ABUSE TRACKER

IRELAND
The Irish Times

VINCENT BROWNE

CLERICAL SEXUAL abuse is inevitable given the meaning system that is taught by the Catholic Church and to which many priests adhere.

Contradictions in that system lead to failure, increase shame and a way of living that encourages deviant behaviour.

This is the thesis of a revealing book on sexual abuse within the church by an Irish academic and therapist who interviewed, at length, nine priests and brothers convicted of child abuse, who counselled several other clerical abusers and who undertook extensive research on the issue for her book Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Gender, Power and Organisational Culture. The author is Marie Keenan of the school of applied social science at UCD.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Rhoenpuls

Professor Dr. Klaus Laubenthal, Ansprechpartner in der Diözese Würzburg für Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs, legt die zweite Jahresbilanz vor.

Die Zahl der Vorwürfe wegen sexueller Missbrauchshandlungen und Grenzüberschreitungen ist im zurückliegenden Jahr im Bistum Würzburg deutlich zurückgegangen. Insgesamt wurden in der Zeit seit 20. März 2011 an Professor Dr. Klaus Laubenthal, Ansprechpartner in der Diözese Würzburg für Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs, zehn zu prüfende Vorwürfe zum Nachteil von Minderjährigen übermittelt.

“Die angetragenen Geschehnisse liegen – wie schon diejenigen des Jahres zuvor – ganz überwiegend längere Zeit zurück und reichen bis in die 1950er Jahre”, sagte Laubenthal am Montag, 19. März, in Würzburg.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Skydaddy’s Blog

Andreas L., der Pfarrer der St.-Joseph-Gemeinde in Salzgitter-Lebenstedt, der gestanden hat, drei Jungen im Alter zwischen 9 und 14 Jahren in einer Vielzahl von Fällen sexuell missbraucht zu haben, würde nach einer von der katholischen Kirche verwendeten Definition nicht als „pädophil“ gelten:

In einer von der US-amerikanischen Bischofskonferenz in Auftrag gegebenen und veröffentlichten Studie wird nämlich folgende Definition verwendet:

For the purpose of this comparison, a pedophile is defined as a priest who had more than one victim, with all victims being age eleven or younger at the time of the offense. [The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010, S. 34]

Auf Deutsch:

Für diesen Vergleich wird ein Pädophiler definiert als ein Priester, der mehr als ein Opfer gehabt hat, wobei alle Opfer zum Tatzeitpunkt elf Jahre alt oder jünger waren.

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DEUTSCHLAND
kirchensite

Bistum. Mehr als 400.000 Euro hat das Bistum Münster bislang an 85 Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch innerhalb der Kirche gezahlt. Dies teilte der stellvertretende Generalvikar Pfarrer Jochen Reidegeld auf kirchensite.de-Anfrage mit.

Im Jahr 2010 wurden 27.754 Euro ausgezahlt; dabei gingen zwei Summen direkt an Opfer, drei weitere Summen wurden unter anderem für wissenschaftliche Aufarbeitung gezahlt. Im vergangenen Jahr wurden 348.298 Euro gezahlt, insgesamt waren es 76 Einzelzahlungen. Im laufenden Jahr gab es bislang sieben Auszahlungen in Höhe von insgesamt 28.000 Euro.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Bild

Von ASTRID SIEVERT

Vegesack/Cuxhaven – Lehrer Reinhard B. (42) steht lächelnd vor der Schultafel in seinem Klassenraum. Der Lehrer für Religion, Sport und Mathe am Gymnasium in Cuxhaven missbrauchte im Freizeitbad Vegesack ein geistig behindertes Mädchen (12).

Das abscheuliche Verbrechen schockierte im Juli 2007 ganz Bremen. Die Polizei fahndete damals mit Fotos aus der Überwachungskamera des Freizeitbads Vegesack nach dem Sexgangster. Darauf spähte er halbnackt nach kleinen Mädchen.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

By Susan Matthews

As my son became an adult in the Church, I sat in the last pew contemplating whether or not to remain a member. I could keep my faith but leave the religious institution. I prayed for some sign that I haven’t been on a fool’s errand in my efforts.

My father leaned over and whispered, “Did you hear about Avery?” My heart sank at the short prison term, but the victims finally got to hear some small part of the truth exposed. My son took Anthony as his Confirmation name – the patron saint of lost things. By the end of the Mass I’d found hope, a slim ray of it.

Confirmation includes the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit:

Wisdom; Understanding; Right Judgment; Courage; Knowledge; Reverence; Awe of God. We need this gifts more than ever in Philadelphia.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Ken Sweeney Entertainment Editor

Friday March 23 2012

A SENIOR manager at TV3 has said that management at RTE should resign in the wake of the Fr Kevin Reynolds libel to prevent more damage to the national broadcaster.

TV3’s Director of Programming Ben Frow described as “unforgivable”the airing by RTE of the ‘Prime Time Investigates’ programme that made false claims about the priest.

Mr Frow said the damages paid out by RTE to Fr Reynolds would have shut down TV3.

“We don’t have that kind of money to be handing out in damages. It would have closed TV3. I think it is a major f***-up by RTE,” he said.

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MEXICO
ABS-CBN (Philippines)

Agence France-Presse

LEON, Mexico – Victims of pedophile priests hope to present a demand for justice to Pope Benedict XVI when he visits Mexico this weekend, particularly in the case of the disgraced Legion of Christ order.

Debate has grown around the Vatican’s handling of the scandal surrounding the influential order of deceased Mexican priest Marcial Maciel and his victims ahead of the papal visit to Mexico which begins Friday.

Benedict XVI has already met with victims of sexual abuse during foreign visits, but is apparently not planning to do so in Mexico, where many victims are still seeking justice.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

March 22, 2012|BY REGINA MEDINA, Daily News Staff Writer

TWO CATHOLIC elementary schools in South Philadelphia slated for closure by the Archdiocese have appealed to an even higher authority – the Vatican.

The schools, Sacred Heart of Jesus and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, are scheduled to shutter in June and to merge into another South Philadelphia school this fall, but parents and one Boston-based Canon Law consultant are proposing that they merge at the Mount Carmel site instead.

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LAKEWOOD (OH)
Patch

By Colin McEwen
Email the author
March 21, 2012

For the past two years, the parishioners of the shuttered St. James Catholic Church in Lakewood have been hoping and praying.

Now, they’re just waiting.

After the Vatican recently overturned Bishop Richard Lennon’s 2010 decision to close 13 parishes in the Cleveland area, the bishop has 60 days to appeal the decision.

According to sources, if he doesn’t, it’s likely that the church will reopen.

“It’s in the bishop’s court at this point,” said Toni Sabo, president of the Friends of St. James. “He’s got the keys.”

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NETHERLANDS
Radio Netherlands

Serious abuses went on unreported for years in Dutch Roman Catholic homes for the mentally disabled. They included sex offences, castration, secret medical experiments and possibly murder. One Catholic brother was banished to Africa for doing unethical brain research. Radio Netherlands Worldwide tracked him down.

Until recent years, most abuses in Dutch institutional care were kept out of the public eye. One exception was a scandal in 1978 involving medical experiments at ‘Huize Assisië’, a Roman Catholic boarding school for mentally handicapped boys in the southern town of Udenhout.

Brain x-rays
The home’s medical doctor and a Catholic nurse known as Brother Dionysius performed spinal taps on approximately 180 patients, including minors. They injected fluid and air into the patients’ brains in order to take x-rays of the cerebral cortex. These were used for brain research which was quietly being carried out. After the injections, the patients suffered nausea and headaches for days. Their parents were neither asked for permission nor notified of the procedures.

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NEDERLAND
Kralenspel

Sinds een paar dagen trekt de zoveelste storm over katholiek Nederland. Nog los van het misbruikschandaal blijkt er binnen katholieke instellingen ook gecastreerd te zijn, dit om mensen te “genezen” van echte of vermeende seksuele afwijkingen. Er is vooral verontwaardiging over dat deze voorvallen niet in het rapport van de Commissie Deetman zijn opgenomen. Dit is echter Deetman nauwelijks te verwijten: feit is namelijk dat chrirurgische castratie een breed toegepaste behandelmethode was, zoals Eric van den Berg o.a. stelt. Ook wordt beargumenteerd door zowel van den Berg als de kerkhistoricus Peter Nissen dat deze praktijk echter kritisch bevraagd werd door de katholieke moraaltheologie. Nissen gaat zelfs zo ver te zeggen dat er een algeheel verbod op castratie was. Dit is echter in het geheel niet het geval. De contemporaine moraal- en pastoraaltheologie sloot nauw aan bij de heersende praktijk en bestendigde die. Daarbij sloot de Kerk aan bij de tendens in de samenleving die geen wezenlijk probleem zag in het castreren van “psychopathen”.

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IRELAND
when religion fails

Recalling the revelation of horrific incidents of sexual abuse by members of the Irish Catholic clergy the Vatican on March 20th released an eight-page summary of the findings and recommendations of the visitation to four archdioceses, religious institutes and seminaries in Ireland. A Vatican-appointed investigation of the church in Ireland recognized serious shortcomings in the handling of accusations of the sexual abuse of minors, yet found that bishops, clergy and lay faithful are doing an “excellent” job in creating safe environments for children today. While similar sentiments were issued forth by the Irish primate, Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland, others representing the victims were obviously disappointed by the report. Maeve Lewis, executive director for the Irish centre of sexual abuse, “One in Four’, criticized the report, insisting that “the Vatican is still not accepting responsibility for its role in creating the culture of purposeful cover-ups of the sexual abuse of children.” adding that “while we welcome the findings of the visitation that the Irish church now has good child protection practices in place, we feel it is a lost opportunity to address the role played by the Vatican in perpetuating the policy of protecting abusive priests at the expense of children.”

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UNITED STATES
Stop Child Abuse

Church’s Lawyers Have SNAP in Their Sights – Victims’ advocacy group’s national director speaks to RD about a flurry of subpoenas, and fears of ongoing harassment
By Kathryn Joyce March 16, 2012

In October, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the oldest, largest, and most visible peer counseling group for victims of clergy sex abuse in any denomination, received a subpoena from a Kansas City, Missouri, priest being prosecuted for sexually abusing an older male victim SNAP has never met. The subpoena demanded a sweeping range of documents and correspondence concerning thousands of the estimated 100,000-plus people SNAP has counseled over two decades.

In December, the group received a second subpoena from the other side of the state, from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, facing its own charges concerning the alleged abuse of a 19-year-old woman. SNAP has fought the requests, citing Missouri laws protecting the privacy of rape survivors, and describing the records-request as a coordinated Church effort to bully sex abuse victims into silence and harass a longtime opponent into bankruptcy.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Baltimore Sun

By Tricia Bishop, The Baltimore Sun

Nearly 100 people have added their names to an online peititon seeking to keep a convicted child rapist behind bars since Wednesday, when two U.S. Supreme Court decisions appeared to bolster the man’s appeal arguments and the likelihood he could be released from prison despite having been sentenced to four life terms.

John Joseph Merzbacher, now 70, was accused of terrorizing students at a Baltimore Catholic school in the 1970s and convicted two decades later of six counts of child rape and sexual abuse in connection with the allegations. But he more recently claimed that the findings and their punishments shouldn’t stand, because he was never told of a 10-year plea deal proposal before his trial. A federal judge, Andre M. Davis, agreed with him in 2010, ruling that Merzbacher should get a second chance at the offer under certain conditions, opening the door for his immediate release.

The Maryland attorney general’s office fought the ruling, but had to put its own appeal on hold for more than a year to see how the country’s high court would decide two similar cases involving botched plea offers. The justices’ decisions, each reached in a 5-4 vote, seem to side with Merzbacher’s interpretation.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PR.com

State College, PA, March 22, 2012 –(PR.com)– One of Over Hundreds of Screenings Across the Nation: A National Awareness Raising Campaign and MaleSurvivor.org ‘Dare To Dream Event 2’

Join the Healing Journey!

Penn State will host two screenings of Boys and Men Healing, a leading documentary produced by Big Voice Pictures about the affects of male child sexual abuse and the importance of healing, speaking out, and advocating for ending the cycle of the sexual abuse of boys. This event is hosted by Penn State University.

The film screenings and Q&A following will be held at Altoona Campus at 7:00 p.m. on April 3, 2012 at the Misciagna Theater on the Penn State Altoona campus. A reception will be held @ 6 p.m. that evening in the Titleman Lounge of the theater to welcome the speakers. The panel of speakers include: Simon Weinberg, Co-Producer of Boys and Men Healing, Mark Crawford, survivor and MaleSurvivor Advisory Board member also featured in the film, Founding Board Members of MaleSurvivor and current Advisory Board members, Jim Struve LCSW and Howard Fradkin, Ph.D, and Chris Anderson, survivor and Vice President of MaleSurvivor. MaleSurvivor is a leading organization providing useful information to promote health, discussion and connections for male survivors of sexual abuse and those who support them.

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STOCKTON (CA)
The Record

By Jennie Rodriguez-Moore
Record Staff Writer

March 23, 2012

STOCKTON – A psychiatrist for the defense in the civil trial of a local Catholic priest says sex abuse memories of a former altar boy who accuses Rev. Michael Kelly are false.

The plaintiff, now a 37-year-old man, said Kelly assaulted him over a period of time in the mid-1980s.

Defense attorneys for Kelly and the Diocese of Stockton are challenging the validity of the man’s recovered memories.

Dr. J. Alexander Bodkin, an associate professor of psychology at Harvard University and member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, testified Thursday as the defense’s expert witness.

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ROME
The Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW in Rome

NOT FOR the first time, 84-year-old Pope Benedict flies out of Rome this morning for an important overseas visit that could yet be troubled by clerical sex abuse polemics.

When details of the six-day pastoral visit to Mexico and Cuba were first released, most Vatican commentators inevitably focused on the political implications of a second papal visit in 14 years to communist Cuba.

Will the pope meet 85-year-old Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro? Will he issue a blanket condemnation of the USA’s 52-year-old economic embargo on the island? Will the Cuban regime led by Raul Castro, brother of Fidel, attempt to exploit the pope’s visit, using it as some sort of government propaganda tool? Or will this visit improve both church-state relations and the status of the island’s seven million Catholics?

Before he gets to Cuba next Monday, however, the pope may be confronted in Mexico with the all-too-familiar problem of clerical sex abuse. At the centre of this polemic is the Catholic order, the Legionaries Of Christ, whose Mexican founder, Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, was denounced as guilty of “very serious and objectively immoral behaviour” by the Holy See in May 2010.

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ROME
7 News

ROME (AFP) – Pope Benedict XVI set off from Rome on an arduous journey to Latin America on Friday where he will address key issues including the Mexico drugs war and the evolution of Cuba’s communist regime.

The pontiff arrived at Rome’s Fiumicino airport by helicopter and was greeted by Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. The pope waved goodbye on the airplane steps before the Alitalia Boeing 777 took off at 0845 GMT.

He is expected to land in Mexico at 2230 GMT. …

But he is also likely to face criticism over the clerical abuse scandal.

In particular, he will face questions over the Vatican’s management of Mexico’s most famous offender, Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, who before he died faced accusations that he had molested eight minors.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Eamonn McCann
Friday, 23 March 2012

What emerges most starkly from the report by emissaries of the Holy See into child sex-abuse in Ireland is that there has been no change in the hierarchy of hypocrisy.

The report, released on Tuesday, was compiled from information gathered by seven separate teams of clerics sent by Benedict XVI to study and draw lessons from the Church’s handling of the scandal.

The source and scale of the operation had encouraged expectations that the exercise would go some way towards tracing the problem to its roots – towards the role not just of the Church in Ireland, but of the Holy See, the global governance of the Church.

But the document published at a press conference in Maynooth did the opposite. It is a sustained effort to exculpate the Holy See, while pronouncing on the inadequacies of Irish bishops and religious superiors.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Editorial

Cardinal Timothy Dolan played his new ring hand this week on his Archdiocese of New York blog.

In a none too subtle posting on his blog on 3/20/12 (here’s the link), the newly minted and over the top feted Eminence confirmed the bishops’ new strategy: playing hardball against victims, and SNAP in particular.

This approach was first revealed by Catholic League president William Donahue in the 3/12/12 New York Times story “Catholic Church Puts Legal Pressure on Abuse victims Group” (here’s the link)

The story played out in a good cop/bad cop routine with Mr. Donahue being quoted as bluntly declaring the “bishops have come together collectively” in this approach while Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokesperson for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) demurred that Mr. Donahue was incorrect and no such new strategy was in place.

Enter the Cardinal’s column. Tie broken. Winner declared: take no prisoners, new aggressive strategy it is.

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UNITED STATES
GetReligion

As I mentioned the other day, the historic Catholic throne in Baltimore has a new archbishop and he also happens to be an emerging leader in America’s increasingly tense debates about religious liberty. Just wait until some of these issues hit the U.S. Supreme Court (and you know that they will).

In addition to the belated coverage in The Baltimore Sun (the newspaper that lands in my front yard), the move to Charm City by Bishop William E. Lori — who leads the U.S. bishops’ new Committee on Religious Liberty — drew the attention of the well-known liberal Catholic blogger David Gibson of Commonweal, who also does news reporting for Religion News Service. His story included a wealth of details that will interest a wide variety of Catholics, including the kinds of details that one expects out of a wire service that focuses on religion news — period. …

OK, so the art up at the top of this post gives this one away. That’s the very conservative Catholic writer Leon J. Podles, author of a fierce, take-no-prisoners tome called “Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church.”

WHILE Podles is known for his orthodoxy on doctrine and social issues, not that there’s anything wrong with that, he also has been praised by many for taking a hard line on how the church should deal with abusive priests.

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NETHERLANDS
Time

By Leo Cendrowicz

It not only sounds ludicrous as a medical procedure, but in moral terms it’s downright barbarous: castrating young men to “cure” them of their homosexuality. Yet this was how the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands treated gays in the 1950s, according to a Dutch newspaper, which claims at least 10 men were forced to go under the knife at the church’s behest. The extraordinary allegations, which were published last weekend in the NRC Handelsblad newspaper, have prompted Dutch parliamentarians to demand an inquiry into the issue, raising questions about whether the church received political cover to take such extreme measures.

The newspaper said the castrations were regarded both as a treatment for homosexuality as well as a punishment for those who accused clergy of sexual abuse. The newspaper said 20-year-old Henk Heithuis had been surgically castrated on the instructions of Catholic priests in 1956 after he told police he was being abused at the Harreveld boarding school in Gelderland. Although the monks were convicted of the abuse, Heithuis was nonetheless sent to a Catholic psychiatric hospital and then castrated. He died two years later in a car crash. The newspaper adds there are strong indications that at least nine other young men were castrated around the same time, either for whistle-blowing or for supposed homosexuality.

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CANADA
CBC News

Police have charged an Ottawa youth pastor with six counts of sexual exploitation and one count of luring in relation to allegations involving a 16-year-old girl.

Ottawa police charged the youth pastor, a 28-year-old Gatineau, Que., man, after an investigation into allegations of inappropriate sexual contact over an extended period in 2011 and 2012.

He was to appear in court Thursday.

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NEW YORK
WABC

[with video]

Carolina Leid
Eyewitness News

NEW YORK (WABC) — A pastor in the Bronx who runs a storefront church has been charged with rape and other offenses for having a sexual relationship with a second teenage girl.

Reverend Michael Clare was already charged with having a sexual relationship with a young girl who attends the church.

Clare, 40, runs the Harvest Worship Center International on White Plains Road.

He was free on bail when he was taken into custody again following the new charges after a court appearance in connection with the first case.

Clare was arraigned on these new charges before State Supreme Court Justice Megan Tallmer. The judge set bail on the new case at $350,000 cash or $200,000 bond and also raised the bail on the first case to $350,000 cash or $200,000 bond.

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MINNESOTA
Grand Forks Herald

PARK RAPIDS, Minn. — Unconditional bond in the amount of $1 million has been set in the case of a former Lake George, Minn., pastor facing 15 counts of criminal sexual conduct with a teenager.

Darwin Frederick Schauer, 70, former pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church of Lake George, was arraigned March 7 on the charges in Hubbard County District Court. He served in Lake George from 1998, when the church merged with Immanuel in Cass Lake, Minn., until about six years ago.

The conduct, including sexual intercourse, is alleged to have begun in 2009, after he left Trinity, according to the criminal complaint.

Schauer lives in Laporte, Minn.

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CANADA
The Ottawa Citizen

An Ottawa youth pastor faces charges after a police investigation into allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct with a 16-year-old girl over an extended period. The investigation began in early February into events alleged to have occurred in 2011 and 2012. Mark Raymer, 28, of Gatineau faces six counts of sexual exploitation and one count of luring under 18 via a computer. He is scheduled to appear in court today.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Ottawa Police Service Sexual Assault/Child Abuse Section at 613-236-1222, ext. 5944 or Crime Stoppers at 613-233-8477 (TIPS) or toll free 1-800-222-8477.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

NEW YORK (WTW) — A Bronx minister charged with having a yearslong sexual relationship with a young girl who attended his storefront church is accused of sexually abusing another girl in his congregation.

Michael Clare, who was free on bail, is being held on $700,000 cash bail. A judge on Thursday raised the bail on a new indictment charging him with rape, criminal sex act, sexual abuse and other charges.

Clare also was ordered to stay away from children under the age of 16.

Prosecutors say the Harvest Worship Center pastor sexually abused the 14-year-old girl from 2009 to 2011.

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UNITED STATES
Verdict

Marci A. Hamilton

Legions of victims of child sex abuse will tell you that when they were finally ready to talk to a prosecutor or a lawyer, the criminal and/or civil statutes of limitations (SOLs) had already expired. Across the United States, one victim after another has been surprised by these cruel and arbitrary legal deadlines.

For decades, states have been adjusting their child sex abuse SOLs in response to fresh stories of horror. At one time, states measured the SOL from the date of the abuse, giving victims only a few years in which to sue. Then, they set age 18 as the moment when the clock started ticking. Now, we have a true 50-state experiment, with a wide variety of approaches among the states.

There is one common theme, however: States are constantly working to extend their child sex abuse SOLs, because there is always a new victim with a compelling story that shows lawmakers the folly of having any SOL at all for the heinous crime of child sex abuse.

The Situation in Massachusetts Regarding Child Sex Abuse Statutes of Limitations

That was precisely what was happening in Massachusetts when in 1996, the legislature extended the criminal SOL for child sex abuse to the date that marks 15 years after the victim turns 16. But that SOL still shut down justice for too many victims, and so there was another extension, in 2006. That year, the Massachusetts Legislature voted to extend the criminal SOL to 27 years after a victim turns 16.

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IRELAND
Donegal Democrat

Published on Friday 23 March 2012

A retired garda who has called for an independent inquiry into four decades of child sexual abuse in the Raphoe Dicoese has blasted the Vatican’s long-awaited report into the handling of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church – deeming it “a bluster of words.”

The report acknowledges failures on the part of those who – as it puts it – should have exercised vigilance. It also said lessons have been learned and found that the current guidelines on child protection were being followed. The findings are based on an apostolic visitation to the four archdioceses, religious congregations and seminaries.

Martin Ridge said that the money that was spent on the apostolic visitation would have been better spent on trauma units and support units to help the victims of abuse in areas where it is deemed necessary. He did state that he welcomed the fact that the church acknowledged their shame in relation to the events that had taken place in the past, adding that he felt that it was a shame that this acknowledgement had to be forced upon them by a State Inquiry.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Wall Street Journal

By PETER LOFTUS

PHILADELPHIA—A defrocked Roman Catholic priest pleaded guilty Thursday to charges that he sexually abused a Philadelphia boy in the 1990s, just days before a landmark priest-abuse trial is set to start here.

Edward Avery was sentenced to up to five years in prison after his guilty plea to charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child, according to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office.

Two Catholic clergymen are scheduled to go on trial Monday, including Monsignor William Lynn, a former high-ranking official with the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia who is accused of endangering children by covering up abuse allegations against priests he supervised.

The trial will be a landmark in the sexual-abuse scandal that has shaken the Catholic Church over the past decade. Msgr. Lynn would be the highest-ranking member of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy whose case reaches trial on charges related to allegations of a coverup. As secretary for clergy in the Philadelphia diocese from 1992 until 2004, his duties included handling allegations of sex abuse by priests.

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IRELAND
The Cork News

By:
Maria Tracey

Sexual Violence Centre director welcomes investigation into Garda handling of Cloyne sex abuse

An investigation into the Garda handling of a number of complaints of sex abuse as outlined in the Cloyne Report will come as a “relief” to those involved. That is according to director of Cork’s Sexual Violence Centre, Mary Crilly who said that for victims of sexual abuse, “transparency and accountability means everything”. The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) has decided to open an investigation, under section 102(4) of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, into certain matters arising from the Commission of Investigation Report into the Catholic diocese of Cloyne.

The matters to be investigated arise from Chapter 10 of the report and relate to concerns over Garda behaviour. The report outlined a case involving a priest described as Father Corin, stating: “In one case, an investigation was clearly not commenced. The senior Garda involved insists that an investigation did commence but the evidence demonstrates otherwise. There are no investigation files in existence. The Commission has not been able to establish why an investigation did not take place in this case but it has no doubt that there was no investigation even though there was a complaint.”

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MEXICO
MSN (New Zealand)

Victims of pedophile priests hope to present a demand for justice to Pope Benedict XVI when he visits Mexico.

Debate has grown around the Vatican’s handling of the scandal surrounding the influential order of deceased Mexican priest Marcial Maciel ahead of the papal visit to Mexico, which begins on Friday.

Maciel directed the influential Legion of Christ order, which he founded in 1941, to his death.

Benedict XVI has met victims of sexual abuse during foreign visits, but is apparently not planning to do so in Mexico, where many victims are still seeking justice.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Legal Intelligencer

Amaris Elliott-Engel
The Legal Intelligencer

March 23, 2012

The landscape of the trial of a Catholic Church official accused of endangering children by exposing them to allegedly abusive priests changed Thursday after one of the official’s co-defendants admitted in court to sexually abusing a 10-year-old.

The former priest pled guilty to the first-degree felony of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse for sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy. The priest also pled guilty to the third-degree felony of conspiracy to endanger the welfare of children for conspiring with church officials to conceal his history of sexual abuse from Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia parishioners.

Defendant Edward Avery was immediately sentenced to serve 30 to 60 months in prison by Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina as part of a negotiated plea deal with prosecutors. Avery must report to prison 9 a.m. April 2.

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MINNESOTA
Grand Forks Herald

By: Stephen J. Lee, Grand Forks Herald

The Catholic Diocese of Crookston, in its first official comment since news of the arrest of the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul in India last week on Minnesota sexual assault charges, says it hopes he is returned for trial.

Monsignor David Baumgartner, who as vicar general of the diocese serves as the right-hand man to Bishop Michael Hoeppner, told the Herald this week, “The only way for this to be resolved is for him to be here, so we would like a resolution to it.”

Jeyapaul, 57, has been a fugitive for six years from criminal charges first filed in state district court in Roseau in 2006. He is charged with sexually assaulting a parish member in Greenbush, Minn., when she was 14 and 15 in 2004 and 2005. In 2007 the charges were amended to include similar counts involving a second girl who was 16 during the same period.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

BY JULIE SHAW
Philadelphia Daily News
shawj@phillynews.com 215-854-2592

IN A SHOCKING turn of events, a former priest pleaded guilty to two charges Thursday instead of facing trial in the high-profile clergy-sex-abuse case that is set to begin Monday.

Defrocked priest Edward Avery, 69, pleaded guilty to a count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse involving a 10-year-old altar boy.

He also pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to endanger the welfare of children.

Avery was sentenced to 2 1/2 to 5 years in state prison under a plea deal with prosecutors and was told to surrender on April 2 to begin his sentence.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

A defrocked Philadelphia priest pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy and sexually assaulting a 10-year-old altar boy, four days before he and two priests were to face the start of a landmark trial about clergy sex-abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Edward V. Avery, 69, was sentenced to 21/2 to five years in prison under an agreement with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.

It was unclear how the sudden plea would affect the trial, scheduled to start Monday, or if Avery would become a witness for the commonwealth. Citing a gag order, prosecutors said they could not comment.

But Avery’s decision could increase pressure on his codefendants, the Rev. James J. Brennan and, in particular, Msgr. William J. Lynn. As the archdiocese’s former secretary for clergy, Lynn is the first church official nationwide to be charged with covering up or enabling child sex abuse by priests.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
City Press

The landmark trial of a Catholic Church official accused of covering up paedophile abuses in the United States is set to start on Monday in Philadelphia.

Monsignor William Lynn, who oversaw the assignment of priests to schools and parishes across the Philadelphia region, faces accusations that he failed to keep priests accused of sexual abuse away from minors.

The role of such a senior official, whose co-defendant Reverend James Brennan is accused of sexually abusing boys in the 1990s, makes the trial the first of its kind in the United States.

In a surprise pretrial twist yesterday another co-defendant, defrocked priest Edward Avery, pleaded guilty to his own sex crimes, thereby avoiding trial. He was immediately sentenced to between two-and-a-half and five years in prison.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Lodi News-Sentinel

Posted: Friday, March 23, 2012

By Ross Farrow/News-Sentinel Staff Writer

A Harvard University psychiatrist testified in the civil clergy sexual abuse trial on Thursday that “repressed” or “recovered” memory hasn’t been scientifically proven.

J. Alexander Bodkin, an associate professor at Harvard’s medical school, said he examined the plaintiff suing Lockeford priest Michael Kelly on sexual abuse allegations and found the plaintiff to have long-term “obsessive-compulsive disorder” that goes back to his childhood, according to defense attorney Thomas Beatty.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is defined as people having unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, obsessions or behaviors.

The plaintiff is a 37-year-old man suing Kelly on allegations that the Lockeford priest sexually assaulted him when the plaintiff was an altar boy in the 1980s at Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton. Kelly has been pastor of St. Joachim’s Catholic Church in Lockeford the past eight years.

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MEXICO
Edmonton Journal

Victims of pedophile priests hope to present a demand for justice to Pope Benedict XVI when he visits Mexico this weekend, particularly in the case of the disgraced Legion of Christ order.

Debate has grown around the Vatican’s handling of the scandal surrounding the influential order of deceased Mexican priest Marcial Maciel and his victims ahead of the papal visit to Mexico, which begins Friday.

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NEW YORK
Village Voice

By James KingThu., Mar. 22 2012

​For the second time in just over a year, Bronx pastor Michael Clare has been hit with charges that he had sex with an underage girl, this time for allegedly raping a 14-year-old who was a student at Harvest Preparatory Academy, where Clare had been the principal (breath easy — the school told us this afternoon that Clare is “no longer an employee”).

In what could be perceived as a big “screw you” to the justice system, it’s alleged that some of the abuse of the latest victim happened while Clare was free on bail in his previous case — again, where he’s accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl.

Bronx District Attorney spokesman Melvin Hernandez tells the Voice that Clare, 40, was arrested this morning after a court hearing related to the previous charges. He was arraigned on the new charges — one count each of second-degree rape, sexual misconduct, third-degree criminal sexual act, endangering the welfare of a child, and three counts of sexual abuse — this afternoon before State Supreme Court Justice Megan Tallmer.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

By Kevin Deutsch AND John Doyle / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The pervy pastor of a Bronx church charged with rape last January for impregnating a teen was indicted Thursday for raping another girl, prosecutors said.

Michael Clare, the 40-year-old married leader of the Harvest Worship Center in Wakefield, had sexual contact with the girl at least three times between June 22, 2009 and June 30, 2011 at the school and inside his home, prosecutors said.

Their two-year relationship began when the girl was 14, police said.

The victim, now 17, reported the allegations earlier this month, cops said.

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NEW YORK
NBC New York

A Bronx pastor has been arrested for a second time on rape charges, accused of having a sexual relationship with a girl who attended the preparatory school where he was principal, authorities said.

Rev. Michael Clare, 40, of West Harrison, N.Y., allegedly began abusing the girl on June 22, 2009, and continued the relationship through June 30, 2011. Clare would meet his victim at the Harvest Preparatory Academy and at Clare’s two homes in the Bronx and in West Harrison, the prosecutor’s office said.

Clare is already facing separate charges for engaging in a sexual relationship with a girl who was a member of his congregation at the Harvest Worship Center International, which is affiliated with the academy where he was principal.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler | March 22, 2012

The first sensational headlines said that Catholic Church officials had castrated young men in the Netherlands a generation ago, allegedly to stop their homosexual activities. If the report is true, this was a brutal, appalling offense. But wait. It seems that at the time, castration was a standard treatment for homosexuality in the Netherlands, thanks to the pernicious influence of eugenics. If that report is true, it doesn’t excuse the involvement of Catholic officials. What’s wrong is wrong, even if everyone else is doing it. Still, if everyone is doing it, it shouldn’t be particularly big news that Church officials are doing it.

In Ireland, an official report released last summer found that both Church leaders and police officers had failed to respond adequately to reports of sexual abuse by priests in the Cloyne diocese. The bishop of Cloyne had already stepped down, other Church leaders were placed under microscopic inspection, and Irish lawmakers suggested draconian new laws to punish clerics who failed to report abuse. Now, a year later, the Irish government is finally stepping up an investigation of the police officials who also failed to report abuse. Again, the failures of the police do not excuse the failures of the clergy. But isn’t it worth noticing that everyone involved failed to act on the abuse charges?

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, March 22, 2012

There will be unswerving public approval for the decision of the Garda Ombudsman to conduct a full investigation into Garda behaviour relating to child sex abuse cases in the diocese of Cloyne.

So much has been written and broadcast about the scandalous behaviour of clergy there and in other dioceses that people might be forgiven for throwing up their hands and saying “enough”.

However, so outrageous was the cover-up of what went on under the unseeing eyes of Church authorities, not to mention their connivance, that it is vitally important to ensure that if anything was swept under the carpet by gardaí it must be brought out of darkness and into daylight without fear or favour.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Mar. 22, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

While the words “Obama administration” and “Catholic” have been used together in recent weeks frequently to only highlight discord between the executive branch and the U.S. bishops over the administration’s mandate requiring coverage of contraceptives in health care plans, federal funding figures may tell a different story. …

The numbers seem to support DuBois’ claims that Obama has increased focus on funding Catholic social justice work. According to a fact sheet provided by the White House, the administration has worked to funnel more than $1.5 billion since 2008 to Catholic agencies, including half a billion dollars to Catholic Relief Services focused towards “global health and international development efforts.”

And according to Catholic Charities USA Annual Survey data, which are available online, annual federal funding to Catholic Charities’ agencies nationwide has increased by over $100 million between 2008 and 2010, with the total allocation in 2010 reported to be $554,212,255.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Tom Gallagher on Mar. 22, 2012 NCR Today

Commentary

For weeks now, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., have been decrying the so-called maltreatment of Catholics and our faith by the Obama administration because of the rollout of a mandate requiring coverage of contraceptives in health care plans. We’ve heard and read incredibly caustic words and letters from many U.S. bishops. …

What makes Dolan look again and again as a not-ready-for-prime-time political amateur is the fact that the Catholic bishops’ conference itself and Catholic, non-hospital and university organizations (separate from Catholic hospitals and universities’ receipt of federal funds) happily accept hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the federal government, including from the Obama administration.

This undeniable fact has been well known to all of the bishops well before January, when the original HHS mandate was announced. And throughout the subsequent period of extraordinary nastiness, unkindness was communicated from the U.S. bishops and their staff towards Obama and his administration.

Let’s take a quick survey of the money flow. In other words, let’s follow the money. Here’s a partial list of the federal government’s money flow to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops itself and other non-Catholic hospital and university organizations (with one reference to one Catholic university grant).

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
AFP

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — A former US Catholic priest who was to have been part of a landmark trial on Monday pleaded guilty Thursday to sex crimes.

Edward Avery pleaded guilty to conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child and also to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, the court clerk at the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas told AFP.

He avoids trial, but was immediately sentenced to between two-and-a-half and five years in prison.

Avery was one of the three co-defendants in a trial set to start Monday featuring the first Catholic Church official to be prosecuted for covering-up incidents in the raging child molestation scandal.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WNEP

Dave Warner
Reuters

5:44 p.m. EDT, March 22, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A defrocked priest accused of sex abuse in the pedophilia scandal that has rocked the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia pleaded guilty on Thursday, just days before he, another priest and a higher-ranking monsignor were due to go to trial.

Edward Avery, 69, admitted to sex abuse involving a 10-year-old boy and was promptly sentenced by Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina to two-and-a-half to five years in prison for involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and criminal conspiracy to endanger the welfare of children.

Prisons Avery was one of three defendants in the high-profile case at the Archdiocese, the sixth largest in the nation with 1.5 million Catholics.

The trial is due to begin on Monday with Rev. James Brennan, who is charged with child sex abuse, and Monsignor William Lynn, the former secretary of the clergy for the Archdiocese, who is accused of child endangerment and conspiracy.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Brock Parker, Town Correspondent

Cambridge playwright Michael Mack will perform his autobiographical play about talking to the priest who molested him as a boy next week in a local Catholic church.

Mack will perform “Conversations with My Molester: A Faith Journey,” at his church, Saint Paul Catholic Church at 29 Mount Auburn St., next Thursday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m.

The play, which premiered in the Boston Playwright’s Theatre at Boston University in January, is being performed with the blessing of the church in the Lenten spirit of reconciliation.

Barbara Thorp, a licensed independent clinical social worker who is the director of pastoral support and children protection for the Boston Archdiocese called the play “a powerful journey of healing and reconciliation,” according to a press release announcing the upcoming performance.

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

[mit Video]

ZDF:

Dürfen Pädophile katholische Priester weiter als Seelsorger tätig sein.
Ja sagt das Bistum Trier. Das beschäftigt mindestens sieben Geistliche die durch entsprechende Neigungen aufgefallen sind. Und das sie ausgerechnet in Trier Aufnahme fanden macht die Sache noch ein bischen prisanter, denn Bischof Ackermann ist der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz. Wie soll das zusammenpassen hat Barbara Völkel gefragt.

Es ist noch nicht so lange her. Auf einer Pressekonferenz in Trier stellt Bischof Stefan Ackermann Pläne vor, noch offensiver gegen sexuellen Missbrauch vorzugehen, predigt null Toleranz. Doch ausgerechnet der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz Stefan Ackermann hat gerade Geistliche eingestellt die trotz Verurteilungen wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs wieder in Gemeinden arbeiten dürfen. Selbst aus den eigenen Reihen ist das Unverständnis darüber groß.

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

Bischof Ackermann antwortet Opferanwalt: Kein Verzicht auf die Einrede der Verjährung

Mit Schreiben vom 20.2.2012 hatte Rechtsanwalt Dr. Christian Sailer, der seit Jahren Opfer sexueller Gewalt durch katholische Priester in Deutschland und Österreich berät und vertritt, dem Beauftragten der Bischofskonferenz folgendes geschrieben:

„Ich erlebe gegenwärtig zum Beispiel, dass einer heute 50-jährigen Frau, die als Kind und junges Mädchen von einem katholischen Priester jahrelang sexuelle Gewalt zugefügt wurde, Schadensersatz für den größten Teil ihrer Leidenszeit von vornherein deshalb vorenthalten bleibt, weil sich der Würzburger Bischof auf Verjährung beruft. Wie wollen Sie derartiges mit den wiederholten Beteuerungen Ihrer Kirche, Wiedergutmachung zu leisten, vereinbaren? Wäre es nicht ein Gebot des Anstands und der Ehrlichkeit, auf die Verjährungseinrede grundsätzlich zu verzichten, um die restlose Aufklärung und Entschädigung aller Missbrauchsfälle möglich zu machen?“

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

Rod Napier

Two iconic Pennsylvania figures, Joe Paterno and Anthony Bevilacqua, passed away this year. Both the longtime Penn State football coach and the former archbishop of Philadelphia had remarkable careers of public service and achievement that ended in scandal – scandals that will forever shadow their legacies. Both men saw themselves as close to God, but both were also treated as gods by those around them. And that may have had more to do with the scandals than has so far been appreciated.

It may be that both men’s lives and reputations were horribly wounded by what I call the seduction of the leader.

As I recently told a group of Philadelphia executives, leaders of every stripe can learn important lessons about the dangers of this seduction from “Joe Pa” and the cardinal.

Court proceedings may show otherwise, but my guess is that neither Paterno nor Bevilacqua intended to deceive. If history is any guide, cultural culpability is far more likely than criminal culpability.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Associated Press

By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A defrocked Philadelphia priest pleaded guilty Thursday to sexually abusing an altar boy in a church sacristy, days before he was to go on trial with two other priests in a landmark child sex-abuse case.

Edward Avery, 69, pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child. He was immediately sentenced to 2½ to five years in prison and was ordered to surrender within 10 days.

The charges stemmed from Avery’s abuse of an altar boy at St. Jerome’s Parish in northeast Philadelphia during the 1998-99 school year.

Two other church officials are still set to go on trial Monday. They include Monsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. church official ever charged with endangering children for allegedly failing to oust accused predators from the priesthood.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Philly

PHILADELPHIA – Fox 29 has learned that one of two priests set to go on trial in the Philadelphia Archdiocese abuse case has taken a guilty plea.

Defrocked priest Edward Avery entered the plea on Thursday afternoon.

He was sentenced to 2 1/2 to 5 years in prison.

He pleaded guilty to abuse of a 10-year-old boy at St Jerome’s Parish.

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CALIFORNIA
EGP

By Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou, EGP Staff Writer

Former students who want to file sex abuse lawsuits against the Congregation of Christian Brothers, which staffed Cantwell High School in Montebello from 1948 until 1990, will be barred from doing so after Aug. 1.

The Congregation of Christian Brothers, also known as the Irish Christian Brothers, filed for bankruptcy in New York courts last year, after it was hit with numerous sex-abuse lawsuits in recent years. They subsequently filed for a cut off date that will prevent further claims or lawsuits.

Lea esta nota EN ESPAÑOL: Corto Plazo para las Posibles Víctimas de Abusos en una Escuela Católica de Montebello

The religious order runs several Catholic schools across the country, and for 42 years before the Los Angeles Archdiocese removed them in 1990, its members ran Cantwell High School in Montebello.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Phoenix

MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – A defrocked Philadelphia priest pleaded guilty Thursday to a sex-abuse charge, just days before a landmark priest abuse trial is set to start.

Edward Avery, 69, pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child. He was immediately sentenced to 2½ to five years in prison and was ordered to surrender within 10 days.

The charges stemmed from Avery’s abuse of an altar boy at St. Jerome’s Parish in northeast Philadelphia.

Two other church officials will still go on trial. One is Monsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. church official ever charged with endangering children for allegedly failing to oust accused predators from the priesthood.

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VATICAN CITY/GERMANY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 22, 2012

Dozens of times, Benedict has made the same unwise, unhealthy and hurtful decision to promote clerics who are guilty or accused of wrongdoing. With Mixa, he’s doing it again.

The message that church employees get is clear: misdeeds won’t stop you from climbing the clerical ladder. Whether that’s the intention or not, that’s the signal that’s sent and received.

For the sake of vulnerable kids, wounded victims and betrayed Catholics, we urge the pope to stop elevating alleged wrongdoers and start elevating men with better track records on children’s safety.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Megan Remi Peterson on March 22, 2012

My name is Megan Peterson and I am 22 years old now and I am a student and I live in Winona. I’m here to speak the truth about what happened to me in 2004, and what has happened since then.

I’m here to tell you that it’s not “all in the past.” Sexual abuse by priests is not a symptom of the ‘60s. It is still going on today.

After I was raped and violated by Fr. Jeyapaul, who I had approached about someday becoming a nun, nothing happened to him. He was allowed to return to India, and while he was home he was gently told not to return to Minnesota. That’s it.

I was 14. I needed help and protection from the church that I had looked up to and wanted to dedicate my life too. Instead, I got nothing but shame, and a drawn out legal battle in which they finally, and begrudgingly, admitted they were in the wrong. This is wrong, and this needs to stop.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Blaine on March 22, 2012

We’re grateful that Avery’s victim won’t have to endure a trial. We hope all of Avery’s victims will feel comforted, knowing that kids will be safe from him for several years.

At the same time, however, a trial helps reveal often shocking levels of corruption by church officials – information that the public and parishioners need and deserve to know. When clergy sex abuse and cover up cases settle before trial, embarrassing secrets about the Catholic hierarchy remain secret.

We also suspect that Avery sexually assaulted other kids who may still be able to step forward and get help.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

Published on Thursday 22 March 2012

A priest is to stand trial in relation to a number of alleged sexual assaults against a woman.

Fr Eugene Boland (65), of the Parochial House, Killyclogher Road, Omagh, appeared before Magherafelt Magistrates’ Court today (March 22).

The defendant, who was based in Derry for many years, is accused of indecently assaulting the woman on dates between June 1990 and June 1992.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

A defrocked Philadelphia priest pleaded guilty today to sexually molesting a young altar boy.

Edward Avery, 69, was senteced to 2 1/2 to 5 years immediately after pleading guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger children.

He was a parish priest in the 1990s when he allegedly raped the fifth-grade boy.

Avery was a codefendant in the case against Msgr. William J. Lynn, the church official charged with endangering children by allegedly failing to properly respond to abuse allegations.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WPVI

PHILADELPHIA – March 22, 2012 (WPVI) — Action News has learned that one of the priests involved in the abuse case involving the Philadelphia Archdiocese has pleaded guilty to sex-related and conspiracy charges.

Accused priest Edward Avery is in court at this hour.

Action News has learned that as part of a plea agreement, Avery is being sentenced to 2 ½ to 5 years in state prison.

Avery is one of five priests charged in the priest sex abuse case that has rocked the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — In a sudden turn of events, one of the defendants in the Philadelphia priest sex abuse scandal has decided to plead guilty.

Unexpectedly this afternoon, defrocked priest Edward Avery, accused of molesting at least one boy, indicated that he would be pleading guilty, just days before his trial was set to begin.

As part of a plea deal, Avery was immediately sentenced to 2½-5 years in prison and ordered to surrender to authorities within 10 days.

Avery and two others — one a priest and the other a monsignor — were scheduled to go on trial next Monday in a case that has rocked the Archdiocese of Philadelphia with accusations of sex abuse, coverups, and stonewalling (see related story).

In Room 507 of the Criminal Justice Center today, Avery pleaded guilty to two counts — one of sexually assaulting a boy under 13 years of age, and one of conspiring to endanger the welfare of a minor.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

By Julian O’Neill
BBC Newsline

A retired Catholic bishop has defended his handling of some of the abuse allegations made against James Donaghy, a former priest jailed for ten years for a series of sex crimes.

One of Donaghy’s victims, Fr Patrick McCafferty, was critical of how Bishop Patrick Walsh dealt with his case.

Fr McCafferty was a 19-year-old trainee priest when first abused by Donaghy.

When he told Bishop Walsh of the allegations in 2003 an internal church inquiry was established.

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BOSTON (MA)
MSNBC

Spirit of giving? Boston Archdiocese defends six-figure salaries for top church employees

By James Eng, msnbc.com

The Boston Archdiocese is defending six-figure salaries paid to a growing number of church employees, saying the pay is commensurate with their talents and work duties.

The Boston Herald on Wednesday reported that the archdiocese’s latest annual report lists 17 “senior lay executives” who earned more than $150,000 last year. In 2006, only five employees were paid that much, according to the newspaper.

The Boston Catholic Insider blog reported similar figures for 2011 in a post last month titled “Bloated Payroll” but said just two employees were making $150,000 in 2006.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A priest has been ordered to stand trial in relation to a number of alleged sexual assaults against a woman, dating back more than 20 years.

Fr Eugene Boland, 65, of the Parochial House, Killyclogher Road, Omagh, appeared before Magherafelt Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.

He is accused of indecent assaulting the woman on dates between June 1990 and June 1992.

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MEXICO
IPS

MEXICO-STAD

Toenemend geweld, slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik door rooms-katholieke priesters die gerechtigheid eisen en positie van vrouwen in de kerk zijn kwesties waar paus Benedictus XVI volgens experts niet omheen kan tijdens zijn bezoek aan Mexico.

“De paus heeft geen specifiek beleid om verschillende groepen in de samenleving te benaderen. Bij zijn voorganger, Johannes Paulus II was dat anders. Hij ging bijvoorbeeld op verschillende manieren om met jongeren, intellectuelen en inheemse bevolkingsgroepen”, zegt Elio Masferrer, expert van de Nationale School voor Antropologie en Geschiedenis.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
National Catholic Reporter

by Tom Roberts on Mar. 22, 2012 NCR Today

While the high-profile legal proceedings involving former archdiocesan official Msgr. William Lynn and two co-defendants grind on, Archbishop Charles Chaput has established a long-planned Archdiocesan Pastoral Council and outlined new measures for financial transparency.

Here’s a link to Chaput’s column about the developments:

And a link to a diocesan story about the pastoral council:

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Mar. 22, 2012
By Alessandro Speciale, Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY — Following a yearlong investigation into decades of rampant abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, the Vatican on Tuesday (March 20) called for more rigorous screening of would-be priests and compulsory child protection classes in seminaries.

Pope Benedict XVI ordered the “Apostolic Visitation” of Ireland’s seminaries, religious orders and four main archdioceses in 2010 after a string of Irish government commissions detailed the extent of child sexual abuse in Catholic institutions and exposed a cover-up by several senior churchmen.

The team of church investigators included New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who was tasked with inspecting Ireland’s seminaries, and Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

A seven-page summary of the investigation’s final report was released by the Vatican on Tuesday, and said investigators identified past “shortcomings” that led to an “inadequate understanding of and reaction to” child abuse, “not least on the part of various bishops and religious superiors.”

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NEDERLAND
de Gelderlander

GIESBEEK – Een pastoor van de Martinusparochie in Giesbeek heeft zich in de jaren zeventig mogelijk schuldig gemaakt aan seksueel misbruik. Dit vermoeden komt van de stichting Klokk, een landelijke organisatie die slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik in de katholieke kerk bijstaat.

De stichting roept op haar website slachtoffers op om zich te melden.

De oproep is ingegeven door een klacht bij het landelijke Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik RKK. Om tot een sterke zaak te komen, is het noodzakelijk dat zich lotgenoten melden.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

From the Legion of Christ scandal to the meeting with Fidel Castro, from Mexico to Cuba

Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican City

Tomorrow the Pope embarks on a trip that is as much religious as it is political. During his visit, the Pope is expected to meet Cuban dissidents and Fidel Castro but not the Mexican victims of the paedophile founder of the Legion of Christ, Maciel. The potential meeting is not formally part of Benedict XVI’s schedule. “Mexican bishops have not asked for this,” said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi. Meanwhile, the climate ahead of the Pope’s arrival in Mexico in heating up on account of the top secret documents published by Mexican magazine Proceso about cover-ups in the Curia. Maciel committed crimes and misdeeds that “Wojtyla could not ignore.”

Benedict XVI will be visiting four cities in Mexico and Cuba. On the occasion of the bicentennial of independence, the leader of the global Catholic Church will make ten speeches over a period of six days, on Central America’s potential and contradictions. Guanajuato is the core of Mexican Catholicism but it is also home to five drug cartels and the scene of violent fighting between criminal organisations and police (with an annual toll of one thousand victims). Mexico is the world’s second most densely populated Catholic Country but anti-clericalism makes it impossible for bishops to exercise their sacred office publicly.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The lack of any meeting with the victims of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ could compromise Benedict XVI’s mission

Andrés Beltramo Álvarez
Vatican City

“He is not scheduled to meet with Maciel’s victims – the bishops have not asked him to.” With these words, Vatican Press Office director Fr. Federico Lombardi ruled out the possibility that the Pope will receive the sexual molestation victims of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ during his visit to Mexico – a controversial decision, even within the Roman Curia. Meanwhile, the victims are preparing another demonstration, possibly tarnishing Benedict XVI’s Latin American visit.

“He was not asked. In other countries where these kinds of meetings with abuse victims have taken place, the bishops urged the Pope to do so because the issue was strongly felt in society and in the Church. In this case, it is not part of the schedule and should not take place. It’s not happening, “said the Jesuit clergyman, while describing the itinerary of the papal trip to Latin America to the international press.

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NEDERLAND
Omroep Brabant

Auteur: Karin Kamp

DEN HAAG – Het volledige eindrapport van de onderzoekscommissie Deetman is sinds woensdag te downloaden. De commissie onder leiding van Wim Deetman deed van medio 2010 tot december 2011 onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk van 1945 tot 2010.

Lange tijd was het alleen mogelijk de samenvatting van het rapport in te zien. Voor het uitgebreide rapport moest eerder betaald worden.

Het bisdom den Bosch plaatste overigens in december vorig jaar per ongeluk het hele eindrapport online, waardoor het rapport korte tijd ook te downloaden was.

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DUITSLAND
PowNed (Nederland)

Paus Benedictus heeft de omstreden Duitse emeritus-bisschop Walter Mixa een nieuwe functie gegeven binnen de katholieke kerk. Mixa zal plaatsnemen in de Pauselijke Raad voor de Werkers in de Gezondheidszorg.

Mixa is omstreden omdat hij twee jaar geleden beschuldigd werd van seksueel misbruik en mishandeling van kinderen. De paus vroeg hem vervolgens zich ‘in stilte en gebed’ terug te trekken.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI has appointed a German bishop who had been accused of financial irregularities and hitting children to the Vatican’s health care council.

Retired Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg was named a member of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry March 21.

It is the 70-year-old bishop’s first appointment as a member of a Vatican dicastery. He served as the bishop of Augsburg and the German Military Ordinariate until he resigned in 2010.

Bishop Mixa’s resignation was accepted a few weeks after he offered it, after accusations surfaced that he had hit children during his time as a priest in charge of a children’s home near Augsburg. He originally denied the claims, then admitted that he had perhaps “boxed the ears” of some of his wards.

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GERMANY
Der Spiegel

By Anna Loll

Two years ago, Germany’s Catholic Church was rocked by reports of widespread child abuse. But Stephan Ackermann, the bishop subsequently made the German Bishops’ Conference’s spokesman on such issues, has rattled many in his own diocese by refusing to actively pursue investigations or impose harsh penalties.

A man with piercing blue eyes is putting flowers in the planters on the balcony of a retirement home. Father V. sits up and carefully pulls off his dirt-covered plastic gloves. “Many see me as the gardener here,” he says.

In 1994, he was convicted on 28 counts of sexual abuse of minors in the Trier diocese and given a two-year suspended sentence. Despite the conviction, he remained a priest and, in 1996, he was simply transferred to a congregation in Ukraine. There, he says, he abused more minors.

V. is now 72. “I can only compare it to alcoholism,” he says quietly with his arms folded over his chest and shaking hands. “It’s like an addiction,” he adds, “a sort of schizophrenia in which you switch off entire parts of your consciousness.”

Nevertheless, he once again has access to minors since children regularly visit his places of work, a retirement home and a clinic in the Trier diocese. V. says he is abstinent. But when asked whether he is cured, he takes a deep breath and says, “No. It remains part of one’s personality,” adding that he shouldn’t have accepted his new position.

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VATIKANSTADT
Augsburger Allgemeine

Im Vatikan Mitglied des Gesundheitsrats

Vatikanstadt Walter Mixa, 70, ehemaliger Bischof von Augsburg, ist von Papst Benedikt XVI. zum Mitglied des vatikanischen Gesundheitsrates berufen worden. Das teilte der Vatikan am Mittwoch mit. Die Kurienbehörde mit dem offiziellen Titel „Päpstlicher Rat für die Pastoral im Krankendienst“ soll Seelsorge, Arbeit und Ausbildung im Gesundheitswesen fördern. Als Mitglied reist Mixa künftig zu den Versammlungen der Vatikanbehörde nach Rom. Gemeinsam mit Mixa wurde auch der südafrikanische Kardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, 71, zum Mitglied ernannt.

Mixa hatte nach verschiedenen Vorwürfen am 21. April 2010 vorzeitig sein Rücktrittsgesuch beim Papst eingereicht und wenige Tage später zunächst widerrufen. Am 8. Mai nahm Benedikt XVI. den Amtsverzicht an und verordnete Mixa eine nicht näher terminierte „Zeit des Schweigens und eine Periode der Heilungen“. Diese hatte Mixas Nachfolger in Augsburg, Bischof Konrad Zdarsa, im vergangenen Herbst für beendet erklärt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche

Benedikt XVI. beruft Ex-Bischof in den vatikanischen Gesundheitsrat

Augsburg – Papst Benedikt XVI. hat dem umstrittenen ehemaligen Bischof von Augsburg, Walter Mixa, einen Beraterposten im Vatikan anvertraut. Wie der Heilige Stuhl am Mittwoch mitteilte, wurde der 70-Jährige zum Mitglied des vatikanischen Gesundheitsrates berufen. Die Kurienbehörde mit dem offiziellen Titel ‘Päpstlicher Rat für die Pastoral im Krankendienst’ wurde von Benedikts Vorgänger Johannes Paul II. geschaffen und gibt Empfehlungen für die Kranken-Seelsorge und die Arbeit der weltweit im Gesundheitswesen tätigen katholischen Einrichtungen ab. Mixa wird nach Angaben des Bistums Eichstätt auch künftig in der Villa Barbara in Gunzenheim (Kreis Donau-Ries) wohnen und nur zu den Versammlungen nach Rom reisen.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 21 March 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father appointed:

– As members of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care: Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier O.F.M., archbishop of Durban, South Africa, and Bishop Walter Mixa, emeritus of Augsburg, Germany.

– As consultors of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care: Bishop Joachim Ntahondereye of Muyinga, Burundi; Orochi Samuel Orach, director of the National Office for Health Pastoral Care in Uganda; Stefano Ojetti, vice president of the Italian Association of Catholic Doctors, and Salvatore Pagliuca, vice president of UNITALSI (Italian National Union for Transport of the Sick to Lourdes and International

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ROM
Frankfurter Rundschau

Trotz seines Rücktritts vor rund zwei Jahren, hat der Papst den umstrittenen Ex-Bischof Mixa in den Päpstlichen Rat berufen. Sein Aufgabengebiet: Seelsorge im Krankendienst.

Rom –

Papst Benedikt XVI. hat den umstrittenen früheren Augsburger Bischof Walter Mixa zum Berater berufen. Der 71-Jährige wird Mitglied des Päpstlichen Rats für die Seelsorge im Krankendienst, wie der Vatikan am Mittwoch mitteilte. Mixa hatte vor rund zwei Jahren seinen Rücktritt als Bischof von Augsburg angeboten, nachdem ihm massive Prügel an Waisenhauskindern und finanzielle Unregelmäßigkeiten vorgeworfen worden waren. In einem ungewöhnlich schnellen Verfahren nahm der Papst das Gesuch nach nur wenigen Tagen an.

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VATICAN CITY
The Province

AFP

VATICAN CITY – A German bishop who resigned after admitting he beat children in a Catholic orphanage has been appointed by the pope to the Pontifical Council for Health Care, the Vatican said Wednesday.

Walter Mixa, 71, tended his resignation as bishop of Augsburg and military chaplain in 2010 as German prosecutors announced they were also launching a probe into paedophilia claims that were later dropped.

The Vatican has a dossier on Mixa which contains allegations of alcoholism, misuse of Vatican money and sexual abuse, according to German media reports.

At the time, Pope Benedict XVI said that the outcry over the Mixa affair was exaggerated, and called on German bishops to “show him their understanding and help him to find the right path.”

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Star Tribune

Posted by: Rose French Updated: March 22, 2012

A small group of advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse plans to gather in front of the Twin Cities archdiocese chancery office in St. Paul Thursday to urge Catholic leaders to seek out other potential abuse victims, who may have been assaulted by a former Minnesota parish priest.

Among the expected protestors will be Megan Peterson, a Minnesota college student, who has spoken publicly about being raped when she was 14 years old by the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul, a priest from India who served at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Greenbush (in the northwestern Minnesota diocese of Crookston) in 2004.

Jeyapaul, 57, an Indian citizen, has denied abusing Peterson.

Earlier this week, The Associated Press reported police in southern India arrested Jeyapaul, who was wanted in the U.S. on criminal charges of sexually assaulting Peterson.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kreuz.net

„Sie glauben, daß die Kirche ein Problem hat? Der körperliche Sexualmißbrauch in öffentlichen Schulen ist wahrscheinlich hundertmal höher als der Mißbrauch durch Priester.“

(kreuz.net) „Die antikirchliche Tageszeitung ‘Los Angeles Times’ schrieb häufig Leitartikel über katholische Priester, die vor Jahrzehnten Mißbräuche begangen haben sollen.

Dagegen werden aktuelle Verhaftungen von Lehrern wegen Mißbräuchen an öffentlichen Schulen nicht berichtet oder unter ‘Ferner liefen’ begraben.“

Das erklärte der Journalist Dave Pierre am 5. Januar vor dem US-Magazin ‘Catholic World Report’.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Augsburger Allgemeine

Von Harald Jung

„Fälle von sexuellem Missbrauch gibt es nicht nur in der katholischen Kirche“, stellte Jugendschöffenrichter Martin Schilcher gestern fest. Auf der Anklagebank saß ein 21-Jähriger Imam, der von seiner Glaubensgemeinschaft zur Leitung einer Moschee ausgebildet worden war.

Im Sommer vergangenen Jahres absolvierte der Mann aus dem Raum Bruchsal zunächst ein Praktikum in einer Augsburger Moschee und dann in Ingolstadt. Dort sollte er einen Ferienkurs in der Koranschule einer Moschee unterstützen. Am 20. August missbrauchte er dabei zwei Mal einen seiner Schüler. Der erste Vorfall ereignete sich gegen die Mittagszeit, der zweite unmittelbar nach dem Abendgebet. Staatsanwältin Bettina Grafe sprach gestern in ihrem Plädoyer von „ziemlich massiven sexuellen Handlungen“.

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SOUTH AFRICA
The New Age

Thabisile Khoza

A pastor accused of raping and impregnating his 19-year-old biological daughter was remanded in custody pending the results of DNA tests.

The case was postponed to next Thursday by the Mkhuhlu Magistrate’s Court this week.

The pastor, 54, from Cunningmore B near Calcutta village outside Hazyview, was not asked to plead to a charge of rape.

“The court remanded him in custody to avoid any chances of him interfering with the victim as we are still waiting for the DNA tests to prove whether he is the father of his daughter’s baby or not,” police spokesperson Const Tshepo Lebjane said.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Last week, I wrote that Dr. Donohue of the Catholic League appeared to have USCCB insider information when he told the media recently that “the bishops have come together collectively” to fight the group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. Dr. Donohue was referring to the legal hardball games that attorneys working for Catholic officials are playing in Missouri.

And I concluded,

Though, when the leader of the USCCB, His Eminence Timothy M. Cardinal Dolan, not only embraces but defends Dr. Donohue, one has to wonder whose insider information is more correct here–Donohue’s or Walsh’s?

And now it seems that His Eminence is out to prove me correct regarding the links between His Eminence as leader of the U.S. Catholic bishops, Dr. Donohue, and the attack on the SNAP group. His Eminence has just posted a statement on his blog linking to a Catholic League statement by one William A. Donohue, Ph.D., which characterizes David Clohessy of SNAP as a “con artist.”

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NETHERLANDS
The Daily Beast (United States)

Mar 22, 2012

Robert Chesal on how he and Joep Dohmen uncovered the Dutch castration scandal

For fifty years, Cornelius Rogge tried to tell the world this story. “People thought I was crazy,” he says. It was a story about a man he once knew who had been sexually abused by a Roman Catholic brother—and who was then castrated, when he dared to report the crime.

Rogge tried to tell journalists about it, but no one would listen. In 2010, he wrote his story in a letter to Wim Deetman, chairman of the commission that investigated sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church in the Netherlands. Still no action.

Then he contacted Joep Dohmen, a journalist from the Rotterdam-based newspaper NRC Handelsblad, the colleague who I worked with to break the story of Dutch church sex abuse back in 2010. Dohmen and I, working for our respective media but sharing information, uncovered a series of scandals in boarding schools and parishes that led hundreds of abuse victims to step forward and tell their story. Our work led the Dutch bishops to install a commission of inquiry that completed its work last December. When Rogge called Dohmen, that’s when things finally started to move.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Bob Hohler
Globe Staff / March 22, 2012

A Boston College football player was charged Wednesday with illegally audiotaping a consensual sexual encounter between a fellow player and a female graduate student in a campus suite the players shared.

Jaryd Rudolph, a 19-year-old defensive tackle from Plympton, allegedly violated the state’s privacy and eavesdropping laws Feb. 15 when he recorded the episode on his cellphone and shared the tape with at least one BC teammate.

The female student filed a complaint with BC Police, and a clerk magistrate in Brighton District Court ruled after a closed-door hearing that there was sufficient evidence to warrant a criminal charge.

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UNITED STATES
PowerTrip

By Mark V. Serrano·March 22, 2012

Several years ago I was conducting an interview with a reporter with a major daily newspaper who had covered the Catholic clergy abuse scandals regularly. In the course of the discussion, the reporter asked me what I thought should be done with my perpetrator, Father James T. Hanley, an admitted child molester with dozens of known victims who could no longer be prosecuted for his crimes.

”Chemical castration,” was my response. The reporter was aghast at my suggestion and encouraged me to retract my quote. “You’re better than that,” he said. I noted that it was the only way to ensure that children would be safe from an admitted, compulsive child molester.

A couple of years later when notifying an urban community that my perpetrator was their new neighbor, we discovered a family with three young boys who had just unwittingly hosted the child-molester at their home for dinner. He came bearing balloons for the boys, as he had obviously chosen them to be his next victims.

Clearly, chemical castration would have been too good for him.

This anecdote brings an ironic twist to the news that despite an official investigation last year into hundreds of cases of sexual abuse enabled by Catholic bishops in The Netherlands over 50 years, ten cases of castration of clergy abuse victims went undiscovered – until, that is, a new report by investigative journalist Joep Dohmen was just released (see: Dutch Roman Catholic Church ‘castrated at least 10 boys’).

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Tom Brady Security Editor

Thursday March 22 2012

Garda handling of two separate complaints of clerical sex abuse by a priest from the Catholic diocese of Cloyne is to be investigated by an independent watchdog body.

The Garda Ombudsman Commission has decided to carry out inquiries into the behaviour of gardai dealing with the complaints.

The move follows criticism of inadequate garda action, highlighted in the Cloyne Report, published last summer by a commission led by Judge Yvonne Murphy following a two-year state-ordered probe into allegations of cover-ups in Cloyne between 1996 and 2009.

The damning report resulted in a government decision to introduce legislation which could lead to priests being jailed for up to five years if they fail to report paedophiles to gardai, even if told of the abuse in the confessional.

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STOCKTON (CA)
The Modesto Bee

By Ross Farrow
News-Sentinel (Lodi)

STOCKTON — Father Michael Kelly continued to deny allegations that he sexually assaulted anyone while spending almost two more hours on the witness stand Wednesday.

Attorney John Manly represents a 37-year-old man suing Kelly on allegations that the Lockeford priest sexually assaulted him when the plaintiff was an altar boy in the 1980s.

Manly named several people from the 1970s and ’80s, asking Kelly if he had touched any of them on or near the groin.

Kelly, testifying for a second day, vehemently denied that he touched anyone inappropriately.

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STOCKTON (CA)
The Record

By The Record

March 22, 2012

STOCKTON – Diocese of Stockton’s Bishop Stephen Blaire testified Wednesday in a civil trial involving a local priest accused of sexually molesting an altar boy in the mid-1980s.

Blaire, the church’s highest-ranking local official, confirmed certain facts about the diocese and a report of sex abuse made by the plaintiff’s father in 2006.

The plaintiff, a 37-year-old Fairfax man, said he recovered repressed memories that year, and said he remembered being groomed and raped by Kelly while he served at Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton.

Kelly was on the stand Tuesday and Wednesday.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Claire O’Sullivan

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Communities will be involved in any plans to radically reorganise the amount of dioceses in this country, according to the summary report presented by the Vatican team who visited the country last year.

One church source yesterday warned that “amalgamation had the potential to be very emotive as priests and lay people identified with the existing diocese.”

They pointed to historic amalgamations which were “fraught affairs”.

“It would also involve a lot of legal wrangling, such as for one, whether the former dioceses would still be considered a registered charity,” he said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

Recently, many of you have asked questions on C4C regarding issues of child protection in the Philadelphia Archdiocese. Please share them again in the comment section of this post. Susan and I will use this post to compile a list of questions and will forward them to Mary Rochford, Superintendent of Schools and Leslie Davila, Director of the Office of Child and Youth protection.

Individual voices might not always be heard, but collectively with C4C national and local followers, we may be able to obtain some clarity on the very important issue of child protection. We ask that all comments on this post be questions concerning child protection within the Philadelphia Archdiocese. – Kathy Kane

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MEXICO
National Catholic Reporter

by Michael Sean Winters on Mar. 21, 2012 Distinctly Catholic

This story from the Associated Press will, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Santorum, make you want to throw up. A new book details that the Vatican received information about Father Maciel’s crimes more than 50 years ago. (h/t to Rocco!)

I do want to point out one thing however. The article does not implicate Benedict in the cover-up but it leaves open the possibility. That possibility should be foreclosed. As head of the CDF, then-Cardinal ratzinger conducted the investigation of Maciel and then the apartment did nothing with it. Cardinals Sodano and Dziwicz have some answering to do but not Pope Benedict.

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UNITED STATES
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

Recently, Catholic League president William A. Donohue, Ph.D. published a report on the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) deposition in Missouri. Here is an excerpt from Donohue’s report:

At the end of 2011, a Missouri judge ordered David Clohessy, the president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), to be deposed regarding his role in cases of priestly sexual abuse. Clohessy fought the order vigorously, but lost. On January 2, 2012, he was deposed; the deposition was made public only recently [click here]. [NOTE: all pages cited are taken from the deposition.]

Clohessy proved to be uncooperative, refusing to comply with a request for internal documents; he only released a small portion of them. On the stand, he was similarly recalcitrant, refusing to answer many questions. He took refuge in a Missouri law which protects the confidentiality of rape crisis centers. But there are serious reasons to doubt whether SNAP meets the test of a rape crisis center.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee on Mar. 21, 2012 NCR Today

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, posted a link on his blog this afternoon to a statement from Bill Donohue, the head of the Catholic League, which suggests the director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests may be a “con artist.”

The post comes as the victims’ advocacy group and its director, David Clohessy, have found support in recent days on the editorial pages of several national papers in light of attempts by attorneys representing priests accused of abuse to obtain 23 years of the group’s documents.

Dolan’s post came on his “The Gospel in the Digital Age” blog at the New York Archdiocese website. It quotes in full three paragraphs of a statement by Donohue before providing people a link to read the rest.

Donohue’s statement, titled “SNAP Unravels,” is a long rehash of some of the facts surrounding the attempts by priests’ lawyers, which resulted last January in Clohessy’s deposition in a case involving a priest accused of abuse in Kansas City, Mo.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

BRIDGEPORT (CT)
National Catholic Reporter

By David Gibson, Religion News Service

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — If there is any Catholic bishop in the U.S. who probably didn’t need a bigger platform, it would be William E. Lori, who was named Tuesday (March 20) by Pope Benedict XVI as the next archbishop of Baltimore.

For the past decade, Lori has led the Diocese of Bridgeport in Connecticut’s Fairfield County, but in recent months he’s become the public face of the hierarchy’s new signature issue: the fight for “religious freedom.” …

Within months, Lori was facing two huge crises: the 9/11 attacks that claimed many of his new flock, and the clergy abuse crisis that has continued to dog the hierarchy.

While Lori is known for his orthodoxy on doctrine and social issues, he was praised by many for taking a hard line in dealing with abusive priests, and in dealing with subsequent financial scandals that emerged. On the other hand, Lori also fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep documents on private settlements with victims — reached before he became bishop — sealed. He argued his case on religious freedom grounds, but eventually lost.

But two other episodes helped shape his outlook. One was a proposal by a pair of state senators to change the structure of Catholic parishes to have lay people, rather than priests and bishops, in charge. Critics suspected it was legislative mischief prompted by Lori’s vocal opposition to Connecticut’s gay marriage law.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MEXICO
World Socialist Web Site

By Rafael Azul
21 March 2012

Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to visit Mexico on March 23. His visit coincides with the run-up to the Mexican presidential elections, which will take place on July 1. The visit takes place as the Mexican Senate prepares to vote on constitutional changes that will severely weaken the principle of separation of church and state and the secular character of the Mexican government.

The draft legislation proposes changes in the language of Articles 24 and 40 of the Mexican Constitution, guaranteeing religious instruction in Mexican schools, and allowing the church greater access to mass means of communication, among other things.

Benedict, the former Joseph Ratzinger, is to follow his visit to Mexico with a trip to Cuba.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.