ABUSE TRACKER

PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

By Rossilynne Skena, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, April 20, 2012

A Roman Catholic nun from Western Pennsylvania was tapped to lead the group representing the majority of the nuns in the nation, just days before the Vatican slapped the organization with sanctions for promoting “certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

Sister Janet Mock, a Johnstown native affiliated with the Sisters of St. Joseph in Baden, was appointed executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious this month, according to the Silver Spring, Md., group’s director of communications, Sister Annmarie Sanders.

The Leadership Conference represents 80 percent of the 57,000 Catholic nuns in the nation.

The Vatican, which oversees the Leadership Conference, announced Wednesday a full-scale overhaul of the group, accusing it of taking positions that undermine Roman Catholic teachings on the priesthood and homosexuality while promoting radical feminist themes.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Archbishop Denis Hart
April 20, 2012
Opinion

Sins of the past cannot be undone, but there has been no cover up.

AS CATHOLIC Archbishop of Melbourne for the past 11 years, I welcome the government’s announcement of the inquiry into how religious and other organisations in Victoria handle allegations of criminal abuse of children within their organisations.

The form of the inquiry is a matter for government. I welcome the Premier’s confirmation that the parliamentary committee will be provided with the resources necessary for it to discharge its important responsibilities.

I am committed to the archdiocese’s full participation in the inquiry.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
My Fox DC

[with video]

WASHINGTON – D.C. Police have made an arrest in the sexual assault of a three-year-old boy at a daycare center.

21-year-old Randolph King is charged with first-degree sex abuse with aggravated circumstances.

The alleged incident happened at a daycare center at the Zion Baptist Church in the 1200 block of Kenilworth Avenue in Northeast D.C.

It is unknown what King’s connection is to the daycare.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

Cathy Kezelman
April 20, 2012
Opinion

The Victorian parliamentary inquiry into sexual abuse within religious organisations is to be applauded. The long overdue announcement this week by the Baillieu government has come on the back of years of lobbying by victims, their families and victims’ groups.

The report into the appalling number of suicides by victims of clergy abuse in that state has delivered, it appears, the final momentum needed for the inquiry to be announced.

To those of us who work in the child abuse arena, such statistics, while always chilling, are not surprising. A 2008 Victorian study established that survivors of child sexual assault are up to 18 times more likely to commit suicide than people who haven’t been abused.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

Editorial

The Vatican is reining in the leadership conference that represents 80 percent of American Catholic nuns, accusing the group of “serious doctrinal problems” and promoting “radical feminist themes.” That seems a misreading of the very fine work in schools, charities, prisons and impoverished neighborhoods being done by about 60,000 nuns across the nation.

These nuns and their leaders continued to bolster the reputation of the Roman Catholic Church even as it suffered one of its greatest scandals in the sexual abuse of schoolchildren by rogue priests and the cover-ups by diocesan authorities.

The Vatican has now appointed a bishop to oversee the operations of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious — the 1,500 superiors who run the sisters’ communities — citing individual nuns at conference gatherings challenging church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood. The announcement also accused the group’s leaders of focusing too much on poverty and economic injustice while allegedly keeping “silent” on abortion and same-sex marriage.

A crucial focus in the inquiry appears to be the fact that dozens of American nuns involved in the conference and in antipoverty and hospital work provided prominent support to President Obama’s health care reform. Conference leaders said Vatican investigators had pointedly raised the issue and the fact that the conference had split with American bishops, who opposed reform.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Baltimore Sun

By Tricia Bishop, The Baltimore Sun

Pastor Leon W. Jones, who founded the Renewed Hope Christian Church on the 700 block of N. Paca St., was convicted Wednesday of sexually assaulting a teen-age girl, the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office announced.

The abuse occurred during a two-year period from April 2000 through March of 2002, prosecutors said. The girl, now 27, was introduced to Jones by her mother, who participated in the abuse and was convicted of five counts of child sexual abuse.

Prosecution A jury convicted Jones of eight counts of second-degree sexual offense, prosecutors said. He faces a maximum of 160 years in prison at his sentencing, set for June 26.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
WMAR

BALTIMORE (WMAR) – A Baltimore jury found a local pastor guilty Wednesday of sexually abusing a teenaged girl from April 2000 to March 2002.

Leon W. Jones, 61, was first introduced to the then 15-year-old girl by her mother. The victim’s mother plead guilty to her role in the sexual abuse. She is now serving 5 years in prison for five counts of sexual child abuse.

At the time of the crime Jones was the pastor at the Renewed Hope Christian Church in Baltimore.

The jury found Jones guilty on eight counts of second degree sexual offense.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Imperfect Parent

April 19th, 2012 by Ella Desrosiers

On Wednesday, a Baltimore City Circuit Court jury found Pastor Leon W. Jones, 61, guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl from April 2000 until March 2002.

According to a report in The Baltimore Sun, the girl, now 27, was introduced to Jones by her mother, who participated in the abuse.

The girl’s mother plead guilty and was convicted of five counts of child sexual abuse. She is currently serving five years in prison.

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BOSTON (MA)
Patch

By Melanie Graham

A member of the Boston College Board of Trustees has stepped down after allegations surfaced that he covered up for an abusive priest.

According to a report on WBUR, Father Brad Schaeffer resigned today after eight years on the school’s Board of Trustees.

Information released from a Chicago-based lawsuit recently revealed that Schaeffer knew about abuse by Donald J. McGuire, a priest who is currently in jail after being convicted for child sexual abuse, the WBUR report said.

The Boston Globe reported today that Schaeffer was McGuire’s supervisor in the 1990s while at a Jesuit province in Chicago. Although several complaints surfaced about McGuire’s conduct, Schaeffer allowed McGuire to continue his ministry, the Globe reported.

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MONTANA
NBC Montana

KALISPELL, Mont. — A Kalispell priest charged with sexual abuse of children pleaded not guilty Thursday morning in Flathead County Court.

Prosecutors claim they found child porn on Rudolph Bullman’s home computer. The investigation started when a woman told Flathead County sheriff’s deputies that a Nintendo gaming system she had bought from Bullman contained images of child porn.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

The Government should accede to the call by the Stop Church Child Abuse campaign for a full independent inquiry to force religious institutions to disclose files on priests accused of sexual exploitation. Both the Catholic and Anglican churches insist that most cases are historical and that effective safeguards are in place.

But new cases continue to trickle into the public domain. Only this week, detectives arrested a retired priest on sex allegations from the 1960s. It is true that the safeguards put in place by both churches since the implementation of the 2001 Nolan report are some of the strongest in the world. But they are still policed only by churches rather than an independent body.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The New York Times

By JON HURDLE

Published: April 19, 2012

Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston issued a statement saying that to hear the “horrific” allegations against him was “unbelievable and shocking.”

Bishop Bransfield, 68, a native of Philadelphia, was formerly a priest in the city’s archdiocese, which grand juries in 2005 and 2011 said had failed to stop the widespread abuse of children by its clergy. He was named the bishop for the West Virginia diocese in 2004.

A man alleging sexual abuse by a member of the clergy testified in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on Wednesday that Stanley Gana, a former priest in the city, once told him that Bishop Bransfield was having sex with a teenage boy. The conversation occurred when the man was in high school.

The man, who is now 48, described Bishop Bransfield as a “personal friend” of Father Gana’s. He said he had been working on Father Gana’s farm in upstate New York when Bishop Bransfield drove up with several teenage boys in his car. …

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, criticized the bishop for issuing a written statement rather than taking questions openly and for questioning the court testimony under oath of two alleged victims.

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MONTANA
KTVQ

KALISPELL- A Flathead Valley Catholic Priest accused of sexual abuse of children pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Rudolph Bullman was the priest at Risen Christ Parish in Evergreen for more than 10 years but was put on administrative leave in December 2011. Bullman allegedly sold a handheld gaming system that contained photographs of nude boys.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

In formerly secret grand jury testimony that was read into the court record Thursday, Msgr. William J. Lynn tried to explain back in 2002 why the archdiocese chose not to investigate when told about minors who were possible victims of sex abuse.

The issue came up when a prosecutor in the grand jury asked Lynn about an interview he had with Robert D. Karpinski, a seminarian studying for the priesthood who came forward in 1992 to allege that he had been sexually abused as a 13-year-old by Father Stanley M. Gana.

Karpinski, who testified in court earlier this week, told Lynn back in 1992 that the abuse from Father Gana, namely oral and anal sex, continued for five years. Karpinski also told Lynn that Father Gana was living with himself and two other boys at a 110 acre farm in northern Pennsylvania that the priest owned. The priest used the boys as farm hands, and put them on a nightly rotation, so they could take turns sharing his bed.

Karpinksi identified the other two boys being abused by Gana as “Toby” and “Mark.” But the archdiocese decided not to talk to either boy, Lynn told the grand jury. As a result, Father Gana continued in active ministry and the archdiocese did nothing until 1995, when Mark Berkery came forward and essentially told Lynn the same story that Karpinski did, namely that Berkery had been abused by Father Gana for years, including oral and anal sex, beginning when he was 14.

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MONTANA
Daily Inter Lake

The 67-year-old Catholic priest charged with possessing child pornography pleaded not guilty Thursday in Flathead District Court.

The Rev. Rudolph “Rudy” Bullman, who for 11 years led Risen Christ Parish in Evergreen, is charged with felony sexual abuse of children.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena placed Bullman on administrative leave the same day that he was interviewed by detectives.

Bullman was charged after pornographic images of children between the ages of 12 to 18 were found in the Internet cache files on his computer and a further 23 images were found to have been deleted.

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ZAMBIA
Zambian Watchdog

Dear Sir,

I write to seek clarification on your utterance in the Post news paper about the declaration of Zambia as a Christian Nation. In a brief quote below, you argued that Zambia can not qualify to be a Christian Nation due to corruption, intimidation, fighting and thieving.

“That is why for me and the Catholic Church, the proclamation of Zambia as a Christian nation is a non-event. It’s a useless proclamation because not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of God. How Christian are we? Just take a look at what happens when we have a simple by-election. Corruption, intimidation, fighting, thieving…is that Christianity?” Archbishop Mpundu.

If indeed Zambian can not be declared a Christian Nation due corruption and other things you mentioned; may I ask you a question? Why should the Catholic Church be a church with so many reported abuses, corruption and scandals at the increase? If the absence of corruption can qualify Zambia to be a Christian Nation, why should the Catholic qualify to be a church with so many shortcomings? If it is required for a society to attain certain qualities to be civilized what more about the church?

MORALITY

The Church should support morality; but this is contrary to the Catholic Church that is in forefront brewing beer as reported by Lusaka Times and times of Zambia.

“The Catholic Church Mansa Diocese in Luapula Province is embroiled in disagreement with a business executive over shareholding in an alcohol business from which the Church has been planning to withdraw. The Mansa Diocese has been in the business of brewing opaque beer through a company called Top Star Breweries, in which it has a strong ordinary shareholding that stands at two million, representing 20 per cent since 2004.”

SEXUAL ABUSE as reported by BBC

In Austria: “A series of claims of sexual abuse by priests has emerged in the Vorarlberg region. Some 16 people have reported 27 alleged incidents there, spanning half a century.”

SWITZALAND: “A commission set up by the Swiss Bishops Conference in 2002 has been investigating allegations of abuse involving the Catholic Church there. A member of the commission, Abbot Martin Werlen, said in a newspaper interview this month that about 60 people have said they were abused by Catholic priests. The alleged incidents are reported to have occurred over the past 15 years”

ITALY: “In June 2010 a high-profile former priest was charged with sexual abuse. Pierino Gelmini, 85, is alleged to have abused 12 young people at a drug rehabilitation center he founded. Meanwhile, a number of deaf men have come forward to say they were abused as children at the Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf in the northern city of Verona between the 1950s and the 1980s.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

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

Complaining that he was blindsided while on church business in the Vatican, the bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, W.Va., on Thursday angrily denied trial testimony in Philadelphia alleging that he sexually abused a child during the late 1970s.

“I have never sexually abused anyone,” Bishop Michael J. Bransfield said in a statement the diocese released.

Bransfield, 68, issued his statement after two witnesses at the child sex-abuse and conspiracy trial involving Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests referenced him while describing their own alleged abuse, and a prosecutor said Bransfield had been accused in a separate instance of fondling a minor.

On Wednesday, a 48-year-old man identified only as “John” in the 2005 Philadelphia grand jury report, told a Common Pleas Court jury how he was molested for more than six years beginning in the eighth grade by the Rev. Stanley Gana, a priest in his Kensington parish.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Apr. 19, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

Women religious and others attend a 40th anniversary event for Network, the national Catholic social justice lobby, April 14 at Trinity University in Washington. The Vatican’s doctrinal congregation has called into question the relationship between the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and Network. (CNS photo/Nancy Phelan Wiechec)

As the largest leadership organization for U.S. women religious begins to discern what steps to take following news Wednesday that the Vatican has ordered it to reform and to place itself under the authority of an archbishop, experts say the options available to the group are stark.

Ultimately, several canon lawyers told NCR, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious has two choices: Either comply with the order or face ouster as a Vatican-recognized representative of sisters in the United States.

What’s more, the lawyers say, LCWR has no recourse for appeal of the decision, which the U.S. bishops’ conference announced Wednesday in a press release. That release stated that, following a three-year “doctrinal assessment” by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain had been appointed to review and potentially revise the organization’s policies.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

The Catholic Church is in deep crisis. We are all familiar with most of the contributory factors and manifestations: recent revelations regarding abuse of children by clergy and the subsequent handling of same by church authorities; growing alienation among Catholics in respect of the position adopted by Rome relating to celibacy, women, contraception; the perceived irrelevance of the church for an increasing number of people, particularly young people; the authoritarian nature of the church, as practiced by the Pope and Curia.

Furthermore, recent decades have seen serious efforts made by Rome to reverse many of the changes introduced following Vatican 2. The latter envisaged a more collegiate church where the Pope would be primus inter pares; where the local church would have more autonomy with an increased role for lay people; serious and sustained dialogue would be held with other Christian Churches, in a spirit of mutual respect; a proper respect for scriptural scholarship and for dialogue with the sciences would be shown. Sadly we have witnessed a more centralised and authoritarian church; emasculation of the local church; the elevation of non-essential teachings (celibacy, ban on women priests, for example) to articles of faith.

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WEST VIRGINIA
My Fox Philly

West Virginia Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Bransfield on Thursday denied sexual abuse accusations made by a witness at a priest abuse trial in Philadelphia. “I have never sexually abused anyone,” Bransfield, the leader of West Virginia’s 76,000 Catholics, said in a statement released through the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.

Bransfield said he’s deeply saddened by the child-abuse scandal that’s been linked to former colleagues and friends from a Pennsylvania seminary where he graduated in 1971.

“Over the years, I have felt devastation for both the victims and the church as I learned about the terrible actions they took with innocent victims,” Bransfield said. “To now be unfairly included in that group and to hear the horrific allegations that are being made of me is unbelievable and shocking.” …

Advocates for abuse victims criticized Bransfield for issuing a statement instead of taking questions.

“It’s important to remember that both accusers gave testimony yesterday under oath. Bransfield didn’t,” said David Clohessy, St. Louis director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Earlier this week, a prosecutor at the trial complained of problems getting a Wheeling priest to come testify. The would-be witness, Monsignor Kevin Quirk, is an aide to Bransfield. A Wheeling judge now wants proof he’s a material witness.

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LOUISIANA
The News Star

The former Kentucky youth pastor arrested in West Monroe last week has been transported to Steamboat Springs, Colo., where he was booked into the Routt County Jail with a $500,000 bond.

John Brothers Jr., 43, was arrested Friday by Routt County Sheriff’s deputies in West Monroe with assistance from the West Monroe Police Department.

Brothers was arrested on eight charges of first-degree burglary, eight charges of sexual assault on a child and seven charges of sexual assault.

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BOSTON (MA)
My Fox Boston

BOSTON (AP) – A Boston College trustee has resigned after criticism of his supervision of a former Jesuit priest convicted of child sexual abuse in the Midwest.

The Rev. Bradley Schaeffer resigned on Thursday. His term was to end in June. The Boston Globe reports Schaeffer said in a letter to the board he didn’t want to harm the college “or be a distraction.”

The Globe reported Sunday that Schaeffer allowed Donald McGuire to continue ministry despite complaints about McGuire’s behavior with boys in the early 1990s when Schaeffer led the Chicago Jesuit province. He has expressed “deep regret” for failing to stop McGuire, who’s in prison on state and federal convictions.

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SILVER SPRING (MD)
Leadership Conference of Women Religious

[Silver Spring, Maryland] The presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was stunned by the conclusions of the doctrinal assessment of LCWR by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Because the leadership of LCWR has the custom of meeting annually with the staff of CDF in Rome and because the conference follows canonically-approved statutes, we were taken by surprise.

This is a moment of great import for religious life and the wider church. We ask your prayers as we meet with the LCWR National Board within the coming month to review the mandate and prepare a response.

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BOSTON (MA)
WBUR

By Deborah Becker
Apr 19, 2012, 2:39 PM

BOSTON — A longtime member of the Boston College Board of Trustees has stepped down amid allegations he covered up for an abusive priest. As advocates for clergy abuse victims were protesting at the Boston College, the school announced that its board accepted the resignation of Father Brad Schaeffer as a trustee.

Recent information from lawsuits in Chicago show that Schaeffer was aware of abuse by another priest — Donald McGuire — but did not inform authorities. McGuire is now serving a 25-year prison sentence for abusing children.

“Father Schaeffer unfortunately allowed Father McGuire to continue abusing children after he was specifically and personally was notified in 1993 that Father McGuire was doing this,” said Terry McKiernan, with the group BishopAccountability.org.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

Jerome Taylor
Thursday 19 April 2012

Survivors of childhood abuse by members of the Anglican and Catholic churches have called on the government to conduct a full independent inquiry which would force religious institutions to disclose any files they have on clergy who have been accused of sexual exploitation.

It is the first time abuse victims have joined forces with lawyers, charities and child safeguarding specialists to launch a dedicated national campaign demanding such an inquiry.

Members of the newly formed Stop Church Child Abuse campaign argue that both the Anglican and Catholic churches have “lost the right to police themselves” following a long history of covering up abuse claims.

They also say safeguards which were put in place following a string of sex abuse scandals in the late 1990s are not strong enough to reinstate trust in the institutions.

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VATICAN CITY
AFP

By Dario Thuburn (AFP)

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has issued a scathing condemnation of the main association of Catholic nuns in the United States for taking liberal stances on contraception, homosexuality and female priests.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) said in a statement on Thursday it was “stunned” by the Vatican report which pointed to “serious doctrinal problems” and “unacceptable positions” on a range of issues.

It accused members of LCWR, which represents around 45,000 US nuns, or 80 percent of the total, of “corporate dissent” with the Church’s teachings against homosexuality and said it was pursuing “radical feminist themes”.

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ITALIA
Genova Oggi Notizie

Genova – La sentenza su don Riccardo Seppia è stata slittata al 3 maggio. Oggi intanto il giudice ha ascoltato gli esperti informatici della polizia postale.

Don Seppia, che deve rispondere di induzione alla prostituzione, tentata violenza sessuale e cessione di droga, rischia una condanna – secondo la richiesta del pm – a undici anni e otto mesi di carcere.

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ITALIA
AGI

(AGI) – Genova, 19 apr. – “E’ plausibile che le immagini di natura sessuale trovate nel computer dell’imputato fossero dei pop up (file scaricati autonomamente dalla rete, ndr) in quanto si tratta di file temporanei”. Lo ha detto stamani un agente della polizia postale nella penultima udienza del processo a carico di don Riccardo Seppia, il parroco della chiesa dello Spirito Santo di Sestri Ponente arrestato nel maggio scorso perche’ accusato di avere molestato sessualmente un chierichetto, di avere tentato di adescarne altri due anche offrendo cocaina e di avere ceduto droga.

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ITALIA
Il Seccolo XIX

Genova – Sarà letta il prossimo 3 maggio la sentenza a carico di Riccardo Seppia, l’ex parroco di Sestri Ponente accusato di tentata violenza sessuale su minori, plurima offerta di droga a minori, tentata induzione alla prostituzione minorile.

Nell’udienza di oggi è stato sentito un tecnico della polizia Postale che aveva esaminato le foto trovate nel computer dell’ex parroco. «Sono file temporanei – ha spiegato il tecnico – che potrebbero essere finiti per caso nel pc. Finestre temporanee che si aprono automaticamente durante la navigazione su Internet».

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 19, 2012

For the first time in the history of the Sacramento Catholic diocese, a judge has ruled that two adults can seek punitive damages in a clergy sex abuse and cover up case involving a priest who is now a fugitive from justice.

The plaintiffs in the civil case, John Doe and Jane Doe, say they were molested by Fr. Gerardo Beltran when they were 10 and 11 years old, respectively. The alleged crimes happened between 1989 and 1991 when they were altar servers at St. Joseph’s Parish in Sacramento.

According to the lawsuit, Fr. Beltran – a native of Mexico – was known to the diocese to be a sexual predator as early as 1988, and had been sent for counseling and treatment before being moved to St. Joseph’s. In the abuse trial of a different priest (Fr. Michael Dermody), then-Bishop Francis Quinn testified that he “had an awareness” of sexual misconduct by Fr. Beltran as early as 1990, and he was being monitored by the diocesan “sensitive issues committee” in 1991. Despite these facts, however, on April 21, 1991, Bishop Quinn assigned Fr. Beltran to a parish in Winters, CA.

Thursday’s ruling by Judge David Brown allows the plaintiffs to seek punitive damages as a result of the Diocese of Sacramento’s negligent retention and fraudulent concealment relating to their handling of Fr. Beltran. In the ruling, Judge Brown notes that the “plaintiffs will meet the clear and convincing standard of proof,” and that “the Diocese had advanced knowledge or ratification of Beltran’s conduct.”

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WEST VIRGINIA/PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 19, 2012

We’re disappointed that Bishop Bransfield is:
■apparently still not forcing his priest, Fr. Kevin Quirk, to testify at the trial in Philadelphia (as requested by prosecutors),
■has issued a written statement, instead of taking questions openly, about the child sex allegations against him,
■is apparently ignoring the allegation that he had a “lewd conversation” with a child,
■refusing to answer the allegation that he brought kids to the beach house he owns
■is only now making statements, seven years after it was first disclosed, about his alleged ownership of property with a child-molesting cleric, and
■continues to attack the judicial system and the judge and prosecutors in Philadelphia, especially since this is a trial that he has not attended. He apparently feels comfortable, from a distance, calling it a “circus.” But yesterday, he refused (through his lawyers) to respond to sworn testimony from that trial (he called the testimony “rumors.”)
■complains that his seminary is being “connected” to the priest abuse scandal (the truth is that dozens of former seminarians from there have been accused of abuse, including Fr. William Ayres, Fr. Edward Avery, Fr. Michael Bolesta, Fr. Robert Brennan, Fr. Gerard Chambers, Fr. John Close, Fr. James Coonan, Fr. Nicholas Cudemoo, Fr. John Delli Carpini, Fr.Philip Dowling, Fr. Peter Dunne, Fr. Thomas Durkin, Msgr. Francis Giliberti, and Fr. James McGuire. So no one’s “connecting” the seminary to abuse – many former seminarians have, in fact, abused.)

It’s important to remember that both accusers gave testimony yesterday under oath. Bransfield didn’t.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Charleston Daily Mail

by Jared Hunt
Daily Mail Capitol Reporter
Charleston Daily Mail

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Bishop Michael Bransfield, West Virginia’s highest-ranking Catholic official, issued strong denial Thursday morning to allegations he sexually abused a young boy in the 1970s.

The denial came one day after a witness in a clergy sex-abuse trial in Philadelphia testified that he was sexually assaulted in a home owned by Bransfield, and said he was told by his abuser that Bransfield had assaulted another boy more than 30 years ago.

“I have never sexually abused anyone,” Bransfield said in a statement released by the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese Thursday morning.

Bransfield could not be reached for comment in response to the allegations when the story broke Wednesday.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The Roman Catholic bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, W.Va., today denied allegations he sexually abused a child during the late 1970s or that he knowingly let other priests use his properties for that purpose when he was a priest in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

“I have never sexually abused anyone,” Bishop Michael J. Bransfield said in a statement released by his diocese.

The statement by Bransfield, 68, a native of Roxborough who was ordained in 1970 by the late Cardinal John Krol, came one day after the testimony of a sex-abuse victim in the trial of two Philadelphia clerics in the church sex abuse trial involving the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

On Wednesday, a 48-year-old man, identified only as “John” in the 2005 report of the Philadelphia County grand jury, alleged he was molested for years beginning in high school by the Rev. Stanley Gana, a priest in his Kensington parish.

The man also described an encounter one summer when he lived on Gana’s 110-acre farm in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The witness said was building a flagstone wall when a car driven by then-Rev. Bransfield pulled up with several teenage boys inside.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

Rev. Schaeffer steps down from Boston College board amid criticism of his role in sex abuse case

By Michael Rezendes, Globe Staff

The Rev. Bradley M. Schaeffer stepped down from his post on the Boston College board of trustees on Thursday in the wake of intense criticism of the role he played in supervising a former Jesuit priest who allegedly molested dozens of children over 40 years.

The Globe reported on Sunday that Schaeffer had failed to stop Donald J. McGuire from sexually abusing boys while Schaeffer was his supervisor as the leader of the Jesuit province in Chicago in the 1990s. Despite several complaints about McGuire’s behavior with boys in the early 1990s, Schaeffer allowed McGuire to continue his ministry.

Today, amid a review of Schaeffer’s conduct by the executive committee of the Boston College board, Schaeffer delivered a brief letter to the board chairman announcing he would step down.

“As all in our community know, Boston College is a wonderful, caring institution of higher education,” wrote Schaeffer, whose term as trustees was scheduled to end in June. “I do not want to harm it or be a distraction. Therefore, I am ending my service as a trustee today.”

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WEST VIRGINIA
Lebanon Daily News

By JOHN RABY Associated Press
Updated: 04/19/2012

CHARLESTON, W.Va.—West Virginia Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Bransfield on Thursday denied sexual abuse accusations made by a witness at a priest-abuse trial in Philadelphia.

“I have never sexually abused anyone,” said Bransfield, the leader of West Virginia’s 76,000 Catholics, said in a statement released through the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.

Bransfield said he’s deeply saddened by the child-abuse scandal that’s been linked to former colleagues and friends from a Pennsylvania seminary where he graduated in 1971.

“Over the years, I have felt devastation for both the victims and the church as I learned about the terrible actions they took with innocent victims,” Bransfield said. “To now be unfairly included in that group and to hear the horrific allegations that are being made of me is unbelievable and shocking.”

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SALINA (KS)
KSALL

A Salina Catholic Priest is arrested in connection with an alleged sex crime.

Police say that 49-year-old Allen Scheer was arrested Wednesday on a Saline County District Court warrant for one count of sexual battery.

In a news release, police say that an investigation revealed that Scheer had inappropriately touched an adult male, “with the intent to arouse or satisfy sexual desires”. The alleged offense occurred at the victim’s residence in central Salina.

Scheer, who is a pastor at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Salina, was booked into the Saline County Jail on a charge of sexual battery. He was booked into jail at 4:55 in the afternoon, and released at 8:01 in the evening, after posting a $1,000 bond.

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SALINA (KS)
KWCH

By Rebecca White
KWCH 12 Eyewitness News

April 19, 2012
(SALINA, Kan.)—
Salina police say that on April 18, 2012, Allen Scheer, 49, 118 N. 9th, was arrested on a Saline County District Court warrant for one count of sexual battery.

Scheer is a priest at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Salina. The Catholic Diocese is expected to issue a statement shortly.

The police say their investigation revealed that Scheer had inappropriately touched an adult male, with the intent to arouse or satisfy sexual desires. The offense occurred at the victim’s residence in central Salina.

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DORCHESTER (MA)
Dorchester Reporter

Apr. 19, 2012

By Lauren O’Brien, DVM

As a lifetime parishioner of St. Brendan’s, and a friend of Father James Lane, I am outraged that a single individual can make an accusation against this wonderful man who died five years ago and tarnish his reputation 40 years after the fact. He is unable to speak back against the charges. And the Archdiocese is content to give the accuser money despite the lack of proof and the absurdity that the individual would have a supposed abuser perform his marriage and baptize his children.

Anyone who knew Father Lane knows that the accuser is absolutely, unquestionably mistaken. Father Lane was a good, honorable, trustworthy man who lived his life in Christ’s light. He cared about all of the people he met and watched over all of the families of this parish. I have lived in St. Brendan Parish for 32 years and spent 8 years at St. Brendan School as a student with Father Lane as the pastor. Father Lane was the patriarch of our St. Brendan Family. We looked up to Father Lane; he was a role model to us all, a truly good man.

Father Lane was special in that he truly cared about individuals and was always there to support people in the parish and their families during hard times. Although he was a sort of figurehead for the parish, he was also very approachable. He would not brush anyone off; he was always ready to listen, whether it was to an elderly parishioner’s pains or a young school child excited to tell of a big game that was won. Everyone was important to him. In his good-natured way he could joke with children or find the words to comfort a grieving relative. He was real and that made religion and Christ’s teachings that we were learning as children real, too. It was not just something that the teachers were saying…it was what Father Lane was living and what he preached each week at Mass.

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DORCHESTER (MA)
Dorchester Reporter

Apr. 19, 2012

By Reverend John J. Connolly, Jr.

Following is the text of a letter that Rev. John J. Connolly Jr., pastor of St. Brendan’s Parish, wrote to his parishioners on April 11:

Dear Parishioners and Friends of Saint Brendan’s:

It is with a heavy heart that I address you today. Like many of you, I read the story in this morning’s paper reporting that Father James H. Lane, one of my predecessors as pastor of this parish, has been the subject of an allegation of the sexual abuse of a child some forty years ago. Like many of you, I knew Father Lane personally, and I admired and respected him. Like many of you, I am deeply shocked and profoundly saddened by the allegation made public today.

As members of this parish and this archdiocese, we have been dealing with the tragic reality and the enduring effects of the sexual abuse of children by clergy for well over a decade. That sad experience does little to prepare any of us for news such as we received today. Many of us are experiencing a variety of emotions as we react to this allegation. Shock, pain, confusion, anger and a host of other reactions fill our minds and hearts. Questions far outnumber answers at this point. Can this allegation be true? How do we respond? What do we, as individuals and as members of this parish, do?

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Joelle Casteix

Earlier this year in Kansas City, SNAP’s David Clohessy was ordered to give a six-hour deposition in a child sex abuse lawsuit. Neither SNAP nor David himself were a party or even knew the victim. Critics piled on Clohessy, calling him evasive and a con-artist. In the end, the deposition has nothing to do with the lawsuit. It was instead a legal maneuver on behalf of a group of bishops to bankrupt SNAP through legal fees.

This week in Stockton, California, former Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony was called to testify in court in the case of Father Michael Kelly, a priest that a civil jury found had molested a boy in the 1980s. Mahony decided to go to Rome instead. Lawyers are pushing for the judge to cite Manhony with contempt.

And legal fees? No worries: the Diocese of Stockton and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles are always more than happy to pick up his legal fees. Collection baskets from poor parishes in vulnerable communities never seem to fail. Besides, what does Mahony care that he is costing taxpayers thousands of dollars in unnecessary court costs?

So who’s the con artist now?

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
ABC News

By MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA April 19, 2012 (AP)

Philadelphia priest described by prosecutors as a serial predator was never investigated after a seminarian’s lurid 1992 complaint because the case “fell through the cracks.”

That’s what Monsignor William Lynn told a grand jury, according to testimony read Thursday in Lynn’s child-endangerment trial.

Lynn, the longtime secretary for clergy for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, is also charged with conspiracy for his handling of priest-abuse complaints.

The seminarian has testified that the priest, Stanley Gana, had sex with him throughout high school, and that he reported it to Lynn in 1992.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Parkersburg News and Sentinel

WHEELING -Bishop Michael J. Bransfield issued a statement Thursday denying the allegations made Wednesday in a trial in Philadelphia.

“I have never sexually abused anyone,” Bransfield said in a statement released by the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese.

Bransfield said he was in Rome attending meetings at the Vatican when this “false story” was publicly released by the media without my knowledge or input.

“To say I was shocked and saddened would be an understatement.”

A man Wednesday testified at the trial of the Rev. James Brennan, accused in a 1996 child sex assault, that a priest raped him in the 1970s at a beach house owned by Bransfield. The man said he was told Bransfield also sexually abused a boy and testified he saw Bransfield with a car full of boys at a farm owned by his accused abuser, the Rev. Stanley Gana, whom the witness said Gana told him Bransfield was having sex with the boy in the front seat.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WTOV

By NEWS9

The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston bishop issued a statement Thursday stating he never sexually abused anyone.

The statement comes a day after a man testified during a clergy sex-abuse trial in Philadelphia that he was raped at a home owned by current Wheeling-Charleston Bishop Michael Bransfield. The witness also testified he was told the bishop also sexually abused a boy.

The 48-year-old witness said he saw Bransfield bring several boys to a farm owned by now-defrocked priest Stanley Gana. The witness says Gana told him Bransfield was having sex with one of them.

The man said Gana raped him for years, including at Bransfield’s beach house. The Associated Press does not generally identify people who say they were sexually abused.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Intelligencer

April 19, 2012

By HEATHER ZIEGLER – Associate City Editor , With AP Dispatches

PHILADELPHIA- A man testified Wednesday in a clergy abuse trial that a priest raped him in the 1970s at a beach house owned by the Most Rev. Michael J. Bransfield and that he was told that Bransfield, who currently serves as bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, also sexually abused a boy.

Today, Bransfield issued a statement denying all allegations.

“I have been deeply saddened by the priest child abuse scandal that has been connected to a handful of my former colleagues and friends from St. Charles Seminary. Over the years, I have felt devastation for both the victims and the church as I learned about the terrible actions they took with innocent victims.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston

I have been deeply saddened by the priest child abuse scandal that has been connected to a handful of my former colleagues and friends from St. Charles Seminary. Over the years, I have felt devastation for both the victims and the church as I learned about the terrible actions they took with innocent victims.

To now be unfairly included in that group and to hear the horrific allegations that are being made of me is unbelievable and shocking. As a native of Roxboro, I consider Philadelphia my home. I have openly been an advocate for the eradication of the abusive behavior of priests in every diocese, and have demonstrated this in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, where I now live and serve.

I have never sexually abused anyone.

I understand that I am a public figure and therefore subject to public criticism. The nature of these statements and the manner in which they were released however go way beyond any sense of fairness and propriety. This case has gone on for seven years or more and simple facts like whether I own, or owned, a farm in the Scranton area were easily determinable. 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.

The statement that a former seminarian of mine, Stanley Gana, abused a minor at a home which I owned on the shore and at which I permitted numerous friends and priests to use is misleading. What did not get released was additional information available to the Prosecutor that I was not aware of the incident and was not present at the house at the time. Gana has confirmed those facts in prior reports.

I was in Rome attending meetings at the Vatican when this false story about me was publicly released by the media without my knowledge or input. To say I was shocked and saddened would be an understatement.

I ask you to pray for me and the parishioners of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston as well as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. At the same time, please join me in prayer for all those who have been affected by sexual abuse.

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NEDERLAND
RKnieuws

UTRECHT (RKnieuws.net) – Gisteren hield de vaste commissie voor Veiligheid en Justitie van de Tweede Kamer een rondetafelgesprek met onder meer vertegenwoordigers van slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik en de Katholieke Kerk. Als vertegenwoordiger van Katholieke Kerk was mr. J. Bakker uitgenodigd om aan het gesprek deel te nemen. J. Bakker is econoom van het Bisdom Rotterdam, voorzitter van het Economencollege van de Nederlandse Kerkprovincie, lid van de Contactgroep inzake seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen.

Bakker lichtte voor de leden van de vaste commissie voor Veiligheid en Justitie toe hoe de Katholieke Kerk, hoewel feiten niet ongedaan kunnen worden gemaakt, probeert te werken aan herstel van vertrouwen. “De aanbevelingen van de Onderzoekscommissie onder leiding van de heer Deetman zijn en worden geïmplementeerd. Het Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik RKK kent vier pijlers: melding, klacht, hulp, compensatie.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBit

[Heiliges Höschen, erhöre uns! – Spiegel]

Nein, liebe Leni. Du hast nicht das Kleid von Jesus gesehen: Man hat dich verarscht!

Das Kleid von Jesus ist nämlich nicht wirklich das Kleid von Jesus Christus.
Aber Bischof Ackermann hat dir das leider nicht erklären können. Er war ja schließlich nicht dabei, an dem Tag an dem du in Trier warst, sondern er hatte wichtigeres zu tun.

Was kümmern ihn die kleinen Kinder? Und die Wahrheit?

Liebe Leni,

lass es mich dir so erklären:

Der Heilige Rock ist nur dann echt, wenn ein Trierer Bischof dies so haben möchte. Genauer gesagt, betrifft diese Echtheit auch nicht den ganzen Rock, sondern nur ein Fragment, das bedeutet, nur ein klitzekleines Stückchen von dem Stück Stoff, dass du dir da angeschaut hast. Und ob dieses klitzekleine Stückchen echt ist, nun ja, also das hängt – wie gesagt – vom jeweiligen Bischof ab. Quasi, wie er gerade gelaunt ist. Oder anders ausgedrückt: Sobald der Bischof merkt, dass er ganz viel Geld dafür bekommt, ändert er seine Meinung. Nur einmal als Beispiel: Jahrelang hieß es, der Rock sei echt. Doch heute darf er nicht mehr echt sein. Dann kämen nämlich die Evangelischen nicht mehr den Rock anschauen und der Bischof würde nicht so viel an der Wallfahrt verdienen. Das Recht darf sich ein Bischof seiner Meinung nach nehmen. Viele Leute sagen: “Ey Bischof! Wieso veräppelst du uns eigentlich?” Aber dann versucht dir der Bischof entweder eine Geschichte von einem Pferd zu erzählen und die Frage der Leute auf diese Weise zu beantworten, oder aber der Bischof hat plötzlich gaaaanz starke Ohrenschmerzen und kann – auf dem einen Ohr zumindest – gar nichts mehr hören. Aber keine Angst, der Bischof sagt natürlich nur, er habe Ohrenschmerzen.

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BELGIEN
De Redactie

Die Katholische Kirche in Belgien hat mit Dutzenden der Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch durch Geistliche auf direktem Wege Abkommen geschlossen. Dadurch erhalten die Opfer eine Entschädigung, wenn sie keine juristischen Schritte gegen die Kirche einleiten.

Zwar besteht seit Anfang des Jahres eine Kommission, die zwischen den Opfern von sexuellem Missbrauch durch Geistliche und der Katholischen Kirche in Belgien vermittelt, doch daneben trifft diese Kirche auch eigene direkte Abmachungen mit Geschädigten.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg-Digital

Wenn ein erwachsener Mann den Kopf eines Kindes zwischen die Beine nimmt, stöhnend seinen Penis am Genick des Kindes reibt, während er ihm gleichzeitig auf den nackten Hintern schlägt, dann ist das kein sexueller Missbrauch. Das Stöhnen kann nämlich von der Anstrengung beim Verprügeln kommen.

Absurd? Grotesk? Bizarr? Mag sein – aber so sieht es das Bistum Regensburg, bzw. ein vom Bistum beauftragter Nürnberger Rechtsanwalt.

Am gestrigen Mittwoch hat das BR-Magazin „Kontrovers“ unseren Bericht zum Serienbrief der Diözese an mehrere Missbrauchsopfer aufgegriffen (Video hier abrufbar) und tatsächlich hat das Bistum dabei so etwas wie eine Stellungnahme abgegeben.

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MALTA
Malta Today

Labour’s spokespersons for justice and home affairs have blamed the lack of investment in beefing up the office of the Attorney General for a court decision Wednesday that turned down the prosecutor’s request to charge a priest with child rape.

The court of criminal appeal threw out the Attorney General’s request to have defrocked priest Godwin Scerri – jailed for five years for sexually abusing minors in his care – found guilty of rape, after a technical error was discovered in the original charge sheet, showing the crime happening in a place when it actually had happened in another.

The court upheld the objections raised by defence counsel Giannella de Marco who argued, through case law, that the prosecution had “ample time” to correct its own mistake on the charge sheet, but did not.

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UNITED STATES
CBS Chicago

NEW YORK (CBS) — The Vatican has ordered a crackdown on a group that represents most Catholic nuns in the United States, and the former Bishop of Joliet is coming in to keep the group in line.

As WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya reports, the Vatican says there is serious concern about the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a group that represents 55,000 American Catholic nuns. …

Bishops Thomas J. Paprocki and Leonard Blair will assist Sartrain in overseeing the group, the New York Times reported. They will have up to five years to revise the group’s rules, and will approve of every speaker brought in for the group’s public programs and replace a handbook that had been used to facilitate discussions on matters that are considered doctrine and should not be challenged, the New York Times reported.

Sartrain has headed the archdiocese in Seattle since 2010. His appointment that year stirred controversy after his diocese ordained a priest who ended up being charged with sex abuse.

The priest, Alejandro Flores, pleaded guilty in September 2010 to sexually abusing a young west suburban boy over a five-year period starting in 2005, when he was a seminarian. The year before, Flores’ ordination had been delayed twice – first when he said he himself had been sexually abused in a Bolivian orphanage as a boy, and again when it was discovered that he had looked at male pornography on a church computer, the Chicago Tribune reported.

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DORCHESTER (MA)
St. Brendan Parish

[letter to parishioners from Rev. John J. Connolly Jr., pastor]

As we, the parish family of Saint Brendan, struggle to deal with the recently publicized allegation against our former Pastor, Father Jim Lane, we recognize that in the midst of the pain, sorrow, anger, confusion and so many other feelings that have been stirred up in us, it is good for us to come together in prayer and for support.

The Friends of Father Lane invite you to a Mass to be celebrated this coming Thursday evening, April 19, 2012 at 6:30 at Saint Brendan Church. Mass will be followed by a reception downstairs in Father Lane Hall.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Apr. 19, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

The largest leadership organization for U.S. women religious says it was “stunned” by announcement Wednesday that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had ordered it to reform its statutes and had appointed an archbishop to oversee its revision.

“The presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was stunned by the conclusions of the doctrinal assessment of LCWR by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” the group says in a press statement this morning.

“Because the leadership of LCWR has the custom of meeting annually with the staff of CDF in Rome and because the conference follows canonically-approved statutes, we were taken by surprise.”

On Wednesday, the Vatican announced it had appointed Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain to oversee the LCWR, which has been the subject of a “doctrinal assessment” by the Vatican congregation since 2009.

The group sent an email earlier this morning to the heads of each of the congregations it represents, explaining how the group initially became aware of the news.

That email, which was obtained by NCR, says that LCWR leadership was in Rome to meet with members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith yesterday regarding the doctrinal assessment. When the leaders came to the meeting, the email says the congregation had already communicated with the U.S. bishops’ conference news of Sartain’s appointment.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

DAVID MARR
April 20, 2012

THE former priest Brian Spillane has been sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment for a series of sexual assaults on young girls – attacks described as “serious, planned and callous” by Judge Michael Finnane of the NSW District Court.

“The offender used his position as a priest to gain access to the homes in which each of his victims lived,” said the judge. “He was very trusted and the parents of each of the victims readily gave him access to their daughters because of that trust and the esteem in which he was held.”

The assaults began in the late 1970s when Spillane was on the staff of St Stanislaus College, a boys’ boarding school in Bathurst. They continued when he became a parish priest in Sydney. He later returned to St Stanislaus as school chaplain.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

The Labour spokesman on justice, Jose’ Herrera, said today that political responsibility has to be shouldered for the fact that a former priest was acquitted of raping a child because of a mistake in the charge sheet.

(see story)

Speaking at a press conference outside the law courts, Dr Herrera said that then Justice Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici had known about a shortage of staff at the Attorney General’s Office, but had not invested enough in the office at the time.

Although some recruitment of lawyers had since been made, staff shortages were still being felt.

He said that the AG’s office has to deal with all prosecutions while also representing the government in court and assisting in the drafting of laws.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Irish Central

[Read the story here]

Patrick Roberts

The case of Father Michael Kelly who fled to Ireland from California this week after a civil suit against him for molesting a child was successful is more complicated than it may seem.

Kelly passed two lie detector tests, and the diocese of Stockton in California believed him not guilty after an intensive inquiry.

Hundreds of his parishioners still stand with him and he was clearly a very popular priest. The pages of local newspapers are filled with testimonials to his work by former parishioners.

Even after the verdict and before he fled to Ireland hundreds of parishioners showed up in the parish hall to support him.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Charleston Daily Mail

by From staff and wire reports
Charleston Daily Mail

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – A witness in a clergy sex-abuse trial in Philadelphia testified that he was sexually assaulted in a home owned by West Virginia’s highest-ranking Catholic official, Bishop Michael Bransfield, and said he was told by his abuser that Bransfield had assaulted another boy.

The 48-year-old witness was on the stand Wednesday when he gave the testimony about Bransfield.

The man was testifying in a criminal trial against Monsignor William Lynn, who is accused of covering up sex abuse allegations for the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

Bransfield has not been charged with a crime.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

April 19, 2012

By Paula Reed Ward / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Swissvale priest will spend seven years on probation and must pay back more than $140,000 he admitted to stealing from the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The Rev. Francis Drabiska on Wednesday pleaded guilty to one count of theft in exchange for the plea deal. The former pastor at the Word of God parish admitted to taking $143,240 from the church between 1999 and 2009 to “live a lifestyle beyond his means.”

During his hearing before Common Pleas Judge Kathleen Durkin, Father Drabiska spoke briefly.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

The autocratic approach of Pope Benedict has brought the Catholic Church in Ireland to the brink of schism, argues Malachi O’Doherty

Thursday, 19 April 2012

A revolution is brewing within the Catholic Church in Ireland. It is coming from the only stratum of the Church that has the power to affect radical change: the priests. The question is: will they have the numbers, the coherence, or the energy to force major change?
They know what has to be done, because they have already recognised the difference between the character of the Church in Ireland and the kind of church Rome wants it to be.

Last week, the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) published the findings of its own research, which found that most Catholics think that the Church is somewhat, or completely, subservient to Rome.

A majority called for bishops to be appointed on fixed terms. Most lay people and nearly half of priests said they wanted to be involved in the appointment of bishops. Even larger majorities said they thought women should be ordained and that priests should be allowed to marry.

This report describes a local Irish church that is so much out of step with Rome that tensions are inevitable.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

A mistake that led to a defrocked priest being cleared of rape could have been corrected during proceedings, a judge ruled yesterday as he threw out an appeal by the Attorney General.

The mistake emerged when, in the beginning of last August, Magistrate Saviour Demicoli acquitted Godwin Scerri, 75, of raping a boy because the victim testified that it happened in Sta Venera in 1992 when the charge sheet said it had taken place in Marfa.

Mr Scerri was convicted of abusing boys about 20 years ago and was sentenced for five years in jail.

Another priest who was also defrocked, Carmel Pulis, 64, was sentenced to six years in jail also for abusing boys.

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MALTA
The Malta Independent

An appeal by the attorney general on the acquittal of a priest raping a boy, was rejected yesterday in the court of criminal appeal – Mr Justice David Scicluna confirmed the decision by Magistrate Saviour Demicoli clearing Godwin Scerri, who has since been defrocked.

The lower court had found that from the evidence produced, one of the charges against Scerri, that of violent rape, had not been committed in Marfa, as the charge sheet said, but at St Joseph Institute, so Scerri could not be found guilty of this charge.

The attorney general disagreed with the decision and said that in spite of everything, the rape had been committed, and the victim was aware of it, as was Scerri himself, who had defended himself against the charge. Once the rape had been committed, Scerri should be found guilty, the attorney general argued.

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Jennie Guzman

One might look at the title of the above post and think, “What do all of these subjects have in common?” Please allow me to explain:

As most know, who have been following the news out of Ireland, Father Flannery and Fr. Fagan have both met with enough Vatican disapproval that they have been “invited” to pray and consider why the Vatican is censoring them. Just after the Pope finished his visit to Cuba, where he was encouraging the good, fine, upstanding Catholics, the Castro Brothers, to consider allowing more, “Free Speech,” the Vatican censors the above to priests, believing of course that the head of the CDF, Levada, had an anointed mandate from God to do so. Unfortunately, many bets are on that the above two priests will meet the same fate as the much-beloved Bishop Morris of Toowoomba, Australia, who had the unmitigated veracity to suggest that women might be ordained, one day! He was permanently removed from his bishopric after a Vatican Inquisition was led by Archbishop Chaput, formerly of Denver. The official reason given for removing him was never really outlined, but we were officially told, “It was for the good of all concerned!”

With the above being said, I would like to move on to the topic of an outdated, Hierarchical Clerical Culture in the world. In every country, these men parade around like Medieval monarchs, with retinues of priest, who possess the Shakespearian, “Lean and Hungry Look,” ready to jump at their ever beck and call. Members of their retinues will even go as far as breaking the law for them by shredding sensitive documents regarding the rape, molestation and sodomy of young children and teens, as openly evidenced in the current trial of Monsignor Lynn, who was Cardinal Bevilacqua’s “Go to Man,” for shuffling Pedophile Priests from parish to parish. Members of the Hierarchy are paid the undeserved deference given them, because of their out-dated roles in society. After all, or supposedly at least, they are assumed to be “Men of God” and followers of Jesus Christ. We have been told for centuries, “They are our present day apostles!” Members of the Hierarchy are purposely unapproachable. Can one imagine how the original apostles would have been accepted by the men, women and children of their day, had they paraded themselves around in the costly garments of kings and if they had worn three story crowns or miters (on their pointed heads)?

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BOSTON (MA)
BishopAccountability.org

By Kristen Grieco Elworthy
Boston Globe
April 17, 2012

As a Boston College alumna, I was disgusted to read the front-page story about the Rev. Bradley M. Schaeffer, a member of the school’s board of trustees, who failed to oversee a Chicago priest now imprisoned for child sexual abuse (“For the Jesuits, a long road to accountability,” April 15).

I was a student when the clergy abuse scandal broke, and it affected me deeply as both a young woman and, at the time, a practicing Catholic.

I admired the way BC handled itself in the crisis, seeming to take on a leadership role in righting the wrongs of the church as described in Michael Rezendes’s story.

I am shocked and saddened to see that, even after the despicable actions and consequences of Schaeffer’s poor decision-making have been brought to light by numerous reliable sources, BC has not only neglected to take action, but has praised Schaeffer’s contribution to the university.

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NEDERLAND
De Morgen (Belgie)

Op het parket in Den Bosch, in Nederland, is maandag een pakket informatie aangetroffen over tientallen zedenzaken die hebben gespeeld tegen functionarissen van de katholieke Kerk in de jaren ’50 en ’60. Dat zei Han Moraal van het college van procureurs-generaal vandaag tijdens een hoorzitting in de Nederlandse Tweede Kamer. Het zijn geen strafdossiers, maar correspondentie waaruit het een en ander af te leiden valt.

Er is volgens Moraal in de stukken sprake van stevige veroordelingen tot cel en terbeschikkingstelling. De vondst is gemeld bij het ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie. De informatie moet nog verder “geduid” worden, aldus Moraal.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

[SNAP Director files response to motion to compel]

Apr. 17, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Lawyers’ attempts to force the director of a national clergy abuse support group to submit to a second deposition and turn over more internal documents is “simply an attempt to harass” the organization, leadership of the group has said in a court filing.

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, was forced to give a deposition Jan. 2 in the case of a Kansas City priest accused of child sexual abuse, the first time a SNAP leader has been forced to testify. Seven lawyers deposed Clohessy for six hours, and he turned over documents in two of eight requested categories.

Two months ago, the defense lawyers asked the court to compel Clohessy to testify again and to hand over more documents from SNAP’s 23 years of records, correspondence and email. That filing also alleged that Missouri confidentiality protections for rape crisis centers should not cover the group.

SNAP’s response, which was filed with the court April 6 and posted to its website last week, refutes the latter claims and says any more attempts to depose Clohessy would amount to a “true fishing expedition.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Maureen Fiedler on Apr. 18, 2012 NCR Today

Last Saturday evening, I was privileged to attend the 40th Anniversary dinner of NETWORK, the Catholic Social Justice Lobby founded by nuns 40 years ago. Since 1972, this organization has done stellar work on the Hill advocating for social justice, the needs of the poor, world peace and the earth itself.

It was a wonderful gathering, and LCWR leaders were very visible and vocal in their praise of NETWORK and well they might be. Here was a gathering of the REAL LEADERS of our church for the future: members of religious communities… nuns, co-members, associates, and wonderful friends.

Now today we get news from the Vatican, appointing an archbishop to lead what they dare to call “renewal” of LCWR. When you look at the specifics, it’s more like dismantling, if LCWR actually does any of it.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WTOV

By NEWS9

A man has testified during a clergy sex-abuse trial that he was raped at a home owned by the current West Virginia bishop and that he was told the bishop also sexually abused a boy. The testimony came at the trial of the Rev. James Brennan.

The 48-year-old witness made the statements Wednesday in Philadelphia about Michael Bransfield, bishop of the Wheeling-Charleston diocese.

He said he saw Bransfield bring several boys to a farm owned by now-defrocked priest Stanley Gana.

The witness said Gana told him Bransfield was having sex with one of them.

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OSTERREICH
der Standard

Interview | Stefan Hayden, 18. April 2012

Die Theologen Paul Zulehner und David Berger über Sexualmoral und den rechten Rand der Kirche

Die Entscheidung von Kardinal Christoph Schönborn, die Wahl eines homosexuellen Gemeinderats in Niederösterreich zu bestätigen, hat zu einer neuen Debatte über die Sexualmoral der römisch-katholischen Kirche geführt. Während die offizielle Kirche sich zu keinem klaren fortschrittlichen Standpunkt in der Frage der Homosexualität durchringen kann, wird auf Fundamentalisten-Treffpunkten wie kreuz.net selbst die Einzelentscheidung Schönborns diffamiert.

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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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DEUTSCHLAND
BR

Als Symbol der Anerkennung soll Opfern sexuellen Missbrauchs eine Entschädigung gezahlt werden. So hat es die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz vor einem Jahr versprochen. Mehrere Diözesen haben bereits offengelegt, wie viele Anträge positiv beschieden wurden. Nicht so Regensburg. Das Bistum schweigt. Zu Wort melden sich Opfer, die sich von der Kirche verraten fühlen. Zum zweiten Mal.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher

Article updated 17 February 2012

This is a classic case-study in how the Catholic Church authorities in Australia harboured a priest, despite complaints about him being a danger to children.

In one parish of the Armidale diocese in northern New South Wales in the 1980s, altar boys complained that they were being sexually abused by a certain priest (let us call him Father XYZ). But the two leaders of this diocese — Bishop Henry Kennedy and Monsignor Frank Ryan — protected this priest, helping him to avoid a criminal conviction.

Privately, Father XYZ admitted that he had indeed been committing sexual acts upon children. Later the church was forced to begin paying compensation to some of these former altar boys.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher

Article posted on 14 April 2012

In 2011 the Catholic religious order of De La Salle Brothers agreed to offer an out-of-court settlement to a former pupil (let’s call him “Zachary” — not his real name), who lived at BoysTown, a Catholic institution in Beaudesert, Queensland, for a part of the 1960s.

This institution, to which disadvantaged boys were sent in their early teens, was established in 1961 by Monsignor Owen Steele, who was the parish priest in charge of St Mary’s parish at Beaudesert, south of Brisbane.

The institution was staffed by De La Salle Brothers, assisted by some lay employees. In the 1960s, the senior De La Salle Brother at BoysTown was Brother Alban Dwyer. Later, other members of De La Salle Brothers took over as the administrator and as assistants. The institution closed in 2001.

In 2010, “Zachary” served a civil demand on the De La Salle headquarters (in Sydney) regarding certain actions which he alleged were inflicted on him at BoysTown in the 1960s.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher

(Article updated 18 April 2012)

Broken Rites Australia has researched a paedophile priest, Father Ronald Dennis Pickering, who was harboured in the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese for 36 years, while he committed sexual crimes against many boys in his parishes. Certain colleagues (including within the church hierarchy) knew about Pickering’s criminal behaviour but they discreetly remained silent.

When Broken Rites established its Australia-wide telephone hotline in late 1993, one of the first calls received was about Father Pickering. Broken Rites advised this caller (and also some subsequent callers) about strategies to obtain justice regarding Pickering’s abuse.

Some victims consulted the Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (SOCA) unit of the Victoria Police about Pickering.

Meanwhile, at least one other victim contacted the church authorities, instead of the police. Church sources then alerted Pickering about this. Therefore, in late 1993, Pickering suddenly vanished from his parish and fled to England, out of reach of the Australian police.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher

(Article updated 18 April 2012)

Broken Rites research has revealed how the Catholic Church authorities harboured Father Paul David Ryan, a sexually abusive Australian priest. This cover-up should be investigated by a public inquiry.

When Ryan was charged (and convicted) in an Australian criminal court, Broken Rites examined the prosecution file. This article is based on that research, plus numerous Broken Rites interviews.

Ryan has admitted guilt.

One of his Australian victims ended up committing suicide — and this boy’s mother (Mrs Helen Watson) has finally forced the church to apologise.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher

Article posted on 19 April 2012

Broken Rites Australia has researched the career of Catholic priest Brian Joseph Spillane, who was sentenced to jail in Sydney on 19 April 2012.

Brian Spillane, C.M., has spent most of his working life as a Catholic priest in the Vincentian religious order (also called the Congregation of the Mission — hence the intials “C.M.” after his name).

A part of his career was spent as a priest working at St Stanislaus College — a Catholic day and boarding secondary school for boys, located at Bathurst, in the central west of New South Wales.

Father Spillane also ministered in Catholic parishes in Sydney and Queensland and he toured other states in Australia, visiting various parishes.

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CHILE
Publimetro

Parte de las víctimas de los abusos sexuales que cometió el ex párroco de El Bosque, Fernando Karadima, reaccionaron indignados tras las declaraciones del arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, quien señaló desde Punta de Tralca que este caso “es un tema cerrado” para la Iglesia.

Lo dicho por la autoridad eclesiástica generó inmediata reacción en el filósofo José Andrés Murillo , el médico James Hamilton y el periodista Juan Carlos Cruz , tres de los cuatro denunciantes de Karadima -Fernando Batlle no firma el documento-, quienes, a través de una carta abierta que hicieron llegar a “La Segunda”, respondieron a Ezzati.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Judy Jones on April 18, 2012

A man has given sworn courtroom testimony in Philadelphia today that West Virginia’s bishop, Michael Bransfield, took boys to a beach cabin, and a Philly priest told him Bransfield was abusing one of them.

And years ago, the friendship between the Philly priest and the West Virginia bishop was noted in a grand jury report. (As best we can tell, Bransfield never tried to refute the report.)

Philadelphia Grand Jury Report and Criminal Charges
Compared with Previous Agreements of Law Enforcement Regarding Other Dioceses

In light of this, we believe that Bransfield – not his lawyer or his PR man – should address these allegations, immediately and directly, and take questions about them. (Remember bishops have repeatedly promised for a decade to be “open and transparent” in clergy child sex abuse and cover up cases.)

This isn’t rocket science. For starters, there are three simple questions Bransfield should answer:

Did or does he own a house with Philly’s Fr. Gana? If so, did he take boys there? And did he molest any of them?

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UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

By Meghan Murphy-Gill

Were you under the impression that the Vatican investigation of U.S. women religious had just blown over? News on that front had been quiet for nearly three years. Well, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and USCCB announced today an initiative to “renew” the Leadership Conference of Women Religious following an “assessment” from the CDF. Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain will be the new Archbishop Delegate for organization, the main organizing body for women religious in the U.S., assisted by Bishops Leonard Blair and Thomas John Paprocki.

The assessment names three things Cardinal William Levada found problematic in the investigation, but remains extremely vague and relies on what seem to have become buzz words for “out of line”: “addresses at the LCWR assemblies” (naming Sister Laurie Brink, OP, a former US Catholic interviewee), “policies of corporate dissent,” and “radical feminism.” (Ironically, the document makes a point earlier of the usage of the word “radical” to mean “the roots,” but fails to do so in this case, thus relying on the whole “feminism is scary” trope.)

Likewise, “The doctrinal assessment criticized positions espoused at LCWR annual assemblies and in its literature as well as the absence of support from LCWR for Church teaching on women’s ordination and homosexuality” and that the LCWR isn’t doing enough to promote “the Church’s Biblical view of family life and human sexuality.”

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UNITED STATES
The Telegraph (Australia)

Vatican busts nuns for focusing on poverty – says they should target gay marriage, abortion

A GROUP of Catholic nuns has been reprimanded by the Vatican for focusing too much on poverty and not enough on fighting gay marriage and abortion.

A male bishop has been appointed to bring to heel the US’ most influential group of Catholic Nuns, The Leadership Conference of Women religious, after the Vatican announced it would be completely overhauling the group, reported The New York Times.

The Vatican has been secretly investigating the group since 2008 because of its support for health care reform and after it questioned the Church’s position on homosexuality.

An assessment report released yesterday found the group had “radical feminist themes” incompatible with the Catholic Church.

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TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade

BY DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

The Vatican has called on Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo to help lead reform of an organization representing 80 percent of American nuns, saying the “doctrinal and pastoral situation” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious “is grave and a matter of serious concern.”

The appointment announced Wednesday follows Bishop Blair’s lead role in a two-year “doctrinal assessment” of the nuns’ group, which included reviewing a decade’s worth of the nuns group’s annual conferences, keynote speeches, and documents and publications. The assessment, released Wednesday, found the group’s teachings to be “problematic” in certain areas, citing concerns over the organization’s position on homosexuality and the ordination of women and its “silence” on some foundational Catholic doctrines such as the right to life.

The Vatican said Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle will lead the new reform initiative, assisted by Bishop Blair and Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., and working with nuns in the group’s leadership.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has called for reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and named Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle as its Archbishop Delegate for the initiative.

The Archbishop Delegate’s role is to provide “review, guidance and approval, where necessary, of the work of the LCWR.”

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: April 18, 2012

The Vatican has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying that an investigation found that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.”

The Vatican’s assessment, issued on Wednesday, said that members of the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.” During the debate over the health care overhaul in 2010, American bishops came out in opposition to the health plan, but dozens of sisters, many of whom belong to the Leadership Conference, signed a statement supporting it — support that provided crucial cover for the Obama administration in the battle over health care.

The conference is an umbrella organization of women’s religious communities, and claims 1,500 members who represent 80 percent of the Catholic sisters in the United States. It was formed in 1956 at the Vatican’s request, and answers to the Vatican, said Sister Annmarie Sanders, the group’s communications director.

Word of the Vatican’s action took the group completely by surprise, Sister Sanders said. She said that the group’s leaders were in Rome on Wednesday for what they thought was a routine annual visit to the Vatican when they were informed of the outcome of the investigation, which began in 2008.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle PI

[Congregatio Pro Doctrina Fidei]

By JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

The Vatican on Wednesday gave Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain the job of imposing discipline and adherence to dogma on America’s largest organization of Catholic nuns, making it toe the line to “the teachings and discipline of the Church.”

A Vatican document praised the women religjous for promoting social justice, but said they have not spoken out on issues of abortion and human sexuality.

In an eight-page “Assessment” from the Congregration for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican said that it found “serious doctrinal problems,” instances of disagreement with the Church’s bishops, and charged nuns with promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

The target of the Vatican’s probe was the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which includes leaders of Catholic women’s religious orders in the United States representing more than 80 percent of America’s 57,000 nuns.

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UNITED STATES
BBC News

The Vatican has ordered a crackdown on a group of American nuns that it considers too radical.

It says the group is undermining Roman Catholic teaching on homosexuality and is promoting “feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith”.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious is the largest organisation of Catholic nuns in the US.

An archbishop has been appointed to oversee its reform to ensure that it conforms to Catholic prayer and ritual.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Annenberg TV News

By Jerome Campbell

The student claims school administrators and officials in the Los Angeles Archdiocese could have prevented the 2006 incident.

The plaintiff, identified as John Doe, filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court against his former high school teacher, John Malburg, and the Archdiocese, which owned the school. The plaintiff’s suit alleges sexual battery and negligence.

The plaintiff said he was coerced into appearing in a series of pornographic videos produced by his teacher at Daniel Murphy Catholic High while church officials tried to cover up the allegation as early as 2005.

A spokesman of the archdiocese disputed accusations of negligence and said Malburg was removed quickly when information surfaced.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Central Victoria

By ABC Bendigo

Former Victoria police detective Dennis Ryan spoke to Central, Western and North Western Victoria Mornings presenter Nicole Chvastek about the state government parliamentary inquiry into clergy sexual abuse.

Days after the state government announced an inquiry into clergy sexual abuse, former Mildura police officer Dennis Ryan says a parliamentary inquiry isn’t equipped to investigate the issue.

The inquiry was announced after dozens of suicides were linked to abuse by members of the Catholic clergy.

“A royal commission without a doubt would be best of all but that would never ever be agreed upon because the depth of a royal commission would be such that it would tarnish many people.”

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

A national inquiry into sexual abuse in religious institutions is needed, the Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) says.

The ALA says the Victorian government’s parliamentary inquiry into abuse, announced on Tuesday, will be “manifestly inadequate” as it will miss widespread cases of abuse across the rest of Australia.

A spokesman for the alliance’s NSW branch, Andrew Morrison SC, said many cases in the state had not been properly investigated.

Dr Morrison singled out the Catholic Church, saying while many other religious institutions also had problems, the church was infamous for failing to comply with legal obligations to report abuse by priests under the Crimes Act.

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AUSTRALIA
Northern Rivers Echo

The Victorian Government has announced it is going to hold a year-long parliamentary inquiry into the Catholic Church and its handling of criminal abuse cases against children.

Good.

There were many people calling for a Royal Commission, which would have greater powers to compel witnesses to give evidence and to elicit documentary and electronic information, but at least there are moves to call the Church to account for one of the great unspeakable atrocities in our society.

For years we have heard reports of how Catholic priests and brothers have committed horrible acts against children, with Church authorities denying, covering-up or blaming “a few bad apples” when the number of cases seems to suggest a culture that is absolutely rotten to its core.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Heights

By Heights Editorial Board

Published: Thursday, April 19, 2012

A recent Boston Globe article has revealed that Rev. Bradley M. Schaeffer, S.J., current member of Boston College’s Board of Trustees, allegedly failed to investigate or contact the police after receiving complaints regarding then-popular Donald J. McGuire’s behavior with young boys. Instead, Schaeffer, leader of the Jesuits in the Chicago area during the early ’90s, sent McGuire to treatment for a sexual disorder—treatment he later acknowledged did not go well. He reportedly knew about McGuire’s repeated abuse for over 30 years.

According to the article, following the treatment, McGuire allegedly continued to molest boys until at least 2003, six years after Schaeffer left Chicago. McGuire is now serving 25 years in a federal prison for child sex abuse while the Jesuits face a lawsuit for their failure to protect one of McGuire’s alleged victims. The Jesuits did not expel McGuire from the order until 2007, nearly 40 years after the first serious allegation against him.

Though Schaeffer, now 62, is planning to retire from BC later this year, The Heights feels the University should take action immediately, and we urge the Board of Trustees to remove him from their membership. While we acknowledge the fact that the University had no knowledge of Schaeffer’s role in the McGuire case when he was elected to the board, The Heights feels that inaction in this case would endanger the school’s reputation as one of the most prestigious Catholic institutions in the country.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

Brian Lennon, s.j.

Pope Benedict in his Holy Thursday Chrism Mass sermon rightly called on Catholics to obey the teaching of the Church. Processes exist to establish what that teaching is. There is, however, a major problem with some of these processes and that in turn raises questions about the reliability of the answers they reach about some truth questions.

Over 25 years ago, as editor of Studies, the Irish Jesuit review, I phoned Fr Richard McCormick, s.j., then a leading Catholic moral theologian, to ask him to write an article on family issues. He was unable to do so because his views were unacceptable to the Vatican. Instead he referred me to one of his former students who kindly agreed to write the article.

While there is a need for the magisterium, it is also the case that the magisterium has grounds to be cautious, given that its predecessors silenced many, including Karl Rahner and Henri de Lubac, who subsequently became periti or experts at Vatican II, and whose views were adopted by the Council. It seemed extraordinary to me then that such a leading theologian should be silenced. The issue has a particular relevance in Ireland today, given the silencing of Frs Tony Flannery and Gerard Moloney.

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IRELAND
The Southern Star

By Editor
Saturday April 21st, 2012

THE findings of a survey, entitled Contemporary Catholic Perspectives, which was commissioned by the Association of Catholic Priests, could be deemed facile, given that the recent report of the Apostolic Visitation group from the Holy See declared that people who profess to be members of the Roman Catholic Church must be prepared to fully abide by its teachings and rules, which are quite clear and unambiguous

Much has been made in the survey – carried out among 1,000 Catholics throughout the island of Ireland over a two-week period in February – of people’s preferences for various changes in the institution that could make it more relevant in the modern world and also more palatable to them. In restaurant parlance, the majority of those surveyed would ideally like to be à la carte catholics, just picking the bits they like and adding some tempting side orders, but the reality is that this option is off and they can only avail of the set menu.

The dictat from the Vatican could be interpreted on the one hand as the church being out of touch with its members, who – albeit perhaps naïvely – expect the institution to react to the concerns of members and fulfill their wishes. However, as history has shown down through the centuries, the church regards itself as the single-minded guardian of its core beliefs and sticks rigidly to its rules, yielding little or nothing to those who question them.

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NETHERLANDS
Radio Netherlands

The Roman Catholic church actively encouraged the castration of homosexual boys and men in the 1950s and ’60s, according to scholars who testified to the Dutch parliament. Medical historian Mart van Lieburg told parliament that a Dutch bishop ordered surgeons to perform castrations.

Professor Van Lieburg was speaking at a hearing called to clarify reports of castrations in Roman Catholic psychiatric care. He declined to name the bishop or the surgeons who had made the allegations. Another historian, Marnix Koolhaas, told parliament that several pastors sent boys to a doctor with orders to have them castrated.

Further research neeeded
Christian Democrat parliamentarian Madeleine van Toorenburg is now calling for new scholarly research into castrations. She told Dutch broadcaster NOS she wants to know whether they were performed on minors, or on anyone without consent. She stopped short of demanding a parliamentary inquiry.

The Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad reported last month that Henk Heithuis, a minor, had been forcibly castrated as a punishment for blowing the whistle on sexual abuse by a Catholic brother in 1956. The incident was reported in 2010 to the Deetman Commission which was investigating sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church. The church-installed commission did not investigate the case and made no mention of it in its final report last December.

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AUSTRIA
New Europe

Two years ago a commission in charge of investigating allegations of misconduct sexual and abuse by Catholic clergy was established in Austria and finally they unveiled the results.

The commission dedicated €8 million from a compensation fund set up by the Austrian Catholic Church for compensating victims in cases they found to be merited.

Some 702 cases, sometimes dating back to 1960s, were examined, and out of 1,244 complainants, nearly two thirds alleged sexual abuse and four out of five victims were younger than 13, nearly a third younger than 10 at the time when abuses were conducted. More than three quarters of all claimants were men and on average the abuse lasted for four years.

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COLORADO
Craig Daily Press

By Matt Stensland

Steamboat Springs — A former Steamboat Springs private school teacher and pastor has been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting one or more children in Routt County.

John Holland Brothers Jr., 43, was booked into Routt County Jail on Tuesday night after being arrested in Louisiana last week. He was booked on 27 felony charges. Among them: eight counts of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, four counts of sexual assault on a child, seven counts of sexual assault and eight counts of first-degree burglary.

An arrest warrant outlining the details of the allegations has been sealed by a judge. The location of the incidents has been redacted in the list of charges filed in Routt County District Court, but the charges state the crimes Brothers is accused of committing took place from April 1, 2006, to May 31, 2008.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

BY NEELIMA CHOAHAN

19 Apr, 2012

A STATE government inquiry into the child sexual abuse by religious and non-government organisations is a first step in a very important process, a leading social justice expert has said.

Former Ballarat academic Professor S. Caroline Taylor, now at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia, said the inquiry would help acknowledge a very serious and entrenched problem in society.

“Whilst some people are critical because they believe the government hasn’t gone far enough in establishing a royal commission … I think (it is) a first step in a very important process of acknowledging the very serious and entrenched problems in society,” Professor Taylor said.

The year-long inquiry, announced by Premier Ted Baillieu and Attorney-General Robert Clark on Tuesday, is to be conducted by a state parliament committee rather than as a royal commission and will report by April 30, 2013.

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UNITED STATES
Verdict

Marci A. Hamilton

Last week, the California Catholic Conference (the lobbyist for the California bishops) sent a one-page letter opposing AB1628, a bill that contains a short extension of the child-sex-abuse statutes of limitations, and requires more rigorous background checks for employees and volunteers who work closely with children. This is a letter worth a closer look, because the bishops are opposing legislation to protect children from predators in many states.

In child-sex-abuse cases involving their employees, the bishops routinely argue that the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses protect them from liability for child sex abuse. Roughly half of the states, at this point, have flatly rejected this argument, with a very persuasive opinion recently issued by the Tennessee Supreme Court in the Redwing decision. But Wisconsin, Missouri, and Utah have—unconscionably—wrapped religious organizations in a First Amendment mantle in child-sex-abuse cases.

On a parallel track, the bishops are lobbying in many states to block legal reform that would protect children from sex abuse. The most recent example of that lobbying is the letter that was sent by the California Catholic Conference in opposition to AB1628.

There are three major arenas in which legal reform is needed if we are to better protect our children. First, we must eliminate the statutes of limitations for these heinous crimes and for the tort actions needed by victims—a type of reform that I discuss in my book Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children. Second, we must improve the reporting of child sex abuse to the authorities. Third, we must improve background check requirements for employees who will, or may, have contact with children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Hull Daily Mail

CHILD abuse by members of the clergy should be subjected to a public inquiry, a campaigner has said.

Solicitor David Greenwood, who is representing more than 150 victims of abuse at a Market Weighton care home for boys, is launching the campaign for an inquiry.

Mr Greenwood, of Jordan’s Solicitors, is fighting for compensation for the men who suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of staff at the now-demolished St William’s through the 1960s to the 1990s.

Mr Greenwood said: “The Church is responsible for covering up sexual abuse by members of the clergy up and down the country.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer

A Philadelphia man testified Wednesday that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia priest who allegedly sexually abused him for years starting the late 1970s had said a colleague – now a bishop in West Virginia – also had sex with teenage boys.

The 48-year-old witness, identified only as “John” in the 2005 report of the Philadelphia County grand jury, described a meeting one summer while in high school when he spent summers at the Rev. Stanley Gana’s 110-acre farm in northeastern Pennsylvania.

He said he was building a flagstone wall when a car pulled up driven by then-Rev. Michael J. Bransfield and containing several teenage boys.

Bransfield is now bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.

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ARLINGTON (VA)
Washington Examiner

An Arlington priest has been placed on leave while authorities investigate allegations that he engaged in sexual misconduct with a teenage boy in the 1990s, church and police officials said Wednesday.

The Diocese of Arlington said the investigation into Rev. Terry Specht is in its initial phase and no determination about the alleged misconduct has been made.

The Fairfax County Police Department is also investigating the case. No charges had been filed against Specht as of Wednesday, police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said.

Specht, who was a pastor and administrator at Holy Spirit Church in Annandale until he was placed on administrative leave, denies the allegation, according to a statement from the diocese.

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ARLINGTON (VA)
Imperfect Parent

April 18th, 2012 by Ella Desrosiers

The Rev. Terry W. Specht, a prominent priest in the diocese that oversees Northern Virginia, is being investegated following accusations of sexual misconduct with a minor boy which allegedly occurred during the late 1990s while he was a parochial vicar at St. Mary of Sorrows Church in Fairfax.

According to the Washington Post, Specht was director from 2004 to 2011 of the Office of Child Protection and Safety, which handles outreach to child abuse victims, training on abuse for church employees and volunteers and monitoring of youth activities “to ensure that all contact with young people is appropriate,” its Web site says. Specht also served as chaplain and assistant principal from 2000 to 2004 at Paul VI Catholic High School and has been pastor of Holy Spirit Church in Annandale since 2007.

“Any allegation of abuse deepens the pain felt by all Catholics and particularly survivors of abuse,” Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde said in a report by NBC Washington. “We are committed to full cooperation with law enforcement regarding this allegation, and I have directed an independent investigator to review the actions and decisions made by Father Specht during his tenure as director of child protection.”

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