ABUSE TRACKER

NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

The sentencing of a paedophile priest was adjourned after a psychiatrist raised concerns over his mental health.

Wheelchair bound 71-year-old Michael Joseph Steele was due to be sentenced by Belfast Crown Court after he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a boy and a girl between 30 and 40 years ago last month.

Steele admitted five counts of indecent assault and two of gross indecency committed against the boy between January 1967 and January 1971.

He admitted three counts of indecently assaulting the girl on dates between August 1979 and July 1983.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
RTE News

The sentencing of a former priest on child sex abuse charges has been adjourned at Belfast Crown Court after concerns were raised about his mental health.

Joseph Steele, 71, who was a priest in the Holy Ghost Order had pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a boy and a girl 40 years ago.

Steele, whose address was given as Kimmage Manor, Crumlin in Dublin, arrived at court in a wheelchair.

He admitted five counts of indecent assault and two of gross indecency against a male child between 1967 and 1971.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 25 May 2012 (VIS) – Yesterday afternoon the Holy See Press Office published a communique concerning the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), the text of which is given below:

“On 24 May members the Supervisory Board of the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR) met for their regular meeting. One of the topics on the agenda was, once again, the matter regarding the governance of the Institute. Over time this area had generated increasing worries among the members of the board and, despite repeated efforts to communicate these concerns to Prof. Gotti Tedeschi, president of the IOR, the situation deteriorated further.

“Following discussion of the issues, the board members voted unanimously in favour of a motion expressing no confidence in the president for not having carried out various responsibilities of primary importance regarding his office. On this basis, the following statement was issued:

“‘During the regular meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), at 2 p.m. on 24 May 2012 this board adopted a motion of no confidence in President Gotti Tedeschi and recommended the cessation of his mandate as president and member of the board.

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VATICAN CITY
Al Arabiya

By Al Arabiya with Agencies

The Vatican arrested a man caught in possession of secret documents Friday, as the Holy See cracked down on a leak scandal which has seen confidential information passed to the Italian media.

“The inquiry carried out by Vatican police… allowed them to identify someone in possession of confidential documents. This person is currently being questioned by a Vatican magistrate,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told journalists.

The Vatican, embroiled for months in the so-called “Vatileaks” scandal involving the leak of secret papers, said its police had detained the person in possession of confidential documents.

A Vatican source said the person was not a priest.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican police have arrested an individual in possession of private Vatican documents in connection to the so-called “VatiLeaks” scandal that began in January.

“This person now is being questioned by the Vatican magistrates for further information,” said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, who declined to name the person.

He told reporters May 25 that the Vatican gendarmes “identified a person illicitly in possession of private documents.” The committee of three cardinals Pope Benedict XVI appointed in April to look into the leaks had asked the gendarmes to investigate.

In response to questions, Passionist Father Ciro Benedettini, assistant director of the Vatican press office, said the suspect was “under arrest.” However, he declined to say if or where the person was being held.

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ROME
Vatican Insider

Andrea Tornielli
Rome

Dear friends,

I have just finished reading “His Holiness, the secret files of Benedict XVI” which contains the ‘Vatileaks’, the documents and letters that an internal Vatican source gave to journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi. As you know, yesterday the Holy See reacted harshly to this, defining the operation “a criminal act” and declaring its will to “take the necessary steps” with the help of the international community.

It is obvious and also understandable that the Vatican feels exasperated at the publication of messages, notes, memos, remarks and letters that had been written only a few months or in some cases a few weeks before. I am not sure what legal action can be taken against publication, but it seems obvious to me that the Holy See has an internal security problem and that the “criminal act” was carried out by someone working inside the Vatican, who may have access to the archives and who manages to intercept papers coming from the Pope, his secretary and the Secretary of State. This person has a precise objective, the details of which are still somewhat hazy. But the source of the problem is the mole’s identity.

From what I know the internal investigation into who was responsible for the leaks has not yet been successful. The three old cardinals in charge of the investigation (Herranz, Tomko and De Giorgi) have received the results of the work carried out by the Vatican Gendarmerie, but it seems that there are no specific leads, despite the fact that only a few people have had access to the documents going in and out of the Pope’s office and that of his secretary. As such, the creation of the committee, which was announced a month in advance by the Substitute to the Secretary of State, Becciu, and which was established on the 25 April, as well as yesterday’s statement seem to have the intent of discouraging further instances of this kind rather than investigating the current ones. But for the time being (more than three months since the first leaks came out) a solution seems to lie beyond the Vatican’s reach.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The President of the IOR has resigned from his post in light of the tensions over the Saint Rafael case and the Vatican transparency law. He will be succeeded by Ronaldo Hermann Schmitz

ANDREA TORNIELLI
Vatican City

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi has resigned from his post as President of the IOR, the Institute for the Works of Religion. He did so during a meeting of the Supervisory Council, the Vatican bank’s administrative council for the laity, before a no-confidence vote was passed. He is to be succeeded by Vice President Ronaldo Hermann Schmitz. The reason behind the Italian banker and economist’s decision seem to be the internal tensions that have been growing over the past months over the new transparency law which was supposed to get the Holy See onto the white-list of financially virtuous countries.

Gotti Tedeschi was appointed as President of the Vatican bank in 2009, to advance financial transparency work, as Benedict XVI had requested. A few months after his arrival, the IOR became involved in an inquiry carried out by the Roman magistrate into some money transfers: Gotti Tedeschi had decided to collaborate with the judges, agreeing to answer all questions without the need for any international letters of request.

A communiqué issued by the Holy See Press Office says that “after deliberation, the Board decided unanimously on a no- confidence vote against the President, on the grounds that he failed to carry out functions that were of primary importance to his office.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Peter Isely on May 24, 2012

“I was just following orders” is not accepted as a defense – legally or morally – in any civilized setting. When colleagues or supervisors give you unjust or criminal orders or requests, you have a moral duty to refuse. When such orders or requests are repeatedly reckless – and endanger kids- you have a moral duty to expose them.

Msgr. Lynn claims top Philly Catholic officials repeatedly told him to defy common decency and common sense and essentially hide and minimize child sex crimes. But Lynn admits he never once contradicted, or even seriously challenged, those immoral edicts. He also admits that he never once even surreptitiously undermined them by quietly calling police about dozens and dozens of known and suspected child predators.

Lynn makes the stunning claim that he “did [his] best, with the parameters given to me.” But let’s remember that his “parameters” included many, many options. Among them:

Quitting

Blowing the whistle

Calling the police

Refusing to lie or deceive

Trying to excuse inexcusable inaction and callous decisions, one of Msgr. Lynn’s colleagues said, on the witness stand “You don’t say no to Cardinal Bevilacqua.” He’s right – IF your goal is to climb the corporate ladder. If, however, you take your religious seriously and care about kids, you DO say no to any official who tries to insist that you conceal and enable child sex crimes.

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UNITED STATES
Richard Sipe

A.W. RICHARD SIPE

Santa Clara University

11 May 2012

The context of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic bishops and priests is the culture of the priesthood. Roman Catholic bishops and priests constitute a privileged cast. This persists as a centuries-long reality perpetuated by the monarchical structure essential to the operation of the Roman Catholic Church. The world of RC clergy forms the setting, circumstances, and opportunities that surround the sexual activity of bishops and priests with minors and others. Clergy rule supreme in their spheres of operation—ministry of the sacraments (especially hearing confessions and celebrating mass) religious instructions/teaching, and the administration of their institutions. Parishes (and seminaries) are the most common sites of sexual contacts between priests, minors and others. The climate and culture and power of Catholic bishops and priests put the vulnerable and minors at risk for abuse within areas of clerical control.

The causes of sexual abuse by clergy are solidly rooted in human nature as it is fostered, lived, and expressed in clerical culture. Ordination into major orders (and preparation for them) marks the entrance into the clerical culture. Catholic clerical culture is characterized by homogeneity: it is an exclusively male province—males over twenty-five years of age alone are ordained priests—and they form a homosocial society where women are deprived of any authority. Candidates must promise “perfect and perpetual chastity, therefore celibacy” as a prior condition for ordination [Canon 277 #2]. That requirement confers social power on a priest. [“It was from sexual purity that the priesthood was believed to derive its power.”]

Cardinals and bishops vow absolute obedience to the Pope as the supreme authority. They, the pope’s legitimate surrogates, demand this obedience of their subordinates. [Father Yves Congar once said, “In the Catholic Church it has often seemed that a sin of the flesh was the only sin, and obedience the only virtue.”]

If a priest is apparently compliant with the demands of the culture he receives automatic status regardless of any individual merit. The culture provides an assurance of employment and continued material compensation for the duration of his life. The identification with the power system and subordination to it relives individuals of responsibility for the consequences of their individual actions. Truth telling is curtailed and subjected to the welfare of the organization (the good of the church). The prevailing rationale is that clerics’ first duty is to the higher law of God. Secrecy and loyalty are essential binding elements operative to the function of clerical cultural. Men within the clerical culture are labeled “special” since ordination confers an “ontological” superiority. Clerics thus incorporated into the culture often demonstrate qualities of dependency, entitlement, superiority/arrogance, variable degrees of psychosexual immaturity, but in many cases “they posses enormous powers of empathetic discernment—albeit for purposes of self-aggrandizement.”

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IRELAND
BBC News

The Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin has spent more than 15m euros in settling child abuse claims.

The figure, which includes 5m euros in legal fees, is in the diocese’s annual child protection report.

Just over a third of complaints against priests were made in the 1980s, according to the report.

It also said the 10 worst clerical abusers in the archdiocese are alleged to have abused an average of 36 children each.

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TEXAS
Click2Houston

[with video]

RICHMOND, Texas –
A church musician has been accused of committing a sin inside a Fort Bend County church.

Marcus Grimsley, 42, has been charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child.

Fort Bend County sheriff’s deputies said Grimsley was playing guitar in a band at the Zion Watchtower Baptist Church, 606 F.M. 359, in Richmond on Sunday.

In between services, Grimsely spotted a 13-year-old girl playing outside with friends, detectives said.

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NEDERLAND
RKnieuws

DEN HAAG (RKnieuws.net) – Vrouwelijke slachtoffers tegen wie als minderjarige seksueel misbruik en geweld is gepleegd binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk kunnen hun ervaringen melden voor het onderzoek dat hiernaar in voorbereiding is.

Het onderzoek staat opnieuw onder leiding van drs. Wim Deetman. Die kreeg onlangs grote kritiek vanuit de politiek op zijn eerste rapport over seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen binnen katholieke instellingen.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

VATICAN CITY, May 25, 2012 – In the Roman curia, but not only there, there is great anticipation over who will be the new prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith.

Meanwhile, however, other curial mandates have expired or are about to expire, of lesser impact in the media but certainly not devoid of importance.

In 2005, when the newly elected Benedict XVI had to decide on the name of his successor at the former Holy Office, he selected the first of three candidates:

– the archbishop of San Francisco, William J. Levada,
– the cardinal of Genoa, Tarcisio Bertone (whom Pope Joseph Ratzinger probably had in mind already as his secretary of state),
– the cardinal of Sydney, George Pell (who two years ago was seriously taken into consideration as prefect of the congregation for bishops, a position for which Canadian cardinal Marc Ouellet was chosen).

Now Levada, who was made a cardinal in 2006, has already exceeded by almost one year the canonical cutoff of 75, and will turn 76 on June 15, so the procedure that will lead to the appointment of his successor is in its final phase.

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VATICAN CITY
The Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW

The controversial Vatican Bank, IOR (Istituto Per Le Opere di Religione), is in the wars again after its president was last night unanimously dismissed in a no-confidence vote by the bank’s board, all laymen.

President Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who is being investigated on accusations of money laundering, was sacked because of his failure to fulfil “the primary functions of his office”, according to a Holy See statement. Members of the board believed Mr Tedeschi’s dismissal was needed to “maintain the vitality of the bank”, the statement said.

By all accounts, yesterday’s board meeting was far from tranquil, with Mr Tedeschi clashing bitterly with the other four lay members. Mr Tedeschi reportedly clashed with his board over the bank’s failure to respect international anti-money laundering regulations.

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VATICAN CITY
Deutsche Welle

The head of the Vatican bank has been forced to resign his post when the board passed a unanimous no-confidence vote against him. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was accused of letting standards slip too far.

Tedeschi was ousted on Thursday evening after the vote by bank overseers at the Vatican, which blamed him for a deterioration in standards of governance.

The Vatican said in a statement that Gotti Tedeschi had failed to carry out “various fundamentally important functions of his office.”

Among other things, Gotti Tedeschi was blamed for failing to keep the board sufficiently informed about the bank, known also as the Institute for Religious Works.

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VATICAN CITY
RT

The Vatican Bank chief has been dismissed for reportedly leaking documents amid accusations of money laundering. The move comes as the Holy See, embroiled in a chain of financial scandals, is trying to deal with claims of corruption and fraud.

The president of the Vatican Bank Ettore Gotti Tedeschi has been ousted after receiving a unanimous vote of no-confidence from bank overseers.

The economist, who presided over the institution since 2009, is under investigation by Italian magistrates for alleged money laundering.

Gotti Tedeschi is seen as having failed to clean up the image of the bank, perceived as a symbol of the opacity and corruption scandal gripping the Pope’s kingdom.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Charlotte Observer

By Joe DePriest
jdepriest@charlotteobserver.com

A former Gaston County pastor has denied having illicit sex with two minors in Haiti while he was giving them food and clothing through a church ministry.

In a federal court hearing Monday in Charlotte, Larry Michael Bollinger, 66, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

About 30 of his supporters were in the courtroom, hoping he’d be released from jail until the trial. But a federal judge denied bond and Bollinger remained behind bars.

Prosecutors said four victims were identified, but Bollinger was charged for his conduct with two girls, ages 11 and 12. They said he met the victims, who were from Port-au-Prince, when they came to the Village of Hope, a sub-ministry of The Lazarus Project. A mostly Lutheran ministry, the Lazarus Project runs a vocational school and medical clinic.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

At the Catholic sex abuse trial, it was good day to feel like throwing up.

On the witness stand Thursday, an amiable and smiling Monsignor William J. Lynn tried to defend the indefensible, by explaining away the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s criminal conduct of the past fifty years. It’s hard to justify how the church could repeatedly offer up its own innocent children as a regular sacrifice to the unbridled lusts of rampaging predator priests, but Lynn gave it a try, with predictable results.

But that wasn’t the only sickening sight in Courtroom 304. Over at the prosecution table, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington was a study in fire-breathing indignation, as he pummeled the hapless monsignor for more than four hours, without showing any mercy, or common sense.

Who would want to see Mike Tyson in his prime whaling away on the Pillsbury doughboy? No wonder jurors often looked away as the bloodsport went on unabated, without anyone in Lynn’s corner tossing in the towel, or the judge calling the bout.

Blessington could have dissected Lynn on the facts, but instead he chose to repeatedly insult and demean a man in a priest’s collar who wasn’t fighting back. It seemed like the ideal way to create sympathy for Lynn among jurors. It may be the only way the defense has left to possibly win the case.

Meanwhile, in the courtroom, there was the odd spectacle of at least a dozen of Lynn’s parishioners from St. Joseph’s in Downingtown who showed up to support their pastor by watching and praying and clutching rosary beads.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Colm Kelpie
Friday, 25 May 2012

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin yesterday declined to publicly back embattled All-Ireland primate Cardinal Sean Brady.

Dr Brady has kept a relatively low profile since new allegations emerged of the handling of child abuse concerns raised about notorious paedophile cleric Fr Brendan Smyth.

With just weeks to go to the 50th Eucharistic Congress, Archbishop Martin said the challenges facing the church were not about just one person.

“Cardinal Brady has said that he is staying and that he has lots of support from people; I’ve never commented and I don’t know any thing of those details,” he said. Asked if he supported Cardinal Brady, Dr Martin replied: “I’ve made no comments on other bishops.”

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

More than ten million euro in compensation has been paid out to victims of paedophile priests in the Dublin area.

Allegations of child abuse have been made against almost 100 priests in the archdiocese over the last 70 years, with more than a third from the 1980s. Complaints were lodged against five clergy who had never been subject to previous allegations in the last 12 months, according to Dublin’s church watchdog.

Andrew Fagan, director of services with the Child Safeguarding and Protection Service in Dublin, said there were ongoing efforts to maintain high standards in child safety.

“In Dublin, child safeguarding operates to a high standard and Dublin parishes are now safer places for children,” he said. “While the majority of allegations of abuse reported to us now, relate to sexual abuse which may have occurred many years ago, it is still crucial to be vigilant and to work to ensure standards are maintained.”

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NEW YORK
JTA

May 24, 2012

(JTA) — Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes reportedly said that the haredi Orthodox community is the only one in his jurisdiction in which sexual assault victims are harassed and intimidated.

In an interview that appeared Thursday in Andrea Peyser’s New York Post column, Hynes cited the insularity of Brooklyn’s haredi community and the need to protect sex-abuse victims from intimidation for his refusal to release the names of accused molesters from the community.

“I departed from the policy of identifying defendants,’’ he told Peyser. “The reason is that within days, people within this relentless community would identify the victims. Then the intimidation would start.’’

Hynes has been under attack for refusing to divulge the names. He has been criticized for trying to curry favor with the haredi Orthodox constituency, which has supported him in past elections.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Bennett L. Gershman and Joel Cohen

Prosecutors often deal with crime victims who do not want to testify. Victims are afraid they will be harmed by their abusers, such as victims of domestic violence. Others are embarrassed to testify in public and undergo brutal cross-examination, such as rape victims. Others are traumatized by the courtroom and having to face their abuser, such as child victims. The law has tried to accommodate these concerns through witness protection programs, rape shield laws, and closed circuit testimony. But sometimes the opposite happens: victims want to testify against their abusers but face pressure from friends, family, and powerful members of their own community not to cooperate with the authorities.

Recent disclosures have revealed that some ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders, particularly in Brooklyn, N.Y., routinely pressure victims of child sexual crimes to not complain publicly against their abusers. Charles Hynes, the experienced district attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., has been criticized of for appearing to allow these rabbis to dictate when and under what circumstances sexual abuse charges may be brought. Indeed, it certainly looks like obstruction of justice for rabbis to pressure a crime victim not to complain. As reported in the media, these religious authorities have repeatedly warned child victims of sexual abuse and their parents not to bring criminal charges against other Jews, claiming that it violates Jewish law, damages the reputation of the Orthodox Jewish community, and stigmatizes the alleged abuser and his family if the accusation is not true. When victims did not heed these warnings — even after being offered large sums of money not to complain, ostensibly for “therapy” for the child — they reportedly faced severe consequences — they were expelled from schools and synagogues, ostracized by the community, threatened with harm, and publicly humiliated, even spat upon. Mr. Hynes reportedly was assured by these rabbis that accusations would be allowed to be brought, but only if the rabbis first determined that the allegations were true.

What is going on here? Have these rabbis been delegated the “gatekeepers” of the criminal justice system? Should any government official ever permit religious leaders unilaterally to dictate public policy? The notion that a religious leader has been given the power to decide whether a member of his community can bring a criminal complaint poses a clear challenge to the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause by entangling religious leaders — either explicitly or implicitly — with the secular legal system’s prosecutorial decision-making process. Indeed, should church officials be allowed to decide whether a priest or minister alleged to have engaged in wrongful conduct be prosecuted? Should Native American tribes be allowed to decide whether one of its members should be exempted from prosecution for a criminal offense? Should a university be allowed to determine whether discipline should be imposed on one of its football coaches for child sexual abuse instead of criminal prosecution?

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NEW YORK
Gothamist

Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes is desperately trying to extricate himself from a political scandal sparked by his refusal to release the names of ultra-Orthodox Jews suspected of child molestation, as well as letting powerful rabbis decide whether child abuse allegations should be reported to the police. Hynes’s cooperation with the ultra-Orthodox community has been absolutely crucial to his reelection campaigns; he’s won landslide victories in neighborhoods with large Jewish populations. Now, in the wake of a damning New York Times article about his handling of sex abuse cases in these communities, Hynes is… proposing legislation.

In an interview with the Times yesterday, Hynes said he “would push for state legislation to add rabbis and other religious leaders to the list of professionals required to report allegations of sexual abuse to law enforcement authorities.” This is a 180-degree reversal—multiple sources told the Times that Hynes “did not object when Agudath Israel of America… told him last summer that it was instructing adherent Jews to get permission from a rabbi before reporting allegations of sexual abuse to the authorities.”

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

The Jewish Week has a new article by Hella Winston in which the office of Brooklyn’s D.A. Charles Hynes says that Agudah rabbis who insist on vetting child sexual abuse allegations and determining whether or not they can be reported to police, the D.A. or the Administration of Child Services could be prosecuted for obstruction of justice.

Here are a few quotes from the article:

Hynes’ spokesperson Jerry Schmetterer: “DA Hynes told Dovid Zwiebel [Agudah’s executive vice president] that it was a mistake to advise someone with information about child abuse to first speak with a rabbi. Zwiebel … risks having the rabbi prosecuted for obstructing a law enforcement investigation.”

The Jewish Week asked Schmetterer to clarify what someone should do if he or she had information about allegations about abuse. Schmetterer responded that the person should “report [the allegations] to authorities for investigation.”

James A. Cohen, associate professor of law and the director of the Trial Advocacy Program & External Affairs at Fordham University School of Law: “Encouraging delay in reporting a crime, particularly a crime against a child, is obstructing justice.”

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NEW YORK
WNYC

The Brooklyn District attorney is pushing for legislation that would add religious leaders to those required to report allegations of sex abuse to authorities in the wake of criticism over his handling of such cases in the Orthodox Jewish community, according to the New York Times.

Critics of Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes say he allows the community a free pass – not objecting when a group representing Hasidic and Orthodox Jews instructed followers to first get permission from a rabbi before reporting alleged sexual abuse and refusing to make public the more than 95 recently indicted.

But Paul Berger, staff writer for the Jewish Daily Forward, told the Brian Lehrer Show earlier this month that it is more nuanced than that.

“He still expects that those cases are still brought to him,” he said. “If you want to get somebody’s advice … then it would make sense that they should seek the guidance of a rabbi first.”

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VATICAN CITY
SKNVibes

By: Jean-Louis de la Vaissiere, VATICAN CITY (AFP)

(Vatican City, VAT) – The Vatican Bank ousted its president on Thursday after he failed to clean up the image of an institution that has come to symbolise the opacity and scandal gripping the Holy See’s administration.

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was forced to resign “for failing to carry out duties of primary importance,” the Holy See said in a statement.

The president was ousted in the wake of a series of financial scandals as the Vatican tries to clean up its image and put a stop to a leak of documents.

“The board passed a unanimous no-confidence vote against the president… and believes the action is important to maintain the vitality” of the bank, the Vatican said, as internal divisions over transparency came to a head.

Gotti Tedeschi, an expert on financial ethics, was put in charge of the bank — also known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) — in 2009, in an effort on the part of the Vatican to rid the institution of scandal.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

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

Midway through his cross-examination Thursday, Msgr. William J. Lynn sat deflated on the witness stand.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington had spent a second day battering Lynn over his handling of complaints of clergy sex abuse.

Lynn tried to press back. Blessington, he said, was “wordsmithing,” twisting his statements, ignoring his replies, and being unfair.

But the prosecutor was relentless. As the church official responsible for investigating accused priests, Blessington said, Lynn had lied, lied, and lied some more – to victims, police, and parishioners across the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. When Blessington said Lynn intentionally misled a grand jury, the monsignor shook his head, exasperated.

“No,” Lynn sighed quietly, dropping his gaze and letting the word linger, as the prosecutor loaded another round.

The questions weren’t a surprise.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Voice from the Desert

Eileen DiFranco on Philadelphia Msgr. William Lynn: My Second Encounter with Bill Lynn

Eileen attended the big trial in Philadelphia yesterday. Below are her reflections. [FJD]

* * *
My Second Encounter with Bill Lynn

Ten years ago, I was a member of a support group for one of the survivors mentioned in the 2005 Grand jury report. Our group had invited Lynn to a meeting to explain to all of us how Nicholas Cudemo could remain a priest when the archdiocese knew he had sexually abused a long list of adolescent girls on a regular basis.

I decided that I would take a personal day today and see how Bill was making out now that lawyers rather than private citizens were asking him how men who committed horrific crimes against children could remain in ministry as priests in good standing under his watch.

I arrived early and just spent some time looking around the courtroom. . The lawyers were up front busily preparing for the day. A large group of mostly women came into court. I heard that they were Lynn’s family. There were perhaps 10 observers and many media people. For those of you in Philadelphia, I saw local reporters Vernon Odom, Pat Sirococi, and Terry Ruggles. I was told that there were people from the national news and I later saw one of the women on the CBS national news.

There was a large man sitting in front of me. When three priests walked in and sat in front of him, he patted one of them on the back. An elderly man asked if I were a sister. That was a first for me. I didn’t want to tell him what I really was and upset him. ( I’m a Roman Catholic Womanpriest.)

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CALIFORNIA
KPCC

[Archive of Franciscan Sex Abuse in the Province of St. Barbara – BishopAccountability.org]

By Lisa Brenner

Files detailing alleged clergy abuse at Franciscans’ St. Anthony Seminary, a former boarding school in Santa Barbara, have been released following a lengthy legal battle.

The documents, posted online at bishopaccountability.org, contain accusations of sexual abuse of children, and an account of a man who describes being molested there as a child and later molesting other childeren, says the L.A. Times.

For decades, the now-shuttered St. Anthony’s Seminary was awash in dark secrets. A cache of documents obtained in a lawsuit and posted online Wednesday, including [Robert] Van Handel’s so-called sexual autobiography, has begun to shed some light on them.

The documents, containing accounts of 25 alleged victims who say they were abused by nine clergy members, is the largest release of a Roman Catholic religious order’s confidential files, according to a plaintiffs’ attorney. Van Handel is the only one of them who has been criminally convicted, notes the newspaper.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

Andrea Peyser

There exists in this city a group of unparalleled perverts that’s wrapped in Teflon — more resistent to charges of sexual exploitation than John Travolta.

I’m not talking about Hollywood nimrods or Catholic priests, but a sect not generally associated with serious crime — ultra-Orthodox Jews.

A scandal of epic proportions is brewing in Brooklyn as District Attorney Charles Hynes uses kid gloves to handle creeps and demons charged with, or convicted of, sexual abuse that too often brutalizes children.

While monsters of other faiths are paraded in shame through the public square, Hynes this week refused to reveal the identities of Hasidic scumbags.

Some of the deviants committed crimes from rape to sodomy to incest in sex attacks on kids.

Some have enjoyed sweet plea deals. Others are out there as we speak — preying on the weak in blessed anonymity.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Updated May 24, 2012

Ever since the USA government listed the Vatican as ‘potential money-laundering center’, the Vatican is trying to patch-up its image in order to “restore” its reputation and its relations with the international financial community. So in a no confidence vote today, it fired its president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, “for not having carried out various functions of primary importance to his office” , see news updates below. How on earth can Tedeschi carry out the functions in his office at the Vatican Bank when he also teaches ethics in finance at Milan’s Catholic University and so he could show up only two days a week at the Vatican Bank while tending to his other job as head of Spain’s Banco Santander’s Italian unit? Imagine that, only at the Vatican can one be the President of 2 banks or perhaps more. For the Vatican Bank to have relations with other financial institutions, of course, it has to hire someone already in a high level position to do its international transactions, like the President of Spain’s biggest bank. That shows how cunning the Vatican is. We will put all news related to the Vatican Bank in this post.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

[with video]

By Ben Simmoneau

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The CBS 3 I-Team has learned that a Catholic priest who was removed from the ministry over sex abuse allegations now holds a sensitive security post at Philadelphia International Airport.

The security checkpoint between Terminals D and E is a busy place where thousands of people – including lots of kids – pass through every day. But you might not believe who the I-Team observed working as a TSA supervisor at that checkpoint this week: Thomas Harkins.

Until 2002, Harkins was a Catholic priest working at churches across South Jersey. But the Diocese of Camden removed him from ministry because it found he sexually abused two young girls. Now, in a new lawsuit, a third woman is claiming she also is one of Harkins’ victims.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

DUBLIN’S CATHOLIC archdiocese has paid €15.2 million in compensation and legal costs arising from clerical child sexual abuse, according to a report published yesterday.

This included €10.3 million in settlements and €4.9 million in legal costs.

To date 199 civil actions have been taken in Dublin arising from clerical child abuse, with 135 concluded and 64 ongoing.

The archdiocese has so far received 97 allegations/reports of suspicions of abuse against the worst priest serial child abuser in Dublin. He is no longer a priest and is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Albany Times Union

MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

Updated 05:48 p.m., Thursday, May 24, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Roman Catholic church official testified Thursday that he typed a list of suspected pedophile priests on his computer, but couldn’t find it 10 years later to show a grand jury.

Monsignor William Lynn endured a second day of searing cross-examination as he fights charges he endangered children by protecting priests. He’s due back on the stand Tuesday.

Lynn denies locking the 1994 list in an archdiocese safe, where church employees say it was found in 2006 and then buried in a lawyer’s files until this year.

The list was turned over to city prosecutors in February, days after Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua died. They’ve made it something of a smoking gun since the trial started in March.

Prosecutors believe it shows the Philadelphia archdiocese knew it had diagnosed pedophiles and other predators on duty, but left them in jobs with access to children.

“They have that collar on. It attracts kids like candy,” Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington said as he peppered Lynn with questions.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Pat Ciarrocchi

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Monsignor William Lynn walked to lunch with his family surrounding him, and for the first time all morning, his face wasn’t blazing red.

The second day of cross examination was intense from the start.

The prosecutor, Assistant DA Patrick Blessington, named cases involving notorious priests — with credible allegations of sexual abuse of children who remained in ministry.

One was Father Stanley Gana, who Blessington described as a monster with multiple victims. Blessington wanted to know how this case fell through the cracks.

“There was no excuse for it falling through the cracks. I’m not perfect,” Lynn answered.

“Do you agree; Gana is a monster?” Blessington pressed.

“I agree he did horrible things,” Lynn confirmed.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WKZO

By Dave Warner

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A senior church official on Thursday defended his response to a child abuse victim who was told that a predator priest could not be punished because he had sex with women too and therefore was “not a pure pedophile.”

Under intense cross-examination by the prosecution, Monsignor William Lynn of the Philadelphia Archdiocese testified in his own defense for the second day at his trial on charges of child endangerment and conspiracy. He is accused of covering up child sex abuse allegations against priests, often by transferring them to unsuspecting parishes.

Lynn, 61, the former secretary of the clergy in the archdiocese, is the highest-ranking U.S. clergyman to go to trial in the Roman Catholic church’s pedophilia scandal. His job was to supervise 800 Philadelphia priests, including investigating sex abuse claims against them, from 1992 to 2004.

The pedophilia scandal has rocked the Philadelphia Archdiocese, with 1.5 million members the sixth largest in the country. Nationwide, more than 10,000 allegations of child sex abuse were brought against priests between 1950 and 2002, according to a report commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

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CALIFORNIA
The Christian Post

[Archive of Franciscan Sex Abuse in the Province of St. Barbara – BishopAccountability.org]

By Luiza Oleszczuk , Christian Post Reporter

May 24, 2012|5:45 pm

Over 8,500 pages of documents detailing charges of sex abuse of minors within the Franciscan religious order in California were published Wednesday, revealing dark secrets about years of ongoing abuse by a boarding school choir director and eight other clergymen.

The files are believed to be the largest release of religious order documents in the history of the sexual abuse crisis, according to BishopAccountability.org. They reveal details of crimes committed by the nine priests who were accused of abuse, including Robert Van Handel, a former Franciscan priest and choir director at St. Anthony’s, a prestigious Franciscan boarding school in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Among the documents are notes from the men’s therapists, letters from parents of alleged victims, and reports by the Board of Inquiry.

A majority of the files is now available online. All documents outline the abuse of 25 alleged victims. Van Handel is the only clergyman of those mentioned who has been criminally convicted.

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ITALIA
Il Secolo XIX

Genova – Un esposto di trentatre pagine che chiama in causa l’arcivescovo di Genova, Angelo Bagnasco, e i suoi due predecessori, Tarcisio Bertone e Dionigi Tettamanzi. Lo ha presentato in Procura Francesco Zanardi, portavoce della rete “L’abuso”, sul caso di don Riccardo Seppia, l’ex parroco di Sestri Ponente arrestato e condannato a nove anni e mezzo per violenza sessuale su minore, tentata induzione alla prostituzione minorile e offerte di droga. Zanardi chiede alla Procura di verificare se i tre arcivescovi fossero a conoscenza dei comportamenti del parroco e, nel caso, perché non abbiano fatto nulla per evitarli.

«Anche se nelle linee guida sugli abusi sessuali dei preti sui minori la Conferenza episcopale italiana ha stabilito che per i vescovi non ci sarà obbligo di denuncia in quanto non sono pubblici ufficiali – dice Zanardi – deve pur valere l’articolo 40 del codice penale dove si dice che non impedire un reato di cui si è a conoscenza equivale a cagionarlo».

[translation]

Case of Seppia, Zanardi denounces three bishops

Genoa- A letter of 33 pages accuses the archbishop of Genova, Angelo Bagnasco, and his two predecessors, Tarcisio Bertone and Dionigi Tettamanzi. It was presented to the office of the Prosecutor by Francesco Zanardi, spokesperson of the network L’abuso”, in connection to the case of don Riccardo Seppia, the former parish priest of Sestri Ponenete, who was arrested and sentenced to nine years and six months for sexual violence on minor, attempted prostitution of minors and multiple offers of drugs. Zanardi asks the Prosecutor to investigate whether the three archbishops knew about the behavior of the priest, and if sdo, why they did not do anything to avoid this behavior.

“Even if the “guidelines on sexual abuse of minors by clergy” of the Italian Conference of Bishops has stated that there will be no obligation to denounce, because bishops are not public officials, ” says Zanardi, “the article 40 of the Criminal Law should still be applied, which states that a person who has knowledge of a crime, but does nothing to stop it, is equally responsible of causing it.”

According to Zanardi, who has been fighting for years, trying to expose sexual abuse by clergy in the Savona Diocese, it is legitimate to suppose that the bishops of Genova were fully aware of the perversities of Riccardo Seppia, through the notes in the personnel file of the priest”. In our letter we ask the the Prosecutor to investigate the visit of cardinal Bagnasco paid to Riccardo Seppia, when he was in jail. “Why did he obtain permission to visit him when the judge had forbidden all visits?”

Judge Roberta Bossi, in the meantime, has turned down the request of Paola Bonanni, the lawyer of the ex-priest, to have the priest serve his sentence in a therapeutic community, because the priest is ill and needs to be taken care of. Don Seppia will remain hereto in the “secure” area of the prison of Sanremo, where sexual delinquents are held.

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UNITED STATES
Disaffected and it Feels So Good

“No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God.” – George H. W. Bush, 41st U.S. President.

Sorry atheist scum the continued and rampant exploitation and abuse of children stems not from catholic priests but from atheism. Even though, Philadelphia prosecutors have brought a case against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to determine how the Church dealt with abusive predatory priests.

Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official ever charged over his handling of abuse complaints. Prosecutors also allege the Church kept kept secret files dating back to 1948 showing a long-standing conspiracy to cast doubt in the minds of sex abuse victims and protect priests.

How dare the Government infringe upon the rights of the religious! Hey Obama, We have a thing called the 1st Amendment here!

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VATICAN CITY
Rome Reports

[with video]

May 24, 2012. (Romereports.com) (-ONLY VIDEO-) The president of the Vatican’s Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, reportedly resigned on Thursday, before the IOR board (Institute for Works of Religion) issued a no confidence vote against him. The Vatican released a statement on the matter, which states that the now former president, “failed to meet some highly important functions.”

At this point, the Vatican is not commenting on any specifics, but it did highlight what type of president it will look for in the near future.

“The council is looking for an excellent new president to help the Institute promote effective and comprehensive relations between the Institute and the financial community, based on mutual respect for internationally accepted banking standards.”

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of the Vatican bank, was fired May 24 by the bank’s board of directors, who censured him for neglecting his duties amid worsening management problems.

The board of the bank, formally known as the Institute for the Works of Religion, issued an unusually blunt statement through the Vatican Press Office, noting that members had repeatedly expressed concern to Gotti Tedeschi about the bank’s “governance,” but that the “situation has deteriorated further.”

The statement said that the board voted to censure Gotti Tedeschi “for not having carried out various functions of primary importance to his office,” but did not specify the functions in question.

Pope Benedict XVI named Gotti Tedeschi, an Italian banker and professor of financial ethics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, as president of the bank in 2009. The appointment was seen at the time as a move toward greater transparency in the bank’s operations.

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VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg Business Week

By Flavia Krause-Jackson on May 24, 2012

The Vatican bank, whose reputation took a blow last year over an investigation into money laundering, has fired Chairman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi after a tenure stained by a financial scandal.

In a vote of no-confidence, the board of directors unanimously agreed to remove Tedeschi, a former Banco Santander SA (SAN) banker who took the job in 2009, from his post for failing “to carry out various duties of primary importance,” according to a statement by Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi.

The bank, which is formally called the Institute for the Works of Religion, said it’s now hunting for a replacement who can “restore” relations with the financial community. Set up in 1942 by Pope Pius XII to manage the Vatican’s finances, the bank, known by its Italian initials as the IOR, reports directly to the pope.

After barely a year in office, Tedeschi, who also teaches ethics in finance at Milan’s Catholic University, was taken by surprise when Italian prosecutors in 2010 seized 23 million euros ($29 million) from a Rome bank account registered to the IOR amid suspicions of money-laundering violations.

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SCHWEIZ
kath.ch

In der Schweizer Kirche kommt die Bewältigung des Missbrauchskandals nur schleppend voran. Es gibt wenige unabhängige Opfer-Stellen. Ungeklärt ist zudem die Frage der Entschädigungen.

Von Michael Meier

Monate, nachdem in Deutschland das Ausmass des Kindsmissbrauchs durch Kleriker öffentlich gemacht wurde, legte im Juni 2010 das Fachgremium Sexuelle Übergriffe in der Seelsorge der Schweizer Bischofskonferenz eine Statistik zu den Missbrauchsfällen in der hiesigen Kirche vor: Seit 1950 war es zu 150 Missbrauchsfällen gekommen. Die Bischöfe bedauerten die grosse Schuld, die in der Kirche und in Diözesen bekannt geworden sei. Doch was ist in den zwei letzten Jahren geschehen? Nicht viel. Joseph Bonnemain, Sekretär des Fachgremiums, sagt, man habe auf Verlangen der Glaubenskongregation die eigenen Richtlinien von 2002 nochmals revidiert und die Vorgaben des Apostolischen Stuhls rezipiert. Zum Beispiel, dass die Verjährung von Übergriffen gegenüber Minderjährigen nicht mehr zehn, sondern 20 Jahre nach Erreichen des Erwachsenenalters betragen soll. Laut Bonnemain sind derzeit nicht viele neue Fälle zu verzeichnen, es sei ruhiger geworden. Aber es gebe noch viel zu tun, vor allem in der Prävention. In den Priesterseminaren, aber auch in der Weiter- und Fortbildung der Seelsorgenden müsse die Sensibilität weiter wachsen. Bonnemain wünscht sich, dass die Medien das Thema wachhalten.

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VATIKAN
Spiegel

Vor fast 30 Jahren verschwand Emanuela Orlandi spurlos aus dem Vatikan. Jetzt berichtet der Chef-Exorzist der katholischen Kirche, die junge Frau sei von Gendarmen der Vatikan-Polizei für Sexpartys vermittelt und später ermordet worden.

Hamburg – “Es ist ein Verbrechen mit sexuellem Hintergrund”, da ist sich Gabriele Amorth sicher. Als “globales Oberhaupt der Exorzisten” in der katholischen Kirche genießt der greise Priester das Vertrauen von Papst Benedikt XVI. und rühmt sich, mindestens 70.000 erfolgreiche Teufelsaustreibungen vorgenommen zu haben. Der italienischen Tageszeitung “La Stampa” erzählte er seine Version des rätselhaften Verschwindens der damals 15-jährigen Emanuela Orlandi.

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ROM
Spiegel (Deutschland)

Keine drei Jahre hat er es an der Spitze der Vatikanbank IOR ausgehalten: Nach einem Misstrauensvotum ist Ettore Gotti Tedeschi nun als Präsident abgelöst worden. Gegen ihn wird wegen Geldwäsche ermittelt. Von seinem Nachfolger hat der Heilige Stuhl schon genaue Vorstellungen.

Rom – Im September 2009 war Ettore Gotti Tedeschi angetreten, um die Vatikanbank IOR in das globale Zeitalter zu führen. Papst Benedikt XVI. hatte den langjährigen Italien-Chef der spanischen Banco Santander an die Spitze der IOR berufen, um Klarheit in die Geschäfte bringen – doch Tedeschi schaffte offenbar das Gegenteil.

Schon seit November 2010 steht der 67-Jährige gemeinsam mit einem weiteren Top-Manager unter dem Verdacht der Geldwäsche. Den Männern wird vorgeworfen, gegen die in Italien gültigen Anti-Geldwäsche-Standards verstoßen zu haben.

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IRELAND
Catholic News Service

By Michael Kelly
Catholic News Service

DUBLIN (CNS) — A new analysis of allegations of abuse made against 98 priests over a 70-year period shows that the alleged abuse peaked in the 1980s.

Fresh data released by the Dublin Archdiocese May 24 showed that 34 percent of complainants alleged their abuse happened in the 1980s. Just 1 percent of claims relate to alleged abuse in the period from 2000 to 2010.

The update also shows that the cost, so far, to the archdiocese for settlement of claims regarding child sexual abuse by priests is currently stands at $19 million, approximately $13 million of which is compensation and the remainder legal costs paid for both sides.

The latest data is the first time that the archdiocese has provided a detailed breakdown on when reported abuse is alleged to have taken place. It shows that of the 98 priests accused of abuse, approximately 2 percent of these priests are alleged to have abuse in the 1940s, 4 percent in the 1950s, 23 percent in the 1960s, 27 percent in the 1970s, 34 percent in the 1980s, 9 percent in the 1990s and 1 percent in the 2000s.

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IRELAND
RTE News

The ten worst-known clerical abusers in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin are alleged to have abused an average of 36 children each, according to its Annual Child Protection Update.

Five of them have been convicted in the courts. Three of these – along with two who have no convictions – are being supervised by the diocese. Two of the ten have died.

The allegations date back as far as the 1940s.

The Annual Child Protection Update from the Archdiocese of Dublin also states that half the allegations against a total of 98 of its priests relate to abuse alleged to have occurred in the 1960s and 70s, while one in three relate to the 1980s.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Sentinel

Catholic News Service

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

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

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Allegations of child sexual abuse were reported this past year against four priests of the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin who were not previously the subject of complaints, it has emerged.

A suspicion of child sexual abuse was raised against one priest of the archdiocese who was not previously the subject of complaints.

There have been, to date, 199 civil actions taken against 46 priests of the archdiocese. Of these 135 have been concluded and 64 are ongoing. Costs, so far, to the archdiocese in the settlement of claims concerning clerical child sexual abuse is currently €15.2 million (€10.3 m in settlements and €4.9 m in legal costs for both sides).

Ten priests or former priests of the archdiocese have been convicted in the criminal courts.

The total number of priests of the archdiocese against whom allegations of child sexual abuse have been recorded is now 98. This relates to a period of over 70 years during which approximately 1,350 priests served in Dublin.

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FLORIDA
13 News

By Kelli Cook and Amanda Evans, Team Coverage

KISSIMMEE —
A teenage boy said he was inappropriately touched by his pastor, a man he trusted like his father.

Now, investigators in Osceola County said there may be more young victims who were lured into sexual acts with Angel Perez, the pastor of Templo Pentecostal, in Kissimmee.

According to a statement the victim gave police during the investigation, the 16-year-old said his mother did not want him to report the abuse.

He said his mother told him that she would go to jail and his younger siblings would be taken away by the Department of Children and Families if he told anyone.

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UNITED STATES
Joyful Heart Foundation

Peter Pollard

The commencement speaker at my niece’s graduation this past weekend startled some in the audience when he noted that having to overcome adversity is a normal part of a achieving a fulfilling life.

I was reminded of my own rocky road to a college education and how critical it was for me to address my history of childhood sexual abuse before I could confidently pursue that or any other dream. As he spoke, I found myself thinking about the chasm between the poles of feelings of isolation and feelings of connection, of powerlessness and competence, failure and success, of shame and of pride and the process of healing that made it possible for me to move from one to the other.

I was just 18 when I dropped out of college in 1969. The world that year offered lots of legitimate reasons for challenging authority and for dismissing traditional concepts of success. My beliefs then certainly weren’t hollow or invalid. But the energy with which I immersed myself in my rebel identity served a much more personal purpose than simply changing the world.

What I know now with certainty (and didn’t recognize even slightly then) is that all my thinking, all my attitudes, all my decisions in those early years of adulthood were strongly influenced by my reaction to the sexual abuse I’d experienced at the hands of a trusted mentor, just a few years earlier.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Brighton and Hove News

A priest who worked in Brighton and Hove has appeared in court charged with sexually abusing two boys more than 20 years ago.

Father Wilkie Denford, 77, of Broad Reach Mews, Shoreham, answered bail at Mid Sussex Magistrates’ Court in Haywards Heath.

He appeared alongside church organist, Michael Mytton, 68, of South Road, East Chiltington, near Ditchling, who was charged with aiding and abetting Denford on one occasion in or near Cuckfield.

The pair were remanded on bail until Tuesday 3 July.

The Church of England minister is accused of indecently assaulting a boy under 16 on three occasions between June 1987 and January 1990.

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UNITED STATES
Salon

Tom Frier

A house doesn’t have to fall on my head to tell me a battle royal is brewing within the Catholic Church over the conservative hierarchy’s heavy-handed efforts to clamp down on dissenting Catholic voices. Not when a prominent American nun comes “this close” to calling the present Church leadership a bunch of brown-frocked fascists. Or when a parish priest I know gives the sister a thumbs up and pastes her angry, anguished outcry to his Facebook page.

And now, according to the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, a group of progressive-leaning bishops who’ve so far held their tongues are starting to speak out against their reactionary colleagues who seem determined to yank the Church far to the right and make Catholicism little more than an auxiliary of the Republican Party in its campaign against President Obama.

Lawsuits brought this week by 43 Catholic organizations and 13 dioceses seeking to overturn the Obama administration’s decision to mandate insurance coverage for contraception for employees at Catholic-run schools and hospitals were seen as provocative and premature by the vast majority of the nation’s 195 diocese that did not want to go to court, according to Dionne.

The bishops in these dioceses, says Dionne, “are upset that the lawsuits were brought without a broader discussion among the entire membership of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops,” many of whom object that the leadership is “aligning the institutional Church too closely with the political right.”

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ROME
RKnieuws (Nederland)

ROME (RKnieuws.net) – De Italiaanse bisschoppenconferentie heeft dinsdag tijdens haar algemene vergadering haar richtlijnen tegen pedofilie gepubliceerd. De bescherming van de minderjarigen en de zorg voor de slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik staan daarbij centraal.

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IRELAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin

The Child Safeguarding and Protection Service (CSPS) of the Archdiocese of Dublin has published its annual Child Protection Update – giving statistical information on child sexual abuse by priests in the Dublin Diocese.

Speaking at a briefing on the CSPS report, Director of the Service Andrew Fagan said the Diocese provided regular updates on its work and made them publically available. He said this exercise is vital in keeping the public informed and reassured of the ongoing efforts to maintain high standards in child safeguarding.

New information, compiled following an extensive internal review of the work of the service was made available which details the extent of abuse carried out by 10 serial abusers. The figures also show a sharp decline in the level of incidents of abuse recorded since the 1980’s.

Mr. Fagan said that despite years of reports, guidelines and training both inside and outside the Church, many people still had a skewed perception of what Safeguarding children in the Catholic Church involves. “There are a number of key messages, which it is important for people to understand,” said Mr. Fagan, “In Dublin, child safeguarding operates to a high standard and Dublin parishes are now safer places for children. While the majority of allegations of abuse reported to us now, relate to sexual abuse which may have occurred many years ago, it is still crucial to be vigilant and to work to ensure standards are maintained,” said Mr. Fagan.

Andrew Fagan added that the Archdiocese of Dublin is one of just a small number of organisations in Ireland, North and South, which supervises men who are deemed a risk to children. The service, while not without its limitations, aims to minimise the risk of these men offending again and is more extensive than services currently provided by the State.

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IRELAND
The Journal

ROUGHLY ONE IN every 14 priests serving in Dublin over the last 70 years has been the subject of child abuse allegations, according to figures released by the archdiocese.

And fresh allegations continue to arise. In the last year accusations have been made against four priests who were not previously the subject of allegations, with suspicions raised over a fifth.

Ninety-eight priests have been accused of sexually abusing children since the 1940s. During this time around 1,350 priests have served in the diocese – meaning that seven per cent of the total, or just over one in 14, have had child abuse allegations made against them.

The figures are contained in the annual Child Protection Update released by the Archdiocese of Dublin today. It shows a sharp decline in abuse allegations since the 1980s, when they peaked after rising through the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.

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VATICAN CITY
The Sacramento Bee

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press

Published: Thursday, May. 24, 2012

VATICAN CITY — The president of the Vatican bank was effectively ousted Thursday after receiving a unanimous vote of no-confidence from bank overseers for having leaked documents and failed to do his job at a critical time in the Holy See’s efforts to show transparency in its finances, the Vatican and officials said.

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi has been a polarizing figure in the Vatican ever since he was named president of the bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, or IOR, in 2009. He is being investigated on suspicion of money laundering by Italian magistrates, but the investigation isn’t believed to have factored into the decision since the Vatican considers the investigation to be motivated by outside political interests.

In a statement Thursday, the Holy See said the vote was taken because of Tedeschi’s failure to fulfill the “primary functions of his office.” He himself has told prosecutors that he barely paid attention to the bank’s works, showing up only two days a week while tending to his primary position as head of Spain’s Banco Santander’s Italian unit.

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IRELAND
Kilkenny People

Published on Wednesday 23 May 2012

More than ten million euro in compensation has been paid out to victims of paedophile priests in the Dublin area.

Allegations of child abuse have been made against almost 100 priests in the archdiocese over the last 70 years, with more than a third from the 1980s. Complaints were lodged against five clergy who had never been subject to previous allegations in the last 12 months, according to Dublin’s church watchdog.

Andrew Fagan, director of services with the Child Safeguarding and Protection Service in Dublin, said there were ongoing efforts to maintain high standards in child safety.

“In Dublin, child safeguarding operates to a high standard and Dublin parishes are now safer places for children,” he said. “While the majority of allegations of abuse reported to us now, relate to sexual abuse which may have occurred many years ago, it is still crucial to be vigilant and to work to ensure standards are maintained.”

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Staff Reporter

May 24, 2012

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the president of the Institute for Works of Religion , commonly known as the Vatican Bank, has been forced to resign after the board of directors issued a no-confidence vote.

A source in the bank did not provide the reasons behind the dismissal, according to Reuters.

Father Federico Lombardi, a spokesman for the Vatican, said the Holy See, will release statement about the bank soon.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

VATICAN CITY | Thu May 24, 2012

May 24 (Reuters) – Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the Italian president of the Vatican bank, has been ousted by the banks board of directors after a no-confidence vote, a senior Vatican source told Reuters on Thursday.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave no details of the reasons for the no-confidence vote in Gotti Tedeschi.

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ROME
Friesch Dagblad (Nederland)

Rome | Het hoofd van de Legionairs van Christus heeft gisteren erkend dat hij al verscheidene jaren wist dat de beroemdste priester van zijn congregatie in strijd met het celibaat een kind had verwekt. De man, Thomas Williams, kon blijven doceren. Ook kon de hij op de Amerikaanse televisie uitleg blijven geven over de leer van de kerk. Alvaro Corcuera zegt dat hij de Williams had gevraagd geleidelijk zijn publieke functies op te geven, maar erkent dat hij te weinig daadkracht heeft getoond. De Legionairs leiden katholieke scholen en liefdadigheidsorganisaties in 22 landen.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Whispers in the Loggia

Not long after Msgr William Lynn became the first US church official to be charged with facilitating a cover-up of abuse cases, word swirled among his Philadelphia confreres that “If Bill goes down, he’s taking everyone with him.”

Since beginning trial in late March, the longtime Secretary for Clergy of the roiled Northeastern archdiocese has mostly sat expressionless, slumped in his chair at the defense table as a parade of witnesses and reams of Chancery files gave detailed accounts of “powder keg” priests, gut-wrenching romps by serial predators, and at least one cleric whose perceived “disobedience” was dealt with more swiftly and severely by his superiors than seemingly any had been over reports of misconduct with minors.

Today, however, it was Lynn’s turn to talk. And while most of the nine-week proceeding has tended to draw a daily crowd numbering little more than a dozen spectators, this time Room 304 of the Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center was full, as TV camera-crews congregated in the lobby downstairs, as they only do when major developments arise.

Even for his attorneys’ early assurance that the monsignor — who served as head of clergy personnel from 1992-2004 — “has a story to tell,” whether Lynn would take the stand has loomed as a key uncertainty in the landmark case. Yet while a “no exceptions” ban on electronic devices in the courtroom has made real-time reporting from the proceedings essentially nonexistent, word hit the street within minutes of this morning’s indication inside that the lead defendant was about to testify.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Philadelphia monsignor William Lynn, charged with child endangerment in connection with the Philadelphia priest sex abuse scandal, continued to face relentless, grueling cross-examination today.

Prosecutor Patrick Blessington asserted again and again that Monsignor Lynn has lied — to victims, to parishioners, to nuns and priests, and to the police, all to protect predator priests and to avoid negative publicity and legal action. And all, according to Blessington, at the expense of children.

Citing evidence, much of it from the church’s own secret archives and by Lynn’s own hand, Blessington has asserted through questioning that Lynn lied routinely and intentionally.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Associated Press

By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Roman Catholic church official says he typed a list of 35 accused predator-priests on his computer, but couldn’t find it 10 years later to show a Philadelphia grand jury.

Monsignor William Lynn is enduring a second day of searing cross-examination as he fights charges he endangered children by protecting priests.

Lynn denies putting the 1994 list in a locked safe at the archdiocese, where it was found in 2006.

Evidence shows it was turned over only this year, days after Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua died.

Prosecutors say the list shows the church knew it had pedophiles and other predators on duty, where they could abuse other children.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Jewel Topsfield
May 25, 2012

A MELBOURNE Jewish boys’ school is under pressure to stand down one of its teachers after a magistrate found it was ”unfathomable” he was unaware of sexual abuse at the time it allegedly occurred.

Philanthropist Moishe Gordon, a long-standing member of the Yeshivah community, said he would bankroll advertisements saying Rabbi Abraham Glick must go from Yeshivah College, where he teaches Jewish studies and is head of student wellbeing.

Rabbi Glick, who was the principal of the East St Kilda school at the time of most of the alleged offences, originally said he had only recently become aware of accusations that Yeshivah security guard David Samuel Cyprys had molested children. He changed his evidence under oath in the Melbourne Magistrates Court and admitted he was aware of rumours in the early 2000s.

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WISCONSIN
WBAY

[with video]

At the end of the civil trial against the Green Bay Catholic Diocese, Troy and Todd Merryfield released letters they say their family received or their attorneys obtained from the diocese over the years.

They say the letters prove the diocese was aware of allegations surrounding Father John Patrick Feeney, who sexually abused the brothers in the 1970s but wasn’t convicted and defrocked until decades later.

After the parents of Troy and Todd Merryfield raised complaints about Father Feeney in August 1978, then-Bishop Aloysius Wycislo sent them a letter stating he “will be discussing the situation with our Personnel Board this Friday.”

Bishop Wycislo followed up with a letter two weeks later stating Father Feeney would stay at the Freedom parish, but would “begin an intensive counseling program regarding his personal problems.”

Then in a December 1978 letter to the diocese’s Personnel Board chairman, Bishop Wycislo writes, “I have just spent a half hour with the District Attorney for Outagamie County who presented me with evidence of a number of crimes of like sexual nature… that the Attorney feels are base enough for a court case against Father Feeney.”

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CANADA
RKnieuws (Nederland)

SAGENAY (RKnieuws.net) – De politie van Saguenay, ten oosten van Québec, heeft priester Paul-André Harvey opnieuw aangehouden. Hij wordt verdacht van 63 nieuwe gevallen van seksueel misbruik.

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ITALY
The Daily Beast

May 24, 2012

A massive information dump nicknamed ‘VatiLeaks’ has the Catholic Church sweating. Barbie Latza Nadeau talks to Gianluigi Nuzzi, the journalist exposing Pope Benedict XVI’s internal memos.

Investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi first met “Maria” in the spring of 2011 at a secret rendezvous in an unfurnished apartment under the shadow of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. He had been summoned there by secret Vatican insiders who had vetted him for weeks through banal meetings in coffee houses and cocktail bars. They followed him, checked out his friends, even set up false appointments just to observe him. When they finally trusted him, he met the informers who would betray the Catholic Church like no one before. In a massive document dump that has been dubbed “VatiLeaks,” Nuzzi managed to shed light on an institution that has been enshrined in secrecy for centuries.

For a year Nuzzi was a conduit for sensitive documents that surfaced from deep within the Roman Curia which he highlighted in his Italian television show The Untouchables. This week, he published the documents in full in a book called Sua Santita’- Le Carte Segrete di Benedetto XVI or Your Holiness: The Secret Papers Benedict XVI. He says he kept the documents on a USB key sewn into his neckties and he worried constantly that someone might try to harm him or steal them back.

Since his first television program, VatiLeaks has made a major impact in Rome. The reopening of the criminal investigation into the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee who disappeared 30 years ago, has come to symbolize the VatiLeaks scandal and a small victory for transparency in the Roman Catholic Church. And earlier this month, the Holy See conceded to allow the opening of the tomb of a notorious mobster who was interred inside a Vatican church in an unprecedented act of cooperation with Italian police who want to find the truth in the Orlandi case. “The people who provided these documents did it because they’d had enough of the lies,” Nuzzi told The Daily Beast. “They did it at great risk, and if they are ever found out, they will likely disappear without a trace.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

[Archive of Franciscan Sex Abuse in the Province of St. Barbara – BishopAccountability.org]

May. 24, 2012
By Catholic News Service

LOS ANGELES — More than 8,500 pages of material detailing claims of sexual abuse by a group of Franciscan priests and brothers in California were made public Wednesday.

The release of the documents was one unfinished item of business from a 2006 court settlement that awarded $28 million, the vast majority of it from the St. Barbara Province of the Franciscan Friars and Brothers, to settle abuse claims from 25 plaintiffs.

The province, based in Oakland, used the proceeds from the sale of a closed seminary, where many of the incidents were alleged to have occurred, to help finance the settlement. The high school seminary closed in 1987.

As part of the settlement, the Franciscans agreed to let a judge review for possible public dissemination internal church documents as well as depositions in the litigation, showing how the order handled sexual abuse allegations among its clerics.

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NEW MEXICO
Courthouse News Service

By JEFF D. GORMAN

(CN) – Pedophilia allegations did not hurt a former priest’s reputation, so he cannot sue for defamation, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled.

While working as a priest at the St. Francis Episcopal Church in Rio Rancho, N.M., Walter Smith III faced opposition from members of the parish and vestry, an administrative group of lay parishioners.

One of the vestry members, Will Durden, compiled and published a packet of documents that included an anonymous letter accusing Smith of several acts of pedophilia. The packet also included other personal attacks against Smith, documentation about the parish’s financial problems and claims against Smith’s leadership.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

A prosecutor resumed his relentless attack on Msgr. William J. Lynn on Thursday morning, pounding the church official with questions and accusing him of lying to protect pedophile priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

For more than an hour, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington parried with Lynn, charging that the former clergy secretary repeatedly misled abuse victims, a police officer and even the grand jury formed a decade ago to investigate sex abuse by local priests.

“You didn’t care,” Blessington said. “Because you were about protecting priests and you didn’t care.”

Again and again, the defendant shook his head and denied any wrongdoing. He acknowledged some misstatements and mistakes, but said none were intentional.

“I’m not perfect,” Lynn testified. “I’m not saying I handled all these things perfectly.”

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

Dissatisfaction with the pace of Government action when dealing with the issue of Magdalene Laundries was forcefully expressed by members of the Justice for Magdalene’s (JFM) group at Leinster House this afternoon.

Addressing a cross-party group of TDs and Senators Katherine O’Donnell of JFM recalled Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s “great speech about the Vatican” in the Dáil but pointed out that it was still the case that some women survivors of the laundries “still live in Magdalene Ireland.”

She knew three such women who were dying of cancer. They “needed an apology (from the State) urgently as well as redress and restorative justice now,” she said.

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UNITED STATES
NewsBusters

By Tim Graham | May 24, 2012

The CBS Evening News led with the Catholic Church on Wednesday night. It wasn’t about the 43 Catholic groups suing the Obama administration. It was yet another story on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy decades ago. CBS’s newscast is the only one of the Big Three evening shows to notice the lawsuits — for 19 seconds on Monday night.

Anchor Scott Pelley began at the top of the Wednesday broadcast: “Tonight, the Monsignor takes the stand. The highest ranking Catholic Church official ever charged in the child abuse scandal blames a higher power, the former cardinal of Philadelphia.” Pelley didn’t care that “monsignor” is not normally a “high-ranking” designation at all, just a special designation of honor for a priest. While CBS highlights the Catholic sex-abuse allegations in Philadelphia, it’s ignoring the Jewish sex-abuse story in its own hometown. As the New York Times reported:

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, said Wednesday that he would push for state legislation to add rabbis and other religious leaders to the list of professionals required to report allegations of sexual abuse to law enforcement authorities.

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IRELAND
Breaking News

A child safeguarding conference is to take place in the diocese of Kilmore, Co Cavan tonight, after a recommendation from the Church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children.

It arose out of a review of safeguarding practice in the diocese, where paedophile priest Brendan Smyth was based.

Fr Smyth continued working in the Kilmore diocese for several years after allegations of child abuse had been made against him.

A recent BBC documentary claimed information about alleged abuse had been passed on to church authorities, including Cardinal Seán Brady, then Fr Brady.

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CALIFORNIA
San Antonio Express-News

ONTARIO, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California priest convicted of child molestation won’t face more jail time for violating his probation.

The Riverside Press-Enterprise (http://bit.ly/Jp9dM2 ) says the Rev. Alejandro Castillo of Ontario was sentenced Wednesday to the two weeks he’s already spent in custody.

San Bernardino County probation officers arrested him earlier this month because children were present at his April birthday party. Authorities say it was a surprise party and Castillo didn’t know children would be there but he should have left immediately.

He didn’t talk to or touch the children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
News & STar

A former Cumbrian vicar has appeared before a judge at Carlisle Crown Court charged with a string of sexual crimes against four schoolboys.

Ronald Johns, 74, is charged with a total of 15 offences spread over 12 years from 1979 and 1991.

He faces three charges of serious sexual assault, six counts of gross indecency and six charges of indecent assault.

All the offences were allegedly committed in Cumbria and involved four boys.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

May. 23, 2012
By Brian Roewe

Canon lawyers representing St. Patrick Parish of Cleveland filed a motion Wednesday in Rome demanding Bishop Richard G. Lennon immediately reopen the church and restore the parish, and if he won’t, have someone else do it.

The motion is the second filed by the parish since decrees came from the Congregation for the Clergy in early March ruling in favor of St. Patrick and 11 other parishes Lennon had attempted to suppress in a string of closings in 2009.

Patricia Schulte-Singleton, a parishioner of St. Patrick and head of parish advocate group Endangered Catholics, said Lennon’s delayed action is “causing distress spiritually, emotionally, economically” for the parish and its parishioners.

“There has been no timetable, no definitive action plan, so you have to wonder, When is this going to happen, is he going to stall, does he really want to do this even though he’s been ordered to do it by Rome?” she said. “You have to wonder, you know, what’s the deal?”

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano
Thu., May 24 2012

We at the Weekly had enough respect for former GOP chairman Tom Fuentes to not invade his funeral yesterday and cause a scene–but we’re beholden to the truth, so damn straight we’re going to blast his funeral for the parade of pedophile apologists and protectors that it was.

The main attraction, of course, was Fuentes, rotting in hell as we speak for his longtime role as the communications director for the Catholic Diocese of Orange at a time where local priests were raping kiddies as if their jobs depended on it. But testifying on Fuentes’ behalf were men that the Fuentes family should’ve kept a state away for their sick association and support of pedophiles, both of the priestly and not variety.

Roll call of the pedophile apologists!

*Giving the homily was the man who replaced Fuentes as communications director, Lawrence Baird. Baird was a notorious asshole to many sex-abuse victims, defended vile pedophile Michael Harris as “an icon to the priesthood” to the media even as the Orange diocese knew he was a pedophile rapist, and even once sued a sex-abuse victim for defamation (he lost). Yet Fuentes wanted this man to give the homily? Birds of a feather…

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Interview with Church historian Alberto Melloni, successor of late Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Alberigo: “The Pope’s private correspondence is concordatory material”

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

“I don’t think there is anything new here. The problem is, who is pouring fuel on the fire and who is fanning the flames? They certainly cannot attribute this to their right to freedom of expression….” This is how Alberto Melloni Professor of History at the University of Modena, Italy and director of the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Sciences in Bologna summarised the Vatileaks case that has been causing so much mayhem in the Holy See. Here, the hunt is on for the moles who stole number of documents, notes and letters, sending them to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of “Sua Santità. Le carte segrete di Benedetto XVI” (His Holiness. Benedict XVI’s secret letters)

What do you make of the “Vatileaks” saga?

In my opinion it is an attack against the Pope by those who wish to tell him: you were wrong in your choice of Secretary of State and you were wrong not to substitute him…”

Are there any previous cases that bear a comparison to this one?

“No, I don’t think so. I must say that the book does not reveal anything massively new; they are not “secret letters” at all, it’s just private internal correspondence: it is clear that the aim is to prove that there is no surveillance, that anything can get out and that the archives are not properly looked after.”

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

May 24, 2012

By Torsten Ove / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A suspended Catholic priest will spend at least five years in federal prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to possessing and receiving thousands of child porn images on his rectory computer.

Rev. Bartley Sorensen, 63, of St. John Fisher Church in Churchill, admitted his guilt before Senior U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch, who set sentencing for Sept. 13.

Father Sorensen faces a range of five to 30 years behind bars, but must serve at least five years.

He said nothing in court except to acknowledge Judge Bloch’s questions and then waved to his two brothers in the gallery before U.S. marshals led him away in handcuffs.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY TIM TOWNSEND • ttownsend@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8221

The Rev. Charles Manning, 77, a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, turned himself in to Colorado Springs police Tuesday after a warrant had been issued for his arrest.

Police had been investigating Manning since October.

He was charged with sexual assault on a minor by a person in a position of trust, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to police.

Angie Shelton, the archdiocese’s community relations specialist, said in a statement that Manning had been granted permission to move to Colorado Springs in June 2007.

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IRELAND
Build

Trim Circuit Court heard yesterday a former priest admit to indecently assaulting a number of boys at different locations in the diocese of Meath, including a parochial house.

77-year-old Raymond Brady admitted offences relating to 11 individuals.

When the case was called, State prosecutor Carl Hanahoe said guilty pleas were being entered in relation to 11 offences. He said these pleas were acceptable to the prosecution on the basis of full facts being heard at the sentencing hearing later this year.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Familien-Blickpunkt

von Familien-Blickpunkt.de am 22/05/2012

Erbach (hsm) – Nach Schätzungen des Bundeskriminalamtes werden jährlich 200- bis 300 000 Kinder in Deutschland sexuell missbraucht. „Das ist Mord an Kinderseelen“, erklärte Petra Müller-Klepper, Staatssekretärin im Hessischen Sozialministerium, heute im Rahmen der Fachtagung „Sexualisierte Gewalt gegen Mädchen – Alltag!? Wahrnehmen – Erkennen – Handeln“ in Erbach. In 90 Prozent der Fälle seien die Opfer weiblich. Die Staatssekretärin forderte eine konsequente Ächtung und Bekämpfung sexualisierter Gewalt. „Die Kultur des Wegschauens oder Verschweigens muss von einer Kultur des Hinschauens und Ansprechens abgelöst werden.“

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IRELAND
The Journal

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL HAS said that the provision of mental health services in Ireland continued to be inadequate in 2011 and has said that conditions in the country’s prisons continue to fall below standards.

In its annual report on human rights in 155 countries and territories, the organisation also criticised the United Nations Security Council, saying it has failed to show the kind of courage that ordinary people have showed during the Arab Spring last year.

For Ireland, Amnesty raised concerns about the lack of prosecutions in the reported cases of violence against children in the State’s religious-run institutions.

It noted the publication of the Cloyne report which said that two-thirds of allegations about clerical sex abuse in the diocese between 1996 and 2009 were not forwarded to Gardaí.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By MARK MORRIS
The Kansas City Star

A Jackson County judge on Wednesday set a June hearing to hear lawyers discuss evidence questions in the misdemeanor case against Kansas City’s Catholic bishop and the diocese he serves.

Judge John Torrence blocked out two hours for arguments at the June 15 hearing, according to Jackson County court records.

Bishop Robert W. Finn and the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City St. Joseph each face one count of failure to report suspicions of child abuse. The charges relate to how they handled the Rev. Shawn Ratigan case between December 2010 and May 2011.

Ratigan faces state and federal child pornography charges related to dozens of lewd photos of young girls that diocesan leaders found on his laptop computer.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

WESTERN Australia’s inquiry into child abuse at state-run boarding houses has been told of yet another depraved warden.

The inquiry, led by former Supreme Court Justice Peter Blaxell, has focused previously on events at the St Andrew’s Hostel in Katanning in the 1970s and 80s, where convicted pedophile brothers Dennis and Neil McKenna abused children in their care.

Details emerged on Wednesday of the bizarre behaviour of the late Roy Wenlock, who was warden at St Christopher’s Hostel at Northam, 100km northeast of Perth, from 1963 until 1977 when he was forced to resign.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A young victim of sexual abuse at a state-run boarding hostel in Western Australia says he tried to kill the warden who indecently assaulted him.

The victim, who was identified as “L” at an inquiry into events at the new defunct St Christopher’s Hostel in Northam from 1963 until 1977, also said he lost all faith in organised religion as a result of the abuse but still believed in god.

The inquiry centres on the bizarre behaviour of the late Roy Wenlock, who was the warden at the facility during this period until he was forced to resign.

Mr Wenlock, who was never charged or convicted of any sexual offence, would bring boys into his unit at the hostel and force them to wrestle with him in their underpants or with their shirts off in acts described by counsel assisting the inquiry, Philip Urquhart, as “simulated sexual intercourse”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Updated May 24, 2012

An inquiry investigating sexual abuse by a warden at a state-run hostel in regional Western Australia, has heard an Anglican Bishop knew about the warden’s alleged behaviour a year before he was sacked.

Roy Wenlock was the warden at Saint Christopher’s Hostel in Northam for 14 years during the 1960s and 70s.

The inquiry has been told he indecently assaulted boys until he was forced to resign in 1977.

Former boarders of the hostel have told the inquiry it was common knowledge among them that Wenlock was sexually abusing boys.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald

By Erin Smith
Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Vatican yesterday rejected bids from local groups to stave off the shuttering of a half-dozen Hub area churches, ruling that the Archdiocese of Boston has proven its case for closing the parishes.

The news came as just the latest blow in a seven-year battle by impassioned parishioners such as Lorenzo Grasso, a Eucharistic minister who has worshipped at one of the churches, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, for more than four decades.

Grasso is holding out one last hope that his beloved East Boston church will be spared in a final appeal to the higher Vatican Court, the Apostolic Signatura. But last night, he took time with Herald reporter Erin Smith to reflect on what Our Lady of Mount Carmel has meant to him and his family.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

May 23, 2012|Lisa Wangsness

Parishioners of a half-dozen closed Roman Catholic churches fighting to reopen their parishes for many as eight years have suffered another setback, but they are not ready to give up yet.

A Vatican department has rejected all six groups’ appeals of a decision by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, to make the churches available for nonreligious use.

But five of the six churches plan to appeal to the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s highest court, according to their representatives.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

May. 23, 2012
By Brian Roewe

In Rome today (May 23), canon lawyers representing St. Patrick Parish of Cleveland, Ohio filed a motion demanding Bishop Richard G. Lennon immediately re-open the church and restore the parish, and if he won’t, have someone else do it.

The motion, a copy (translated from Italian) obtained by NCR, is the second filed by the parish since decrees came from the Congregation for the Clergy in early March ruling in favor of St. Patrick and 11 other parishes that Lennon had attempted to suppress during a string of closings in 2009.

Patricia Schulte-Singleton, a parishioner of St. Patrick and head of parish advocate group Endangered Catholics, said Lennon’s delaying action is “causing distress spiritually, emotionally, economically” for the parish and its parishioners.

“There has been no timetable, no definitive action plan, so you have to wonder when is this going to happen, is he going to stall, does he really want to do this even though he’s been ordered to do it by Rome,” she said.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Christian Century

May 23, 2012 by G. Jeffrey MacDonald

Religion News Service BOSTON (RNS) Groups of Boston-area Catholics who have waged an eight-year battle to block the sale of parish buildings are running out of options as the Vatican has rejected their appeals.

In rulings dated March through May, Rome’s Congregation for the Clergy upheld the Archdiocese of Boston’s plans to convert six parish buildings from sacred to profane (non-church) use.

Now parishioners, including vigil keepers who’ve occupied two church buildings round-the-clock since a wave of parish closures began in 2004, must decide whether to appeal one more time to the Vatican’s top court.

Five of the six groups are resolving to fight on, according to Peter Borre, co-founder of the Council of Parishes, which represents members of closed parishes. A sixth, St. Jeanne d’Arc in Lowell, has not yet decided on next steps, Borre said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Wall Street Journal

By PETER LOFTUS

PHILADELPHIA—A monsignor accused of covering up allegations that Roman Catholic priests sexually abused children testified at his trial Wednesday he had limited authority to take action against the priests he supervised, and was carrying out directions from his superiors.

“I did the best I could within the parameters that were given to me,” said Msgr. William Lynn, who served as secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004, a job that involved investigating abuse complaints against priests.

Msgr. Lynn took the witness stand for the first time Wednesday, nearly two months after the start of his trial on charges of endangering the welfare of children and conspiracy, to which he pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors say Msgr. Lynn failed to keep certain priests out of assignments involving contact with children, despite being aware of prior allegations of abuse or improper conduct against them. The monsignor doesn’t face abuse allegations himself.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The New York Times

By JON HURDLE

PHILADELPHIA — Msgr. William J. Lynn took the stand on Wednesday in a landmark trial to defend himself against allegations that he failed to prevent fellow Roman Catholic priests from abusing children during his tenure as secretary for clergy at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The most senior Catholic Church official in the United States to be tried on charges related to sexual abuse of children, Monsignor Lynn said that he had little authority to discipline accused priests and that power rested mainly with his superiors.

Asked by a defense lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, whether he had the power to dismiss priests who were accused of abusing children, Monsignor Lynn replied that he could do so only if pedophilia had been diagnosed or “if they had admitted sexual abuse.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
San Francisco Chronicle

Associated Press

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Philadelphia —

A Roman Catholic church official conceded that a 1994 list he compiled of 35 priests suspected of sexually abusing children in the Philadelphia archdiocese included some “pretty sick individuals.”

Monsignor William Lynn took the stand in his defense Wednesday in a groundbreaking child-endangerment and conspiracy case. Prosecutors blame Lynn for helping keep those priests and many more in ministry, where they had access to countless other children.

Lynn testified that the head of the archdiocese forbade staff from telling accusers their alleged abuser had other victims. He said the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua wouldn’t let parishes announce the real reason an accused priest was being removed.

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NEW YORK
New York Magazine

By Margaret Hartmann

Brooklyn district attorney Charles Hynes has announced that he’ll push for a state law adding rabbis and other religious leaders to the list of professionals required to report allegations of sexual abuse to the authorities. Presumably, this has nothing to do with the Jewish Daily Forward reporting that Hynes was hiding the names of ultra-Orthodox Jews accused of sex crimes and the ensuing New York Times exposé.

Hynes became the subject of intense media scrutiny after he refused to release the names of 85 ultra-Orthodox Jews arrested for sex crimes, due to the “very tight-knit and insular” nature of the Brooklyn community. He was accused of having a far too cozy relationship with leaders of the religious community, and being more lenient with ultra-Orthodox Jewish abusers than others accused of sex crimes. Now Hynes is changing his tune. Last week he revealed plans for a crack down on witness intimidation in child sexual abuse cases in the ultra-Orthodox community (an idea proposed by former Mayor Ed Koch, who publicly criticized Hynes), and declaring that rabbis and other religious leaders should be mandatory reporters of abuse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Kensington and Chelsea Chronicle

Posted by Greg Burns on May 24

A NOTTING Hill woman has been praised by police for taking the witness stand in a court case against a priest who sexually assaulted her.

The 59-year-old woman was a parishioner at the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church of St Mary of Debre Tsion, in Battersea.

The church was led by Gebrehana Semre (pictured) who subsequently used his position to visit the woman in September 2010 to bless her home and welcome her into the church.

He told her that for the blessing to be successful she would need to be naked. Although uncomfortable with his demand, the victim trusted the clergyman and went along with it.

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APPLETON (WI)
The Northwestern

Written by
Jim Collar
Gannett Wisconsin Media

APPLETON — Two brothers who were sexually assaulted at the hands of a priest in 1978 said their civil lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay was about bringing long-held secrets to light, not money.

Todd and Troy Merryfield, who dropped a claim Wednesday seeking punitive damages, the awards handed down in civil cases as punishment for wrongdoing.

They explained pulling back the church’s “veil of secrecy” was far more important than the $700,000 they were awarded already in the lawsuit after a jury decided Tuesday the church had covered up its knowledge of sexual abuse committed by the Rev. John Feeney before he abused the Merryfields.

The Merryfields implored the diocese to make public all it knows about past sexual abuses committed by clergy.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By RAY RIVERA

Published: May 23, 2012

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, said Wednesday that he would push for state legislation to add rabbis and other religious leaders to the list of professionals required to report allegations of sexual abuse to law enforcement authorities.

The move comes as Mr. Hynes, the city’s longest-serving district attorney, has come under intense scrutiny for his handling of sexual abuse cases in the politically powerful ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. A recent article in The New York Times showed that Mr. Hynes did not object when Agudath Israel of America, an organization representing various Hasidic and other ultra-Orthodox factions, told him last summer that it was instructing adherent Jews to get permission from a rabbi before reporting allegations of sexual abuse to the authorities.

Brooklyn is home to the largest concentration of ultra-Orthodox Jews outside of Israel. The issue of child sexual abuse has divided the community in recent years, and Mr. Hynes has become a central figure in the drama. Victims’ advocates accuse him of bending to the will of the rabbis, many of whom have long insisted that crimes like sexual abuse be handled by rabbinical authorities, who often do not report their findings to the police or prosecutors.

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CANADA
The Cape Breton Post

Published on May 23, 2012
Staff ~ The Cape Breton Post

Retired religious studies professor Charles MacDonald presented a series of talks earlier this year on the troubled state of the Roman Catholic Church and how the Church might be resuscitated.

In a recent letter to the editor, Pat Bates quoted MacDonald as describing the Church of yesterday in this way: “Power rested with the pastors in their glebe houses and the bishop in his residence. The lay people were passive — in their place — the pews.”

The pendulum has swung, and the obsequious parishioner of yesteryear is increasing rare, due in no small part to an ever-widening picture of the repugnant actions of some of those former worthies.

Locally, anxiety among parishioners was originally borne out of ever-increasing sexual abuse allegations — and convictions — against priests.

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