ABUSE TRACKER

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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VATICAN CITY
AGI (Italy)

(AGI) Vatican City – Ireland and its church enjoy a millenary tradition under the sign of the Gospel. But recently they “have been horribly shaken by the revelation of sins committed by priests and the holy on people entrusted to them”. Pope Benedict XVI said so in his video-message concluding the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin. “Instead of showing them the path to Christ, to God, instead of testifying his kindness, they abused them and have thus undermined the credibility of the Church’s message”, the Pope said. .

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IRELAND/VATICAN CITY
Irish Examiner

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Pope Benedict has said the Catholic Church had been shaken “in an appalling way” by the revelation of sins committed by clergy members “against people entrusted to their care”.

The pontiff made the remarks in a recorded address to the thousands of people at the final Mass of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.

He said Ireland had been shaped for centuries by a Church that has been a mighty force for good in the world, but he added that its credibility had been undermined.

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IRELAND/VATICAN CITY
The Irish Times

STEVEN CARROLL

Pope Benedict XVI has said it “remains a mystery” that people who regularly “received the Lord’s body and confessed their sins” had committed the offence of child abuse.

In a pre-recorded address to the closing ceremony of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress, which came to an end at Croke Park in Dublin today, the pope said the Church had “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,” he said.

The pope said “much still remains to be done on the path of real liturgical renewal”.

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IRELAND/VATICAN CITY
Belfast Telegraph

Sunday, 17 June 2012

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

In a pre-recorded address to almost 80,000 pilgrims in Dublin, the pontiff 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.

“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,” said Pope Benedict in an eight-minute recorded message to the crowd, which included Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Irish President Michael D Higgins.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

Pope to Irish: Child abuse by clergy shook Catholic faith; calls motive a mystery

By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, June 17

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI told Irish Catholics on Sunday it is a mystery why priests and other clergy abused children entrusted in their care, undermining faith in the church in an “appalling” way.

By calling the cause of the abuse — often over a period of decades — in Catholic parishes, schools and church-run institutions and parishes in predominantly Catholic Ireland a “mystery,” the pontiff could further anger rank-and-file faithful in Ireland.

Benedict commented on the scandals of sexual abuse and cover-ups by church hierarchy in a pre-recorded video message for the closing session of a week-long gathering in Dublin aimed at shoring up flagging faith, including obligatory Mass attendance.

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UNITED STATES
NewsHounds

The right wing “Newsbusters” website whines about how the librul media focuses on dissident nuns while ignoring the Catholic bishops crusade against the Obama administration. They say that no conservative Catholic views are entertained. Meanwhile, the “fair & balanced” news network focuses on the bishop’s concern about “religious freedom” while ignoring the nuns who are the subjects of the newest Vatican inquisition. While Fox has provided coverage of the upcoming Catholic protests against the mandate, they ignore the rallies in support of the nuns. Voices of liberal Catholics, one of whom says that the bishops convey the image of “the Republican party at prayer,” are not heard on Fox which keeps hammering home the bishops’ talking points about “religious freedom.” During last week’s Bishops’ Conference, religious freedom was a huge agenda item. But they also discussed how the church is dealing with sexual abuse. Outside the meeting, supporters of the nuns rallied. But in reporting on the conference, alleged Fox “news” guy Bill Hemmer conveyed the impression that it was all about – wait for it – “religious freedom.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Schafsbrief

Meldung Bistum Trier vom 27.01.2012:
Lehrer an Bischöflicher Schule freigestellt:

Trier/Boppard – Gegen einen Lehrer der Bischöflichen Realschule Marienberg in Boppard liegt bei der Staatsanwaltschaft in Koblenz eine Strafanzeige wegen des Verdachts des sexuellen Missbrauchs einer ehemaligen Schülerin vor. Das Bistum Trier, als Arbeitgeber des beschuldigten Lehrers, hat den Beschuldigten bis zum Abschluss der Ermittlungen der Staatsanwaltschaft von seinen Dienstpflichten freigestellt.

Quelle: http://cms.bistum-trier.de/bistum-trier

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VATICAN CITY
Canada.com

Agence France-Presse June 17, 2012

ROME – The Vatican may fail to pass transparency tests next month carried out by the Council of Europe, an Italian newspaper said Sunday.

Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering experts, is due to rule at the beginning of July on the whether the Holy See has cleaned up its act to international monetary standards.

According to Italian daily newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano, which claims to have knowledge of the main elements of a report by the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism, the Vatican is at risk of scoring unsatisfactory ratings for eight out of 16 “key recommendations”.

It would therefore fail to be included on a “white list” of transparent states.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
DARA KELLY,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Sunday, June 17, 2012, 9:48 AM

The Association of Catholic Priest has strongly protested against Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s visitation report on the Irish College in Rome.

The report recommended that priests on the staff at the college’s seminary be replaced.

According to the Irish Times, the association called on Ireland’s four Irish archbishops, trustees of the college, and bishops of the priests concerned, “to publicly repudiate this report in the strongest possible terms and to support the priests involved in seeking to restore their reputations.”

They protested “in the strongest possible terms against the methodology and conclusions” of the Cardinal’s report, saying it had “effectively destroyed the reputations of priests, who have given lifelong service to the Irish Catholic Church, without giving them a right of reply to the allegations made against them.”

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ROME
Vatican Insider

The cardinal’s report on his visitation to the Irish College, sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, has been leaked to The Irish Times, and has provoked some strong reactions in Ireland

Gerard O’Connell
Rome

Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s harshly critical report to the Vatican after his visitation of the Irish College in Rome, at the pope’s instruction, in January 2011 has provoked negative reaction in Ireland, not only from the country’s four archbishops but also from the Association of Irish Priests.

In his report, the cardinal expressed serious concern about “the atmosphere, structure, staffing and guiding philosophy” of the college, called for “substantial reform” at the college, and came down so hard on the four members of staff there that all have either left the college or are about to do so.

Much to Cardinal Dolan’s annoyance the unpublished report which he sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education was leaked to The Irish Times. Its Religious Affairs correspondent, Patsy McGarry, gave it extensive coverage in the paper’s June 15 and June 16 editions.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

Last week, the jury in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse case was asking lots of questions and requesting to have days of trial testimony read back to them. The case appeared to be moving slowly in reverse.

Meanwhile, prosecutors in the Penn State case made their opening statement on Monday and then began presenting testimony from ten alleged victims representing 52 charges over 15 years. By Thursday, after just four days, the prosecution rested. On Monday, the defense in the Penn State is scheduled to begin its case. The verdict could be in by Friday.

But for long-suffering jurors in the archdiocese case, Monday will mark the tenth day of deliberations, and the 13th week of trial. If the archdiocese case was a TV show, it would be canceled by now. While the archdiocese case languishes, the Penn State trial has stolen all the headlines and media attention.

What’s hanging the jury? A couple of veteran lawyers had differing ideas.

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PORTUGAL
DN Portugal

A presidente de um coletivo de juízes que condenou hoje um homem por molestar sexualmente dois menores aos cuidados das Oficinas de S. José defendeu que responsáveis da instituição também deveriam ser levados a julgamento.

“É com consternação que não se vê sindicado, em sede criminal, o comportamento de pessoas que deixaram que as crianças chegassem a este abandono”, afirmou a magistrada Maria José Matos, ao proferir o que classificou como “desabafo” pessoal, no final da leitura do acórdão.

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PORTUGAL
DN Portugal

As Varas Criminais do Porto condenaram hoje um empregado de mesa a 10 anos de prisão, em cúmulo jurídico, por molestar sexualmente dois menores com deficiências cognitivas, que estavam aos cuidados das Oficinas de S. José.

Um coletivo de juízes da 4.ª Vara Criminal considerou provado que o arguido, de 54 anos, residente em Ramalde, Porto, cometeu três crimes de abuso sexual de crianças e três de recurso à prostituição de menores.

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VEREINIGTE STAATEN
Tiroler Tageszeitung

Die Pfarrerinitiative ist weiterhin bemüht, ein internationales Netzwerk zu knüpfen. Derzeit sei Vorstandsmitglied Hans Bensdorp zu Gast bei der „Association of Catholic Priests“ in den USA, informierte Helmut Schüller seine Mitstreiter via Newsletter. Das Schreiben an Papst Benedikt XVI. mit der Bitte um ein Gespräch sei zudem abgeschickt.

Den Begriff „Ungehorsam“ will Schüller offensichtlich weiterhin nicht aufgeben und fragt sich stattdessen: „Wenn tatsächlich das ‚U-Wort‘ Hindernis für alles ist: Warum haben dann die Bischöfe und Rom bisher auch mit denen, die sich unserem Aufruf nicht angeschlossen haben, keinen umfassenden Reformdialog begonnen?“ Und weiter: „Ich überlasse es der Phantasie eines jeden von Euch, was tatsächlich geschehen würde, wenn wir unser so hochproblematisches Wort ‚Ungehorsam‘ in unserem Aufruf streichen würden.“

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kipa

Köln, 14.6.12 (Kipa) Zehn katholische Geistliche aus dem Erzbistum Köln haben sich der “Pfarrer-Initiative Österreich” rund um Helmut Schüller und ihrem “Aufruf zum Ungehorsam” angeschlossen. Das berichtet der “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” (Donnerstag). “Wir freuen uns über Eure Initiative und schliessen uns Eurem mutigen Schritt in die Öffentlichkeit an”, heisst es in einem Brief der zehn Pfarrer an die österreichische Klerikergruppe.

Die vom ehemaligen Wiener Generalvikar Helmut Schüller angeführte Klerikergruppe fordert in ihrem im Juni 2011 veröffentlichten Aufruf die Zulassung von Frauen zur Priesterweihe, die Aufhebung des Pflichtzölibats, kirchliche Leitungsämter für Laien sowie die Kommunionspendung an Wiederverheiratete, Mitglieder anderer Kirchen und Ausgetretene.

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DEUTSCHLAND
domradio

Die römische Staatsanwaltschaft hat nach Angaben des Münchner Nachrichtenmagazins “Focus” bei den Geldwäsche-Ermittlungen gegen die Vatikanbank “IOR” vergeblich die Hilfe deutscher Kollegen gesucht. Die Italiener stellten danach im Oktober 2011 beim Bundeskriminalamt in Wiesbaden ein Rechtshilfeersuchen. Wie der “Focus” berichtet, wollten sie ein Konto bei JP Morgan in Frankfurt beschlagnahmen lassen, auf das Geld über die “IOR” geflossen war. Nach Angaben des Magazins befand das von der hessischen Generalstaatsanwaltschaft eingeschaltete Amtsgericht in Frankfurt die Beweise als zu dürftig und lehnte das Ansinnen der Italiener ab.

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LONDON
Der Tagesspiegel

Von Birgit Schönau

Ein italienischer Banker hängt 1982 tot unter einer Londoner Brücke. Suizid, sagt die Polizei. Mord, steht Jahre später fest. Die Spur führt in ein Dickicht aus Gangstern, Kurie und einer Geheimloge.

London, 18. Juni 1982: Es ist früh am Morgen, als Passanten unter der Blackfriars Bridge den Körper eines kleinen, korpulenten Mannes entdecken. Er baumelt an einem orangeroten Seil von einem Brückenpfeiler, seine Füße streifen fast die schmutzig-grauen Fluten der Themse. Der Mann trägt einen dunkelgrauen Anzug mit schief geknöpfter Jacke. In seinen Taschen wird man Ziegelsteine finden und eine Menge Geld. Italienische Lire, Schweizer Franken, US-Dollar, britisches Pfund zum heutigen Kurswert von fast 12 000 Euro. Keine Riesensumme für einen der wichtigsten Bankiers Italiens, aber erstaunlich viel für einen Bankrotteur. Der Mann unter der Themsebrücke ist beides.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Readers Edition

[Teil 2]

[Teil 3]

Dierk Schäfer aus Bad Boll, Pfarrer im Ruhestand, erhielt eine E-Mail und geht in seinem Blog darauf ein (1). Im Betreff dieser E-Mail ist lediglich der Begriff „Sülze“ zu lesen. Ihm wurde ein Link zugesandt, der zur Homepage der „Diakonischen Stiftung Wittekindshof“ führt (2). Schäfer fragt sich, wo auf dieser Homepageseite der E-Mail-Absender „Sülze“ ausgemacht hat und studiert in diesem Zusammenhang das Geleitwort des Stiftungsleiters der Behinderteneinrichtung in Bad Oeynhausen (3), Prof. Dr. Dierk Starnitzke (4)zum Buch: „Als wären wir zur Strafe hier – Gewalt gegen Menschen mit geistiger Behinderung – der Wittekindshof in den 1950er und 1960er Jahren“ (5).

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Agency

Washington D.C., Jun 16, 2012 / 04:47 pm (CNA).- News media coverage has “ranged from imbalanced to near-fraudulent” in its contrasting reports on the religious freedom rallies and the controversy over Vatican action towards the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, media observer Mollie Hemingway says.

“While the dissenters against the HHS mandate are marginalized by the media, the dissenters against the Vatican are uplifted,” she told CNA June 13. “Dissent against the Obama administration seems to be questioned while there are few things the media like more than dissent against the Vatican.”

Hemingway, a reporter who writes on the religion news analysis blog GetReligion.org, said 2012 “has not been a great year for media coverage of religious news.”

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AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now

Nigel Hunt

June 16, 2012

VICTIMS of paedophile Brian Perkins are seeking millions of dollars in compensation from the Catholic Church.

In the latest move in the St Ann’s Special School controversy, six abuse victims will launch legal action in the District Court over their sexual abuse at the hands of Perkins, who was a bus driver and woodwork teacher at the Marion school.

The Catholic Church paid a significant out-of-court settlement last year to another of Perkins’ victims, but has declined to negotiate similar payments to the six intellectually disabled men also claiming compensation.

Perkins, who died in 2009, sexually abused 36 students at St Ann’s Special School between 1986 and 1991.

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IRELAND
GetReligion

The clergy abuse scandal is the gift that keeps on giving as dry and dusty Catholic news stories can always be sexed up by reference to this evil. A recent story from the Associated Press on the opening ceremonies of the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin is an example.

The words “Eucharistic Congress” are likely to induce palpitations in the heart of a reporter who seeks to make a name for himself. A week-long confab of fervent Catholics meeting to discuss the mysteries of the sacrament is not a setting that produces great copy. Write six or seven hundred words about what Cardinal X said about this, or Archbishop Y said about that, and a reporter would be lucky to see 250 words survive the editorial pencil.

Finding a way to work in the sex scandal changes the equation. Take a look at this article entitled “Catholic faith on line as church rallies in Dublin” and you can see the transformation of a dull story by focusing on one aspect at the expense of all others.

The problem for a subscriber to the AP’s wire service however is that they are not getting what they paid for. What they bought was a news story. What they received was an opinion piece that speaks more to the psyche of the AP reporter than to the mind of the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.

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CALIFORNIA
KTVU

OAKLAND, Calif. —

An Oakland jury has awarded $28 million in damages to a woman who said the Jehovah’s Witnesses allowed an adult member of a Fremont church to molest her when she was a child in the mid-1990s.

Alameda County jurors awarded $7 million in compensatory damages on Wednesday and another $21 million in punitive damages on Thursday to Candace Conti, her attorney, Rick Simons said.

“This is the largest jury verdict for a single victim in a religious child abuse case in the country,” Simons told The Associated Press.

In her lawsuit, Conti, now 26, said from 1995-1996, when she was 9 and 10 years old and a member of the North Fremont Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, she was repeatedly molested by a fellow congregant, Jonathan Kendrick.

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CALIFORNIA
USA Today

By Yamiche Alcindor, USA TODAY

Calif., has ordered Jehovah’s Witnesses to pay more than $20 million to a woman who was allegedly sexually abused by one of its members, MSNBC reports.

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ legal entity, is responsible for paying Candace Conti, who sued Watchtower, the Fremont, Calif., congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jonathan Kendrick, the man accused of abusing her.

The jury found that the elders who managed the Fremont congregation in the 1990s knew that Kendrick, a member, had recently been convicted of sexually abusing another child, but kept his past record secret from the congregation, MSNBC reports.

Kendrick went on to molest Conti, who was a Jehovah’s Witness member in Fremont, over a two-year period beginning when she was 9 years old, according to Conti’s lawsuit.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Jun 16, 2012

Another week, another set of Vatican leaks. Barbie Latza Nadeau on how the Holy See’s spinmeister is coping with allegations of a disappeared hacker and a ‘pathological’ banker.

It’s been more than three weeks since the pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested for allegedly stealing secret documents from the papal desk, and the details spilling from Vatican City are as murky as smoke from burning incense.

The heavily filtered “facts” of Gabriele’s arrest are channeled from the hallowed Holy See through sporadic press briefings held by Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s Jesuit spokesman, who sits at an expansive high table above reporters in the blue velvet press room inside the Holy See Press Center. The briefings often contain sarcastic micro-sermons on the interpretation of truth among the Vatican press corps, and Father Lombardi generally begins the Q&A sessions by wielding press clippings of what he considers the biggest offenses when it comes to accurate reporting. “There is a way of doing journalism that does not reflect the reality of the actual situation,” he lectured last week. “I am constantly amazed.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
WN

Münster-Hiltrup –

Zwei Jahre nach dem Höhepunkt des Missbrauchsskandals in der katholischen Kirche liegen die Strafdekrete gegen zwei Angehörige der Missionare vom Heiligsten Herzen Jesu (MSC) vor.

Von Michael Grottendieck

Insbesondere den heute 68-jährigen Pater Hans-Georg W., der bis Februar 2010 als Seelsorger in Hiltrup tätig war, trifft die volle Härte des Strafdekrets aus Rom. Pater W. sowie ein anderer Pater hatten vor zwei Jahren eingestanden, in den 1970-er und 1980-er Jahren am Johanneum, einem Internat der MSC-Missionare im saarländischen Homburg, sich an Minderjährigen vergangen zu haben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
taz

MISSBRAUCH Für seinen Einsatz gegen sexuelle Gewalt an Kindern und Jugendlichen war Norbert Denef für den taz Panter Preis 2011 nominiert. Seit einer Woche ist er im Hungerstreik, aus Protest gegen die SPD

Es war eine bewegende Szene auf dem SPD-Parteitag vor einem halben Jahr: Da steht ein älterer Herr am Mikrofon vor den Delegierten. In den Händen hält er das Foto eines Jungen und erzählt seine Geschichte. Wie der Junge missbraucht wurde, sexuell, von einem katholischen Priester. Sechs Jahre ging das so, dann, als er 16 Jahre alt war, übernahm der Chorleiter, missbrauchte ihn weiter. Erst mit 18 fand die Qual ein Ende.

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DEUTSCHLAND
WAZ

Hagen. Der Blick auf das Mauerdenkmal am Hagener Hauptbahnhof führt Henryk Ambrusch deutlich vor Augen, auf was er sich in den nächsten Tagen und Wochen einlässt. Der Hasper will ab kommenden Dienstag die rund 500 Kilometer bis in die Bundeshauptstadt laufen – und das, obwohl er aufgrund einer Rheumaerkrankung und defekter Sprunggelenke zu 90 Prozent schwerbehindert ist.

„Ich muss diese Aktion jetzt einfach starten. Ich muss endlich ein besonderes Zeichen setzen“, sagt der 41-Jährige, der sich bereits 2009 Gedanken über einen Protestmarsch nach Berlin gemacht hat. Doch damals blieb Henryk Ambrusch in Hagen und organisierte in seiner Heimatstadt erstmals eine Kundgebung gegen sexuellen Missbrauch. Eben jenes Thema, dass den selbst betroffenen Mann, teils am Stock gehend, teils im Rollstuhl sitzend, erneut antreibt.

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UNITED STATES
GetReligion

As a rule, your GetReligionistas think that veteran religion-beat specialists do a consistently better job of getting the basic facts right, especially when their work is compared with general-assignment reporters who are shipped off to cover complicated stories that often have years, decades or centuries of past history.

At the top of the list of scribes whose work we frequently admire is Tim Townsend of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The man is a pro.

All of which makes we wonder if an editor or two monkeyed around with the top of the following story about the early work at the latest meeting of the U.S. Catholic bishops. Pay close attention and think “history.”

ATLANTA — The U.S. Catholic bishops who gathered here for their annual spring meeting spent Wednesday morning grappling with the sins of the past, marking the 10th anniversary of the clergy sex abuse crisis that crippled the church. …

In June 2002, the bishops met in Dallas as the abuse scandal, which first erupted in Boston, was raging across the country.

The crisis began in 2002? That will be a shock to religion-beat veterans who have been covering the crisis since the mid-1980s, complete with magazine cover stories, a major book or two and even a made for television movie about one spectacular case that gripped the nation.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 15, 2012
By Kimberly Winston, Religion News Service

How much money does the U.S. government forgo by not taxing religious institutions? According to a University of Tampa professor, perhaps as much as $71 billion a year.

Ryan Cragun, an assistant professor of sociology, and two students examined U.S. tax laws to estimate the total cost of tax exemptions for religious institutions — on property, donations, business enterprises, capital gains and “parsonage allowances,” which permit clergy to deduct housing costs.

Their article appears in the current issue of Free Inquiry magazine, published by the Council for Secular Humanism, an organization of nontheists. U.S. tax law grants religious groups and other nonprofits the exemptions because of their charitable nature.

And while the authors do not claim theirs is a comprehensive or unbiased appraisal, their findings have raised eyebrows in the nontheist community, which has long sought to eliminate the tax exemptions on the grounds that they unfairly favor religious institutions.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Colm Kelpie

Saturday June 16 2012

A GROUP representing more than 800 priests last night reacted with anger to a highly critical Vatican inspection of the Irish College in Rome.

The report, by the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, has called for substantial reform at the institution which educates students for the priesthood.

It expressed concern about the staffing, as well as the atmosphere and philosophy of the college.

Cardinal Dolan found that the college “suffers from the reputation of being gay friendly, however unjust such a reputation might be”.

The report criticises Ireland’s four Catholic archbishops — the trustees of the college — and alleges that staff were critical of any emphasis on the teaching authority of the church.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) protests in the strongest possible terms against the methodology and conclusions of Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s Report on the Irish College in Rome, as reported in the Irish Times (June 15, 2012). This report was carried out on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI as part of the Apostolic Visitation of the Irish Church.

The report has effectively destroyed the reputations of priests, who have given lifelong service to the Irish Catholic Church, without giving them a right of reply to the allegations made against them.

It is unacceptable that a report to the Pope, on a sensitive issue, should be conducted in such an incompetent fashion. No court of law would treat people in such a way. Is it too much to expect even minimal rights in law for priests in the Roman Catholic Church? The Irish College staff, as clerics, are entitled under Canon Law to their good name. Canon 220 states that; “No-one may unlawfully harm the good reputation which a person enjoys….”

Civil law also protects a person’s good name through the laws of libel. It is ironic that it was precisely the failure of Church superiors’ to follow either Canon or Civil law in abuse cases which led to the Apostolic Visitation in the first place.

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OMAHA (NE)
World-Herald

By Todd Cooper
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Daniel Herek sat in a Douglas County courtroom Friday in a different role.

Alleged victim. Not villain.

The removed Omaha priest — who was imprisoned for molesting one altar boy and is the subject of lawsuits claiming he molested others — said in court Friday that he has been harassed and hounded by a mentally ill man.

In late May, the 33-year-old man urged a judge to impose a protection order against Herek — claiming Herek had abused him as a child and stalked him as an adult.

In response, Herek asked for a protection order against the man, saying he had no idea who the man was until the man started leaving menacing messages on Herek’s voice mail last year.

Gaunt and wearing his hair in his characteristic comb-over, the 67-year-old Herek emphatically denied any wrongdoing.

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GREEN BAY (WI)
Green Bay Press-Gazette

Written by
Scott Cooper Williams
Green Bay Press-Gazette

A former Green Bay priest who served six years in prison for sexually assaulting a child has won city approval to live on the west side.

Donald Buzanowski, 69, formerly of SS. Peter & Paul Parish in Green Bay, will be permitted to live in a state-run transitional living facility at 1761 Shawano Ave.

He was among 13 offenders whose appeals were considered this week by the Green Bay Sex Offender Residence Board.

A city ordinance prohibits convicted sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school, park or other place where children gather. That covers virtually the entire city and requires offenders to get permission before moving here.

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FLORIDA
13 News

ORLANDO —
Investigators in Orange County said a man arrested for traveling to meet up with what he thought was a minor for sex is a father, teacher and Episcopalian priest.

Brian Gerald Shriner was booked Friday into the Orange County Jail. He has since been released on bond.

According to investigators, Shriner sparked up a conversation in May with an undercover Orange County sheriff’s detective posing as a minor online.

They agreed to meet up Friday morning in Winter Springs. But when Shriner showed up, he was arrested.

Investigators said Shriner is a teacher at The Geneva School in Orlando, and assists as a priest at New Covenant Anglican Church in Winter Springs.

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ARIZONA
ABC News

By ALYSSA NEWCOMB (@alyssanewcomb)

June 16, 2012

An Arizona man filed suit against the Diocese of Phoenix and two church figures, alleging the abuse his son suffered as an altar boy led him to engage in destructive behaviors that ultimately led to his death.

David Michael Pain Sr. filed the suit on Wednesday, seeking justice for his son, David Michael Pain Jr., who died two years ago at the age of 39.

The suit names the Diocese of Phoenix, former Bishop Thomas J. O’Brien and Rev. John “Jack” Spaulding, the priest who allegedly abused David Jr., beginning when he was in 7th grade.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
The Plain Dealer

By Michael O’Malley, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Greater Cleveland’s Catholic priests should publicly call on the Vatican to remove Bishop Richard Lennon as head of the Cleveland diocese, a Catholic activist from Boston told the City Club Friday.

“This shepherd has failed,” Peter Borre told the luncheon audience. “It’s time for Cleveland’s clergy to speak out.”

Borre, who regularly travels to Rome on a crusade against bishops closing churches, has been a constant critic of Lennon in both local and national media.

Anticipating that Borre’s speech would sharply condemn the bishop, The Plain Dealer earlier this week requested that the diocese be available to respond.

A diocese spokesman said in a statement Wednesday, “Due to vacations and travel no one is available to respond to Borre Friday.”

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UNITED STATES
NPR

[with audio]

June 15, 2012

U.S. Catholic bishops are wrapping up their annual meeting in Atlanta. They vowed to continue fighting the Obama administration over contraceptive health coverage. Plus, ten years after sexual abuse scandals were revealed, the bishops assessed whether they’re doing enough to protect children. Host Michel Martin speaks with two religion reporters.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I’m Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Coming up, we open up our mailbox and hear from you about the stories we’ve covered this week. That’s called BackTalk, and it’s in just a few minutes.

But, first, it’s time for Faith Matters. That’s the part of the program where we talk about matters of faith and spirituality. And today, we talk about that big meeting of the American Catholic bishops. They’re wrapping up their annual meeting in Atlanta today and they had a lot on their agenda.

The bishops reaffirmed their commitment to take on the Obama administration over contraceptive health coverage, but some are asking if they’ve crossed the line from principle to partisan and it’s been 10 years since revelations of sexual abuse stained the church’s reputation, not to mention strained relationships with believers. This week, the bishops assessed whether they are doing enough to protect children in the church.

We wanted to talk more about this, so we’ve called upon Dennis Coday. He is the editor of the National Catholic Reporter. He’s been covering the meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. Also covering the meeting remotely from New York, David Gibson. He covers the Catholic Church for Religion News Service.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit

Viele Angeklagte, die wegen Kindesmissbrauchs vor Gericht stehen, bestreiten, pädophil zu sein. Um das künftige Verhalten von Sexualstraftätern richtig einzuschätzen, ist es aber wichtig, ihre sexuellen Präferenzen zu kennen. Kieler Forschern gelang es jetzt, per Magnetresonanztomografie Pädophile von Gesunden zu unterscheiden. Eine Methode mit Zukunft?

Nicht jeder, der ein Kind sexuell missbraucht, ist zwangsläufig pädophil. Auch Männer, die an sich erwachsene Sexualpartner bevorzugen, können sich an Kindern vergehen, wenn ihnen altersgemäße Kontakte fehlen – die Betreffenden gelten als so genannte Ersatz- oder Gelegenheitstäter. Kanadische Sexualwissenschaftler berichteten 2001, dass nur etwa die Hälfte derer, die zum ersten Mal wegen Kindesmissbrauchs verurteilt werden, tatsächlich pädophil sind.

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CALIFORNIA
Mercury News

By Tracey Kaplan
tkaplan@mercurynews.com
mercurynews.com

Posted: 06/15/2012

Father Jerold Lindner always pitched his tent far from everyone else on religious camping trips in the Santa Cruz Mountains. That way, his accusers later said, no one could hear his young victims whimper.

But more than 30 years later, one of those accusers is striking back — in a rare way chosen by only one of the 16,000 Americans who are known to have been sexually molested by Catholic clerics. Will Lynch, who says he was raped by the man he knew as Father Jerry on a camping trip in the mid-1970s, is accused of beating up the priest — and he is now using his own assault trial to try the cleric in the court of public opinion.

On the eve of his trial in San Jose, an emotional Lynch talked in an exclusive interview on the 15th floor of a San Francisco hotel about why he’s willing to put his freedom on the line to protest a legal system that never made Father Jerry pay.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

Colleen Carroll Campbell is a columnist for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a former presidential speechwriter and the author of “My Sisters the Saints: A Spiritual Memoir,” which will be published in October.

June 12, 2012

Catholic religious sisters as a group are rightly revered for their faith and good works. If the Vatican were bullying them, or criticizing their organizations without cause, such moves would and should backfire.

But that’s not what’s going on. Contrary to the prevailing news media narrative about do-gooder nuns persecuted by mean old grumps in Rome, the Vatican’s recent moves to discipline dissident religious sisters are not groundless reprimands or patriarchal power grabs. Nor are they intended to paint all American religious sisters with the same broad brush.

Both the Vatican’s proposed reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and its rebuke of a controversial book written by the theologian Sister Margaret Farley are targeted critiques intended to fulfill one of the Catholic hierarchy’s most vital functions: defense of the deposit of faith. That defense necessarily entails public clarification about what does and does not constitute authentic Catholic teaching.

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VATICAN CITY
WTOP

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Benedict XVI is getting a briefing from the three cardinals he appointed in April to investigate a series of leaked Vatican documents that have cast a poor light on the top governance of the Catholic Church.

The cardinals were given a broad mandate to interview Vatican officials across the board to get to the bottom of the leaks and report back to the pope. They are working separately from a criminal probe headed by the pope’s top bodyguard, a former Italian secret service agent who heads the Vatican police force.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Saturday, June 16, 2012 by
Matthew Xuereb

A defence lawyer for one of two defrocked priests appealing a jail term for sexually abusing teenage boys three decades ago yesterday cast doubts on the veracity of the allegations, claiming the person behind the case did it for the money.

Lawyer Giannella de Marco said Lawrence Grech, who was appearing in the media on behalf of all the victims, was only after compensation.

She was making submissions before Mr Justice David Scicluna in the appeal filed by former priests Godwin Scerri and Charles Pulis, both members of the Missionary Society of St Paul, who were sentenced to five and six years in prison respectively for sexually abusing 11 young boys in their care in the 1980s and 1990s.

Mr Pulis and Mr Scerri, aged 64 and 75, were defrocked last year following independent Vatican investigations.

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HOLYOKE (MA)
The Republican

By The Republican Editorials

The members of Mater Dolorosa Church in Holyoke who decided to end their year-long round-the-clock prayer vigil last Sunday can leave with their heads held high knowing they did all they could to save the building they love so much.

In complying with an order to end their vigil which began June 30, – the last day of Mass at the church – the protesters assured their case will get a hearing from the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s supreme court.

The road to this point was not a straight nor an easy one. Diocesan officials early on took the position that the authority to close churches rested entirely with them and that church members should concentrate their energies on adjusting to their new house of worship. As the vigil went on, they went so far as to accuse the church members of trespassing in their own church and filed a lawsuit against the group to force members to leave.

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NEW YORK
Patch

By William Demarest

A former Rockland County church group leader from South Nyack has been convicted of sexually abusing a 4-year-old child he was babysitting in 2009.

A Rockland County jury convicted Todd Retallack, 49, of 32 Terrace Drive, South Nyack, of first-degree sexual abuse, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.

“This defendant was convicted of having betrayed the trust of a young child and her family,” said Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe. “No child should be put in that position. The jury in this case heard the evidence in the case, which rested largely on the testimony of the now‐7‐year‐old victim. Children should be able to remain children.”

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CALIFORNIA
Newser

By Dustin Lushing, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 15, 2012

(Newser) – A California jury says the Jehovah’s Witnesses must shoulder part of the blame for the alleged molestation of a girl by one of its members. The jury’s verdict orders the religious group to pay a record $21 million in punitive damages to the victim, now 26, reports MSNBC. It also has to pay a portion of the $7 million in compensatory damages awarded earlier. “This is the first case I know of where a church has been hit with liability involving a rank-and-file member,” says an attorney for the congregation. He plans to appeal.

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CALIFORNIA
San Francisco Chronicle

Demian Bulwa

Saturday, June 16, 2012

An Alameda County jury ordered the Jehovah’s Witnesses to pay an unprecedented $21 million in punitive damages to a woman who blamed the church for allowing a fellow congregant in Fremont to molest her when she was a child in the mid-1990s.

Candace Conti said elders at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in northern Fremont knew Jonathan David Kendrick had molested his stepdaughter a few years before, but declined to warn others or tell police. That silence, Conti said, allowed Kendrick to gain her trust and repeatedly assault her at his home when she was 9 and 10 years old.

The jury also awarded $7 million in compensatory damages. Kendrick – who is now a registered sex offender living in Oakley – was ordered to pay 60 percent of that judgment, with the rest coming from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the legal entity of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
WUSA

Written by
Ken Molestina

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WUSA)– The defense in the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse trial is scheduled to begin on Monday. This week, a handful of young men testified on behalf of the prosecution, claiming Sandusky repeatedly abused them sexually.

Those testimonies have many asking why sex abuse victims would allow themselves to be re-victimized time and time again. Now, a sex abuse survivor is offering perspective.

Mark Serrano is regarded as the first clergy abuse survivor to publicly break a gag order in a church settlement and come forward with details of his abuse.

Serrano said the reason that victims are hurt repeatedly by their attackers is because they feel trapped.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Citizen

A DISGRACED church committee chairman, jailed for sexually abusing a child in 2006, faces a return to prison for picking up a 12-year-old girl in his car.

Father-of-three Koon Pang, of Barnwood Avenue, Gloucester, pleaded guilty to breaching a sex offenders’ protection order “on numerous occasions” by giving the girl lifts in his car.

The 51-year-old polio victim, who walks with the aid of a stick, was banned from being in the company of any child under the age of 17 unless parents or guardians were present.

Prosecuting solicitor Sharon Jomaa told city magistrates on Tuesday: “The defendant is a registered sex offender and the father of the girl had concerns because his daughter and another young girl had been seen in a car with the defendant on a number of occasions. The daughter was interviewed and told police that between October 2011 and December 2011 the defendant had given her lifts on numerous occasions.

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UNITED STATES
The Takeaway

[with audio]

Advocates Against Sexual Abuse Take on Statute of Limitations

Changing the statute of limitation has become a key battle for sex abuse victims. These statutes create deadlines for when a victim of abuse can press charges or bring a civil suit. The deadlines differ by state, but victims and their advocates in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York are pushing to lengthen the deadlines — or, in some cases, get rid of them entirely.

Increasingly, these struggles are against the Catholic Church. The Church says it won’t be able to find witnesses to defend the institution in claims that are decades old.

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NEWTON (MA)
The Pilot

By Christopher S. Pineo

NEWTON — Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley was joined by parish child protection volunteers and others committed to child safety at a Mass to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People June 10 at Our Lady Help of Christians Church.

“This Eucharist today is offered in a very special way for our diocese, for all of those who have been harmed by sexual abuse, and for all of the generous and dedicated volunteers whose countless hours of work have helped to make our churches safe places for children,” the cardinal said in his homily.

Established at a meeting of bishops in Dallas in June 2002 as a national response to the clergy abuse scandal, the charter provides direction nationally from the USCCB used to protect children and young people on a local level. In the charter, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops provided procedures and guidelines for reconciliation, for healing, for accountability, for prevention of future acts of abuse, and for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

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NEW YORK
Mid-Hudson News

NEW CITY – A South Nyack man, who is a former Rockland County church youth group leader, has been convicted by a Rockland County court jury of felony sexual abuse in the first degree and misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child.

Todd Retallack, 49, of 32 Terrace Drive in South Nyack was convicted of sexually abusing a four-year-old girl at his home. The child was a friend of the victim’s family. The abuse took place while he was babysitting the child.

Retallack faces from two to seven years in state prison when sentenced in September.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Fox 4

[with video]

Posted on: 6:39 pm, June 15, 2012, by John Pepitone and Jason M. Vaughn

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Jackson County prosecutors asked a judge on Friday to force the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City and St. Joseph to turn over information about allegations of sexual misconduct against five specific priests, as the county’s criminal case against the diocese and Bishop Robert Finn over alleged failure to report suspicions of child abuse.

Prosecutors also asked for transcripts and recordings of all the interviews conducted by former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves as part of his independent investigation of diocese policies when an allegation of sexual misconduct is made.

Finn and the diocese each face one count of failure to report suspicions of child abuse. Finn was not present at Friday’s hearing. The charges stem from how Finn and the diocese responded to allegations against Father Shawn Ratigan between December 2010 and May 2011.

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MANSFIELD (PA)
Williamsport Sun-Gazette

June 16, 2012

By SAVANNAH M. BARR – sbarr@sungazette.com , Williamsport Sun-Gazette

MANSFIELD – Charges have been filed against the Rev. Thomas Shoback, formerly of St. Andrew’s and St. Mary’s churches, of Blossburg, and Our Lady of Lourdes, of Montoursville, accusing him of sexually assaulting a minor while serving as pastor at St. Mary’s.

Shoback faces seven felony counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, one felony count of attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and one felony count of endangering the welfare of a child.

He also faces multiple misdemeanour offenses – eight counts of indecent assault, seven of endangering the welfare of a child, and eight of corruption of a minor.

According to state police, the abuse took place between February 1991 and February 1997 in the St. Mary’s Parish Rectory. The victim, who is currently an adult, was between the ages of 11 and 17 at the time of the alleged abuse, according to state police.

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ATLANTA (GA)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

KEEP THE FAITH > BY TIM TOWNSEND • ttownsend@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8221 | Posted: Saturday, June 16, 2012

ATLANTA • In 2002, when the U.S. Catholic bishops were deep in crisis mode over an explosion of accusations against priests who had sexually abused minors, Belleville’s Bishop Wilton Gregory was the president of their conference.

Gregory had been elected just seven weeks before the first of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning stories on a priest who raped children and the archbishop who moved him from parish to parish.

Those stories rippled out across the country and by June, when the bishops met in Dallas, the first African-American to lead them did just that.

Gregory is often credited (and sometimes criticized) for steering the church through the most turbulent years of the sexual abuse crisis. Gregory took flak from some Catholics for championing the Dallas Charter’s “zero tolerance policy,” which requires the permanent suspension of a priest found to have abused a minor.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Bourne Local

A Wirral priest has been jailed for five years after committing a string of sexual offences against a young boy.

Father Peter Hooper, 55, from St Luke’s Church in Bebington, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to 10 counts of engaging in sexual activity with the teenager when he was aged 14 and 15 and inciting him to engage in such activity.

He was appointed priest at St Luke’s in 2006.

Following sentencing at Liverpool Crown Court, the Rt Rev Mark Davies, Bishop of Shrewsbury, said: “I wish to express today both the sorrow and the horror felt within the Catholic community at these offences and the betrayal of trust involved.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Standard Speaker

By Bob Kalinowski (Staff Writer)

Published: June 16, 2012

A Roman Catholic priest from Wilkes-Barre who has served in Hazleton sexually abused an altar boy for six years while serving as pastor of a Tioga County church, state police charged on Friday.

The Rev. Thomas P. Shoback, 66, is facing 32 counts of child sex abuse, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, endangering the welfare of children and corruption of minors, police said.

Investigators with state police at Mansfield say the alleged sexual assaults occurred between 1991 and 1997 at the rectory of St. Mary’s Parish in Blossburg, where Shoback was pastor, and at a nearby private cabin.

Shoback would later serve at various Northeastern Pennsylvania churches in Exeter Township, Jermyn, Hazleton, Plains Township and Plymouth. In addition, he was a faculty member at the former Bishop Hoban High School in Wilkes-Barre.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

Judge M. Teresa Sarmina began the day by reversing herself.

On Thursday, the judge instructed the jury that Monsignor William J. Lynn did not have to act with criminal intent in order to be found guilty of conspiring to endanger the welfare of children.

On Friday, the judge said that Msgr. Lynn did have to act with criminal intent in order to be found guilty of conspiring to endanger the welfare of children.

Confused? Obviously, so are the jurors, who finished their ninth day of deliberations without reaching a verdict.

On Friday, the judge gave a complicated set of jury instructions that laid out the conditions for finding Msgr. Lynn guilty of conspiring to endanger the welfare of children.

In order to find Lynn guilty, according to the judge, the jury would have to:

— Find that the monsignor intended to promote or facilitate the committing of the crime of endangering the welfare of children.

— Find that “Lynn intended to act jointly” with other conspirators so that “a crime would be committed,” namely endangering the welfare of children.

— Find that Lynn and other conspirators had to know that their conduct would result in the danger of harm to children.

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MALTA
Malta Independent

Defence lawyer Giannella de Marco said victims of priestly sexual abuse met and agreed on the case to try and get as much financial gain as possible from those who gave them so much during their upbringing.

Two priests were last August found guilty of sexually abusing minors under their care, and were jailed for six years and five years respectively.

Carmelo Pulis was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of abusing nine boys. Francesco sive Godwin Scerri was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment after the court found him guilty of sexually abusing two boys. He was cleared of raping one of the boys because the victim alleged the case had happened in Marfa, and later explained it had happened at St Joseph Home.

The two priests were defrocked last year following investigations the Vatican carried out.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

GENEVIEVE CARBERY

IRISH COLLEGE: CRITICISM LEVELLED at the Irish College in Rome by a Vatican report does not reflect the experience of some former seminarians.

Among these is Fr Brendan Cooney who said the report, as detailed in The Irish Times, made for “painful” reading.

He found it “almost laughable” that the staff could be accused of not being devoted to Rome.

Fr Cooney, of the Kiltegan Fathers, had “very happy” years at the college as a student in the 1960s. More recently he had a “close relationship” with and “great admiration” for the college.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

MISSION: THAT THERE should be “substantial reform” at the Irish College in Rome was just one of a number of opinions expressed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan in his visitation report.

His “major conclusion” was “that the bishops of Ireland must reaffirm the identity and mission of the college as first and foremost, a house of priestly formation for seminarians from Ireland, with the presence of non-Irish seminarians and graduate priests from Ireland and elsewhere, never allowed to dwarf the primary mission and identity, as he fears it now does”.

His “strong concern” was that “in reality, the Irish seminarians are only a minority subset in the house (18 in an enrolment of 56, less than one-third!). The clear identity of the college as primarily an Irish seminary is thus compromised”. He felt that “the presence of Orthodox students in the house, as well as of the Eastern Rite Catholic men not preparing for the celibate life”, was an added complication.

He noted that “one prelate asked the wisdom of having the bishops of Ireland subsidise a house for predominately [sic] non-Irish seminarians and priests”. He also recommended that “the graduate priests ordinarily come from Ireland and that their number be fewer than that of the seminarians”.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

APOSTOLIC VISITATION: CARDINAL TIMOTHY Dolan concludes his somewhat bruising 17-page report on the Irish College in Rome with unexpected warmth.

Speaking of himself in the third person, as he did throughout, he said “the apostolic visitor left the college filled with affection and admiration for the students, and, notwithstanding his criticisms, appreciation for the sincerity and hard work of the staff”, who he had just recommended be changed.

He also said he was “warmly welcomed by the rector . . . his staff, seminarians, and student priests. The visitor enjoyed his stay and appreciated the hospitality of this community”.

He outlined 19 “positive observations” about the college. These included an atmosphere that was “warm, inviting, hospitable”, and a physical environment that was “comfortable, while not opulent”.

In general, the seminarians were “sincere”, “earnest in their desire to be priests after the heart of Christ” and took their academic work seriously. The four staff were “visible, available, and engaged . . . ” while the presence of student priests was “of some benefit in their example”.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE ASSOCIATION of Catholic Priests has responded strongly to details of a visitation report on the Irish College in Rome which was prepared for the Vatican by the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan.

Details of the report were published in The Irish Times yesterday. Among its main recommendations was that priests on the staff at the college’s seminary be replaced.

The association called on Ireland’s four Irish archbishops, trustees of the college, and bishops of the priests concerned, “to publicly repudiate this report in the strongest possible terms and to support the priests involved in seeking to restore their reputations”.

They protested “in the strongest possible terms against the methodology and conclusions” of Cardinal Dolan’s report and said it had “effectively destroyed the reputations of priests, who have given lifelong service to the Irish Catholic Church, without giving them a right of reply to the allegations made against them”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Washington Post

No verdict in Philadelphia priest-abuse case after 9th day of deliberations; more talks Monday

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, June 15

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia jury has failed to reach a verdict after nine days of deliberations in a groundbreaking priest-abuse case.

Several jurors appeared upset when they broke for the day Friday. But the panel has not signaled a stalemate and continues to ask for evidence from the three-month trial.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
NECN

Jun 15, 2012

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Jackson County prosecutors are seeking access to transcripts of interviews conducted by a Kansas City law firm investigating how the local Roman Catholic diocese handles reports of child sexual abuse.

Attorneys for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on Friday countered that records of interviews by the law firm of former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves are protected by attorney-client privilege. The diocese had commissioned the investigation.

Bishop Robert Finn and the diocese are charged with misdemeanor failure to report suspected abuse to the state after learning of suspected child pornography on a priest’s computer. Finn has acknowledged learning about the photos in December 2010, six months before the Rev. Shawn Ratigan was arrested on state and federal porn charges.

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BROOKLINE (MA)
Pokrov

Author: Theodore Kalmoukos
Date Published: 6/15/2012
Publication: The National Herald (USA)

BOSTON, MA – A sexual abuse scandal has arisen at Holy Cross Theological School in Brookline, MA involving a 50 year-old married student who reportedly abused a teenage girl sexually on campus.

Rev. Nicholas Triantafillou, president of Hellenic College – Holy Cross, told TNH that “the only thing I can tell you is that the School took immediate and appropriate action [regarding the suspect and the victim and her family].”

Triantafillou refused to discuss the girl’s condition or whether the authorities had been notified. Despite TNH’s persistence for further comment, he said “I cannot say anything else at this moment, the issue is legal and the lawyer has told me to be careful.”

The suspect has five or six children and belongs to the segment at the School that considers priesthood as a second-chance career and go to the Theological School at an advanced age to study to become Greek Orthodox priests. The girl’s family lived on campus as well because her father was a student at Holy Cross and already an ordained priest.

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BROOKLINE (MA)
The National Herald

BOSTON, MA – A sexual abuse scandal has arisen at Holy Cross Theological School in Brookline, MA involving a 50 year-old married student who reportedly abused a teenage girl sexually on campus. Rev. Nicholas Triantafillou, president of Hellenic College – Holy Cross, told TNH that “the only thing I can tell you is that the School took immediate and appropriate action [regarding the suspect and the victim and her family].”

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TENNESSEE
Times-News

By Kacie Breeding

Published June 15th, 2012

BLOUNTVILLE — A judge has refused to overturn a former Kingsport priest’s July 2011 convictions for raping an altar boy three decades ago.

William Casey, 78, 740 Shakerag Road, Greeneville, was sentenced in November to 15 to 20 years for first-degree criminal sexual conduct and two concurrent 20-year terms on two aggravated rape counts. His convictions stemmed from allegations he sexually abused a young altar boy shortly after becoming priest of St. Dominic Catholic Church in Kingsport in the 1970s.

During the trial, the victim, Warren Tucker, now 46, testified Casey raped him twice — once when he was 13 and once when he was 14 — and performed oral sex on him in his mother’s trailer shortly before his 15th birthday, with Tucker saying he “felt obligated” to reciprocate the act. He described feeling powerless to resist a man he believed to be “representative of God on Earth.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee on Jun. 15, 2012 NCR Today

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The latest pre-trial hearing in the first criminal case against a sitting bishop in the decades-long clergy sex abuse scandal was held Friday afternoon, with attorneys for Bishop Robert W. Finn and his diocese arguing with prosecutors mainly over issues of discovery.

Both Finn and his Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese face trial this September in Jackson County, Mo., over separate criminal misdemeanor charges of failure to report suspected child abuse concerning their actions regarding a priest arrested last year for possession of child pornography.

Friday’s hearing before Jackson County, Mo., Judge John Torrence concerned a number of motions filed by attorney’s in the cases over the past months.

Primarily before the court was a motion filed by prosecutors requesting discovery of a large number of diocesan files regarding its handling of a number of other priests who have been previously accused of sexual misconduct.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

June 15, 2012 1:20 pm | Author: Jerry Berger
SNAP has released a “dirty dozen” list: 12 bishops who they say have acted “recklessly, callously and decptively” in pedophile priest cases over the last decade, since church officials pledged to do better with sex cases. Three of them worked here: New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, K.C.’s Robert Finn and retired Cardinal Justin Rigali who now lives in Tennessee with former local priest/Knoxville Bishop Richard Stika.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

A former Ham Lake church youth director was acquitted Thursday on all charges of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

An Anoka County jury spent more than a day deliberating before acquitting Damian Burkhalter, 47, of Blaine, of six counts of criminal sexual conduct.

The charges, filed last June, alleged that he abused the girl at his home and at youth camps, saying the first incident occurred about two years ago. Authorities were notified when a child protection worker in Kandiyohi County learned of the allegations from the girl.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

ANOKA, Minn. (AP) – A jury has acquitted a Ham Lake church youth director on all charges alleging he had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl.

The Anoka County jury spent more than a day deliberating before acquitting 47-year-old Damian Burkhalter of Blaine on six counts of criminal sexual conduct.

The charges alleged that Burkhalter abused the girl at his home and at youth camps more than a year ago and that sexual incidents continued afterward.

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MINNESOTA
ABC Newspapers

By Eric Hagen on June 15, 2012

A 48-year-old Blaine man was acquitted yesterday (Thursday, June 14) by an Anoka County District Court jury of all six felony criminal sexual conduct charges he was facing.

Damian Blake Burkhalter had been accused of having improper relations with a then 14-year-old girl, but a jury found him not guilty.

Burkhalter was charged in June 2011 with three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Saarbrucker Zeitung

Herr Dr. Müller, was ist von Seiten der Kirche nach dem Missbrauchsskandal im vergangenen Jahr geschehen?

Wunibald Müller: Die Kirche hat sich auf einen Weg der Erneuerung begeben. Im Bereich sexueller Missbrauch Minderjähriger durch kirchliche Mitarbeiter sind wichtige Initiativen in die Wege geleitet worden und Beschlüsse gefasst worden, die deutlich machen, dass die Kirche es ernst meint, wirklich zuerst die Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs zu sehen und alles zu tun, zum Beispiel auch durch Präventionsmaßnahmen, um in Zukunft sexuellen Missbrauch in ihren eigenen Reihen zu verhindern.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pocono Record

June 15, 2012

A priest who served at a Monroe County parish was arrested Friday on a charge of sexual abuse in Tioga County.

According to the Diocese of Scranton, the Rev. Thomas P. Shoback had charges filed over a complaint of sexually abusing a minor. He faces 32 counts, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault and endangering the welfare of children.

According to court records, the incidents occurred by 1991 and 1995.

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UNITED STATES
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By DAVID CRARY
The Associated Press

NEW YORK — While many Americans are riveted by the Penn State sex abuse trial, it has been particularly wrenching — and sometimes heartening — for those who were themselves victims of abuse in their youth.

Unlike the witnesses testifying against Jerry Sandusky, most of them never got the chance to confront their abusers in court, so the trial has been cathartic as well as troubling.

“It’s vicarious justice — the closest many survivors will ever get to a courtroom where the perpetrator is held accountable,” said Claudia Vercellotti of Toledo, Ohio, who says she was molested for years in her adolescence by a Roman Catholic youth minister.

Vercellotti, a 42-year-old hospital employee, has immersed herself in news reports of the trial, mesmerized by the past week’s often-graphic testimony from eight young men who said Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant football coach, had abused them.

“It takes raw courage to get up there and face their abuser,” she said. “They are liberating other victims of sex crimes who have not been able to speak up. There are people across this country saying, ‘Me, too. Me, too.'”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 15, 2012 – 3:13 pm EDT

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia jury is deliberating for a ninth day in the trial of a Roman Catholic priest charged with molesting a teen and a monsignor charged in an alleged church cover-up.

The jury Friday has asked for defense exhibits, including correspondence between the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and his underlings.

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CALIFORNIA
The Oakland Tribune

By Tracey Kaplan tkaplan@mercurynews.comcontracostatimes.com
Posted: 06/15/2012

Father Jerold Lindner always pitched his tent far from everyone else on religious camping trips in the Santa Cruz Mountains. That way, his accusers later said, no one could hear his young victims whimper.

But more than 30 years later, one of those accusers is striking back — in a rare way chosen by only one of the 16,000 Americans who are known to have been sexually molested by Catholic clerics. Will Lynch, who says he was raped by the man he knew as Father Jerry on a camping trip in the mid-1970s, is accused of beating up the priest — and he is now using his own assault trial to try the cleric in the court of public opinion.

On the eve of his trial in San Jose, an emotional Lynch talked in an exclusive interview on the 15th floor of a San Francisco hotel about why he’s willing to put his freedom on the line to protest a legal system that never made Father Jerry pay.

Even though the Jesuits have doled out millions of dollars to settle cases brought by Lindner’s victims, the priest was never prosecuted because Lynch and others reported the abuse after the brief window of opportunity set by the statute of limitations at the time slammed shut.

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PENNSYLVANIA
YNN

By: Web Staff

TIOGA COUNTY, Pa. — A Pennsylvania priest faces a number of charges following an investigation into child sexual abuse.

State Police say they launched their investigation into Thomas Shoback, 66, after a former altar boy at St. Mary’s Parish in Blossburg went to the diocese with the abuse allegations.

Police say the abuse happened between 1991 and 1997 when the boy was between the ages of 11 and 17, both at the Parish Rectory and at a private cabin in Farmington Township.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Times-Leader

Edward Lewis – elewis@timesleader.com – 570-970-7196 – Twitter: @TLEdLewis

A Diocese of Scranton priest who formerly was assigned at Bishop Hoban High School and parishes throughout Luzerne County was charged in Tioga County with sexually assaulting an alter server.

The Rev. Thomas P. Shoback, 66, of Wilkes-Barre, was charged by state police at Mansfield with multiple sex offenses involving the boy, who is now an adult.

State police said the alleged assaults took place from 1991 through 1997 while Shoback was assigned at St. Mary’s Parish in Blossburg, Tioga County.

Shoback was suspended by the Dicoese in November when allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced. State police filed a total of 32 sexual offenses, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and indecent assault, on Monday with District Judge James Carlson in Blossburg.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WETM

Reported by: George Kastenhuber
Email: gkastenhuber@wetmtv.com

Mansfield, Pa. – Pennsylvania State Police in Mansfield have charged a former Blossburg Priest with various sex crimes.

Father Thomas Shoback is charged with sexually molesting a minor from 1991-1997. Shobach was priest at St. Mary’s Perish during that time.

The Dioceses of Scranton had reassigned Shoback several times after is tenure in Blossburg.

The Dioceses was informed last November of the allegations against Shoback and contacted the Tioga County District Attorney’s Office to start a criminal investigation. Shoback was suspended by the Dioceses at that time.

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ATLANTA (GA)
Catholic News Agency

By Michelle Bauman

Atlanta, Ga., Jun 14, 2012 / 01:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore argued that it is an “injustice” to imply that the Knights of Columbus’ support for defending religious freedom creates a sense of partisanship.

At a June 13 press conference at the U.S. bishops’ spring general meeting in Atlanta, the archbishop was questioned by Jerry Filteau of the National Catholic Reporter about funding for the bishops’ campaign to defend religious liberty.

Filteau said that he had heard “rumors” that much of the funding for the bishops’ effort is coming from the Knights of Columbus, whose head, Carl Anderson, is a former Reagan administration official.

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INDIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on June 15, 2012

A Terre Haute judge has ruled that a clergy sex abuse and cover up case against the Indianapolis archdiocese’s most notorious predator priest can move forward. Victims are applauding the decision.

The civil case involves a now-defrocked serial pedophile named Harry Monroe (who is believed to be living in TN). It charges, and the judge’s order mentions, that top Indy archdiocese staffers quietly sent Monroe to a Terre Haute parish, knowing that he’d been credibly accused of molesting kids before, and refused to notify or warn parishioners or the public or even the parish’s pastor.

“We’re grateful to this brave victim and this wise judge. For safety, healing and justice, it’s crucial that citizens and Catholics get to hear – under oath, in open court, the full truth about how vigorously high ranking Catholic officials ignore and conceal horrific child sex crimes,” said Barbara Dorris of SNAP. “It’s sad that even now, Indy Archbishop Buechlein continues to try to exploit legal technicalities to keep clergy sex crimes and cover ups covered up.”

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INDIANA
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

June 15, 2012

by Patrick W. Noaker | Blog: Anderson Advocates

(Terre Haute, Indiana) In what is believed to be the first childhood sexual abuse case against the Archdiocese of Indianapolis ever argued in Terre Haute Indiana, Hon. Michael Lewis gave the green light to a Terre Haute man to present his case to a Vigo County jury. In the case John Doe CD v. Archdiocese of Indianapolis et al., the Archdiocese argued to have the case dismissed because too much time had passed since Fr. Harry Monroe had sexually abused a boy in 1981. The Court disagreed. According to the Court’s Order, there was evidence that the Archdiocese concealed that it was aware that Fr. Monroe was a child abuser and moved Fr. Monroe to St. Patrick’s parish in Terre Haute anyway. The Court noted that when Fr. Monroe was in seminary he was arrested for indecent exposure. The Court also cited to confidential internal Archdiocese documents that there were some aspects of Fr. Monroe’s conduct that the Archdiocese “didn’t care to put it in print.” Strikingly, the Order indicates that the Archdiocese even kept the Pastor of St. Patrick’s parish in the dark about Fr. Monroe’s abusive past placing Terre Haute children at risk.

While in Terre Haute, the Order reports that Fr. Monroe “began providing alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana to CD and then became sexually inappropriate with CD.” CD was thirteen years old at the time.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Ms. Magazine

A judge has ordered the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City- St. Joseph into arbitration to determine if the diocese violated a 2008 settlement with victims who were sexually abused by priests. In the 2008 settlement, 47 plaintiffs settled their claims with the diocese for $10 million and an agreement that the diocese would make 19 specific changes, including taking steps to meet state child abuse reporting requirements and implementing sexual misconduct policies. Last year, 42 of the plaintiffs demanded arbitration, alleging these requirements had not been met.

In a press release, Barbara Dorris, Saint Louis outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) wrote, “We are grateful for this ruling. We’re confident it will mean that dozens and dozens of KC area victims are a step closer toward healing and closure. We hope it will mean that Bishop Finn and other Catholic officials really will start implementing the 19 prevention steps they promised victims they’d take four years ago.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Times-Tribune

Child sex charges have been filed against an area priest who served at various Northeastern Pennsylvania churches and at the former Bishop Hoban High School, state police at Mansfield, Tioga County, said Friday.

State police say the Rev. Thomas P. Shoback, 66, of Wilkes-Barre, sexually abused an altar boy at St. Mary’s Parish in Blossburg, Tioga County, from 1991 to 1997 while Shoback was the pastor there. The abuse occurred at the parish rectory and at a private cabin in Farmington Township, Tioga County, police said.

Investigators were alerted to the case in November 2011 by officials from the Diocese of Scranton after they received claims that Shoback had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor, police said.

State police have charged Shoback with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, attempt to commit involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, endangering the welfare of children, and corruption of minors.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Wall Street Journal

By Peter Loftus

Frayed nerves and confusion abounded in a Philadelphia courtroom, as jury deliberations continued in the case of a Roman Catholic monsignor charged with failing to protect children from alleged molestation by priests.

The tension erupted late Thursday afternoon in the trial of Monsignor William Lynn, who served as a personnel director of priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004 and was responsible for investigating abuse allegations.

Outside the jury’s presence, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington was addressing Judge Teresa Sarmina when he was interrupted by Msgr. Lynn’s defense attorney, Thomas Bergstrom.

“No! No! No! No! Enough! Sit down!” Mr. Blessington shouted, pointing at Mr. Bergstrom a few feet away. Mr. Blessington volunteered that he has seen “better manners in a barnyard” than those of Mr. Bergstrom and other defense attorneys for Msgr. Lynn.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A Roman Catholic priest from Wirral who admitted sexual activity with an underage boy has been jailed for five years by Liverpool Crown Court.

Father Peter Hooper, 55, admitted 10 charges of sexual activity with the teenager, and inciting him to engage in such activity, at an earlier hearing.

Bishop of Shrewsbury, Revd Mark Davies, said the Catholic community felt sorrow and horror at Hooper’s offences.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board

The Assembly Judiciary Committee advanced a bill on Thursday that would remove the statute of limitations for victims of long-ago child sex abuse to sue their attackers and the institutions that allowed it.

It’s a measure that is actively opposed by the Catholic church – which testified against the bill.

Pat Brannigan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference, which represents the state’s bishops, warned of the lawsuits that would be triggered: “It would be a windfall for lawyers … and will not help a single child.”

Convenient stance for the church, which has spent some $2.5 billion on legal fees, settlements and prevention programs since the scandal began to erupt a decade ago, according to a New York Times report this week. The same article revealed the church is fighting similar legislation around the U.S.

In New Jersey, lawmakers have dropped another piece of legislation that has the backing of the church and its bishops. Why? That bill eliminated the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases, but only those in the future. Past victims? They would be out of luck – and the church and its leadership would be off the hook for costly legal fees and settlements.

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