ABUSE TRACKER

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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ROME
The Irish Times

The entire order may become as infamous as its founder, paedophile Marcial Maciel, writes PADDY AGNEW in Rome

A ROTTEN fish smells from the head down, or so goes a much-used Italian saying.

The “fish” in this case is the religious order the Legionaries of Christ, and the bad smell left behind is that of its disgraced founder, the late Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, a serial paedophile, a drug addict and a man who fathered six children by two different women.

The details of Fr Maciel’s immoral behaviour have long been known, with even the order itself asking for forgiveness for it in March 2010.

However, following revelations last weekend, it may transpire that Maciel was not the only child abuser in the Legionaries of Christ.

In this case, the rot seems to have spread through the Legionary body.

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ROME
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

A murdered gangster’s tomb is to be opened by Italian police today in an attempt to unravel a 30 year old mystery worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster.

By Nick Pisa, in Rome
9:11AM BST 14 May 2012

Enrico De Pedis, leader of a murderous gang known as the Banda della Magliana, was gunned down aged just 38, by members of his outfit after they fell out.

Detectives investigating the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, 15, in 1983, believe De Pedis is linked to her kidnap and the body of the Vatican employee’s daughter has never been found.

Last month the diocese of Rome, on orders from the Vatican, granted investigators permission to open up the tomb in the Sant’Apollinare basilica close to Piazza Navona in the centre of Rome.

This morning (mon) the church was ringed by police keeping back onlookers, as stonemasons arrived to open the tomb, accompanied by lawyers representing the De Pedis family and his widow.

It is not clear whether they expect to find Orlandi’s remains in the tomb or documents that could shed light on her disappearance.

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UNITED STATES
The Herald News

By E.J. Dionne

WASHINGTON —

Recently, a group called the Freedom from Religion Foundation ran a full-page ad in The Washington Post cast as an “open letter to ‘liberal’ and ‘nominal’ Catholics.” Its headline commanded: “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church.”

The ad included the usual criticism of Catholicism, but I was most struck by this paragraph: “If you think you can change the church from within — get it to lighten up on birth control, gay rights, marriage equality, embryonic stem-cell research — you’re deluding yourself. By remaining a ‘good Catholic,’ you are doing ‘bad’ to women’s rights. You are an enabler. And it’s got to stop.”

My, my. Putting aside the group’s love for unnecessary quotation marks, it was shocking to learn that I’m an “enabler” doing “bad” to women’s rights. But Catholic liberals get used to these kinds of things. Secularists, who never liked Catholicism in the first place, want us to leave the church, but so do Catholic conservatives who want the church all to themselves.

I’m sorry to inform the FFRF that I am declining its invitation to quit. They may not see the Gospel as a liberating document, but I do, and I can’t ignore the good done in the name of Christ by the sisters, priests, brothers and lay people who have devoted their lives to the poor and the marginalized.

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CANADA/BELGIE
hbvl

In Canada start vandaag het proces tegen pater oblaat Eric Dejaeger (65). Er lopen nu al 74 klachten tegen hem wegens kindermisbruik.

Dejaeger, die de Belgisch-Canadese nationaliteit heeft, werd vorig jaar door ons land uitgeleverd aan Canada. Hij wordt er gescheiden gehouden van andere gevangenen, is fel vermagerd en heeft een lange grijze baard. Hij staat onder streng toezicht. “Niet dat hij vluchtgevaarlijk is, we vrezen veeleer dat hij zelfmoord zal willen plegen”, klinkt het.

In Nunavut staat hij terecht voor seksueel misbruik van tientallen Inuit-jongens en -meisjes. De feiten vonden plaats tussen 1978 en 1982.

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ROME
The Associated Press

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Coroners and medical technicians swarmed the crypt of a Roman basilica on Monday to exhume the body of a reputed mobster as part of an investigation into one of the Vatican’s enduring mysteries: the 1983 disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee.

The stench of sewage filled the courtyard next to Rome’s Sant’Apollinare basilica where Enrico De Pedis was buried. Medical personnel in white pantsuits and masks milled about under a blue tent where his body was believed to have been taken for initial tests.

De Pedis, a member of Rome’s Magliana mob, was killed in 1990. His one-time girlfriend has reportedly said he kidnapped Orlandi, and an anonymous caller in 2005 told a call-in television show that the answer to Orlandi’s disappearance lay in his tomb.

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WASHINGTON
Seattle PI

By JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Published 05:10 p.m., Sunday, May 13, 2012

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain sent me two letters in April: One was the annual Catholic Appeal asking money for good works, the other an appeal for discrimination, namely repeal of the just-granted legal right for my gay and lesbian friends to marry.

Three words of Nancy Reagan quickly flashed to mind: Just say no!!

Don’t give one cent to a man in the purple hat. Don’t support a diocese that makes common cause with the National Organization for Marriage that wants to “sideswipe Obama” and “drive a wedge between gays and blacks.”

It’s an honest, widely shared emotion. Many American Catholics are appalled, hurt and disheartened by the actions of their bishops, and see in those actions a disconnect with the teachings of Christ and message of the Gospel, as well as our belief in a community of the faithful.

Our “shepherds” have set out to force American nuns to toe the Vatican line, with Archbishop Sartain assigned a lead role. They’ve just begun an “official inquiry” into the Girl Scouts — yes, the Girl Scouts — for associating with such groups as Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam and the Sierra Club.

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APPLETON (WI)
WTAQ

APPLETON, WI (WTAQ)-Jury selection today in Appleton in a civil fraud trial against the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay. Todd and Troy Merryfield said they were molested as young boys in 1978 by former priest John Patrick Feeney when he was at Saint Nicholas Catholic Church in Freedom. The brothers say the diocese had moved Feeney from parish-to-parish without warning parishioners about previous sexual abuse he had committed.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Ashley Gardiner
From:Herald Sun
May 14, 2012

THE politicians running an inquiry into child-sex abuse in religious organisations are in Europe on a taxpayer-funded trip.

State Parliament’s family and community development committee is visiting Britain and the Netherlands.

The trip is for the committee’s inquiry into “opportunities for participation by Victorian seniors”, one of three it is conducting.

Work on the sex-abuse inquiry will not begin until after they return later this week.

A deadline of April 2013 has been set for the inquiry.

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APPLETON (WI)
Green Bay Press-Gazette

Sex abuse civil suit against Green Bay diocese heads to trial

Written by
Jim Collar
Gannett Wisconsin Media

APPLETON — A former Fox Valley priest spent nearly eight years in prison for the 1978 sexual assaults of two young parishioners, but his victims say justice hasn’t been fully served.

A civil lawsuit that slowly built in Outagamie County’s court system for more than four years heads to trial on Monday as brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield, formerly of Freedom, seek unspecified damages from the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay based on their childhood assaults.

Over the course of the next two weeks, a jury will determine whether the diocese is civilly responsible based 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. The diocese denies the allegations.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday morning.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Last month, the courts confirmed that a defrocked priest who had been convicted last year of sexual abuse of boys in his care could not be convicted of a related rape charge because of an error in the charge sheet.

The then Attorney General failed to correct the mistake while the case was being heard, leading to his acquittal.

This was upheld on appeal. Fresh charges cannot be filed against this paedophile ex-priest because the crime is now time-barred.

Another acquittal based on an error in the charge sheet has also recently sparked public outrage, causing President George Abela to draw stark attention to the need for prosecuting officers to be accurate in framing charge sheets.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

We must be honest and admit that there are only two remaining large systems in the world that are totally patriarchal in their style and in their leadership: Communist states and the Roman Catholic Church. Ours never looked quite as bad since we at least used the language of Jesus, the symbols of communion, humility, and service, and we men even dress in rather feminine robes. The Communist states make no display of humility themselves or respect for the feminine side of anything.

But the real bottom lines in the Roman Church are becoming more and more apparent to thinking and spiritual people in the last decade or so. Despite the very clear reforms of the II Vatican Council in the 1960′s , the Roman patriarchy, a closed system that allows no prophetic critique, and their branch appointed officers (bishops) are step by step rolling back both the spirit and the letter of the Vatican II reforms–while pretending and saying they are not. (Remember, if you can reject this Council, then you have the basis for rejecting the other 20 Councils of the Church too! The Pope and bishops had better be very careful!)

Deceit and supposed magnanimity are at the heart of all patriarchies, or otherwise their subjects would see what they are actually doing. North Koreans also believe their “Great Father” is protecting them, as did many Filipinos under Marcos, and Russians under their Czars and Czarinas.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

The Association of Catholic Priests members in Cloyne diocese and Cork & Ross have a meeting in the Ovens Parish Centre on Monday week, 21 May. The meeting will start at 2.30 and will include reports on the recent gathering in Dublin, ‘Towards an Assembly of the Irish Church’ and other ACP news.

Fr Tony Flannery CSsR will represent the Leadership Team at the meeting.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By Julianna Crisalli

Fr. Tim Ramaekers has been named Corpus Christi Catholic Church’s new pastor, effective July 1.

Bishop Tod Brown appointed Ramaekers, who is currently pastor of St. Joseph parish in Placentia, as the successor to Fr. Fred Bailey.

At a Mass on Sunday, Bailey called Ramaekers, a seminary classmate, “a good man, with a good heart.”

A parish bulletin announcement about Ramaekers noted that he comes to Corpus Christi shadowed by a “false accusation” of sexual misconduct made in 2009.

The allegation was made by a man who claimed to have recovered repressed memories of sexual abuse by four priests and one layperson from 1978-86 at St. Justin Martyr, according to the bulletin and church documents.

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APPLETON (WI)
Post-Crescent

Written by
Jim Collar
Post-Crescent staff writer

APPLETON — A former Fox Valley priest spent nearly eight years in prison for the 1978 sexual assaults of two young parishioners, but his victims say justice hasn’t been fully served.

A civil lawsuit that slowly built in Outagamie County’s court system for more than four years heads to trial today as brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield, formerly of Freedom, seek unspecified damages from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay based on their childhood assaults.

Over the course of the next two weeks, a jury will determine whether the diocese is civilly responsible based 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. The diocese denies the allegations.

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CANADA
CBC News

Roman Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger is scheduled to appear at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit Monday morning — the first time he has appeared in court in person in four months.

The 65-year-old missionary is now facing 74 charges from 39 alleged victims. The number of charges — most of which are sexual offences — has almost doubled since the start of the year.

Dejaeger served as a priest in Igloolik, Nunavut, from 1978 to 1982. He was expelled from Belgium last year. Since his return to Canada, police have visited Igloolik and collected more evidence from more alleged victims.

Police are trying to build an airtight case against a man who served in the community more than three decades ago.

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WISCONSIN
KTVU

The Associated Press

APPLETON, Wis. —

Jury selection is expected to begin Monday in the fraud trial against the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay.

Two brothers sued the diocese in 2008, alleging it committed fraud by repeatedly transferring a priest without telling parishioners of his history of abuse. The diocese says it had no knowledge that John Feeney had committed abuse.

WLUK-TV reports (http://bit.ly/J658XI) that Outagamie County Judge Nancy Krueger denied the diocese’s latest request to have the case dismissed, so the trial is set to start Monday.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph

The Catholic Church “is not an institution for respectable people”, according to Hilary Mantel, the Booker Prize-winning author.

By Anita Singh
3:54PM BST 13 May 2012

Mantel was raised a Roman Catholic and educated at convent school.

However, the 59-year-old writer said child abuse scandals involving Roman Catholic priests demonstrated the “cruelty” and “hypocrisy” of the church.

Asked if she would call for a priest on her deathbed, Mantel replied: “No. I might very well call for a Church of England vicar, but I would not call for a Catholic priest.

“I’m one of nature’s Protestants. I should never have been brought up as a Catholic. I think that nowadays the Catholic Church is not an institution for respectable people.”

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
Jewish World

By Rabbi Ben Kamin

SAN DIEGO — The New York Times has now published an article that carefully chronicles a disquieting, alarming social reality brimming inside the fundamentalist Jewish community of Brooklyn: adult members of the enclave who have reported the sexual abuse of youngsters on the part of rabbis, teachers, and other professionals are being shunned and excoriated by others in the area.

This kind of medieval syndrome, a sad blend of paranoia and sanctimony, is condemning innocent children and protecting evil people who need to be condemned. It rehabilitates no one in need of serious clinical intervention and perpetuates the stranglehold of power-hungry old men that have no concept of ecclesiastic privilege and responsibility. It is locking kids into a spiritual ghetto that has nothing to do with either American or Jewish enlightenment.

There isn’t much of a distance between the perpetrators of such heinous acts and those who are effectively complicit by actually ostracizing their informants. No amount of Torah-waving, self-righteousness, or pious rationalization can possibly whitewash the fact that this trend, this hypocrisy, is scandalous, immoral, and quite possibly criminal.

There is certainly nothing in the Jewish textual tradition that supports this shameless practice; it is simply an outgrowth of the growing fiefdom of hardline rabbis whose power is viewed by their devotees as unyielding, boundless, and which even flouts the laws of the state. A number of journalists are looking into the comfortable relationship that seems to exist among the rabbis in Brooklyn and other heavily Hasidic towns and boroughs and the local or regional district attorneys. The sages are steeped in prayer and in electoral privilege—this writer will leave it to others to figure out whether it’s about money or reverence.

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NEW YORK
Voice from the Desert

What: A demonstration and leafleting outside a Rockland County, NY Catholic Church whose pastor told a sexual abuse victim’s mother that her son was a con-artist.

Where: On the sidewalk outside St. Margaret of Antioch Parish, 115 West Central Avenue, Pearl River, NY 10965

Who: Two victims of sexual abuse at Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, the President of a non-profit charity who is a former Irish Christian Brother and Catholic priest, and supporters.

When: Sunday, May 13, 2012 from 10:00 AM until Noon.

Why: In the 1980’s, Monsignor John O’Keefe, current pastor of St. Margaret of Antioch Parish, worked at Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx. One of the victims of sexual abuse by Br. John O’Connor, Dean of Discipline, told his parents about the abuse shortly after it occurred. His mother, in turn, reported it to then Fr. Jack O’Keefe, Guidance Counselor, who told the mother that her son was a con-artist. The victim was discredited by O’Keefe and his mother was told he was a liar. O’Keefe’s actions were nothing short of unconscionable.

The victims of Br. John O’Connor will call on Msgr. O’Keefe to reveal “what he knew and when he knew it” to law enforcement and the Archdiocese of New York and to apologize and atone for his insensitive and demeaning treatment of a sexual abuse victim.

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UNITED STATES
Richard Sipe

The boys are at it again. I use boys pointedly and advisedly. The guys in the Vatican cannot tolerate honest women who think for themselves, tell the truth and put Gospel values above conformity and submission to Vatican appointed males.

Nuns in the United States have educated many of us, our parents, and our grandparents, built hospitals and cared for our sick and poor all the while on slave wages and in quiet subservience to boy bishops and cardinals who never developed psychosexual maturity and balance in their homosocial bubble; there they wrap themselves in pretty – I repeat pretty dresses, and expensive – I repeat expensive hats protected by toadies who agree and adulate them as if boyfriends.

Nuns paid attention to the voice of the Vatican Council. Vatican II changed things for all women. They became part of the People of God. Nuns increased and accelerated their own education (there are more nuns than priests with earned masters and doctoral degrees).

Sr. Mary Luke Tobin, S.L. was one of the few nuns allowed to be an auditor at the council, but she could stand shoulder to shoulder spiritually and intellectually with any of the best men there. She could recall by heart to her dying day the pledge of the document Gaudium et Spes, “With respect to the fundamental rights of the person, every type of discrimination, whether social, cultural, whether based on sex, race, color, social condition, language or religion, is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God’s intent.” We are all one in Jesus Christ.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Andrew Brown

I have been brooding on two cover-ups of the sexual abuse of children that have been uncovered this week. The first is the reluctance of the English secular authorities to prosecute gangs involved in the abuse of girls; the second is the reluctance of Irish clerical authorities to prosecute or expose the priests who were involved in the abuse of (mostly) boys.

One point is that it’s very rare to come across people who think that none of the religious or cultural aspects are relevant in either case. Probably a majority of people blame both cultures and regard all Catholic priests with suspicion as a result of the misdeeds of some, and all middle-aged Muslim men as potential predators. Hardly anyone blames neither – if you think one of the worrying things about the Rochdale cases is that they will be used to whip up sentiment against Muslims, you are very likely to see nothing wrong in blaming the Catholic church as a whole for the Irish scandals. Conversely, the people who try to defend the Catholic church in Ireland will tend to see the Rochdale cases as expressing something important about the culture behind them, and the religion too.

Much the same is true of cover-ups. Reliable observers have in both cases detected a reluctance to prosecute on the part of the authorities who should have done so. But the people who think political correctness is an absurd red herring in the Rochdale story will be happy to assume the worst of Vatican motives, and those who think the Catholic church is being persecuted will assume there was no good reason for any reluctance to prosecute in Rochdale, or Nottingham, or all of the other places where this might have been happening.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Welt

Ein Maßnahmen-Katalog von Verbänden und Kirchen soll künftig sexuellen Missbrauch an Kindern und Jugendlichen verhindern. Auch von einem Kontakt-Verbot auf Facebook ist die Rede.

Keine Facebook-Kontakte, keine gemeinsamen Sauna-Besuche und kein Ausfragen nach sexuellen Erfahrungen: Ein Katalog von Maßnahmen für Verbände, Institutionen und Kirchen soll helfen, den sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern und Jugendlichen zu bekämpfen.

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UNITED STATES/UNITED KINGDOM
Sunday Mercury

US prosecutors consider legal action against LA catholic church over paedophile priest James Robinson

May 13 2012 by Jonny Greatrex, Sunday Mercury

AMERICAN prosecutors are considering legal action against the Los Angeles Catholic Church – following a Sunday Mercury exclusive proving bishops knew a paedophile priest shipped to the States had a shameful past.

Last week the Mercury revealed how Birmingham church leaders already knew Father James Robinson had an unwholesome realtionship with a man 25 years BEFORE he was jailed for 21 counts of sex abuse on boys.

Predatory priest Robinson, who worked at several churches in Coventry and Birmingham, fled to the US in 1985, days after the police were first alerted by a victim who had been abused when he was just a child.

Months later, the Birmingham Archdiocese wrote to its Californian counterpart, stating that the “immediate reason” Robinson was in America was because he had recently met again “a man with whom he had an unwholesome relationship about thirteen years ago”.

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WISCONSIN
WTMJ

By Michele Fiore

CREATED May. 12, 2012

GENESEE DEPOT, Wis. – After a suspension from the Catholic Church, a popular Waukesha County priest is back behind the pulpit.

Saturday night was Father Mark Molling’s first mass since the archdiocese cleared him to return to St. Paul’s.

People arriving for mass couldn’t wait to welcome him back.

His return follows an investigation of alleged sexual assault.

The Waukesha County district attorney reviewed the allegation, but did not file charges.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

HE certainly doesn’t see himself as an apostate priest or a heretic, but Edinburgh’s Father Mike Fallon is taking a quietly strong stand against the power of the Vatican by asking for a debate on two of the most dearly held principles in the Catholic Church: the vow of celibacy and the ban on ordaining women.

“My fundamental disagreement would be that there is no discussion allowed on either of the issues,” says Fallon, whom some might see as being at the forefront of a simmering progressive rebellion against Rome within the priesthood. “Whether there is change or not is another matter, but there has to be debate.”

Fallon is not alone in his views. Last week Fallon attended an unprecedented meeting of more than 1000 priests and churchgoers in Dublin to discuss the future of the Catholic Church. As revolutions go, it was a relatively sedate affair, but the gathering sent a spasm through the church after attendees called for debate on controversial topics such as married priests and the ordination of women.

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ATTLEBORO (MA)
The Sun Chronicle

BY MIKE KIRBY SUN CHRONICLE STAFF

Sunday, May 13, 2012

The biggest story of my career? That’s easy. The 9/11 terrorist attacks altered the nation’s history, and the fact three of the roughly 3,000 victims had local ties make it an easy number one.

But the story that resonates just as deeply with me is the Father Porter case.

It was 20 years ago this past week that about a dozen men revealed on WBZ TV how they had been abused by James Porter, a priest at St. Mary’s Church in North Attleboro in the early 1960s. One of them, a private investigator named Frank Fitzpatrick, had tracked down Porter in Minnesota, where he had lived and married since being thrown out of the priesthood in the mid-1970s. Fitzpatrick had taped Porter acknowledging that he had molested
several children during his time in North Attleboro.

It was shocking – especially, as it turned out, because I knew some of the victims. These men were a few years older than me, men with whom I had had a drink or meals, played golf, socialized.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Sunday, May 13, 2012 by
Fr Mario Attard, OFM Cap.

Last year the same priest together with another one were sentenced to six years and five years in jail respectively after being found guilty of sexually abusing minors under their care. Obviously their case has stirred different reactions from various quarters of society.

It is neither my intention nor my competency to pass judgments concerning these sad events. Anyone who has eyes to see, ears to hear and a mind to reflect can easily discern and arrive at his own conclusions about the matter.

However, it is my duty as a priest to encourage my fellow brothers in the ministerial priesthood to persevere in “whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious” (Phil. 4, 8).

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