ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

WASHINGTON—The public sessions of the annual Spring General Assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Atlanta will be available through streaming video online, USCCB’s social media presence on Facebook and Twitter and via satellite for stations wishing to broadcast the proceedings. The live coverage will be Wednesday, June 13, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. EDT, and Thursday, June 14, 9-10 a.m. EDT.

The streaming video will be available at www.usccb.org/about/leadership/usccb-general-assembly/. This page will also include meeting documentation as it becomes available. The Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/USCCBLive will feature live tweets of the meeting. The page www.facebook.com/usccb will feature updates including pictures and news releases.

The meeting will include a two-hour floor discussion on domestic and international religious freedom, an address by the new president of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Carolyn Woo, a report and recommendations by the National Review Board on the Church’s efforts to prevent clergy sexual abuse, a presentation on the upcoming Year of Faith and the discussion of a proposed message on work, poverty and the economy.

Media outlets interested in broadcasting all or parts of the meeting may request satellite coordinates by emailing media-relations@usccb.org or calling 202-541-3200.

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UNITED STATES
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — With a long-standing campaign to press its concerns about infringements on religious liberty by governments and the courts, the U.S. bishops will devote a significant portion of their spring meeting June 13-15 in Atlanta to the issue.

The bishops also will receive a 10-year progress report by the National Review Board on the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” and hear recommendations from the review board stemming from the study “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

Barney Zwartz
June 13, 2012

Australia’s last openly progressive Catholic bishop, Canberra’s Pat Power, who is retiring at the end of the month, says the Vatican’s inability to listen and the twin crises of clergy sex abuse and the shortage of priests are the most vexing issues facing the church.

Bishop Power, 70, was not due to retire for five years, but will step down on June 30.

With Toowoomba bishop Bill Morris sacked by the Pope last year, Bishop Power was the last Australian bishop prepared to challenge the Vatican publicly. He called sexual abuse ”a terrible stain on the church”, and said the Vatican habit of secrecy had provided conditions for sex abuse and many other forms of abuse to thrive.

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CALIFORNIA
Healing and Spirituality

Dr. Jaime Romo

“So, you got your Resolution for Safe Churches and Healing Communities.” A woman said to me in the parking lot after the vote had been taken by the Annual Gathering delegates. Every year, 145 United Church of Christ congregational representatives from the Southern California/ Nevada Conference (i.e., diocese) gather to assess the work they do together and propose new initiatives. She smiled and walked to her car.

“My resolution?” I thought. It’s OUR resolution. An overwhelming majority of the people who could vote voted for this, representing the collective church, based upon a central UCC principle of ‘covenant.’ Coming from a Catholic background, I jokingly call the UCC the ‘church of you can’t make me.’ The UCC operates from a grass roots, local governance model, unlike other more hierarchical models, which have been critiqued as more bureaucratic or practicing window dressing when it comes to preventing and responding to sexual abuse. This local governance model is refreshing and democratic, as well as frustrating in that it can seem very time and labor intensive to reach consensus and then implement what was reached by consensus.

My church sent the Resolution to the Conference and now it will go to the National Synod next year for acceptance by the National UCC, and I am proud of this effort.

Perhaps the only reason my church got involved with this issue was because five years ago a registered sex offender showed up one day and asked to be able to participate. And that later became the catalyst for me to take up a formal role as a Commissioned Minister for Healing and Healthy Environments, a first in the UCC and perhaps in any faith tradition. Church leaders from across the country called my pastor to ask for our policy and he urged me to take up this formal ministry (to coach ministers and lay leadership teams to create meaningful abuse prevention policies and healing practices) that I naively thought would be enthusiastically received.

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CANADA
Canadian Lawyer

Written by Margaret L. Waddell
Posted Date: June 11, 2012

In August 2007, Grenville Christian College, a private boarding school near Brockville, Ont., closed its doors, citing changing demographics, declining enrolment and rising costs for the closure. At the same time, allegations of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, including cult-like practices at the school, were gaining publicity. Indeed, by September 2007, the chairman of the board of the school had issued a personal apology to the students, and advised that the board was considering a more formal apology and possible financial compensation for the victims. No such compensation was forthcoming. Instead, a class action lawsuit — Cavanaugh v. Grenville Christian College — was commenced naming the local Anglican diocese, the school, and two senior school administrators and their wives.

The motion for certification a class proceeding finally reached the court at the end of April 2012. On May 23, Justice Paul Perell released reasons declining certification, concluding that a class proceeding was not the preferable procedure, although all other aspects of the test for certification had been met, except as against the diocese. The decision denying certification of this institutional abuse case stands in stark contrast to the decisions of the Supreme Court and courts of appeal in Ontario and British Columbia, and with all due respect to the learned motions judge, I would argue that it is in error.

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CANADA
Brandon Sun

By: The Canadian Press

ANTIGONISH, N.S. – A Roman Catholic priest will return to full-time duties this fall after police dropped an investigation into his conduct as director of a drug rehabilitation centre in Cape Breton.

Rev. Paul Abbass will resume his work in five parishes in the Diocese of Antigonish beginning Oct. 5.

Abbass was suspended from his duties in the diocese after someone from Talbot House complained to police in February.

But investigators said in April they found no evidence that would justify continuing their investigation.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 12, 2012
By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — After meeting with top officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the head of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious said she was thankful for the chance to have an open dialogue about a recent Vatican-ordered reform of the organization.

Franciscan Sr. Pat Farrell, LCWR president, and St. Joseph Sr. Janet Mock, executive director, met Tuesday with U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the doctrinal congregation, and with Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to talk about the mandate.

“We are grateful for the opportunity for open dialogue, and now we will return to our members to see about the next step” and decide how to proceed in light of discussions with the doctrinal office, Farrell told journalists after the meeting.

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VATICAN CITY
Leadership Conference of Women Religious

Statement of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious Regarding Meeting with CDF

[Silver Spring, MD] On June 12, LCWR president Sister Pat Farrell, OSF and executive director Sister Janet Mock, CSJ, met with Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), and Archbishop Peter Sartain. The meeting had been requested by the LCWR to address what the conference considered deficiencies in the process and the results of the doctrinal assessment of the organization released by the CDF in April.

“It was an open meeting and we were able to directly express our concerns to Cardinal Levada and Archbishop Sartain,” said Sister Pat Farrell.

Sister Pat and Sister Janet will now return to the United States to discuss the meeting later this week with the LCWR board. As previously stated, the conference will gather its members in regional meetings and in its August assembly to determine its course of action in response to the CDF assessment.

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PHILIPPINES
Business Mirror

Tuesday, 12 June 2012 19:44 Rene Acosta and Zaff Solmerin

A 45-year-old pastor of the Lord of Nation Church was arrested by agents of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) based on a complaint of a 17-year-old girl, who he has allegedly sexually abused for almost 10 months until the girl was rescued on Monday in Mandaluyong City.


CIDG head Chief Supt. Samuel Pagdilao said the suspect was Antonio Llamado, 45, and resident of Mandaluyong City.

Pagdilao said elements of the Women and Children Protection Division, led by Senior Supt. Emma Libunao, rescued the victim from the suspect’s house where he was also arrested.


Citing the victim’s account, Libunao said Llamado recruited the girl into the sect in August 2011.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 12 June 2012 (VIS) – Given below is the text of an English-language statement released by the director of the Holy See Press Office concerning a meeting held at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about the doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR.

“Today the superiors of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith met with the president and executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in the United States of America. Archbishop Peter J. Sartain of Seattle, the Holy See’s delegate for the doctrinal assessment of the LCWR, also participated in the meeting.

“The meeting provided the opportunity for the Congregation and the LCWR officers to discuss the issues and concerns raised by the doctrinal assessment in an atmosphere of openness and cordiality.

“According to Canon Law, a conference of major superiors such as the LCWR is constituted by and remains under the supreme direction of the Holy See in order to promote common efforts among the individual member institutes and cooperation with the Holy See and the local conference of bishops (cf. Code of Canon Law, canons 708-709). The purpose of the doctrinal assessment is to assist the LCWR in this important mission by promoting a vision of ecclesial communion founded on faith in Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Church as faithfully taught through the ages under the guidance of the Magisterium.

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CANADA
CBC News

The former spokesperson for the Diocese of Antigonish will return to work this fall.

Rev. Paul Abbass was asked to take leave in February after the Department of Community Servcies received a complaint in relation to his work with Talbot House – a former men’s addiction and rehabilitation facility outside Sydney.

In April, Cape Breton Regional Police said they would not press charges against the priest. They did not reveal the details of the complaint, other than to say it was in his capacity as the centre’s executive director.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

Jurors in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse case Monday sent a few more questions to the judge that took a few more passes over well-plowed ground.

Jurors then followed up those questions by re-hearing a two-hour transcript of the 2008 church canonical trial of Father James J. Brennan read into the record back on April 30th by Msgr. Kevin Quirk. The transcript told the priest’s version of the night he was accused of allegedly attempting to rape 14-year-old Mark Bukowski.

By day’s end, the jurors seemed stuck on the Father Brennan case. Meanwhile, the judge appeared crabby, the prosecutors seemed edgy and the defense lawyers couldn’t be blamed if they were daring to dream about a hung jury.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson and Walt Hunter

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The jury in the clergy sexual abuse case has finished its sixth day of deliberations without reaching a verdict.

The jury broke for the day after re-hearing trial testimony of statements made by defendant James Brennan during a church investigation of allegations of an assault during an overnight stay at the priest’s apartment.

Father James Brennan is accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in 1996. During questioning by a church official in 2008, Brennan categorically denied he sexually assaulted the teen during that overnight stay at the priest’s apartment–or ever–although he conceded he did make a number of regrettable decisions that night, including giving into the boy’s demand to look at pornography on the internet. He also acknowledged that they slept in the same bed.

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VATICAN CITY
adnkronos

Vatican City, 11 June (AKI) – Pope Benedict XVI’s former butler, who was detained last month over the leaks of sensitive papal documents, has asked for bail, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Monday.

”Paolo Gabriele’s application for bail has been presented by his lawyers and will be considered. For now, he is still detained,” Lombardi told journalists.

He denied that Gabriele, who was arrested in late May after private papal docuements were found in his Vatican apartment, was a scapegoat.

“The idea that Paolo Gabriele is a scapegoat doesn’t correspond to reality. On the contrary, the investigation that is being carried out aims to establish if one or more people are responsible,” Lombardi stated.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Democrat

By KATHERINE JARVIS
dailydemocrat.com
Created: 06/11/2012

A former Woodland priest has had his preliminary hearing continued until July, according to Sacramento Superior Court records.

The Rev. Uriel Ojeda, 32, served as a priest at Woodland’s Holy Rosary Catholic Church from 2007 until 2009. His hearing Friday was continued until 8:30 a.m. Friday, July 20, at the Sacramento Downtown Courthouse, 720 Ninth St.

He pleaded not guilty in April to seven counts of committing lewd and lascivious acts with a girl under the age of 14 between 2007 and 2009.

The criminal complaint states the crimes occurred in Sacramento and Shasta counties, where Ojeda was a parochial vicar at Our Lady of Mercy parish in Redding.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

In the White House and other major global institutions, daily press briefings are as routine as opening the mail and turning on the lights. Not so at the Vatican, where, in the ordinary course of affairs, journalists who cover the place can sometimes go long stretches without even laying eyes on the official spokesperson, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi.

Yet since the Vatican leaks scandal reached a crescendo on May 25 with the arrest of the pope’s butler, Lombardi has been channeling Jay Carney, offering briefings on a daily basis – sometimes to update the judicial process against Paolo Gabriele, the butler, though more often to deny whatever rumors and speculation popped up in the Italian papers that morning.

That was the case again on Monday, when Lombardi convened reporters for roughly a half-hour session.

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UNITED STATES
The Wall Street Journal

Associated Press

NEW YORK — A conflict that has entangled the Vatican, American bishops and the largest umbrella group for U.S. nuns may seem to have erupted suddenly, but it actually has its roots in decades-old disputes over Roman Catholic teaching.

The headlines came in April, when the Vatican orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, concluded that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had strayed far from authentic doctrine and gave three American bishops the authority to overhaul the organization.

The board for the nuns’ group responded by calling the Vatican’s investigation flawed and its conclusions unsubstantiated. Top executives of the sisters’ organization are bringing their concerns to a meeting Tuesday in Rome with Vatican officials.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Pope Benedict’s representative Cardinal Marc Ouellet is to visit President Michael D Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin today.

The Papal Legate is in Dublin to represent the pope at the 2012 International Eucharistic Congress. …

Today’s activities at the congress are built around the theme of “Communion in Marriage and the Family”.

Archbishop of Manila Dr Luis Antonio Tagle will speak at the Congress Village in the RDS about child abuse, with a focus on accepting responsibility and bringing healing.

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UTAH
Daily Herald

PROVO — Prosecutors have dismissed a sex abuse case against an elderly man because the man died.

Prosecutors charged Larry Harmon, 79, with first-degree felony aggravated sexual abuse of a child in March. However, on June 4 prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the case. Prosecutor Julia Thomas said last week that the motion was filed after Harmon died of natural causes.

According to court documents, the abuse occurred on Dec. 10 at an LDS Church building in Orem. Harmon was helping set up for a Christmas party, the documents state, when he found an adolescent girl alone in the kitchen. Harmon reportedly approached the girl from behind, then embraced and groped her.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

Leaders of the largest group of US nuns are due to meet Vatican officials in a bid to defuse an escalating row.

A Vatican report in April accused the nuns of adopting “certain radical feminist themes” and of ignoring official church teaching.

Nuns from the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, say they have been unjustly criticised.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said they hoped to forge a “mutual understanding” with the nuns.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By Lisa Wangsness
| Globe Staff
June 12, 2012

Last week an obscure 2006 book on sexual ethics by a nun, a retired Yale Divinity School theologian, rocketed to number 13 on Amazon’s bestseller list.

Its dazzling success came courtesy of the Vatican, which sparked readers’ interest with its stern warning that Sister Margaret Farley’s “Just Love’’ contradicted Catholic teaching. Using justice as a framework for sexual ethics, Farley had written that masturbation, gay marriage, and divorce could be seen as morally acceptable.

The church’s edict was the latest crackdown by the Vatican and US bishops on American nuns who as scholars, activists, and institutional leaders push the boundaries of Catholic doctrine.

But, as leaders of a group of nuns arrive in Rome on Tuesday to meet with Vatican officials over recent sanctions, their supporters say the hierarchy’s actions have widened the chasm between the church’s male overseers and ordinary Catholics. Sisters have long been the face of the church to many of its people through their work in education, health care, and social justice.

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UNITED STATES
Politic365

BY KIMORA COCHRAN

In 2007 Juanita Bynum called the police on her estranged husband, Preacher Thomas W. Weeks III, after he allegedly attacked her. Weeks was ultimately charged with aggravated assault and terroristic threats. In 2010 Bishop Eddie Long was in the middle of a despicable scandal after five young men accused him of sexual coercion – said to begin when the males were only minors. Despite his death in 2011, beloved Pastor Pastor Zachery Tims Jr. caught national headlines after being found dead in a New York hotel room with a glassine envelope containing (what was believe to cocaine). Most recently, mega church Pastor Creflo Dollar was arrested as a result of his daughter calling police with claims of domestic abuse.

Almost once a year the media has a field day making a mockery of the Black church through the shortcomings and alleged criminal matters of a prestigious pastor. By no means should criminality in the pulpit be condoned. However, the alleged iniquities of a pastor capturing more notoriety than the philanthropy occurring inside churches daily should be considered sinful in and of itself.

The Black church is not only the oldest African American institution, but the largest, most viable institution for African American philanthropy. Not to mention, the Black church has played a pivotal role in securing civil rights for African Americans throughout history, and continues to be a significant element in African American advancement. The black church is at the heart of educating the African American community about incentives or political issues that are beneficial to enchanting the lives of African Americans. Many Black churches are not only focused on meeting the basic needs of people, but also on promoting economic empowerment and development.

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FLORIDA
Florida Baptist Witness

Jun 12, 2012
By JAMES A. SMITH SR.

JACKSONVILLE (FBW)—The Florida Baptist Convention has filed two post-trial motions seeking reversal of an “inconsistent” May 17 jury verdict that found it liable for sexual abuse committed by a former church-planting pastor.

While the jury found the Convention liable for sexual abuse of a minor committed by a church planting-pastor, it also agreed with the Convention’s contention the pastor was not its employee.

“You can’t make a finding that we’re responsible for, in essence, behavior that is associated with someone who’s under my employ and then turn around and make a decision factually that the person was never under my employ,” said E.T. Fernandez III in a June 7 interview with Florida Baptist Witness.

“Legally, we call that an inconsistent verdict,” the Jacksonville-based attorney representing the Convention explained.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A telephone counselling service for victims of sexual abuse recorded a 22% increase in calls last year, following the publication of reports of abuse in Catholic diocese.

The Connect service, which is funded by the Health Service Executive, said it received a total of 10,384 calls last year.

The service was established in 2006 following demands from groups representing survivors of institutional abuse for an independent and professional out-of-hours counselling and support service.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS: THE CHURCH “has to find new ways of being present in a new Irish society” the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said.

It “must rediscover its own sense of communion and sense of common purpose, overcoming its internal divisions in a spirit of love of the church and in a dialogue of charity”.

He was speaking on “The Church in the Modern World” in the RDS, Dublin, on day two of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress, of which he is president.

The venue was overcrowded, leaving an estimated 80 pilgrims protesting loudly outside and complaining about the organisation of the event.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

An article in last Friday’s edition, which profiled Cardinal Marc Ouellet, said that almost half of Irish priests are members of the Association of Catholic Priests. In fact, the number of priest (diocesan and religious) members of the association is almost 1,000.

The Catholic Church in Ireland has 4,475 priests, of whom 2,747 are diocesan priests.

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UNITED STATES
USA Today

[wth video]

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo is a stickler for doctrine. He’s one of three bishops named by the Vatican to take over running the umbrella group of U.S. nuns and sisters called the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, is tired of bishops being blamed for beating up on saintly sisters.

He’s got good cause, says Blair, who issued a column and YouTube video blasting the LCWR again this weekend. It is Blair’s research that prompted a stinging report of the LCWR as dissenters who fail to live holy lives and promote true doctrine.

Blair says he can “only marvel” at the misrepesentations of the bishops’ intentions.

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KENTUCKY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on June 11, 2012

It’s pretty clear that Owensboro Catholic officials have endangered kids – and broken the church’s abuse policy – for years, by hiding at least one credible child sex abuse allegation against a priest from parishioners and the public.

Last week, Fr. Louis Francis Piskula was arrested and charged with sodomy and child sexual abuse. The official statement released by the diocese admitted that Fr. Piskula “had not been in any ministerial assignment since 2002 in accordance with the policies enacted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

In plain English, what this means is that Fr. Piskula had been secretly ousted from active parish ministry a decade ago because of a credible child sex abuse report.

Yet, as best we can tell, neither Owensboro Bishop William Medley, nor his predecessor Bishop John McRaith, nor any other current or former diocesan staffer ever disclosed this fact.

And their secrecy, we fear, may have enabled Fr. Piskula to molest again. We have no evidence of this, but the chances seem slim that a child molester kept “under the radar” for decades would assault a child in 1978 and never touch another kid again.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

Day 6 of jury deliberations got underway Monday afternoon in the groundbreaking priest-sex-abuse trail that has a church official on trial for allegedly transferring predator priests within the ministry.

Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged with crimes for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints. He’s charged with conspiracy and child endangerment for his actions as secretary of clergy at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Lynn, 61, says he took orders from his archbishop, and did what he could to get accused priests into treatment from 1992 to 2004.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

In 2002, Church-bashing attorney Jeff Anderson filed the suit John V. Doe vs. Holy See, an attempt by the contingency lawyer to generate sensational headlines and blame the Vatican for the abuse committed decades ago by a priest in the United States who was laicized in 1966 and died in 1992.

Ten years later, the legal wranglings in this case continue, and now TheMediaReport.com has found itself caught in the crossfire.

In a recent declaration in the case, professional Church critic and dissident priest Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, O.P., who is acting as an expert witness for the plaintiff, falsely accused defense attorneys for The Holy See of obtaining information from TheMediaReport.com and then using it in a reply brief.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 11, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — Responding to an NCR question, the Vatican spokesperson today said he hopes tomorrow’s meeting between leaders of the largest organization of women religious in the United States and Vatican officials will lead to “reciprocal understanding.”

Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi spoke during a daily news briefing, which was largely devoted to the latest developments in the on-going “Vati-leaks” scandal, which at the moment are focused on the recently deposed president of the Vatican Bank, Italian layman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi.

Asked by NCR to comment on the Vatican’s hopes for tomorrow’s meeting involving two officials of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, along with Vatican officials and Archbishop James Sartain of Seattle, tapped by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to oversee a Vatican-mandated process of reform, Lombardi said he couldn’t add much, but that the hope is always for mutual understanding.

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VATICAN CITY
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By NICOLE WINFIELD
The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican says it “truly regrets” the publication of a letter from a psychotherapist detailing the mental health of the Vatican’s recently ousted bank chief.

The letter was published in an Italian newspaper Saturday and appeared aimed at discrediting and humiliating the bank’s ex-president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, long a top papal adviser. The bank’s board ousted Gotti Tedeschi on May 24, accusing him of failing to do his job and impeding the Vatican’s efforts to be more financially transparent.

It is unclear who leaked the letter.

In a statement Monday to The Associated Press, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the publication of the letter was “completely unacceptable and cause for true regret, in particular from the point of view of the respect that should be owed to the interested people.”

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UNITED STATES
National Post (Canada)

Charles Lewis Jun 11, 2012

I spent all of last week looking into a battle that has broken out between American nuns and the Vatican. That story appeared in Saturday’s National Post.

Most of the American press has played this as an outright attack on the religious sisters. My suspicion is those in the secular press coming to the aid of the sisters are happy to take any opportunity to make the men of the Vatican look like women-hating ogres. These are not people who love or even like the Catholic Church so when they see an opening they cannot help but jump right in. They do not love the nuns but they do dislike the Church.

That is not to say that the nuns do not have some strong points in this spat but it is simply unfair to think the Vatican may not have a few good points of its own. One nun I spoke to accused me of being biased and a bit slow because I dared to ask questions about some of her assumptions — a funny habit that reporters have. Her message was simple: you can mess with the Vatican but do not dare to question the nuns.

That did not stop me from quoting her but she is definitely off my Christmas card list.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Mercury

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A jury is back at work for a sixth day in a groundbreaking priest-abuse trial in Philadelphia.

Seven men and five women are weighing charges that a Roman Catholic church official conspired to endanger children in the Philadelphia archdiocese by keeping predators in ministry.

Monsignor William Lynn says he took orders from his archbishop, and did what he could to get accused priests into treatment from 1992 to 2004.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

Jurors in the landmark sex-abuse trial of two Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests resumed deliberations this afternoon after a three-day break.

The panel last met on Thursday, when Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina agreed to jury’s request to be excused all of Friday and Monday morning because of graduations and other family commitments.

They also have requested to be off Wednesday if they had not reached verdicts against Msgr. William J. Lynn and the Rev. James J. Brennan.

The panel of seven men and five women got the case June 1 after 11 weeks of trial. Thursday was the first day since the jurors started that they did not ask the judge and lawyers for legal guidance or pieces of evidence to review.

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WEST VIRGINIA
The Intelligencer

June 11, 2012

By BETSY BETHEL Associate Life Editor , The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register

As the man accused of perpetrating sexual crimes against children at Penn State University prepares to face a jury this week, legislation enacted by West Virginia lawmakers following that scandal are now in effect.

But what does the new law – which was implemented Friday – mean exactly for West Virginia residents?

For anyone 18 or over, the bill requires that if you receive a “credible disclosure” or “observe any sexual abuse of a child,” you must report it to law enforcement or to Child Protective Services, a division of the W.Va. Department of Health and Human Resources, for further investigation. If you don’t do so within 48 hours, you could be found guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to up to 30 days in jail and up to $1,000 fine.

For example, if a child tells a neighbor he or she has been sexually abused, that neighbor is required by law to call the police or CPS within two days. The neighbor is also encouraged to report a suspicion of abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

As a new work week begins, more outstanding commentary from Jerry Slevin about the challenges that the Philadelphia archdiocesan trial poses to the Catholic hierarchy, and lessons the U.S. bishops might take away from that trial, as they convene in Atlanta this week for their semi-annual meeting. As always, Jerry speaks out of years of experience as a highly effective and well-trained Harvard-educated attorney. The following is Jerry’s text:

BACKGROUND ON CHALLENGES

2002—Shocking Boston Revelations:

Ten years ago, the Boston Globe shocked millions of American Catholics. Its investigation revealed widespread sexual abuse over decades of numerous defenseless Boston children by many predatory priests. The Globe found that known rapist priests often had been protected and reassigned by Cardinal Law. The Cardinal then fled to the welcoming comfort of a Vatican villa, shielded from prosecution by purported Vatican immunity.

An outraged American public pressured U.S. Bishops in 2002 to accept a voluntary child protection program, including a Charter for the Protection of Children (Charter). The Charter was adopted, after changes resulting from Vatican pressure to water it down, by the overall national organization, the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (the “USCCB” or the “U.S. Bishops”) for implementation by individual bishops as they saw fit. The Charter, however, continued to leave the critical management of predatory priests, and the essential reporting of child sex abuse abuse claims involving priests, up to the unaccountable discretion of individual bishops mainly.

This week, the U.S. Bishops will, under likely close papal oversight, review in Atlanta at their semi-annual meeting the Charter’s effectiveness over the past decade. The U.S. Bishops are expected to adopt changes in light of the Charter’s ten-year very mixed record, including in Philadelphia.

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CANADA
CBC News

A victim of sexual abuse is applauding the Archdiocese of Moncton for offering counselling and compensation to victims of a former priest in Cap-Pelé.

The diocese announced last week that it had retained Michel Bastarache, the former Supreme Court of Canada justice, to handle all the sexual abuse complaints against Camille Léger, who died in 1990 and was never convicted of any crimes.

Normand Brun came forward 15 years ago to say he was abused as a child by Léger.

Brun received a cheque from the church in 1997, but says he wishes the church had dealt with him back then the way it’s proceeding now.

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VATICAN CITY
The Sacramento Bee

By PETER MAYER
dpa

Published: Monday, Jun. 11, 2012

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict’s butler remains the only person under investigation for the recent theft of Vatican documents, but he is not being treated as a “scapegoat,” the pontiff’s spokesman said Monday.

“It seems to me definitively clear that the notion of a scapegoat does not reflect reality,” Father Federico Lombardi said.

He again denied reports in the Italian media that some church officials, including cardinals – as well as one or more journalists – are also being treated as suspects in the so-called Vatileaks case.

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OSTERREICH
Salzburg@ORF

Die Klasnic-Kommission hat das mutmaßliche Missbrauchsopfer des Herz-Jesu-Missionars Martin Borman entschädigt. Martin Borman soll vor rund 50 Jahren in Liefering einen Schüler sexuell missbraucht haben.

Der prominente Herz-Jesu-Missionar Martin Bormann, Sohn des Hitler-Vertrauen Martin Bormann, soll vor rund 50 Jahren einen Schüler sexuell missbraucht haben. Bormann schied Jahre später aus dem Orden aus. Er leidet heute an Demenz.

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OSTERREICH
Kurier

Bei den Kirchenaustrittszahlen habe sich die Lage “sehr beruhigt”: Man sei fast wieder auf das Niveau in der Zeit vor Bekanntwerden der Missbrauchsfälle zurückgegangen, so Eisenstadts Diözesanbischof Ägidius Zsifkovics. Im Vorjahr traten im Burgenland 1483 Personen (0,73 Prozent) aus der Katholischen Kirche aus, 2010 wollten 1971 Menschen von der Kirche nichts mehr wissen.

Man bemühe sich, den Menschen, die enttäuscht seien und die sich “losgesagt” hätten, nachzugehen. Sie erhalten dieser Tage einen Brief des Bischofs, in dem sie eingeladen werden, den Austritt zu überdenken, so Zsifkovics. 75 Personen sind im Vorjahr im Burgenland wieder in die Kirche eingetreten.

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DEUTSCHLAND
PR – Sozial

Berlin (dts) – Robert Zollitsch, Freiburger Erzbischof, sucht nach einem Mittel gegen das Ungehorsamkeitsvirus unter Priestern: Seit Ende vergangener Woche fordern rund 160 Geistliche aus seinem Bistum in einem neuen Memorandum Reformen in ihrer Kirche. “Die Menschen in den Gemeinden sollen erkennen, wo wir stehen”, heißt es in einem Schreiben der 13 Initiatoren, das dem “Spiegel” vorliegt und in dem sich diese dazu bekennen, trotz Verbots auch wiederverheirateten Geschiedenen die Kommunion zu erteilen. Ein Freiburger Pfarrer verweist auf den Fall einer Katholikin, die vor rund 50 Jahren ihre erste Ehe eingegangen war. Schon nach einem Jahr zerbrach die Beziehung; bald darauf fand die Frau einen neuen Mann. Mit dem ist sie nun schon fast fünf Jahrzehnte lang verheiratet, darf aber nicht mehr zur Kommunion.

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NEW YORK
The Daily Beat

Jesse Ellison

Since The New York Times’s report on sex abuse at the elite prep school, countless other alleged victims are telling their stories online. Jesse Ellison on the scandal’s new depth. Plus, read the school’s letter to alumni.

On Wednesday, The New York Times posted “Prep School Predators” to its website, a 9,000-word narrative tracing the “secret history of sexual abuse” at New York’s elite academy The Horace Mann School. The story—treatise, really—will be on the cover of the paper’s Sunday magazine. It almost instantly shot to the top of the Most E-mailed list, gathering nearly 800 comments in the first 48 hours alone.

Within hours, multiple Facebook groups—specifically intended for other victims and school alumni—had been created. One of them, a private group called “Processing Horace Mann,” ballooned to more than 1,400 members within 25 hours of its genesis. It now has more than 1,900.

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NEW YORK
New York Times

Op-Ed Contributor
By RICHARD B. GARTNER

Published: June 7, 2012

THE revelation this week of alleged widespread child abuse at the elite Horace Mann School in New York City, most of it occurring during the 1970s and ’80s, is only the most recent instance of men coming forward, many years after the fact, with horrific stories of sexual molesting from their childhood.

Most of those accused of the abuse in the Horace Mann case are dead, but under New York State law, if alive they would most likely be safe from justice. The state’s statute of limitations on child abuse is five years from the victim’s 18th birthday. After age 23, the victim has no recourse.

Yet young adults, particularly men, who suffer the aftereffects of abuse are rarely in an emotional state to bring charges. Given what we now know about why it takes victims so long to come forward, the law needs to be changed.

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NEW YORK
Spiegel

Von Marc Pitzke, New York

Eine der elitären Privatschulen New Yorks erlebt einen Skandal, der an die Vorgänge an der deutschen Odenwaldschule erinnert: Jahrzehntelang sollen Lehrer der Horace Mann School ihre Schutzbefohlenen sexuell missbraucht haben. Dutzende Ex-Schüler berichten Schreckliches.

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NEW YORK
New York Times

By AMOS KAMIL

Published: June 6, 2012

From the elevated platform of the No. 1 train’s last stop at 242nd Street, you can just about see the lush 18-acre campus of the Horace Mann School. The walk from the station is short, but it traverses worlds. Leaving the cluttered din of Broadway, you enter the leafy splendor of Fieldston, an enclave of mansions and flowering trees that feels more like a wealthy Westchester suburb than the Bronx. Head up the steep hill, turn left, then walk a bit farther, past the headmaster’s house. From the stone wall that runs along Tibbett Avenue, you can see practically the whole school: Pforzheimer Hall, Mullady Hall, the auditorium, the gymnasium and, right in the center, the manicured green expanse of the baseball field, home of the Lions, pride of the school.

It was this field that drew me to Horace Mann 33 years ago, pulling me out of Junior High School 141 in the Bronx, with its gray-green walls and metal-caged windows. At 141, my friends’ résumés read like a crime blotter: Jimmy stole a pizza truck and dropped out after ninth grade; Eggy was done with 141 after he smashed the principal’s glasses with a right hook; Ish liked to pelt the Mister Softee truck with rocks; Bend-Over Bob OD’d and lived; Frankie was not so lucky. My future would have tracked swiftly in the same direction but for one factor: baseball. By 14, I had a sweet swing, with the arm, hands and game smarts to match. …

Somary died in February 2011, from complications related to a stroke. “Now this wonderful, wonderful man is trying to shape up the heavenly chorus, and God bless him,” says a Class of 1957 obituary on a Yale alumni Web site. “They will sing everything his way.”

E. B. phoned Kelly to implore him not to sponsor any memorial service. Kelly told him none was planned. But shortly thereafter, the school’s director of alumni relations sent an e-mail inviting certain alumni to the Johannes Somary Memorial Concert at the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. According to the school, Somary’s widow, a retired Horace Mann teacher, and his children, who were all alumni, “asked to communicate with their former students and classmates, and they were granted limited access to the database of alumni.” E. B., whose e-mail address was not included in that mailing, called to demand an explanation and was told that the school did not endorse the concert.

A few days later, E. B. says he wrote a letter to Archbishop Timothy Dolan explaining the situation and asking him “as the spiritual head of the Archdiocese of New York to rescind permission that has been given by the organizers of this concert to use this sacred space.” The church did not respond, he says, but the location for the concert was changed to the Great Hall in Cooper Union.

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VATIKAN
Volksbegehren Gegen Kirchenprivilegien

Der am 24. Mai gefeuerte Chef der Vatikanbank IOR, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, bangt um sein Leben. Den römischen Staatsanwälten, die ihn am Mittwoch wegen Verdachts auf Missachtung von Anti-Geldwäsche-Gesetzen vernommen haben, berichtete er, dass er fürchte, getötet zu werden. Laut der Turiner Tageszeitung “La Stampa” sei Gotti Tedeschis Leben gefährdet, weil er Transparenz in der Vatikanbank IOR und die Anpassung an die internationalen Gesetze zur Bekämpfung der Geldwäsche durchsetzen wollte.

Gotti Tedeschi vermutete außerdem, dass Inhaber einiger anonymen IOR-Konten hochrangige Mitglieder der Mafia seien, so das Blatt. Die italienischen Justizbehörden überlegen, Gotti Tedeschi unter Polizeischutz zu stellen, berichtete die römische Tageszeitung “La Repubblica”.

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WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Ernst-Ulrich Franzen for the Editorial Board

June 11, 2012

The Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese did the right thing last week in placing a soon-to-retire priest on administrative leave while it investigates an allegation of sexual abuse three decades ago. The accusation is just that right now, an accusation; it does not mean that Father John Schreiter of St. John Neumann parish in Waukesha is guilty of anything. But administrative leave is appropriate as church officials investigate the allegation in accordance with archdiocesan policy.

This was the second accusation against Schreiter – the first, in 2004, was investigated and found to be unsubstantiated – and the archdiocese needs to act quickly and thoroughly with any accusation.
We do wish, however, Vicar General Bill Kohler had used more temperate language in telling parishioners about the investigation on Sunday.

“You know that the victims have lawyers, and you know they’re watching us,” he said. “You watch television. You see the kinds of things they say about the church on the courthouse steps. You don’t want that kind of antic to take place against you. So right now, we’ll just have to delay father’s retirement, just put it on hold, until we can conclude this very difficult process.”

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ALBANY (NY)
My Fox New York

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – The Vermont lawyer for a sexual abuse victim of a New York priest serving a 20-year prison sentence says the civil case could expose the way the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany handled sexual abuse allegations against priests.

Burlington attorney Jerome O’Neill says the case against the diocese and 68-year-old former priest Gary Mercure was filed in federal court in Vermont because the state’s statute of limitations is longer than New York’s.

The victim, now 36, testified during Mercure’s criminal trial in Massachusetts that the priest raped him in New York and Massachusetts in the 1980s. The current complaint says abuse took place in Vermont as well.

O’Neill is seeking documents from the diocese.

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UNITED STATES
CBS Chicago

[with audio]

[Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People]

CHICAGO (CBS) — Ten years ago in Dallas, American Catholic bishops responded to an exploding priest sex abuse scandal with a “zero tolerance” charter.

Now as WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya reports, there are those who see the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “Charter on the Protection of Children and Youth” as a success and those who don’t.

Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, bishops continue to break the zero tolerance charter because there are no consequences.

Locally, she points to child predator former priest Daniel McCormack. She says, Cardinal Francis George had information, “knew McCormack was a predator, left him in ministry, even gave him a promotion.”

Archdiocese chancellor Jim Lago calls the Fr. McCormack case, “the exception”. He says any allegation that comes in whether current or from years ago is reported to civil authorities, to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

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AUSTRALIA
PR Web

Adelaide, Australia (PRWEB) June 11, 2012

An insider’s perspective can sometimes be the most clear. Father James Valladares takes a hard look at recent child abuse allegations against the Catholic church in his new book, “Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast: A Research Study on Procedural Justice for Priests-Diocesan and Religious” (published by iUniverse).

The book is a culmination of intense research and hours of candid conversations that Fr. Valladares facilitated among both priests and religious superiors. The goal, he says, was to determine a procedure for dealing with abuse allegations that would not compromise priest’s basic right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty as well as the sacred relationship between a priest and his superior.

“The deadliest attacks to the Catholic church are coming from within its own walls,” Fr. Valladares says. “I conducted this study to show that society is effectively tarring all priests with the same brush, using the allegations against a select few to discredit others.”

The procedure that Fr. Valladares developed, which is outlined in the book, is based on Scripture, Church traditions and teachings, as well as canon law, moral theology, and pastoral praxis. Using this procedure, allegations can be promptly addressed without compromising the basic right of presumed innocence.

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GERMANY
netzwerkB

[ICH BIN IM HUNGERSTREIK]

With the occurrence of the scandals about sexualized violence in the year 2012, much has been discussed, but so far, little has happened. Instead of addressing seriously the problem of sexualized violence in Germany, the parties have issued programs, which were supposed to impede sexualized violence in the public space, but do not tackle its causes. Sexualized violence still happens in secret.

In reverse, netzwerkB (networkB) has championed for the abolition of the statute of limitations in order to ensure a continued debate about its causes. As the experiences of violence are so dramatic regarding sexualized violence, the affected victims never find true, inner peace. Therefore, it represents a deeply incisive injustice when the victims, in the course of their lives, finally are ready to file suit, and evidence is available – yet they may not file suit. The state establishes legal peace solely on behalf of the perpetrators. Also an extension of the statute of limitations does not stop this injustice.

Because of these facts, we at networkB cannot join the compromise to extend the statute of limitations in order to then keep silent. We see abolition as the only correct step. None of the political parties wants to take this step because, allegedly, we must bygones let be bygones. networkB sees this differently: of course, we must face the past because the past, and especially in the case of sexualized violence, determines our actions. Without the consistent processing of our past, we have few chances to change society in a sustained manner and to liberate it from sexual violence.

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ITALY
BBC News

Italy’s Catholic Church faces an annual multi-million euro bill over government plans to strip it of its tax-exempt status.

Prime Minister Mario Monti has announced the Vatican must pay taxes on non-religious property, from which it previously enjoyed an exemption.

The annual cost could be up to 720m euros ($945m; £598m) according to municipal government bodies.

Italy’s Catholic Church has 110,000 properties, worth about 9bn euros.

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UNITED STATES
SBC Plodder

William Thornton

We are autonomous; always have been and always will be.

Every church that identifies with the SBC, with any state Baptist convention, with any local association of Baptist churches hires and fires their own clergy and any crime committed by the pastor or staff is a local church matter, Responsibility and liability fall to the individual and perhaps the church.

Right?

Yes, maybe, sort-of. But not always.

Last month a jury in Florida held the Florida Baptist Convention and the Lake County Baptist Association partially liable for a pastor of two FBC church plants who was convicted of abusing a boy. (My blog on this case is here.) The FBC and association provided funding and training and were found to have been negligent in checking the perpetrator’s former churches.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

Vatican seeks ‘reciprocal understanding’ with visiting US nuns over Rome’s crackdown

By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, June 11

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican says it’s hoping to forge a “reciprocal understanding” with U.S. nuns over its recent crackdown on the largest umbrella group of American sisters.

Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, is to meet Tuesday with the head of the Vatican’s doctrine office, American Cardinal William Levada, as well as with the bishop who has been named to oversee a Vatican-mandated overhaul of the group.

The Vatican in April accused the nuns of promoting “certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

The LCWR says the Vatican inquiry was “flawed” and said Farrell will raise the group’s concerns with Levada.

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WAUKESHA (WI)
Fox 11

WAUKESHA (AP) – The Archdiocese of Milwaukee says it has placed a Waukesha priest on leave while it investigates an allegation of sexual abuse.

The archdiocese’s move comes two weeks before Father John Schreiter is scheduled to retire. The archdiocese says he has denied the allegations and is cooperating with the investigation. The accusation surfaced as part of the archdiocese’s bankruptcy filing. Schreiter is accused of sexually abusing a minor three decades ago. The incident was reported to the Waukesha County district attorney, who declined to prosecute.

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UNITED STATES
Injury Board Blog Network

Video Worth Watching Concerning Priest Abuse Fallout in Philadelphia, Boston

Posted by Mike Bryant
June 10, 2012

Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org was recently interviewed by NECN.com and it is worth watching. She discusses the legal cases of Jesuit priest Donald McGuire in Boston and Philadelphia Monsignor William Lynn.

[video – NECN]

These are each stories that show how far the fight for survivors has come. As she says:

I think what we’re learning is that when prosecutors are determined they’re gonna find a lot to get these enablers I think prosecutors and more willing to get any dollars these days. Basically what I’m seeing how — did is what Bradley — did they knowingly kept child molesters in ministry so we have tough brave prosecutors. These — enablers can finally be held accountable.

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LOGANVILLE (GA)
Patch

When Kathryn R. Byrne, M.P.M., a Life Coach in Loganville, was developing a capstone project as a requirement for her Master of Pastoral Ministry (M.P.M.) from the University of Dallas, she had no idea it would become a published book, let alone an award-winning one. The 2012 Indie Excellence Awards have just released their winners and finalists, and Byrne’s book, Understanding the Abuse of Adults by Catholic Clergy and Religious, earned a Finalist rating in the “Psychology” category. This is the third time Byrne’s book has become an Award-Winning Finalist.

Last year, the same book was an Award-Winning Finalist with both the 2011 International Book Awards, and the USA Book News “Best Books of 2011” Awards. Each of these awards were given in the “Psychology / Mental Health” category.

So what’s so special about this book?

A lot is written about the abuse of children by clergy – and rightfully so! Children who endure sexual abuse at the hands of trusted clergy are deeply harmed, and can suffer for years as a result. But what about adults? Are they abused by clergy, too? Yes!

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

SNAP Responds: Vicar General of Milwaukee Archdiocese assails clergy abuse victims during Mass

Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director (Milwaukee)

CONTACT: 414.429.7259

In condescending, hurtful and, at best, deeply confused remarks announcing the removal this morning of Fr. John Schreiter as pastor of St. John Neumann’s parish for reports of sexually abusing a minor, the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee attacked victims for their “antics” in coming forward and speaking publically about their abuse and expressing their concerns about the lack of transparency and accountability from church officials (read a transcript of Kohler’s remarks or listen to the audio).

Fr. William Kohler, who is also the pastor of St. Leonard’s in Muskego, was explaining why Schreiter—who Kohler clearly believes is innocent—had to unfortunately be removed from his post: “We will pay for it [if we don’t remove Fr. Schreiter], we will pay in the court of public opinion, you know that the victims have lawyers and you know they are watching us. You watch television; you see the kinds of things they say about the church on the courthouse steps. You don’t want that kind of antic to take place against you…”

The parishioners of St. John’s Neumann’s, however, are not on trial in the court of public opinion for raping, sexually assaulting and abusing children and then covering it up. In fact, it was parishioners of St. John’s who alerted victim/survivors and advocates of Schreiter’s removal and who were upset with Kohler’s remarks. Kohler’s paranoid presentation is a perfect illustration of why the archdiocese is in such deep trouble and has lost so much credibility.

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HAWAII
Star-Advertiser

By Derrick DePledge

Victims of childhood sexual abuse in Hawaii will have more time to bring civil lawsuits under a new state law that recognizes that many are often too afraid or ashamed to confront their abusers sooner.

The law provides victims who have been unable to file civil lawsuits because the statute of limitations has expired a two-year window — or until April 2014 — to go to court. Victims can sue their alleged abusers and churches, community groups or businesses that were grossly negligent at preventing sexual misconduct

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

EXCLUSIVE Joseph Catanzaro and Kate Bastians, The West Australian
Updated June 11, 2012

More than 20 WA institutions have been implicated in cases of child abuse and neglect, The West Australian can reveal.

Religious orders and government agencies are among the long list of organisations behind the facilities that have been linked to claims including sexual, physical and psychological abuse.

The State Government has confirmed that 22 institutions were named by child victims in successful applications alleging abuse lodged under the Redress WA scheme.

Ex-gratia payouts of up to $45,000 have since been offered to victims who attended those facilities.

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WAUKESHA (WI)
Fox 6

[with video]

June 10, 2012, by Henry Rosoff

WAUKESHA — A Waukesha priest has been removed from ministry for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor several decades ago. This is the second time in 10 years John Schreiter has been pulled from his parish.

Schreiter is not facing charges in a criminal court, but he is the subject of a review by the church.

Schreiter currently serves as priest at St. John Neumann Church in Waukesha, though he is now on administrative leave.

The announcement was made to the congregation during masses Saturday night and Sunday morning at St. John Neumann Parish.

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HOLYOKE (MA)
WSHM

[with video]

HOLYOKE, MA (WSHM) –
Members of Mater Dolorosa gathered both inside and outside of the church Sunday afternoon.

They showed solidarity in ending their 24/7 vigil 20 days shy of a full year.

The decision followed a directive issued by the Vatican earlier this month that stated those who occupied the church must leave.

However, in the same announcement, the Vatican also said they will hear an appeal on the status of the church building, which helped make the decision easier for the parishioners.

“The Vatican is like our Supreme Court in the United States,” said church spokesman Vic Anop. “They need not take your case if they don’t think it is meritorious. It has to meet a threshold before it goes before the entire Supreme Court. We met that threshold with the information we sent to Rome.”

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HOLYOKE (MA)
WWLP

Anaridis Rodriguez

HOLYOKE, Mass. (WWLP) – Nearly a year after holding an on going prayer vigil inside the Mater Dolorosa church, hundreds gathered to announce they will abide by the Vatican’s request to vacate the parish. “I used to be an altar server here before it closed and yesterday when I was here I was trying to relive the moments when I did,” said 10-year-old Kathryn Fydenkevez Sunday morning inside the church.

For five generations, Fydenkevez’s family has known Mater Dolorosa Church as their second home. On Sunday she and her brother were among the legion of parishioners ready to show they will fight to keep their church open.

Kathryn’s mother, Sharon, told 22News exposing her children to this experience was an easy decision. “They’ve been involved right from the start, right from the start, they didn’t want to leave.”

But a Vatican decree says otherwise. On May 25th, the Vatican tribunal issued a ruling ordering parishioners to leave the parish which has been part of the Holyoke community since the late 1800’s.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Edel O’Connell

Monday June 11 2012

JUST more than half of an expected 20,000 pilgrims descended on Dublin’s RDS yesterday for the opening event of the International Eucharistic Congress.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin and the Papal Legate Cardinal Marc Ouellet addressed an audience made up largely of overseas pilgrims from 123 countries, in a ceremony where numbers were noticeably less than anticipated.

The attendance is a far cry from 1932 when more than a quarter of the population,or one million, attended the international event.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Edel O’Connell

Monday June 11 2012

THE country’s second most senior cleric, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, has insisted the Catholic Church is on a path of renewal but admitted it would be a “lengthy journey”.

Addressing the opening ceremony of the 50th Eucharistic Congress at the RDS in Dublin, Dr Martin said the past 50 years of the Irish Catholic Church had been marked by a “darker side”.

Remembering “all those who suffered abuse and who still today bear the mark of that abuse”, Dr Martin said that the church had engaged in “criminal abuse and neglect of those weakest in our society”.

Children, who should have been the “object of the greatest care, the greatest support and Christ-like love”, he said, had suffered.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 9 June 2012 (VIS) – The Holy See Press Office released the following communique yesterday afternoon:

“The Holy See was surprised and concerned to learn of recent developments involving Professor Gotti Tedeschi. It has the greatest confidence that the Italian judicial authorities will honour and respect the sovereign prerogatives which the Holy See is recognised as having under international law.

“Moreover the Holy See confirms its complete confidence in the people who, with great commitment and professionalism, dedicate their labours to the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), and it is carefully examining the possibility that any harm, to its own rights or to those of its institutions, may have arisen from the current circumstances.

“Finally, it must be reiterated that the motion of no confidence passed against Professor Gotti Tedeschi by the Administrative Board of the IOR was founded on objective reasons concerning the governance of the IOR. It was not determined by any purported opposition to the policy of transparency which, in fact, the Holy See authorities and the IOR itself have very much to heart”.

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NEW YORK
WABC

[with video]

Lucy Yang

CROWN HEIGHTS (WABC) — Sex abuse is a pretty tough topic anywhere. But in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Crown Heights, it is even more difficult to address.

The community has their own rabbinical courts, and traditionally don’t report their own to outside authorities. Now there is an effort to change that.

Mordechi Feinstein says he was sexually abused by a man he once admired – a rabbi. Worse yet, he says his elders protected the rabbi and by doing so sacrificed innocent children like himself.

On Sunday in Crown Heights, survivors, along with the Brooklyn District Attorney are trying to change an age-old practice in the ultra-Orthodox community that keeps victims from reporting any such crimes to the authorities.

Victims can be severely victimized again by their own people if they notify the police or District Attorney instead of the rabbi.

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NEW YORK
CBS New York

NEW YORK(CBSNewYork) — Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes and a panel of community leaders met to discuss sex abuse cases within the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

DA Hynes and civil rights attorney Norman Siegel appeared at a public town-hall meeting in Brooklyn on Sunday, along with child advocates, rabbis, and molestation victims.

Hynes has come under fire in the past for his handling of sexual assault allegations in the community.

The District Attorney defended his policy and said that it was unacceptable for anybody with knowledge of sex abuse to fail to report it to the authorities.

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NEW YORK
WNYC

By Brigid Bergin : WNYC Producer

Mordechai Feinstein felt obligated to tell his story. The 19-year-old stands nearly 6-feet-tall with square shoulders and an unmistakable Brooklyn inflection in his voice. When he was 15, he joined a group led by a local rabbi in Crown Heights who mentored at-risk youth.

“I went there for Sabbath meals. He was the spiritual guide and mentor I would go to when I had questions. He helped get me into different religious schools,” explained Feinstein. “So in effect, he was my personal rabbi.”

This rabbi also became his abuser.

Feinstein shared his story with the approximately 100 ultra-Orthodox that attended the public meeting at the Ohel Nosson Shul in Crown Heights on Sunday. He joined a panel of speakers, including Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, child advocates and rabbis, to talk about how to prevent child sex abuse in the community — and what people could and should do when faced with it.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By REUVEN FENTON and CHUCK BENNETT

Angry members of the city’s ultra Orthodox Jewish community heckled Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes yesterday over his handling of sex-abuse cases in their insular community.

Hynes has been criticized over his controversial decision to not name accused sex offenders from Brooklyn’s Orthodox community in a bid to encourage victims to come forward.

He said since he started his program in 2009, more than 130 victims have reached out to his office because the alleged abuser’s name is kept confidential.

“I have no plans to change that policy,” he said, because it’s working.

One man in the 100-person audience shouted, “Not true! Not true! Your policy is failing!” as others murmured agreement.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

By Reuven Blau / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes shot back Sunday at critics of his controversial practice of not naming ultra-Orthodox Jewish sex-abuse defendants, saying, “My policy is succeeding.”

Hynes came under fire at a Crown Heights town hall meeting for treating accused Orthodox Jewish sex offenders differently from other such suspects.

“If something like this happened in the Italian community, you would give out the names,” civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel told Hynes.

Joel Engelman, 26, a victims advocate, made Hynes bristle when he yelled, “Your policy is failing!”

“My policy is succeeding,” Hynes responded. “Anyone who expresses outrage is not being practical.”

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Brooklyn’s ethically challenged District Attorney Charles Hynes now says his office has brought 130 haredi pedophiles to justice since he opened his special haredi hotline, Kol Tzedek, in 2009.

That figure is 34 pedophiles higher than it was May 19 when Hynes claimed the number was 96 and 31 higher than the 99 figure he used in during the past two weeks.

Moreover, Hynes claimed during that time span that the 99 cases were all prosecutions.

But The Jewish Week, The Guardian, the New York Post and the New York Times have all shown that close to half those cases have not been prosecuted and that many of the others were plea bargains made to very reduced charges.

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NEW JERSEY
Gloucester County Times

By Joe Green/Gloucester County Times

BARRINGTON — A youth mentor at Grace Bible Church here is accused of sexually assaulting a boy he met while volunteering with the church, Camden County Prosecutor Warren W. Faulk announced today.

Samuel Bangs, 23, of Bellmawr, was charged with sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a minor and two counts of criminal sexual conduct.

Authorities allege he engaged in “illegal sexual conduct” with the boy, who was under age 16, “over the past two months,” a statement released by the Prosecutor’s Office said.

Some of the encounters occurred at public parks, investigators said, adding that Bangs was no longer a mentor to the boy when the assaults took place.

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MICHIGAN
Upper Michigan Source

[Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People]

by Dustin Bonk

MARQUETTE — Saint Peter Cathedral in Marquette held a special prayer service Sunday afternoon.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of when the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic church was revealed. Sunday’s prayer service was to commemorate the event and to pray for healing for the victims of sexual abuse and all others that were affected.

After the sexual abuse crisis began, United States bishops devised the charter for the protection of children and young people.

“We are trying very hard to be very vigilant and work very hard to protect children and young and to prevent something like this from ever happening again,” said Bishop Alexander Sample.

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NEW JERSEY
Patch

By Sean McCullen

A Bellmawr man was arrested Saturday and charged with sexually abusing a juvenile boy he met while serving as a “youth mentor” at a Barrington church, authorities announced on Sunday.

Samuel Bangs, 23, has been charged with two counts of criminal sexual contact and single counts of sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

Authorities noted the Bangs was no longer a mentor to the victim at the time the alleged sexual assaults occurred.

The victim was identified in a statement issued Sunday by the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office as a juvenile male under the age of 16. He came forward to authorities with the allegations of sexual abuse on Friday.

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UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic

Monday, June 11, 2012

Bryan Cones

Am I to judge a mentor and friend only by his greatest sin?

A death in the family is often an occasion of mixed emotions—sadness and gratitude, maybe even a little regret. I felt all that and more when I heard of the death of my former bishop, Anthony J. O’Connell, the first bishop of the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee, who welcomed me as a seminarian in 1993 and was a fixture in my life for many years after. He moved to the Diocese of West Palm Beach, Florida in 1998, where his past caught up with him. When news of his abuse of a high school seminarian in the 1970s came to light in 2002, he resigned and spent the rest of his life in a monastery in South Carolina.

When I got the news of my bishop’s resignation, I remember feeling both disbelief and shock. How could the man we called “OC”—my mentor—have been an abuser who admitted to lying naked with and fondling a teenage student multiple times over several years as rector of St. Thomas Seminary, a now-closed high school seminary in Hannibal, Missouri?

On my way to college seminary I had actually met O’Connell’s victim, then a priest of the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, who was then a teacher at St. Thomas. I also encountered O’Connell’s successor as rector, who later was also accused of abuse. And I met Jefferson City’s vocation director, who, it turned out, was in an abusive relationship with the 21-year-old president of our seminary college student body. That “relationship” had been going on for at least six years and would continue for three more before the whole thing finally blew up.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with audio]

By Lexi Metherell

One of the Catholic Church’s most outspoken and loved leaders has encouraged his fellow clergy to keep the pressure on the Vatican to reform, as he prepares to retire.

Father Pat Power has resigned after more than 25 years as the bishop of Canberra and Goulburn.

He has become known as one of the church’s more progressive leaders, questioning the need for priests to be celibate and for women to be excluded from senior roles.

Father Power says the sexual abuse scandals have diminished the authority of the church and warns that unless there is reform, parishes will continue to shrink.

“There’s been the whole question of sexual abuse, which has brought a terrible stain on the life of the church,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
Rutland Herald

[Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People]

This week marks 10 years since the United States’ Catholic bishops met in Dallas to create sweeping reforms in response to a wave of lawsuits and media reports on child sex abuse by multiple priests and a decades-long cover-up by the leaders in the church. The bishops created the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which developed a “one-strike” policy to remove priests credibly accused of a single act of abuse, and started steps to allow for swifter defrocking of predatory clerics. The bishops also allowed the abusive priests’ personnel files — cataloging more than 10,000 instances of abuse — to be studied for evidence of patterns by John Jay College of Criminal Justice. All of this was welcome and constructive.

But — and this is a big but — while the church has reached many settlements with victims of the abuse, including a major one here in Vermont, and many priests who were part of this travesty have been jailed, censured, removed from the priesthood and otherwise punished, there remains one group of Catholics who have escaped any accountability: the bishops themselves.

The bishops are at the heart of what is wrong with the Catholic Church. In practice they are accountable only to the Pope — not to the people they are supposed to serve. And the truth is, American Catholicism has moved far beyond the rigid, unaccountable and irrelevant Vatican hierarchy.

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IRELAND
Sky News (Australia)

An international conference celebrating Roman Catholicism has opened in Ireland against a backdrop of anger over child abuse cover-ups and evidence of declining faith in core church beliefs.

About 12,000 Catholics, many from overseas, gathered for an open-air mass in a half-full Dublin stadium on Sunday at the start of the Eucharistic Congress, a week-long event organised by the Vatican every four years in a different part of the world.

The global gathering, begun in the 19th century and last held in Quebec in 2008, highlights the Catholic Church’s belief in transubstantiation, the idea that bread and wine transforms during mass into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ.

An opinion poll of Irish Catholics found that two-thirds of Irish Catholics don’t believe this, nor do they attend mass weekly.

The survey, published in The Irish Times with an error margin of three points, also found that just 38 per cent believe Ireland today would be in worse shape without its dominant church. And just three-fifths even knew the Eucharistic Congress was coming to Ireland.

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WISCONSIN
WTMJ

[with video]

By Lacey Crisp and the WTMJ News Team

CREATED Jun. 10, 2012

ST. FRANCIS – A Waukesha Catholic priest is now on leave after a sexual abuse allegation. The allegation dates back 30 years.

Parishioners are stunned by the news. However, this is not the first time Father John Schreiter has been accused of sexual abuse.

The Catholic Diocese says he is now on leave, just one week before he was set to retire.

“People looked upset. I saw people crying. People looked shocked,” one parishioner told us.

St. John Neumann Catholic Church parishioners were too upset to show their faces on camera. They say they are in shock that their priest, Father John Schreiter, is now under investigation for sexual abuse.

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IRELAND
Lez Get Real

Posted by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on June 10, 2012.

The Catholic Church in Ireland has never been in as tenuous a situation as it is now. As with much of the world, the people of Ireland are tired of the Catholic Church being intrusive into the nation’s politics as well as the manner in which they covered up the sexual abuse of children. Some 20,000 Catholics, mostly from outside of Ireland, gathered for the open-air Mass held in a Dublin stadium to mark the start of the Eucharistic Congress, which is set to last a week.

The gathering has been held every four years since 1926. Prior to that, it was held ever year from its inception in 1881. It was last held in 2008 in Quebec.

The Church is facing problems with some of its core beliefs. A recent poll of Irish Catholics found that two-thirds of them do not believe in the transubstantiation of the bread and wine during Mass. They do not believe that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ. The polling also found that just 38% of Irish believe that the nation would be in worse shape without the church being in dominance. What is worse, only three-fifths of Catholics knew that the Eucharistic Congress was even going to be in Ireland.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By MARY SANCHEZ
The Kansas City Star

Each Monday afternoon, the priest dutifully drives to keep his 4:15 appointment.

Many people will consider it a meeting with the devil.

The Rev. Chuck Tobin travels to the maximum security federal jail for pretrial defendants in Leavenworth to visit the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, the only Kansas City area priest recently charged in local criminal courts as part of the church sex abuse scandal.

Hate the sin. Love the sinner.

Accusations of pedophilia challenge that spiritual calling perhaps more than any other crime. Even the other inmates despise Ratigan, Tobin said.

Ratigan, he says, is kept in isolation but often endures hours of verbal abuse. Other prisoners scream insults, taunting Ratigan to slit his own throat with a razor the next time guards allow him a shave and a shower. Pedophiles are at the bottom of the food chain in prisons.

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PITTSFIELD (MA)
Berkshire Eagle

Monday June 11, 2012

Berkshire Eagle Staff

PITTSFIELD — A former New York priest convicted of raping two altar boys in the Berkshires in the 1980s is being sued by one of his victims.

The victim, whose name is not being revealed, is suing former Pastor Gary W. Mercure and the Albany Roman Catholic diocese, according to a report in the Albany Times Union.

Mercure, 68, who served in Glens Falls and Queensbury, N.Y., was convicted in a Pittsfield court in 2011 on three counts of forcible rape and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. He was sentenced to 20 to 25 years in prison.

Mercure has been accused of similar crimes in New York and Vermont, but those cases could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out in those states.

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NEW YORK
Albany Times Union

By Brendan J. Lyons

The Albany Roman Catholic diocese’s handling of sexual abuse complaints against priests has the potential to be laid bare in a Vermont federal court where a Glens Falls man has filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the priest who was convicted of taking him across state lines to rape him when he was a young altar boy.

The federal lawsuit is filed against both the diocese and a former pastor, Gary Mercure, in U.S. District Court in Burlington. It was filed there, in part, because Vermont’s statute of limitations, unlike New York’s, allows child abuse victims to sue for damages within six years after they discover any emotional or physical problems attributable to abuse.

“This lawsuit is at an early stage and motions are pending. The claims against the Albany diocese have no factual or legal basis. We intend to vigorously contest them,” Ken Goldfarb, spokesman for the Albany diocese, said Friday.

The victim suing the diocese, now 36, testified last year at Mercure’s criminal trial that the priest raped him several times at the rectory of a Queensbury church, Our Lady of Anunciation. He also accused Mercure of raping him in a car on a ski trip and during a swimming trip to Lake Saint Catherine in Poultney, Vt., in the late 1980s. The identity of the alleged victim, who could not be reached for comment, is being withheld by the Times Union, which refrains from identifying sexual assault victims without their consent.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

POPE BENEDICT XVI will not now be making a live broadcast to the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin next Sunday, as had been expected. A pre-recorded message from him will be shown at the closing Mass in Croke Park instead.

Congress general secretary Fr Kevin Doran said yesterday that weather factors influenced the decision to pre-record the message, although it had never been confirmed that a papal broadcast would be “live”.

He said numbers attending the congress were expected to increase as the week progressed, with a full house in Croke Park next Sunday. Tickets remain available for all congress events.

At a press conference at the RDS yesterday, Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin said there was an awareness among the estimated 7,000 pilgrims from abroad attending the congress “that the Irish church has been through difficult times”.

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WAUKESHA (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Gitte Laasby of the Journal Sentinel

June 10, 2012

A Waukesha priest has been put on administrative leave just two weeks before he was scheduled to retire because allegations surfaced that he sexually abused a minor three decades ago, Milwaukee Archdiocese officials announced over the weekend.

Father John Schreiter was scheduled to retire June 24 from his position as a pastor at St. John Neumann Parish in Waukesha until the allegations surfaced last week as part of the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, spokeswoman Jule Wolf said Sunday.

Vicar General Bill Kohler announced the accusations Sunday morning during Mass at St. John Neumann, calling them “a shock” and “very painful business.”

The allegation was reported to the district attorney’s office, but the DA declined to prosecute, so according to its sexual abuse policy, the Archdiocese has initiated its own investigation, officials said. A private investigator will research it and report to the Diocesan Review Board, which will make a recommendation to Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki, who will decide what will happen to Schreiter, Wolf explained.

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WAUKESHA (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Waukesha priest removed from ministry for sexually assaulting minor; Fr. John Schreiter had been suspended and reinstated once before

June 10, 2012

Waukesha priest removed from ministry for sexual assaulting minor
Fr. John Schreiter had been suspended and reinstated once before

CONTACT
John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director, 414.336.8575
Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director, 414.429.7259

Fr. John Schreiter, pastor of St. John Neumann parish in Waukesha, has been removed from ministry for reports of sexually assaulting a minor several decades ago by Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki. The announcement was made this morning at the conclusion of mass by Fr. Bill Kohler, Vicar General of the Archdiocese. Schreiter had been previously suspended from ministry for sexual abuse allegations in 2004 when he was pastor of St. Bruno’s Church in Dousman. The report was ruled “unsubstantiated” at the time by the archdiocese and Schreiter was reinstated.

“This obviously raises serious questions as to the previous investigation and why Schreiter was put back in ministry in 2004 and allowed to have further access to children,” says John Pilmaier, the Wisconsin Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPwisconsin.com). “But more importantly,” according to Pilmaier, “why has Schreiter been removed and investigated when there are allegedly dozens of more newly named clergy reported to have sexually assaulted children as part of the Milwaukee Archdiocese bankruptcy filing in federal court? Who is vetting the mechanisms and procedures that are supposed to be in place to investigate these dozens of newly alleged child molesters? ”

Schreiter’s previous assignment before becoming pastor of St. John Neumann in June 2010 was St. Katharine Drexel Parish in Beaver Dam. Schreiter worked in several assignments over the course of his career, including St. Gall Parish in Milwaukee’s inner city where Schreiter was Vicar of Inner City Parishes for the archdiocese.

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VATICAN CITY
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

Anti Mafia prosecutors have asked the secretive Vatican Bank to disclose details of an account held by a priest in connection with a money laundering and fraud investigation, it emerged on Sunday.

By Nick Pisa in Rome
10:25PM BST 10 Jun 2012

The official request was made more than a month ago but so far the Vatican Bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, has refused to disclose any records of the account held by father Ninni Treppiedi – who is currently suspended from serving as a priest.

Investigators want to know more about vast sums of money that are said to have passed through his account to establish if they were money laundering operations by on the run Mafia Godfather, Matteo Messina Denaro.

The reports emerged in the Italian media and came just two weeks after the head of the Vatican Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was sacked amid claims of power struggles and corruption within the Holy See which have been linked to the leaking of sensitive documents belonging to Pope Benedict XVI.

More in line with a Dan Brown thriller, it is not the first time that the Vatican Bank has been embroiled in claims of Mafia money laundering. Thirty years ago this month financier Roberto Calvi was found hanging under London’s Blackfriars Bridge with cash and bricks stuffed into his pockets.

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NEW YORK
The Wall Street Journal

Associated Press

NEW YORK — The abuse went on for nearly three years before the schoolgirl told anyone that her spiritual adviser was molesting her while he was supposed to be mentoring her about her religion, authorities said.

But in Brooklyn’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community, 53-year-old Nechemya Weberman has been embraced and defended as wrongly accused. The girl has been called a slut and a troublemaker, her family threatened and spat at on the street.

The rallying around Weberman, who goes on trial this month, and ostracizing of his accuser and her family reflects long-held beliefs in this insular community that problems should be dealt with from within and that elders have far more authority than the young. It also brought to light allegations that the district attorney was too cozy with powerful rabbis, a charge he vehemently denies.

“There are other people that claim misconduct and they can’t come out because they’re going to be re-victimized and ostracized by the community,” said Judy Genut, a friend of the accuser’s family who counsels troubled girls.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY MCGARRY and GENEVIEVE CARBERY

The papal legate to the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin has prayed that the event will “bring a special blessing to Ireland at this turbulent time”.

In a homily at the opening Mass at the RDS this evening, attended by about 12,500 people, Cardinal Mark Ouellett acknowledged that the Church in Ireland is “suffering” and “faces many new and serious challenges” of the faith.

“Well aware of these challenges, we turn together to Our Lord, who renews, heals and strengthens the faith of His people,” he said.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY MCGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

A number of small protests were staged at entrances to the Eucharistic Congress at Dublin’s RDS today.

Separate protests were staged by abuse survivors, a Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) group, Atheist Ireland and a parent and former Dublin school board member who wants his school named after someone other than former arcbishop of Dublin Dermot Ryan.

At the main entrance to the congress site, abuse survivor Paddy Doyle said nobody was listening to the protests. “Priests and bishops are just walking by,” he said.

It was “offensive” to hold the congress in Ireland at this time, he claimed. “There’s s still an awful lot of rawness out there where the abused are concerned. We’re still smarting…after the Redress Board, all the reports,” he said.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A number of protest groups have gathered outside the RDS in Dublin this afternoon to demonstrate against the holding of the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.

About ten people representing Survivors of Child Abuse and survivors of the Magdelene Laundries are demonstrating to highlight their disgust at the refusal of Cardinal Seán Brady to resign as Primate of All Ireland.

SOCA spokesperson John Kelly said it was a small dignified protest. He said thousands of people had wanted to come but as emotions were running so high they felt it would be wrong to do so.

But he said they wanted to send a clear message to the Vatican that no longer would people be able to get immunity from crimes that happen in this country.

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IRELAND
AFP

DUBLIN — Around 20,000 pilgrims on Sunday attended the start of an international Catholic festival of faith and culture in Ireland where the church has been hit by child abuse scandals and falling attendance.

The 50th International Eucharistic Congress began with an open-air mass in the Royal Dublin Society on the southside of the city which has been transformed into a religious village for the week-long event.

Some 10,000 pilgrims from more than 120 countries are attending the Congress which is an international gathering held every four years.

However, there were also a number of protest pickets at the opening mass, including victims of child abuse.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, who is president of the Congress, said the abuse of children by priests was a “travesty”.

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IRELAND
Houston Chronicle

SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press
Updated 01:47 p.m., Sunday, June 10, 2012

DUBLIN (AP) — An international conference celebrating Roman Catholicism opened Sunday in Ireland against a backdrop of anger over child abuse cover-ups and evidence of declining faith in core church beliefs.

About 12,000 Catholics, many from overseas, gathered for an open-air Mass in a half-full Dublin stadium at the start of the Eucharistic Congress, a weeklong event organized by the Vatican every four years in a different part of the world. The global gathering, begun in the 19th century and last held in Quebec in 2008, highlights the Catholic Church’s belief in transubstantiation, the idea that bread and wine transforms during Mass into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ.

An opinion poll of Irish Catholics found that two-thirds of Irish Catholics don’t believe this, nor do they attend Mass weekly. The survey, published in The Irish Times with an error margin of 3 points, also found that just 38 percent believe Ireland today would be in worse shape without its dominant church. And just three-fifths even knew the Eucharistic Congress was coming to Ireland.

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IRELAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin

Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin
Archbishop of Dublin

Gaudet Mater Ecclesia: Our Mother the Church rejoices. These were the first words of the homily preached at the opening of the Second Vatican Council by Blessed Pope John XXIII, almost fifty years ago.

Today the Church in Ireland rejoices. It rejoices not in triumphalism or external festivities. It rejoices in the gift of this Eucharistic Congress which has been attentively prepared throughout the length and breath of Ireland through prayerful reflection on the great Mystery of our Faith: the sacrificial death and the life-giving resurrection of Jesus, present in the Church wherever the Eucharist is celebrated and worshipped.

The Church in Ireland rejoices today in the presence of pilgrims from many parts of the world who witness to the universality of our Catholic faith and who show their faith-filled fellowship and solidarity with the Church in Ireland. …

The Church in Ireland is a Church on the path to renewal. The fifty years since the Second Vatican Council have brought many graces to the Church in Ireland. The message and teaching of the Council still constitute the blueprint for our renewal.

But those fifty years have also been marked with a darker side, of sinful and criminal abuse and neglect of those weakest in our society: children, who should have been the object of the greatest care and support and Christ-like love. We recall all those who suffered abuse and who still today bear the mark of that abuse and may well carry it with them for the rest of their lives. In a spirit of repentance, let us remember each of them in the silence of our hearts.

The Church in Ireland is on the path to renewal. It will be a lengthy journey. It requires renewed and vigorous New Evangelization, a renewal in faith and in coherent and authentic witness to that faith in the world and in the culture in which we live.

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IRELAND
The Press Association

One of the most senior members of the Catholic Church in Ireland has called on thousands of pilgrims to remember victims of clerical abuse.

As 50 protesters picketed the RDS where the 50th Eucharistic Congress opened on Sunday, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin reflected on the “darker side” of the Church.

“The 50 years since the Second Vatican Council have brought many graces to the Church in Ireland,” said Archbishop Martin. “But those 50 years have also been marked with a darker side, of sinful and criminal abuse and neglect of those weakest in our society: children, who should have been the object of the greatest care and support and Christ-like love.”

As the Archbishop made his opening address, clerical abuse victim campaigners Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (Irish SOCA) staged a peaceful protest at the gates of the RDS, where the Eucharistic Congress is being held over the next week.

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HOLYOKE (MA)
The Republican

By Jeanette DeForge, The Republican

HOLYOKE – Protesters have decided to comply with an order from the Vatican’s highest court and end a round-the-clock prayer vigil at the Mater Dolorosa Church.

“We are starting our systematic withdrawal today,” said Victor Anop, of Chicopee, an organizer for the vigil.

The group must remove some personal property people have brought in for over the past 12 months but they should be finished in a day or two. The members plan to notify the security officers for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield before they leave.

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ROME
Corriere della Sera

ROMA – «Lei si sente come l’uomo nero che voleva fare male a Ettore Gotti Tedeschi?».
A ben vederlo, maglietta Lacoste a mezze maniche, mocassino fuori ordinanza, capelli cortissimi, l’aspetto dell’uomo nero non ce l’ha neppure un po’. Si scusa subito per aver violato il dress code del dirigente di banca. «Vengo da casa, sa, è sabato pomeriggio». Eccolo qui, quello che Gotti avrebbe descritto nel suo memorandum come il suo nemico numero uno, quello che avrebbe tramato per cacciarlo dalla banca. L’appuntamento è alle 18 a Porta Sant’Anna, i piazzali sono vuoti, senza una macchina parcheggiata, si sale su, al Cortile di San Damaso, poi un piccolo portoncino con un campanello che sembra quello di una casa. È Paolo Cipriani, direttore generale dello Ior dal giugno 2007, dopo aver avuto un’esperienza internazionale per banche italiane in Lussemburgo, a New York e a Londra. Un protagonista centrale del caso che ha portato il 24 maggio all’uscita traumatica di Gotti dall’Istituto. Parla per la prima volta.

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ROME
CNBC

Published: Sunday, 10 Jun 2012

ROME (Reuters) – A senior official of the Vatican’s bank denied on Sunday a reports that prominent Italian lay clients including politicians held secret numbered accounts at the institution, which is caught up in a money laundering investigation.

The Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) has been in the spotlight since 2010 when Italian investigators froze 23 million euros ($28.75 million) of its funds in Italian banks as part of their inquiry.

In a newspaper interview published on Sunday, IOR’s Director General Paolo Cipriani denied allegations which have surfaced since its president was abruptly ousted.

“There are no numbered accounts or accounts of politicians,” Cipriani told Corriere della Sera. “The only non-clergy Italians that hold accounts are employees or pensioners of the Holy See.”

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