ABUSE TRACKER

NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

Hella Winston
Special To The Jewish Week

The already distraught mother had reached the end of her rope.

She and her husband, parents of a now 13-year-old boy who they allege was sexually molested by his Brooklyn yeshiva teacher, were doing the unthinkable in the borough’s ultra-Orthodox community: bucking a system stacked heavily against them and pursuing a civil lawsuit against the Flatbush school that employed the teacher, Rabbi Yehuda Kolko.

The system was pushing back, with a vengeance.

A prominent Brooklyn rabbi and Yaakov Applegrad, an administrator at Yeshiva Torah Temimah, the school parents were suing, asked the parents to a meeting — without their lawyer. After pleading with the couple to drop the suit, Applegrad and the rabbi turned up the heat and played the card they hoped would resonate powerfully with religious Jews: they compared the parents to Nazis for attempting to “bankrupt” the yeshiva. The Nazis, they said, destroyed the yeshiva in Europe built before the war by the father of Rabbi Lipa Margulies, Torah Temimah’s founder and dean. Now, the two suggested, the parents were doing the same with their lawsuit. (It is not clear that Rabbi Margulies’ father actually had a yeshiva in Europe).

The tactic worked. At a second meeting five days later, the husband, feeling “agitated … outnumbered and overwhelmed with terrible emotions,” and with his wife in tears, signed “under great duress” a document to end the lawsuit.

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AUSTRALIA
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

On Monday, a judge will decide whether or not a man who was a mentor to students at Chabad’s flagship yeshiva in Melbourne will stand trial for allegedly raping at least a dozen students, some long after Chabad knew what David Cyprys was allegedly doing. But Chabad did nothing to limit Cyprys’ contact with young boys.

David Cyprys, who worked as a security guard and a caretaker at Chabad’s Yeshiva College in Melbourne, Australia, is charged with at least 50 total counts of rape and indecent assault, all committed against boys between 1982 and 1991.

According to The Age, a Melbourne court yesterday heard that Cyprys had anally penetrated one teenager at a family home. Police told the court the victim told police “he had covered my mouth to stop me screaming.” The boy was allegedly raped before he was 16-years-old. Cyprys allegedly raped the boy on the boy’s 16th birthday, as well. Cyprys also allegedly raped the boy in the community’s men’s mikva, ritual bath.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

It was deeply frustrating, though not surprising, to see The New York Times, in its high-profile coverage this past week of abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community, neglect to credit The Jewish Week — or The Forward — for taking the lead in reporting on these issues for years.

Though the Times pledges to “deal with competitors openly and honestly,” as cited in its policy on ethics in journalism, it has a long record of ignoring the groundbreaking work of The Jewish Week in bringing to light the legal, religious and ethical problems that apply regarding abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community.

“When we first use facts originally reported by another news organization, we attribute them,” the Times policy states. But the facts in this case dispute that claim, and we have numerous examples to prove it.

Anyone who has followed the writings of investigative reporter Hella Winston in The Jewish Week since 2008 knows that the information in the two New York Times stories this past week were built on her thorough body of work and did not originate with the Times.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

By Charles J. Hynes / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

A person with knowledge of a crime should report that information to law enforcement authorities. There is no alternative. It is a civic duty, and in some cases, it’s the law.

In 2009, concerned that sex abuse was going unreported in the Orthodox Jewish community, I started Kol Tzedek (Voice of Justice), a program to address this problem.

From when I took office as district attorney in 1990 until the creation of Kol Tzedek, my prosecutors handled only a few cases a year of sex abuse in that community. Since the inception of Kol Tzedek, we have made 95 arrests; 53 cases have been adjudicated, with a conviction rate of 72%.

I stand by these numbers.

The statistics show how absurd it is to suggest that we cover up, downplay or in any way “give a break” to sex offenders in the Orthodox Jewish community. Like any other defendants, they are often arrested in public by the police, and their court appearances are open and available to the public as part of the public record. I welcome scrutiny of these cases.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The streets of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish section of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, are plastered with leaflets urging support for a rabbi who is accused of the sexual abuse of a teenage girl and attacking her.

Some of the signs depict the 16-year-old’s complaint to police as a danger akin to a rocket attack. Behind them is an all too prevalent faith-based conviction that it’s wrong to bring civil authorities into the insular community’s affairs.

This impulse to close ranks has produced devastating results. While victimization of children and teens is no more prevalent among the Hasidim and similar Jewish sects than in other segments of society, it has gone largely unpunished.

Families and community leaders have been ostracized for contacting law enforcement, and victims have been wrongly deterred from seeking the legal redress to which any person is entitled.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

Adam Dickter
Assistant Managing Editor

With increased scrutiny on the handling of sex-abuse cases involving members of Brooklyn’s Orthodox community, some elected officials are beginning to take a stand on practices tied to District Attorney Charles J. Hynes.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the leading candidates to succeed him last week called on Hynes to discourage rabbis from screening abuse allegations before they are reported to the authorities.

The statements came after The New York Times joined many other media in detailing instances where alleged victims were intimidated within their community.

But few elected officials this week wanted to take a position one way or the other regarding another controversial practice of Hynes’ office: that of withholding from the public a list of names of Orthodox people accused or convicted of sexual abuse crimes. The list was compiled through a hotline called Kol Tzedek, which was launched in 2009 with the goal of encouraging victims of abuse to come forward to law enforcement.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

By Michael O’Keeffe, Kevin Armstrong and Christian Red / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Ernest Lorch, the founder of the prestigious Riverside Church Hawks basketball program whose legacy was tainted by sexual-abuse allegations, died Sunday at Sunrise Senior Living in Yonkers, N.Y., according to a female staff member at the assisted living facility.

David Sullivan, the Northwestern (Mass.) district attorney who prosecuted Lorch last year on a sexual abuse charge, told the Daily News his office received a call Monday from Lorch’s attorney, Fred Cohn, and Cohn said Lorch had died.

And Dermon Player, a longtime Riverside coach and former St. John’s assistant basketball coach, told The News Tuesday that he had spoken with Lorch’s family members who confirmed the death.

“We haven’t received any death certificate or official notification,” Sullivan, the D.A., told The News. “Once we get a death certificate, we’ll move to dismiss the case against (Lorch). We’re not dismissing it until we get the death certificate.”

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TIPPECANOE COUNTY (IN)
WLFI

Kristin Maiorano

TIPPECANOE COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) – A Tippecanoe County pastor is facing a possible felony charge after being arrested last week.

According to the Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office, on Thursday, Robert Lyzenga was arrested for voyeurism, using camera or video equipment. That’s a Class D felony.

He was booked into the county jail just before 6:15 that evening and posted a $5,000 surety bond about four hours later. Details behind the arrest weren’t immediately available Sunday evening.

Lyzenga is listed as the pastor on the website for the Sunrise Christian Reformed Church in Tippecanoe County.

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CONNECTICUT
Norwich Bulletin

By GREG SMITH
The Bulletin

New London, Conn. —

A former pastor at a Haitian church in Norwich pleaded not guilty Monday to charges he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl.

Luckner Sylvain, 49, appeared in New London Superior Court Monday on charges of first-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. He is represented by Norwich attorney Paul Chinigo. The case was continued to May 30.

Norwich police allege Sylvain, a former pastor at First Haitian Baptist Church, sexually assaulted the girl multiple times in 2006 and 2007. The church’s pastor said Sylvain left the church in 2008.

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DAYTON (OH)
WDTN

[with video]

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) – Four women accuse a Dayton minister of sexual abuse.

Kerry Edwin Bryant, now the lead pastor at Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church, was formerly employed at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Nashville.

Four women from that church say they sought counseling from Bryant and other church leaders and were taken advantage of when they were at their most vulnerable.

“When you are in the position of power, you are not to misuse that power. It is not for you to take control over another person and have them do things for their benefit or pleasure. That is abuse because you are damaging that other person,” said complainant Valencia Batson.

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WEST VIRGINIA
The Register-Herald

By Lisa Shrewsberry Lifestyles Editor

“I have a very bitter taste in my mouth for the justice system,” says Kathy Smith (not her real name), a resident of southern W.Va., a well-spoken professional, a mom and a grandmother. Eight years ago on July 4th, while families picnicked and readied their amateur fireworks displays, the personal equivalent of a bomb dropped, an impact from which all involved are still picking up the pieces, some too fragmented for human hands to hold.

That was the day Kathy’s pastor revealed to her his strong suspicion that a trusted member of the church where her family attended, a youth minister, had been sexually abusing her son, possibly for years. The man, ultimately indicted on charges of sexual abuse but yet to be tried in court, was a triple threat of the worst kind: An upstanding, trusted member of the community, a man boasting connections to popular political figures and one who claimed to have the highest possible connection on his side — God.

“As a parent you trust very much a person in leadership over your children when you are in church.” What bothers this mother most is her mental rearview, one that plays in reverse when she sits in her office during downtime, pointing out to her signs of the seriously wrong, now as clear as day, but too remote to help her son.

Kathy fell prey to the guise of friendship and mentorship assumed by the man who she says abused her boy for six years, from the age of 10. She noticed he took a strong interest in her child, buying him gifts, at times expensive ones. He would ask permission for them to take trips and golfing expeditions together. One time, the man called Kathy for her blessing to let him buy her son a set of golf clubs. When she began to object at the act of intensifying and unsolicited generosity, he softened his actions by saying they were an “inexpensive set.”

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CALIFORNIA
Catholic San Francisco

By George Raine

Ten years after the crisis of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests first captured the nation’s attention, Santa Clara University on May 11 hosted a conference to take stock, to determine what needs to be done to reduce risk that any child is injured.

“We pat ourselves on the back for the successes, but we are not done,” said Thomas Plante, a professor of psychology at Santa Clara and conference co-host.

The conference title, “Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: A Decade of Crisis, 2002-2012,” is the same as the title of a book co-edited by Plante, who has conducted 700 psychological evaluations of candidates for seminaries over 25 years.

The so-called 10-year anniversary of the crisis – the Boston Globe reported widespread abuse in Boston in 2002 – presented an opportunity for what Plante in an interview called reflection and discernment, and also a forum for critics of the institutional church response to assail the nation’s bishops.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

Father Michael J. McCarthy like to sleep naked with teenage boys who stayed over his beach house at the Jersey Shore. He also ran a travel business on the side, planning gay cruises to places like Thailand.

Prosecutors on Tuesday used documents from the secret archive files to tell Father McCarthy’s story to the jury in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse case.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington suggested that the church had turned a blind eye to Father McCarthy’s transgressions with teenage boys, as long as scandal could be avoided by transferring the priest to another parish. In September 1992, the cardinal promoted Father McCarthy to pastor of Epiphany of Our Lord Church in Norristown, despite a complaint of sex abuse.

It was the priest’s business venture that got him into trouble, the prosecutor said, especially after the cardinal found out that Father McCarthy was competing against a business owner who had just donated $25,000 to the archdiocese for Catholic Life 2000.

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UNITED STATES
KGO

(NEW YORK) — A prominent American priest in the Legion of Christ, a troubled Catholic order whose founder was denounced by the Vatican for sexual improprieties, has admitted having a sexual relationship with a woman and fathering her child.

Father Thomas Williams, who has appeared on CBS and NBC and was interviewed by ABC News for a 2010 report on the Legion, made the acknowledgement after an activist who had sought reform in the order contacted the Vatican with his suspicions.

“I am truly sorry to everyone who is hurt by this revelation,” said Williams in a statement. He said that he would be taking a year’s leave from his public duties “to reflect on my commitments as a priest.”

According to the National Catholic Reporter, the Legion has confirmed that seven other priests are now being investigated for the alleged abuse of minors. The Legion has more than 800 priests.

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APPLETON (WI)
Press-Gazette

Written by
Jessie Van Berkel
Gannett Wisconsin Media

APPLETON — Several priests who served in the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay during the Rev. John Feeney’s tenure testified Tuesday that allegations of sexual misconduct followed Feeney in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Troy and Todd Merryfield, two brothers who were sexually assaulted by Feeney in 1978 and are suing the diocese, called the priests as their first witnesses in the two-week trial at Outagamie County Circuit Court in Appleton.

The brothers filed the lawsuit in 2008, claiming the diocese and Bishop Aloysius Wycislo — who was bishop from 1968 to 1983 and is deceased — fraudulently kept parishioners in the dark about Feeney’s history of sexual molestation that led to the boys’ abuse.

Troy’s attorney, John Peterson, said evidence shows Feeney was a “known risk” to children when Wycislo placed Feeney at St. Nicholas Parish.

But the diocese’s attorney, Patrick Brennan, said risk is not enough. He said the Merryfields must prove the bishop knew Feeney was molesting others before their assaults occurred and fraudulently covered it up — and there isn’t evidence to back up that “outlandish claim.”

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UNITED STATES
Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) — He looked like the ideal youth minister — recommended by a friend of the pastor, personable, and leading a thriving ministry to teens at Wayside Baptist Church in Miami.

But looks were deceiving.

For months, he had been sexually abusing boys during sleepovers at his home. When the offense came to light, the church had its very existence jeopardized by a $6 million civil judgment in favor of the victims. Eventually the case was settled for an undisclosed amount, and Wayside determined to do everything it could to protect children in the future.

“Now we do criminal background checks on anyone who is volunteering, and they put glass in all the doors [of children’s and youth classrooms],” said Carrel Youmans, a longtime member at Wayside who taught youth when the abuse occurred in the 1970s.

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

By Lindsay Smith

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

A Buddhist priest is accused of sexually assaulting and fathering a child with an underage girl during his time at Wat Dhammaram Temple in Stickney Township.

Camnong Bual Ubol, 61, was arrested Friday evening in Anchorage, Ala. and charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault, according to Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

In October of 2011, Cook County Sheriff’s police were contacted by Barbara Blaine, a member of the Survivor’s Network for those Abused by Priests, regarding a then 15-year-old girl who had allegedly been impregnated by Ubol.

The investigators quickly uncovered a paternity test that proved the baby had in fact been fathered by the priest, officials said. The paternity test had been completed in 2010, but had not been turned over to authorities until the investigation.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Blaine on May 15, 2012

Camnong Boa-Ubol, a Buddhist monk who raped a girl at a southwest-side monastery was arrested yesterday in Alaska. We’re grateful that this credibly accused child molester is in custody. It’s crucial that law enforcement aggressively pursue likely sex offenders who flee to other cities, states or countries.

We’re also grateful that this brave victim and her family are cooperating with police and prosecutors. Thanks to her constancy and willingness to move forward, a dangerous predator is off the streets and children across the country are safer. Throughout this ordeal, her courage has been unwavering.

It’s very hard for any victim who was assaulted by a cleric to trust officials. But it’s important that every single person who sees, suspects or suffers child sex crimes speaks up. That’s the best way to protect kids, expose wrongdoing, and start healing.

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ROME
Legionaries of Christ

Over the past few years, in several countries, the major superiors of the Legion of Christ have received some allegations of gravely immoral acts and more serious offenses (delicta graviora) committed by some Legionaries.

The Legion of Christ is firmly committed to receive and examine all accusations presented, reaching out to possible victims and always safeguarding the rights of all those involved.

When a territorial director or the general director receives an allegation of this nature, or when there are well-founded suspicions, the civil laws of the country are observed. If civil authorities allow it, a preliminary internal investigation is also carried out for each case (cf. canon 1717 §1). In the U.S., when an allegation involves a minor, the policies established by Praesidium, Inc., an independent accreditation entity, are followed.

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ROME
Legionaries of Christ

To all Legionaries and Regnum Christi consecrated members,

It is with sadness that I send you this note, especially at a time when we are experiencing renewed enthusiasm for our mission within the Church. The last thing I would wish is to add a fresh wound when older wounds may not have healed fully.

Nevertheless, it is my duty to inform you that Father Thomas Williams, LC, after consultation with his superiors, will undergo a period of reflection, prayer and atonement without public ministry, and has just issued the following statement:

“A number of years ago I had a relationship with a woman and fathered her child. I am deeply sorry for this grave transgression and have tried to make amends. My superiors and I have decided it would be best for me to take a year without active public ministry to reflect on the wrong I have done and my commitments as a priest. I am truly sorry to everyone who is hurt by this revelation, and I ask for your prayers as I seek guidance on how to make up for my errors.”

I know that this will be shocking news to you. In the wake of all that we have been through as a Movement in the past several years, it won’t surprise me if you are disappointed, angry or feel your trust shaken once again.

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VATICAN CITY
7 News (Australia)

Philip Pullella, Reuters
May 16, 2012,

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ Roman Catholic religious order suffered another major blow to its image on Tuesday when one of its most prominent members admitted to having fathered a child.

Father Thomas Williams said in a statement he was “truly sorry to everyone who is hurt by this revelation”.

Williams, the American author of more than a dozen books on spirituality and dean of moral theology at a papal university in Rome, often appeared on American television to explain Vatican affairs and Catholic teachings.

The Legionaries have been at the centre of controversy since 2009 when they admitted their charismatic Mexican founder, Father Marcial Maciel, had led a double life, secretly fathering children, using drugs and misusing donations.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Bietigheimer Zeitung

Verhaltenskodex für Verbände, Kirchen und Institutionen in Arbeit

Im Kampf gegen den sexuellen Missbrauch Minderjähriger wird jetzt an einem Regelwerk gearbeitet. Es beinhaltet zahlreiche Verbote für Betreuer.

Ein Katalog von Verboten soll Verbänden, Institutionen und Kirchen helfen, den sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern und Jugendlichen zu bekämpfen. Der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Bundesregierung, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, handelt derzeit angeblich mit rund 20 Dachverbänden – darunter die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz, die Arbeiterwohlfahrt und der Arbeitskreis der Internate – einen solchen Verhaltenskodex aus.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
kathweb (Osterreich)

Washington, 15.05.2012 (KAP) Im Missbrauchprozess gegen die Erzdiözese Philadelphia hat ein Jurist den verstorbenen Kardinal Anthony Bevilacqua und zwei amtierende Bischöfe, die vor 20 Jahren in seinem Stab tätig waren, schwer belastet. Die heutigen Diözesanbischöfe hätten bei Ermittlungen 2004 geleugnet, vom Verbleib einer Liste mit angeblich pädophilen Priestern zu wissen, sagte der als Zeuge vernommene Anwalt Tim Coyne am Montag laut US-Medienberichten. Bevilacqua als früherer Erzbischof von Philadelphia habe auf entsprechende Fragen nicht geantwortet.

Die Liste mit 35 Namen katholischer Geistlicher, die des Missbrauchs beschuldigt wurden, war im Februar aufgetaucht. Der im Prozess angeklagte ehemalige Personalverantwortliche William Lynn, seinerzeit auch Sekretär des Erzbischofs, behauptet, das Verzeichnis der Verdächtigten 1994 nach einer Durchsicht der Personalakten angefertigt und seinen Vorgesetzten übermittelt zu haben. Bevilacqua habe angeordnet, das Dokument zu vernichten.

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DEUTSCHLAND
hr – online

Zahlreiche Berichte über sexuellen Missbrauch an Schulen oder unter dem Dach der Kirche haben die Öffentlichkeit erschüttert. Die Landesregierung hat nun ein Konzept vorgelegt, wie Kinder besser geschützt werden sollen.

Aktionsplan gegen den sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern und Jugendlichen vorzustellen: Innenminister Boris Rhein, Sozialminister Stefan Grüttner (beide CDU), Justizminister Jörg-Uwe Hahn und Kultusministerin Dorothea Henzler (beide FDP).

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DEUTSCHLAND
Welt

12.444 Fälle sexuellen Missbrauchs an Kindern registrierte die Polizei im vergangenen Jahr. Das ist ein Anstieg von 4,9 Prozent. Die Dunkelziffer nicht gemeldeter Fälle dürfte noch höher sein. Von Martin Lutz

Die Fälle sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern haben laut der Polizeilichen Kriminalitätsstatistik (PKS) für das Jahr 2011, die “Welt Online” vorliegt, erneut zugenommen. Die Zahl erhöhte sich um 4,9 Prozent auf 12.444 von der Polizei erfasste Taten.

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KANASAS CITY (KS)
The Leaven

One of the responsibilities as Archbishop that I do not cherish having to deal with involves allegations of misconduct made against clergy, employees or volunteers of the archdiocese. Fortunately for this archdiocese, such allegations are very rare. However, in the past week I have had to remove a long-standing priest from active ministry while the archdiocese conducts an investigation into a recently received allegation of sexual misconduct. This form of administrative leave is standard practice when allegations of misconduct are made against a priest or deacon.

The Safe Environment Coordinator for the archdiocese recently received a report from a 45-year-old Kansas City, Kan., man who alleges that 30 years ago (1982) when he was 15 years old, he was inappropriately touched by a priest of the archdiocese, Father John Wisner. The man claims that the alleged misconduct took place while on a youth outing.

I have spoken with Father Wisner concerning the allegation and he acknowledges the time, location and circumstances surrounding the allegation; however, he denies that he engaged in any sexual misconduct. Father Wisner has been cooperating with the investigation. I have appointed a special auditor with law enforcement and investigative experience to investigate the allegation and, in accord with archdiocesan polices, local law enforcement has been contacted and the chairman of the Independent Review Board has been notified.

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NORTHAMPTON (MA)
The Republican

By Fred Contrada, The Republican

NORTHAMPTON — A group of parishioners from a discontinued Northampton church has filed suit against the city, attempting to invalidate a new ordinance that allows closed churches to be reused for commercial purposes.

The Committee to Preserve St. Mary of the Assumption Church, Inc. maintains that an ordinance passed by the City Council last month did not go through proper procedure and should be reversed. The ordinance cleared the way for some commercial use of churches in residential zones.

St. Mary’s was among several Northampton churches that were closed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield in 2009 and consolidated into a single parish on King Street. The parishioners at St. Mary’s, however, have hired lawyers in Rome to plead their case for reopening the church to the Vatican.

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STICKNEY (IL)
WLS

May 15, 2012 (STICKNEY, Ill.) (WLS) — A Buddhist priest accused of fathering a child with a teenage girl while he lived and worked at a temple in suburban Stickney has been arrested in Alaska.

Camnong Bual Ubol was wanted for aggravated criminal sexual assault until his arrest on Friday. He was born in Thailand, but he is a U.S. citizen and had been a Buddhist priest in the United States since 1995, according to a press release issued Tuesday by the Cook County Sheriff’s office.

In October 2011, Barbara Blaine from SNAP (Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests) contacted police to investigate allegations that Ubol, 61, was responsible for fathering a child with a then 15-year-old during the time he worked at the Wat Dhammaram Temple in Stickney. The release states a 2010 paternity test shows Ubol fathered a child with the alleged victim.

Ubol’s last known address was the Wat Buddhavipassana Temple in Long Beach, California. But police say he had since been removed from the temple and it was determined he was residing in Anchorage, Alaska.

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ALASKA
CBS Chicago

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CBS) — A Buddhist priest who once lived and worked in the southwest suburbs has been arrested on sexual assault charges.

Camnong Bual Ubol, 61 – whose name has also appeared as Camnong Boa-Ubol – was arrested on a warrant by Cook County Sheriff’s police, according to a Tuesday news release.

Ubol was working at the Wat Dhammaram Buddhist temple, at 7059 W. 75th St. in Stickney Township near Bedford Park, when he allegedly fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

In 1991, Msgr. William J. Lynn wrote a memo outlining his interview with a man who said he had been molested by the Rev. Michael McCarthy, a longtime teacher at Cardinal O’Hara.

But Lynn made a mistake, at least in the eyes of his boss at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Lynn had told the accuser that his was not the first complaint against McCarthy.

“Unnecessary statement,” the Rev. James E. Molloy, then the assistant vicar for administration scrawled in the margins of the memo. “Never admit to victims that there are other cases.”

Both sides highlighted the note Tuesday for jurors at Lynn’s landmark conspiracy and child-endangerment trial. A prosecutor pointed to it as a hallmark of the church’s attempt to minimize scandal and conceal clergy sex abuse. Lynn’s lawyer suggested it was proof of a strict chain of command that limited Lynn as he investigated abuse claims against priests.

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ROME
Catholic News Agency

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, May 15, 2012 / 12:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Father Thomas Williams, one of the most high-profile American members of the Legion of Christ, is leaving public ministry after admitting he fathered a child.

“A number of years ago I had a relationship with a woman and fathered her child. I am deeply sorry for this grave transgression and have tried to make amends,” Fr. Williams said in a May 15 statement.

“My superiors and I have decided it would be best for me to take a year without active public ministry to reflect on the wrong I have done and my commitments as a priest. I am truly sorry to everyone who is hurt by this revelation, and I ask for your prayers as I seek guidance on how to make up for my errors.”

He also apologized to members of the Legion and the Church, “since this scandalous news will damage them as well, at the worst possible moment.”

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UNITED STATES
College Times

By Carlos Sadovi, Chicago Tribune

Published: Tuesday, May 15, 2012

CHICAGO — A former Buddhist priest from Stickney Township, Ill., was arrested in Alaska after officials issued an arrest warrant charging the man with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl, Cook County Sheriff’s officials said Tuesday.

Camnong Bual Ubol, 61, had previously lived and worked at Wat Dhammaram Temple in the west suburb, according to a press release issued by Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart.

In October, representatives from the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP) contacted sheriff’s police officers to investigate claims that Ubol had fathered a child with the girl while he worked and lived at the temple, Dart said.

After the allegations surfaced, police launched an investigation that determined that, based on a 2010 paternity test, he had fathered the child with the teen. But the investigation results had not been turned over to authorities at the time, officials said, and when police were contacted, they could not locate Ubol, whose whereabouts were unknown, police said.

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VATICAN CITY
Newser

By NICOLE WINFIELD | Associated Press

The Legion of Christ religious order was hit Tuesday by its second scandal in a week after its most well-known priest _ a prominent author, lecturer and television personality _ admitted he had fathered a child.

The Rev. Thomas Williams, an American moral theologian, said in a statement he was “deeply sorry for this grave transgression” against his vows of celibacy and that he would be taking a year off to reflect on what he had done and his commitment to the priesthood.

The statement was issued after The Associated Press presented the Legion with the allegation against Williams, which was lodged by a Spanish association of Legion victims. The association’s accusations, sent to the Legion and Vatican several weeks ago, also named other Legion priests accused of sexually abusing minors.

Williams, who was not accused of abuse, said that “a number of years ago” he had a relationship with a woman and fathered her child. He didn’t identify the mother and didn’t say whether the relationship was over. He also did not identify the gender of the child nor say if he was involved in supporting the child.

The Legion has been beset by scandal following revelations that its late founder, the Rev. Marciel Maciel, fathered three children and sexually abused his seminarians. Maciel died in 2008 and in 2009 the Legion admitted to his crimes.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

Legion of Christ hit by second scandal in a week, prominent priest admits he fathered a child

By Associated Press,

VATICAN CITY — Legion of Christ hit by second scandal in a week, prominent priest admits he fathered a child.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
San Antonio Express-News

MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

Updated 12:33 p.m., Tuesday, May 15, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Documents from a clergy-abuse trial show Catholic church officials ignored complaints a Philadelphia priest had molested two boys until they heard he was running a travel agency — and competing with a big donor.

The documents involving defrocked priest Michael McCarthy come as the prosecution details how the archdiocese handled abuse complaints against about 20 priests. They were never charged with crimes because authorities didn’t know about the complaints for years.

Monsignor William Lynn is on trial, charged with helping the church hide abuse complaints as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004. Lynn has pleaded not guilty.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on May 15, 2012

A lawyer for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia testified yesterday that he was lied to about child sex abuse when he questioned aides to former Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua. One of those aides was Rev. Joseph Cistone, who today is the Bishop of Saginaw.

This disturbing testimony unfortunately comes as no surprise. Catholic Church officials have had a long and sordid history of promoting those who protect abusers instead of kids. Time and time again we see the upper levels of the church hierarchy taking steps to cover-up abuse, avoid scandal, and move predators around. Later, their subterfuge is often rewarded with a miter and more power in a new city.

This cycle must end. For the protection of kids, the church must reverse course and instruct bishops, monsignors and others to immediately turn any suspicions of abuse over the police, not to destroy evidence and move predators around. Only when the secular and independent authorities are allowed to take the lead in abuse investigations will children be safe. We hope that every Catholic prelate across the country, starting with Cistone, will begin to honor their decade-old promise to be open and honest about child-sex crimes.

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INDIA
UCAN India

By Rita Joseph
New Delhi:
A Delhi court hearing the extradition case of former priest Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, charged with sexual assault of a minor in the United States, adjourned the case until May 18.

No hearing took place as Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Amit Bansal in whose court the trial is taking place was on leave Friday.

Jeyapaul is accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl in 2004 when he was parish priest of Blessed Sacrament Church in Minnesota, U.S.

The 57-year-old former clergyman, who was suspended by Ootacamund diocese following a canonical trial, has repeatedly denied the charges.

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UNITED STATES/INDIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on May 15, 2012

An India court has postponed the extradition trial of a priest who abused a girl in Minnesota and then fled back to his native India. The trial is set for later this month.

The priest, Fr. Joseph Jeyapaul, abused a girl from the Diocese of Crookston who had approached him for advice on becoming a nun. He faces criminal charges in Minnesota, and SNAP is urging secular and church officials to do what they can to prevent further delays in this trial.

It is very rare that a victim of clergy abuse is able to see her abuser face criminal charges in a court of law, and so SNAP is hoping that all officials involved in this case, both in India and in America, will do everything in their power to see a quick resolution and justice served.

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NEW YORK
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

By Phil Vinter

A campaign to raise funds for a rabbi who has been charged with sexually abusing a teenage girl has sparked anger from the victim’s family.

Posters promoting a fundraising event at Continental Caterers restaurant in Williamsburg for alleged child abuser Nechemya Weberman were put up at shopping areas in the city on Monday.

Written in a mix of Hebrew and Yiddish the signs show support for the Jewish clerical figure who has been charged with molesting a 12-year-old girl over a period of three years between 2007 and 2010.

Weberman pleaded innocent to the charges in February and the case is now going through the court process.

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NEW YORK
The New York Daily News

Yiddish posters up in Williamsburg asking for cash for accused child molester angering victim’s family

By Simone Weichselbaum / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Posters promoting an upcoming fund-raiser for a rabbi charged with sexually abusing a teenage girl blanketed Jewish shopping strips in Williamsburg Monday – sparking a campaign protesting the charity bash.

Signs supporting Nechemya Weberman, 53, – written in Hebrew and Yiddish mix – promote a Wednesday gathering at the Continental Caterers dining hall at 75 Rutledge Street.

Cops busted Weberman in February 2011 after a 16-year-old girl reported he was her therapist and had forced her during counseling session to perform oral sex and other lewd acts starting when she was 12-years-old.

“It is very painful,” said the victim’s mother about the street ads up on poles on Bedford and Lee Avenues. “The community has taken his side.”

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APPLETON (WI)
Fox 11

Chad Doran, FOX 11 News

APPLETON – The fraud case brought against the Green Bay Diocese by two brothers molested by a former priest is underway in Outagamie County Court.

Troy and Todd Merryfield sued the diocese in civil court in 2008. The brothers accuse the diocese of fraud for not reporting to parishioners at St. Nicholas Parish in Freedom that former priest John Feeney had a history of sexual abuse before he was assigned to the church.

Before opening arguments in the case began this morning, defense attorney Pat Brennan made a motion to have witnesses sequestered. Judge Nancy Krueger approved that motion.

Monday a jury of 12 and three alternates was selected after about six hours of jury selection. Testimony in the trial is expected to begin by this afternoon.

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CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald

By PATRICIA BROOKS ARENBURG Staff Reporter

Their cases are far from over, but seeing former Roman Catholic priest Albert LeBlanc plead guilty to sexual abuse is an important step for some of his victims.

“It means a big deal to the men because it shows he acknowledged what he does,” lawyer Aaron Lealess said.

“There shouldn’t be any doubt in anyone’s mind that he was an abuser and he did commit those crimes.”

Lealess, an Ontario lawyer representing four of the victims in civil cases against LeBlanc, spoke to the men shortly after Monday’s proceedings.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

May. 15, 2012
By John L Allen Jr

A high-profile American priest in the Legionaries of Christ has acknowledged having had a sexual relationship with a woman and fathering her child, adding another chapter to the growing scandals surrounding the controversial religious order.

Fr. Thomas Williams, known for his work as a TV commentator and popular spiritual writer and speaker, issued a statement today confirming he had fathered a child with a woman “a number of years ago,” and said that he and the superiors of the order have decided that he will take a year off without any public ministry “to reflect on my commitments as a priest.”

“I am truly sorry to everyone who is hurt by this revelation,” Williams said in the statement.

Out of what he described as “respect for the privacy of the woman and her child,” Williams declined to identify the woman or provide other details. He confirmed, however, that the relationship had occurred while he was already a priest and a member of the Legionaries.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

May 15, 2012 by Susan Matthews

[court document]

The Commonwealth’s response to Msgr. Lynn’s motion to dismiss is available online. Please give special attention to Exhibit 3, which speaks to the archdiocesan effort to protect the secret archives from discovery.

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NEW YORK
The Atlantic Wire

Adam Martin
May 10, 2012

It’s always fascinating to get a look inside insular communities like New York’s ultra-Orthodox Jews, but glimpse provided by The New York Times’ Sharon Otterman and Ray Rivera Thursday is quite disturbing since it’s about how child sexual abuse often goes unpunished. The money quote comes after the first few paragraphs of introduction: “There is no nice way of saying it,” one grandmother who reported an abuser told The Times. “Our community protects molesters. Other than that, we are wonderful.” Shudder.

The thing is, this is only a story because the community’s so insular and the reporting so spare, and most people outside the ultra-Orthodox world know little to nothing about it. It’s not like there’s more abuse among the ultra-Orthodox, according to Otterman and Rivera: “Scholars believe that abuse rates in the ultra-Orthodox world are roughly the same as those in the general population, but for generations, most ultra-Orthodox abuse victims kept silent, fearful of being stigmatized in a culture where the genders are strictly separated and discussion of sex is taboo.” There’s also a stigma against turning over fellow Jews to non-Jewish authorities, as well as simple community pride and the desire to avoid stigmatization.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

Pádraig McCarthy

People in positions of responsibility in business and banking and construction and politics, whose decisions and actions contributed directly to the current economic difficulties in Ireland and elsewhere, had no intention of bringing about those difficulties, or of destroying their own businesses. They were carrying out their work and making money. Some may have had misgivings at times, or even moral qualms, but they went ahead; now we have the consequences. Unintended consequences may result from someone driving home following several alcoholic drinks. And from bishops and others who were concerned for the reputation of the church and of their priests. And from investigative journalists who go for a good story. All can be blinded by too narrow a focus on their own speciality, and in the process may wreak havoc. If we fail to consider the consequences of our actions, we are on dangerous ground.

I am seriously concerned at what may be unintended damaging consequences of the ways media have reported on child sexual abuse in Ireland. Those same media have been remarkably effective in bringing to light terrible violations of vulnerable people, both in the abuse and in the way those in authority failed when confronted with that abuse. Without taking from that, we need to examine other consequences. RTÉ, the National Service broadcaster, is currently undergoing investigation in relation to Prime Time Investigates and Frontline programmes.

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CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

[with audio]

CHICAGO (CBS) — The Chicago Catholic Archdiocese is facing another priest sex abuse lawsuit, involving a now-dead priest who allegedly molested a boy nearly 30 years ago.

As WBBM Newsradio’s Bob Conway reports, plaintiff Martin Yanick, now 40, alleges that the late Rev. John Jordan began molesting him back in December 1983, when he was an 11-year-old altar boy at St. Adrian Parish, at 7000 S. Fairfield Ave. near Marquette Park.

The lawsuit claims that as Jordan molested Yanick, he told the boy his actions would “cleanse” him of his “sins and mistakes as an altar boy.”

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Wij willen iedereen via dit blog meedelen dat wij intensief werken aan een nieuw plan, idee om alle misdaad draadjes met elkaar te verbinden. Het licht zal schijnen. Wij kunnen niet iedereen beantwoorden of met kant en klare oplossingen komen wanneer sommige van jullie terecht met voorstellen of visies komen die nog niet direct kunnen worden omgezet in daden. Maar in daden zullen ze worden omgezet.

Dan blijken veel mensen ‘zich af te keren’ van de strijd om recht en rechtvaardigheid. Wederom terecht wanneer je beseft hoe zwaar en lang deze weg doorgaat. We hebben mollen gekend, sites zijn gekraakt, onze woorden worden verdraaid en onze bedoelingen als verdort hout vertrapt. OvJ’s latent aan het werk gezet, en een civiele procedure gestart die geen erkenning vond. We hebben de Magdalena Manifestatie voorgesteld en geen solidariteit ondervonden; we hebben het geweld nooit van de agenda gehaald maar nog steeds zijn er krachten die dit thema blokkeren. Ja, er was een ruime meerderheid voor een parlementair onderzoek en opeens is het weg, wordt het zonder discussie, zonder protest ook, weggeschoven. Mea Culpa alleen bleef doorgaan en een parlementair onderzoek eisen, er is in principe een meerderheid voor nu de PVV zich ook niet meer aan het regeerakkoord of de sfeer binnen de coalitie clean hoeft te verschonen. Een ruime meerderheid, maar waarom komt die niet tot stand? Politici hunkeren naar succes en het zomerreces.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Bourne Local

A Roman Catholic priest from the Wirral has appeared in court on child sex charges.

Father Peter James Hooper, 54, has been charged with three counts of sexual activity with a child.

Hooper, from Merseyside, is a priest at St Luke The Physician Church, in Bebington.

A Merseyside Police spokesman said: “The 54-year-old from Church Road, Bebington, was charged on Tuesday May 8 and appeared in Wirral Magistrates’ Court in Birkenhead on May 9.

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CALIFORNIA
Redlands Daily Facts

Staff Reports
sbsun.com
Posted: 05/14/2012

RANCHO CUCAMONGA – An Ontario priest on Monday denied he violated his probation terms after attending a gathering in his honor in which children were present.

The Rev. Alejandro Castillo, who was found guilty of molesting a 12-year-old boy at his parish and released early from jail on April 21, was back in custody last week for violating the terms of his probation after attending the party, authorities said.

Castillo, who ministered at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Ontario and previously was in Rialto, will have a violation of parole hearing on May 23.

The priest, who was arrested Wednesday by probation authorities, will stay in custody until the hearing.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Naomi Nix
Tribune reporter

A 40-year-old man has filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Chicago alleging a priest sexually abused him multiple times between 1983 and 1984 while he was an altar boy.

In December of 1983, the plaintiff was ordered to a church rectory at night to complete a writing assignment as punishment for his alleged mistakes as an altar boy, when a priest allegedly asked him to pull down his pants, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges the priest told the boy to comply with his demands or he would tell his parents of the activity. The priest struck the 11-year-old boy with a wooden paddle and then inappropriately touched his genitals, the lawsuit alleges.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Wirral News

May 15 2012 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Echo

A MERSEYSIDE priest has been charged with having sex with an underage teenage boy.

Father Peter Hooper from St Luke’s in Bebington, Wirral, appeared in court facing three charges of sexual activity with a child.

All three offences are alleged to have taken place at the St Luke the Physician diocese house in Church Road, Bebington, where regular masses are held in a small chapel.

The charges date back over an 11-month period starting in June last year, when the alleged victim was aged 14, and up to the start of this month.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

A man claims a now-deceased priest molested him when he was an 11-year-old altar boy at a Southwest Side parish.

The man claims in his suit Monday against the Archdiocese of Chicago that the Rev. John Jordan began molesting him at St. Adrian Parish’s rectory in December 1983 and told him his actions would “cleanse” him of his “sins and mistakes as an altar boy.”

The suit claims Jordan would spank the boy with a paddle while forcing him to pray before performing sex acts.

The suit also claims the boy was molested through 1984 until his family moved to Wisconsin. Jordan died three years later.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Wirral Globe

A WIRRAL priest has been charged with sexual offences against a teenage boy.

Peter Hooper, of Church Road, Bebington, appeared at Wirral Magistrates, charged with three counts of sexual activity with a child.

The 54-year-old, who is a priest at St Luke’s in Bebington, faced the Wirral bench on May 9 and is due back in court on May 23.

A police spokesman confirmed that he was remanded in custody until his next appearance.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A Roman Catholic priest in Wirral has been charged with having sex with a teenage boy.

Father Peter Hooper, 54, of St Luke The Physician Church, in Bebington, was remanded in custody after a hearing at Wirral Magistrates Court on 9 May.

He will next appear at Liverpool Crown Court.

Merseyside Police said it “can confirm that Peter James Hooper has been charged with three counts of sexual activity with a child”.

A spokeswoman for Shrewsbury Diocese also confirmed that one of its priests had been charged in connection with offences against a minor.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

May 15, 2012 by Susan Matthews

A reader just pointed out discrepancies in data released by the Archdiocese regarding Msgr. Francis Feret. I got a strong whiff of public relations spin. Feret is identified as as priest “found unsuitable for ministry” because of “boundary violations.” However, immediately after the announcement, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an article referencing an interview with the lawyer who represented a man who was anally and orally raped. If his abuse was unsubstantiated and some other offense a substantiated boundary violation, shouldn’t we have been told that?

The reader asked, “Are they just saying “Boundary Violation” to minimize the outcry?

Short answer? In my opinion, yes. During his press conference, Archbishop Chaput declined to discuss specifics in regard to individual priests. Also, it is my understanding from a source that at least one of the five priests removed from ministry for boundary violations is still under investigation by the District Attorney’s office for more serious offenses.

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ISRAEL
The Jerusalem Post

By RUTH EGLASH

05/15/2012

Course launched recently to train haredi counselors to work with sexually abused kids shows openness to once taboo issue.
Photo: Marc Israel Sellem

A course launched last month to train haredi (ultra- Orthodox) male counselors how to work with sexually abused children in their community indicates a new willingness to address an issue that was once considered taboo.

The course, which is being run by the Jerusalem-based Haruv Institute for some 20 male social workers, therapists and psychologists from the haredi world, teaches participants how to work with ultra- Orthodox children who struggle to speak out about what has happened to them because of the Jewish tenet of lashon hara (the prohibition against speaking badly about others), unconditional respect for their elders and lack of appropriate vocabulary.

“The whole approach to this is different for haredim than for secular people,” said Tali Shlomi, director of Knowledge, Technology and Resources at Haruv, which was established four years ago to provide professionals with the training and tools to deal with sexual abuse and neglect.

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NEW YORK
Newsmax

By Edward Koch

The crime of sexually abusing a child, including adolescents and teens, is so heinous that the public is immediately shocked and angered.

For a number of years, we have read of sex acts involving Catholic clergy with adolescents and seminarians taking place in a number of countries, including the U.S.

The New York Times, to its credit, has been relentless in keeping this situation under examination by its reporters over the years with front page stories devoted to exposing the abuses.

The Times is now examining the sexual abuses taking place in the Jewish ultra-orthodox Hasidic community, primarily in Brooklyn, and the response of the Brooklyn District Attorney, Joe Hynes.

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SCITUATE (MA)
The Republican

By The Associated Press

By JAY LINDSAY

BOSTON — The Vatican has rejected an appeal by parishioners who’ve occupied a Scituate church in protest since the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston closed it eight years ago.

The decision announced Monday by the archdiocese is a blow to a protest at St. Frances X. Cabrini church that is, by far, the strongest remaining of several that arose after widespread church closings were announced by the archdiocese in 2004.

In the ruling, the Vatican upheld Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s decision to convert the Scituate church building to secular use — a step necessary before sale.

In other dioceses, including in Springfield and in Allentown, Pa., the same Vatican office refused to let dioceses close church buildings, ruling the dioceses hadn’t given adequate reasons. But this time, it said the Scituate appeal wasn’t justified by the facts or church law.

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CANADA
Metro News

By Staff Yarmouth Vanguard

Emotions were high inside a Nova Scotia courtroom Monday as a former Yarmouth priest entered guilty pleas to six counts of indecent assault, some dating back to the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The family and friends of the six victims – all grown men who were just young boys when the crimes were committed – applauded inside the Yarmouth courtroom as they heard the guilty pleas against Albert LeBlanc, displaying relief that a trial would not go ahead and that the accused will be punished for his actions.

“He is aware of the potential penalties, potential sentences. He is also aware that pleading guilty is an admission of every element of the infractions alleged by the Crown,” said LeBlanc’s defence lawyer J. Gilles Lemieux outside of court.

LeBlanc, an 83-year-old from Bouctouche, N.B, left the priesthood in Yarmouth in 1973. Afterwards he worked as a caseworker with Family and Children Services and then as a probation officer.

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CANADA
CBC News

The archbishop of Halifax-Yarmouth is condemning the actions of a former Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to molesting six children decades ago.

Albert LeBlanc, 83, pleaded guilty to six counts of indecent assault Monday in Yarmouth provincial court. He will be sentenced on Aug. 17.

Some of the crimes date back to when LeBlanc was a priest in Yarmouth County in the 1970s.

“Sexual abuse of children is always wrong, and these criminal acts by Albert LeBlanc are to be condemned,” Archbishop Anthony Mancini said in a statement.

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AUSTRALIA
JTA

May 15, 2012

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) – A rabbi who was principal of an Orthodox Jewish school in Melbourne changed his evidence under oath in a child molestation case.

Rabbi Abraham Glick, who ran Yeshivah College between 1986 and 2007, told the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court Monday that he was aware of allegations that David Cyprys, a former security guard at the boys’ school, had molested children, The Age newspaper reported.

Cyprys is contesting 53 charges – including six counts of rape – allegedly committed between 1982 and 1991.

Under oath, Glick, who still teaches at the school, said he wanted to change his witness statement, explaining that Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, the spiritual leader of the school and the head of Chabad-Lubavitch in Melbourne who died in 2008, had twice named individuals connected to the allegations.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Jewel Topsfield

THE ex-principal of a Melbourne Jewish school has changed his evidence about his knowledge of alleged paedophilia and conceded he was aware in the early 2000s of rumours that a former security guard had molested children.

The former security guard at Yeshivah College, David Samuel Cyprys, is contesting 53 charges – including six counts of rape – allegedly committed against 12 boys between 1982 and 1991.

In a witness statement, former principal Rabbi Abraham Glick said he had only recently become aware of accusations against Cyprys. He also said Yeshivah Centre director Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner had never divulged to him the names of alleged sex abuse victims.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

May 15, 2012

Rabbi Avram Glick, a former principal at the Yeshiva College in Melbourne, has told Melbourne Magistrates Court that he was aware in the early 2000s of rumours that David Cyprys had been molesting children at the school.

The Melbourne Age has reported that Rabbi Glick has changed his evidence under oath and now admits that the late Rabbi Yitzchok Groner had named two boys who were alleged victims of sexual abuse.

Cyprys is facing 53 charges involving twelve boys at the East St Kilda College between 1982 and 1991.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

The Village Voice has a list of what the New York Time’s reporters took from FailedMessiah.com, The Jewish Week and other Jewish publications along with CBS 2 and the Guardian in the Times’ articles on child sexual abuse in the haredi community of Brooklyn.

The Village Voice has a list of some of the parts of the Times short series on child sexual abuse in the haredi community of Brooklyn that were taken without attribution from Jewish media, including FailedMessiah.com.

The vast majority of what the Times took it took from Hella Winston’s award winning reporting in The Jewish Week, but the Guardian, CBS 2 NYC, and, yes, FailedMessiah.com were also ripped off, while New York Magazine’s seminal reporting from 2006 and some work done much more recently by the Forward was clearly used by the Times to shape its reporting but was not mentioned. On top of that, UOJ’s work, which drove this issue early on, went unmentioned by the Times.

The part of the Times’ reports that is getting the most media attention is Hynes’ agreement with Agudath Israel of America that allowed Agudah to insist that haredim bring suspicions and allegations of child sexual abuse to rabbis, not the D.A. or police. The rabbis would then decide if the evidence was great enough to report to law enforcement or ACS.

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NEW YORK
The Village Voice

By Nick Pinto
Tue., May 15 2012

Last week the New York Times devoted successive front-page stories to the problem of sex abuse in Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic communities and Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes’s deference to the religious authorities that often try to cover the problem up.

It’s an important issue (one we touched on in our own cover story last fall), and one that deserves the spotlight that the New York Times can provide.

Victims’ advocates and journalists who have been tracking the issue for years were thrilled that the Times was finally turning its attention to a scandal that has long been been festering in its back yard. But many were dismayed that the Times series failed to credit the work of other reporters who have been on the beat for years.

The Times had plenty of catching up to do. As one advocacy group’s exhaustive catalog of press mentions makes clear, there’s been a lot of reporting on the subject in the last decade.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

A secret list of sexually abusive priests that Cardinal Bevilacqua ordered shredded in 1994 is now at the center of a tangled web of deception, lies and suspicious memory lapses.

Prosecutors in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse case Monday tried to unravel the mystery in court, with messy results. On the witness stand was Timothy R. Coyne, a lawyer who was the former director of the archdiocese office for legal services. Coyne told the jury that when he originally went looking for the list in 2002, the first person he visited was Msgr. Lynn.

“He said he didn’t know where it was,” Coyne testified. Two years later, with grand jury subpoenas flying around, Coyne went on another search for the memo. He sent faxes to Cardinal Bevilacqua and three top aides, but once again, nobody knew where the list was.

But in 2006, when the list was suddenly rediscovered in a locked archdiocese safe, Coyne realized he’d been had.

“Somebody lied to me, or everybody lied to me,” Coyne told the jury about his former bosses at the archdiocese.

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AUSTRIA
The Pilot

By Jonathan Luxmoore

OXFORD, England (CNS) — When discontented Austrian priests mark the first anniversary of their “Call to Disobedience” in June, it will highlight the difficulties facing Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna in holding his disparate Catholic community together.

In the nearly 17 years since Cardinal Schonborn became the spiritual leader of the Vienna Archdiocese, he has had to face organized dissent from clergy and laity seeking several church reforms including admitting women to the priesthood. Both supporters and critics agree the cardinal has responded in a pastoral spirit.

“There’s no doubt he’s under strong pressure,” said Herman Bahr, treasurer of Austria’s Laity Initiative launched in 2009 as a “loyal opposition.”

“He’s also a kind and generous man, who’s in too strong a position to be pulled by either side. Although he can’t tolerate open defiance, he clearly favors change himself,” Bahr said.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PADRAIG O’MORAIN

THAT’S MEN: IMAGINE BEING sentenced to life imprisonment for a thought – not for uttering it or promoting it but just for having it and enjoying it?

The idea may seem to belong to some (hopefully) impossible future but it’s exactly the sort of belief that was handed to young Catholic boys and girls up to the 1970s. The particular version they were given involved impure thoughts and hell.

If you had an impure thought (that’s a thought about sex, not about cheating your neighbour) and if you “took pleasure” in it, then you had better hope you could get to confession before you were knocked down by a bus, because if you didn’t, and you were, you would spend all of eternity in hell.

I mention this because, as church sex scandals rumble on, it’s increasingly difficult to appreciate just how totally, absolutely and utterly unthinkable it was to Catholics that clergy would engage in sexual misbehaviour or abuse.

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APPLETON (WI)
NBC 26

By Brian Miller

CREATED May. 14, 2012

Appleton– Jurors were selected in Outagamie county in a civil case alleging the diocese knew Father John Patrick Feeney had sexually abused children before coming to a church in Freedom. Feeney was removed from the priesthood and recently released from prison. The judge has issued a gag order to all the attorneys involved in this case, so while no one is talking, the Green Bay Diocese has long-denied allegations of a widespread abuse cover-up.

Jury selection took several hours as 12 jurors were picked from a pool of 90. Dozens were dismissed because they said their catholic faith would keep them from being impartial. Others said they could stand to hear the sexually explicit testimony expected during the trial.

Peter Isely heads Wisconsin’s S.N.A.P., the survivor’s network of those abused by priests. Isley hopes this case will bring out the truth about what he claims church leaders knew regarding sexual abuse by Father John Patrick Feeny. “Symbolically it really is a terribly important trial it’s not about this particular case I think for victims, survivors, for all of us,” Isley said.

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UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Scott Alessi

A progress report from U.S. Catholic readers says that bishops still haven’t learned all their lessons on the subject of sexual abuse.

Anger. Betrayal. Sadness. Disappointment. These are just some of the myriad of emotions felt by Catholics in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal that broke in 2002. And a decade later—following a flood of additional details on cases of clerical abuse and cover-ups as well as new efforts to enforce transparency and accountability within the church—many U.S. Catholic readers still hold on to those same feelings of disillusionment.

“Ten years later and we are still seeing unresolved situations. What a shame,” says Mary Ann McCoy of Des Moines, one of more than 300 respondents to a U.S. Catholic reader survey on how the church has addressed the sexual abuse crisis. “It is still being handled poorly in some dioceses,” she says. “The bishops have failed us.”

Many readers expressed frustration over the lack of accountability on the part of church leaders who helped to cover up the abuse of minors by clergy and thus put more children in harm’s way. Eighty-seven percent of respondents say that bishops and priests who were involved in past cover-ups of abuse should be held criminally liable and forced to resign.

“Why should the offending priest be sanctioned but not the bishops who covered up the crimes?” asks Helen Welter of Indianapolis. Peter Waricka of Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey takes a similar stance. “The church as a whole, and some bishops, have displayed what appears to be a disregard or disdain for civil laws and the civil rights of victims,” he says. “Abusers and those who covered up abuse should be subject to the full consequences of those civil laws.”

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APPLETON (WI)
Post-Crescent

Written by
Jim Collar
Post-Crescent staff writer

APPLETON — Attorneys selected a jury Monday to determine whether Green Bay’s Roman Catholic diocese fraudulently misrepresented the risk of a priest who went on to molest two boys in 1978.

Brothers Troy and Todd Merryfield are suing the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay on allegations it knew about sexual abuse committed by John Feeney before 1978 and fraudulently failed to inform Freedom’s St. Nicholas Catholic Church of the dangers he posed to children.

Feeney was convicted in 2003 in Outagamie County of four counts of sexually assaulting the Merryfields, who were 12 and 14 at the time of the abuse. The Merryfields say they learned only after the criminal case that Feeney had sexually assaulted others.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The top lawyer for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia testified Monday that church’s leaders lied to him when he asked them a decade ago about a secret list of 35 area priests suspected of sexually abusing children.

“Everyone I spoke to said they didn’t know where it was, and they didn’t have a copy of it,” the lawyer, Timothy Coyne, told jurors at the landmark conspiracy and clergy sex-abuse trial against Msgr. William J. Lynn.

He added: “Somebody lied to me — or a lot of people lied to me.”

But defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom pressed Coyne to concede he had no proof that Lynn lied to him, but sufficient reason to think others did. Coyne also acknowledged that the potentially incriminating list finally came to light this February, less than two weeks after the death of Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, the retired archbishop of Philadelphia whose tenure is at the center of the scandal.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CNN

By Sarah Hoye, CNN
updated 7:04 PM EDT, Mon May 14, 2012

Philadelphia (CNN) — A lawyer for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia testified Monday that church officials lied to him about the whereabouts of a hidden list of 35 priests suspected of sexually abusing children.

“Everyone I spoke to said they didn’t know where it was,” Timothy Coyne, former director of legal services for the archdiocese, told jurors at the landmark child sexual abuse and conspiracy trial of two Philadelphia priests. “Somebody lied to me.”

Jurors also heard from two priests and a paralegal from the law firm representing the archdiocese regarding items found in two separate locked safes.

One safe drilled open by a locksmith contained an accordion-style file folder that housed a memo ordering the shredding of the list of 35 Catholic priests accused or found guilty of sexual misconduct, the list of priests and other personnel documents.

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CANADA
Northern News Services

Jeanne Gagnon
Northern News Services
Published Monday, May 14, 2012

IQALUIT
A former Iglulik Catholic priest is now facing some 74 charges, after 18 new complainants came forward, a Crown prosecutor told the Nunavut Court of Justice on May 7.

Eric Dejaeger’s charges include 66 that are sex-related, one count of failure to appear in court, two of assault, one of unlawful confinement, one of uttering threats, and three counts of use of violence to prevent reporting of suspicious activity.

The 65-year-old accused is also facing one count of indecent assault and gross indecency in Alberta.

Crown prosecutor Paul Bychok told the court a total of 39 complainants made allegations against the accused.

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CANADA
Northern News Services

Jeanne Gagnon
Northern News Services
Published Monday, May 14, 2012

IQALUIT

A former Iglulik Catholic priest, already facing 77 charges, will likely face at least one more, according to the Crown Prosecutor.

Eric Dejaeger’s charges include 68 that are sex-related, one count each of failure to appear in court, uttering threats and unlawful confinement as well as three counts each of assault and use of violence to prevent reporting of suspicious activity.

The 65-year-old accused is also facing one count of indecent assault and gross indecency in Alberta.

Crown prosecutor Paul Bychok said outside the court Dejaeger will likely face at least one more charge. During Dejaeger’s court appearance today, the Crown elected to proceed by indictment – which involves more severe punishment if there is a conviction – on the latest 38 charges.

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CANADA
Huffington Post

Tim Knight

Program: Breaking the Silence (CBC News Network)

Date: Sunday, May 13, 2012

Last Sunday, came yet another T.V. documentary detailing alleged abuse of young boys by Roman Catholic priests.

Breaking the Silence tells the stories of five Canadians who went to boarding schools in England and Tanzania run by the Rosminian Order.

In it, the five, now grown men, make horrifyingly routine accusations of sexual, physical and mental abuse suffered at the hands of priests. Along with the even more routine charge that the Church, in its infinite blindness, covered up the abuse. …
Flashback — Some 22 years ago, Christian Brothers of Ireland in Canada were forced to close their Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland and Labrador after charges that the Roman Catholic brothers sexually, physically and emotionally abused some 300 boys in their care.

Shortly thereafter, I was in Dublin training senior journalists at Ireland’s national broadcaster (equivalent of the CBC) Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ).

During a story workshop, I mentioned the Mount Cashel crimes and asked the assembled journalists if they were following up on the Canadian connection — was it not likely that similarly horrific child abuse also happened in Ireland, home base of the Christian Brothers?

The journalists’ response was that “everyone knew” of such happenings but pious Irish culture and draconian libel laws made it impossible to report on Roman Catholic Church abuses, sexual or otherwise.

In sum, the church covered up its sins, protected its sinners and was simply too powerful for Irish journalists to dare challenge.

It took another ten years before RTÉ finally screwed up the courage to broadcast a T.V. documentary, States of Fear, exposing Mount Cashel-like decades of pedophilia and sadism in Irish church-run and government-supported institutions for orphaned and abandoned children.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By Sheila Sanchez

A San Francisco man accused of beating a priest at the Los Gatos Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in May of 2010 hasn’t taken the stand yet to answer to the charges, yet his defense attorney on Friday said they’ve never denied the assault took place.

“We’ve never denied it … We’ve never denied it,” repeated William Lynch’s attorney Pat Harris, with the Los Angeles-based law firm of Geragos & Geragos. “We’ve never denied that he [William Lynch] was the person who assaulted him (Father Jerold Lindner]. He was the person who confronted him there. He was the person there that day,” Harris said.

Without having to contend that controversial fact, Harris said he was successful at getting Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge David Cena to allow him to present some witnesses who will testify about the motives.

The defense contends they were related to the priest’s supposed rape and sodomizing of Lynch and his brother when they were small boys, 7 and 4, in the ’70s while on camping trips in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

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NEW YORK
The Algemeiner

The crime of sexually abusing a child, including adolescents and teens, is so heinous that the public is immediately shocked and angered. For a number of years, we have read of sex acts involving Catholic clergy with adolescents and seminarians taking place in a number of countries, including the U.S. The New York Times, to its credit, has been relentless in keeping this situation under examination by its reporters over the years with front page stories devoted to exposing the abuses.

The Times is now examining the sexual abuses taking place in the Jewish ultra-orthodox Hasidic community, primarily in Brooklyn, and the response of the Brooklyn District Attorney, Joe Hynes. The Hasidim started in eastern Europe several hundred years ago. Each Hasidic sect often takes the name of the village where their rabbi once lived. The Hasidic community is close knit, somewhat like the Amish. It maintains a lot of control over its members, with its rabbis and religious courts often being the arbiters of disputes. The Hassids, as they are known, prefer not to use secular governmental institutions, such as the police and courts. Those not abiding by community rules are often shunned and sometimes even assaulted.

In Brooklyn, the major communities where Hasidic groups live — the largest being Satmar and Lubavitch — are Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Flatbush and Borough Park. Different Hasidic groups contend with one another and other ethnic communities for space – their housing needs are enormous because they typically have very large families of eight or more children – and occasionally philosophical differences have led to physical attacks. In Brooklyn, many Hasidic groups have been very supportive of the Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes, who is Irish and Catholic. The Times articles provide us with one major reason why the support. He apparently has treated them preferentially, particularly in child abuse cases.

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NEDERLAND
ND

ALMELO – Een jaar cel en tbs met dwangverpleging. Die straf eist het OM in Almelo tegen een oud-priester uit Best. De 61-jarige man staat terecht voor misbruik van een 12-jarige jongen uit Oldenzaal, vorige zomer op een camping in Frankrijk.

Ook zou hij in bezit zijn geweest van 13 pornografische dia’s. De man uit Best ontkent alle aantijgingen. Volgens hem heeft het slachtoffer last van “pseudo-herinneringen”.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

The New York Sun, a web-only conservative New York City daily paper, plays politics with the lives of haredi children today by publishing what is perhaps the most idiotic editorial ever written about child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s haredi community.

The New York Sun is a largely irrelevant, now web-only newspaper published by former Forward editor Seth Lipsky, sometimes with the help of the Forward’s former managing editor Ira Stoll. When the Sun had a print edition, both disgraced newspaper baron Conrad Black, best known in the Jewish end of the newspaper business for looting the Jerusalem Post, and conservative money man Roger Hertog were financial backers. It is unclear if they are now.

The Sun does not have a masthead on its site that I could find, so it’s hard to tell who’s really in charge thse days, although Lipsky’s company still appears to own it.

The unsigned editorial is published as the Sun’s opinion on the matter of haredi rabbis demanding to be the gatekeepers who decide which claims of child sex abuse get reported to police and which do not.

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CANADA
Nova News Now

Published on May 14, 2012

By Tina Comeau
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com

A Yarmouth County man who never got the chance to be face-to-face in a courtroom with the priest who he says sexually abused him when he was just a young boy, says he is happy that by sharing his story it has given others the courage the come forward with their stories.

Six Yarmouth County men were in a Yarmouth courtroom on Monday, May 14, as 83-year-old Albert LeBlanc, a former Yarmouth priest (who also worked as a caseworker and a probation officer after he left the priesthood in 1973) pleaded guilty to six counts of indecent assault – one guilty plea for each complainant. The offences date as far back as 1964. The most recent offence occurred in the early 1980s when LeBlanc was no longer a priest.

The men were just young boys when they were assaulted, ranging in age from seven to 11 years old. Their identities are protected by a court-imposed publication ban.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A longtime lawyer for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia says a deceased Roman Catholic cardinal and his top aides lied about shredding a key piece of evidence in the clergy-abuse scandal.

Tim Coyne, recently suspended as an archdiocesan lawyer, testified today that Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua never replied to his requests, in 2004 and again in 2006, for the internal list compiled in 1994 of potentially dangerous priests.

Coyne says Bevilacqua’s top aides — including Monsignor William Lynn, bishop-elect Edward Cullen (through an attorney), and monsignors James Molloy and Joseph Cistone — all denied they had the list or knew its whereabouts.

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CALIFORNIA
San Bernardino Sun

Staff reportsbsun.com
Posted: 05/14/2012

An Ontario priest convicted of molesting a 12-year-old boy will be back in court today.

The Rev. Alejandro Castillo, who was found guilty of molesting a child at his parish and released early from jail on April 21, was back in custody last week for violating the terms of his probation. He attended a gathering in his honor where children were present, authorities said.

Castillo, who ministered at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Ontario, was arrested Wednesday by probation authorities and was being held without bail.

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CALIFORNIA
The Press-Enterprise

BY DAVID OLSON The Press Enterprise STAFF WRITER
dolson@pe.com
Published: 14 May 2012

An Ontario priest released last month from jail after serving time for child molestation has denied that he violated his probation agreement.

The San Bernardino County Probation Department alleges that on April 22 the Rev. Alejandro “Alex” Jose Castillo attended a party at which children were present. The party was in honor of his birthday and his release from jail the day before, according to a supporter of Castillo.

Castillo’s probation terms bar him from associating with males younger than 18 or frequenting places where minors of either gender congregate without the presence of an adult approved by the probation department.

On Monday morning, May 14, Castillo denied he had violated the probation agreement, said Christopher Lee, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office.

Castillo will next be in court Wednesday, May 23. The probation department is expected to present a report detailing his alleged probation violation, and Castillo may answer charges against him, Lee said.

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CANADA
CBC News

Eric Dejaeger appeared in court in Iqaluit Monday morning and was arraigned on dozens of new charges, most of them related to accusations of sexual abuse in Igloolik, Nunavut, 30 years ago.

His lawyers told the court he wants to be tried by judge and jury and he has waived any preliminary hearing.

The 65-year-old Catholic missionary is now facing 74 charges stemming from the complaints of 39 alleged victims. The number of charges doubled in recent weeks.

The Crown wants to deal with all charges in one trial in Iqaluit.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Morning Call

By Peter Hall, Of The Morning Call

2:49 p.m. EDT, May 14, 2012
PHILADELPHIA — A former attorney for the Philadelphia Catholic Archdiocese testified Monday that top church officials including retired Allentown Bishop Edward Cullen lied to him about a list of priests suspected of sexually abusing children.

Tim Coyne, who served as the church’s general counsel, said a prosecutor asked him in 2004, in the midst of a grand jury investigation of sexual abuse by Philadelphia-area priests, to track down the list of 35 suspected child abusers Monsignor William Lynn had produced in 1994.

Coyne said he contacted five church leaders including Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua; Cullen, who was the cardinal’s top aide; and Bishop Joseph Cistone, who is now head of the Saginaw, Mich. diocese, but the effort was unsuccessful.

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CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald

By BRIAN MEDEL Yarmouth Bureau

YARMOUTH — Albert LeBlanc, the former priest accused of sexually abusing boys in the 1970 and 80s, pleaded guilty this afternoon to six counts of indecent assault involving six victims.

About 20 people in Yarmouth provincial court broke into applause when they heard the plea. A group of about a dozen victims and their supporters began waiting this morning for their first glimpse of LeBlanc who spent most of the day behind closed doors.

Leblanc will be sentenced on Aug. 17 and remains free until then on strict conditions.

The charge of “indecent assault” is worded in the language of the criminal code prior to 1982, which is when Leblanc committed his crimes.

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY

Oblate missionary Eric Dejaeger appeared in court on the morning of May 14 to be formally arraigned on 38 new charges against him that have emerged since last April.

Those bring the total number of criminal charges against him to 77, the majority of which allege sex offences against children.

The court proceeding, however, was held over until July 16 so lawyers on each side can review new and information brought forth by a police investigation.

“By July 16, we’re fairly confident that we’ll have an excellent idea of just what the case will be that we’re presenting before the court,” said lead Crown prosecutor Paul Bychok.

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APPLETON (WI)
Fox 11

APPLETON – Jury selection has begun in a civil trial against the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay.

Lawyers are going through the process of selecting the jury from a pool of 90 Outagamie County citizens.

Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield sued the diocese in 2008, claiming it committed fraud.

The Merryfields say the diocese repeatedly transferred a priest, John Feeney, without telling parishioners about his history of abuse. The diocese says it didn’t know about the abuse.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Nachrichten

Erschreckende Zahlen aus Deutschland: Sexueller Missbrauch von Kindern und Kinderpornographie

Die Polizei hat 2011 fast fünf Prozent mehr Fälle von sexuellem Missbrauch von Kindern registriert. Noch erschreckender sind die Zahlen zu Kinderpornografie: Der Besitz und die Beschaffung von kinderpornografischen Schriften stieg um 23,3 Prozent.

Die Polizei hat einem Pressebericht zufolge im vergangenen Jahr mehr Fälle sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern erfasst. Die Zahl erhöhte sich um 4,9 Prozent auf 12 444, wie die Tageszeitung „Die Welt“ am Montag unter Berufung auf die Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik (PKS) für das Jahr 2011 berichtete. Bundesinnenminister Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU) will die Statistik am Mittwoch vorstellen.

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NEW YORK
The Sun

Editorial of The New York Sun | May 14, 2012

The latest engagement in the campaign of the secular state to undercut religious authorities and drive back their sphere of influence has erupted in New York over how to handle child molestation cases that occur in the city’s Orthodox Jewish communities. Mayor Bloomberg has just joined a chorus of Democratic politicians asserting that persons who suspect misbehavior should go straight to the police rather than their rabbis. The mayor, according to the New York Times, wants “any abuse allegations” to be “brought to Law enforcement.” The newspaper suggests that he is uncomfortable with those who wish first to check with their rabbis.

In entering this contretemps with this advice the mayor has made an error of judgment. His statement was given to the Times in the context of a story it issued Friday on how the district attorney at Brooklyn, Charles Hynes, has been handling molestation cases. The mayor, according to the Times, has joined those who criticize the D.A. for failing to object to the position of the Agudath Israel of America, a major organization that represents fervently religious Jews. Its policy is, as characterized by the Times, that members of its community see a rabbi before reporting allegations of sexual misconduct to the police.

No one, least of all Orthodox Jews, denies that child molestation cases occur in the Jewish communities, just as they do in other religious and secular populations. The role of the rabbi when consulted in cases of suspected abuse, the executive vice president of the Aguda, David Zwiebel, wrote to the Times the other day, is “not to dissuade the individual from reporting to the secular authorities, but simply to ascertain that the suspicion meets a certain threshold of credibility.” No doubt this was the point Rabbi Zwiebel made to Mr. Hynes when, over the summer, the two met on this head.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Seattle Times

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA —
A longtime Archdiocese of Philadelphia lawyer says a deceased Roman Catholic cardinal and his top aides lied about shredding a key piece of evidence in the clergy-abuse scandal.

Lawyer Tim Coyne said Monday that Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua never replied when he was trying to find an internal list of 35 predator-priests in 2004 and 2006. Coyne says Bevilacqua’s top aides denied knowing where to find it.

Prosecutors pursuing a grand jury investigation were seeking the 1994 list.

The list was found early this year – 10 days after Bevilacqua died. An attached memo says Bevilacqua ordered top aides to shred it in 1994, after Monsignor William Lynn prepared it.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Philly Post

Kevin Cirilli

Archbishop Charles Chaput could be the last hope for resurrecting a city that has lost its Catholic faith. But for a guy promoting a book, the Archbishop is rather tight-lipped. It’s not like he shouldn’t have a lot to talk about: the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s child sex-abuse scandal, dozens of Catholic school closings, social issues. He touched on several of these topics in his e-book A Heart on Fire, which examines faith in American culture through the lens of Catholicism.

Over a week ago, Chaput suspended five of the 26 suspended Philadelphia priests. Three of the 26 will return to the priesthood. Chaput didn’t bother to explain why, reports the National Catholic Reporter:

When pressed on the details of the claims against the three exonerated priests, Chaput declined to discuss specific facts of these individual cases, saying the decision to reveal information would be left to each priest and his parishioners …

Speaking generally on the accusations against all 26 priests, the archbishop said he needed “to balance the need for transparency with the pain already felt by victims—pain which we acknowledge and do not wish to compound.”

The Church’s silence made victims’ pain worse. Chaput’s words indicate that the Archdiocese has chosen to continue to remain silent—as if that’s a God-given right.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 14 May 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father: …

– Appointed Msgr. Robert McGuckin as bishop of Toowoomba (area 487,000, population 276,700, Catholics 77,400, priests 48, religious 57), Australia. The bishop-elect was born in Sydney, Australia in 1944 and ordained a priest in 1973. Among other roles, he has worked in pastoral care in numerous parishes, as professor of canon law and as judge of the appeals tribunal of Australia and New Zealand.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Tess Livingstone
From:The Australian
May 15, 2012

THE Pope last night announced the appointment of a NSW priest as Bishop of Toowoomba, replacing Bishop Bill Morris, who was effectively sacked last year.

The new bishop will be Monsignor Robert McGuckin, 68, a senior priest of the Diocese of Parramatta, where he is Episcopal Vicar for Health and Social Welfare.

He is also a part-time lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Notre Dame and has degrees in theology and church law.

After leaving school he worked in banking for several years before studying for the priesthood and being ordained in 1973.

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ROME
Vatican Insider

First the nuns, now the Girl-Scouts. Why? They do not follow the Catholic doctrine on sex, abortions and contraception

MARIA TERESA PONTARA PEDERIVA
Rome

Sister Viviana Ballarin had reiterated only a week ago how women are still an unresolved issue in the Church. In an interview with the daily Il Messaggero , the president of the USMI (Union of Major Superiors of Italy leading over 70.000 religious women in the country) declared: “The so called feminine genius is a gift for society and the Church, but very often people fear what is different, because for many it represents not so much a source of wealth but actually a threat and I believe that this is the main reason why in the Church often confrontation with what is considered different is avoided”. Don Armando Matteo entitled his last book “La fuga delle quarantenni” -Rubettino publishing 2012- (“ The flight of 40 year old women”) and perhaps in a few years women in the Church, and not only those ordained as nuns, might become a rarity.

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ARGENTINA
Vatican Insider

According to an Argentine newspaper, a secret document bishops sent to Paul VI in April 1978 highlighted the Church’s role during the dictatorship years and the disappearances of thousands of political opponents

G. Gal.
Vatican City

“The Holy See knew.” During the dictatorship years, an undetermined number of people “disappeared” at the hands of the armed forces. Estimates range from the 7,000-8,000 estimated by Videla – the dictator himself – to the nearly 30,000 claimed by various humanitarian organizations. Before the 1978 World Cup, the Argentine Conference of Bishops informed the Vatican of what was going on in the country: repression, murders, and disappearances.

In his article in Argentine newspaper Página/12, Horacio Verbitsky writes that a “secret document” was sent to Paul VI by Argentine bishops. The document which dates back to April 1978, refers to meetings between Bishops Raul Primatesta, Juan Carlos Aramburu, and Vicente Zazpe and dictator Jorge Videla. The document says that the issue of the desaparecidos or missing individuals, was openly raised during these meetings (which the clergy say were “cordial and sincere”), and that the bishops also asked where the dead were located.

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IRELAND
Times of Malta

The Archbishop of Dublin said that a forthcoming international congress in Ireland will give a divided and unhealthy Church a chance to reform amid fresh allegations over child abuse.

The Eucharistic Congress in June will reflect “a Church which has faced and still faces enormous challenges, but… is alive and vital and anxious to set out on a path to renewal,” Diarmuid Martin told a Vatican briefing.

Archbishop Martin’s comments came amid a serious backlash in Ireland against the head of the country’s Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Sean Brady, following accusations in a television documentary that he had failed as a young priest to report abuse.

The Archbishop refused to comment on Cardinal Brady’s situation, but insisted that the congress would not be overshadowed by the scandal, saying: “The overall challenge is not just about sex abuse, it goes much deeper. There are divisions within the Irish Church and at times unhealthy divisions. We need a much deeper reform in the church”.

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CANADA
CBC News

Albert LeBlanc’s trial on 50 sex-related charges is set to begin today in Yarmouth.

The 82-year-old former Roman Catholic priest is accused of abusing several boys in the 1970s and 80s.

LeBlanc was a priest in the Yarmouth diocese from 1955 to 1973, when he resigned and left the priesthood, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Halifax said last year.

LeBlanc subsequently worked as a probation officer.

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