ABUSE TRACKER

ROME/IRELAND
Independent Catholic News (United Kingdom)

Addressing an International Conference on the Sexual Abuse of Children within the Catholic Church at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome yesterday, Baroness Sheila Hollins stated that very few victims had counselling or therapy, saying: “In Ireland it is said that very few victims have had any counselling or therapy. It is believed that very few had received an apology and hardly any had received compensation. But in my experience the lack of an admission of guilt and of an apology is usually the biggest barrier to healing and recovery”.

The Church media office responded by saying: This statement grossly misrepresents the reality and extent of the ongoing outreach to survivors by Irish bishops and religious congregations which exists through the Church’s all-island Towards Healing counselling service.

The Towards Healing service (formerly known as Faoiseamh), now jointly funded by bishops and religious congregations, provides confidential counselling and other support services to survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse with independent and fully accredited therapists. Counselling is offered to survivors within seven days after their initial contact with Towards Healing.

Since 1997, Towards Healing has provided counselling and other support services to over 5,000 survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse, involving 250,000 separate sessions. In 2011 alone there were 29,000 counselling sessions delivered to survivors and the figure annually is over 20,000. In addition, the Towards Healing service offers group therapy, and a bridging service designed to facilitate survivors accessing other statutory and/or non-statutory services appropriate to their needs, such as psychiatry, services for the homeless, medical, dental, welfare and educational services.

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NEDERLAND
Friesch Dagblad

Hengelo | De Klachtencommissie van het Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik RKK heeft de klachten van negen voormalige misdienaars van de parochie Albergen gegrond verklaard. Verder vindt de klachtencommissie dat de Aartsbisschop van Utrecht, het kerkbestuur van de parochie Albergen en kardinaal Simons het leed van de slachtoffers moeten erkennen, verontschuldigingen moeten aanbieden en spijt moeten betuigen.

Dat is bekendgemaakt door letselschadespecialist Yme Drost uit Hengelo, die de negen slachtoffers bijstaat.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (United Kingdom)

By Paolo Gambi on Thursday, 9 February 2012

You could be forgiven for thinking that the Borgias have returned to the Vatican. Consider what has happened in the past few weeks: a fierce internal battle in the Roman Curia has spilled into the public square.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, is desperately trying to defend his position while being besieged by many who want him to resign. His enemies appear to be led by the “old guard” who were ousted after the departure of Cardinal Bertone’s predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

The “Viganò affair” – in which letters alleging internal corruption written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, then a Vatican official, were leaked – is just the tip of the iceberg. But the affair shows the preferred weapons in this fight: smear campaigns in the Italian media, confidential letters sent to anti-clerical journalists and damaging behind-the-scenes gossip. Those who were hindered by Archbishop Viganò’s tight financial controls and by his campaign against corruption used the media to seek his removal. When Archbishop Viganò was removed his confidential letters were leaked, creating an international scandal.

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IRELAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin

Statement from the Catholic Communications Office February 8th

Addressing an International Conference on the Sexual Abuse of children within the Catholic Church at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome yesterday, Baroness Sheila Hollins stated that very few victims had counselling or therapy, saying, “In Ireland it is said that very few victims have had any counselling or therapy. It is believed that very few had received an apology and hardly any had received compensation. But in my experience the lack of an admission of guilt and of an apology is usually the biggest barrier to healing and recovery”.

This statement grossly misrepresents the reality and extent of the ongoing outreach to survivors by Irish bishops and religious congregations which exists through the Church’s all-island Towards Healing counselling service.

The Towards Healing service (formerly known as Faoiseamh), now jointly funded by bishops and religious congregations, provides confidential counselling and other support services to survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse with independent and fully accredited therapists. Counselling is offered to survivors within seven days after their initial contact with Towards Healing.

Since 1997, Towards Healing has provided counselling and other support services to over 5,000 survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse, involving 250,000 separate sessions. In 2011 alone there were 29,000 counselling sessions delivered to survivors and the figure annually is over 20,000. In addition, the Towards Healing service offers group therapy, and a bridging service designed to facilitate survivors accessing other statutory and/or non-statutory services appropriate to their needs, such as psychiatry, services for the homeless, medical, dental, welfare and educational services.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Irish Catholic bishops have accused a member of the Vatican’s investigation team here of grossly misrepresenting the Irish Church’s ongoing outreach to clerical child sexual abuse survivors.

A statement from the hierarchy last night rejected comments by Baroness Sheila Hollins at an international conference in Rome on the sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church.

Psychiatrist Baroness Hollins had remarked that “in Ireland it is said that very few victims have had any counselling or therapy”.

Ms Hollins is one of four people appointed by Pope Benedict to investigate abuse in the Archdiocese of Armagh, where she has met dozens of survivors.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Daily Beast

Christine Pelisek

The school district faces a legal crisis as more students come forward with horrifying allegations against an elementary teacher, Christine Pelisek reports.

As more schoolchildren come forward with allegations of sexual abuse, and lawsuits begin to mount, the question on everyone’s mind is why 61-year-old Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt wasn’t arrested earlier. What is more clear, however, is that the Los Angeles Unified School District faces a day of reckoning not unlike what happened with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Los Angeles. …

Assuming the horrific allegations are true, “they face massive litigation and there will be a settlement for many victims, and that is a foregone conclusion,” said John E.B. Myers, a professor at Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, who studies abuse cases. “It is similar to the Catholic Church.”

The church sexual-abuse scandal destroyed the reputation of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney and led to the largest civil settlement by any archdiocese—an astounding $660 million in 2007. Myers estimates that the second-largest school district in the nation could also wind up paying out millions to Berndt’s alleged victims.

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ROME
Malta Today

Matthew Vella

The Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mgr Charles Scicluna, has called on the Catholic Church to set a good example on the sad phenomenon of sexual abuse of minors by clerics.

The Maltese prelate, 52, was addressing a three-day symposium at the Pontifical Gregorian University on the Church’s approach to child abuse by clerics. For ten years, Scicluna has worked with Joseph Ratzinger to fight the phenomenon of child abuse.

Scicluna called for greater collaboration with civil authorities, a bone of contention in Malta where sex abuse allegations heard by the Maltese church’s response team are not forwarded to the police by the archdiocese.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L ALLEN JR.
Rome

Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila in the Philippines spoke today at the “Towards Healing and Renewal” symposium, a four-day summit at the sexual abuse crisis held at Rome’s Jesuit-run Gregorian University and cosponsored by a variety of Vatican departments. Tagle traced some features of Asian culture that make both the understanding of sexual abuse, and the church’s response to it, different from Western trajectories.

Tagle said that silence often surrounds the issue of sexual abuse in Asia, related to cultural notions of honor and shame, not just for oneself but also one’s family. He also suggested that some features of Asian Catholicity may facilitate abuse, such as an exalted understanding of a priest’s authority and spiritual status.

Without denying that abuse of minors is a problem in Asia too, Tagle said that to date, there are relatively few reported cases – less, he said, than clergy caught in illicit affairs with adult women. He also said that many victims of clerical abuse in Asia still prefer to handle the situation quietly, inside the church, as opposed to making a formal legal complaint with civil authorities.

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MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Sex abuse suit filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings

Written by
KIMBALL BENNION

A third lawsuit alleging abuse by Catholic clergy in Montana was filed Wednesday morning in Great Falls — this time from 10 plaintiffs alleging sexual assault by priests from within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings.

The only named plaintiff in the case, Timothy Becker, alleged that the Rev. Ted Szudera, who until last month was in active ministry in Stanford, abused him in 1978 and 1979 while Szudera was a priest in Livingston. Becker said in an interview Wednesday that he attended St. Mary’s Catholic School and the St. Mary parish in Livingston growing up, and that the alleged abuse occurred both in the church and in the school.

The Great Falls-Billings Diocese denied the allegations against Szudera, saying that an earlier accusation against Szudera brought to the church by Becker in 2006 was deemed unfounded after the diocese hired a private investigator to look into the allegation.

The Rev. Jay Peterson, vicar general for the Great Falls-Billings Diocese, said the other allegations set forth in the lawsuit were never brought to the church’s attention.

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UNITED STATES
Forbes

John McQuaid, Contributor

Cardinal Edward Egan says he didn’t really mean it when he apologized a decade ago, as Bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., for sexual abuse committed by priests in his diocese, and the media is taking note.

But actually, that’s not really true. Egan, the retired Archbishop of New York, sitting so high in the saddle of his high horse that he must be feeling a bit light-headed, was not retracting an earlier apology. He was clarifying that it was never an apology at all. Rather, it was a non-apology apology: a bit of rhetorical legerdemain designed to appease critics while conceding nothing.

“CT Magazine: In 2002, you wrote a letter to parishioners in which you said, “If in hindsight we discover that mistakes may have been made as regards prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry.”

EGAN: First of all, I should never have said that. I did say if we did anything wrong, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we did anything wrong. But I hate to go back over this. I think there’s more to life than that one issue, especially when I had no cases.

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MONTANA
KFBB

[with video]

By Rachel Ousley

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings has not been officially served today, but they are aware that ten plaintiffs have filed suit accusing members of the Catholic Church all over eastern Montana of sexual and physical abuse.

Lead attorney, Tim Kosnoff has been handling sex abuse cases against the Catholic Church for the last 16 years. After cases he handled in Washington and Oregon, more and more people are stepping forward to share their stories. Kosnoff describes the sexual abuse in Montana as the worst he has seen so far. He believes the plaintiffs in this lawsuit are just the tip of the iceberg. He explains, “we’re talking about the rape and sodomy of 8, 9, 10, 11 year old boys and girls by Roman Catholic clergy, often accompanied by acts of physical abuse”.

Timothy Becker is one of the plaintiffs in this case. He was born in Billings, Montana, but spent most of his childhood living in Livingston, MT. It was here that he attended St. Mary’s Catholic School and trained as an alter boy at the parish. In the lawsuit, Becker accuses Father Ted Szudera of sexually abusing him when he was just fifteen years old.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

Lawyers for the Philadelphia cleric accused of enabling priests to sexually abuse boys have asked the trial judge to step down, saying she compromised her impartiality when she said anyone who doubted there was “widespread” child abuse in the Catholic Church “is living on another planet.”

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina’s remark during a hearing last week suggested she “harbors a firm predisposed opinion against the Catholic Church and its representatives,” the attorneys for Msgr. William J. Lynn argued in a motion filed Wednesday.

“Perhaps the court actually bears no biases. But that does not matter,” lawyers Thomas Bergstrom and Jeffrey Lindy wrote. “What does matter is that the public’s confidence in the court’s impartiality is demonstrably undermined.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

BY SISTER MAUREEN PAUL TURLISH

FOR THE first time in this country, a high-ranking clergyman – Msgr. William Lynn, the former vicar of clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia – will be tried on criminal charges for putting children in danger because of his “alleged” mishandling of priests known or credibly accused of the sexual exploitation of children.

No bishop or high-ranking church official in the United States has ever been held criminally responsible for facilitating or enabling the sexual exploitation of a child, but that is about to change with the March opening of Lynn’s criminal trial.

It remains to be seen, however, what effect Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua’s death will have on the admissibility of information contained in testimony videotaped in preparation for the trial.

Testimony from Bevilacqua’s 10 grand jury appearances relating to the sexual abuse of children and the subsequent cover-up continue to be under seal.

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CANADA
CJME

[The Inquiry]

Reported by Bre McAdam

A devout Catholic is using the web to warn others about molestation and corruption within her religion.

Sylvia MacEachern chronicles the lives of Canadian priests accused or convicted of sexual abuse and one of the men on her website is former Saskatoon priest Father Hodgson Marshall.

Marshall is already serving time in a Kingston Ontario jail for 17 convictions of sexual abuse against young boys. Now the 89-year-old is facing two more charges of abusing boys at Saint Paul’s Catholic High School in Saskatoon over 50 years ago.

The two alleged victims are in their sixties now but they were only 14 when they say they were sexually abused by Marshall.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Post

Local authority, church and legal expenses insurers have a role to play in sexual abuse litigation. However, government reform and 
a recent legal ruling may see this change.

By Francis Higney

Few crimes tug at the heart strings more than child sex abuse, with harrowing cases being aired in the media almost every day.

Last month, Nigel Leat, 51, was jailed indefinitely for abusing children at Hillside First School in Weston-super-Mare. Leat, of Bloomfield Road in Bristol, admitted 36 sexual offences at Bristol Crown Court in May 2011.

A serious case review was commissioned after Leat’s 2010 arrest at the instigation of the North Somerset Safeguarding Children Board. The review identified 20 pupils who were witnesses or victims of abuse by Leat, describing the failure of the school management as “lamentable”. The report revealed that 30 incidents were witnessed by staff but only 11 reported to the headteacher, Chris Hood, who failed to pass the concerns to the local education authority.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Alleged victims of Bernie Fine to urge lawmakers to open litigation window for sexual abuse cases

By Michael O’keeffe / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Two men who say they were molested by Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim’s longtime assistant will appear at a press conference in Albany later this month to urge lawmakers to pass a bill that would open a one-year window for sexual abuse victims to file civil litigation.

Former Orange ball boys Bobby Davis and Michael Lang will appear in Albany on Feb. 28 to support Assemblywoman Margaret Markey’s Child Victims Act.

The Feb. 28 event, which kicks off a three-day campaign by Markey to raise support for her bill, will focus on sexual abuse in youth sports. Kevin Mulhearn, the attorney who represents nine men who have filed a lawsuit that claims Poly Prep Country Day school officials covered up sexual abuse by the private school’s football coach, Phil Foglietta, has also been invited to the Albany event.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Feb. 8, 2012

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee will argue Thursday in court that victims of clergy sexual abuse had enough information on the church’s handling of cases to have filed fraud claims years earlier, according to newly unsealed documents in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy.

The archdiocese, which has consistently denied wrongdoing in its handling of abuse cases, will argue the statute of limitations expired before those victims stepped forward.

The argument is among several raised by lawyers for the archdiocese in motions seeking to bar claims by three victim-survivors who allege they were abused by parish priests and a choir director in the 1970s and ’80s.

The attorney for the creditors committee has characterized the church’s strategy as a test case that, if successful, could be used to throw out the vast majority of the 550-plus claims filed in the bankruptcy.

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MISSOURI
News-Press

Kim Norvell
St. Joseph News-Press
On Twitter: @KimNorvell

A civil suit has been filed against a former St. Joseph priest who was removed from public ministry last June.

The Rev. James Urbanic has been accused of molesting a boy in the mid-1970s at St. Francis Xavier, where he was the associate pastor, and at Bishop LeBlond High School, where he was a religion teacher. The victim was a student.

The priest was removed from active ministry by the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and the Missionaries of the Precious Blood after two victims, including the one who filed suit Wednesday, came forward with allegations that were found to be credible. In June, Rev. Urbanic acknowledged the abuse in a statement, stating “early in my priesthood I acted inappropriately.”

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ROME
The Kansas City Star

By MARK MORRIS
The Kansas City Star

A Vatican prosecutor bluntly warned Catholic bishops Wednesday that they could be disciplined if they do not follow church law and standards when managing priests who have abused children.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna, who handles sex crime prosecutions for the Vatican, told reporters that bishops would be held accountable under church law for how they deal with abusive clerics.

“It is a crime in canon law to show malicious or fraudulent negligence in the exercise of one’s duty,” Scicluna told journalists, according to an Associated Press report. “I’m not saying that we should start punishing everybody for any negligence in his duties. But … it is not acceptable that when there are set standards, people do not follow the set standards.”

It’s a familiar topic for Catholics in Kansas City, where Bishop Robert W. Finn and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph are facing misdemeanor charges in Jackson County for purportedly not reporting suspicions of child abuse by the Rev. Shawn Ratigan.

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NEW YORK
The Citizen

Justin Murphy / The Citizen | Posted: Thursday, February 9, 2012

A review board within the Roman Catholic Church’s Diocese of Rochester has upheld child sexual abuse charges against Dennis Shaw, the former Holy Family priest who was removed from his position at the Auburn church in late 2010.

The review board, composed of laymen and clergy members was tasked with reviewing an earlier investigation into alleged abuse dating to the late 1970s and early 1980s when Shaw was pastor at the now-closed St. Francis of Assisi Church in Rochester.

It unanimously found the allegations to be “credible and true,” according to a release from the diocese that was read Sunday at Holy Family. The release also disclosed some new details about the alleged abuse. It specifies that Shaw allegedly abused two boys under 16 years old.

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ROME
The Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW in Rome

IRISH CLERICAL sex abuse survivor Marie Collins yesterday suggested that her attendance of this week’s “Towards Healing And Renewal” conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome has represented a “huge changing point” for her.

Speaking on a day when the Holy See’s promoter of justice, Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna, made reference to the “deadly culture of silence or omertà” that has pervaded the Catholic Church’s reaction to the sex abuse crisis, Ms Collins said: “It has been a huge changing point for me personally for how I feel about the church. I came here quite suspicious, quite cynical, wondering if there was sincerity about this.

“I listened to Monsignor Scicluna this morning and I felt everything he said was very clear, very direct.

“Any bishop listening to him could not have been under any misapprehension about what he was saying about reporting, about putting in place guidelines, about secrecy, about everything that we survivors have been asking for.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Justice for half century of clergy child sex crimes and cover up may well be determined in Milwaukee bankruptcy court Thursday

Archbishop Listecki, waging the most aggressive legal campaign against victims in US, seeking to bar 540 victims from federal court

Victim claims to Judge Kelley likely detail thousands of individual felony sex crimes and dozens of previously unidentified clerical abusers

WHAT
In Federal Bankruptcy Court on Thursday, February 9, Judge Susan V. Kelley will hear arguments from church lawyers who, at the instruction of Archbishop Jerome Listecki, will seek to dismiss the claims of nearly 540 victims of clergy sexual assault. These record number of claims for a single US court action concerning abusive clergy, likely detail thousands of individual acts of rape and sexual assault by dozens of clergy working or living in the Milwaukee Archdiocese and span several decades. Many of these offenders were routinely concealed or transferred by church officials, and were known to be a danger to children by several Milwaukee archbishops.

More detail on Thursday’s hearing and the motions, can be found in SNAP Milwaukee’s February 7th media advisory.

WHEN
Thursday February 9th, the court hearing is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. SNAP leaders and victim/survivors will be available for comment following the conclusion of the court proceedings.

WHERE
The U.S. Federal Courthouse, 517 East Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By GLENN E. RICE
The Kansas City Star

A man who alleges that a Catholic priest sexually abused him decades ago filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the priest, his religious order and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The plaintiff, who is a now a police officer living in another state, alleges that the Rev. James Urbanic sexually abused him in the mid-1970s while he was a student at Bishop LeBlond High School in St. Joseph. Urbanic was pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in St. Joseph and taught religion at the school.

Last summer, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood removed Urbanic from his duties after it received what it said were credible allegations of sexual improprieties against two minors in the mid-1970s.

Diocesan spokeswoman Rebecca Summers said the diocese had not received the lawsuit, which was filed in Buchanan County, and could not comment about specific allegations. Summers said after Urbanic was removed from his duties, priests from the Precious Blood order visited each parish where he had served. Those included St. Francis Xavier, St. James in Liberty and Sacred Heart in Warrensburg.

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UTAH
Deseret News

Geoff Liesik, Deseret News

Published: Wednesday, Feb. 8 2012

DUCHESNE — A judge has ordered an LDS Church bishop to stand trial on charges of witness tampering and failure to report abuse.

But the defense attorney for Bishop Gordon Moon called the judge’s order “a far cry from a ringing endorsement of the prosecution’s case.”

“I think anyone who reads the bindover order can see that,” attorney David Leavitt said Wednesday. “From our perspective, the bindover was something we expected because the burden of proof is so low.”

Moon, 43, is accused of failing to notify police about a 17-year-old girl’s disclosure that she had been sexually abused by a teenage relative. The bishop also told the girl not to seek a protective order against the teenage boy and the boy’s mother when the girl came to him for counsel, according to Duchesne County prosecutors.

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GEORGIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 08, 2012

■Defrocked minister to lead retreat in Georgia
■In 1999 he admitted abusing boy at a retreat in Texas
■Now, he’s set to lead a retreat in Augusta this weekend
■And church officials are refusing to warn retreat-goers
■Self help group is urging Episcopal bishop to ‘take action’

A convicted and defrocked child molesting cleric will lead a religious retreat this weekend in Augusta and a support group is begging Georgia’s Episcopalian bishop to stop him.

Starting Friday, a registered sex offender, Lynn C. Bauman will lead a three-day event at the Episcopal Convent of St. Helena. Bauman is a defrocked Episcopalian priest who, in 1999, admitted molesting an eight-year-old boy on a retreat in Texas in 1996. Bauman was sentenced to ten years probation.

A Chicago based support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is writing Georgia’s Episcopal Bishop J. Neil Alexander, asking him to step in and remove Bauman himself.

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GEORGIA
Virtue Online

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
February 8, 2012

A defrocked Episcopal priest, who admitted abusing a boy at a retreat in 1999 and was convicted for his behavior, has resurfaced to lead a spiritual retreat at The Order of Saint Helena in Augusta, GA. A number of clergy sex abuse victims are urging that it be cancelled.

The Order of Saint Helena (OSH) in Augusta is letting the Rev. Dr. Lynn Bauman, 57, lead their upcoming spiritual retreat which has met with resistance from survivors of priestly abuse.

“We are well aware of Lynn’s story. A number of us have known him for many years and know the situation in considerable depth,” The Rev Sr Carol Andrew of OSH has told officials of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

“Despite these crimes and accusations, the Order of Saint Helena in Augusta is letting Bauman lead their upcoming spiritual retreat. They are doing so without apparently making any mention of the fact that Bauman has been convicted of abusing a child, and has committed this crime while leading retreats such as this one. The event flyer they have put out online has no information about Bauman’s criminal history (available here: http://www.osh.org/_flyers/bauman-flyer-feb-2012.pdf),” said David Clohessy, SNAP Executive Director.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Lawyers for the Philadelphia monsignor accused of enabling priests to molest children have asked the trial judge to step down, saying she compromised her impartiality when she said anyone who doubted there is “widespread” child abuse within the Catholic Church “is living on another planet.”

The attorneys said the remark by Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina during a hearing in open court last week suggests she “harbors a firm predisposed opinion against the Catholic Church and its representatives,” including their client, Msgr. William J. Lynn.

“Perhaps the court actually bears no biases. But that does not matter,” Lynn’s lawyers, Thomas Bergstrom and Jeffrey Lindy wrote in a motion filed Wednesday. “What does matter is that the public’s confidence in the Court’s impartiality is demonstrably undermined.”

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Feb. 08, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — Yet another financial scandal threatened to engulf the Vatican today, in the form of charges that four Italian priests, none of them Vatican officials, are under investigation by Italian prosecutors on charges of money laundering related to accounts they allegedly held at the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), better known as the “Vatican Bank”.

An article outlining the charges against the four priests ran today in the left-wing Italian newspaper l’Unità, and a report focusing, among other things, on the same charges aired tonight on the widely watched Italian TV program, “The Untouchables.”

The newspaper article ran under the headline, “Money-laundering, Four Priests Investigated: The Silence of the Vatican on Controls.” The suggestion was that the Vatican has refused to cooperate with investigation of the charges.

“The Untouchables” is the same program which, in late January, revealed confidential letters from Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, today the pope’s nuncio, or ambassador, to the United States, complaining of “corruption and dishonesty” in Vatican finances.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sentinel

COMMUNITY leaders and parishioners in Cheadle and Alton, where Bede Walsh served as parish priest were stunned by the verdicts.

Many members of his former congregations have continued to support and pray for him.

Alton parishioner Stella Heritage, of Castle Hill Road, said: “People are completely shocked and there are a lot of people who support him and do not believe what has come out at his trial. In my dealings with him as parish priest I could not fault him.”

Ray James, pictured right, who was mayor of Cheadle in 1996, said Walsh had won acclaim after organising discos in the town, which got bored youngsters off the streets.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Centre Daily Times

By MARYCLAIRE DALE — The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official wants a judge to step down before his child-endangerment trial because of her recent remarks about the child sex-abuse scandal.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Teresa Sarmina suggested in court that the priest-abuse scandal is “widespread.” At a pretrial hearing, she said those who think otherwise are “living on another planet.”

Sarmina is presiding over the groundbreaking conspiracy and child-endangerment case of Monsignor William Lynn.

The 61-year-old Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged for allegedly keeping predator-priests in ministry. He faces up to 28 years if convicted on all charges.

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ROME
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

Cardinal-designate Fernando Filoni, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples presides on Wednesday evening at Mass in the Church of the Holy Apostles for participants in the four day symposium on dealing with the sex abuse crisis. The meeting, organised by the Pontifical Gregorian University, concludes on Thursday with the launch of a child protection centre to provide valuable resources for bishops’ conferences around the world. Philippa Hitchen has been following the symposium for us….

The moral and legal duties of church leaders to respond to all cases of sexual abuse by the clergy was the focus of the opening session of the symposium on Wednesday. In a hard hitting speech by the Vatican’s top expert on child protection, Msgr Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, participants from countries around the world heard how it is essential for them to combat “the deadly culture of silence” which in some places still exists….

“We need to move on and denounce it for what it is…an enemy of truth and an enemy of justice”

On the question of compensation and justice for victims, Msgr Sciclina said it’s important for local Churches to cooperate fully with the civil law of their countries. But he said Church guidelines on dealing with abuse cases should also look closely at these very practical questions…

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MONTANA
Market Watch

Ten New Clergy Sex-abuse Victims File Suit Against Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, Montana – from Kosnoff Fasy PLLC

GREAT FALLS, Mont., Feb. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Attorneys on Wednesday filed a new civil lawsuit on behalf of 10 child sex-abuse victims against the Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, Montana. One man says that a priest who currently advises the bishop on handling sex-abuse cases is himself a sex predator.

Father Ted Szudera is among five named individuals and numerous unnamed clerics accused of child molestation in court papers just filed in Montana Eighth Judicial District Court in Cascade County. Fr. Szudera allegedly sexually abused a teenager in 1978-1979 while assigned to St. Mary’s Catholic church in Livingston, Montana. The victim says that while he was an altar boy, Fr. Szudera abused him for two years, in the church, at school and at the priest’s home.

In 2006, Fr. Szudera’s alleged victim told church officials about the crimes and said that Fr. Szudera had threatened him that “bad things would happen to him” if he told anyone. Following the 2006 disclosure, the diocese paid for the victim’s counseling, allegedly conducted its own “investigation” but apparently took no action against Szudera. He remains in active ministry.

Great Falls Bishop Michael Warfel appointed Fr. Szudera to be on his Review Board, which advises the bishop on child sex-abuse cases. Fr. Szudera apparently maintains an active appointment on the panel. And according to church websites, Fr. Szudera now works at four Montana Catholic parishes: St. Mark’s in Belt, Holy Trinity in Centerville, St. Clement’s in Monarch and St. Mary’s in Raynesford. However, a priest at Szudera’s church said Szudera was removed from St. Mark’s about a month ago and is reportedly living in Great Falls.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Reuters

By Geoff Davidian

MILWAUKEE, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Milwaukee’s Roman Catholic archdiocese will ask a judge on Thursday to throw out hundreds of sexual abuse claims that have thrust it into bankruptcy, triggering a court battle and rekindling anger at the church’s mishandling of abusive clergy.

The aggressive stance taken by the archdiocese reminds victims’ advocates how leaders of the U.S. church long resisted pleas to deal harshly with offenders and fairly with victims during the decade-long scandal.

It also contrasts with earlier church bankruptcies where most victims’ claims of abuse were acknowledged and compensated, lawyers and experts said.

In court papers, the Milwaukee archdiocese is arguing in three test cases that the claims should be tossed out either because the abuse or church cover-up occurred too long ago, involved perpetrators such as a choir director who were not direct employees of the church, or involve victims who had already obtained settlements.

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ROME
Vatican Insider

According to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Asian Catholic Church is finding it hard to fight paedophilia “because of the cultural differences” that exist and the “varied interpretations of what child abuse constitutes”

Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican City

The problem is particularly accentuated in Asia Mgr. Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith commented during the international symposium on sex abuse of minors by the clergy, organised by Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University. In response to the “Asian emergency”, Mgr. Scicluna recently gathered all leaders of Asian Episcopal Conferences for an unprecedented closed-door meeting in Bangkok.

“Asian Churches are gradually becoming aware that abuse is going on and that something must be done about it.” But except from the Philippines, all other Asian Episcopates are late in adopting the Holy See’s guidelines against paedophilia. “In some cultures is especially difficult for victims to come out into the open and report abuse. We are debating with Asian bishops on how to change a culture that encourages silence,” Scicluna emphasised. This is why there are still only very few cases being reported in Asia compared to the thousands of reports filed in Europe and the United States. Victims need to be listed to in order to be able to understand the problem properly and act prudently and with determination. Churches throughout the world need to be helped to formulate new efficient pastoral care programmes. Prevention and education. Speaking to Vatican Radio, Scicluna also made reference to his and Cardinal Levada’s missions to various parts of the world, including Latin America and Asia, in order to support the work done by local churches to counter these crimes. Mgr. Scicluna explained to Vatican Radio that the symposium entitled “Towards Healing and Renewal” aims to allow the Church to come up with a global solution to the scandal of sexual abuse of minors by the clergy, and to ensure victims better protection. Delegates from 110 Episcopal Conferences and general superiors from over 30 religious orders will participate in the symposium.

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MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Ten people have filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, claiming they were sexually abused by priests when they were children.

The sex-abuse lawsuit is the third filed against the Catholic church in Montana since last year and the first against the diocese that covers the central and eastern parts of the state.

The lawyers who filed the lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of the unnamed plaintiffs also represent about 200 others in one of the claims against the Catholic Diocese of Helena, which covers the western part of the state.

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs held a press conference this morning to announce the filing of a lawsuit against the Diocese in Cascade County District Court.

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MISSOURI
KSDK

[with video]

By Courtney Gousman

Creve Coeur, MO (KSDK) – It’s a sexual abuse scandal that’s sending shockwaves through a school community. Former students of Chaminade College Preparatory are now coming forward to acknowledge they were abused by two former teachers.

NewsChannel 5 found out what things were like for students attending the school during this ominous time. An attorney representing one of these victims recounted some of the horror stories his client experienced at the hands of two of his teachers at Chaminade. Though the both of these teachers are both deceased, this attorney says the abuse was well-known among students and staff.

“He’s heard of people denying that this kind of abuse occurred at Chaminade, and he wants people to believe it,” said Ken Chackes.

Chackes represents the man now being credited with bringing sexual abuse allegations to light at Chaminade College Prep. Allegations dating back to the 60s and 70s, and we’re told were repeatedly ignored by the school.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

by Phil Lawler, February 8, 2012

For well over a decade, the poisonous influence of the sex-abuse scandal has been spreading through the universal Church, shaking the faith and undermining the hierarchy in one country after another. Now the toxic influence of the scandal has seeped into yet another aspect of Catholic life, tarnishing the memory of potential saints.

In a story published January 11, carrying the suitably sensational title “Tainted Saint,” the San Francisco Weekly suggested that the scandal might damage the reputation of the beloved Mother Teresa, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003.

In making that argument, the Weekly stretches the available evidence well beyond the breaking point. At worst, Blessed Mother Teresa was guilty of misjudging a priest: a mistake that many others made, regarding the same abusive cleric. Unfortunately the same chain of evidence raises more serious questions about another beloved Catholic figure who is now a candidate for beatification: the late Father John Hardon, SJ.

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ROME
ADN

Vatican City, 8 Feb. :(AKI) – The Vatican’s top watchdog said the the Catholic Church must cooperate with police to crackdown on priests suspected of sexually molesting children.

Speaking in Rome on Wednesday during a four-day closed meeting on sex abuse in the Church, Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said, “The Church has an obligation to cooperate with the requirements of civil law regarding the reporting of such crimes to the appropriate authorities.”

The “Towards Healing and Renewal” international symposium – meant to help bishops design rules to protect children from abuse priests – has been criticized by pedophile victims organisations as being mere public relations. It was attended by around 200 mostly bishops and reportedly some abuse victims.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Feb. 08, 2012 NCR Today

Experts reject homosexuality as risk factor

ROME — Two American experts told a Vatican summit today that the full costs of the sexual abuse crisis – including financial payouts, emotional distress, alienation among both clergy and laity, and damage to the church’s moral authority – is essentially incalculable, but massive beyond any doubt.

Focusing on the United States, the two speakers provided estimates suggesting that the American church has spent at least $2.2 billion settling litigation related to the crisis, and that there may have been as many as 100,000 total victims of clerical sexual abuse.

Before surveying the damage, Michael Bemi and Pat Neal rejected what they described as four “myths” about the crisis, which were:
•The crisis is an American problem.
•The crisis has been exaggerated by a Godless media that is antagonistic to people or institutions of faith.
•The crisis has been instigated by avaricious attorneys whose only objective is to enrich themselves financially.
•Homosexual orientation causes men to be sex offenders. (“Neither homosexual nor heterosexual orientation is a risk factor,” they said, “but rather, disordered or confused sexual orientation is a risk factor.”)

While each of those claims may have “elements of truth,” the two speakers said, “none on its own, nor all of them combined, can even begin to explain and fully describe the misconduct crisis.”

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ROME
The West Australian

VATICAN CITY (AFP) – The Vatican’s top prosecutor on Wednesday called for stricter accountability for bishops who cover up child abuse crimes and said 1,000 cases had been reported to him in the past two years alone.

“Ecclesial accountability has to be further developed. How do you sanction a bishop? That is something that Canon law reserves for the pope personally,” Charles Scicluna said on the sidelines of a Vatican summit on the issue.

“Once you set standards you have to respect them. It would certainly be the responsibility of the pope and the Holy See,” he said. He added that he believed a “culture of silence” on the issue of abuse persisted in the Church.

Archbishop Scicluna said his office at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic Church’s top enforcement body, had received more than 4,000 reports of child abuse since 2001 including 1,000 since 2009.

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ROME
Montreal Gazette

ROME – A wave of clerical sex abuse scandals have cost the Catholic Church over two billion dollars (1.5 billion euros) but the real price is the blow to its reputation, two U.S. experts said on Wednesday.

“It is probably reasonable to estimate that the actual ‘out of pocket’ cost of the crisis to the Church internationally is well in excess of two billion dollars,” Michael Bemi and Patricia Neal said at a Vatican summit on the issue.

The cost could be much higher though as at least some dioceses in the Church “made many confidential settlements over the years, the total value of which may never be known,” said the two consultants for the U.S. Catholic Church.

Bemi and Neal asked Catholic leaders from around the world: “How many hospitals, seminaries, schools, churches, shelters for abused women and children and soup kitchens could we have built with this amount of money?

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ROME
Catholic News Service

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) — The Vatican’s top sex abuse investigator called for greater accountability under church law of bishops who shield or fail to discipline pedophile priests.

Msgr. Charles Scicluna, promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made his remarks to reporters in Rome Feb. 8, after addressing an international symposium on clerical sex abuse.

“It is a crime in canon law to show malicious or fraudulent negligence in the exercise of one’s duty,” Msgr. Scicluna said, regarding the responsibility of bishops to protect children and punish abusers.

With respect to bishops who fail to apply the church’s anti-abuse norms, Msgr. Scicluna said that “it is not acceptable that when there are set standards, people do not follow the set standards.”

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UNITED STATES
Business Insider

Michael Brendan Dougherty

St. John Chrysostom, once said “The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.”

Here’s proof that he was right.

In an interview this week with Connecticut Magazine, Cardinal Edward Egan, withdrew his 2002 apology for the Church’s handling of the sex-abuse scandal, which was once read in all New York parishes.

A decade after that letter, the former archbishop of New York, and former bishop of Bridgeport, now describes the handling of the priest-abuse crisis under his watch as “incredibly good.” He said of the letter, “I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

“I never had one of these sex abuse cases.” he said, before adding pompously, “If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I’d be happy to know who he is.” He also claimed that the Church had no obligation to report abuse to the civil authorities.

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MONTANA
KRTV

Posted: Feb 8, 2012 9:36 AM by David Sherman (Great Falls)

A civil lawsuit on behalf of 10 alleged child sex abuse victims has been filed against the Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings.

One man says that a priest who currently advises diocese Bishop Michael Warfel on handling sex abuse cases is himself a sex predator.

The locations of the alleged abuse include Great Falls, Absarokee, Hays, and Hardin; the lawsuit claims that the abuse occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.

Tim Kosnoff, attorney for the plaintiffs, said that the victims are seeking “non-monetary reform and healing measures,” including asking the court to order the bishop to personally visit schools and churches where the alleged abuse occurred, posting the names of the alleged abusers on the diocese web site for 10 years, and the creation of a toll-free phone and website where anonymous complaints can be made.

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ROME
Rome Reports

February 8, 2012. (Romereports.com) At the Gregorian University in Rome, Bishops from all over the world, as well as heads of religious orders and Vatican officials are discussing how to prevent cases of sexual abuse, including ways to protect children.

Inside the conference room, Church leaders heard from Marie Collins. An Irish woman who, as a patient in a hospital, was sexually abused by a priest at the age of 13.

Sexual Abuse Victim
“I was quite sick, anxious and away from friends and family for the first time, but I felt more secure when the Catholic chaplain in the hospital befriended me.”

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MINNESOTA
WDAY

By: Stacie Van Dyke, WDAZ

EAST GRAND FORKS, MN (WDAZ-TV) – An East Grand Forks priest is being accused of theft of personal property and misappropriation of donations for Africa.

The Crookston diocese has placed an associate pastor at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Father Carlos Velez, on administrative leave.

The East Grand Forks Police Department has confirmed that an investigation centering on Velez is underway.

According to an email sent by the diocese of Crookston, the 39-year-old is facing allegations for initiating a special collection without permission and failing to follow internal controls regarding the proper treatment of donations to the parish.

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MICHIGAN
WZZM

Written by
Bob Brenzing

(DETROIT FREE PRESS) – Michigan Court of Appeals judges will hear arguments Thursday on a case that could have serious repercussions for church members: Can what you confess to your pastor be used against you in a court of law?

A three-judge panel of the court is being asked to decide whether a Baptist pastor in Belleville violated Michigan’s priest-penitent privilege by testifying against a church member in a rape case.

“This is a very dangerous case because it could have very serious repercussions for religion,” the rape suspect’s lawyer, Raymond Cassar of Farmington Hills, said Tuesday. “If a pastor is allowed to testify against a member of his church about privileged communications, no one will want to confess their sins to their pastors anymore.”

Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Toni Odette argued in court documents that the privilege doesn’t apply in this case.

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POLAND
National Catholic Reporter

Feb. 08, 2012
By Jonathan Luxmoore

This is the second of two-part series looking at clergy sex abuse in Poland. Read part one here.

WARSAW, POLAND — When Ewa Orlowska, a mother of nine, decided to confront her local priest for sexually abusing her as a child, she had little idea what was to follow. The priest, Msgr. Michal Moskwa, had been the parish pastor for three decades in the southern town of Tylawa, and Ewa had been just one of his victims. But when she’d told her mother about the abuse, her mother beat her and ordered her to apologize.

When the case came to light in 2001, Orlowska reluctantly agreed to give a statement to prosecutors. “I thought: When I stand before God and he asks me what I did for those other defenseless children, still threatened by the priest’s pedophile tendencies, what would I say?” she remembers. “Would I say I lacked courage, hadn’t the strength, was afraid of my own shadow?”

Moskwa was convicted in 2004 and given a two-year suspended jail sentence and an eight-year ban from teaching children. He ignored the teaching ban, suffered no canonical sanctions, and his ordinary, Archbishop Jozef Michalik of Przemysl, returned him to his parish.

The judge reprimanded Michalik, who is president of Poland’s bishops’ conference, for ignoring repeated requests to deal with Moskwa “in the way required by Christian morality.” On the contrary, Michalik assured the convicted pedophile of his “sympathy” in an open letter, protesting the affront “to the good name of our priests.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
WBBM

[with audio]

CHICAGO (CBS) — The worldwide priest sex abuse scandal is the focus of a gathering of hundreds of Catholic bishops and priests in Rome this week.

As WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya reports, more proposed guidelines to deal with priest predators, and to protect children, are to be submitted to Pope Benedict XVI in May. This week in Rome, those who will write those guidelines are hearing from experts and victims.

But Barbara Blaine, the Chicago-based president of the Survivors’ Network of Those Abused by Priests, is skeptical that there will be any real change. She calls this week’s symposium at the Vatican a PR maneuver.

“Unless and until they are willing to take concrete action that changes the way they do things, I suspect that children will continue to be raped and sexually violated by priests, and bishops will continue to cover up these crimes,” she said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Weekly

By Tara Murtha

As 78-year-old state Rep. Louise Williams Bishop (D-Philadelphia) began to speak to a crowd gathered in the rotunda of the capitol in Harrisburg at a public meeting in November, her voice wavered and shook, belying her decades of experience in public speaking as a polished politician, Baptist minister and radio DJ.

Shaky, Bishop revealed a secret she had held inside for six decades. “I discovered someone in the bed with me. [He was] doing a little more than feeling and touching,” she told the hushed audience, recalling the night when her stepfather first raped her.

Bishop, who was 12 at the time, says that when she awoke to find her stepfather in her bed, she “didn’t know how to react. I was afraid. There was fear. Fear in what my sisters, if they awakened, would think. Fear if I told my mother what she would say. Fear if my grandfather found out, he would have taken a shotgun and killed somebody and went to jail.”

“So I lived with that fear,” and the secret, “all these years.” Even as a minister listening to survivors, who at 35, 40 years old were revealing their own childhood sex abuse, Bishop remained silent about her own. She never even told her husband.

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ROME
HLN (Belgie)

De Canadese kardinaal Marc Ouellet, prefect van de congregatie voor de bisschoppen, één van de belangrijkste functies binnen de Romeinse curie, heeft gisterenavond tijdens een boeteviering in een bewust half duistere Sint-Ignatiuskerk in Rome in naam van de Kerk vergiffenis gevraagd’voor hen die kinderen en zwakken seksueel hebben misbruikt.

De viering werd onder meer bijgewoond door de zowat honderd bisschoppen die in Rome deelnemen aan het vierdaagse colloquium dat de strijd tegen het seksueel misbruik in de Kerk wil opvoeren. De bisschoppen hadden hun mijters en bisschopskruis thuis gelaten.

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BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

Slachtoffers van pedofilie in de Kerk kunnen sinds gisteren een schadevergoeding eisen via een nieuwe ‘rechtbank voor seksueel misbruik’. Ze maken aanspraak op een bedrag tot 25.000euro.

Gisteren lanceerde het Centrum voor Arbitrage inzake Seksueel Misbruik een website, waarop een ‘aanvraagformulier voor billijke herstelmaatregelen’ staat. De slachtoffers –of bij zelfdoding de nabestaanden– moeten de feiten beschrijven, ook al zijn die verjaard, en ze moeten aangeven of ze al naar het gerecht zijn gestapt.

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ROME
Reformatorisch Dagblad

VATICAANSTAD (ANP) – Leiders binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk komen deze week in Rome bijeen voor een conferentie over de middelen om seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen te voorkomen en te bestrijden.

Zij zullen onder meer een gebedsdienst bijwonen, waar vertegenwoordigers van zeven religieuze ordes en congregaties in het openbaar om vergeving zullen vragen voor wat leden van hun organisatie kinderen hebben aangedaan.

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BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

De Belgische bisschoppen van Antwerpen en Doornik, Johan Bonny en Guy Harpigny, wonen deze week een internationaal congres bij in Rome over het misbruik van minderjarigen binnen de kerk. Het congres vindt plaats van maandag tot en met donderdag in de pauselijke universiteit ‘Gregoriana’.

Het doel van die bijeenkomst is om ervaringen te delen ten aanzien van preventie. Tijdens het congres zal kardinaal William Levada, prefect van de Congregatie voor de Geloofsleer, een reeks preventieve maatregelen presenteren. Er zou onder meer een portaalsite opgericht worden. Die zou bestemd zijn voor de hele wereldkerk met daarop alle maatregelen en procedures die in geval van misbruik toegepast moeten worden.

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ROME
NZG (Nederland)

VATICAANSTAD (ANP) – Leiders binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk komen deze week in Rome bijeen voor een conferentie over de middelen om seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen te voorkomen en te bestrijden.

Zij zullen onder meer een gebedsdienst bijwonen, waar vertegenwoordigers van zeven religieuze ordes en congregaties in het openbaar om vergeving zullen vragen voor wat leden van hun organisatie kinderen hebben aangedaan.

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LUXEMBURG
Kerknieuws

De Rooms-Katholieke Kerk van Luxemburg gaat slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik door priesters financieel compenseren, ook als het misbruik is verjaard. Alle meldingen die in Luxemburg over misbruik zijn binnengekomen, gaan namelijk over zaken die zijn verjaard.

De kerk richt een onafhankelijke commissie op die de aanvragen voor vergoedingen zal behandelen. Slachtoffers van misbruik dat is verjaard, kunnen een bedrag ontvangen van maximaal 5.000 euro.

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ROME
De Telegraaf (Nederland)

VATICAANSTAD – Bisschoppen uit 100 landen en oversten van 33 religieuze orden en congregaties komen maandagmiddag in Rome bijeen om te praten over maatregelen om seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen door geestelijken te voorkomen en te bestrijden. Ook Charles Scicluna, de aanklager in misbruikzaken van het Vaticaan, en de Ierse Marie Collins, die als meisje door een priester is verkracht, praten mee.

Namens Nederland is hulpbisschop Ted Hoogenboom van het bisdom Utrecht bij de bijeenkomst. „Hij heeft veel kennis vanuit allerlei invalshoeken, onder meer omdat hij jurist is. We verwachten dat er wat juridische aspecten aan bod komen. Bovendien zat hij in de commissie die het meldpunt voor slachtoffers vorig jaar opnieuw heeft ingericht, de commissie-Bandell”, aldus een woordvoerder van de Nederlandse Bisschoppenconferentie.

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ROME
de Volkskrant (Nederland)

Paus Benedictus XVI heeft vandaag gepleit voor een ‘diepgaande vernieuwing’ van de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk. Alleen zo kan naar zijn mening het seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen door geestelijken worden bestreden.

In de Gregoriana Universiteit in Rome is vandaag een kerkelijke conferentie over het misbruik geopend. In een boodschap aan de deelnemers schrijft de paus dat het de grootste prioriteit voor de christelijke gemeenschap moet zijn dat de slachtoffers weer geheel mens worden in plaats van louter misbruikslachtoffer. Op elk niveau van de kerk is volgens hem een grondige vernieuwing nodig.

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ROME
RTL (Nederland)

Alleen met een stevige aanpak kan volgens de paus het seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen door geestelijken worden bestreden. Op elk niveau is een grondige vernieuwing nodig.

In de Gregoriana Universiteit in Rome is een kerkelijke conferentie over het misbruik geopend. In een boodschap aan de deelnemers schrijft de paus dat het de grootste prioriteit voor de christelijke gemeenschap moet zijn dat de slachtoffers weer geheel mens worden in plaats van louter misbruikslachtoffer.

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BELGIE
HLN

Slachtoffers van pedofiele geestelijken kunnen vanaf heden een vraag tot schadevergoeding indienen bij de arbitragecommissie in de schoot van de Koning Boudewijnstichting. Dat signaleert La Dernière Heure. Het formulier is beschikbaar op www.centrum-arbitrage-misbruik.be.

Tot 25.000 euro
De arbitragecommissie zag het levenslicht als gevolg van een akkoord tussen de Kerk en de bijzondere commissie over seksueel misbruik van de Kamer. Het onderzoek van de dossiers gaat vanaf 1 maart van start. Schadevergoedingen kunnen oplopen tot 25.000 euro.

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ROME
Het Nieuwsblad (Belgie)

“De genezing van de slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik moet een fundamentele bezorgdheid zijn van de christelijke gemeenschap en moet gepaard gaan met een grondige vernieuwing van de Kerk op alle niveaus”. Dat zei paus Benedictus XVI in een boodschap aan de deelnemers van het vierdaagse colloquium over seksueel misbruik in de Kerk dat maandagavond in Rome van start ging.

De Amerikaanse kardinaal William Levada, prefect van de Congregatie voor de geloofsleer die het het colloquium opende, zei dat “een kleine groep misbruikplegers groot kwaad veroorzaakt heeft aan de slachtoffers en aan de Kerk”.

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

Bisschoppen hebben het onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik in de rooms-katholieke kerk niet tegengewerkt. Dat stelt aartsbisschop Eijk vandaag in een ingezonden brief in het AD. Eerdere berichtgeving van die krant stoelt volgens Eijk op verkeerde informatie.

In het AD meldden slachtoffergroepen vorige week dat bisschoppen de onderzoeken stelselmatig frustreren.

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ROME
HLN (Belgie)

Het vierdaagse symposium in Rome met het oog om de strijd tegen seksueel misbruik in de Kerk op te voeren, is vandaag van start gegaan met de getuigenis van een Iers slachtoffer. Ook verklaarde een psychologisch expert van de Kerk dat er zes fouten gemaakt zijn in de aanpak van de dossiers.

Marie Colins getuigde voor een honderdtal vertegenwoordigers van het wereldepiscopaat, de belangrijkste verantwoordelijken van de Romeinse Curie en een dertigtal verantwoordelijken van de belangrijkste ordes en congregaties. Zij werd vijftig jaar geleden op 13-jarige leeftijd verkracht door de aalmoezenier van het Iers ziekenhuis waar zij verpleegd werd.

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ROME
RKnieuws (Nederland)

ROME (RKnieuws.net) – Het vierdaagse symposium aan de Gregoriaanse universiteit in Rome met het oog om de strijd tegen seksueel misbruik in de Kerk op te voeren ging dinsdag van start met de getuigenis van een Iers slachtoffer.

Marie Colins getuigde voor een honderdtal vertegenwoordigers van het wereldepiscopaat, de belangrijkste verantwoordelijken van de Romeinse Curie en een dertigtal verantwoordelijken van de belangrijkste ordes en congregaties. Zij werd vijftig jaar geleden op 13-jarige leeftijd verkracht door de aalmoezenier van het Iers ziekenhuis waar zij verpleegd werd.

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ROME
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 8 February 2012 (VIS) – Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, delivered a lecture before the international symposium “Towards Healing and Renewal” being held in Rome’s Gregorian University from 6 to 9 February. The event brings together bishops and religious superiors from all over the world and aims to relaunch the Church’s commitment to protecting minors and vulnerable people from abuse.

Speaking English, Cardinal Levada affirmed that for Church leaders the question under examination “is both delicate and urgent”. It is “important not to lose sight of the gravity of these crimes” as we seek “to form the priests of today and tomorrow to be aware of this scourge and to eliminate it from the priesthood”.

Cardinal Levada recalled how Blessed John Paul II’s Motu Proprio “Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela” clarified and updated the list of canonical crimes, explicitly including the sexual abuse of minors by clerics as one of the most serious crimes, or “graviora delicta”. Benedict XVI, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “was instrumental in implementing these new norms” and supported “approving the Essential Norms for the United States”. In 2010 Pope Benedict also approved and ordered the promulgation of stricter revised norms.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Channel 3000

MILWAUKEE — A group representing victims of clergy abuse is asking the Milwaukee Catholic archdiocese to withdraw motions to dismiss some of the nearly 570 restitution claims in its bankruptcy case.

The archdiocese has filed motions in three cases asking they be dismissed because they were either filed beyond the statute of limitations, involved someone who was not an archdiocese employee or involved a victim who already received a settlement. A hearing is set for Thursday.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests estimated the archdiocese’s arguments could ultimately get 95 percent of the cases dismissed. They claim the archdiocese misled victims because it never mentioned eligibility restrictions.

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ROME
Reuters

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) – Hiding behind a culture of “omerta” — the Italian word for the Mafia’s code of silence — would be deadly for the Catholic Church, the Vatican’s top official for dealing with sexual abuse of minors by clergy said Wednesday.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna made the unusually forthright comment in his speech to a landmark symposium in Rome on the sexual abuse crisis that has rocked the Church in the past decade.

“The teaching … that truth is at the basis of justice explains why a deadly culture of silence, or ‘omerta,’ is in itself wrong and unjust,” Scicluna said in his address to the four-day symposium which brings together some 200 people including bishops, leaders of religious orders, victims of abuse and psychologists.

Rarely, if ever, has a Vatican official used the word “omerta” – a serious accusation in Italian — to compare the reluctance of some in the Church to come clean on the abuse scandal with the Mafia’s code of silence.

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ROME
Boston Globe

By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press / February 8, 2012

ROME—Bishops must follow the Catholic church’s laws and standards when dealing with priests who sexually abuse children or face possible church sanctions for negligence, the Vatican’s sex crimes prosecutor said Wednesday.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a Vatican-backed symposium on clerical sex abuse that is designed to help bishops around the world craft guidelines to protect children and keep pedophiles out of the priesthood. Priests and bishops from 110 dioceses and 30 religious orders are attending the four-day workshop ahead of a May deadline to submit their guidelines for review by the Holy See.

Survivors of clerical abuse, government investigations and clerics themselves have long blamed bishops for failing to report abusive priests to police and failing to apply church law to sanction them internally. Victims’ groups have denounced the lack of accountability of bishops who were never punished for having moved priests from parish to parish where they could abuse again.

Scicluna, the promoter of justice in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said it was “unacceptable” for bishops to ignore church law and standards to deal with abusers and said canon law provides for sanctioning bishops who do — including being removed as bishop.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

MARY CAROLAN

A Supreme Court majority decision today halting the trial of a priest on a charge of alleged buggery of a teenage boy in 1970 has important implications for other persons charged with buggery offences prior to 1993.

The decision does not affect the trial of the priest on two other charges of indecent assault of the 13-year-old boy and another 14-year-old boy which can proceed.

By a three/two majority, the Supreme Court ruled the priest cannot be tried on the buggery charge because, when repealing the offence of buggery “between persons” in 1993, the Oireachtas failed to enact the necessary saving measures to allow prosecutions for such common law offences committed prior to 1993.

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ROME
RTE News

The Vatican’s chief prosecutor has said it is unacceptable for bishops or clergy not to abide by “set standards” on child protection within the church.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna said it was possible that clergy or bishops could face sanction under canon law if the non-application of set standards was a result of “malice or fraudulent negligence”.

He added that disciplining bishops was a matter for Pope Benedict on a case-by-case basis.

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ROME
BlueRidgeNow

The Associated Press

The Vatican’s sex crimes prosecutor has warned bishops that they must follow the church’s laws and standards on dealing with priests who sexually abuse children or face possible church sanctions for negligence.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna spoke Wednesday on the sidelines of a Vatican-backed symposium on clerical sex abuse that is designed to help bishops craft guidelines to protect children and keep pedophiles out of the priesthood.

Abuse victims have long denounced the lack of accountability of bishops who routinely moved abusive priests from parish to parish rather than report them to police or punish them internally.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Gary V. Murray TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
gmurray@telegram.com

WORCESTER — A May 1 trial date has been set in Central District Court for a former church pastor accused of indecently assaulting and beating a woman.

The Very Rev. Charles M. Abdelahad, the former longtime pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral on Anna Street, has pleaded not guilty to charges of indecent assault and battery, five counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and four counts of assault and battery. The indecent assault and battery charge was reduced from a charge of rape last year at the request of prosecutors.

Rev. Abdelahad, of 14 Bryant Ave., Shrewsbury, is accused of biting and kicking the alleged victim, pulling her hair, shoving her head against a floor, hitting her in the face and head with his fists, striking her with a religious icon and wooden replica bat and scratching her with a set of keys.

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VATICAN CITY
Sunday Times (Sri Lanka)

VATICAN CITY, Feb 8, 2012 (AFP) – The Vatican’s top prosecutor on Wednesday called for stricter accountability for bishops who cover up child abuse crimes and said 1,000 cases had been reported to him in the past two years alone.

“Ecclesial accountability has to be further developed. How do you sanction a bishop? That is something that Canon law reserves for the pope personally,” Charles Scicluna said on the sidelines of a Vatican summit on the issue.

“Once you set standards you have to respect them. It would certainly be the responsibility of the pope and the Holy See,” he said. He added that he believed a “culture of silence” on the issue of abuse persisted in the Church.

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MICHIGAN
Green Bay Press-Gazette

DETROIT (WTW) — The Michigan Court of Appeals will hear arguments about whether a pastor’s testimony related to a possible confession in a child sexual assault case may be used in court.

The Detroit Free Press reports (http://on.freep.com/wpBJxq) a three-judge panel hears the case Thursday.

Court documents say Samuel Bragg confessed in 2009 to the Rev. John Vaprezsan at Metro Baptist Church in Belleville about the 2007 assault of a 9-year-old girl. Vaprezsan testified in March in the case against Bragg, who is charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

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CONNECTICUT/NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 07, 2012

In a new, rare and stunning interview, former NYC Archbishop Edward Egan made shocking statements about the church’s on-going clergy sex abuse and cover up crisis.

We urge US Catholic officials – especially in New York and Connecticut – to publicly rebuke Egan for these shockingly callous comments that will no doubt heap more pain onto millions of victims and Catholics who are still suffering because they have been assaulted by child molesting clerics or betrayed by corrupt church officials. We especially urge Egan’s successors, Archbishop Tim Dolan of New York and Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, to clearly denounce Egan. Ignoring callousness or mouthing vague platitudes aren’t enough. At an absolute bare minimum, Catholics need and deserve explicit, public and repeated condemnations of Egan by his brother bishops.

Among other things, Egan said:
■I don’t think we did anything wrong.
■I’m very proud of how this thing was handled.
■I believe the sex abuse thing was incredibly good.
■There really wasn’t much . . . hidden.
■I do think it’s time to get off this subject.
■I don’t think I should be upset about that, or you should be, or anybody else.
■I never had one of these sex abuse cases, either in Bridgeport or here (New York). And I believe that the cases I had were each handled just exactly as they should have been.
■I did exactly what we were told to do. And as a result, not one of them (the accused priests) did a thing out of line.
■I’m not the slightest bit surprised that, of course, the scandal was going to be fun in the news.
■If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I’d be happy to know who he is.

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CONNECTICUT
WSLS

WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) A psychiatrist hired by the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford has testified he disputes that the mental health problems of an alleged clergy sex abuse victim were caused by the abuse, and that the victim had a generally “positive” relationship with the priest.

Dr. J. Alexander Bodkin testified Tuesday in Waterbury Superior Court. The alleged victim, known only as Jacob Doe, is suing the archdiocese for negligence, claiming he was repeatedly abused by Father Ivan Ferguson as a teenager in the early 1980s when Ferguson was principal of his grammar school in Derby.

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CANADA
The Sault Star

SUDBURY — A former principal at St. Charles College in Sudbury is facing more sex charges.

William Hodgson Marshall, who is now 89, has been charged with two counts of indecent assault after two Saskatoon women complained about being assaulted in 1959 and 1960.

Marshall was a priest and teacher at the Saskatoon high school the two women attended, police said Tuesday.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

February 7, 2012
By Kevin McCorry

The funeral Mass for Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua was celebrated Tuesday at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Center City Philadelphia.

Bevilacqua’s close friend and former aide, Monsignor Louis D’Addezio, delivered the memorial sermon. He cited the cardinal’s commitment to the most vulnerable in society — especially the young, the old and the sick.

He also mentioned the emotional toll that recent sex-abuse allegations had on Bevilacqua — noting the cardinal’s depression late in his life.

“These years have been years of suffering for so many — for all of us in the archdiocese,” he said. “Cardinal Bevilacqua did not escape that suffering.”

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ROME
La Croix

Le cardinal Marc Ouellet a demandé pardon, mardi soir 7 février, au nom de l’Eglise, « pour ceux qui ont abusé des petits et des faibles »

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ROME
La Croix

Le colloque international réuni à l’Université grégorienne de Rome, en vue d’améliorer la lutte contre les abus sexuels dans l’Église, s’est ouvert mardi 17 février avec l’audition d’une victime irlandaise.

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ROME
La Croix

Invitée à s’exprimer mardi 7 février au symposium sur les abus sexuels organisé à Rome par l’Université Grégorienne, Marie Collins, qui fut violée par un prêtre dans un hôpital de Dublin à l’age de 13 ans, a livré un témoignage très personnel.

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FRANCE
La Croix

Bousculé depuis une dizaine d’années par des affaires pédophiles, le Vatican a mis concrètement l’accent sur la parole des victimes à l’occasion d’un colloque organisé début février 2012 à Rome, où une célébration pénitentielle inédite a été organisée en présence de certaines d’entre elles.

Des Etats-Unis à l’ Irlande, en passant par la Belgique où l’Allemagne, ces affaires d’abus sexuels n’ont épargné ni le clergé diocésain ni les congrégations religieuses, notamment les Légionnaires du Christ, ou la communauté des Béatitudes, dont l’un des membres a été condamné à cinq ans de prison en décembre 2011 par le tribunal correctionnel de Rodez.

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FRANCE
La Croix

[avec audio]

Alors que le Vatican a consacré, début février, un colloque pour faire droit à la parole des victimes de prêtres pédophiles, le P. Joulain, qui a beaucoup travaillé sur cette question, estime que ce processus de guérison doit comporter une dimension non seulement humaine, psychique, mais aussi spirituelle.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Catholic Insider

When the Boston Archdiocese recently released the 2011 Annual Report and announced financial results for the year, it seems that few people actually looked closely at the report. So in the next few posts, BCI will analyze and report on a number of concerns. A close look at the annual report reveals several significant issues which Cardinal O’Malley and Vicar General Msgr. Deeley may want to pay closer attention to for the future of the archdiocese. Today we focus just on the budget balancing act, specifically i) whether the budget was in fact balanced or not, and ii) the mix of spending. We will share more issues in the next few posts.

Here is the gist of the questions over the “balanced budget.” As we said in this April 2011 post when the annual report budget balancing games were last played, in a balanced budget, revenues equal expenditures. Simple. But, for the Archdiocese of Boston, the report shows that revenues did NOT equal expenditures in 2011, or in 2010 for that matter. So, if revenues did not equal expenses, how can the budget be “balanced”? It all depends on how you define “balanced.” We cannot find anyone who defines a “balanced budget” the same way the Boston Archdiocese does, but if we are missing something, please let us know and we will correct ourselves.

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ROME
The Sun (United Kingdom)

FROM Nick Pisa in Rome

MORE than 4,000 cases of Catholic priests sexually abusing children have been investigated in ten years.

A top churchman admitted it is a “dramatic increase” on the 3,000 in 50 years previously suspected.

Cardinal Joseph William Levada revealed at a Vatican conference the shocking extent of the worldwide scandal.

He told 100 international clergy that the Catholic church has an obligation to report paedophile priests to the authorities.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

Throughout the arc of the sexual abuse crisis, Vatican officials have often complained about media sensationalism and bias. In 2002, Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos famously took a series of questions in English during a press conference, and then snarled that fact alone “already says something about the problem and gives it an outline.” As recently as 2010, Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the former Secretary of State, appeared to compare media criticism to “petty gossip.”

The tone out of this week’s abuse summit has been strikingly different. If not quite fulsome gratitude, speakers have at least offered an acknowledgment that whatever progress the church has made, has often come as a result of media pressure.

To be sure, those concessions have usually been coupled with insistence that church leaders should now get ahead of the curve, rather than waiting for yet another media firestorm. Moreover, trace elements of resentment over perceived media hostility haven’t been entirely absent.

Still, in comparison to Vatican attitudes on other occasions, one might almost say that the media’s role in the crisis is undergoing a rehabilitation.

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MICHIGAN
The Holland Sentinel

By Staff reports
The Holland Sentinel

Allegan —

The teens who testified Tuesday that they were sexually abused by a Holland man are three of several victims from at least two counties, a lawyer from the state attorney general’s office told an Allegan County judge during a pretrial hearing.

“There are another number of kids included in this case,” said attorney Paul Cusik. “There aren’t only three witnesses.”

Jonathan King Meyer, 32, will face trial in Allegan County Circuit Court for three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for the alleged sex assaults in 2006 and 2007. He was bound over to the circuit court after about 90 minutes of testimony Tuesday in district court.

The charges carry a penalty of life in prison for Meyer, a former lunchroom supervisor at Holland’s West Middle School and youth leader at Christ Memorial Church in Holland.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

The Vatican’s top prosecutor on sex abuse cases today bluntly decried “a deadly culture of silence” on clerical abuse, calling such denial “in itself wrong and unjust.”

Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna told participants in a Vatican summit on sex abuse that while the church now has clear laws to punish abusers, just having such laws on the books isn’t enough.

“Our people need to know that the law is being applied,” he said. “No strategy for the prevention of child abuse will ever work without commitment and accountability.”

Scicluna likewise reaffirmed the obligation of church leaders to cooperate with civil authorities, including reporting abuse allegations to police and prosecutors.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

To all those critics who have clamored for greater accountability for bishops who drop the ball on sex abuse cases, the Vatican’s top prosecutor this morning had a simple message: You’re absolutely right.

“We need to be vigilant in choosing candidates for the important role of bishop, and we also need to use the tools that canonical law and tradition give us for the accountability of bishops,” said Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna.

As a case in point, Scicluna bluntly said it is simply “not acceptable” for bishops to ignore anti-abuse protocols established by the Vatican or by their bishops’ conference. He said the church in Ireland, to take one example, “has paid a very high price for the mistakes of some of its shepherds.”

Sciculuna was apparently referring to a damning government report in 2011 which found that in the Irish diocese of Clone, which founded that both civil laws and church procedures on handling sex abuse complaints were flouted as recently as 2009.

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NEVADA
8 News Now

By KEN RITTER
Associated Press
HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) – A judge in Henderson set a March evidence hearing for a former fugitive Las Vegas-area pastor who was returned in custody from Mexico to face multiple child sex assault charges.

Otis Holland said little during a brief hearing Tuesday at which Henderson Justice of the Peace David Gibson Sr. scheduled a March 21 preliminary hearing.

The 55-year-old former pastor of the United Faith Church was arrested Jan. 25 in Tijuana, Mexico.

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IOWA
Courier

By TINA HINZ, tina.hinz@wcfcourier.com | Posted: Tuesday, February 7, 2012

WAVERLY, Iowa — Defense attorney Kevin Engels says authorities lied to his client and obtained a search warrant without probable cause.

During a hearing Monday at the Bremer County Courthouse, Engels argued to suppress evidence that could be used against his client, Dennis Brown, 67, of Eldora.

Brown, a pastor at Ivester Church of the Brethren in Grundy County, is charged with third-degree sexual abuse, a Class C felony. He allegedly performed a sex act in May with a 15-year-old boy in Waverly. The pair met online.

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MARYLAND
Herald-Mail

FREDERICK, Md. —
The former pastor of a Montgomery County church has pleaded guilty in Frederick to second-degree sex offense with a 10-year-old girl.

Joe Ivey, 74, of Walkersville entered into the plea deal Tuesday. Frederick County prosecutors dropped charges of second-degree assault and sexual abuse of a minor.

Prosecutors said they’ll recommend at Ivey’s March 28 sentencing that he serve four years in prison, with another 16 years suspended.

Defense attorney Richard Bricken said he’ll ask for no prison time. He cites the lack of a prior criminal record.

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MARYLAND
News-Post

By Brian Englar
News-Post Staff

The former pastor of a Montgomery County church charged with abusing a girl from his congregation entered a guilty plea Tuesday in Frederick County Circuit Court.

Joe Nix Ivey, 74, former pastor of Barnesville Baptist Church, pleaded guilty to a second-degree sex offense. Prosecutors dropped charges of second-degree assault and sex abuse of a minor.

Assistant State’s Attorney Tammy Leach asked Judge G. Edward Dwyer to sentence Ivey to 20 years in prison but suspend all but four years. She also asked for five years of supervised probation upon Ivey’s release.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Cape Cod Times

By SEAN TEEHAN
steehan@capecodonline.com

February 08, 2012

BARNSTABLE — A Cape Cod music teacher pleaded not guilty Tuesday to more than a dozen counts of sexual abuse involving two of his students.

Stephen B. Lindberg, 55, of Marstons Mills, who is also a former music director at a Hyannis church, casually grinned at times during his brief arraignment in Barnstable Superior Court. He is charged with four counts of rape of a child, six counts of indecent assault and battery on a person under the age of 14, three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14 and one count of violating a restraining order.

Lindberg, who has been held at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility since his arrest in August, remained in custody after Judge Gary Nickerson ordered that the total bail of $20,000 from two separate district court cases out of Barnstable and Falmouth be applied at the Superior Court level.

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MANCHESTER (NH)
New Hampshire Union Leader

By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI
New Hampshire Union Leader

Published Feb 8, 2012

MANCHESTER — Four victims of alleged clergy sexual abuse and their advocates appealed to the state’s new Roman Catholic bishop to change the diocese’s child sexual abuse policies during a brief sidewalk vigil Tuesday.

The six held signs and asked Bishop Peter A. Libasci to make a “clean break from the past” by replacing the lawyers and others involved with the diocese’s victim assistance ministries, publicly post the names and addresses of all credibly accused clergy and support any legislative reform that better protects children from molesters.

Libasci succeeded Bishop John B. McCormack as 10th bishop of Manchester last Dec. 8.

“With this new beginning, we’re just hoping there is going to be a new era and it will make it easier for victims to come forward and help make New Hampshire schools, parishes and hospitals safer for the children and the vulnerable,” said Barbara Blaine, president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Oxford Mail

BANBURY: A Roman Catholic priest who served in Oxfordshire, has been convicted of sexually abusing eight boys.

Alexander Bede Walsh, a former priest at St John The Evangelist Church, in Banbury, was found guilty of 21 sex offences by jurors at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday.

The 58-year-old, who was found not guilty of six other sex offences, abused the boys, aged eight to 16, in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Coventry Telegraph

Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham the Most Rev Bernard Longley has thanked the sex abuse victims of a former Coventry priest for their courage in bringing him to justice.

Alexander Bede Walsh was yesterday convicted of 21 sexual offences against eight boys and warned that he faces a lengthy prison sentence.

The archbishop said: “These are horrendous crimes, and I first want to express my deep sense of shame at what has taken place.

“It is the most serious betrayal of trust. I also want to express my profound sorrow, and deep regret to each of the victims, then children, now adults, for the abuse perpetrated by Father Bede Walsh, whom they and their families trusted as a priest.”

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ROME
Vatican Radio

From darkness to light. From pain and hurt, to healing and hope. That was the symbolic sense of the penitential liturgy led by Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, as a central part of the four day symposium. Appropriately since it is the Jesuit run Gregorian University that has been a driving force behind this conference, the liturgy was held in the great baroque church of St Ignatius, dedicated to the founder of the Society of Jesus. Beneath the masterly ceiling fresco by Andrea del Pozzo, a small procession of bishops, priests, and lay people entered the dark and silent church as images were projected onto a screen beside a simple wooden crucifix. They showed the beauty of God’s creation, images of nature and new life, children of different countries and cultures. But then a dramatic change of tone as the slides showed man’s destruction of the environment, our greed and violence, racism and conflicts that remind us all of our need for forgiveness.

In his homily Cardinal Ouellet spoke of the scandal and shame of sexual abuse, a crime he said which causes a sense of death for the innocent victims. He spoke too of the sins of church leaders who often knew what their priests were doing but failed to stop the abuse. He said, “Sometimes the violence was committed by deeply disturbed persons, or by those who had themselves been abused. It was necessary to take action concerning them and to prevent them from continuing any form of ministry for which they were obviously not suitable. This was not always done properly, and once again we apologise to the victims.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sentinel

THE head of the Roman Catholic church in the West Midlands has spoken out about the “horrendous” sexual abuse committed by a former priest.

Bede Walsh has been found guilty of carrying out 21 sexual offences against eight boys when he served as a priest in churches across the Archdiocese of Birmingham, including in Cheadle.

After finding Walsh guilty of 18 charges of indecent assault and one serious sexual offence at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court on Monday, the jury yesterday finished its deliberations to convict him of a further two counts.

Walsh, aged 58, will be sentenced on March 9 and has been warned a lengthy sentence is “inevitable”.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Catherine Hornby in Rome

Wednesday February 08 2012

Church guidelines on how to root out paedophile priests and protect children need to be backed up by penalties for bishops who fail to implement them, Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins told a Vatican symposium on clerical abuse yesterday.

She said rules without sanctions were too easily ignored and cases were often swept under the carpet, allowing paedophiles to carry on molesting children.

The symposium is aimed at compelling bishops to create tough policies to protect children and root out paedophiles from the priesthood.

“I would hope that internally there could be some ecclesiastical penalty for a bishop who may not follow the guidelines,” the 65-year-old campaigner said at the gathering in Rome. “You obviously have civil law as well, but I am talking more on the church side.”

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