ABUSE TRACKER

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

April 23, 2012 .

An attorney for 350 alleged victims in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy has appealed the judge’s April 5 decision to keep sealed depositions of retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland and Richard Sklba, along with related documents.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley refused to unseal the evidence saying it contains scandalous information and could inadvertently identify victims who are named in the documents. Weakland and Sklba, who also is retired, handled the archdiocese’s sex abuse cases for nearly three decades.

Minnesota attorney Jeffrey Anderson had argued that all names and identifying information would be redacted. He filed the appeal late last week, calling the release of the information a “public imperative.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Palm Beach Post

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — A Catholic priest admitting a sexual relationship with a teen said he had been the victim of an attempted gang rape by fellow seminarians, according to testimony in a clergy-abuse trial.

Testimony on Monday also mentioned Pope Benedict XVI, who weighed in on the priest’s 2005 censure when he was a Vatican official known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Documents show the priest had admitted to the Philadelphia archdiocese in 1992 that he had sex with the high school student for several years. An archdiocesan treatment center concluded the priest was not a pedophile, but was affected by his “traumatic sexual development.” He remained in ministry for another decade.

It’s not clear if the trauma reference was to the alleged seminary assault. The priest told a therapist he had been tied down by several seminarians who tried to rape him and that a friend came to his rescue. But the same friend later twice abused him, the priest told the therapist, according to documents read in court.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
13 News

PHILADELPHIA —

(AP) — In a story April 21 about the priest abuse trial in Philadelphia, The Associated Press erroneously reported the name of the law school where Timothy Lytton teaches. It is Albany Law School, not the University of Albany law school.

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NETHERLANDS
Catholic Church Conservation

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Kerk drong bij chirurgen aan op castratie homo’s :: nrc.nl

The Roman Catholic Church in the fifties and sixties urged surgeons to castrate homosexual boys and men. This is evident from statements made by scientists who were interviewed this morning by the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament.

Professor of medical history, Mart van Lieburg reported that he had spoken with two surgeons. They confirmed that they received direct orders from a bishop to perform castration. van Lieburg did not identify the bishop. After the hearing van Lieburg nuanced his statement: “I spoke with two surgeons. From one of them I heard that the bishop, who incidentally is still alive, called for the castration of a homosexual man.” (Cathcon- seems he thought “order” was a bit strong- but, that said, in the

Historian Marnix Koolhaas also reported that priests who acted as confessors to homosexual boys referred them directly to surgeons. That numbers are involved, Koolhaas does not known. “But it could have been a practice that was not unusual,” said Koolhaas.

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GERMANY
The Eponymous Flower

The director of the Institute for Psychology at the Jesuit Gregorian University in Rome has spoken.

(kreuz.net) Child abuse isn’t a problem for the Catholic Church.

This is what the Vice Rector of the Jesuit led Papal University of the Gregorian in Rome, Father Hans Zollner, said to Polish news ‘Rzeczpospolita’.

The Jesuit leads the ‘Institute for Psychology’ at the Gregorian.

This is independent of the Church

For example the Jesuit mentioned the Islamic Schools in England, in which five hundred children were sexually abused in 2011.

The abuse of children is a general problem — independent of religious back ground.

Seventy percent of the cases occur in the family.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the way some are reacting to the Vatican’s decision to reform the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR):

Over the years, I have met many nuns who have been distraught over the way some in their ranks have lost their way. Now that the Vatican is seeking reforms, these nuns feel vindicated. That is why it is disturbing to read the way some of the Vatican’s critics are trying to defend the indefensible. Keep in mind that only 3% of the 55,000 nuns in the U.S. actually belong to the LCWR, though one would never know this by reading the secular press. But facts don’t matter to those gone loopy.

Joan Vennochi of the Boston Globe wants to know why the pope doesn’t “crack down on protectors of pedophile priests” instead of nuns. But there is nothing to crack down about. As the latest report on priestly sexual abuse shows, no credible accusations were made in 2011 against 99.98% of the priests. Besides, the problem has been homosexuality, not pedophilia (less than 5% of the old cases dealt with pedophilia).

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

April 23, 2012 11:28 am | Author: Jerry Berger

SNAP plans to appeal a KC judge’s ruling that the group must turn over hundreds or thousands of pages of communications between its leaders and victims, witnesses, whistleblowers, police, prosecutors and journalists. The group’s outreach director Barbara Dorris, who has been subpoenaed by Archbishop Robert Carlson’s lawyers in a clergy sex suit involving Fr. Joseph Ross, detects a double standard: “Bishops blast President Barak Obama saying it’s wrong to allegedly try to force someone to violate his or her conscience. But that’s precisely what Missouri Catholic officials are trying to do to us – by forcing us to turn over confidential communications from hundreds of deeply wounded child sex abuse victims, victims who have been promised – and who deserve – privacy.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The decree issued on 25 January which renewed Vatican financial laws according to the 2010 anti money laundering standards has been confirmed before the 90 day deadline. There has been ongoing controversy over the power given to the Vatican Financial Information Authority (AIF) led by Cardinal Nicora

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

Emergency decree No. 159 which contains the new anti money laundering laws published last 25 January has been an ordinary law since last 2 April, when it was confirmed as such by the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State. The law is to be published officially tomorrow, one day before the end of the 90 day deadline given for its enforcement (after which it would have lapsed, had it not been approved).

No significant modifications have apparently been made to last January’s version of the text – which Vatican Insider had published in full. The Council of Europe’s Moneyval team (a Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism) is currently monitoring the Vatican’s conformance to international financial standards. Meanwhile, the Vatican is hoping to be added to the “white list” of “virtuous” Countries.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
National Catholic Reporter

by Brian Roewe on Apr. 23, 2012 NCR Today

The fifth week in the trial of two Philadelphia clergy began this morning, following a week that presented more stories of abuse by former priests, as well as a surprising accusation.

The trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn is the first against a church official for the cover-up of sex abuse. He is charged with child endangerment and conspiracy for his role in an alleged cover-up of sexual abuse by priests in the Philadelphia archdiocese during his tenure as secretary of clergy from 1992-2004 under the late former archbishop Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

Lynn’s co-defendant in the trial is Rev. James J. Brennan, a priest accused of a 1996 attempted rape of 14-year-old boy. Both he and Lynn have pleaded not guilty.

The biggest stir from last week’s testimony centered on a West Virginia bishop, the Most Rev. Michael Bransfield of the Wheeling-Charleston diocese. On Wednesday, multiple reports told of a witness who testified that he had been sexually abused by the Rev. Charles Gana inside a home owned by Bransfield, and that Gana had told him that Bransfield, who was a friend from their seminary days, was having sex with a boy.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Prosecutors and defense lawyers at the conspiracy and child-sex abuse trial of two Philadelphia priests battled Monday over whether and what jurors can be told about a third defendant who was accused of assaulting multiple boys and pleaded guilty days before the trial began.

That defendant, defrocked priest Edward Avery, was sentenced to 2 ½ to five years in prison after admitting that he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy in the late 1990s.

Avery also pleaded guilty to conspiring with Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former Archdiocese of Philadelphia official on trial for allegedly endangering children by allowing Avery and another priest, the Rev. James J. Brennan, to live at parishes despite signs they might abuse minors.

The jurors have been told that Avery is no longer a defendant at the trial, but they have not been told why. His guilty plea did not require him to cooperate with investigators or testify at the trial.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

By MARYCLAIRE DALE

Monday, Apr 23, 2012

A Catholic priest admitting a sexual relationship with a teen said he had been the victim of an attempted gang rape by fellow seminarians in Philadelphia.

Testimony in a clergy-abuse case Monday also mentioned the pope, who weighed in on the priest’s 2005 censure before becoming Pope Benedict XVI.

Documents show the priest admitted to Monsignor William Lynn in 1992 that he had sex with the high school student for years. A church-run hospital concluded the priest was not a pedophile, and he stayed in ministry until the priest-abuse crisis broke in 2002.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Another stunning allegation was disclosed during testimony today in the Philadelphia clergy sex abuse case: an attempted gang rape at the St. Charles Borromeo seminary several decades ago.

The newest testimony was presented as the prosecution tries to show that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and some of its officials had a history of failing to act against alleged sexual predators.

The evidence from the church’s “secret archive” file said that a Father Thomas Wisniewski remained in active ministry for a decade after admitting in 1992 that he had had sex with a teenage boy for years.

During therapy after Wisniewski’s alleged admission, according to the archives, the priest claimed that he had been the target of an attack by other seminarians when he was at St. Charles Borromeo. He said a group of seminarians held him down and tried to have sex with him, but a friend saved him from the attack.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Courier

By Senator Lena C. Taylor

Since becoming a mother twelve years ago, I have found a new and unexpected concern for the safety of my child and thousands of children like him. This is not to say that men or younger women cannot or do not worry about the safety of children. That said, the stress and great joy of motherhood has greatly shaped my priorities as both a private citizen and a public servant.

The matter of child abuse weighs heavily upon my mind. I have been disturbed the stories I have been reading. For example, Philip Caminiti, formerly a pastor at Aleitheia Bible Church here in Milwaukee, was found guilty of instructing congregants at his church that infants and toddlers were never too young to be beaten with wooden rods.

Caminiti claimed his teachings were in accordance with the Bible, but any true Christian would say that Caminiti knows nothing about the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Bible I read, Jesus proclaimed peace even against feared enemies. Caminiti distorted our faith and used it to excuse violence against children! In recent months, few news stories have so greatly affected me. How could this happen?

Though encouraging others to harm children is most certainly a terrible crime, I believe that protecting abusers may be a worse offense. Reverend Lawrence Murphy, who taught at a Milwaukee school for the deaf, died in 1998. He was accused of sexually abusing about 200 boys.

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ARLINGTON (VA)
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: Specht was placed on administrative leave in April 2012, due to an allegation that he had engaged in “sexual misconduct” with a teenage boy in the late 1990s. Specht was ordained in 1996, after a 21-year Navy career, where he worked on submarines. As a priest he was a high school chaplain and assistant principal, as well as the diocese’s director of the Office of Child Protection and Safety, from 2004-2011. At the time of his removal from active ministry Specht was a parish pastor. Police launched a criminal investigation. Specht denied the allegations.

Ordained: 1996
Incardinated: Arlington diocese

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DEUTSCHLAND
Queer

Der Vizerektor der Päpstlichen Universität Gregoriana in Rom warnt davor, dass sich Homosexuelle grundsätzlich eher an Kinder vergehen als Heteros.

Im Interview mit der polnischen Tageszeitung “Rzeczpospolita” erklärte der aus Regensburg stammende Psychologieprofessor Hans Zollner zwar, dass nicht jeder Schwule ein Kinderschänder sei und es auch “keinen direkten kausalen Zusammenhang” zwischen Homosexualität und dem sexuellen Missbrauch von Jungs gebe. Allerdings gehe von Schwulen ein “höheres Risiko” aus, Kinder sexuell zu belästigen. Aus diesem Grund müsse die Katholische Kirche bei der Auswahl von Priestern besonders auf die sexuelle Orientierung achten, erklärte der Jesuit. Er begründet seine Aussage damit, dass nach Angaben der vatikanischen Glaubenskongregation 70 Prozent der Opfer von Übergriffen durch katholische Geistliche Jungen gewesen seien.

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SOUTH EUCLID (OH)
Fox 8

April 23, 2012, by Ted Achladis

SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio — Another closed Catholic church is planning to appeal to the Vatican, Fox 8 News reports.

Saint Margaret Mary in South Euclid announced on Sunday night that it had begun the appeals process.

The parish was closed by Bishop Richard Lennon back in 2010.

Members believe that the church was on the original list of closings overturned by Vatican decree. Just last week, Lennon announced that he would not appeal the ruling and reopen 12 churches. Parishioners say Lennon’s announcement was the first time they heard that the appeal had been denied for Saint Margaret Mary. They claim the Diocese of Cleveland knew since early March, but neglected to say anything.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

BY JOANNE MCCARTHY

24 Apr, 2012

A CATHOLIC priest defending lurid child sex allegations has accused his alleged victims of fabricating claims against him to obtain compensation from the Church.
The priest, who cannot be identified, says at least one of four men who made statements to police about alleged offences against them in the 1980s and 1990s made up claims.

The priest alleged known Catholic paedophile priests could have sexually assaulted the two men.

But a Sydney District Court jury heard yesterday it would have been easier for the men to obtain compensation if they had made allegations against the known paedophile priests.

‘‘If it was his motive to get money, why wouldn’t he [the alleged victim] just say [the name of a known paedophile priest]?’’ a barrister for the Crown said during summing up at the end of the five-week trial.

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UNITED STATES
The Washington Times

DALLAS, April 22, 2012 – Since March 14, 1950 the FBI’s most wanted list has displayed the faces that instill fear in our hearts and exposed the evil glare of America’s most despised criminals. The FBI selects individuals for this list only after careful consideration by FBI officials and in concert with the many field offices throughout the country.

After US troops killed the man behind the attack on the World Trade Center, convicted terrorist Osama bin Laden, the most wanted list had a vacancy.

Last week, the FBI filled the spot that had once held the name of the most hated man in America with Child Pornographer Eric Justin Toth.

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NEW YORK
Broadway World

Impetus Ensemble will add Lucia Grillo to the cast of this special presentation of an ambitious new play, Vatican Falls, written by Frank J. Avella (author of “Consent”) and set against the backdrop of the Catholic sex abuse scandal. The staged reading will be presenTed May 15, 2012 at 6:45PM at the National Comedy Theatre. All proceeds from the play will benefit SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests).

Based on factual material, “VATICAN FALLS” follows the life of one survivor who struggles with understanding how those closest to him could damage him the deepest. The multi-genre, non-linear play probes the conflicting feelings involved in most sexual abuse situations and dares to confront the truth about the ever-growing scandal and the Church’s complicity in it.

“VATICAN FALLS” was set to have its World Premiere in Rome, Italy, last May but was cancelled the night before opening amidst controversy and claims of death threats. This will mark the first U.S. presentation of the play to an audience since the last workshop in 2010. We hope to raise awareness about the real facts concerning the scandal and about this very important group that has provided a safe haven for survivors since 1988.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
New Jersey Herald

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – PHILADELPHIA – The defense in a clergy-abuse trial is between a rock and a hard place in deciding whether to challenge the credibility of a man who says he was raped by two Catholic priests and his fifth-grade teacher.

If they do, a judge is likely to let jurors hear that 1 of the priests has pleaded guilty.

The accuser is set to testify Wednesday in the child-endangerment trial of Monsignor William Lynn.

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AUSTRALIA
Asia One

AFP
Monday, Apr 23, 2012

SYDNEY – Prime Minister Julia Gillard Monday defended her appointment of Peter Slipper as Australia’s speaker as court documents alleged he used his position to pursue sexual relations with male employees.

The married Slipper, 62, stood aside from his role on Sunday after claims he harassed former aide James Ashby, 33, with explicit text messages, unwanted advances and inappropriate comments between January and March this year.

He is also accused of fraudulently misusing taxpayer-funded taxi services.

In Federal Court documents published Monday, Ashby accused Slipper, an ordained Anglican priest, of “using his position to pursue relationships of a sexual nature with young male employees”.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Controversial MP Peter Slipper could return to the Speaker’s chair with Gillard government support before the sexual harassment claims against him are resolved.

The former Liberal turned independent MP stood aside as Speaker pending a possible criminal probe into allegations he misused taxpayer-funded Cabcharge vouchers.

He also faces civil claims – to be heard by the Federal Court next month – that he sexually harassed a former male aide. He strenuously denies all the allegations.

The scandal on Monday overshadowed the first day of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s trip to Singapore.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Jared Owens
From:The Australian
April 24, 2012

PETER Slipper’s ambition to serve as a parish priest could still be realised, despite the sex and fraud scandals engulfing him, the leader of Australia’s Traditional Anglican Communion affirmed yesterday.

The independent MP, who has stood aside as Speaker while allegations of abusing public entitlements are tested, is already an ordained priest in Australia’s breakaway conservative Anglican movement and acts as “chancellor” — a senior legal adviser — to primate John Hepworth and his pro-Rome synod.

Speaking from Adelaide, Archbishop Hepworth yesterday reaffirmed he would ensure that Mr Slipper stood aside from that role until allegations of sexual harassment were resolved. But he also described Mr Slipper as a devout Christian of “enormous ability” and said he was welcome to train for a public role in the church, including that of parish priest, if he was cleared of the complaint.

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UNITED STATES
Another Voice

Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior using force or coercion to afflict others.

Bullying consists of three basic types of abuse – emotional, verbal, and physical. It can use subtle methods of coercion such as intimidation or not so subtle methods involving condemnation and punishment. It is always destructive and demeaning. Bullying has no place within the community of faith.

Bullying can range from simple one-to-one bullying to more complex institutionalized bullying in which the bully may have one or many “lieutenants” who assist the primary bully in his or her bullying activities.

Reviewing events of the past couple weeks, it is clear that contemporary Roman Catholic leadership in Rome, along with the Vatican’s lieutenants in the USCCB, have launched an aggressive program of Catholic bullying.

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UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Magazine

Sandy Hingston

As if the Catholic Church didn’t have enough on its plate, it just announced that it’s appointing an archbishop to whip its wayward American religious sisters into line. That’s right! Instead of worrying about, say, which of its clergy are repeat pedophiliac abusers, or its latest money-laundering scandal, or the “Vatileaks” corruption kerfuffle, the Holy See sees fit to drill down on those rowdy, rambunctious women in black and white.

Actually, they don’t wear black and white much anymore, which is part of the problem, apparently. A few years back, the New York Times ran a piece on the Vatican’s multi-year investigation, known as an “Apostolic Visitation,” into whether American nuns were going astray. That article stated that some sisters “surmise that the Vatican and even some American bishops are trying to shift them back into living in convents, wearing habits or at least identifiable religious garb, ordering their schedules around daily prayers and working primarily in Roman Catholic institutions, like schools and hospitals.” How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen American social injustice, right?

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

Garry O’Sullivan

An 88-year-old nun/sister wrote to me this week congratulating the paper’s coverage of the Fr Flannery/Vatican controversy (we broke the story) and signed off saying, “Thank God, He is in charge.” Amen sister!

I couldn’t agree more and although I’m less than half her age, I share her tiredness. Self-described Vatican II liberals lining up to bash their heads against the equally stubborn heads of more conservative priests and bishops and Vatican officials. It’s all a bit predictable.

The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) are of course right that the Church should permit discussion and dialogue and it is also true that the Vatican are having a PR nightmare by failing to communicate their point of view leaving the secular media to have a field day thrashing the Church.

Others have pointed out that Fr Flannery et al have had the last 40 years to discuss these issues unfettered in the religious press and in an inviting secular press.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

Michael Kelly

There is “deep unease” among some members of the hierarchy over Vatican plans to slash the number of Irish dioceses, The Irish Catholic understands.

Despite this, however, the Vatican is intent on pushing ahead with the reform a well-placed source has confirmed.

In comments to this paper, theologian Fr Vincent Twomey has also predicted that “they [Irish bishops] will resist it tooth and nail”.

The proposal – which could see the current 26 dioceses cut to just 11 – has been a key part of the Vatican’s plan for reform of the Church in Ireland.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

By Ralph Cipriano

As the religion reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer in the early 1990s, my assignment was to profile Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua.

At the time, I was negotiating with the cardinal’s PR guys for a face-to-face interview with Bevilacqua. The cardinal’s men offered some suggestions. If I wanted to do a story about the cardinal, I should see him in action first. They wanted me to accompany the cardinal on one of his famous, carefully choreographed “parish visits.”

These were glorified photo ops where Bevilacqua would visit a local parish, say Mass, and then mug for the cameras. It was all part of the cardinal’s public image as an energetic, charismatic shepherd out among his adoring flock. The cardinal’s PR guys also suggested several priests in the archdiocese who would be good to interview about the cardinal, boosters who would say positive things about what a wonderful job the cardinal was doing to re-energize the archdiocese.

It took months for the cardinal’s PR people to settle on just the right parish, and just the right pastor, for the cardinal’s parish visit, which would be the subject of photos for a big Sunday spread in the Inquirer profiling the new archbishop.

There were some ground rules for my participation in the parish visit. One, I could not travel with the cardinal; I would have to follow in the car behind the cardinal’s chauffeur-driven Ford Crown Victoria. Two, I could not speak to the cardinal unless he addressed me first. And last, if he did deign to speak to me, I had to refer to him as His Eminence. Not Cardinal, not Cardinal Bevilacqua, but His Eminence.

The parish visit went off as scheduled. The parish we visited was Our Mother of Sorrows, an ethnic Slavak church in Bridgeport, Montgomery County. The pastor of the parish was Father Stanley M. Gana.

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UNITED STATES
USA Today

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

Have you tweeted at #WhatSistersMeanToMe about the nuns in your life?

Rev. James Martin, culture editor for America magazine, wrote an ode to the sisters and launched a the hashtag to rally praise for them after the major group of women religious (their proper title although nuns and sisters fit headlines and Twitter counts better) now that some are under fire.

The Vatican wants the powerful women’s voices to stress the Catholic vision for marriage and sexuality and to spend more time campaigning against abortion,gay marriage, and women’s ordination.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Agency

Washington D.C., Apr 22, 2012 / 04:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An expert on religious women in America believes that renewal within the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) will require “very strong self-evaluation” and cooperation with the Vatican’s recent call for reform.

“After having studied this for many years, I think it was 40 years in the making,” said Ann Carey, author of the 1997 book “Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women’s Religious Communities.”

Carey told CNA on April 20 that ever since the LCWR revised its statutes in 1971, it has had a rocky relationship with the Vatican.

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OHIO
WOIO

SOUTH EUCLID, OH (WOIO) –
Parishioners of the Saint Margaret Mary Church located at 4217 Bluestone Road in South Euclid, informed Bishop Richard G. Lennon of the Diocese of Cleveland that they have begun proceedings to appeal his decision not to reopen their church.

Bishop Lennon was informed of the appeal on Sunday, April 23rd, 2012.

It was widely reported on March 7, 2012 that the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy has issued 13 decrees calling for the reopening of the churches who appealed their closure. St. Margaret Mary was listed as one of the thirteen to be reopened. The Congregation specifically ruled that the Bishop erred both legally and procedurally in his church closing actions.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Gone Mild

Dear Mom and Dad,

I’m not Catholic anymore. I feel like I owe you an explanation, and I hope that if you’re somehow able to hear and react to me anymore, that you’ll understand.

Catholicism was a huge part of who you were. You worked so hard and sacrificed so much to send me to Catholic schools. You were so proud of me when I made my First Communion, and my Confirmation. Dad, I remember you leading us in the Rosary when we went on long trips. I remember going to Church every Sunday morning, and singing the hymns. Dad, I remember your deep voice booming a vibration I could actually feel, standing next to you.

Church was at the center of everything. Dad, I remember you being part of the men’s club of Ascension Parish – the Ascenders. And Mom, I remember you being president of the Mother’s club of our school.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Anglocat on the Prowl

In the absence of a written order, it’s a little hard to know what to make of this story. On the one hand, the judge in the lawsuit against Fr. Joseph Tierney and the Diocese of Kansas City-St.Joseph has ordered a second deposition of David Clohessy, Director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (“SNAP”). As I wrote in my prior post discussing the first day of the deposition, not only did Catholic League President William Donoghue misstate the testimony and its legal import in his eagerness to brand Clohessy a “con man,” but many of the questions did not go to relevant issues in the litigation, and seemed to me to be more aimed at discrediting SNAP than at eliciting evidence for the case against Tierney and the Diocese, and suggested to me that the deposition was abused to harass SNAP.

On the other hand, the judge has said that she intends to “limit the original document request to several broad categories related to sexual misconduct by priests in the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese,” focusing on the question of repressed memory, specifically regarding the plaintiff’s claim that he had repressed his memories of the abuse, and was therefore, under Missouri law, entitled to a tolling–a partial judicial waiver–off the statute of limitations. s the judge is quoted as saying, “I believe they [lawyers for Tierney and the diocese] are entitled to have information on repressed memory.” In another article, from the Kansas City Star, the judge is quoted as saying “that she planned to order another deposition for Clohessy and possibly have a retired judge sit in to rule on disputes over whether documents or answers could be properly disclosed and answered.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

Das Kriminologische Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen stößt bei der Aufarbeitung des Missbrauchsskandals in der katholischen Kirche immer noch auf Widerstand. Im vergangenen Sommer hatte die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz das Institut beauftragt, in einem dreijährigen Forschungsprojekt die Personalakten der Kirche auf Missbrauchsfälle zu untersuchen. Die Bistümer Hildesheim und Trier stellten Akten für erste Auswertungen zur Verfügung; inwieweit die anderen 25 deutschen Diözesen ihre Personalakten übergeben, ist aber immer noch nicht ganz geklärt. Viele Pfarrer fürchten offenbar, dass bei Weitergabe der Akten an die Wissenschaftler vertrauliche Daten an die Öffentlichkeit geraten. Seinen Mitarbeitern würden “doch überhaupt keine Akten direkt ausgehändigt”, beschwichtigt Institutsleiter Christian Pfeiffer die Kleriker.

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OSTERREICH
Non

VON MARTIN GEBHART

Auch wenn es das Zentrum der katholischen Weltkirche ist: In Rom sorgt das kleine Österreich derzeit für einigen Gesprächsstoff, in erster Linie wegen der Pfarrerinitiative und deren Aufruf zum Ungehorsam. Dass es deswegen einen direkten Dialog zwischen Papst Benedikt XVI. und dem Proponenten der Initiative, Pfarrer Helmut Schüller, geben wird, sieht man im Vatikan eher als unwahrscheinlich an. „Wenn es ein Problem in einem Land gibt, wird der Papst zu den Bischöfen sagen: Das ist eure Arbeit, diese Probleme zu lösen“, so Pater Frederico Lombardi SJ, Leiter des Vatikanischen Presseamtes zu österreichischen Journalisten.

Auf den direkten Dialog hatte ja Helmut Schüller gehofft, nachdem Papst Benedikt bei der Chrisam-Messe am Gründonnerstag den „Aufruf zum Ungehorsam“ in seiner Predigt direkt ansprach. Mit der Frage: „Ist Ungehorsam ein Weg, um die Kirche zu ermutigen?“ Ein Satz, der in Rom als rein rhetorische Frage gedeutet wird, als klare Verurteilung des Ungehorsams. Der Grazer Bischof Egon Kapellari zum Text in der Papst-Predigt: „Der Text war moderat, hat keine Türe zugeschlagen, niemanden verletzt, ist aber keine Einladung an die Initiative, auf diesem Weg fortzufahren.“ Er sieht das Wort „Ungehorsam“ als Tabubruch an.

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BELGIE
Kerknieuws

MA 23 apr 2012 | 11.15
Veel slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik door priesters “blijven lijden onder dit misbruik omdat de paus de feiten ongestraft laat voortwoekeren”, aldus de Belgische Werkgroep Mensenrechten in de Kerk in de Belgische krant Het Laatste Nieuws.

Maandag 23 april is het precies twee jaar geleden dat de Belgische bisschop Roger Vangheluwe ontslag nam nadat bekend was geworden dat hij twee neefjes seksueel had misbruikt. Deze datum grijpt de werkgroep aan om zich kritisch uit te laten over de manier waarop de kerk omgaat met het misbruik.

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OSTERREICH
News

Erhitzte Situation! So bezeichnet die Erzdiözese Wien die “Causa Stützenhofen”. Die Auseinandersetzungen in der katholischen Kirche Österreichs werden auch weiter vom Vatikan scharf beobachtet. Am Dienstag verlautete aus informierten Kreisen in Rom, der Kardinal könnte die Bitte erhalten, “die Sache Stützenhofen dem Heiligen Stuhl näher zu erklären”. Ebenso, wie es mit Helmut Schüllers “aufmüpfiger Pfarrer-Initiative” weitergehen soll, die offenbar keine Chance auf ein persönliches Gespräch mit dem Papst hat. Was im NEWS-Gespräch auch Christoph Kardinal Schönborn durchblicken lässt.

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OSTERREICH
News

Der Sprecher der Pfarrerinitiative, Helmut Schüller, hat in Luzern den “Herbert-Haag-Preis 2012 für Freiheit in der Kirche” verliehen bekommen. Der Vorsitzende der gleichnamigen Stiftung, der Theologe und Kirchenkritiker Hans Küng, würdigte in seiner Laudatio Schüllers “Widerstandskraft”. Der Geehrte bedankte sich seinerseits für die “neuen Impulse” und nahm neben den ermutigenden Worten auch 10.000 Euro für die Pfarrerinitiative mit.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 21 April 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed the following cardinals, created in the consistory of 18 February as members of dicasteries and offices of the Roman Curia:

1. Cardinal George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly of the Syro-Malabars, India; Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, and Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, as members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

2. Cardinal George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly of the Syro-Malabars, India; Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, archbishop of New York, U.S.A.; Cardinal Lucian Muresan, major archbishop of Fagaras and Alba Julia of the Romanians, Romania; Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, and Cardinal Edwin Frederick O’Brien, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, as members of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

3. Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, as member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

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UNITED STATES
Seattle Times

Jerry Large
Seattle Times staff columnist

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the pioneering American feminist, found the Bible degrading to women, so she wrote her own version, The Woman’s Bible.

She paid a price for her audacity, and it looks like a lot of contemporary women are being punished for asserting themselves in much milder ways than Stanton did.

Last week The Vatican announced it has picked J. Peter Sartain, the archbishop of Seattle, to take control of the largest organization of Roman Catholic sisters. The church has been investigating sisters and nuns for the past few years and concluded there is some radical feminist stuff going on.

Some sisters even think women ought to be ordained; some, the church believes, have spent too much time on social justice and too little fighting abortion and gay marriage.

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UNITED STATES
Renew America

By Matt C. Abbott

In light of recent headlines involving the Vatican’s announced “house-cleaning” of the modernist Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), I’m publishing excerpts from the introduction to Father Mitch Pacwa’s book Catholics and the New Age.

Originally published in 1992, Father Pacwa’s book is still timely, especially given that many religious communities have, over the last few decades, become infected by the New Age Movement (among other things) and have lost the true faith.

Thanks to Kathleen M. Carroll of Franciscan Media for allowing me to publish this material in my column. Click here to order a copy of the book.

————————

A campus chaplain at a Catholic university recommends crystals, the energy source of Atlantis, for personal help.

A Catholic women’s college offers workshops in Wicca (witchcraft) and the goddess within. Astrology columns appear in the school paper….

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Jane Lee
April 23, 2012

THE state government has been urged to widen the inquiry into sex abuse by priests to consider how to make it easier for victims to sue the Catholic Church.

Premier Ted Baillieu last week announced that a parliamentary committee would investigate the handling of the criminal abuse of children in churches and other organisations.

However, the inquiry’s terms of reference do not cover the church’s immunity from civil lawsuits for past sexual abuse.

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NEW JERSEY
Times of Trenton

Published: Monday, April 23, 2012

By Times of Trenton Editorial Board

The testimony during the ongoing clerical abuse trial in Philadelphia has been as graphic as it’s been heartbreaking.

Powerless victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests are now old enough to tell their stories – and be heard. They have described methodical and brazen predators, freely roaming among vulnerable children.

Closer to home, New Jersey State Police have rounded up more than two dozen people who are suspected to have traded in child pornography.

As a society, we are more vigilant. We have learned, painfully, that priests should no longer be considered sacrosanct. And the state police have developed a high-tech means of identifying distributors of child pornography.

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CALIFORNIA
Bay Citizen

By Tim Lennon |April 22, 2012

Why does the church pay to settle cases of sexual abuse of children by clergy? And why do they pay so much? These questions can be answered by asking another question: what does Bishop Blaire of Stockton Diocese accomplish by stopping the civil trial?

Stopping the trial halts the testimony of church officials who would no longer be able to hide behind their high positions to avoid testifying. It is no accident that Cardinal Mahony was next up to testify, they wanted to avoid that at all costs. Cardinal Mahony has a sordid history of coverup ups of clergy abuse both in Stockton diocese where he was bishop but also in Los Angeles where he was Archbishop. His sordid history would be exposed to the public for all to see.

Church officials would have been be forced to testify under oath. Stopping the trial allows these church officials to keep hidden their decades long practice of endangering the children of the area.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Hull Daily Mail

Monday, April 23, 2012

THE Bishop of Hull has backed calls by a charity for an inquiry into child abuse by the clergy.

Bishop Richard Frith told the Mail he would support any inquiry and would co-operate “fully” with any requests made.

His support comes after solicitor David Greenwood, who is representing more than 150 victims of abuse at a notorious East Yorkshire care home for boys, launched a campaign for an inquiry.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Stephen Rogers

Monday, April 23, 2012

A Californian diocese has agreed to pay $3.75m (€2.8m) to a man abused as a child by the Tipperary priest who last week fled the US to return to Ireland.

On Apr 6, Fr Michael Kelly, who maintains his innocence, was found “liable” of sexual misconduct against the then 10-year-old boy in the Stockton diocese more than 20 years ago.

The victim has now waived his anonymity and identified himself as Travis Trotter, a former altar boy at the Cathedral of the Annunciation.

Fr Kelly is also separately under criminal investigation by US authorities over accusations of abuse in another county.

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STOCKTON (CA)
California Catholic Daily

The Diocese of Stockton has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit for $3.75 million after the priest involved — whom the bishop previously said he believed to be innocent — fled the country.

On April 6, a San Joaquin County Superior Court jury found Fr. Michael Kelly, 62, liable for damages in a civil suit filed against him alleging he sexually molested a former altar boy in the mid-1980s at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton.

A second phase of the trial — in which Fr. Kelly was expected to be a key witness — had been scheduled to begin on April 16, but Fr. Kelly left the country the day before for his native Ireland, leaving behind a letter for Stockton Bishop Stephen Blaire explaining why. The second phase was scheduled to assess whether the diocese was financially responsible for Fr. Kelly’s alleged misconduct.

As a consequence of Fr. Kelly’s departure, the trial had to be postponed. In the interim, the diocese and the plaintiff reached an out-of-court settlement.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Irish Times

GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor

A CATHOLIC priest embroiled in controversy over the display of gay pornographic images has taken temporary leave from his duties as parish priest of Pomeroy in Co Tyrone.

Fr Martin McVeigh requested and was granted temporary leave by Primate of All-Ireland Cardinal Seán Brady after a meeting in Pomeroy between local parents and representatives of the archdiocese of Armagh on Friday night proved “inconclusive”.

The archdiocese has been conducting an inquiry into how the images were “inadvertently” shown by the priest to a group of parents and one child on March 26th.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

What is believed to be one of the largest individual settlements in the history of the US clerical sexual abuse scandal involved a priest who recently absconded to Ireland in the middle of court proceedings there.

The settlement of $3.75 million (€2.83 million) between the Californian diocese of Stockton and a man now in his 30s was announced on Friday and involved Fr Michael Kelly (62), a native of Tipperary.

Fr Kelly was removed from ministry in the US on April 6th after a jury found unanimously against him in this case alleging sexual abuse in the 1980s.

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UNITED STATES
Lez Get Real

Posted by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on April 22, 2012

If you want to know how a war is going, do not talk to the generals. Anyone who is not in the field or just tours the front lines occasionally won’t really know how things are going. Why? Because they are not there every day. To them, the casualties are numbers and at arm’s length. When was the last time that General David Petraus held a rifle and fired at someone in the Taliban? When was the last time that Marine Commandant General John Amos did the same?

Really, don’t bother asking anyone above the rank of Captain how the war is going because they will have, at best, a fuzzy idea of how things are going, and their jobs largely depend upon not knowing if the battle on the ground is a major fuck up.

So, if you want to know just how healthy the Catholic Church is, the last person you want to talk to is the Pope. After that, you don’t want to talk Cardinals, Archbishops or bishops. Don’t bother talking to them. They don’t have a clue what is going on, and their ignorance is bliss for them because they honestly do not want to know. All they want to know is that their jobs and their positions are secure.

Thus, it is not surprising that Pope Benedict is going after the nuns. It is also not surprising to note that, as John Zogby writes at the Huffington Post, “the bishops have adopted a Nixon-like ‘circle the wagons’ defensive posture during their disgraceful ‘defend the institution at all costs’ approach to the pedophile scandal, making us wince in shame at their outrageous behavior, it was our women religious figures who held high the social gospel, in word and deed — reminding us why we could still be proud of the Catholic church and its teachings.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Independent (United Kingdom)

Roger Maynard
Sydney
Monday 23 April 2012

Australia’s minority Labour government was embroiled in a crisis last night after the Speaker of the Federal Parliament agreed to step aside, pending an investigation into allegations he sexually harassed a male member of his staff and misused travel entitlements.

Peter Slipper, who resigned from the Liberal coalition last November after accepting Labour’s invitation to become Speaker in the House of Representatives, was accused of making “unwelcome advances”to his media adviser and abusing his taxi vouchers.

A father-of-three and ordained priest in the Traditional Anglican Communion Church, Mr Slipper “emphatically”denied the allegations but said it was appropriate to stand aside until the criminal investigation was resolved. “Once it is clear they are untrue, I shall return to the Speakership,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Vatican attacks American nuns: A compilation. USA nuns live Gospel, serve the poor and sick…while Benedict XVI lives in luxury out-of-touch-with-reality in Vatican Bank Tower

Paris Arrow

Benedict XVI has returned to his original nature as God’s Rottweiler mauling anyone who disagrees with him and this time on his 7th anniversary as Pope he is mauling American nuns. Upon his return from the communist Cuba where he acted as God’s representative and lectured Fidel Castro, he is turning out to be worse than his old self Cardinal Ratzinger by silencing Irish priest Fr. Tony Flaherty and other liberal Irish priests and now he wants to “change” American nuns according to his Vatican mindset which is really out-of-touch-with-reality because all he does all day is count the Vatican Billions as he dress up to have his face covered with movie-star make-up foundations to hide his ugly face and dress up in papal robes that could feed 10 African villages for 10 years to have his photo-op taken with European royalties and world millionnaires and billionnaires. Sister

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Michael Mullins April 22, 2012

We do not criticise the police force as a whole when there are revelations of corruption. We tend to believe that police men and women protect us and do at least a fair job of upholding the law. Our condemnation is confined to police drug rings and the like and, most importantly, the evil culture that sustains them.

There is every reason why we should apply the same principle in our response to sexual abuse within the Church. In other words, let’s avoid scapegoating the Church in general and focus instead on convicted abusers and, most particularly, the culture that has sanctioned their actions, even if identifying it is a lengthy and costly process.

Bishop James Moriarty led the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin in Ireland until he resigned in 2009 after he was criticised in the Murphy Report into the handling of clerical child sex abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese. He was one of many church leaders who effectively allowed sexual abuse to occur under his watch.

‘With the benefit of hindsight, I accept that, from the time I became an auxiliary bishop, I should have challenged the prevailing culture,’ he said in his statement of resignation.

Identifying and describing the culture that prevailed should count for almost everything in the investigation of clergy sex abuse (as indeed with corrupt behaviour in the police force and other professions). Individual abusers, and those in authority who failed to act, were a product of a culture that accepted, at best, the existence of sexual abuse as an abhorrent fact of life and, at worst – among offenders – that sexual gratification at the expense of those subject to one’s authority was a ‘perk’ of the job (like funds from crime for corrupt police).

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sunday Leader

By Emma Wallace – reporting from London

The rape and sexual abuse cases against Ven. Pahalagama Somaratana, chief monk of Selsdon Buddhist Temple in London, continued proceedings at Isleworth Crown Court this week.

When Somaratana first arrived in England, in 1978, he was 32 years old. He was part of Chiswick Temple from 1978 to 1981, and thereafter went on to create his own Temple in Selsdon, South Croydon, where he remains today.

Key prosecution witnesses took to the stand to tell their account of what had allegedly occurred during 1978-79 and 1984-86. Both witnesses were aged between 9 and 10 when the first was allegedly raped and both were sexually abused.

The court heard that a majority of the alleged rape and indecent assaults occurred primarily after the Temple’s Sunday school. The accused would routinely visit classes where approximately 20 children, aged between 4 to 16, attended each week.

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OSTERREICH
kathweb

Wien, 22.04.2012 (KAP) Die österreichische “Pfarrer-Initiative” hat am Sonntagabend in Luzern den Herbert-Haag-Preis 2012 für Freiheit in der Kirche erhalten. Obmann Helmut Schüller nahm die mit 10.000 Euro dotierte Auszeichnung stellvertretend entgegen. Ausgezeichnet werde die Pfarrer-Initiative, weil sie die “Not in der Seelsorge” aufgreife, hieß es in der Begründung der Schweizer Stiftung. Ihr “Aufruf zum Ungehorsam” vom Juni 2011 greife “die Not der Seelsorge auf, die in der katholischen Kirche immer weniger durch Priester gewährleistet werden” könne und trete ihr “mit klaren Postulaten und entschiedenem Handeln mutig und unerschrocken” entgegen”, so die Stiftung.

Gemeinsam mit der Pfarrer-Initiative zeichnete die Stiftung stellvertretend die drei Schweizer Laienseelsorger Monika Hungerbühler (Basel), Monika Schmid (Zürich-Effretikon) und Charlie Wenk (St. Gallen) aus, die in priesterlosen Gemeinden als Gemeindeleiterinnen und Gemeindeleiterinnen sowie in der City-Seelsorge Dienst tun.

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OOSTENRIJK
RKnieuws (Nederland)

LUZERN / WENEN (RKnieuws.net) – Het Oostenrijkse Pharrer-Initiatieve, dat opgeroepen heeft tot ongehoorzaamheid in de Kerk, heeft zondag in Luzern de prestigieuse Herbert Haag Prijs 2012 voor vrijheid in de Kerk gekregen. De Herbert Haag Stichting, die de prijs toekent, wijst op de grote weerklank die het Oostenrijkse initiatief in het buitenland genoot.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Ook ik ben slachtoffer van misbruik in een internaat. Ik ben na een hoorzitting in mijn gelijk gesteld en kom in aanmerking voor een compensatie regeling. Nu is er echter het grote prbleem dat de kerk probeert ons in hokjes te plaatsen (categorie schadevergoeding misbruik) Ik heb hier heel veel moeite mee want wie bepaalt wat mijn immateriele schade is die ik geleden heb na het misbruik.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Zijn is waargenomen worden

Beitel het in de muren
brand het in de glasramen
kap het in de gebinten
van hun kathedralen

Stuur hen op foto
schrijf hen in brief
dicht hen in bundel
jouw gekerkerd verdriet

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According to Sister Campbell, the questions raised against those who announce the Gospel through their own life are incorrect

Vatican Insider staff
Rome

Speaking to the BBC, Sister Simone Campbell, head of en/homepage/news/detail/articolo/suore-nuns-monja-stati-uniti-united-states-estados-unidos-8087/“Network”, a Catholic association which promotes social justice, responded to the indications given by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in relation to the tough doctrinal evaluation which dealt a strong blow to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the association representing the majority of Catholic women religious in the United States.

The document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith speaks of the “dissent” shown by American nuns, whom it accuses of ignoring or questioning the Catholic Church teachings on abortion, homosexuality and priesthood. As a result, they face being “monitored” for five years by the Bishop of Seattle.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

Today 20th April We are Church Ireland announces a silent vigil in support of those silenced priests , Sean Fagan, Tony Flannery, Gerry Moloney , Owen OSullivan and others who wish to remain anonymous.

It will take place at the residence of the Papal Nuncio to Ireland , Archbishop Charles Brown, the Apostolic Nunciature , 183 Navan Road , Dublin 7 on Sunday 29th April 2012 at 16.00 hours.

It is important that Irish committed Catholics show their solidarity with these priests who are articulating the views of the majority of Irish Catholics as evidenced in the recent Amarach survey.

We call for the revocation of these silences by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which punished these men without due process and through secretive procedures with no right of Appeal.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Thomas C. Fox on Apr. 21, 2012 NCR Today

The Los Angeles Times has chimed in, adding another incredulous voice to many more certain to come, as reasonable observers consider the Vatican’s destructive attack on U.S. women religious last week.

Columnist Steve Lopez writes that when he first heard of the Vatican doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the umbrella group of 80 percent of U.S. women religious now under attack by Rome, he thought it was some kind of satire, “a parody of the out-of-touch Vatican patriarchy.”

No, Steve, the men in Rome seem to think that without ever entering into serious conversation with LCWR they can order these women into some kind of straight jacket Vatican think. Get on the band wagon, they command the women. Condemn same sex liaisons; stand up for our failed anti-abortion political campaign; step away from the programs which have an actual track record of reducing abortions while assisting women raise children.

So very strange. The men in gowns don’t speak to the women in pants.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Injury Board Blog Network

by Mike Bryant
April 22, 2012

The February bankruptcy of Archdiocese of Milwaukee was something I have written about before. What wasn’t found out until the filing was the magnitude of the abused children involved. The report disclosed at least 8,000 instances of child sexual abuse and 100 alleged offenders – 75 of them priests – who have not previously been named by the archdiocese.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which has been covering the ongoing story reported :

Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests speculated that some are likely members of religious orders, such as Capuchins or Franciscans. Order officials do not typically make public the names of their accused members, and the archdiocese claims it is not responsible for them, though they have historically helped to staff its parishes and schools.

“This is a public safety crisis, a child safety crisis that needs to be investigated,” Isely said at a news conference on the federal courthouse steps, surrounded by fellow survivors and reporters.

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WEST VIRGINIA
News and Sentinel

April 21, 2012

By JOHN McCABE , The Wheeling Intelligencer

WHEELING – Monsignor Kevin Quirk, an aide to the Most Rev. Michael J. Bransfield, bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, will testify in the clergy sex abuse trial currently under way in Philadelphia, a judge has ruled.

Ohio County Circuit Judge Ronald Wilson issued the four-page ruling late Thursday. He said Quirk “is a material witness and that his live testimony at this trial, where he will be subject to direct and cross examination, is essential to ascertaining the truth.”

Wheeling attorney William Kolibash, who is representing Quirk, confirmed his client will now testify in the case of the Rev. James Brennan, who’s on trial in Philadelphia for an alleged 1996 child-sex assault. Brennan has denied those charges.

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CAMDEN (NJ)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By David O’Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

When he took charge of the Diocese of Camden on April 30, 2004, Bishop Joseph A. Galante had no plan to close parishes – let alone embark on the most sweeping reorganization any Catholic diocese in the nation has ever seen.

Four years after arriving here from Dallas, however, he stunned his 500,000-member flock with news he was closing or merging nearly half the 124 parishes in the six counties.

Likening the process to the quick sting of “pulling off a Band-Aid,” he conceded his “radical” approach would cause grief and anger. But in years to come, he promised, it would bring community, “vibrancy,” and financial solvency to the congregations.

Today, the 73-year-old bishop says his stewardship of the ambitious overhaul might end sooner than he once expected. Poor health could force him to step down well before his scheduled retirement in 15 months.

After a decade battling the Type-2 diabetes he “inherited from my father and grandfather,” Galante has entered what he calls “end-stage” kidney failure. Two months ago, he began dialysis treatments three days a week at a Camden clinic.

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MALTA
The Malta Independent

We will start by saying that the judge in the appeal filed by the Attorney General in relation to the rape of a boy by a defrocked priest was absolutely correct in terms of law.

The case refers to Godwin Scerri, who was cleared by the Magistrates’ Court, and subsequently the appeals court, of raping a young boy who was in his care. The victim had testified that he was raped in Santa Venera, but the charge sheet issued by the prosecution referred to the location as being Mtarfa. In appealing, the Attorney General’s Office argued that the accused could still be found guilty, irrespective of where the act took place.

The judge, on the other hand, observed that the prosecution had plenty of time to rectify the mistake, and did not do so. As we said, this is completely correct in terms of law, but we also have to say that it is a grave miscarriage of justice. Godwin Scerri, 75, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for abusing this same and other boys in his care. But he has been cleared of what is the most serious charge of all – the rape of a young boy, in his care, and all down to some anomaly in our legal texts.

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AUSTRALIA
Sunday Telegraph

Miranda Devine
The Sunday Telegraph
April 22, 2012

ALLEGATIONS in court documents that its handpicked Speaker, Peter Slipper, sexually harassed a young male adviser are another scandal our terminally ill government can do without.

And this time, the scandal threatens the reputation and dignity of the institution of Parliament itself, not just the minority Labor government and its Independent backers.

In documents filed in the Federal Court, James Ashby, 33, claims Slipper subjected him to sexual harassment after hiring him as a media adviser in December, weeks after being installed as Speaker.

Ashby alleges that Slipper, 62, recruited him to his personal staff “for the purpose of pursuing a sexual relationship”.

Slipper, who is married and is an ordained priest of the Traditional Anglican Communion church, allegedly made unwanted sexual advances and sent suggestive text messages to Ashby, who is openly homosexual.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

David Crowe, National Affairs Editor
From:The Australian
April 23, 2012

JULIA Gillard has lost crucial ground in federal parliament as she seeks support for next month’s budget after a sex and fraud scandal forced Peter Slipper to step aside as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The Prime Minister faced new doubts over her political judgment and her ability to pass contentious reforms, including budget cuts.

Mr Slipper announced the move to stand aside late yesterday to limit the damage from a sexual harassment claim and an investigation into his parliamentary expenses, as he declared his innocence on both counts. …

Mr Slipper lost another position last night when the Australian leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion, John Hepworth, asked him to vacate his role as a priest and chancellor in the church.

The developments rocked the government over the weekend after revelations that one of Mr Slipper’s former advisers, James Ashby, had lodged a statement of claim in the federal court alleging sexual harassment.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Bill Farr
April 23, 2012
Opinion

On the matter of sex abuse by clergy, Denis Hart still doesn’t get it.

ON THIS page on Friday, the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, defended the Catholic Church’s record in dealing with the ever-increasing fallout from decades of sexual abuse by clergy. He predicted the state parliamentary inquiry announced last week would find that his church has been ”fair” in its dealings with victims.

Sadly, from the outside, that is hard to accept.

I started school in the Catholic system in the early 1960s, and have followed – with more than a passing interest – the slow drip-feed of horrific stories of abuse as they have become public. It came close to home for me about three years ago with the exposing of a priest who, for a short time, was a family friend. It was a shock to realise that he was a serial abuser.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Rebecca Puddy
From:The Australian
April 23, 2012

EMBATTLED MP Peter Slipper will be asked to stand down from his role as a priest in the Traditional Anglican Communion while allegations he sexually harassed a male adviser and misused taxpayer money are investigated.

Australian leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion John Hepworth said yesterday Mr Slipper, an ordained priest, would be asked to stand down in the wake of the allegations made by James Ashby.

As chancellor of the breakaway TAC, Mr Slipper is the chief legal adviser to Archbishop Hepworth.

The move to suspend Mr Slipper from his church role came yesterday, soon after the Queensland MP stood aside as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

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BELGIE
HLN

Morgen is het twee jaar geleden dat Roger Vangheluwe ontslag moest nemen als bisschop van Brugge, omdat hij twee neven in hun kindertijd seksueel had misbruikt. De Werkgroep Mensenrechten in de Kerk neemt de verjaardag te baat om erop te wijzen dat veel slachtoffers van misbruik in de Kerk “blijven lijden onder dit misbruik omdat de paus de feiten ongestraft laat voortwoekeren”.

Van kardinaal Godfried Danneels en van zijn opvolger, aartsbisschop André-Joseph Léonard, ontving de Werkgroep Mensenrechten in de Kerk “geen enkel moreel signaal” dat ze er bij paus Benedictus XVI zouden hebben op aangedrongen werk te maken van een bestraffing.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
DARA KELLY,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Sunday, April 22, 2012

There is confusion over whether a parish priest in Tyrone has been cleared after showing gay porn to a room full of First Communicant parents.

The Irish Catholic Church called an inquiry into the County Tyrone priest, Father Martin McVeigh, who displayed indecent images during a primary school presentation in March “inconclusive.”

Originally, they called the priest cleared but later amended that after parents protested.

The Archdiocese of Armagh sent representatives to meet with parents from the town of Pomeroy in Co. Tyrone to talk about the incident. Another meeting is planned to further investigate the issue. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) have confirmed that no crime was committed during the presentation.

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ROME
RKnieuws (Nederland)

ROME (RKnieuws.net) – Homoseksuelen vertegenwoordigen een groter gevaar voor seksueel misbruik. De Duitse jezuïet Hans Zollner, psycholoog en vice-rector van de pauselijke gregoriaanse universiteit in Rome, zegt in een interview met de Poolse krant Rzeczpospolita dat er zeker geen rechtstreeks verband is tussen homoseksualiteit en pedofilie maar dat in deze groep het gevaar groter is. De stelling van Zollner is wetenschappelijk helemaal niet onderbouwd.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

American nuns stunned by Vatican accusation of ‘radical feminism,’ crackdown

By Michelle Boorstein and Elizabeth Tenety, Published: April 20

American nuns struggled to respond Friday to a Vatican crackdown on what it calls “radical feminism” among the women and their purported failure to sufficiently condemn such issues as abortion and same-sex marriage.

Some nuns in the Leadership Conference of Women Religious characterized the disciplinary action announced Wednesday as an “ambush,” but others — including the leadership — said they couldn’t publicly comment on a system that mandates their obedience. The 1,500-member conference represents the vast majority of the country’s 57,000 nuns.

“People are stunned,” said Sister Pat McDermott, president of the 3,500-member Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, based in Silver Spring. “They’re outraged, angry, frustrated, they don’t know where this came from and how to hold it.”

Thousands of people joined a Twitter drive to support the Leadership Conference, which represents more than 80 percent of American nuns. Using the hashtag #whatsistersmeantome, one person wrote of the nun who “was the rock of our Catholic campus.” Another man tweeted about how his father lost his own mother at 13. “It was the Mercy sisters who consoled and loved him onward.”

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IRELAND
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

By Ken Foxe

It may have the country’s largest private property portfolio but despite owning thousands of houses, the Catholic Church does not have to pay a cent in household charges.

The Church, which at one point owned or occupied at least 10,700 houses, schools, halls, churches and shops around the country, has an exemption from all property taxes because it is a charity.

With 1,368 parishes in Ireland – many containing several parochial homes and other properties – the Church may be getting off the hook for up to €500,000 a year in Environment Minister Phil Hogan’s new tax, despite its massive wealth and land interests.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Gazette-Mail

Editorial

Ugly allegations have been made, indirectly, against the spiritual leader of West Virginia’s 76,000 Catholics. But everyone should keep America’s justice principles clearly in mind: No criminal charge has been filed against Bishop Michael Bransfield regarding events 30 years ago. Under law, each person is presumed innocent unless convicted. Nobody should rush to judgment.

Testimony in a disturbing Philadelphia trial implied that the West Virginia bishop was connected to child-molesting priests, made suggestive comments to altar boys, and allowed priests to take boys to his beach home. Thursday, Bransfield issued a statement saying, in part:

“I have never sexually abused anyone…. This case has gone on for seven years or more…. Contrary to the statements, I do not own, and never owned, a farm in the Scranton area, upstate New York, or anywhere else, for that matter.

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IRELAND
Sunday Independent

By Willie Kealy

Sunday April 22 2012

THE Government is planning to open several new embassies around the world in places as far apart as South America and Asia — but there will be no U-turn on the controversial decision to close down the Irish embassy in the Vatican.

This has been disclosed by the Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore in an interview with the Sunday Independent.

The Vatican embassy closure provoked a political reaction, particularly among Fine Gael backbenchers, and was the subject of a heated debate at the Labour Party conference last weekend.

But in the end, the delegates voted to back Mr Gilmore’s decision, which was made in his capacity as Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Defending his decision, Mr Gilmore said last week: “We had a small diplomatic service, much smaller than most countries of our size.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Sunday April 22 2012

A meeting between Catholic hierarchy and Co Tyrone parishioners about a gay porn controversy has had an “inconclusive” outcome, the Catholic Communications Office said yesterday.

The office also said there would be no further comment from the hierarchy about the circumstances surrounding the accidental display of male homosexual pornographic images during a power-point display at St Mary’s Primary School in Pomeroy last month.

The parish priest, Fr Martin McVeigh, who is on voluntary “temporary” leave, has denied any knowledge of the images, which were contained on a memory stick he had been using as a display aide to a talk on Communion.

An audience of 26 parents, teachers and an eight-year-old boy were present when 16 separate images were displayed by the projector.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Irish Sun

By RYAN MILLER

PARENTS were furious when they were told a priest who accidentally showed gay porn images at a school would KEEP his job.

Catholic church officials held a meeting with locals in Pomeroy, Co Tyrone, on Friday night.

A statement was read out, acquitting parish priest Fr Martin McVeigh of wrongdoing — but it was withdrawn after the meeting.

Many parishioners were unhappy after hearing the statement, which is understood to have said there was NO evidence against the priest.

An Archdiocese spokesman said matters had proved “inconclusive”.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Sunday, April 22, 2012 by
Ariadne Massa

Listening to the news bulletin describing how a defrocked priest was cleared of rape over a technicality, his victim felt a numb pain squeezing him inside.

But while the ruling sparked outrage online, LC, who only feels safe going by his initials, is devoid of anger.

“I never thought I’d see my case on the news. The hurt remains, and every day is a challenge not to let anger reign. Who knows what I’ll do if I let anger take over; I don’t want to go there,” the 34-year-old told The Sunday Times following Wednesday’s court decision.

LC was the only boy to be raped from the 11 who were abused by priests in Sta Venera’s St Joseph Home. However, the rape charge against Godwin Scerri, who has since been defrocked, collapsed because of a mistake on the charge sheet over where the abuse took place.

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CALIFORNIA
Irish Central

By
DARA KELLY,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Sunday, April 22, 2012

A $3,75 million settlement has been reached in the case of an Irish priest found liable in a civil case of child abuse in California.

A civil jury in Stockton, Southern California, found Fr. Michael Kelly, a Tipperary native, liable for molesting a young boy.

The Diocese of Stockton has now agreed to pay the victim and his legal representation $3.75 million.

“This 4 ½ years of litigation and 10-week trial has been the most difficult experience of my life, but I feel I have received justice today, not for me, but for that 10-year old boy who Fr. Kelly hurt so badly,” said the victim, now in his 30s, in a statement after the settlement was reached, according to FOX40 News.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By Joan Vennochi
Globe Columnist
April 22, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI can’t wait to crack down on “radical feminist” nuns.

But will he ever really crack down on protectors of pedophile priests?

A Vatican-led investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious cites the nuns’ silence on abortion and same-sex marriage. How bad is that up against the silence of church officials, from parish priests to the Vatican, who ignored and concealed child sex crimes?

By ironic coincidence, news about the Vatican’s effort to rein in the conference — the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States — broke the same day the Rev. Bradley M. Schaeffer resigned from the Boston College Board of Trustees after growing public criticism over the role he played in supervising a former Jesuit priest who allegedly molested dozens of children over a span of 40 years.

The juxtaposition of the two events exposes a familiar church mindset.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By JEROME REILLY

Sunday April 22 2012

[read the story]

The Communications Office of the Irish bishops has demanded a full apology and retraction from radio presenter Ray D’Arcy after he told listeners “the Catholic Church, in many ways, has fucked up this country”.

D’Arcy, regarded as Ireland’s most successful independent broadcaster, made the comments live on air during a review of the morning newspapers — a regular segment on his Today FM show which boasts 245,000 listeners.

Catholic communications chief Martin Long has demanded that the station and presenter retract the “insulting” and “offensive” comment on air tomorrow.

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UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Inquirer

Monica Yant Kinney, Inquirer Columnist

Last week, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated his 85th birthday by issuing a rebuke of an unlikely foe:

Nuns.

Following a bizarre three-year inquisition of American sisters’ “quality of life,” the Vatican slammed nuns for devoting their lives to educating the poor, treating the sick, and feeding the ravenous. Women religious are “charitable,” but all this social-justice work has fostered a “radical feminism” the pope wants to tamp out, ASAP.

The Vatican says the sisters sinned by supporting President Obama’s health-care plan and helping homosexuals. But nuns are also guilty of staying too “silent” on issues like abortion.

You can read the eight-page “doctrinal assessment” (http://bit.ly/JamGHa), but I’ll summarize the conclusion: Nuns need to remember their place and obey the men who run the church.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

Celebrations for Pope Benedict’s 85th birthday and the 7th anniversary of his election to the papacy have now come to their end. The people of Bavaria will continue their celebrations, as many were not able to come to Rome. As the eighth year of the Pope’s pontificate begins, we believe it proper to wish the Pope all the best. …

It is our hope that dissenting groups will hear his invitation to be in communion with the Church and receive this invitation with respect and attention, and with an understanding of its significance. We hope also that the journey towards renewal of the Church in Ireland, following an apostolic visitation to that country, will continue and intensify after the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin; and that, following the sexual abuse crisis, the Church may offer a genuine service for all society in the protection of children, with the commitment of the various Episcopal conferences, through healing, purification, and prevention.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

April 22, 2012
Opinion

Paul Daley

Few countries are much good at exploring their darker sides. We wait for ugly boils to surface and lance them in the hope they won’t recur, long before we look for the causes.

The great social injustices of Australia’s recent past fit awkwardly with the way we’d define ourselves as a nation. We have found that definition in Anzac because the legend – of the supposedly egalitarian digger and of endurance – is an easily adaptable metaphor to our sport, the arts and politics.

Many historians and social observers in the 1960s and ’70s predicted the Anzac myth and legend would decline in cultural influence as the men of the 1st Australian Imperial Force became extinct. But the reverse may actually have happened as they become more idealised.

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UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Times

By Steve Lopez

April 21, 2012

In Philadelphia last week, a child sex-abuse trial involving Catholic clergy led to a bombshell — a bishop from West Virginia was accused of abuse.

In Kansas City, a Catholic bishop goes on trial in September, accused of failing to report suspected child abuse.

So who’s in trouble with the Vatican?

Nuns.

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COLORADO
Gazette

April 21, 2012

WAYNE LAUGESEN
FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The Joshua Carrier saga is the latest reminder that safety in our public schools is woefully inadequate. It is past time that Congress, the president, the U.S. Department of Education and school boards devise a plan to protect our kids.

For a blueprint, they should start by looking to the Catholic Church in the United States.

Carrier, a former cop who worked in public schools, had been charged with 186 sexual assault charges involving children. He was acquitted on 36 assault counts and the jury deadlocked on 150 others, for which Carrier may be tried again. Jurors convicted him on 21 counts of child pornography, which alone could land him up to 36 years in prison.

Stories of sexual assaults in public schools have become routine. Anyone interested in the scope of the problem in Colorado should simply log onto Google and conduct this search: “Colorado teacher sexual assault.” Or simply watch the news each night and see how many days go by before a story pops up about a teacher facing charges of sexual impropriety with a student. It is epidemic.

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IDAHO
Idaho Press-Tribune

By MIKE BUTTS mbutts@idahopress.com

TREASURE VALLEY — Shocking stories about child sexual abuse at the hands of youth service professionals made national headlines in recent months.

The stories left people wondering how such incidents can happen with trusted adults.

The fact is sexual abuse of children is so prevalent that the “Enough Abuse Campaign” of Massachusetts claims “each of us probably knows someone who has been victimized or who has abused.”

Officials with the campaign call child sex abuse a “silent and violent epidemic.”

Child advocates in the Treasure Valley say knowledge, procedures and attitudes about child sexual abuse can go a long way toward protecting kids from assaults that can leave them with life-long emotional scars.

When a child is sexually abused, its impact is so strong it damages the entire community, Idaho Children’s Trust Fund Program Developer Wickes MacColl said.

Part of the challenge of preventing child sex abuse comes from the low incidents of reporting of the crime and the stigma associated with it. Victims are threatened by offenders not to report incidents and adults are reluctant to report suspicions because of fear of false accusations. The topic is often not brought up between parents and children.

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OREGON
Statesman-Journal

Sixty-seven percent of sexual abuse victims are children under age 18. About 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before they turn 18.

The statistics are alarming.

Even more alarming is the fact that nearly 90 percent of the time, the abuser is not a stranger.

“It’s almost always someone they know, love or trust,” said Debbie Joa, Prevention and Protection Coordinator for the Salem-Keizer School District.

A family member, a close relative, a neighbor, a pastor, a scout leader, a coach or a teacher, anyone could violate that trust. We have seen the headlines across the country over the years, from widespread abuse by priests in the Catholic church to high-profile charges against a former assistant football coach at Penn State University.

Now closer to home and fresh on all our minds are the recent arrests of five Mid-Willamette Valley teachers — all within a span of less than two weeks — on sexual abuse charges. One of the teachers is from Sprague High School.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ASSOCIATED PRESS | Posted: Sunday, April 22, 2012

KANSAS CITY • A group that supports victims of sexual abuse will have to turn over decades of records to lawyers representing priests in the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, but the type of information that must be released will be limited, a Jackson County judge has decided.

Attorneys for the diocese sought records stretching back more than 20 years from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests in an effort to determine whether SNAP has been coaching victims and plaintiffs to say they repressed memories of abuse for years.

SNAP has strongly denied coaching victims.

If defense lawyers can prove that the plaintiffs did not actually suppress memories of sexual abuse for decades, judges would have to throw out the lawsuits under a five-year statute of limitations that the Missouri Supreme Court reaffirmed in 2006, The Kansas City Star reported.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin and Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writers

Six years have passed since Stanley Gana was ousted from the priesthood over child-sex abuse claims, and another decade since he was removed as a pastor by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Yet prosecutors at the conspiracy and endangerment case against two Philadelphia priests spent much of last week telling jurors about the 69-year-old defrocked cleric.

As the landmark trial reached its midway point, Gana, who was left in ministry despite claims he raped multiple boys, represented a centerpiece of sorts.

His was a textbook example, prosecutors say, of how the archdiocese and its former secretary for clergy, Msgr. William J. Lynn, cared more about protecting the institution than abuse victims.

It also served as a backdrop for the most stunning revelation in the trial’s first month: Allegations from two witnesses and a prosecutor that a sitting prelate, Bishop Michael Bransfield of West Virginia, may have known about sexual misconduct by Gana or abused minors himself.

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MALTA
The Malta Independent

by Francesca Vella

Article published on 22 April 2012

As the Attorney General lost an appeal relating to a defrocked priest having been cleared of rape due to a mistake in the charge sheet, the Justice Ministry insisted that correcting the charge sheet “at an advanced stage of the case” would have been too risky because it could have led to the case being time-barred and dropped altogether.

A few days ago, the Opposition’s spokesmen for justice and home affairs, José Herrera and Michael Falzon, said the mistake in the charge sheet could have been revised when there was the opportunity to do so. They also said then Justice Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici should assume political responsibility for the lack of investment in the Office of the Attorney General, which deals with prosecutions among other things.

The Justice Ministry said however, that the matter has nothing to do with the number of people employed at the AG’s Office, and Dr Herrera and Dr Falzon’s declaration about political responsibility shows that the PL believes there could be some form of political interference in the AG’s office.

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CALIFORNIA
Digital Journal

April 22, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ — Two recent California child sexual abuse cases ruled upon by the Supreme Court of California looked at violations of trust in two distinct institutional settings: sex abuse by clergy and sex abuse by teachers. One case was decided in favor of the student plaintiff, while the other decision set back an action brought by a group of former parishioners.

The cases looked at two issues common to civil actions against schools and churches: to what extent an institution can be held liable for the actions of employees, and the statute of limitations for sex abuse lawsuits brought by adults for harm they suffered as children. They also underscore one common aspect of these cases: people who suffered molestation or other abuse at the hands of adults sometimes have to exhaust their legal options in pursuit of justice. …

Statutes of Limitations for Sex Abuse Claims Against Clergy

Just three weeks later, the California Supreme Court again weighed in on an important child sexual abuse issue in Quarry v. Doe. In that case, a group of six brothers sued the Roman Catholic Bishop of Oakland, alleging negligence in allowing a priest to commit acts of sexual abuse against them when they were children.

The men alleged that they had all been sexually abused and molested by an associate pastor while they were altar boys at the St. Joachim parish in Hayward, California, during 1972 and 1973. In a deposition for another church sex abuse case, the priest had admitted to sexually abusing the brothers.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Sun Chronicle

Let’s talk about sexual abuse of children.

You’d rather not, you say? It’s too sensitive an issue, too hard to talk about.

How about when you talked with your own children about it. Was it difficult then?

You never did talk to the kids about it? Oh…

April is Child Sexual Abuse Protection Month. Newspapers often participate in such promotions by promoting a community-wide dialog. But, as alluded to above, as deeply as the community obviously cares about the safety of children, child sex abuse is not a conversation starter. That’s not to suggest that Sun Chronicle readers haven’t talked about child sex abuse. Twenty years ago next month when it came to light that James R. Porter, a defrocked priest, had sexually abused dozens of youngsters while assigned to North Attleboro in the early 1960s. Many other incidents, though less notorious, have made headlines in the interim. Indeed, we observe regretfully that child sex abuse has never been far from the headlines – just a little over a week ago our front page reported 32 Massachusetts men, including two area residents, had been arrested in a crackdown on an Internet child pornography ring.

The anger following these incidents is palpable. It usually results in pressure on child service and law and order agencies to do something about it. And when the anger passes, the average citizen is no better prepared to talk about child sex abuse than before – what questions, for instance, to ask a child who you might suspect is being abused, or how to talk to your own children about their dealings with adults.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
U-T San Diego

By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

11:16 a.m., April 21, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — Graphic testimony in a Philadelphia clergy-abuse trial this month has ripped open secret church files and reopened old wounds among Catholics as scarred men and women tell jurors that priests groped, molested or raped them as teens.

The testimony has proven both painful and poignant, especially that of a 48-year-old man who said he had been in love with his parish priest during a five-year sexual relationship that began in ninth grade – and jealous when the priest allegedly bedded down at his farmhouse with other teens.

The stories have been told before, in two Philadelphia grand jury reports and in lawsuits filed around the country.
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UNITED STATES
The Huffington Post

By Alana Horowitz

The head of a Catholic lobbying group is fighting back against criticism from the Vatican.

“I’ve no idea what they’re talking about,” said Sister Simone Campbell told the BBC. “Our role is to live the gospel with those who live on the margins of our society: the hungry, the poor, the ill. That’s all we do.”

Campbell was responding to charges that her group, NETWORK, is engaging “corporate dissent.” The Vatican ordered an investigation of U.S. nun group Leadership Conference of Women Religious and its ties to NETWORK, who supported President Obama’s health care reform push. The Vatican accused the Leadership Conference of promoting “certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

Campbell told the AP that she believes the link between the crackdown and the health care reform support is clear.

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SCHWEIZ
Aargauer Zeitung

Am Dienstag hatte B.S. bei der Lancierung der Initiative «Schutz vor Sexualisierung in Kindergarten und Primarschule» seinen grossen Auftritt, gestern trat er aus dem Komitee zurück. Grund: Er sass wegen sexuellen Handlungen mit Minderjährigen. von Pascale Hofmeier und Benno Tuchschmid

Es sind happige Vorwürfe, die eine besorgte Mutter von zwei Kindern erhebt: Wegen Kinderschändung sei B. S. 1996 zu mehreren Jahren Haft verurteilt worden. S. ist einer der Gründer und Präsident des Basler Elternkomitees, das den Einsatz des Basler Sexkoffers und den Sexualkundeunterricht in Kindergarten und Primarschule bekämpft und auf Bundesebene die Volksinitiative «gegen die Sexualisierung von Kindergarten und Primarschule» initiiert hat. Die Unterschriftensammlung wurde diese Woche lanciert. B. S. ist auch Mitglied des Initiativkomitees. Besser gesagt: Er war dort Mitglied.

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SCHWEIZ
NZZ

Die Promotoren der Volksinitiative gegen Sexualkundeunterricht für Kinder unter neun Jahren haben einen schlechten Start erwischt. Der Co-Präsident des Komitees war im Jahre 1996 wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs verurteilt worden. Nun trat er aus dem Initiativkomitee zurück.

dgy. «Der Angeklagte hat das Vertrauen des Opfers und sein Bedürfnis nach Nestwärme jahrelang in einer Art und Weise ausgenützt, die degoutant ist», fasste der Präsident der ersten Baselbieter Strafkammer nach dem zweitägigen Prozess gemäss Medienberichterstattung zusammen. Die Worte galten einem Mann, der eine Cousine seiner damaligen Freundin zwischen dem 12. und 15. Altersjahr immer wieder zum Geschlechtsverkehr missbraucht hatte. Er wurde deswegen am 26. September 1996 zu dreieinhalb Jahren Zuchthaus verurteilt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kreuz

Der Kriechbischof war erst geheilt, als ihn einer von den kirchenfeindlichen Mißbrauchs-Wahnsinnigen ins Gesicht spuckte.

(kreuz.net) Das ‘Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests’ ist eine US-Lobbygruppe für angebliche Opfer von Mißbräuchen im kirchlichen Raum.

„Diese Gruppierung ist niederträchtig, irreführend und unehrlich“ – erklärte der Buchautor Dave Pierre am 5. Januar vor dem US-Magazin ‘Catholic World Report’.

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DEUTSCHLAND
innsalzach

Waldkraiburg – Wie konnte es passieren, dass in einem Klosterinternat jahrzehntelang Schüler misshandelt und missbraucht wurden, ohne dass jemand etwas unternahm? Gibt es ein System dahinter?

Das sind die Fragen, die Rainer Stadler in einer Lesung aus dem Buch “Bruder, was hast du getan?” am 23. April in Waldkraiburg beantworten möchte.

Zusammen mit seinem Kollegen Bastian Obermayer recherchierte der Journalist mehr als ein Jahr zu den Vorwürfen gegen das Internat Ettal. Gegen anfänglichen Widerstand des Klosters setzten sie durch Gespräche mit über 60 ehemaligen Schülern nach und nach ein Gesamtbild zusammen. Eines, in dem Gewalt an der Tagesordnung ist, unter Erziehern und Schülern wie auch unter Schülern. Und wo Mönche, die sich an Kindern vergehen, keine Konsequenzen zu fürchten haben.

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