their personal lives, and how to preach the joy that comes from the Gospel.

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IRELAND
Global Post

The Pope has told Irish Catholics that it’s “a mystery” why priests and other clergy abused children entrusted in their care, lamenting that it undermined faith in the church in an “appalling” way.

In an eight-minute pre-recorded and widely cited address to almost 80,000 pilgrims in Dublin, the pontiff said:

“Thankfulness and joy at such a great history of faith and love have recently been shaken in an appalling way by the revelation of sins committed by priests and consecrated persons against people entrusted to their care.

“Instead of showing them the path towards Christ, towards God, instead of bearing witness to his goodness, they abused people and undermined the credibility of the Church’s message.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Colm Kelpie

Monday June 18 2012

POPE Benedict yesterday claimed the explanation for the clerical abuse of children remained a “mystery” and added that the scandals had undermined the church’s message.

But the Pontiff did not directly engage with abuse survivors in his much-anticipated pre-recorded video address to Irish Catholics at the close of the Eucharistic Congress.

Nor did he reiterate the apology offered in his pastoral letter, which was issued in March 2010.

In a message to tens of thousands of people in Dublin’s Croke Park, 120 words out of the 1,167 that made up the address were devoted to the clerical abuse issue.

Pilgrims greeted the message with three rounds of applause and a standing ovation.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Monday June 18 2012

THE crowd surged to its collective feet for a standing ovation. It wasn’t the first noisy acclaim to ring to the rafters of Croke Park, but it certainly was the first of its kind.

The cheers from the 70,000-plus audience weren’t for the heroic exploits of a hurler, a footballer, a rugby team, or even a rock band, but for the Pope.

The papal address by Pope Benedict was billed as the highlight of the Statio Orbis Mass, which itself was the climactic end to the week-long Eucharistic Congress — the triumphant set-piece, a four-hour musical and liturgical celebration to confirm that a renewal of the battered Catholic Church in Ireland was officially under way.

Just before 5pm, the Pope appeared on the giant screens, which flanked the towering altar.

The 85-year-old Pontiff looked frail, and his strongly accented voice was at times almost incomprehensible, which made the subtitles that ran at the bottom of the screen a necessity.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Andrew Madden

Monday June 18 2012

IT was simply more of the same. When the Pope addressed the grand finale of the Eucharistic Congress, his failure to deviate from the church’s inexorable message on child sex abuse can hardly have come as a surprise to anyone.

What has been in train since the publication of the Murphy Report in 2009 — this carefully orchestrated avoidance of accountability — was simply continued last night.

The Eucharistic Congress, from the off, has been about moving the church past the scandal, not moving it any nearer the truth.

This all goes back to the publication of the Murphy Report when we should have seen two levels of response.

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FORT WORTH (TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Editorial

The financial costs of the child sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church for a decade continue to climb, including legal settlement costs for the Diocese of Fort Worth.

But at least there are indications that the church and the local diocese have passed through the worst of the storm. Credit that to a strong program to prevent abuse from happening again and to vigilant pursuit of that program.

Bishop Kevin Vann, leader of the Diocese of Fort Worth since 2005, announced a settlement agreement Thursday with a man known publicly only as Doe 26, who was a 9-year-old altar boy at St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church in 1978 and was abused by Monsignor James Reilly. He is the 26th person to come forward to accuse Reilly.

Dallas attorney Tahira Khan Merritt has said she is still working on the case of a 27th Reilly accuser. Reilly, who was assigned to St. Maria Goretti from 1969 to 1987, retired in 1987, moved to Philadelphia and died in 1999.

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SAN ANTONIO (TX)
San Antonio Express-News

By Abe Levy

Jury selection begins today in the Bexar County trial of a lawsuit accusing the Archdiocese of San Antonio of covering up a former priest’s sexual abuse of an altar boy in Floresville in the mid-1970s.

Louis Paul White repeatedly sexually abused a then-12-year-old boy, the lawsuit claims, chiding the Catholic hierarchy for waiting until 1989 to defrock White and until only three years ago to publicize his name as an accused child molester.

White, now 69, was an associate pastor at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Floresville from 1976 to 1977, when the alleged abuse took place. The lawsuit claims that he molested the boy in White’s bedroom, a shop at the rectory and the church itself — up to three times a week for six months.

The claims in the lawsuit follow the story line of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal nationwide, in which bishops transferred pedophile priests from parish to parish, which produced more victims along the way. U.S. bishops enacted a landmark policy in 2002 to foster greater accountability in light of mounting media reports and public criticism.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Wirral Globe

Monday 18th June 2012 in News By Lynda Roughley

A WIRRAL catholic priest with an “unhealthy interest in adolescent boys” who repeatedly sexually abused an underage boy has been jailed for five years.

Father Peter Hooper, parish priest at St Luke’s The Physician in Bebington, was caught having oral sex with the boy in the diocese house where Hooper lived.

Liverpool Crown Court heard the offences came to light after he was abusing the boy while a social gathering at the house in Church Road was winding down on May 15 this year.

Robert Jansen, prosecuting, said that a man called Matthew Howard, who was living at the address, as he had for some years, walked past the kitchen window, and Hooper and the boy performing a sex act on eachother.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board

For some victims of childhood sexual abuse, it may take years before they can speak about the crime. When they finally do, they shouldn’t hear “Sorry, too late.”

That’s what the Catholic Church wants to say to them. That it’s unfair that institutions like theirs must defend themselves against accusations that sometimes are decades old.

Across the country, the New York Times reported last week, the church is lobbying for strict time limits on victims to sue their attackers and those who protected them. For victims of long-ago sexual abuse, lawsuits are often their only path to justice.

In New York and elsewhere, the church helped stop legislation that opened “windows” for victims to sue for past abuse.

The church tried in New Jersey, too.

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IRLAND
Kleine Zeitung

Papst Benedikt XVI. hat den sexuellen Missbrauch junger Menschen durch Priester als eine Sünde gegeißelt, die die Botschaft der Kirche unglaubwürdig gemacht habe. Die große Geschichte des Glaubens sei “in jüngster Zeit auf eine erschreckende Weise getrübt worden durch die Offenlegung von Sünden, die Priester und gottgeweihte Personen Menschen gegenüber begangen haben, die ihnen anvertraut waren.”

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VATICAN CITY
Rappler

by Agence France-Presse

Posted on 06/18/2012

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI admitted Sunday, June 17, that cases of child abuse by pedophile priests had undermined the Roman Catholic Church’s credibility in Ireland.

“They abused people and undermined the credibility of the Church’s message,” he said in a message on the final day of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress held in Dublin.

“Thankfulness and joy at such a great history of faith and love have recently been shaken in an appalling way by the revelation of sins committed by priests and consecrated persons against people entrusted to their care,” the pope added.

“How are we to explain the fact that people who regularly received the Lord’s body and confessed their sins in the sacrament of penance have offended in this way?”

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VATICAN CITY/IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 17, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — In a rare video-message to a Eucharistic congress concluding today in Dublin, Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI said that gratitude for the legacy of the Irish church has been shaken “in an appalling way” by revelations of sexual abuse committed “by priests and consecrated persons against people entrusted to their care.”

Benedict acknowledged that the abuse crisis has “undermined the credibility of the church’s message.”

The Vatican released the text of Benedict’s video address this afternoon via an e-mail alert to journalists, with translations in Italian, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese, suggesting officials want the message to have a wide distribution.

Catholicism in Ireland has been rocked by one of the largest sexual abuse crises in the world. Starting in the 1990s, a series of criminal cases and Irish government enquiries established that hundreds of priests had abused thousands of children in previous decades.

In many cases, those investigations have shown, abusing priests and religious were moved to other parishes to avoid embarrassment or a scandal, assisted by senior clergy. There have been calls for leaders of the Irish church to resign over the scandal.

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IRELAND/VATICAN CITY
RTE News

Pope Benedict has said the legacy of Irish Catholicism has been shaken by the clerical sexual abuse of children.

In a pre-recorded address to the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Croke Park, the Pope praised the church in Ireland for its heroic missionaries and its mighty contribution to the good of the world.

But he said the joy sparked by this legacy had been shaken in an appalling way by the abuse of children by priests, brothers and nuns.

Earlier, in his homily, the Papal Legate told the capacity congregation that the Lord heals the Church’s wounds.

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