ABUSE TRACKER

CHICAGO (IL)
nwi

By Gregory Tejeda Times Correspondent

CHICAGO | A man who volunteered to run youth programs with ties to a United Methodist Church in the East Side neighborhood pleaded not guilty Thursday to criminal charges alleging he had sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl.

Salvador Alvarez, 42, appeared before Associate Judge Arthur F. Hill Jr., at the Criminal Courts building, where he entered his plea to three counts of criminal sexual assault and 11 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, said Alvarez is scheduled to appear in court again on June 14. He remains free on a $250,000 bail.

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ANTIOCH (CA)
KGO

[with video]

Carolyn Tyler

ANTIOCH, Calif. (KGO) — Six sisters from Antioch are suing the city, the county and their church. They’re accusing public and church officials of failing to respond to years of sexual abuse by their own parents.

The Dutro girls were four biological siblings and two cousins, all raised as sisters.

“Their story is unimaginable, but the scariest part is that it’s true,” the Dutro’s attorney Jason Runckel said.

The sisters are now adults looking back on what they say were 20 years, from the time they were toddlers, of sexual abuse by their parents.

The oldest daughter, Amber, who is now 32, told ABC7 News by phone, that those they turned to for help ignored them.

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MENDHAM (NJ)
Daily Record

Written by
Peggy Wright
@peggywrightdr

A 38-year-old Mendham man was indicted Thursday on charges he used a sledgehammer to demolish a monument to victims of child sexual abuse outside St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Mendham.

The monument has been rebuilt and was dedicated last month.

A Morris County grand jury issued an indictment that charges Gordon D. Ellis with criminal mischief by causing $2,000 or more in damage to property, unlawful possession of a weapon, desecrating religious or sectarian premises, and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.

Ellis, who is receiving mental health treatment at an inpatient facility, is accused of using a sledgehammer Nov. 18 to destroy the monument, a black basalt millstone. Authorities said they believe that Ellis, an unemployed chef, was intoxicated at the time.

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DALLAS (TX)
The Wichita Eagle

By The Associated Press

DALLAS — A former Roman Catholic priest with ties to the Kansas City area was found guilty Thursday of plotting the death of a man who accused him of sexual abuse.

The Dallas County jury returned its verdict on John M. Fiala after a few hours’ deliberation.

After the verdict, testimony began in the penalty phase. Fiala could be sentenced to up to life in prison for solicitation of capital murder.

Prosecutors alleged that Fiala tried to hire a neighbor’s brother to kill the man who accused the priest of abusing him in 2008. That’s when the man was 16 and Fiala was the priest at a rural West Texas parish.

Defense attorney Rex Gunter told the jury that Fiala had no true intentions of having his accuser killed.

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APPLETON (WI)
Fox 11

APPLETON – A witness for the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay admitted today in court that he heard rumors about a now former priest’s alleged improper behavior, but did nothing about it.

Troy and Todd Merryfield are suing the diocese. The brothers claim the diocese knew now former priest John Feeney had inappropriate contact with children before he sexual abused them in 1978.

Thursday was day four of the trial.

As a Vicar with the Green Bay Diocese in the 1970’s Monsignor Paul Koszarek was a leader among the other priests. He knew John Feeney.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The New York Times

By JON HURDLE and ERIK ECKHOLM

Published: May 17, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — After seven weeks of testimony, prosecutors on Thursday rested their case against Msgr. William J. Lynn, the first senior Roman Catholic official in the United States to face criminal charges of covering up sexual abuse by priests and reassigning those suspected of child molesting to unwary new parishes.

Monsignor Lynn, 61, served from 1992 to 2004 as secretary for clergy for the 1.5 million-member Archdiocese of Philadelphia, in charge of job assignments for priests and investigating complaints about their behavior. He is not accused of committing sexual abuses himself, but rather of endangering minors and conspiring with other officials to protect accused priests.

In rulings on Thursday, Judge M. Teresa Sarmina of Common Pleas Court dismissed one of two conspiracy counts against Monsignor Lynn, involving allegations of efforts to protect the Rev. James J. Brennan, a priest who remains a co-defendant in the current trial and is accused of the attempted rape of a child.

But Judge Sarmina left intact the charges that Monsignor Lynn endangered two minors by failing to remove errant priests and also a second conspiracy charge, that he cooperated with other officials to protect a former priest, Edward V. Avery, who recently pleaded guilty to sex abuse.

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DALLAS (TX)
Reporter-News

By The Associated Press
Posted May 17, 2012

DALLAS — A former Roman Catholic priest was found guilty Thursday of plotting the death of a man who accused him of sexual abuse.

The Dallas Morning News reported the Dallas County jury returned its verdict on John M. Fiala after a few hours’ deliberation.

After the verdict, testimony began in the penalty phase. Fiala could be sentenced to up to life in prison for solicitation of capital murder.

Prosecutors say Fiala tried to hire a neighbor’s brother to kill the man who accused him of abusing him in 2008. That’s when the man was 16 and Fiala was the priest at a rural West Texas parish.

During closing arguments Thursday, prosecutors urged jurors not to believe Fiala’s claims that he told a purported hit man to kill his accuser only because he thought his own life was in danger.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

Imagine a train uncoupling as it rumbles down the tracks.

That’s what happened Thursday when Judge M. Teresa Sarmina tossed two conspiracy charges to endanger the welfare of children that linked the two defendants, Father James J. Brennan and Msgr. William J. Lynn.

The judge made her surprise decision on the day the prosecution rested, after presenting eight weeks of testimony from some 48 witnesses and thousands of pages of exhibits. There’s a gag order in the case that prevents lawyers on both sides from talking to the media. However, it wasn’t hard to read the contrasting reactions.

Defense lawyers, the two defendants and their relatives were beaming, laughing and shaking hands as they filed out of the courtroom. Meanwhile, prosecutors said little and moved swiftly toward the elevators.

As detailed previously on this blog, the cases against Father Brennan and Monsignor Lynn have been moving in opposite directions. The case against Father Brennan has unraveled since the 2011 grand jury report, when an original charge of rape was downgraded to attempted rape; meanwhile the evidence against Msgr. Lynn has continued to pile up.

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UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic

Friday, May 18, 2012

Bob Smietana

Panels reviewing sex abuse allegations help dioceses get their houses in order, but they are only as effective as the information the bishops give them.

Jim Caccamo has a simple explanation for why he joined the lay review board for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri back in 2005: Former Bishop Raymond Boland asked him to.

“When the bishop asks you, you say yes,” says Caccamo, a lifelong Catholic and member of St. Peter’s Parish in Kansas City.

Caccamo had other reasons as well. He’s a grandfather and wanted to be sure that his grandchildren and children like them were safe. He’d also spent his career as an educator trying to make life better for children. The former public school administrator is now director of early education for the Mid-America Regional Council in Kansas City.

So helping the church take care of children seemed the right thing for Caccamo to do. Like many Catholics he was outraged by the clergy sexual abuse scandal that first rocked the church in 2002. He says the church failed in its responsibility to keep kids safe.

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.

DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

By Niraj Warikoo
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

With his Hollywood-star looks and a doctorate in moral theology, the Rev. Thomas Williams became a nationally known Catholic priest who spoke often on NBC and CBS as an advocate for the Vatican.

But this week, the Bloomfield Hills native announced he fathered a child, becoming the latest prominent leader with the conservative Catholic order Legion of Christ to face scandal.

Williams, 50, stepped down from his prominent position in Rome — where he taught at the Legion’s university — and will take a year off.

Williams is back in Michigan with his parents while recovering from cancer surgery, said the Legion’s director, the Rev. Luis Garza. In recent years, Williams became the public face of the Legion. Katie Couric once jokingly referred to Williams as “Father-What-a-Waste,” noting his handsome appearance, recalled Deacon Greg Kandra of New York. Catholic priests are required to be celibate.

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APPLETON (WI)
Post-Crescent

Written by
Jim Collar
Post-Crescent staff writer

APPLETON — A psychologist hired by the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay said two brothers who were sexually assaulted by a priest in 1978 suffered only minor trauma as a result.

Attorneys for the church began calling their witnesses Thursday in the Outagamie County civil lawsuit alleging fraud against the diocese. Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield say the diocese knew former priest John Feeney sexually assaulted others before 1978 and fraudulently misrepresented his safety when assigning him to Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church.

In their 2008 civil lawsuit, the Merryfields cite “profound psychological damage” as a result of the assaults.

Dr. Timothy Lynch, a Milwaukee psychologist, disagreed the abuse caused the brothers significant harm and spent more than two hours on the witness stand detailing his evaluations and findings.

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APPLETON (WI)
WTAQ

APPLETON, WI (WTAQ) – Attorneys for the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay presented their defense Thursday in Day 4 of their civil fraud trial.

Brothers Troy and Todd Merryfield accuse the diocese of hiding their knowledge that former priest John Feeney had a history of sexual abuse prior to his abusing the Merryfields while working at a Freedom church. Feeney was convicted in 2004 of molesting Troy and Todd Merryfield in May 1978.

In court Thursday, Monsignor Paul Koszarek testified he had heard rumors about John Feeney swimming nude with and showering with young boys in the early 1970’s.
Monsignor Koszarek was an episcopal vicar with the diocese in the 70’s. That means he was a representative to the bishop of the diocese at the time, in charge of parishes in Green Bay and De Pere.

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DALLAS (TX)
NewsWest 9

Audrey Castoreno
NewsWest 9

DALLAS – It took a jury only a few hours to come to their decision of guilty in the murder for hire trial against 52-year-old John Fiala.

According to police, this all began back in 2008 when Fiala met the then 16-year-old in Rock Springs, Texas.

We’re told the boy often traveled to Big Spring to visit a girlfriend.

Investigators say Fiala eventually set the boy up in an apartment in Big Spring and even enrolled him in the school district as a homeless person.

The teen’s parents became suspicious and called authorities.

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NEW YORK
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

In the last week, the New York Times has published no less than three items (1, 2, 3) related to large-scale child abuse and cover-ups in New York City’s Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities.

Is the Times finally moving beyond its single-minded obsession with decades-old cases involving the Catholic Church? Kudos to the paper’s Ray Rivera and Sharon Otterman for breaking the mold in their bold coverage, which may prevent many innocent children from being harmed in the future.

How far will the Times go?

The Times’ coverage is encouraging, because the more light that is shined on the paramount issue of child abuse, then the more likely that children will be protected.

However, will the Times expand its investigative forces into looking into the massive abuses and cover-ups happening today in one of its most beloved secular institutions, the public school system? Just in February of this year, six teachers were arrested on sickening child abuse charges – just in New York City alone! In 2011, there were 561 complaints of “sexually questionable conduct” by New York City teachers. Surely this is an important story worth exploring.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Reuters

By Dave Warner

PHILADELPHIA | Thu May 17, 2012 6:17pm EDT

(Reuters) – The prosecution rested its case on Thursday against Philadelphia Archdiocese Monsignor William Lynn, the most senior U.S. clergyman to go to trial in the Roman Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal.

During nearly eight weeks of startling testimony about the lurid lives of predatory priests, Lynn, a former secretary of the clergy, has sat stoically in his clerical garb as the case unfolded in an often-packed courtroom.

Lynn, 61, is charged with child endangerment and conspiracy over accusations he covered up child sex abuse allegations against priests, many of whom were simply transferred to unsuspecting parishes.

He faces the possibility of 28 years in prison if convicted.

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CALIFORNIA
Sonoma Valley Sun

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Joan Huguenard

One must wonder if those fellows in Rome have noticed yet; things are different in the twenty-first century and the “pray, pay and obey” mentality is no longer the dominant theme among Catholics around the world.

This month in Ireland, for example, the Association of Catholic Priests sponsored a gathering of concerned folks to discuss the future of the church, expecting perhaps as many as 200 attendees. However, more than 1,000 priests, religious and laypeople showed up.

The National Catholic Reporter (NCR) of May 8, 2012 tells us “Dublin’s Regency Hotel was packed to capacity, with many at the event forced to stand. Speaker after speaker pleaded for a more open church centered around a spirit of dialogue. Redemptorist Fr. Tony Flannery, who was recently forbidden to write by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, maintained a discreet presence and was greeted by many well-wishers.”

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APPLETON (WI)
NBC 26

By Brian Miller

Appleton– Testimony continued Thursday in a trial involving the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay and two former Outagamie County brothers who were sexually abused by former priest John Patrick Feeney in the 1970’s. Feeney was convicted of sexual assault for two incidents involving the Merryfields, once in the boys’ bedrooms. The other incident involved Feeney touching the Troy Merryfield’s penis through his pants during confessional at the church.

The first witness for the defense was a psychologist hired by the Diocese to evaluate the Merryfield brothers last January. Dr. Timothy Lynch testified he did not believe the abuse would be considered “sexual” abuse and says the incident did not cause the Merryfields any great trauma. “There was no treatment required, decades went by with no mention of any symptoms or consequences with respect to personal, life, academic life, family life,” Lynch testified.

Dr. Lynch told the jury the boys experienced mild trauma from the Feeney incident.

Lawyers for the Merryfields pointed out Lynch is not an expert on sexual abuse and he met with diocese attorneys before submitting his report.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

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

A Philadelphia judge has dismissed the count alleging a conspiracy to endanger children against Msgr. William J. Lynn and the Rev. James J. Brennan.

In a ruling shortly before 4 p.m. today, Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina granted motions for acquittal on the conspiracy count against the two clerics in the landmark trial over child sex-abuse by Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests.

But Sarmina denied defense motions to throw out the remaining counts against Lynn and Brennan, meaning that those charges will be left to the jury to decide.

The rulings by the judge were made outside the jury’s presence after a curtailed morning session in which the prosecutors rested their case after calling nearly 50 witnesses and presenting close to 1,900 pieces of evidence.

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FLORIDA
Orlando Sentinel

By Ludmilla Lelis, Orlando Sentinel

6:05 p.m. EST, May 17, 2012

TAVARES — A Lake County jury today found the Florida Baptist Convention liable for a former pastor who sexually abused a 13-year-old boy in Eustis.

Jurors decided that the convention didn’t do enough to investigate the background of Douglas W. Myers, who started two churches in Lake County after receiving funds and training from the convention.

Myers, 63, pleaded guilty to molesting the boy repeated over a six-month period, ending in 2005, and is serving a seven-year prison sentence. The convention had argued that it is more of a support organization for Baptist churches and that it didn’t have any control or responsibility for him.

The jury for the nearly two-week trial was not asked to decide a monetary award for damages. Attorneys said that issue would come up at a later court hearing.

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DALLAS (TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The Associated Press

DALLAS — A former Roman Catholic priest was found guilty Thursday of plotting the death of a man who accused him of sexual abuse.

The Dallas Morning News (http://bit.ly/KddSh1) reported the Dallas County jury returned its verdict on John M. Fiala after a few hours’ deliberation.

After the verdict, testimony began in the penalty phase. Fiala could be sentenced to up to life in prison for solicitation of capital murder.

Prosecutors say Fiala tried to hire a neighbor’s brother to kill the man who accused him of abusing him in 2008. That’s when the man was 16 and Fiala was the priest at a rural West Texas parish.

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DALLAS (TX)
My Fox DFW

By: Melissa Cutler

DALLAS –
A Dallas jury is deliberating the fate of a former Catholic priest convicted in a murder-for-hire plot.

Prosecutors said John Fiala, a Garland resident who once served in the San Antonio diocese, tried to hire an undercover police officer to kill a teenager who accused him of sexual assault.

Jurors heard a taped recording of a discussion between Fiala and the undercover officer about payment to a hit man.

Fiala’s attorneys tried to argue that a neighbor was the one who hatched the scheme. But Fiala testified his neighbor had no motive.

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IRELAND
Eureka Street

Brian Lennon May 17, 2012

Organisers had initially expected 200 to turn up at the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) meeting in Dublin this month. In fact over 1000 showed up.

The size of the crowd in part was a response to the recent silencing of Irish priests.

One of those silenced, Fr Tony Flannery, was part of the leadership team of the ACP. A second, Fr Brian D’Arcy, was a weekly columnist in tabloid newspaper, The Sunday World. It turned out that someone in the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith had been trawling through decades of the paper to check D’Arcy’s articles.

Two other stories provided a backdrop to the meeting. One was a TV program which revealed that in 1975 when he was a bishop’s secretary, Cardinal Sean Brady, now Primate of Ireland, was given the names of some boys abused by Fr Brendan Smyth during a canonical investigation, and failed to report this either to the parents or to the police. Smyth, the abuser being investigated, continued to prey on children for a further 18 years.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
Washington Post

By Michael O’malley| Religion News Service

CLEVELAND — It’s been nearly a month since Bishop Richard Lennon announced he would reopen 12 closed churches, but so far no shuttered sanctuaries have been resurrected.

As they wait, parishioners from some of the moribund parishes have begun organizing committees in preparation for the reopenings, which the diocese says are in process, although there’s no official timetable.

At St. Mary Catholic Church in suburban Bedford, parishioners have formed a parish council, a finance committee and a music committee. And they have tied blue and white bows and a “Welcome Home” sign on the front of their church.

“We’ve got our committees organized,” said St. Mary parishioner Carol Szczepanik. “We’re just waiting for the bishop.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Lez Get Real

Posted by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on May 17, 2012.

Monsignor William Lynn’s biggest problem may end up being that the evidence against him comes from within his own church. Lynn is accused of and charged with endangering children and conspiring to cover up alleged abuse from various priests over the years.

Documents specifically relating to the alleged abuse by defrocked priest Michael McCarthy have become part of the case as the prosecution details how the archdiocese handled abuse complaints against some twenty priests over the years. None of the priests were ever charged because the complaints were never brought to the authorities. The complaints were kept locked away in the archdiocese for years.

The documents show that the archdiocese ignored the complaints until a donor complained about a competing business that McCarthy was apparently running. McCarthy has denied the allegations that he molested two young boys, including one at the house where he lives today.

The accuser informed the archdiocese back in 1991 about the abuse. McCarthy, then a teacher at Cardinal O’Hara High School, allegedly plied the minor with alcohol, removed his underwear while wrestling, and fondled the young man in bed. The youth did not complain fearing that he would be retaliated against.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
San Antonio Express-News

MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

Updated 04:37 p.m., Thursday, May 17, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — After eight weeks of wrenching testimony, Philadelphia prosecutors rested their case Thursday in the trial of a Roman Catholic church official accused of helping bury complaints that priests were raping and molesting children.

Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged for his handling of the abuse complaints. Prosecutors say the former secretary for clergy of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia helped known predators stay in ministry, and they charged him with child endangerment and conspiracy.

In arguing to send the case to the jury, a prosecutor said the church needed the priests to run the “business,” protecting church assets — and secrets — over the lives of children.

“They turned a religious institution into a financial institution,” Assistant District Patrick Blessington argued. “It’s disgraceful. It’s criminal.”

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DALLAS (TX)
The Dallas Morning News

By Scott Goldstein / Reporter
sgoldstein@dallasnews.com
3:25 pm on May 17, 2012

John Fiala also faces sex assault charges in Edwards County.

A former Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy at gunpoint was convicted this afternoon of trying to hire a hit man to kill the boy.

John Fiala, who faces up to life in prison, showed no outward emotion as the verdict was read. The jury of nine women and three men that convicted him after a few hours of deliberating will decide his punishment.

Testimony in the punishment phase of the trial is underway.

Fiala testified this morning that he told a purported hit man to kill his accuser because he thought his own life was in danger.

He said his friend and neighbor Scottie Fisher told him the hit man was his brother. The brother would likely turn on Fiala if he wasn’t convinced the hit was on, Fiala said Fisher told him.

“I knew that if I didn’t do this, I’d be the one on the list, marked to be killed, according to what Scottie said,” Fiala said.

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DALLAS (TX)
Statesman

The Associated Press

DALLAS — A jury began deliberating on Thursday the fate of a former Roman Catholic priest accused of plotting the death of a man who accused him of sexual abuse.

John M. Fiala is facing a charge of solicitation of capital murder. Authorities say he tried to hire a neighbor’s brother to kill his accuser. That accuser had said Fiala abused him at the ex-priest’s rural West Texas parish in 2008 when the man was 16.

Fiala faces up to life in prison if convicted.

The Dallas Morning News (http://bit.ly/LfSaxz ) reported that during closing arguments Thursday, prosecutors urged jurors not to believe Fiala’s claims that he told a purported hit man to kill his accuser only because he thought his own life was in danger.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

After calling nearly 50 witnesses and presenting close to 1,900 pieces of evidence, Philadelphia prosecutors rested their case Thursdau in the landmark trial over child sex-abuse by Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests.

The prosecution ended by letting jurors handle what they contend is the closest thing to a smoking gun in the case: a tattered gray folder that had been squirreled away in a locked safe at archdiocesan offices for more than a decade.

Inside were hand-written and typed documents, including a now infamous list that Msgr. William J. Lynn drafted in 1994 naming about three dozen archdiocesan priests who had admitted or were accused of sexual misconduct with children or teens.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington and Detective Joseph Walsh also gave jurors a timeline of significant points in Lynn’s tenure as secretary for clergy, noting that he told a grand jury in 2004 that he couldn’t find the list.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on May 17, 2012

Accused serial predator priest Fr. Francis E. McGlynn has passed away, and despite repeated pledges to be “open and transparent” about clergy sex crimes, McGlynn’s supervisor Bishop Robert Finn apparently has told no one in the public or the parishes. We suspect he didn’t tell police or prosecutors either. Sadly, none of the hundreds of current or former KC diocesan employees saw fit to spread the news either.

Being honest about the death of a credibly accused predator priest matters for several reasons:

First, it’s comforting when victims know that their perpetrator can no longer hurt any other kids. But that doesn’t happen (or happens years later) if the predator’s death is kept secret.

Second, sometimes victims who are trapped in fear, shame and self-blame feel ‘liberated’ when their perpetrator dies. They are then more apt to speak up, get help, expose wrongdoing and start healing. But that doesn’t happen (or happens years later) if the predator’s death is kept secret.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on May 17, 2012

A support group for victims is admonishing the bishops of four Catholic dioceses for their “callous secrecy” about the death of a bishop who once worked at each location.

Leaders of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) are writing to the bishops of Knoxville TN, Jefferson City MO, Charleston SC and Palm Beach FL and urging them to disclose the death of Bishop Anthony O’Connell. O’Connell and “aggressively reach out” to “others he may have hurt.”

O’Connell, who died last week, is the first Catholic bishop in America to resign after the church’s abuse and cover up scandal began making international headlines in 2002. As best SNAP can tell, since his death, there has yet to be any announcement from any of the dioceses in which O’Connell worked or spent time.

“It’s hurtful and irresponsible for bishops to do with a predator’s passing exactly what most of them have done with a predator’s crimes – keep silent,” said SNAP Outreach Director Barbara Dorris.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

About the let’s-pretend game-playing that seems to be working with ever diminishing effectiveness for the Catholic magisterium and those who defend it (I have been talking about that a bit today, haven’t I?):

It now comes out that Legionary of Christ priest and professor of moral theology Fr. Thomas Williams, a darling of the right-wing Catholic talk-show circuit who was the go-to man for the right-wing Catholic media during the conclave that elected the current pope, has fathered a child with a woman he doesn’t name, after he was ordained a priest. This information, which Williams has substantiated, appears in a report that a former Legionary priest in Chile, who is now active in a group called Association of Aid for Victims of the Legion of Christ, has sent to senior Vatican officials.

National Catholic Reporter has received a copy of the report, and at this journal’s website, John Allen indicates that the report further states that Williams has had sexual relationships with students at the Legionary university in Rome, Regina Apostolorum, and with “the daughter of a prominent American Catholic personality.” Williams denies the former charge and as to the second, says he will not comment on particulars regarding specific individuals.

And when I read this breaking news, I could not help thinking–God save me–of this interview with Williams that Kathryn Jean Lopez published earlier this month in National Review Online, in which he defends the Catholic magisterial teaching about contraception as follows:

Concerning birth control, the Church has continuously taught that recourse to contraception is immoral and that responsible parenthood should be lived out through natural family planning, which is extraordinarily effective and respectful of God’s plan for sex within marriage. She believes that contraception is damaging to the relationship of husband and wife and ultimately unworthy of their love for one another. But the Church has no police force. She does not chase down and punish Catholics who fail to live up to her teachings. She appeals only to conscience, and has no power of persuasion other than the force of her teaching in the name of Jesus.

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
Bilgrimage

Willliam D. Lindsey

Barbara Blaine of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests has released a press statement about the story of Legionary of Christ priest Thomas Williams about which I blogged yesterday. As she notes, Phillip Pullella of Reuters is now reporting that top Vatican officials and top Legionary of Christ officials have known about Thomas Williams’s reported transgressions for quite some time now, but have kept silent about them.

An excerpt from SNAP’s powerful and right-on-target statement about this situation:

And it’s important to remember that the Legion
–has a long, sordid history of secrecy about clergy sex crimes and misdeeds, and
— claims a recent “investigation” found that seven Legion priests are accused of molesting kids.
(We strongly suspect that’s a lie. We believe it’s very likely that most of these allegations were reported directly to Legion officials, not discovered through some “investigation.” And we suspect that, like with Fr. Williams, top Legion staffers have known for months or years about many of these accusations but have kept them hidden.)

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
Notre Dame Magazine

BY Michael Garvey ’74

Published: May 17, 2012

“Of all the hostilities,” Dorothy Day once wrote, “one of the saddest is the war between clergy and laity.” She penned those words in the summer of 1964 as some controversy, long since forgotten, roiled the Catholic Church in America.

As a founder of the pacifist, anarchist and activist Catholic Worker movement, Day was no stranger to controversy. Although she never hesitated to describe herself as “a daughter of the Church,” she occasionally found herself in vigorous public disagreement with such hierarchs as New York’s archbishop Cardinal Francis Spellman. But even amid the most fiery of those disagreements — over an attempt by the New York archdiocese to break a gravedigger’s strike and over Cardinal Spellman’s enthusiastic support for the war in Vietnam — she kept in mind and wrote about Jesus’ rebuke to his disciples when they suggested a sort of divine drone missile strike on some inhospitable Samaritans: “You do not know of what spirit you are” (Luke 9:55).

True, a war in Southeast Asia was raging, she wrote then, “but as for the hostilities in our midst, the note of violence and conflict in all our dealings with others — everyone seems to contribute to it. There is no room for righteous wrath today.”

The plainspoken, outspoken and occasionally law-breaking Dorothy Day knew a thing or two about righteous wrath and may even have indulged in it a time or two, but it scared the hell out of her.

In heaven, where she surely is, Dorothy Day has other things to preoccupy her, but I wonder what she would have to say about the controversies swirling within and around the Church today. Even a cursory tour of airwaves, web and blogosphere reveals a perfect storm of righteous wrath brewing. There are, to name only a few of its inflowing currents, the endlessly festering clergy sexual abuse scandal, the Health and Human Services mandates, the Vatican’s takeover of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the president’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, the American bishops’ investigation of the Girl Scouts and the fact that (insert here the controversialist of your choice) has been invited to speak at a Catholic institution of higher learning.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WSET

Posted: May 17, 2012 12:28 PM

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – After eight weeks, Philadelphia prosecutors have rested in the trial of a Roman Catholic church official accused of helping bury complaints that priests were raping or molesting children.

Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged for his administrative role in the priest-abuse scandal. Prosecutors say the former secretary for clergy helped known predators stay in ministry. He is charged with child endangerment and conspiracy.

Defense lawyers counter that Lynn tried to address the problem, but took orders from Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

Jurors have heard painful testimony from more than a dozen men and women who say they were abused by priests as children. And they have viewed about 2,000 documents, most unearthed from the secret archives.

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.

AUSTRALIA
Maitland Herald

COURTNEY GARNHAM

18 May, 2012

Extracts of intimate letters written by a Hunter priest to one of his alleged child sexual assault victims were revealed to a Sydney District Court jury on Thursday.

The priest, who is on trial for eight child sex offences against four complainants, referred to the boy in one letter as his “special little man”.

He wrote: “I miss you a lot and remember you in my prayers, so don’t forget me in yours,” and signed off with “lots of love.”

The alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the priest’s barrister he had never replied to the

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IRELAND
Herald

By Cormac Murphy and Tim Healy

Thursday May 17 2012

THE High Court Taxing Master has slashed the fees of the solicitor who acted for Fr Kevin Reynolds by almost 70pc.

In a move likely to set an important precedent, RTE got its legal bill for defaming the priest reduced by €195,000.

But the broadcaster was facing fresh calls for its chairman, Tom Savage, to resign.

Independent TD Mattie McGrath told an Oireachtas committee that Mr Savage had been “making a laugh” of Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte. Mr McGrath described the defamation as “downright disgraceful”.

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DALLAS (TX)
The Dallas Morning News

Ex-priest accused of hiring hit man to kill abuse accuser testifies he thought his life was in danger

By Scott Goldstein / Reporter
sgoldstein@dallasnews.com
10:11 am on May 17, 2012

A former Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy at gunpoint testified this morning that he told a purported hit man to kill his accuser because he thought his own life was in danger.

John Fiala said his friend and neighbor Scottie Fisher told him the hit man was his brother. The brother would likely turn on Fiala if he wasn’t convinced the hit was on, Fiala said Fisher told him.

“I knew that if I didn’t do this, I’d be the one on the list, marked to be killed, according to what Scottie said,” Fiala said.

But the man Fiala met with in November 2010 and instructed to murder his accuser in exchange for $5,000 was actually an undercover police officer. And the entire conversation was surreptitiously video recorded and played for the Dallas County jury yesterday.

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 KINGDOM
The Guardian

Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 May 2012

Sympathy with victims of sexual abuse should not be grounds for courts to extend the law on compensation “infinitely” and impose extra liabilities on employers, the court of appeal has been told.

In a test case that could alter relationships between many organisations and their staff, the trustees of a Catholic diocese are denying responsibility for crimes allegedly committed by a priest in a children’s home.

The claim has been brought by a 47-year-old woman – known to the court as JGE – who says she was sexually and physically assaulted at the Firs children’s home in Waterlooville, Hampshire, in the early 1970s.

The claimant maintains that the nun in charge of the home assaulted her and that Father William Baldwin, the local parish priest, who has since died, sexually abused and raped her.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Rheinneckarblog

Mannheim, 17. Mai 2012. (red) Der Katholikentag in Mannheim bietet rund 1.200 Veranstaltungen an fünf Tagen. Zwei Veranstaltungen wurden “nach eigehender Prüfung” nicht ins Programm aufgenommen. Angeblich habe man “wohlwollend” versucht, “alle Vorschläge” zu berücksichtigen.

Uns liegt das entsprechende Schreiben der Absage vor, nach dem Vorschläge des Arbeitskreises des Alternativprogramms von den Organisatoren des Katholikentags abgelehnt worden sind. Nach unseren Informationen betrifft das vier Veranstaltungen, zwei werden im Schreiben explizit genannt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kirke Heute

Sein Brief an potenzielle Betroffene sexueller Übergriffe im Berliner Canisius-Kolleg löste im Januar 2010 eine Lawine aus. Letzte Woche sprach Jesuitenpater Klaus Mertes in Basel zu «Macht, Sexualität und Kirche» und beklagte die Herz- und Sprachlosigkeit der Kirche, wenn es um das Thema Sexualität geht.

Es begann am 14. Januar 2010 mit dem Besuch dreier ehemaliger Schüler des Berliner Jesuitengymnasium Canisius-Kolleg, die Klaus Mertes, dem damaligen Rektor, vom sexuellen Missbrauch durch zwei frühere Lehrkräfte berichteten. Am 20. Januar 2010 wandte sich Mertes mit einem Brief an rund 600 Schüler der potenziell betroffenen Jahrgänge. Es kam, wie es kommen musste: Der Brief gelangte an die Öffentlichkeit, und mit der Publikation am 28. Januar 2010 in der Berliner Morgenpost brach der Sturm los. Zweck des Briefs sei es gewesen, den möglichen Betroffenen Ansprechbarkeit zu signalisieren, sagte Mertes in seinem Vortrag in der Veranstaltungsreihe «Uni.Sex» der Katholischen Universitätsgemeinde Basel.

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NEW YORK
WABC

WILLIAMSBURG (WABC) — A controversial fundraiser for a man in Brooklyn who is accused of molesting a teenage girl is fueling outrage on the streets of Williamsburg.

At the center of the storm is Nechemya Weberman, a member of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Satmar community. He was charged last year with sexually abusing a teenage girl.

Hundreds of people came out to support Weberman’s defense fund Thursday night, and three people were arrested. Only about 100 people turned out to support the victim.

The victim said the abuse took place in Weberman’s apartment after he was hired by the girl’s family to counsel her when she was 12.

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NEW YORK
NBC New York

By Andrew Siff

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Two people were arrested for disorderly conduct outside a tension-fueled Brooklyn fundraiser in support of a man accused of child molestation Wednesday night, officials said.

The arrests came outside an event raising money for Nechemya Weberman, where protesters rallied against the support of the accused molester, who is regarded as a sort of informal rabbi in his Orthodox Jewish community.

It’s not clear what led to the arrests, and the identities of the people arrested were not released by police.

But protesters outside the fundraiser made clear they were supporting the alleged victim, not her alleged abuser.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

As the work week ends, another outstanding and well-reserached essay by Jerry Slevin–this one arguing that more and more diverse Catholic voices are now harmonizing in an ever-increasing song calling for fundamental hierarchical reform in the Catholic church. What follows is Jerry’s posting:

The increasingly harsh Roman inquisition now underway, often directed at the US, Ireland and Austria, is often difficult to understand and evaluate in light of papal secrecy, intimidation and misinformation. Yet, cumulatively, a dark message is being heard by Catholics, as well as almost everyone else paying attention. Continuously misguided papal actions and/or inaction have steadily raised more fears among many groups, including many parents, most women, even nuns, many priests, even a few bishops, and gay persons generally.

Yet by contrast, Joseph Ratzinger, the current pope, has usually looked the other way at the misdeeds of key Cardinals, including earlier Cardinal Groer of Austria, several curial Cardinals, Cardinal Brady of Ireland and now Cardinal Rigali of Philadelphia. Why the double standard? What is really going on? Is there any reason for Catholics to be hopeful in these dark hours?

CHILDREN:

It is unclear how much of this sudden surge of inquisitorial iniquity is really just a fearful response to the increasing and distressing public disclosures of hierarchical misdeeds, amidst also signs that more and more Catholics appear to have reached their limit with this unChristian hierarchical behavior.

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VATICAN CITY
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By NICOLE WINFIELD
The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI’s ability to reform the troubled Legion of Christ has again been thrown into doubt following revelations that a half-dozen priests are under Vatican investigation for allegedly molesting children and that the order’s leadership knew its most prominent priest had fathered a child yet did nothing to prevent him from teaching and preaching about morality.

The Vatican on Thursday expressed confidence in Benedict’s delegate running the congregation but acknowledged that the process of reform is “certainly long and complex precisely because it aims to be profound.” Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi rejected suggestions that the revelations proved that the reform process wasn’t working and that the Legion was too flawed to be saved.

On the contrary, he told The Associated Press, the revelations showed that the Legion under papal delegate Cardinal Velasio De Paolis is doing the right thing by taking action once the revelations became known.

“Even the recent public communications about the Legion seem to be new and a positive sign of transparency,” he said. “There is no reason then not to have confidence in the way Cardinal De Paolis is guiding this complex path of renewal.”

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.

IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

One of the disadvantages of media coverage of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) is that it is inevitable – and this is not a knee-jerk criticism of the media – that the message we seek to communicate is pushed through the sieve of personal predilection and commercial need. Sometimes unintentionally our position can be compromised when what is peripheral is presented centre stage with a spotlight placed upon it. It is clear too, of course, that those who oppose us can use the ensuing confusion to sow seeds of doubt about our platform and our intentions. One of the advantages of a web-site like ours is that it is possible to communicate ideas clearly.

So allow me to clarify a few points.

(i) Church teaching

The ACP does not seek to overturn the defined teaching of the Catholic Church. Confusion between what the teaching of the Church is and what some present as the teaching of the Church has led to unwarranted assumptions. Confusion between the teaching of the Church and Church governance has resulted in some people suggesting that we do not accept fundamental Church teaching. Like all true Catholics, we know and fully accept the Creed.

(ii) Debate

The ACP wants to have a conversation about the realities of Irish Church life today and about issues we believe the Irish Church urgently needs to discuss. We believe closing down debate and dialogue is a recipe for disaster at both public and pastoral levels. Opening up a conversation not only makes great sense but has a theological basis in the rights and obligations of the baptised and an equally strong basis in church law and, we believe, will produce a pastoral dividend.

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ROME
Vatican Insider

The Legion needs to break away from an embarrassing past. Cardinal De Paolis is working hard to purify a body that has been tainted by some very serious misdoings

Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican City

There is no peace in the Legion which the Pope has placed under the supervision of the Pontifical delegate, Cardinal Velasio De Paolis. The process of “purification” wanted by Benedict XVI is shedding light on further abuses, offences and betrayals on the part of the religious order which had become one of the pillars of the universal Church, particularly the Latin American one, during Karol Wojtyla’s pontificate.

“All the new things that are emerging are showing that this issue will not simply be resolved by the order severing its ties with its founder because other representatives of the Legion are guilty of the same offences,” a qualified source told Vatican Insider. “All remaining irregularities need to be removed in order to save the majority within the Legion of Christ which did not have double standards.”

For a long time now, the pact of steel between the Legion’s leaders and some elders of the Roman Curia has guaranteed “extensive moral exemption” which Joseph Ratzinger put an end to the minute he was elected Pope. However, the recovery process is far from over, as has been proven by the latest scandals which have broken out in the order. Seven Legionaries of Christ are being investigated by the former Holy Office and in at least one of the cases, it was found that the abuse was committed recently.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Fiach Kelly Political Correspondent

Thursday May 17 2012

COMMUNICATIONS Minister Pat Rabbitte last night said he had “no hand” in a libel payout made by RTE over remarks he made about a garda investigation.

The case was reported to have cost the national broadcaster up to €100,000 in compensation and legal costs, but Mr Rabbitte rejected this figure.

Mr Rabbitte was due to be called as a witness in the libel action over comments he made on an RTE news programme about the gardai’s wrongful charging of Dublin man Dean Lyons with the murder of two women at the Grangegorman hospital complex in 1997. The libel action was settled before it was due to come to court on Tuesday last week, the same day Mr Rabbitte met the RTEboard over the Fr Kevin Reynolds affair.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Tim Healy

Thursday May 17 2012

A LEGAL bill from the solicitors representing Fr Kevin Reynolds in his libel case against RTE has been cut by €195,000.

The reduction in the bill of Fr Reynolds’s solicitor Robert Dore and his firm, Dore and Company, was imposed by High Court Taxing Master Declan O’Neill yesterday.

RTE will pay the costs as part of the settlement of the action brought against it by Fr Reynolds over defamation in the ‘Prime Time Investigates: Mission to Prey’ programme.

The settlement involved a public apology to the priest and a €1m payment.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Mark Hilliard

Thursday May 17 2012

THE ‘Prime Time Investigates’ reporter Aoife Kavanagh insisted she could stand over the allegations made in the disastrous ‘Mission To Prey’ programme days after it was broadcast.

Newly published legal documents reveal a fresh insight into who knew what and when during the build-up to the massive libel settlement with Fr Kevin Reynolds.

The Galway priest had strenuously offered a paternity test before its broadcast on May 23, accusing him of raping an African woman and fathering her child.

Amid a flurry of legal correspondence, reporter Aoife Kavanagh — who has since resigned her position with RTE — insisted that ‘Prime Time Investigates’ could stand over all of the allegations.

It has also emerged that Sheila Mudi — whom RTE falsely identified as Fr Reynolds’ illegitimate child — had written a letter in or around July of last year detailing how Fr Reynolds was not her father.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – After two months of testimony and evidence, including evidence yesterday from a secret church archive safe, the prosecution in the clergy abuse case is expected to rest today.

Evidence from inside church safes showed the aptly named secret archives were protected by locks and alarms. Old documents were shredded and discs were electronically wiped clean.

Among the documents that survived is an infamous list of 35 alleged and even admitted predator priests compiled by defendant Monsignor William Lynn, which was later allegedly shredded by other church officials.

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NEW YORK
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

Zoë Blackler in New York
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 May 2012

Until last year, Nechemya Weberman was a therapist in Orthodox Jewish Brooklyn. From the apartment building he owns in Williamsburg, he counselled teenage girls from ultra-Orthodox Jewish families. Girls, who through improper dress, flirtations with boys or a curiosity in life beyond the confines of their sects, were risking disrepute. In the antiquated world of the ultra-Orthodox, the stigma of immodesty can wreck a girl’s marriage prospects and her future in the community.

In 2007, two worried parents sent their 12-year-old daughter for counselling with Weberman, at the insistence of her school. For three years, the girl consulted him, seeing him often several times a week. The girl had been questioning her religious teachers, and her parents hoped that Weberman, who had raised his own pious, god-fearing children, would lead her back to the right path.

Later this summer, a jury in Brooklyn – home to the largest Orthodox population outside Israel – will be asked to decide exactly what took place during those many counselling sessions. Whether Weberman repeatedly raped the young girl as she alleges, or whether, as the defence claims, he is the object of misplaced revenge.

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.

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Protesters clash over fund-raising for Brooklyn rabbi Nechemya Weberman, accused of molesting teenage girl

By Pearl Gabel AND Sarah Armaghan / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, May 17, 2012

TWO PEOPLE were charged with disorderly conduct Wednesday during a night of fund-raising in Brooklyn for a rabbi charged with sexually abusing a teenage girl, police said.

More than 100 protesters faced off against thousands of supporters rallying for Nechemya Weberman, 53, who was collared in February 2011 after a 16-year-old girl complained he had forced her to perform oral sex and other acts.

The teen claimed Weberman was her therapist and the abuse, which she said started when she was 12, occurred during therapy sessions.

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CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

Editorial

At long last, the Roman Catholic Church is taking action to investigate allegations concerning priests from the Legion of Christ, whose U.S. headquarters is in Connecticut.

Although the Vatican assumed direct leadership of the scandal-plagued religious order two years ago, this is the first evidence that the church will actually do something about accusations that seven of its priests sexually abused minors.

The Legion (also known as Legionaries of Christ) runs a seminary in Cheshire. It has acknowledged that its founder, the Mexican-born Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, abused underage Legion seminary students over the years and fathered at least one child out of wedlock. But all along, despite complaints to the contrary, the order has insisted that any Legion-based crimes were isolated incidents committed by Father Maciel alone.

Now, to its credit, the Legion has referred the cases of seven priests accused of abusing minors to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which investigates sex crimes.

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.

MISSOURI
The Turner Report

Online Taney County Circuit Court documents indicate an Auburn, Ala., man may be about to plead guilty to sex charges involving underaged boys.

The arraignment for Lee Bradberry, 22, a former Kanakuk counselor, scheduled for May 14, was canceled. Case.net indicates a disposition hearing, usually indicating sentencing, is set for 9 a.m. June 11.

On April 11, Bradberry’s attorney, J. Eric Mitchell, filed a motion to shorten time, indicating that his client might be ready for a plea.

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.

NEW YORK
My Fox New York

[with video]

MYFOXNY.COM –
A debate over how to report sexual abuse crimes in the orthodox Jewish community was tense and at times violent as it spilled into the streets on Wednesday night.

Police arrested at least two people from Jewish community after rushing the gate where protesters carried signs and voiced criticism for the fundraiser intended to raise money for a man accused of abusing a teenaged girl.

At the center of it all is Nechemya Weberman, a Jewish counselor charged with forcing a girl to have sex with him over a three year period.

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.

CANADA
Dunnville Chronicle

By Maryanne Firth, The Tribune

ST. CATHARINES – While former Roman Catholic priest Donald Grecco was convicted of child molestation in 2010, a multimillion-dollar civil suit launched by three of his victims it still making its way through the courts.

In March 2010, Grecco pleaded guilty to three counts of gross indecency fter he sexually abused three teenaged altar boys in the 1970s and parts of the 1980s in Welland and Cayuga.

In December of the same year, he was sentenced to 18 months behind bars and two years probation.

He has since been released.

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SWEDEN
The Local

Six out of ten mosques in Sweden gave women advice about how to deal with spousal abuse and polygamy that contradicted Swedish law, a media investigation has revealed.

Using hidden cameras and telephone recording equipment, two women posing as abused spouses visited ten of Sweden’s largest mosques as part of a report put together by Sveriges Television (SVT) investigative news programme “Uppdrag granskning”.

The women then asked leaders at the mosques for advice about how to address issues such as polygamy, assault and non-consensual sex.

Six out of the ten mosques visited by the women, who had also claimed that their husbands had multiple wives, told them that they should nevertheless agree to have sex with their husbands even if they didn’t want to.

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.

CLEVELAND (OH)
WOIO

[with video]

CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) –
Catholics from a dozen northeast Ohio churches got what they’d been praying for when Rome announced, back in Mach, that their churches must be reopened.

The long, difficult and unprecedented process of reopening those churches began Wednesday after a two year fight.

The Diocese and parishioners of closed churches have to work together to make this a reality.

“Because it hasn’t been done anywhere else, we will work through the process together,” said Phillis Fuller Clipps of St. Adalbert parish.

Bishop Richard Lennon called reps from St. Adalbert and St. James to the Diocese office for the first of several meetings — before the doors of their beloved churches can open again.

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.

LAKEWOOD (OH)
Patch

By Colin McEwen

St. James Catholic Church is expected to reopen sometime this summer.

But that’s about where any certainty regarding the parish ends.

Questions remain about the church’s leadership and physical restoration — and no firm date has been set.

The shuttered church on Detroit Avenue is slated to open its doors again after Bishop Richard Lennon reversed his 2010 decision to close 12 parishes in Northeast Ohio.

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.

CLEVELAND (OH)
newsnet5

[with video]

Tracy Carloss, newsnet5.com

CLEVELAND – Parishioners of 12 closed Catholic churches have began meeting with Bishop Richard Lennon of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese. They’re discussing the process of re-opening the dozen parishes which were closed then re-opened by the Vatican under appeal.

Parishioners from the closed St. James Church in Lakewood and St. Adalbert in Cleveland met with Bishop Lennon on Wednesday.

“We had a very positive meeting. We talked about where we have been, where we will go. We know we have a lot of work ahead of us,” said Phillis Fuller Clipps, a St. Adalbert church-goer.

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.

CLEVELAND (OH)
Fox 8

[with video]

May 17, 2012, by Dave Nethers

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Members of each of the 12 northeast Ohio Catholic churches ordered reopen by the Vatican have started to hold private meetings with Bishop Richard Lennon about what happens next for each of their parishes.

A delegation from St. Barbara Church on Dennison Avenue in Cleveland was first to meet with the Bishop on Tuesday.

Michael Minnich described the tone of the meeting as “cordial” and “informal,” telling Fox 8 News that there was a great deal of give and take between the church representatives and the Bishop.

Minnich said the Bishop seemed particularly interested in hearing about the experience each member of the delegation has had at their church in the past and what their expectations are for the future.

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.

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

As part of its ongoing effort to combat charges of secrecy and financial scandals, the Holy See’s Institute for Works of Religion – often called the Vatican bank – this week invited a group of around 35 ambassadors to make a fact-finding visit. The diplomats were encouraged to ask questions about the Institute and the services it provides, as well as about its response to money laundering investigations and compliance with international standards.

Among those who visited the Institute on Tuesday was Britain’s ambassador to the Holy See, Nigel Baker, who talked to Philippa Hitchen about this important process of opening the bank up to very public scrutiny……

Listen:

“For some time ambassadors have been encouraging the IOR (Istituto per le Opere di Religione) to open up their doors to help us understand them better. Very often we hear fairly justified complaints that there’s a lot of commentary about the IOR, the so called Vatican bank, that’s either ignorant or not well founded or very much based in the past. So we’ve been saying for some time – and we had a chance as European ambassadors to talk to the board of IOR some months ago – well, we’d like to come and see for ourselves. So they invited us to visit, to hear what they had to say, to see a presentation of what they really are up to now, their great efforts, stimulated especially by pope Benedict XVI, to improve their levels of transparency and compliance, particularly in relation to a range of international norms and the processes they’re going through to reach that and fundamentally to demystify their work. So we found it extremely useful, we had the chance to ask questions and I understand they will be doing something also for financial journalists in the near future – which I encourage.

Do you think this will be enough to lay to rest the concerns?

Not immediately no, I think it’s a process. It’s only really been a year or so since new regulations have come into place improving the governance of IOR, improving its compliance with a range of recommendations of the international financial action task force. It is only since last year that the Council of Europe’s expert committee – called Moneyval for short – on money laundering and financing of terrorism has had the chance to come to the Vatican to look at the IOR and other Vatican institutions that manage finances to see how they’re doing, to provide recommendations and advice and to rate them, later on this year, against a range of international norms. I think that process will be bumpy because there will be some things where the IOR can’t yet say we’ve reached full international compliance and indeed other Vatican institutions.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By ZACH BRAZILLER

Ernie Lorch, the controversial founder and director of the powerhouse Riverside Church Hawks AAU program who mentored numerous inner-city youth into NBA basketball careers, passed away Monday morning of natural causes at the age of 80, The Post has learned.

Lorch, a multimillionaire corporate attorney who turned Riverside Church into arguably the nation’s elite program before allegations of sexual abuse of a former player led to his resignation in 2002, died while at a Yonkers nursing home, close family friend Seldon Jefferson said.

He had a stroke two years ago, was in declining health and suffered from diabetes and dementia, those close to him said. His family declined to speak to the media, Jefferson said. Arrangements have yet to be made.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle PI

By CASEY MCNERTHNEY, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

A Seattle minister and former foster parent whom prosecutors say sexually assaulted multiple children may have additional victims who haven’t come forward, police said.

King County prosecutors contend Timothy L. Dampier sexually assaulted at least three boys and likely molested many more. Dampier, formerly a licensed foster parent, had been employed by at least eight organizations serving children.

Police said his work included time at Samuel House, a Kent group home, and the Union Gospel Mission. When Dampier was arrested he was working at the Bellevue Boys and Girls Club, but was suspended after the investigation was launched.

“We want to ensure that any and all victims receive not only the assistance they need, but justice,” Detective Jeff Kappel said in a statement. “Just because the suspect is in custody is not a reason to not come forward with information about additional crimes that may have

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Sun Chronicle

“I dislike the word victim. I’m a survivor. We were all survivors,” said John Robitaille in “Father Porter: Remembering the evil,” a story on Sunday’s front page.

Call this a semantical argument, if you wish, but the distinction is given weight in recovery programs for those who have suffered from abuse. Victims can carry the weight of victimhood throughout their lives. Survivors move on toward the goal of becoming thrivers again.

Formerly of North Attleboro, Robitaille suffered in the most notorious child sex abuse incidents ever to come to light in The Sun Chronicle area. It was committed a half-century ago by the then Rev. James Porter, an assistant pastor at St. Mary’s Church in North Attleboro.

But it was not until 20 years ago that Porter, who had since been defrocked, was brought to trial. Accusations were made that he raped and otherwise abused at least 131 children – the number is believed to be higher – but due to statutes of limitation, he only faced charges from 28.

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GEORGIA
AccessNorthGA

By B.J. Williams Editor

FLOWERY BRANCH – One local child advocacy group says most churches are not prepared to handle the responsibility of a new Georgia law that mandates pastors report child abuse that may surface in their congregations.

Steve Collins with Adults Protecting Children says House Bill 1176, passed in the legislature this year and signed into law recently by Governor Nathan Deal, is going to push churches to address the issue of child sexual abuse, but it’s an issue most are not ready to handle adequately.

“It still, unfortunately, is an issue that either is a taboo subject in too many churches or too many churches are just afraid of the issue,” said Collins.

He said Protestant churches likely will face the biggest challenge.

“It [HB 1176] will make pastors mandated reporters, which has never happened in the state of Georgia,” said Collins.

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SEATTLE (WA)
KING 5

[with video]

by JIM FORMAN / KING 5 News

When Timothy Dampier first went before a judge a year ago, he was accused of sex crimes against three boys – adding three counts to the original five counts.

Over the course of the last 12 months, police say, the number of his alleged victims has exploded exponentially.

On Wednesday, prosecutors filed an amended case against Dampier.

The man friends called “the Bishop” was a popular pastor, musician, group home counselor and licensed foster parent who was last working at the Boys and Girls Club in Bellevue

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CALIFORNIA
The Valley Catholic

By Roberta Ward
The national audit of U.S. dioceses has been published in keeping with the mandates of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

Enrique Flores, second Director of the diocesan Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults, who has been in the position since last fall, said that hundreds of parish and school employees and volunteers have gone through safe environment training.

He said that computer files are currently being updated and that many people, especially volunteers, are presently in the process of training and that an updated report would be available for the current fiscal year soon.

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VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

Reuters

2:45 p.m. CDT, May 16, 2012

* Corrects that cardinal is Italian, not Spanish, in para 4

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY, May 16 (Reuters) – Leaders of the scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ religious order knew that their most famous priest had fathered a child for many months
before they acknowledged it this week, a top Vatican official told Reuters on Wednesday.

The once influential religious order, still in crisis following revelations that its founder was a sexual abuser with two secret families, suffered another major blow on Tuesday when
American Father Thomas Williams admitted to having fathered a child with a woman in Rome.

The question left hanging was how long the order’s leaders knew about Williams’s secret life and why they continued to let him preach, teach and appear on television around the world,
particularly in the United States.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By RAY RIVERA

Published: May 16, 2012

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, on Wednesday defended his record in the face of criticism over his handling of accusations of child sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

In an op-ed article in The Daily News, Mr. Hynes wrote that it was absurd “to suggest that we cover up, downplay or in any way ‘give a break’ to sex offenders in the Orthodox Jewish community.”

Mr. Hynes also had a pointed e-mail exchange with former Mayor Edward I. Koch, who questioned the district attorney’s policies in a blog post in The Huffington Post.

Both men were reacting to an article in The New York Times last week that examined Mr. Hynes’s record in these cases and his relationships with influential rabbis in Brooklyn’s growing ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.

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APPLETON (WI)
Fox 11

APPLETON – The two brothers who sued the Green Bay Catholic Diocese provided emotional testimony Wednesday about the abuse they endured decades ago. It was day three of the civil trial.

Todd and Troy Merryfield are suing the diocese for fraud. They claim the diocese knew, before they were abused, that former priest, John Feeney, had a history of inappropriate sexual contact with children.

The abuse by John Feeney left both Merryfield brothers shaken. They testified that as a priest, Feeney was someone they trusted.

“They’re the hand of god on earth. Who else are you supposed to trust?” asked Todd Merryfield.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By SHARON OTTERMAN

Published: May 16, 2012

As thousands of supporters of a Brooklyn man accused of being a child molester attended a fund-raiser for his legal defense Wednesday night, a group of about 100 people supporting the young woman who alleged that he sexually assaulted her rallied outside.

It was a scene of anger and division over the issue of child sexual abuse that residents of the insular neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, said they had never before seen. In front of the Continental catering hall on Rutledge Street, where the fund-raiser was being held, a tightly packed crowd of Hasidic men who supported the accused man, Nechemya Weberman, stood and stared down the young woman’s supporters, who stood behind police barricades. “Protect victims, not abusers,” their signs said.

“I’m here to support the young girl, the victim, who has been vilified and dragged through the mud,” said Robert H. Hoatson, a former Catholic priest who stood with ultra-Orthodox supporters of the girl, other victims of child sexual abuse and their advocates.

At about 8 p.m., a Hasidic man from the fund-raiser rushed the protesters’ barricades. The police grabbed him, put him in handcuffs and led him away.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Verdict

Marcia A. Hamilton

The most developed record in the country of a cover-up of child sex abuse by an entire Roman Catholic diocese now exists in Philadelphia. Why? Because recent Philadelphia prosecutors have proactively sought the truth, even when it was far from flattering to the diocese’s hierarchy. For an elected official, that takes guts. Fortunately, both former District Attorney Lynne Abraham and current District Attorney Seth Williams have plenty of guts.

The Philadelphia Archdiocese is being unmasked, day by day, as an institution that operated in such a way as to endanger children. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office is prosecuting Msgr. William Lynn for his integral role in suppressing the identities of priest perpetrators. The policies that Lynn implemented have now been put under the harsh glare of the public spotlight, for the first criminal trial of a member of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy is now underway. Each and every day of the trial—which already has lasted six weeks, and is expected to last up to three months—the prosecution further peels back the diocese’s veneer, exposing it as a truly horrific place for children. Recently, it has also added to its profile of callousness by re-victimizing the victims it had a hand in creating.

This trial is only going forward because of former D.A. Abraham’s steely determination to know the truth of what happened in Philadelphia. A decade ago, she instituted the first grand jury investigation of the Archdiocese, knowing in all likelihood that she might not find victims whose cases she could prosecute, because Pennsylvania statutes of limitations regarding child sex abuse were so short. But once they got the go-ahead, Abraham’s dogged and brilliant attorneys, including Charlie Gallagher and Mariana Sorenson, pursued the truth in just the way we want our public servants to do so: They cared about the truth first, and the political fallout second.

Compare Abraham and her Office to the many District Attorneys and their Offices, across the country, who have refused, when asked, to investigate dioceses, saying that they can’t do anything until a victim comes forward whose claims fall within the statute of limitations. Abraham’s work reveals those excuses as being more political than prosecutorial.

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DALLAS (TX)
Odessa American

DALLAS Trial has begun in Dallas of a former Roman Catholic priest accused of plotting the death of a man who accused him of sexual abuse.

A neighbor of John M. Fiala when the former priest lived in suburban Dallas accused Fiala of asking him to kill his accuser. That accuser had said Fiala abused him at Fiala’s former rural West Texas parish in 2008 when the man was 16.

The Dallas Morning News reports prosecutors told a Dallas County jury Wednesday that Fiala was distraught over the four-count indictment, which is still pending in Edwards County.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The News

Published on Thursday 17 May 2012

THE Catholic church is hoping to overturn a ruling in the case of a Waterlooville woman who claims she was abused by a priest as a child.

The 47-year-old woman who can only be identified as JGE says she was sexually abused by Father William Baldwin, while living at The Firs Children’s Home, in Waterlooville, for two years in the 1970s.

She is seeking compensation from the order of nuns who ran the home – The English Province of Our Lady of Charity – and the Portsmouth Roman Catholic Diocesan Trust.

The church had previously asked the High Court to consider whether they could be held responsible for the actions of their priests and ministers.

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NEW JERSEY
Courier-Post

Written by
JIM WALSH
Courier-Post Staff

CAMDEN — A North Carolina woman has sued the Diocese of Camden, alleging church officials failed to protect her from an abusive priest in the early 1980s.

Lisa Syvertson Shanahan alleges the Rev. Thomas Harkins molested her on multiple occasions in 1980 and 1981 at a Hammonton church. The assaults stopped, the lawsuit says, when Harkins “suddenly” left St. Anthony of Padua parish in 1982.

The lawsuit asserts that Harkins was removed from the parish after another girl accused him of assaulting her, but that church officials did not make that public. Harkins was removed from the priesthood in 2002, after the diocese had settled two complaints in the 1980s that alleged he had abused young girls in Hammonton.

This is the second lawsuit brought against the diocese this year alleging sexual abuse by a priest. An Ohio man, Mark Bryson, sued in January, alleging he had been abused about 45 years ago by the Rev. Joseph Shannon at a Camden parish, also called St. Anthony of Padua.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

Monsignor William J. Lynn confessed to a grand jury back in 2004 that he wasn’t qualified to investigate sexually abusive priests.

The monsignor’s admission came in response to a grand jury prosecutor, who asked Lynn if he realized that he needed more training to investigate sex crimes committed by priests against minors in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

“Today I do,” the monsignor told the grand jury back in 2004. When the grand jury prosecutor asked Lynn point-blank if he was qualified to investigate sex abuse, he responded simply, “No.”

The monsignor told the grand jury that he studied theology and philosophy at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, and also had a master’s degree in education administration. But when you’re trying to outwit a pedophile, “a degree in psychology, that would help,” the monsignor told the grand jury. So would some law enforcement seminars.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WDSU

NEW ORLEANS –
A local church leader recently appointed to an area economic development board is facing two lawsuits filed by a man who claims he was sexually abused by the preacher.

Bishop Kevin Boyd Sr. Leads the Church at New Orleans — formerly named the Apostolic Church at New Orleans. The church is located just off Chef Menteur Highway in the eastern part of the city.

And according to court documents obtained by the WDSU I-Team, that is where, nearly 12 years ago, the alleged abuse began.

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INDIA
Times of India

TRICHY: All the five accused in the Sister Florence Mary rape case appeared before the mahila court in Trichy on Wednesday, even as the victim submitted a petition before the judge, seeking permission to officially engage a lawyer for the prosecution, along with the public prosecutor before the start of the trial.

Meanwhile, defence lawyer A Rajendran, who appeared for Fr Rajarathinam, a Jesuit priest and accused number one in the case, asked the judge to grant more time to counter the victim’s plea. Judge Rahman posted the hearing to May 28.

Fr Rajarathinam, the former principal of St Joseph’s College, Trichy was accused by Florence Mary (31), a former member of St Anne’s congregation in Trichy, of rape in 2006 and later in 2008. The priest was granted anticipatory bail by the Madras high court on November 3, 2010 after he allegedly went underground for over a month.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee on May. 16, 2012 NCR Today

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The lawyer representing the priest at the center of the first criminal trial of a bishop in the decades-long clergy sexual abuse crisis has requested the priest’s federal trial be delayed.

The priest, Fr. Shawn Ratigan, is charged with 13 federal felony counts relating to the possession and production of child pornography.

Ratigan’s bishop, Robert W. Finn, and his diocese, that of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., face separate criminal trials in a local jurisdiction on charges of suspicion of child abuse, stemming from questions surrounding when they reported Ratigan to police.

The motion for a continuance, filed in federal court today and first reported by The Kansas City Star, would delay Ratigan’s trial from June until Aug. 27. Assistant Federal Public Defender Robert Kuchar says in the filing that he only recently received some 1,000 pages of material from prosecutors and needs time to study it.

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MISSOURI
St. Joseph News-Press

Kim Norvell
St. Joseph News-Press
On Twitter: @KimNorvell

A federal public defender has requested to delay a jury trial for a Catholic priest accused of sexually exploiting children.

Robert Kuchar filed a motion Wednesday to move the Rev. Shawn Ratigan’s federal trial to August, citing more than “1,000 pages of new discovery” recently handed over by the prosecution.

“Counsel needs additional time to finish reviewing the discovery and then to discuss the contents of the discovery with Mr. Ratigan,” the assistant federal public defender wrote in the motion. “In light of the additional discovery Counsel needs more time to conduct a complete investigation into the newly discovered material.”

Rev. Ratigan’s trial is currently scheduled for June 4 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. Mr. Kuchar requested the case be moved to Aug. 27, which would be more than a year since Rev. Ratigan was indicted for 13 counts of sexual exploitation of minors and children.

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CANADA
AFP

OTTAWA — A former Catholic bishop convicted of importing child pornography — including some laced with religious imagery — into Canada has been stripped of his religious duties, the church said Wednesday.

“The Holy See has dismissed Raymond Lahey from the clerical state, one of the most serious penalties that the church can impose,” said a statement from Brian Dunn, the new bishop of Antigonish.

Raymond Lahey, 71, resigned as head of the Nova Scotia diocese in 2009 after a search at the Ottawa airport of his laptop computer uncovered a cache of child pornography.

He pleaded guilty in May 2011 to charges of possessing for the purpose of importing child pornography and was later sentenced to 15 months in prison but walked out of court a free man in January after already serving time in jail.

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CANADA
London Free Press

By Doug Hempstead, QMI Agency

Last Updated: May 16, 2012 4:26pm

Disgraced Roman Catholic bishop Raymond Lahey, convicted in January of importing child pornography, has been dismissed from the clerical state.

The announcement came today from Lahey’s former diocese in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

In a statement released to the media, the diocese explained Lahey can no longer work as a cleric or preside over religious services and sacraments following the decision by the Holy See in Rome.

It is among the most serious penalties in the Catholic Church.

“This decision reminds all of us of the serious harms that come from all forms of pornography, especially child pornography,” Antigonish Bishop Brian Joseph Dunn said in a statement.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — With the prosecution winding down in the clergy abuse case, a last segment of testimony by defendant William Lynn before a grand jury back in 2004 was presented Wednesday.

Lynn has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and endangering children by allowing predator priests to remain in ministry.

Monsignor William Lynn, Secretary for Clergy from 1992 to 2004, acknowledged before the grand jury that, in hindsight, he did not have the training, background and experience he should have for that job. But he told the jury he still did an adequate job. He also explained his methods–he says an admission by a priest or a diagnosis of pedophilia or ephebophilia, a sexual attraction to adolescents, would result in removal from ministry even though a number of cases cited during this trial did not. He also told the jury that on instruction from Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, he ignored any anonymous or secondhand allegations and indicated that on more than one occasion, the priest’s reputation was a significant concern.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The Diocese of Portsmouth is challenging a High Court ruling that the Roman Catholic Church can be held liable for the sex crimes of priests.

Last year Mr Justice MacDuff gave a decision in favour of a woman, who claims she was raped and assaulted as a child by a priest of the diocese.

The woman, now aged 47, alleges she was abused by the late Father Wilfred Baldwin at a Hampshire children’s home.

The judge ruled the diocese “may be vicariously liable” for his actions.

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BELGIE
De Morgen

Door: Kim Herbots − 16/05/12

Op lange termijn heeft de zaak-Vangheluwe geen negatieve impact op het imago van de kerk. Dat blijkt uit een onderzoek aan de KU Leuven. ‘Hoe vreselijk zijn daden ook zijn, mensen kunnen het onderscheid maken tussen de persoon en het instituut.’

Studenten van de KU Leuven ondervragen sinds een paar jaar systematisch leerlingen, leerkrachten en ouders in katholieke scholen over het katholieke geloof. Sinds bekend raakte dat de voormalige bisschop van Brugge, Roger Vangheluwe, zijn neefje jarenlang misbruikte, wordt er ook gepolst naar hoe dat dossier het beeld van de kerk beïnvloedt.

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CANADA
Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops

On May 4, 2011, then Bishop Raymond Lahey entered a plea of guilty in civil court to the possession of child pornography. He was sentenced in accordance with civil law on January 4, 2012. It remained for the Holy See to follow the canonical procedures in effect for such cases to determine what appropriate disciplinary or penal measures would be imposed. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has now been informed by the Holy See that Raymond Lahey has been dismissed from the clerical state. According to Canon 292 of the Code of Canon Law, the penalty of dismissal from the clerical state has the following effects: loss of the rights and duties attached to the clerical state, except for the obligation of celibacy; prohibition of the exercise of any ministry, except as provided for by Canon 976 of the Code of Canon Law in those cases involving danger of death; loss of all offices and functions and of all delegated power, as well as prohibition of the use of clerical attire. Raymond Lahey has accepted the Decree of Dismissal, which also requires him to pray the Liturgy of the Hours in reparation for the harm and the scandal he has caused, and for the sanctification of clergy.

May 16, 2012

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CANADA
National Catholic Reporter

May. 16, 2012
By Catholic News Service

OTTAWA, Ontario — Raymond Lahey, the retired bishop of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, who was convicted of importing child pornography, has been laicized by the Vatican, said the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

A statement on the CCCB website Wednesday said the conference learned from the Vatican that “Raymond Lahey has been dismissed from the clerical state.” As such, he loses all rights and duties associated with being a priest, except the obligation of celibacy, said the bishops’ statement.

“Raymond Lahey has accepted the Decree of Dismissal, which also requires him to pray the Liturgy of the Hours in reparation for the harm and the scandal he has caused, and for the sanctification of clergy,” the statement said.

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CANADA
Cape Breton Post

ANTIGONISH — The Vatican has dismissed Raymond Lahey from the clerical state.

This will mean that the former bishop of the Diocese of Antigonish will no longer function as a cleric, will no longer have the rights and duties of being a cleric, is not permitted to exercise any ecclesiastical offices or functions and is not permitted to preside at any of the sacraments or religious services.

However, any sacraments that he performed prior to this decision continue to be valid.

Lahey was convicted of possessing child pornography.

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DALLAS (TX)
The Dallas Morning News

By Jennifer Emily/Reporter
jemily@dallasnews.com
1:12 pm on May 16, 2012

Testimony got under way today in the Dallas County trial of a former priest accused of engaging in a murder-for-hire plot to kill a man who accused the priest of molesting him as a boy.

Prosecutors allege that John Fiala was distraught over indictments that accused him of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy in his rural West Texas parish when he asked a neighbor to kill his accuser.

Fiala faces a charge of solicitation of capital murder, which is punishable by up to life in prison. He’s also been indicted on four charges of sexual assault in Edwards County.

The neighbor, Scottie Fisher, testified that Fiala told him about his legal troubles in November 2010 when they were renting rooms at a house in Garland. Fisher said that Fiala was crying and that he tried to comfort the man he had known just three weeks by patting him on the back.

“Can you go out and kill him?” Fisher testified that Fiala asked.

“I said ‘Hell no.’”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The Courts Service has revealed RTE’s bill for defamed priest Fr Kevin Reynolds’ legal team was more than €150,000.

Declan O’Neill, Taxing Master, ruled Fr Reynolds’ solicitor Robert Dore be paid €80,000 for his work on the defamation case.

Mr Dore, and his firm Dore and Company, had originally sought an instructions fee of €275,000.

He had argued the case occupied his time between mid-June and mid-November, that it pervaded his office, and that the amount of time spent by his practice was enormous.

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APPLETON (WI)
Post-Crescent

Written by
Jim Collar
Post-Crescent staff writer

APPLETON — A Port Washington man testified Wednesday that a sense of failure accompanied his long-held secret of being molested in 1978 at the hands of a priest.

“I didn’t protect my brother,” Todd Merryfield told a jury as he fought back tears. “I’m the oldest brother. That’s my job and I failed.”

Merryfield, 48, opened the second day of testimony in an Outagamie County civil trial alleging fraud by the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay. Merryfield and his brother, Troy Merryfield, are suing the diocese for unspecified compensation, claiming the diocese knew priest John Feeney sexually assaulted other children prior to 1978 and misrepresented his safety around children.

The diocese denies the allegations.

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INDIA
Deccan Herald

May 17, 2012
By Nalla Ram

A Sanskrit scholar burnt the hands of a seven-year-old girl on Tuesday for stealing Rs 2 from a temple’s offering plate on Tuesday. The callous incident, which took place in a temple at Madhurawada in Visakhapatnam, came to light on Wednesday.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

“On the job training,” was what Msgr. William J. Lynn told the grand jury in 2004, describing the preparation he had to be the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s chief investigator of allegations about priests sexually molesting minors.

There was little direction from then Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua and only “rare” questions from the archbishop when he filed a report on a wayward priest, Lynn’s testimony reads.

That portrait of Lynn drawn from his grand jury testimony — an innocent, inexperienced priest thrust into a job that required the training of a lawyer, detective and psychologist — has been a mainstay of his defense in the landmark Common Pleas Court trial in which he accused of enabling pedophile priests to continue to prey on children.

City prosecutors today continued trying to undercut that portrait using documents from the church’s Secret Archives on abusive priests that were turned over to prosecutors in February on the eve of the trial.

A 2002 memo from Bishop Joseph Cistone to Lynn, introduced by Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington, refers to the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, the church’s lobbying arm in Harrisburg, and its effort to prevent the legislature from extending the deadline for purported victims of sexual abuse by priests to file lawsuits against the church.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kanas City Star

By MARK MORRIS
The Kansas City Star

A lawyer representing a Catholic priest charged with producing child pornography today asked a Kansas City federal judge to delay the trial until August.

If granted, the continuance would put trial dates for the Rev. Shawn Ratigan and his boss, Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, within a month of each other.

Ratigan is charged with 12 federal felony counts relating to the possession and production of child pornography. Finn is charged in Jackson County Circuit Court with misdemeanor failure to report suspicions of child abuse for the six-month delay in reporting Ratigan to child welfare authorities after church officials learned of lewd photographs on the priest’s laptop.

Finn’s trial currently is scheduled to open Sept. 24.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

[This is first in a continuing series of profiles of individuals whom the media often cites in its coverage of the Catholic Church abuse narrative.]

When the media is seeking a voice to blast away at the Catholic Church over the sex abuse issue, one reliable source is often Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, O.P., a Dominican priest and canon lawyer. What the media will never tell you, however, is that Doyle has a storied history of contempt for the Church and a penchant to misrepresent the faith.

Fr. Doyle’s desire to seek justice and compassion for innocent victims of Catholic clergy abuse is to be commended, and Catholics can learn much from his seemingly unrestrained fervor to provide healing. However, Doyle’s open disdain for the Catholic Church is so exaggerated and over the top, one cannot help but wonder why he still remains a Catholic priest.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Minneapolis Star Tribune

Article by: MARYCLAIRE DALE , Associated Press
Updated: May 16, 2012 – 2:19 PM

PHILADELPHIA – Evidence in a groundbreaking priest-abuse trial shows the men running the Philadelphia archdiocese used byzantine methods to keep child sex-abuse complaints from prying eyes.

Memos unearthed from long-secret archives show the complaints were not just under lock and key — but protected by locks, keys, alarms, safes, computer passwords and other measures.

One 1994 list shown to jurors Wednesday lists three diagnosed pedophile priests and 13 more deemed “guilty” of abuse, often because they had admitted it.

Yet most remained active priests until the “zero tolerance” policy adopted by U.S. bishops in 2002. And some remained priests years later.

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CANADA
570 News

ANTIGONISH, N.S. – A Roman Catholic bishop who was convicted of importing child pornography into Canada has been stripped of his clerical duties.

The Holy See in Rome has dismissed Raymond Lahey from the clerical state in what is one of the most serious penalties that the Roman Catholic Church can impose, the Diocese of Antigonish, N.S., said Wednesday.

The decision means Lahey, a former bishop of Antigonish, can no longer work as a cleric nor preside at any religious services or sacraments.

“This decision reminds all of us of the serious harms that come from all forms of pornography, especially child pornography,” Antigonish Bishop Brian Joseph Dunn said in a statement.

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NEDERLAND
Limburgs Dagblad

[Jan Schafraad, niet ‘Jan S.’]

Advocaat Titus Weller heeft bij de deken van de Amsterdamse Orde van Advocaten een klacht ingediend tegen de advocaat van de Maastrichtse pastoor Jan S., Geertjan van Oosten. Advocaat Van Oosten zou zich in een interview in deze krant onnodig grievend hebben uitgelaten over twee Limburgers die een aanklacht tegen de pastoor hebben ingediend wegens seksueel misbruik. In de krant zei Van Oosten niet uit te sluiten dat de aanklagers van de pastoor ‘etterbakken’ zijn die op geld uit zijn.

ANP

De twee Limburgers zeggen door S. misbruikt te zijn toen deze nog broeder was in jongensinternaat Bleijerheide in Kerkrade. S. ontkent.

Van Oosten liet woensdag desgevraagd weten geen reden te zien voor excuses, omdat het tweetal S. publiekelijk heeft beschuldigd van seksueel misbruik. Naar zijn mening is er een hetze ontstaan tegen de pastoor. Hij herhaalt dat de motieven van de aangevers mogelijk niet zuiver zijn.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Joan Chittister on May. 16, 2012 From Where I Stand

This month, it was the Leadership Conference of Women Religious that bishops were concerned about. Before that, it was Catholic Charities in the United States. Then it was Caritas, the church’s umbrella organization for the coordination of international charity. And now it is the Girl Scouts. Each of them has been curtailed, “investigated” or put in some kind of canonical receivership because of their reputed lack of orthodoxy on sexual issues or because of association with other groups that, according to the bishops, have the same problem. And all of that in the face of the sex abuse debacle of the church itself, still to be resolved, never monitored, and totally closed to outside investigation.

The question is, Where has all this energy for empirical destruction come from in a church now projecting its own serious problems with sexual issues onto everything that moves?

In his new book, Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler, noted historian Gerard Noel traces the history of this pope’s “Great Design.” The material starts with the rise of the young canon lawyer Eugenio Pacelli to a position of power in the Vatican. It winds its way through Pacelli’s election as Pius XII and the suppression by Pacelli himself of Germany’s Catholic Centre Party and even Catholic social action groups in pre-WWII Germany, the only bodies in Germany strong enough to have checked the rise of Nazism. It concludes with the rise of another man, Adolf Hitler, whose reach for power matched his own but whose rise his very Concordats assured.

Pacelli rose to power, Noel explains, on the arm of a canon law degree in a church still smarting from the loss of the Papal States and the consequent unification of Italy. Pacelli dreamed of using a system of Concordats — particular legal agreements with the major powers in Europe — to restore the quasi-imperial power that went with the temporal power and wealth the Papal States had assured. Pacelli’s life goal became the centralization of the church, the control of all its organizations. Under Pacelli, law became the power of the church; the Gospel, its victim.

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