ABUSE TRACKER

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Colm Kelpie

Thursday February 23 2012

ARCHBISHOP of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin yesterday said it was time to “move on” from the row over the closure of Ireland’s embassy to the Vatican.

After an Ash Wednesday Mass on the campus in University College Dublin, Dr Martin said that while he believed it was a mistake to close the embassy at the Villa Spada in the Holy See, it would reopen in time.

“I think it was a mistake to close it, but let’s be realistic, for a moment,” he said. “For some period of time you’ll have a non- resident ambassador, a very competent person, a very committed person, I don’t think the polemic is helping anybody anymore.

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UNITED STATES
The Marquette Tribune

By Andrea Anderson

February 23, 2012

Leaks and conspiracy theories are crossing the tall walls of the Vatican, and the holy city is getting heavy press attention after reports of suspicions of money laundering at the Vatican’s bank, an ailing Pope Benedict XVI and internal conflict with his right-hand-man and Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

The rumors come partially as a result of the Jan. 25 broadcast of private letters sent to Bertone and the Pope from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, former deputy governor of Vatican City and currently the Vatican ambassador in Washington state.

The Vatican has claimed these letters are authentic.

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ITALIA
AgenParl

(AGENPARL) – Roma, 21 feb – “Gli Intoccabili”, il programma di Gianluigi Nuzzi su LA7, torna sui documenti riservati del Vaticano che negli ultimi mesi sono stati pubblicati dai media, prime tra tutte le lettere di Carlo Maria Viganò (nunzio apostolico a Washington) al Santo padre, rese note un mese fa dallo stesso programma. La puntata di domani, in onda alle 21.10, darà voce con un’intervista esclusiva – realizzata dallo stesso Nuzzi in una località segreta – a uno dei cosiddetti ‘corvi’, uno tra coloro che hanno reso pubblici tali documenti. “Lavoro in Vaticano da una ventina d’anni”, racconta in un passaggio. Alla domanda se si senta un ‘corvo’ risponde “assolutamente no” e, sul numero delle ‘talpe’ interne alla Santa Sede afferma che “potrebbero essere una ventina”. Il motivo? “Un rigurgito, un gesto di rabbia”, dice”.

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ITALIA
Davide Maggio

Gli Intoccabili tornano a svelare i segreti dei Sacri Palazzi, infiltrandosi laddove si aggirano falchi, colombe e… corvi. Stasera il programma di La7 condotto da Gianluigi Nuzzi indagherà sui documenti vaticani che hanno delineato una ‘lotta’ interna alle mura leonine. La trasmissione aveva già mostrato alcune lettere inviate al Papa in cui si faceva riferimento a “situazioni di corruzione e prevaricazione“, suscitando l’ira della Santa Sede.

Nella puntata odierna Gli Intoccabili daranno voce a uno dei cosiddetti “corvi” che hanno reso pubbliche quelle scottanti carte. In un’intervista realizzata da Nuzzi, la spia ha dichiarato che le ‘talpe’ in Vaticano “potrebbero essere una ventina“. Il motivo? “Un rigurgito, un gesto di rabbia“. “Forse c’è una sorta di omertà a non fare emergere la verità delle cose” ha aggiunto il delatore.

“Il nostro è un Paese dove si può entrare, fare una strage e andarsene indisturbati e dopo 24 ore nessuno può mettere bocca su quello che è successo. Oppure sparisce una ragazzina e per 30 anni non si riesce a trovare una persona che dica qualcosa su come può essere andata“

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VATICAN CITY
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

The Vatican is ruled by a climate of fear and an ‘omerta’ code of silence, a whistle-blower has claimed.

By Nick Squires, Rome
6:00AM GMT 23 Feb 2012

The mole claims to be one of more than 20 people within the Holy See who have leaked sensitive documents to the Italian media in the last few weeks, in an affair that has been compared to the WikiLeaks scandal and dubbed “Vati-leaks”.

The unidentified man, who said he had worked in the Vatican for more than 20 years, made the claims in an interview to be aired on Italian television on Wednesday night.

His face was hidden and his voice digitally distorted when he appeared on the TV channel, La7.

According to extracts of the interview, the whistle-blower said the Vatican was engulfed in intrigue, secrecy and a climate of intimidation. …

The whistle-blower said the Vatican is a place where “you can commit a murder and then disappear into the void” – a reference to a murky scandal in the Swiss Guard in 1998, when a young soldier shot dead the corps’ commander and wife before apparently committing suicide.

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ROME
Chiesa

A new man at the top of the congregation: the German Heereman. Meanwhile, however, many consecrated women are leaving. The torment of their leader, Malén Oriol. The silent revolution of Cardinal De Paolis

by Sandro Magister

ROME, February 23, 2012 – For one week, a new man has been at the head of the Legionaries of Christ. He is young, only 36 years old. He is German, from Bavaria. He belongs to the noble lineage of the van Zuydtwyck. He has a brother who is a religious, and a sister who is a consecrated virgin. His parents testified for him in St. Peter’s Square, in the pope’s presence, on the eve of the closing of the Year for Priests, on June 10, 2010.

His name is Sylvester Heereman. He is the new vicar general of the Legion, in the role that previously belonged to Father Luis Garza Medina, the most powerful of the close collaborators and then successors of the infamous founder Marcial Maciel.

The appointment came unexpectedly, on February 16, with a statement from Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, the pontifical delegate to whom Benedict XVI has given full powers in order to avert the downfall of the Legion and of the associated lay movement Regnum Christi, with its hundreds of consecrated men and women.

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OSTERREICH
Anselm van der Linde
Abt von Wettingen-Mehrerau

Abtei Mehrerau: Unabhängige Opferschutzkommission wurde eingerichtet, um auch bei Verjährung Entschädigungszahlungen zu ermöglichen. Keine Haftung des Klosters für vorsätzliche Handlungen von Mitgliedern der Gemeinschaft.

(Bregenz, 21.02.2012) Die Abtei Mehrerau hat gestern, 20.02.2012, fristgerecht die
Beantwortung der Klage eines Opfers von sexuellem Missbrauch bei Gericht eingebracht.
Generell stellt Abt Anselm van der Linde dazu fest: „Um den Opfern des oft jahrzehntelang
zurückliegenden und dadurch juristisch verjährten Missbrauchs auf alle Fälle eine
Entschädigungszahlung zu ermöglichen, wurde von der Bischofskonferenz die
Opferschutzkommission eingerichtet. Dort werden Opfer unabhängig, sensibel und diskret
beraten und unterstützt. Und es werden in möglichst kurzer Zeit Entschädigungen und
Therapiekosten ausbezahlt.“

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CANADA
VOCM

A retired Roman Catholic priest is expected to enter a plea in court today on a variety of sex charges. George Ansel Smith is facing 38 offences including gross indecency, indecent assault and sexual assault. A 16-month investigation by the RCMP revealed the incidents happened over a 20-year period between 1969 and 1989, while Smith was stationed in different communities on the west coast.

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CONNECTICUT
WTNH

[with video]

Erin Logan

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) – Two Connecticut men are filing a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America for sexual assaults they say happened when they were kids.

The men who are filing the lawsuit partnered with Attorney Kelly Clark from Portland, Oregon who has 60 cases in 14-states against the Boy Scouts.

“Why me? Why did you choose me?”

It’s a question the now 41 year-old victim has wanted to ask his alleged abuser David “Dirk” Davenport for over two decades as he’s battled relationship problems, addictions, and shame. However he has been in panic mode since his eight year-old daughter was born. …

Boy Scouts of America issued the following statement:

“The abuse of anyone, and especially children, is abhorrent and intolerable, and the Boy Scouts of America continues to evolve our multi-layered youth protection efforts. In the 25 years since the events described, Scouting has mandated training and education for everyone in our organization and designed policies that prevent one-on-one contact between youth and adults. Today, anyone suspected of abuse is immediately removed from Scouting, reported to law enforcement and Scout executives and added to our Ineligible Volunteer Files.

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CALIFORNIA
Digital Journal

By Yukio Strachan
Feb 22, 2012

Santa Barbara- The Boy Scouts of America has until Friday to produce more than 5,000 records, kept secret for decades, detailing allegations of sexual abuse by scout leaders across the nation.

The attorney for the plaintiff, Santa Barbara attorney Timothy Hale, told the Santa Barbara Independent that the files, which will not be made public on Friday, showed that the Boy Scouts of America has maintained thousands of secret “perversion files” detailing child molestation cases, involving up to 20,000 scouts abused by leaders during 1965-85 alone, and perhaps 100,000 since 1925.

“For 70 years, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has concealed from the public the fact that sexual abuse has pervaded the institution,” hiding from parents the fact that their children were and still are at heightened risk of being targets of “pedophilic wolves,” Hale charged in the Superior Court suit.

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NEW MEXICO
KFOX

States marshals in New Mexico added Sergio Luevano, who is accused of child sex abuse, to their district’s Most Wanted listed.

Luevano was indicted by a grand jury on second degree criminal sexual contact of a minor charges April 14, 2011.

Police said that during March 2010, Luevano touched or applied force to the unclothed intimate parts of a child under the age of 12. Luevano is a member of the Jehovah Witness Church and confessed to elders in the church that he did touch the child, police said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

BY MENSAH M. DEAN
Philadelphia Daily News
deanm@phillynews.com 215-854-5949

TYPICALLY, it does not take trial attorneys a week to read the questionnaires from prospective jurors before ever interviewing those people.

But that’s going on this week in the largest courtroom at the Criminal Justice Center, as attorneys and Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina lay the groundwork to impanel a jury in the trial of three Philadelphia Catholic priests accused of raping and endangering altar boys beginning in the 1990s.

Sarmina has said that the jury-selection process could take a month.

Jury selection rarely takes more than a day or so. But for a trial that will feature the intersection of two emotionally charged issues – religion and child abuse – taking such a long time to pick a jury is understandable and necessary, said Marita Green, chair of Voice of the Faithful of Greater Philadelphia.

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CONNECTICUT
Herald-Tribune

By DAVE COLLINS
Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. – Two men in their early 40s sued the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday, claiming scouting officials failed to protect them from a sexually abusive scoutmaster in Connecticut when they were children in the mid-1980s.

The plaintiffs, identified only as John Roe 1 and John Roe 2, filed a negligence lawsuit in state court in New Haven against the national organization and its Connecticut Yankee Council chapter. They say they were sexually abused on several occasions by David “Dirk” Davenport when he was the leader of Troop 490 in Madison.

The men allege scouting officials knew or should have known that before Davenport came to Connecticut in 1983, he had been accused of molesting boys in Montana, Nebraska and Minnesota in the 1970s and early 1980s, sometimes when he was a scoutmaster in those states.

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FLORIDA
Patch

Dirk Davenport, who pleaded guilty in the 1980’s to sexual assault of nine Boy Scouts, is serving as an associate pastor at a Florida church. His actions in the 1980’s led to a lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Boy Scouts of America.

By Pem McNerney

An Associated Press Report says the man at the center of a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America involving repeated cases of child sex abuse is serving as an associate in congregational care at SunCoast Cathedral MCC in Venice, Fla.

“Davenport, 74, didn’t return a phone message left Tuesday at the SunCoast Cathedral Metropolitan Community Church in Venice, Fla., where he is an associate pastor. His home phone number is unlisted,” the Associated Press report in The Miami Herald said.

A woman who answered the phone Wednesday morning at the church said Davenport was not in, but that he was expected in later that evening. She said he serves as an associate pastor at the church, helping the senior pastor with the care of the congregation. She said she did not know about the reports of child sex abuse and did not know whether it was the same Davenport and declined to answer further questions.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Eamonn Walsh
BBC News

Years of sexual abuse scandals have hit the image of the Catholic Church and its priests face long hours and modest wages. So what drives the young men who want to be ordained?

Just around the corner from the designer shops and fancy restaurants of London’s Kings Road stands Allen Hall. It is home to a small number of men in the middle of a journey.

The residents of Allen Hall, a Catholic seminary, are spending up to six years preparing to become Roman Catholic priests.

The student priests, known as seminarians, believe they are answering God’s calling in dedicating their lives to the work of the Church.

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CANADA
The Whig-Standard

By Danielle VandenBrink The Whig-Standard

School officials are offering counselling to students at Holy Cross Catholic Secondary School following news of sexual abuse allegations against their former priest.

Father Rene Paul Labelle, 62, of Seeleys Bay was charged with sexual assault, sexual exploitation and invitation to sexual exploitation Monday.

Provincial police say the allegations were brought forward by a man who was a teenager at the time of the incident, alleged to have happened in the summer of 2004.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
New Hampshire Union Leader

Published Feb 23, 2012

A Catholic priest convicted in 1994 of sexually assaulting boys wants a new trial, claiming new evidence exposes his chief accuser as a manipulative liar intent on making money off the church.

Writing in support of their motion for a new trial for Gordon MacRae, attorney Robert Rosenthal of New York City and Manchester lawyer Cathy J. Green say new evidence reveals the accuser admitted to friends and family “his accusations were lies manufactured for diocese cash.”

MacRae was convicted at trial of sexually assaulting the teenager, then pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting three other boys. He is serving a 33 1/2 to 67 years prison sentence. He maintains his innocence.

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NEW MEXICO
KOB

[with video]

By: Joe Vigil, KOB Eyewitness News 4

Mary McCarthy Stanton, who said she was molested and raped by a priest in the 1960’s, felt compelled to speak out after seeing recent TV coverage of the death of former Santa Fe Archbishop Robert Sanchez.

Sanchez stepped down from his post, in part, after failing to take action against priests accused of sexually abusing children.

Stanton said she was bothered by how easily people were willing to forgive Sanchez when he died. …

Below is a statement released by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe:

“Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan, along with bishops from across the country, have acknowledged a sad reality of modern life: protecting children from sexual predators is not easy and cannot be taken for granted. To address this issue, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe has a Victims Assistance and Safe Environment Coordinator who oversees programs for children and adults to make everyone aware of how serious we are about protecting our children. ”

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WISCONSIN
WXOW

By Kevin Millard

SPARTA, Wisconsin (WXOW) – A pastor of a Sparta church is arrested on allegations he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl.

Sparta Police Chief Michael Kass says in a release that James Monson, 41, was taken into custody Monday evening on charges of Sex with a Child Age 16 or Older and Sexual Exploitation by Therapist.

Kass says Monson is the Pastor of the Gaining Ground Community Church, 620 Industrial Drive in Sparta.

Monday, the parent of the girl went to Sparta Police to report what was believed to be inappropriate touching between Monson and her daughter.

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

February 22, 2012

SNAPwisconsin.com
Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director
CONTACT 414.336.8575

The pastor of Gaining Ground Community Church, located in Sparta Wisconsin, was arrested and taken into custody on charges of sex with a child age 16 or older and sexual exploitation by a therapist. Sparta police were notified by the victim’s mother that the pastor, James Monson, had inappropriately touched her daughter. When interviewed by police the victim reported she had sexual contact with Monson on several occasions.

This brave victim and her mother are to be commended for contacting and working with law enforcement officials. The Sparta police department is likewise to be applauded for their diligence in investigating this reported crime. It has been demonstrated time and time again that the sooner law enforcement authorities are involved in a possible child sex crime the better the chances are that predators will be prosecuted and prevented from harming additional youngsters.

The arrest of Pastor Monson is further evidence that the sexual abuse of children is an epidemic in Wisconsin and throughout the country. That is why Wisconsin legislators have introduced the Child Victims Act. State Representative Sandy Pasch (D-Whitefish Bay) who sponsored the legislation remarked “This is a huge issue, the number of children in Wisconsin and this country that are being sexually assaulted by adults. It’s a tragic epidemic and we have to step up and do something about it”.

This important child protection measure would remove the civil statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, the very crime that Monson is reported to have committed. All major law enforcement organizations and agencies have endorsed this important legislation. Citizens in Wisconsin should contact their respective representatives and urge them to pass the Child Victims Act.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By MARK MORRIS
The Kansas City Star

A former Kansas City-area Catholic priest sexually abused four boys in an Independence family, a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court alleges.

John Tulipana, who left the ministry in the mid-1990s, purportedly abused four boys while serving at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Kansas City. The suit alleged that the abuse began in 1976 and occurred on camping trips and at the family’s home.

The suit names Tulipana and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph as defendants. It does not identify the plaintiffs.

Tulipana could not be reached for comment Wednesday. A recording on his home phone line said the number had been disconnected.

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ARIZONA
NewsMax

Beleaguered Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeau on Tuesday asked authorities in a neighboring county for a comprehensive, independent investigation into allegations against him and his office.

Babeu asked the Gila County Sheriff’s Office and County Attorney’s Office to “look into allegations of human rights violations, threatening and intimidating, misuse of public resources, theft of property, theft of identity, fraud and impersonation.”

In a one-page letter to Gila County Sheriff John Armor and County Attorney Daisy Flores, Babeu said he had instructed his office and political staff “to fully cooperate with your inquiry in an effort to settle these allegations made against me.”

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ARIZONA
Tucson Citizen

by DA Morales on Feb. 22, 2012

Paul Babeu sues Catholic priest for sexual abuse.

Former Berkshire County Commissioner, Paul Babeu, is suing a former priest, accusing him of sexual abuse.

The suit was recently filed by Babeu who now lives in Arizona. It is the eleventh lawsuit filed this year against the Rev. Richard Lavigne.

Springfield Diocese Bishop Thomas Dupre has begun proceedings to defrock Lavigne, who recently completed a ten-year probation sentence.

from December 18, 2002.

How did that lawsuit turn out?

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
WMUR

KEENE, N.H. — Lawyers for a former Keene priest convicted of sexually abusing three boys are questioning his main accuser’s story and fighting to get him a new trial.

The Rev. Gordon MacRae was convicted in 1994 of sexually abusing boys in the 1980s. He has always maintained his innocence, and his attorneys said new statements from some who knew the main accuser cast doubt on the charges.

“We have information from these people that the church was seen at the time as almost as a cash machine,” said attorney Robert Rosenthal. “You make an accusation and you can get a nice settlement, and the accuser here, as well as his relatives, did just that.”

In the motion for a new trial filed by Rosenthal and attorney Carol Green, they said the accuser “had a reputation — at least among the community of family and friends — as a schemer and liar.”

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WISCONSIN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 22, 2012

We are disappointed that the Diocese of LaCrosse was able to avoid responsibility for covering-up Ray Bornbach’s alleged crimes. Our hearts ache for Ms. Varga and the abuse she suffered.

We hope that despite the ruling yesterday, she is able to find justice by publicly exposing the wrongdoing by this predator and the Diocese. We hope that other victims of Bornbach or any priest from the Diocese of LaCrosse will now come forward and report their abuse.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

February 22, 2012
By Elizabeth Fiedler

Today lawyers and a judge continue to plod through jury selection in the Philadelphia Archdiocese abuse case. It could take weeks to pick the 12 jurors and 10 alternates to hear the case of two former parish priests charged with abuse, plus a former, ordained administrator charged with endangering children.

Jury selection in a high-profile, high-stakes case like this clergy abuse trial is “very, very, very hard,” said Edward Ohlbaum, a professor of law at Temple University’s School of Law.

He said it will be a real challenge to find jurors who are unaware of the grand jury investigation into abuse by Catholic clergy that led to these charges, or who don’t have strong feelings about the general topic of abuse by clergy.

“The law doesn’t require that somebody sit on the jury without opinions,” Ohlbaum said. “But the law does say that if somebody has an opinion that favors one side or the other, that the opinion can not be fixed. We want people to be able to set aside their prejudices – because we all have them. And that’s really a hard job to be able to set that aside.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Reuters

By Carey Gillam

KANSAS CITY | Wed Feb 22, 2012

(Reuters) – Catholic leaders in Kansas City covered up years of sexual abuse of several young children by a priest who led a Christian organization for youth, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by four brothers who say they were victimized as children.

The lawsuit, one of more than two dozen pending in Kansas City alleging abuse by area priests, was filed in Jackson County Circuit Court in Kansas City, Missouri. It names Father John Tulipana and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph as defendants, alleging molestation dating to the 1970s and 1980s.

Tulipana resigned in 1994 after a 22-year career with the church when it became public that the Catholic Church paid his accusers and had them sign confidentiality agreements. Tulipana was not prosecuted criminally. He did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
UPI

Published: Feb. 22, 2012

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 22 (UPI) — Jury selection entered the second day Wednesday in the sex-abuse and child-endangerment trial of three Philadelphia priests, official said.

Six defense attorneys and three prosecutors spent much of the session examining questionnaires filled out by 250 potential jurors.

William Brennan, a defense attorney for the Rev. James J. Brennan, accused of sexually abusing a boy in the 1990s, told The Philadelphia Inquirer the jury selection could take weeks, indicating one potential juror who made the first cut had written on a questionnaire, “As a Catholic, I am disgusted by these allegations.”

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CANADA
Indian Country Today Media Network

First they were abused at residential school. Then they were each charged thousands in fees by the very attorney who was supposed to help them obtain redress.

Fifty-five residential school survivors in Manitoba are getting their due, reimbursed for a total of nearly $1 million in fees that Howard Tennenhouse charged them collectively for negotiating their compensation under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

Tennenhouse was disbarred on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to charging the survivors $932,501.80 as fees, APTN reported. This was in addition to the 15 percent that the government pays attorneys on each settled claim, and should only have been levied if approved by an adjudicator, according to CBC News.

He was allegedly using the money to buy foreign real estate, APTN said.

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MONTANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 22, 2012

We suspect that there are men in Montana right now who are suffering because they were hurt as kids by Davenport. We hope they’ll find the strength and courage to step forward, call police, protect kids, expose wrongdoing and start healing.

We also hope that every person who has any information or suspicions that could shed light on these allegations will call police so that the full truth might become clear.

If you have knowledge or suspicions – however old, small or seemingly insignificant – about child sex crimes, it’s your moral and civic duty to call police. Please summon the courage to do what’s right, call law enforcement and hopefully prevent more devastated lives.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on February 22, 2012

It’s beyond heartbreaking that anyone would steal from deeply wounded adults who suffered so much as kids.

We hope this disgraceful lawyer will be hit with the most severe consequences possible and that there will be some kind of restitution.

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JACKSONVILLE (FL)
Clutch

Tuesday Feb 21, 2012 – by Britni Danielle

A church in Jacksonville, Florida is coming under fire for its controversial decision to ban children from its church services.

According to a local Jacksonville news affilate, Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church has banned children from attending Sunday services because their new pastor, Darrell Gilyard, is a registered sex offender and cannot have contact with children.

In 2009 Gilyard plead guilty to lewd conduct and lewd molestation of two underage girls. While he was the pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church Gilyard molested a 15-year-old girl and sent a lewd text message to another. Under the conditions of his plea agreement, Gilyard cannot have “unsupervised contact with children under 18 years old,” and his new church has taken extraordinary steps to help Gilyard stick to the terms of his deal.

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AUSTRIA
Austrian Independent

A vast majority of Austrians approve a controversial group of Catholic priests’ demands.

Pollster Oekonsult said yesterday (Tues) 87 per cent of residents of the country welcome Helmut Schüller’s plan to go international with his Preachers’ Initiative. Schüller, who once headed Caritas Austria, established the initiative around half a year ago. The group says the Roman Catholic Church should allow preachers to ignore celibacy. The preachers also support liberal Catholics’ appeal for women to hold sermons.

Oekonsult also found that 86 per cent of Austrians know the group organised by Schüller. The Probstdorf parish priest claims that 400 Austrian Catholic preachers joined his initiative in past months. He recently appealed to the Conference of Austrian Bishops to stop ordering more parishes to merge.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

The Catholic League’s 2011 Annual Report on Anti-Catholicism is now available. It covers all the major issues that the Catholic League dealt with in 2011, along with many others that came to our attention.

The report covers the following areas: activist organizations; the arts; business/workplace; education; government; and the media.

There are special sections as well: our exposé of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP); our response to a Rolling Stone article and a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia; a reprint of our ads in defense of the Catholic Church that appeared in the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune; a lengthy analysis of the John Jay Report on Sexual Abuse; a detailed account of the attacks on Bishop Robert Finn by SNAP and the Kansas City Star; and a section on the War on Christmas.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Enniscorthy Guardian

Tuesday February 21 2012

CHIEF Whip Paul Kehoe has refused to identify the priest who gave him an ear bashing recently about the Government’s decision not to post an Irish ambassador to the Vatican. However, the Minister of State confirmed that he was indeed on the receiving end of a complaint from a member of the clergy.

‘It did happen,’ commented Paul Kehoe who revealed that the criticism was voiced not at Mass but at what he called a ‘function’. He was mystified as to how the matter came to have come to the attention of the national press and refused to elaborate any further on what occurred.

However, he was happy to say that he sympathised with the suggestion that the Republic of Ireland should have an embassy in the Vatican. He suggested that many members of Fine Gael share the concern expressed by the anonymous priest.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CANADA
The Intelligencer

By QMI Agency

Provincial police have charged a Roman Catholic priest who once served as parish priest in Read in connection to an incident dating to 2004.

Rene Paul Emile Labelle, 62, of Seeleys Bay, was charged Monday with sexual assault, sexual exploitation and invitation to sexual exploitation.

The charges relate to an incident alleged to have happened to a man who was a teenage boy in the summer of 2004.

Labelle was released from custody on a promise to appear.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTMJ

MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee’s Archbishop was to say Ash Wednesday Mass at a local Catholic high school, all amidst a combination of difficulty and celebration for the Archdiocese.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki was to hold Mass at Pius XI High School on Wednesday to mark the beginning of Lent.

The last several months have been tough for the Archdiocese, as the church filed for bankruptcy.

Less than two weeks ago, it lost a court hearing involving clergy sex abuse victims. A bankruptcy judge ruled that more than 550 sex abuse claims could proceed in court.

“It is clearly a victory for the survivors that have filed into this court,” said Peter Isely, a spokesman for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Vatican Insider

An open war is going on in the German speaking Catholic world between liberals and conservatives, with numerous appeals and counter-appeals

Alessandro Alviani
Berlin

The conflict between liberal and conservative currents in the German speaking Catholic world has led to “an open split” within the clergy. This is according to the latest issue of the German news magazine Der Spiegel. A communiqué published last week by the Network of Catholic Priests, a conservative group made up of approximately 500 parish priests, caused the clash that has been going on for months now to escalate. The communiqué, signed by Fathers Guido Rodheudt, Hendrick Jolie and Uwe Winkel as well as German, Austrian and Swiss priests, launches a harsh attack on the “Call to Disobedience” which was published last summer by the Priests’ Initiative, a liberal movement with roots in Austria, that is asking for a review of the Church’s stance on homosexuality, celibacy and women’s access to the priesthood. “The Priests’ Initiative is yet another sad symptom of the de facto schism that has existed under the bishop’s noses in German speaking territories,” the communiqué said. This schism “does not separate lay people from the clergy, or German speaking Countries from the Roman Curia,” but rather, those who accept the Church’s doctrine and system from those who are on the path towards “creating a Church of their own.”

The document strongly criticises the reaction of bishops to the Call to Disobedience amongst other things. The impression is that “bishops are afraid to speak frankly and prefer to look on as the Pope’s authority as pastor of the whole Church is undermined.” In German speaking Countries today, “those who draw attention to forms of liturgical and doctrinal disobedience are branded as “disloyal”, whilst those who launch appeals in favour of disobedience are courted” and receive more attention. This leads one to draw conclusions as to “the mental attitude of those who are responsible for German speaking dioceses.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Vatican Insider

“Something new is indeed happening. I am convinced that the Lord is preparing something beautiful for his Church”, the new Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Charles Brown, said in Dublin’s pro-Cathedral, after presenting his credentials to the President of Ireland

Gerard O’Connell
Rome

As he began his mission to Ireland, the new Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles J. Brown, delivered two messages. He said Pope Benedict XVI had sent him to “solidify and strengthen relations” between the Holy See and the Irish Republic and to assure the Irish people of his “great love for them” and his determination to combat the abuse of minors by clergy and assist victims.

He conveyed the first message when he presented his credentials to the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, on February 16, and he delivered the second when he preached in Dublin’s pro-Cathedral three days later.

The New York born archbishop arrived in Dublin on January 31, after being ordained bishop some weeks earlier by Pope Benedict, at whose side he had worked in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1994-2005.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 21, 2012

It doesn’t bode well that this new bishop has spent his entire career in an archdiocese that has a disturbing track record on child sex abuse and cover up. We are concerned about the promotion of Scheltz given his track record and those of his bosses.

In 2008, we named Cardinal Daniel DiNardo as one of the five worst Cardinals in the US church.

We pointed out then that he had mishandled cases both as the Archbishop in Houston and the Bishop in Sioux City, IA. Since then, he has done nothing to prove that he is able to properly handle clergy sex abuse cases.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

JACKSONVILLE (FL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 21, 2012

A Jacksonville TV station is reporting that Rev. Daryl Gilyard, a convicted child molester, is back in a Jacksonville pulpit. He is now working at Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church.

How reckless can Baptist officials be? They should be ashamed of themselves.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
The Irish Times

It is “a scandal” that reviews of the handling of child abuse allegations in all 26 dioceses are not complete, six years after the National Board for Safeguarding Children was set up, Baroness Nuala O’Loan has said.

The former Northern Ireland police ombudsman yesterday praised the integrity of Ian Elliott of the national board but said the board was under-resourced.

“History tells us that there may today still be men in active ministry, against whom allegations were made, which were never investigated,” she said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WPVI

[with video]

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA – February 21, 2012 (WPVI) — Jury selection has been delayed at least a day in the landmark priest sex-abuse trial of a longtime Roman Catholic church official in Philadelphia.

Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged for allegedly keeping accused priests in ministry.

The 61-year-old Lynn is scheduled for trial with the Rev. James Brennan and former priest Edward Avery, both charged with rape.

Jury selection may take several weeks. Lynn was in court with his lawyers Tuesday, when the court delayed the start of jury selection without explanation.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CONNECTICUT
Miami Herald

By DAVE COLLINS
Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. — Two men in their early 40s sued the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday, claiming scouting officials failed to protect them from a sexually abusive scoutmaster in Connecticut when they were children in the mid-1980s.

The plaintiffs, identified only as John Roe 1 and John Roe 2, filed a negligence lawsuit in state court in New Haven against the national organization and its Connecticut Yankee Council chapter. They say they were sexually abused on several occasions by David “Dirk” Davenport when he was the leader of Troop 490 in Madison.

The men allege scouting officials knew or should have known that before Davenport came to Connecticut in 1983, he had been accused of molesting boys in Montana, Nebraska and Minnesota in the 1970s and early 1980s, sometimes when he was a scoutmaster in those states.

The lawsuit also claims the Boy Scouts officials kept confidential “perversion files” dating back to the 1920s that contained information on alleged pedophiles. The plaintiffs allege Boy Scouts officials knew scouting programs were being targeted by pedophiles, but they took no steps to protect boys or warn local troops, scouts or their families about the dangers.

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UNITED STATES
Just Between Us

(Attorney Hale describes his representation of children allegedly sexually molested by officials in the Boy Scouts of America, and details legal attempts to make public that organization’s “perversion files.”)

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CANADA
APTN

By Kathleen Martens
APTN National News
WINNIPEG — Howard Lorne Tennenhouse was disbarred by the Law Society of Manitoba Tuesday after pleading guilty to taking nearly $1 million from 55 residential school survivors.

Complaints from the former students helped expose the Winnipeg lawyer. Tennenhouse was acting on their behalf in claims for compensation for abuse they suffered as children at Indian Residential Schools.

It’s the first time anyone at the disciplinary hearing, conducted at the Law Society’s Winnipeg offices, had heard of a lawyer losing his licence to practice law for over-charging residential school survivors.

Hundreds of lawyers across Canada are working with thousands of survivors as part of the Independent Assessment Process of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. The process compensates survivors for sexual and the worst physical abuse suffered at the church-run schools.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: Alexandra Paul

Posted: 02/22/2012

His law career finished after being disbarred for overcharging residential school victims, Howard Tennenhouse was anything but contrite as he lashed out at the fate he had been dealt Tuesday.

In a call to the Free Press after the Law Society of Manitoba meted out his punishment, the former lawyer, who pleaded guilty to professional misconduct, argued he was the real victim of the case, not his clients.

He criticized the law society, the federal residential school compensation agency and the media — and even suggested his clients were somehow responsible for his troubles.

“What I’m upset about is I had to (be) disbarred and slammed in the media as someone who was stealing from the Indians, when that’s not what I did,” Tennenhouse said in a telephone interview.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CANADA
The Province

A Winnipeg lawyer has permanently lost his licence to practise law after pleading guilty to overcharging residential school survivors who were owed compensation for abuse they suffered as children.

And those adults – all 55 of them – will get every penny they are owed.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CANADA
CBC News

A Winnipeg lawyer has been stripped of his licence to practise law because he overcharged 55 former residential school students of almost $1 million.

Howard Tennenhouse pleaded guilty on Tuesday to professional misconduct for taking more than $950,000 in excess fees from former students he represented in federal compensation claims.

The Law Society of Manitoba, which disbarred Tennenhouse, said all former students will be reimbursed, either by Tennenhouse himself or by the society.

Allan Fineblit, the law society’s chief executive officer, said half of the money has already been recovered and cheques will be going to the affected survivors as soon as possible.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Feb. 21, 2012

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee signaled Tuesday that it will move to deny an assertion by a victims’ attorney that claims filed in its bankruptcy detail 8,000 incidents of sexual abuse and name as many as 100 offenders not previously identified by the archdiocese.

The move comes a day after nine legislators asked Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to investigate the alleged offenses and anyone who might have concealed sex crimes against children.

Attorneys for the archdiocese on Tuesday filed a motion calling the assertion by attorney Jeffrey Anderson misleading and said it appears to compromise the confidentiality order issued by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley to protect victims who seek anonymity.

The archdiocese is seeking a clarification of the order so it can respond to Anderson’s allegations without identifying victims.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

ATLANTA (GA)
CBS Atlanta

[with video]

By Bernard Watson

ATLANTA (CBS ATLANTA) –
Father Robert Poandl is a longtime Catholic Priest – but Judy Jones says he’s also a child predator.

“It is clear that he is a danger to kids,” said Jones, an Associate Director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “He should not be put out there in these small parishes.”

Last week Poandl, who was once assigned to the Archdiocese Atlanta, was relieved of his duties in Savannah after he was accused of sexual misconduct that allegedly took place nearly 30 years ago. It is the second allegation against the priest in three years. In 2010, a West Virginia judge dropped child molestation charges against Poandl because of procedural issues. Poandl maintains he is not guilty. SNAP said the church should not have allowed Poandl to continue working.

“It is totally inexcusable. If someone in a corporate environment had committed crimes within the corporation, not necessarily something that was going to be picked up by law enforcement, they would have been fired on the first offense, not the second offense,” said Steven Spaner, who is with SNAP.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

ITALY
Edmonton Journal

February 22, 2012

A private Italian channel said it will broadcast Wednesday an interview with a man who claims to have leaked confidential documents from the Vatican as an “act of anger.”

A spate of leaks has hit the Vatican in recent weeks, with media publishing letters from a whistleblower alleging rampant corruption, as well as accusing the Vatican bank of failing to implement laws against money laundering.

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CONNECTICUT
Middletown Press

By Alexandra Sanders, Register Staff
asanders@nhregister.com / Twitter: @asanders88

MADISON — Two former residents filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging that they were sexually abused by a local Troop 490 scoutmaster when they were Boy Scouts in the mid-1980s.

The lawsuit, filed against the Boy Scouts of America on a national level and the Connecticut Yankee Council, alleges that the two men were sexually abused over a year and a half when the boys were 13 to 15 years old by David “Dirk” Davenport when he was their scoutmaster, and BSA did nothing to prevent the alleged incidents from occurring.

The abuse allegedly occurred on multiple occasions in 1983 and 1984, often in connection with scouting activities at Davenport’s home; St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Madison, where scout meetings occurred; and at Camp Deer Lake in Killingworth, a Boy Scout camp.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IOWA
Radio Iowa

February 21, 2012 By O. Kay Henderson

Iowans who were sexually abused as children would have more time to file a lawsuit against their alleged abuser if a bill pending in the Iowa Senate becomes law.

Today, someone who was sexually abused as a child must file a lawsuit against their alleged abuser after they turn 18 — and before they turn 19. Bill LaHay of Des Moines says when he was a child, he was abused by a Catholic priest and he’s urging legislators to change the law.

“Anything that offers a person — a survivor, a victim — more time to come to terms with that is a good thing,” LaHay says.

Under the bill, victims of child sexual abuse would have nine more years to file a lawsuit against their abuser seeking damages — right up until the victim reaches the age of 29. LaHay says few 18-year-olds understand the consequences of the abuse they may have suffered as a child.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

Lawyers and a judge on Tuesday launched what they say could be a monthlong effort to impanel a jury to decide the fate of three Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests accused of endangering or molesting children.

About 250 prospective jurors completed the first step – a questionnaire on their backgrounds, beliefs, and ability to serve.

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina canceled an afternoon session so she could review the first batch of surveys. She did not explain her decision, but ordered prosecutors and defense attorneys to resume the process in court Wednesday.

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WISCONSIN
LaCrosse Tribune

Chris Hubbuch | chubbuch@lacrossetribune.com | Posted: Wednesday, February 22, 2012

A judge dismissed the last of three legal claims Tuesday against the Roman Catholic Diocese of La Crosse in a 2008 lawsuit that accused the diocese of covering up sex abuse allegations against a priest.

In keeping with his earlier rulings, La Crosse County Circuit Judge Scott Horne said the plaintiff, Brenda Varga, failed to demonstrate fraud and that her attorneys shaded facts in their complaint to get before the courts and fish for more information to support “a questionable lawsuit.”

The diocese issued a statement saying in part, “This case illustrates the procedural difficulties in allowing the filing of old claims, particularly where plaintiff’s lawyers are willing to make misrepresentations of fact to the court. … The willingness to take liberties with the requisite facts in a case such as this does not further, and in fact deprecates, founded and credible claims of sexual assault and fraud.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CINCINNATI (OH)
ONN

[with video]

CINCINNATI – Members of a support group called SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) protested at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral on Tuesday.

They want Cincinnati’s Archbishop Dennis Schnurr to denounce or discipline Father Robert Poandl, who they claim sexually abused at least two boys.

“We’re not here to start a fight with the Cincinnati Archbishop, but to work cooperatively and call on them to do as much as they can to reach out to other victims of Father Poandl,” said SNAP president Daniel Frondorf.

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CANADA
Whig-Standard

GANANOQUE – The OPP charged a Roman Catholic priest in connection to an alleged sex assault dating back to 2004.

Rene Paul Emile Labelle, 62, of Seeley’s Bay was charged Monday.

Labelle was charged with sexual assault, sexual exploitation and invitation to sexual exploitation.

The charges relate to an alleged incident against a then teenage boy in the summer of 2004.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

WISCONSIN
News 8000

LA CROSSE, Wis. — A La Crosse County judge dismisses a third charge against the Diocese of La Crosse in a case that accused them of covering up a priest who allegedly had a history of child abuse.

In a civil case that began in 2008, Brenda Varga said she was assaulted by Father Raymond Bornbach in 1971, and that the Diocese knew Bornbach had a history of abuse, but did nothing about it.
Bornbach was removed from the ministry in 2004, and died in 2006.

Judge Scott Horne dismissed the third and final charge of negligent misrepresentation at a hearing Tuesday afternoon.

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OSTERREICH
Der Standard

21. Februar 2012 17:43

Bregenz – Das Kloster Mehrerau reagiert auf die Schadenersatzklage eines ehemaligen Schülers mit Verjährungseinwand. Der heute 57-Jährige war in den 1960er-Jahren von einem Geistlichen mehrfach vergewaltigt worden. Die Klage auf Schmerzensgeld und Verdienstentgang ist die erste zivilrechtliche Klage eines Missbrauchsopfers, strafrechtliche Verfahren gegen den von mehreren Männern beschuldigten Geistlichen waren wegen Verjährung eingestellt worden.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
York Dispatch

The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA—Jury selection has been delayed at least a day in the landmark priest sex-abuse trial of a longtime Roman Catholic church official in Philadelphia.
Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged for allegedly keeping accused priests in ministry.

The 61-year-old Lynn is scheduled for trial with the Rev. James Brennan and former priest Edward Avery, both charged with rape.

Jury selection may take several weeks. Lynn was in court with his lawyers Tuesday, when the court delayed the start of jury selection without explanation.

They are due back in court Wednesday.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Tom Gallagher on Feb. 21, 2012 NCR Today

In another urgent fundraising letter dated February 2012, Priests for Life is seeking $608,000 “in the next two weeks in to pay bills that are now over 90 days old.”

Fr. Frank Pavone, the embattled national director of Priests for Life, states that the “financial problem we’re facing is the combination of two things, really; neither of which we had any control over.”

In this missive, Pavone drops from his letterhead the role of national director of the Gospel of Life Ministries.

The two outside factors that have put Priests for Life in this critical situation are the economy and donors reneging on paying their pledges, he writes.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

WISCONSIN
The Daily News

By NIKKI YOUNK – Staff Writer, The Daily News

MARINETTE, Wis. – The criminal case against a Niagara, Wis. man accused of sexual assault and battery is moving forward.

According to the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access website, Harold Markham was arraigned in Marinette County Court on Monday. His next scheduled court appearance is a status conference on March 30.

Markham, 46, faces one felony count of repeated sexual assault of a child, one misdemeanor count of battery, and one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct.

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

Arrest of Out of State Pastor for Child Sex Crimes Underscores Legislators Request to AG to Investigate New Abuse Claims

February 21, 2012

SNAPwisconsin.com
Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director
CONTACT 414.336.8575

The former pastor of a Michigan church, Harold Markham, who was arraigned in Marinette County Court on Monday on charges of repeated sexual assault of a child in Wisconsin, illustrates the obvious, but overlooked fact that a significant number of sex offenders cross state lines. If convicted of the charges Markham faces 41 years in prison. Markham, a resident of Wisconsin, was working as a pastor at Norway Baptist Church in nearby Norway, Michigan. Sexual predators, of course, likely have more than one victim, and it is possible that Markham, like many child predators, has victims residing in multiple states.

Significantly, Pastor Markham is not the only out of state offender who has faced justice in Wisconsin in recent years. Even though Markham’s alleged offenses are more recent, the state of Wisconsin has a little known “fleeing sex offender law” which allows prosecution of sexual predators who commit child rape or sexual assault and then flee the state, regardless of when their crimes occurred. If there is time left on the criminal statute, in other words, and the offender crosses state lines, the time left on the statute effectively “tolls” or “freezes”. This provision, which was upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2008, has resulted in the prosecution of at least 22 clergy during the past decade.

The significance of Wisconsin’s fleeing sex offender law was highlighted this week by a group of Wisconsin legislators who have issued a letter to Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen urging him to launch an investigation into the reported 8,000 child sexual assaults that were perpetrated against children in the archdiocese of Milwaukee. The crimes, documented in claims filed by victim/survivors in the archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy case, reveal that there are at least 100 alleged offenders, 75 of them priests, who have not been publically identified by church officials. It is likely that a number of these offenders were transferred out of Wisconsin before the statute of limitations expired on their criminal acts and they could still face prosecution.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Ernst-Ulrich Franzen for the Editorial Board

Feb. 21, 2012

The allegations of what is in documents filed in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy are serious: 8,000 alleged sex offenses and as many as 100 previously unidentified offenders. And although the allegations cannot be independently verified because the documents are sealed, they deserve serious investigation, at the very least to determine if they are true.

That’s why nine Democratic lawmakers were right Monday to call on the state’s attorney general to investigate the allegations. It is possible that in those alleged 8,000 offenses and 100 possible offenders, there are cases that could still be prosecuted, and if there are, the state should prosecute with vigor. It may be the case that all cases are beyond the statute of limitations but it is worth an investigation to make sure.

The Journal Sentinel’s Annysa Johnson reported Tuesday that the nine sent a letter to Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, calling the allegations, if true, “nothing short of a public safety crisis.” And they asked him to investigate the alleged perpetrators and anyone who may have concealed a sex crime against a child.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 20, 2012

Archbishop Brown’s comments about his boss are an insult to Catholics and victims. It’s probably good for Brown’s career to publicly praise Pope Benedict for his alleged work on the church’s on-going heinous child sex abuse and cover up crisis. But it’s just not accurate.

If Pope Benedict has been, as Brown claims, “relentless and consistent” in ousting pedophile priests, where’s the evidence? We can think of one such child molesting cleric against whom Benedict has belated and begrudgingly taken some action: Fr. Marcial Maciel. Despite decades of widely-documented crimes and corruption, the Pope told Maciel to live “a life of prayer and penance.” That’s it.

And how about those thousands of other church employees who have ignored or concealed suspicions or knowledge of dreadful child sex crimes? What has Benedict done about any of them? Nothing.

The 2001 edict, telling bishops to report abuse cases to Rome, was as much or more about damage control than anything else. Imagine how many thousands of kids would have been spared devastating horror had then-Cardinal Ratzinger pushed for and won an edict telling bishops to report abuse cases to police and prosecutors instead.

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ROME/IRELAND
Irish Central

By
PATRICK COUNIHAN,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, February 21, 2012

A shamed American cleric was wined and dined at the Irish embassy in the Vatican – less than 10 years after he was forced to resign as Archbishop of Boston in a clerical sex abuse scandal.

Cardinal Bernard Law attended a number of farewell parties for Irish and British diplomats at the Embassy, recently closed down by the Dublin government.

A row is still ongoing in Ireland over the decision to shut the embassy to the Holy See with Fine Gael back-benchers campaigning to reverse the ruling.

Now the news that Cardinal Law was regularly feted at the embassy has caused outrage amongst support groups for those abused by Catholic Church clerics in Ireland.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

JACKSON VILLE (FL)
News4Jax

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. –
A Northside church has been at the center of a controversy for nearly a month since allowing a registered sex offender to return to the pulpit.

In 2009, Darrell Gilyard pleaded guilty to lewd conduct and lewd molestation. The victims were underage girls in his congregation at Shiloh Baptist Church.

In the past few weeks, Gilyard began preaching at Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church on the Northside. His new position drew protests from other pastors and the New Black Panther Party.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

WISCONSIN
WSAU

MADISON (WSAU) Nine Democratic state lawmakers have asked the Justice Department to investigate an attorney’s claim that eight-thousand sex offenses were committed by people connected with the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese. At a court hearing last week, Jeff Anderson said up to 100 previously undisclosed offenders committed the crimes. If it’s true, the legislators said it’s nothing short of a “public safety crisis.” And they said the hiding of the offenses might have resulted in hundreds of other abuses against children as well.

Justice spokeswoman Dana Brueck says the agency will review the lawmakers’ request. Anderson made the allegation to a judge investigating compensation claims by over 570 victims of sex abuse by priests. Those claims were made as part of the church’s Chapter-11 bankrtupcy reorganization. Peter Isley of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said he would welcome a Justice Department review.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

Jury selection began this morning in the historic child-endangerment and sex-abuse case against three clerics from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

As many as 250 prospective jurors will fill out a questionnaire today as part of selection process that could take as long as a month.

Twelve jurors and 10 alternates are expected to be chosen for the trial, whose opening arguments are scheduled for March 26, with Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina presiding.

On trial will be a former church official, a priest and an ex-priest.

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ARIZONA
Independent Voter Network

Posted 02/21/2012 by Bob Morris

This is one of those bombshell stories with multiple facets that branch off into all manner of areas: gay rights, immigration & border control, potential abuse of power, sexual assault by a priest, and a mediagenic sheriff about to run for Congress.

Late last week, Phoenix New Times broke a major story saying that Pinal County AZ Sheriff Paul Babeu had a gay sex affair with a Mexican (known only as Jose, for privacy). They broke up, and Jose now claims that Babeu threatened him with deportation. Babeu quickly held a press conference strongly denying the allegations but also said “I am gay.”

Students of crisis management and damage control take note. Babeu did this part right. Regardless of how the serious charges of abuse of power turn out, Babeu did not dodge, evade, or obfuscate about his sexuality. By stating pointblank he is gay, he saved himself weeks of pointless denials and defused at least that part of the crisis. For a public figure to do that is commendable. For a sharply conservative, immigration border hawk sheriff in Arizona to do so is rather extraordinary.

It should be noted that Babeu is not a hypocrite when it comes to his sexuality as he appears to have never made any anti-gay statements publicly. Babeu and his boyfriend met in 2006 on gay.com, a dating website. Jose says Babeu claimed he loved him and wasn’t seeing anyone else, but Jose soon suspected him of cheating. So he set up an account on another gay dating website under the assumed name of Matt and contacted Babeu, who was also on the site. He showed Phoenix New Times photos Babeu sent to him as Matt, some of which showed Babeu naked from the waist down.

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ATLANTA (GA)
CBS Atlanta

By Bernard Watson

ATLANTA (CBS ATLANTA) –
A Missouri couple is in Atlanta Tuesday to protest a Catholic priest accused of child sex abuse.

The couple, who are members of Survivors Network of those Abuse by Priests, said they want to draw attention to a priest who has been suspended from the Georgia Catholic Parishes for the second time in three years because of child sex allegations.

SNAP plans to host a news conference outside Christ The King Cathedral in downtown Atlanta.

CBS Atlanta news reporter Bernard Watson is heading to the news conference.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 21 February 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father appointed Msgr. George A. Sheltz of the clergy of the archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, U.S.A., vicar general, chancellor and moderator of the Curia, as auxiliary of the same archdiocese (area 23,257, population 5,811,010, Catholics 1,146,908, priests 427, permanent deacons 357, religious 687). The bishop-elect was born in Houston in 1946 and ordained a priest in 1971. He has served as pastor of various parishes of his diocese, and as director of the Secretariat for Clergy and Chaplains.

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UNITED STATES
Giza Death Star

February 21, 2012 By Joseph P. Farrell

My friend George Ann Hughes of The Byte Show forwarded me this disturbing article:

Shining light on Baptist clergy sex abuse

We have all, of course, heard by now of the rampant sexual abuse of children within the Roman Catholic Church, and of the attempts by some of its clergy to exercise influence to cover it up, with allegations of this attempted cover-up going all the way up to the Vatican itself. Indeed, the late Fr. Malachi Martin wrote of this practice in conjunction with ritual abuse and a hidden network of co-opted clergy practicing it in his last book, the novel Windswept House. For those able to read between the lines of Fr. Martin’s novel, it, like his other great fictionalized account of ecclesiastical politics, Vatican, pulls the veil back on a church riddled with factions, networks, infiltrators, and pederasts.

Now it seems there are rumors of similar widespread scandals within the various denominations of the Baptist religion. What one wonders is, where is the outrage of the media here? The Catholic Church, rightly, has been the focus of mainstream media attention and outrage for the scandals that have rocked it for the past two decades, but where’s the outraged mainstream national media coverage of similar scandals in other churches? To my knowledge, there has been very little. Of course, every now and then, we are treated to stories of famous evangelical preachers being given the “outrage” treatment, but we are not led to believe that it is a widespread problem, but the occasional moral”hiccup”.

But this website belies the idea that such abuse is “occasional”, but rather, is more widespread than might be suspected. And that raises a significant question: Just why is such abuse so widespread within not just the Catholic Church, but by implication, within so many churches? Why, every few years or so, are we told about stories of child-sex rings: the Franklin Scandal, the recent Penn State allegations, and on and on?

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TEXAS
Houston Chronicle

A Houston native has been named the new auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.

Monsignor George Arthur Sheltz, 65, will be introduced at 10 a.m. today as the new auxiliary bishop, according to a diocesan release. The archdiocese has been without an auxiliary bishop since March 2010.

Sheltz, who has been a priest since 1971, will assist Cardinal Daniel DiNardo in overseeing the 1.2 million Catholics across 10 counties in the Houston area.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Catholic Insider

BCI obviously struck a raw nerve with our last post, “Bloated Payroll” about the 17 people earning more than $150K a year. We continue today with a brief recap on that post, and then below our commentary on how the Boston Archdiocese has managed to delay acting on this problem for years and continues to delay.

By means of a recap from last time, the annual report for the 2011 fiscal year (page 83), says the number of people making $150K or more in that fiscal year was 17. In the 2006 Annual Report, there were just 2 people in the Chancery paid more than $150K. So the number of people making $150K or more per year has increased by more than 8X since 2006.

In addition, the total compensation paid to people making more than $150K has also increased by a factor of about 9X since 2006. The Boston Archdiocese is paying about $3,500,000 in such salaries today vs $373,000 in 2006–$3.1 million more to people making $150K+ a year. The archdiocese has a fiduciary responsibility to be a good steward of donor funds, and this does not appear to be happening.

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NEW JERSEY
Patch

By Michael Daigle

An activist who has publicized accusations of sexual misconduct at Delbarton School says he’s called on Gov. Chris Christie for help addressing the allegations, but gotten no reply.

On Jan. 23, Patrick Marker wrote a notarized letter to Christie, himself a parent of Delbarton students, requesting the governor take action regarding Delbarton and its sponsor, St. Mary’s Abbey. He said the governor should appoint a special prosecutor to “conduct interviews and review abbey personnel files, Abbey Review Board notes, and Delbarton School files for any indication of conspiracy, deception, corruption and intimidation.”

It’s been a month, and Marker said he’s gotten no response. Calls to Christie’s office this week by Patch went unanswered as well.

Marker, of Washington, DC, created and maintains UndertheGreenWave.com. On it, he discusses accusations of impropriety at Delbarton, including one that has resulted in an investigation of the school’s former headmaster, the Rev. Luke Travers.

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ROME
Vatican Insider

Interview with Cardinal Telesphore Placidus Toppo on the faith situation in India: “I can see and feel churches getting emptier. It is vital therefore for us to stay united and close the Pope”

Fabio Marchese Ragona
Rome

“Whoever does a thing like this is not a real Christian. Here in India we were really sad to hear about the letters.” The comment was made by 72 year old Cardinal Telesphore Placidus Toppo, Archbishop of Ranchi, in North-Eastern India, who spoke with a steady voice and a tone that sounded almost reproachful. According to the latest report published by the Catholic Secular Forum, 2141 Christians suffered violence, persecution and discrimination in India, in 2011. The cardinal came to Rome to take part in the consistory called by Pope Benedict XVI. He said this was a great moment of celebration with the Holy Father and the 22 newly created cardinals, but at the same time, it is a moment to reflect on the events going on in the Roman Curia.

So, Eminence, the news about the Secretariat of State’s leaked letters has reached India as well?

Yes, the news reached us very quickly and we were greatly saddened by it. Whoever is responsible for this does not lead a true Christian life.

Did cardinals in the consistory talk about it at all?

Many of the older cardinals spoke about it and said on a number of occasions: “We stand by the Pope.” But it is not just a matter of talking about unity. It also needs to be put into practice. Otherwise what is the point in us being created cardinals? Certainly in order to stand by the Pope and help him in the administration of the universal church.

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MASSACHUSETTS
WGGB

By Ray Hershel

(HOLYOKE, Mass.) (WGGB)–Parishioners of closed churches in the Springfield area are applauding a decision to keep an Adams church open.

They say what happened in Adams gives them hope for the future.

Parishioners at St. Stanislaus parish in Adams are thrilled.

The long fight to keep their church open was successful.

The diocese approved a plan to reopen St Stanislaus as a chapel mission of the parish.

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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

Martha Thierry, Graphic Artist

[map]

The archdiocese maintains that some church closings and mergers are needed because of the severe priest shortage, population shifts and financial necessity. Here is a quick look at which churches will close, merge and cluster in the coming years. By the end of the year, 214 additional parishes, not included here will submit plans to the archdiocese to collaborate, cluster and potentially merge or close down the road.

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GARDNER (ME)
Kennebec Journal

BY MECHELE COOPER Staff Writer

GARDINER — With the help of Rev. George Lambert, Christ Episcopal Church is recovering from the investigation and suspension of its minister.

Rev. Jacob Fles was placed on a two-year suspension after he was found to have engaged in sexual misconduct consisting of “inappropriate language and interpersonal boundary violations.”

Fles had been placed on paid administrative leave since late September 2011 while the Episcopal Diocese of Maine investigated allegations of sexual misconduct, financial impropriety and improper clergy conduct. The investigation found no evidence of financial misconduct.

Lambert has been conducting Sunday services since October. Then in January, Bishop Stephen Lane asked him to stay on as priest in charge.

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DETROIT (MI)
The Detroit News

[reorganization plan]

By Oralandar Brand-Williams
The Detroit News

Detroit — Archbishop Allen Vigneron said Monday he hopes a sweeping restructure of local Catholic parishes will result in stable churches that are able to evangelize and get more people back into the pews.

Under the changes to the Archdiocese of Detroit’s 267 parishes, two churches will close by year-end and 31 will merge by 2013.

Additionally, seven parishes will merge within the next four years as a result of the reorganization given final approval by Vigneron.

Six other parishes will have to submit “acceptable” debt repayment plans by June or be forced to close or merge with another nearby parish. Seven others have cluster arrangements that are still being worked out. In all, 53 parishes are affected.

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MISSOURI
KMBC

LIBERTY, Mo. — The patriarch of a family accused in a western Missouri sex crimes case was ordered released on his own recognizance Friday, pending his trial on charges that he and four of his sons molested young relatives three decades ago.

A judge released Burrell Mohler Sr., 79, on an own recognizance bond, which obligates him to show up for further court proceedings. It will be the first time Mohler has been free since November 2009, when he and four of his sons were accused of sexually assaulting the young girls for several years at the family’s rural farm. The alleged victims, who said they’d repressed the memories, said some of them were forced as children into marriages with the men.

Mohler’s attorney, Kimberly Benjamin, argued that he has been “rotting in jail” with serious health issues while his trial continues to be delayed.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Media Report

[Click here to read this man’s signed statement]

Dave Pierre

Eye-popping new evidence is shining a new light on one of the most disputed cases of the entire Catholic Church abuse narrative.

Rev. Gordon J. MacRae and his attorneys have filed a motion for a new trial in New Hampshire based on astonishing new declarations.

The motion for a new trial contains multiple, uncollaborated signed statements from a number of people who were close to accuser Thomas Grover at the time Fr. MacRae’s 1994 criminal trial, and these statements indicate that Grover perpetrated a massive fraud in falsely accusing the cleric of abuse.

1. The motion contains an astonishing 2008 signed statement from the former stepson of accuser Grover, who was in the company of Grover for a period of years before, during, and after Fr. MacRae’s 1994 criminal trial:

“[O]ver a number of months and years, Thomas Grover discussed the sex abuse allegations of [Father] Gordon MacRae with me. Grover often stated to me that he was going to set MacRae and the church up to gain money for sexual abuse. Grover would laugh and joke about this scheme …

“On several occasions Grover told me that he had never been molested by MacRae.

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ROME
Catholic News Agency

By Dawn Eden

An Irish woman made headlines last week when, as the first clergy-abuse victim ever to address a Vatican conference, she expressed hope that the Church might “become a leader in child protection.”

Speaking to a reporter prior to addressing the “Towards Healing and Renewal” symposium at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, Marie Collins said, “If the Catholic Church can become a leader in child protection, in the world, then it would be a start towards this terrible evil being controlled.”

With those words, Collins revealed what is truly at stake in responding to the abuse crisis. The sins committed against children in the Church represent the intrusion of a wider culture in which the dignity of the human person is routinely violated. Healing the Church is the necessary precursor to healing the culture. Developing an authentically Catholic pastoral approach to healing from abuse is the missing piece of the Church’s efforts to spread the gospel of life.

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PROVO (UT)
ABC 4

Reported by: Don Hudson

PROVO, Utah (ABC 4 News) – Police say a man who was accused of sexual abuse in Utah County is avoiding the law in Venezuela.

Eneudo Petit was an LDS bishop when he was accused of sexual abuse of two minor girls who are related to him. ABC 4 News has obtained his graphic, seven page arrest warrant that details the charges and allegations. To learn even more about the situation we also spoke to police and to people who know the 39-year-old wanted man.

One of those we spoke to is Ryan Ostler of Springville. “People like this need to be caught and brought to justice and punished for the things that they do.” Ostler knows Petit because he served with him as a counselor of an LDS ward in Provo. “People respect Bishop’s and find it hard to believe that something this atrocious could be done by someone that everybody trusted.” Ostler says he served with Petit for two years and shared a lot of experiences – including one situation that is eerily similar to what Petit is charged with today. “A young girl came into his office and said that her uncle was molesting her.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

[Disgraced cardinal was guest at Vatican embassy]

By Cormac McQuinn and John Cooney

Tuesday February 21 2012

Cardinal Bernard Law, once one of the most influential members of the clergy in the US, was born in Mexico to American parents in 1931.

He attended Harvard University in the 1950s and was later ordained a priest at the age of 30.

As a young priest in Mississippi he was involved in the civil rights movement to end racial segregation in the 1960s.

He was first appointed a bishop in Missouri in 1973. Said to have been a close ally to Pope John Paul II, he was later appointed as Archbishop of Boston, the fourth largest diocese in the US, in 1984 and became a cardinal a year later.

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OSTERREICH
Der Standard

In Österreich wurden Zahlungen in der Höhe von 6,4 Millionen Euro zuerkannt

Eine Welle an Enthüllungen sexueller Missbrauchsfälle erschütterte im Jahr 2010 die katholische Kirche weltweit. In Irland, Deutschland, Italien und nicht zuletzt auch in Österreich meldeten sich zahlreiche Opfer. Den Anfang machten Enthüllungen der Murphy-Kommission im November 2009. Im Auftrag des irischen Justizministeriums wurden, unter der Leitung der Richterin Yvonne Murphy, Missbrauchsfälle in der Erzdiözese Dublin öffentlich untersucht. Man kam zu dem folgenschweren Ergebnis, dass landesweit über Jahre hinweg mehr als 2.000 Kinder in kirchlichen Einrichtungen misshandelt, geschlagen oder sexuell missbraucht worden waren.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Cormac McQuinn

Tuesday February 21 2012

A CARDINAL who was forced to resign as Archbishop of Boston over a child sex abuse cover-up scandal attended parties at Ireland’s Vatican Embassy last year.

Disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law attended farewell bashes for the Irish and British ambassadors in Ireland’s former embassy to the Holy See, the lavish Villa Spada mansion.

The revelation that such a controversial figure was an honoured guest in the embassy just last year comes as the row over its closure continues to rage.

And it will anger victims of abuse after a string of reports into child sex abuse by the clergy in this country have been released in recent years.

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ARGENTINA
La Nacion

SANTA FE.- El ex arzobispo de Santa Fe monseñor Edgardo Gabriel Storni murió ayer a los 75 años en La Falda, Córdoba, donde se había recluido poco después de su renuncia, en 2002, envuelto en un escándalo por supuesto abuso sexual denunciado por ex seminaristas.

Había nacido el 6 de abril de 1936. Se ordenó sacerdote en 1961 y fue nombrado obispo titular en 1976. En 1984, asumió la diócesis de Santa Fe, tras la muerte de Vicente Zazpe.

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ARGENTINA
Cadena 3

El ex arzobispo de Santa Fe, monseñor Edgardo Gabriel Storni, falleció ayer en la ciudad de Córdoba, a los 75 años, según confirmaron a Cadena 3 desde el Sanatorio Allende, donde se encontraba internado.

Storni fue investigado por orden del propio Vaticano en 1984, al recibirse denuncias de 47 seminaristas que lo acusaban por acoso sexual.

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ARGENTINA
La Capital

La Falda.— El ex arzobispo de Santa Fe monseñor Edgardo Gabriel Storni, quien en 2009 fuera condenado por abuso sexual, falleció ayer a los 75 años en una casa de retiro de esta ciudad cordobesa, donde residía desde enero de 2003.

Fuentes eclesiásticas confirmaron que Storni murió a las 17.30 en la casa donde residía desde que había sido aceptada su renuncia por las acusaciones en su contra por abuso sexual.

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ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires Herald

Santa Fe’s former Archbishop Edgardo Storni, who was accused of aggravated sexual abuse, died at 75 years old at La Falda City, Córdoba province.

Storni was Archbishop of Santa Fe City until October 1 of 2002, when he tendered his resignation before the Pope John Paul II after being charged for sexually abusing seminarists.

In 2002, the Archbishop resigned and sent a letter to the Pope stating that he did not accept “blames” or “accusations.”

Three months later, Storni pleaded not guilty before the Judiciary and was replaced by the current head of the Argentina Episcopate José María Arancedo.

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JAMAICA
Jamaica Star

Rasbert Turner, Star Writer
Police yesterday charged a 73-year-old deacon with breaches of the Child Care and Protection Act after he was accused of having sex with an 11-year-old girl at the church where they both attend.

The senior, who had been under investigations following an incident last December, is alleged to have attempted to bribe the child with sweets and $50 for her to keep quiet about the alleged assault.

He has been charged with sexually grooming a child, sexually touching a child and having sex with a person under the age of 16.

Police said the senior church member was charged following an investigation by detectives at the Centre for Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse.

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CANADA
Macleans

by Brian Bethune on Monday, February 20, 2012

Guelph, Ont.-born Thomas Collins, archbishop of Toronto, is among 22 prelates joining the College of Cardinals in Rome on Feb. 18, placing him among the governing elite of the Roman Catholic Church.

Q: You are both a pastor and a politician. Does that make it difficult to talk to the media?

A: I suppose it does. You’re always concerned that [what you say] be expressed the right way, and that’s a constant issue.

Q: You are about to become one of the Pope’s advisers in governing the worldwide Church. What are the major issues facing it?

A: Because it is a worldwide Church, that varies from place to place. In Toronto, where the mass is celebrated every Sunday in 37 different languages, we have people from all over the world, and so many of them are facing persecution. That’s one of the key issues. For some years we have had a refugee office to help people. That goes to the origins of our diocese, which was founded that way in 1847 when people fleeing the Irish famine—not exactly persecution but certainly hardship—came here, 40,000 immigrants in the summer of 1847. Our first bishop, Michael Power, working with the Anglican community as well, was really the driving force behind organizing the response. …

Q: For outsiders at least, the sexual abuse of children by clergy, and the Church’s response to it, is the single greatest issue facing the Church. Do Catholics feel that way?

A: That’s a very serious issue, obviously, but I think there are many things we need to deal with. I think that’s something we have to learn from, we have to learn where we’ve done wrong and where we’ve not handled it well. I think we have learned, but we can always learn more. It’s an issue, it’s an important issue, but it’s not the only issue.

Q: You were also one of the five bishops, the apostolic visitors, sent to Ireland in the wake of its child-abuse scandal. Why were you chosen?

A: I don’t know for sure. All of us, though, were Irish in descent: two Canadians, two Americans and a Briton. There may have been a feeling that we had kind of an affinity for the culture.

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IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter

Feb. 20, 2012
By Michael Kelly, Catholic News Service

DUBLIN — Pope Benedict XVI is acutely aware that recent years have been tough for Irish Catholics as a result of the clerical sex abuse scandals, said the new apostolic nuncio to Ireland.

Speaking during a Mass to mark his formal welcome as Pope Benedict’s representative in Dublin on Sunday, U.S. Archbishop Charles Brown said the pontiff understands “that these recent years have been difficult for Catholic believers in Ireland.”

Brown said the pope was “scandalized and dismayed as he learned about the tragedy of abuse perpetrated by some members of the clergy and of religious congregations. He felt deeply the wounds of those who had been harmed and who so often had not been listened to.”

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MASSACHUSETTS/ARIZONA
The Republican

By Conor Berry, The Republican

With just one week until Arizona’s Republican presidential primary, a Western Massachusetts native and U.S. congressional candidate has resigned as co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s Arizona campaign.

The resignation of Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu came following allegations he was romantically linked to a Mexican immigrant who claims Babeu threatened him with deportation if he ever publicly revealed their relationship.

Babeu, a former Berkshire County commissioner and North Adams city councilor, parted ways with Romney’s campaign after an alternative weekly magazine reported he allegedly threatened to have his former lover deported if the man refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement to keep their past romance private. …

Known for his hardline stance on illegal immigration and other conservative causes, Babeu was among the Western Massachusetts men who claimed they were sexually assaulted as children by Richard R. Lavigne, a former priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield. Babeu also claimed he was sexually assaulted in Vermont by George Paulin, a former Catholic priest from Montague who worked in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington.

Lavigne pleaded guilty in 1992 to molesting two former altar boys. Several years later, the diocese settled lawsuits with 17 alleged sexual abuse victims for $1.4 million. Lavigne was defrocked in 2004 and remains the only publicly identified suspect in the unsolved 1972 murder of Springfield altar boy Daniel Croteau, though Lavigne was never charged with a crime.

In 2003, Babeu agreed to drop his lawsuit against the Burlington diocese after a settlement was reached. The terms of that settlement, including the precise sum of money awarded to Babeu, were not publicly disclosed.

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WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Feb. 20, 2012

Nine Democratic lawmakers called on the state’s attorney general Monday to investigate 8,000 alleged sex offenses and as many as 100 previously unidentified offenders an attorney says are described in documents filed in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy.

The nine sent a letter to Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, calling the allegations, if true, “nothing short of a public safety crisis.” And they asked him to investigate not just the alleged perpetrators, but anyone who may have concealed a sex crime against a child.

“We know that, left unchecked, child sexual predators will reoffend,” said the letter signed by state Sens. Lena Taylor, Julie Lassa, Robert Jauch and Jessica King; and Reps. Sandy Pasch, Chris Taylor, Robert Turner, Terese Berceau and Kelda Helen Roys.

“The concealment of these offenses may already have facilitated hundreds of additional crimes against young people,” they said.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Native American Times

20 February 2012 Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji)

Representative Steve Hickey (R-Sioux Falls) introduced a bill to repeal a bill that was passed last year that set a statute of limitation for child sex abuse civil suits.

House Bill 1104 was slipped quietly through the state legislature last year even drawing the support of the Representative from the Pine Ridge Reservation, Jim Bradford. The bill limited the time to file civil suits to three years from the time a victim was abused or three years from the time a victim reasonably discovered they were harmed by the abuse. The bill also read that those that had not reached the age of 40 could still file a suit.

Since nearly all of those involved in lawsuits against the Catholic Church for child sexual abuse are far past the age of 40 and nearly all of them are Native Americans, House Bill 1104 was clearly one of most discriminatory bills ever introduced and passed by the South Dakota State legislators.

But here is the clincher as explained by Rep. Hickey. “In 2010 an attorney for a Catholic Church who is presently litigating cases for the Church in our state drafted Bill 1104 to place an arbitrary and discriminatory statute of limitations on childhood sex abuse civil litigations. The bill was not circulated for co-sponsors and no opponent testimony. Those affected by it did not know about it until it passed. The fact that it was drafted by a church attorney so it would shelter his client; those details were not mentioned on the House or Senate floor.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Local 10

Author: By the CNN Wire Staff

Published On: Feb 21 2012

PHILADELPHIA (CNN) –
Jury selection begins Tuesday in the Philadelphia Catholic Archdiocese trial, a case experts have called one of the most sweeping sex abuse scandals in America.

The Philadelphia scandal could open a historic chapter in the abuse crisis, church watchers say, changing the way the American criminal justice system deals with such alleged cases.

A grand jury last year charged four priests and a parochial school teacher with raping and assaulting boys in their care.

The charges were unusual because they went beyond accusations against priests. A church higher-up was charged with covering up the abuse, which church experts say had never happened in the United States before.

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