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[What power accumulated for Javier Martinez, archbishop of Granada, for Pope Francis not to depose him but to support him? The Holy Pontiff continues to support the controversial archbishop.]

Corazón de Olivetti

Comentar
¿Qué poder acumula el arzobispo de Granada, Javier Martínez, para que el Papa Francisco, lejos de destituirle, le respalde? El llamado Papa de los pobres acaba de nombrar cardenal a Ricardo Blázquez, el obispo de Valladolid y exégeta de los conservadores neocatecumenales de Kiko Argüello. Sin embargo, el Santo Pontífice sigue apoyando al controvertido arzobispo granadino que, hace un par de semanas, viajó al Vaticano maliciando su destitución y regresó con el compromiso de no bajarse de la cruz (sic). Así que seguirá sufriendo por el acoso mediático, por el hartazgo de muchos de sus propios feligreses y por el estupor de la sociedad española que no comprende como los aires de renovación de la Santa Sede siguen sin llegar a la tierra de María Santísima.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

Rita Ferrone February 14, 2015

In December, I wrote a post here at dotCommonweal about how Pope Francis’s leadership is having an impact on the bishops of Spain. The sex abuse scandal in Granada is one of the instances in which Pope Francis’s personal initiative has made a difference. The story continues today with an update in the New York Times.

As you may recall, one of the remarkable features of the case was that the Pope himself contacted the victim, identified at the time only by the name of “Daniel,” and followed up with him.

Francis phoned him, first on August 10, to apologize, a call in which he expressed great compassion for Daniel’s suffering and told him the process was underway to address the situation. Then, on October 10, he phoned a second time to urge him to ask that sanctions be enacted. Daniel then went to a public prosecutor. It appears that the Archbishop of Granada, Francisco Xavier Martínez Fernández, had dragged his feet, doing no more than suspending three priests, a decision he defended, saying the young man had asked him to do no more than this. It has since emerged that others are involved in the scandal in Granada. As many as a dozen priests (10% of the secular clergy of the diocese) may now be facing sanctions in what is the first major scandal of its kind in Spain.

El Diario predicted on December 1 that Archbishop Martinez of Granada would be out of his post after Christmas. His successor had “virtually been named,” the story said, and further claimed that Martinez himself was looking for a way to ease the transition, rather than leaving in disgrace. (He is a biblical studies scholar and said he would welcome an assignment in the Holy Land.)

Well, here we are in February and Martinez is still Archbishop of Granada. The New York Times takes up the story today, with a fresh summary and update on what’s happening with the case. The report reveals the real name of the plaintiff: David Ramírez Castillo, and tells more about the lawsuit. It does not offer much news on the church front. Nevertheless, this quote from a spokeswoman for the Granada Archdiocese caught my eye.

Last month, Granada’s archbishop met Pope Francis in Rome, prompting speculation that he would be asked to resign.

But Paqui Pallarés, a spokeswoman for the Granada diocese, said that the pope had instead urged the archbishop to “come down from the cross” and face up to problems within his diocese.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

VATICAN CITY—So which is it? Are Catholics supposed to heed Pope Francis’s advice not to “breed like rabbits” or are they to follow his missive, “The choice not to have children is selfish.” And is it ok to be gay, as the world thought he meant when he said, “If a person seeks God and has goodwill, then who am I to judge?” Or is still wrong in the eyes of the Catholic Church, as he implied on recent trip to the Philippines when he said, “The family is threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.” And we won’t even mention the pope’s widely-reported punch the other cheek or the assumed endorsement of spanking on the eve of the Vatican’s child abuse commission meeting.

The pope seems to be all over the page lately, contradicting himself at every turn as each headline writer regurgitates his quotes, altering them slightly like a global game of Telephone or Chinese Whispers, where the message gets more garbled each time it is repeated. Part of the problem is the fact that in two years at the helm of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis has opened the floodgates of communication in an institution that has been effectively cloistered for centuries.

While it is no exaggeration that a pope has never been so widely quoted by the secular press, it could also be said that a pope’s intentions have never been so widely misinterpreted. While it may seem like the pope is sending mixed signals, the truth may be that most of the press and non-Catholics are just projecting their own wishes and values on him. “The pope’s communication style is not formal, it is not super controlled and it is not super thought out,” Vatican expert John Thavis and author of the Vatican Diaries told The Daily Beast. “He shoots from the hip, which makes him marvelously spontaneous, but open to misreading.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sky News

The offical inquiry into alleged child sex abuse may be extended to investigate crimes committed as long ago as 1945, according to Justice Lowell Goddard.

The New Zealand judge took over the inquiry after two other senior figures were forced to step down over establishment links.

The investigation is expected to focus on allegations of alleged wrongdoing dating back to 1970, but Justice Goddard says this could be extended.

The 66-year-old told The Mail On Sunday that fixed cut-off points for inquiries are “artificial”.

“The terms of reference talk about going back to 1970, but there is a push from certain quarters to take it back to about 1945,” she said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent

Inquiry into child sexual abuse by establishment figures could look at crimes as far back as 1945, says inquiry chair

The inquiry into child sex abuse by establishment figures may have to examine crimes committed as far back as 1945, the judge who is chairing it has said.

Lowell Goddard also indicated that the investigation may go back even further than the end of the Second World War, arguing that fixed cut-off points for probes of this nature tended to be “artificial”.

Justice Goddard is a judge in New Zealand and was appointed by the Home Secretary after two UK-based figured had to step down from the position due to establishment links.

Critics, including alleged abuse victims, said the links of previous chairs presented a conflict of interest.

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 14, 2015

ROME — On Thursday last week I was on CNN discussing two recent statements by Pope Francis: one that Catholics don’t have to “breed like rabbits,” and the other that couples who choose not to have children are part of a “greedy generation.”

The host’s question was both simple and pointed: “Is it just me, or is the pope talking out of both sides of his mouth?”

In fairness, looking at the full context of those two lines dissolves most of the apparent contradiction. The pope’s message seems to be that large families are great, but no one is obligated to have one, and that the trick is to be open to whatever God has in store.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald

Sunday, February 15, 2015

By: Raymond L. Flynn

When Pope Francis was first elected to lead the Catholic Church, I believed the No. 1 issue he was facing was the Vatican’s finances — not just as an issue of fiscal solvency and accountability, but as a matter of restoring global confidence in the church leadership, and rebuilding a church that has been in crisis.

I advocated then for a thorough, independent audit of the Vatican’s books and said the results should be made public.

Well, now we know that the Vatican is sitting on $1.5 billion in assets it didn’t know it had, an amount far greater than it ever expected.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, the so-called Vatican financial czar, disclosed the windfall Friday, the initial findings of a one-year study that has concluded the Vatican has more than 
$3 billion in total assets.

The veil of secrecy about the Vatican Bank and its financial situation has been a neverending source of speculation, sensationalism and even scandal going back to World War II. Movies have been made, numerous books written and thousands of sensational expose-type articles have been written about secret accounts, as well as money laundering.

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UNITED STATES
Philly.com

POSTED: Sunday, February 15, 2015

God’s Bankers
By Gerald Posner
Simon & Schuster.

732 pp. $30.

Reviewed by
Michael D. Schaffer

The New Testament is pretty clear on the incompatibility of earthly riches and the Kingdom of Heaven. But if Gerald Posner is right, a lot of people involved with Vatican finances over the years have skipped those passages.

Posner – lawyer, journalist, and Pulitzer-winning author of 11 books – reviews the church’s long, complicated history with money, but his main focus is modern times.

His primary aim is the Institute for the Works of Religion, known as the Vatican Bank or IOR, its Italian acronym. Founded in 1942, IOR is supposed to serve the religious mission of the church, but in Posner’s telling, it has also served as an offshore bank, tainted by association with shady characters whose list of sins includes money laundering, tax evasion, fraud, even murder.

Pope Pius XII created IOR at the suggestion of the Vatican’s financial consultant, Bernardino Nogara, whose investment wizardry carried the Vatican through the Great Depression. Posner spends a lot of time on Pius XII, who was criticized for not taking a stronger stand against Nazi atrocities. “In World War II, Pius XII’s silence helped protect a complex web of interlocking business interests with the Third Reich that yielded significant profits for the Vatican,” Posner writes. He uses the word likely to describe this scenario. One hopes he is wrong.

Later on, the bank was tarred by association with rogue financiers Roberto Calvi and Michele Sindona and compromised by the ineptitude of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, a high-ranking American official at the Vatican. In Posner’s telling, Marcinkus, who ran IOR from 1971 to 1989, got the job because Pope Paul VI liked him, and kept it thanks to the gratitude of Pope John Paul II, after Marcinkus sent $5 million in 1978 to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to help clean up a scandal at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa near Doylestown.

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ROME
Crux

By Michael O’Loughlin
National reporter February 14, 2015

ROME — A US cardinal said he has some unanswered questions about the practicality of proposed reforms in the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s main administrative bureaucracy, although he praised efforts to clean up Vatican finances and to combat clergy sexual abuse.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, also told Crux in a wide-ranging interview on Saturday that he’s skeptical about proposals to allow divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.

That’s especially significant since DiNardo, vice president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, was recently elected by US bishops as one of four US delegates to an October Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, where that issue is expected to be debated.

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UNITED STATES
Al Jazeera America

February 15, 2015

by Stacey Patton @SPchronvitae

Pope Francis has officially lost his revolutionary cred. Known for his willingness to challenge church doctrine, to bring religion into the 21st century and to speak truth to power, he clearly hasn’t gotten an updated parenting manual. He appears to still be reading from a 17th-century edition that advised Europeans that children could be possessed by a devil that should be driven out with a rod of correction.

During a recent general weekly audience, the pope decided to offer some advice to the world’s parents. “One time, I heard a father in a meeting with married couples say, ‘I sometimes have to smack my children a bit, but never in the face, so as to not humiliate them,’” he told the audience. “How beautiful!”

He then praised the father’s actions, saying, “He knows the sense of dignity. He has to punish them but does it justly and moves on.”

Did somebody slip a mickey in the pontiff’s communal chalice?

There is nothing beautiful or dignified about physically assaulting a child. At its core, corporal punishment — legalized brutality — is about intentionally causing pain. It is a form of humiliation that denies children the right to bodily integrity and puts them at risk for a slew of negative behaviors. If Francis had stopped — or sent one of his many researchers to the Vatican Library — to look at more than 60 years of medical literature, he would realize the numerous harms that come from smacking a kid.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Pope Francis the Jesuit Master of Deceits has announced, “Now in September, God willing, I will canonize Junipero Serra in the United States. He was the evangelizer of the West in the United States.” First of all, it is not “God willing” but the “Devil willing” aka “Vatican Mammon Beast willing” aka “Opus Dei Beast PR Deceits Team willing” aka “Jesuits Masters of Deceits willing”.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Independent

JAMES HANNING Sunday 15 February 2015

A victim of abuse at a notorious boys’ home in Northern Ireland will seek this week to challenge the conduct of Whitehall’s ill-fated investigation into child abuse.

A former resident at the Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast, supported by other victims, is applying for judicial review into the decision to exclude the home from the London-based inquiry, now chaired by Justice Lowell Goddard from New Zealand. At stake is whether current and former members of MI5 can be forced to give evidence.

Widespread allegations of abuse of residents – including claims that abuse was covered up and allowed to continue unchecked for years because police and the British security services were using the home to blackmail people – are the subject of a separate inquiry in Northern Ireland, the Historical and Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, led by Sir Anthony Hart.

Critics of the HIA claim it lacks sufficient powers to get to the heart of the scandal, and want Kincora to be investigated by the Goddard inquiry. On Tuesday at the High Court in Belfast, lawyers representing a Kincora victim, Gary Hoy, will challenge the decision by the Secretary of State, Theresa Villiers, to leave the Kincora investigation under the control of the HIA. The lawyers want the decision judicially reviewed. The Government confirmed last week that it will oppose the application.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mail on Sunday

By Exclusive Interview By Simon Walters, Political Editor For The Mail On Sunday

Justice Lowell Goddard clearly doesn’t believe in the old adage that bad news comes in threes.

If she did she would have run a mile when she was asked to take charge of the independent inquiry into historic child sex abuse.

The first two women picked by Home Secretary Theresa May, Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and Dame Fiona Woolf, had to stand down over their links with the Establishment.

But as Justice Goddard sits in her office in Millbank Tower, Westminster, she shrugs off the suggestion that the job is cursed.

‘It was unfortunate for the people concerned but not a poisoned chalice.’

Elegant New Zealander Goddard, 66, is descended on her father’s side from Renata Kawepo, chief of the Ngati Kahungunu Ki Heretaunga Maori iwi (tribe) in the mid-1800s.

Her forefather’s first name translates as Leonard Returns By Night, a quaint fusion of English and Maori. Although only one-sixteenth Maori, it shows in Goddard’s tall, athletic frame.

She was made a Dame last year, but talk of the Establishment is batted away. It doesn’t exist where she comes from, she maintains.

‘New Zealand is a classless society. We aren’t concerned who people’s great-grandfather was, it’s what they do themselves that’s important.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 15, 2015 by Henry Benjamin

Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, the current president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia was quizzed at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing in Melbourne on Friday about a text he sent in which he wrote about Zephaniah Waks “He is attacking Chabad”.

During his evidence, Rabbi Kluwgant said: I might have sent that yes” when quizzed about a text message relating to whistleblower Manny Waks’s father Zephaniah. He was asked if he had sent…

“Zephaniah is killing us. Zephaniah is attacking Chabad. He is a lunatic on the fringe, guilty of neglect of his own children.m Where was he when all this was happening? ” Rabbi Kluwgant responded: “I may have sent that, yes”

He told the Commission he is the immediate past president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria and is currently general manager of cultural and spiritual services at Jewish Care Victoria and he works as a minister for the Chabad Institutions of Australia.

Quizzed on the Rabbinical Council of Victoria by Counsel assisting the Commission Maria Gerace, Rabbi Kluwgant told the Commission: “Initially it was set up to be a rather insular organisation as support for rabbis providing professional development and support. When I took on the role as president I expanded those so that it would be engaged with the broader community not just the Jewish community through a range of multi-faith and multicultural initiatives as well.”

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ILLINOIS
Belleville News-Democrat

BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK AND BETH HUNDSDORFER
News-Democrat

February 14, 2015

A lawsuit against a Catholic priest last assigned to Belleville has resulted in a court order by a Minnesota judge requiring the religious organization that operates the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows to turn over any records of alleged molestation of minors by clergy from 1949 to 1978.

The order affects offices of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in all 50 states, which must turn over records of child abuse pertaining to any priest that occurred during the nearly three decade span. The Oblates at the Shrine have until March 27 to comply.

The inclusive dates are based on when the late Rev. James V. Fitzgerald was ordained and when he allegedly sexually abused two young brothers during a fishing trip in Minnesota.

Fitzgerald, known by his middle name of “Vincent,” worked at parishes in Minnesota and South Dakota until his assignment in 1994 at age 75 to the Shrine in Belleville. Until his death in 2009, Fitzgerald resided at St. Henry’s Oblate Residence, 200 N. 60th St., Belleville.

The Rev. James Brobst, Midwest Area councilor for the Oblates, said when Fitzgerald was in Belleville, he “did not have a ministry.” Brobst referred questions as to whether Shrine administrators knew at the time of Fitzgerald’s assignment to Belleville that he had been accused of child abuse to the religious order’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The Rev. William Antone, the provincial who heads the order in the United States, could not be reached for comment.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

02/14/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it is very possible that the path out of bankruptcy for the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis will include parishes and other institutions contributing to the financial compensation offered to victims of clergy sexual abuse. This could happen in several ways, including by parish insurance policies providing settlement money, parishes voluntarily agreeing to contribute to the final settlement, or with a judgment in support of an alter ego claim. The latter, as I have already mentioned, enables a court to treat separate corporations (such as the parish corporations or other related non-profits) as one legal entity with the Archdiocese, and to hold each liable for the debts of the other and to consolidate the assets of both.

Since that last posting, I have received many emails and comments regarding the alter ego argument. Most, frankly, take the position that the alter ego status is already established by the level of control exercised by the Archbishop over parishes and institutions. However, it is not that easy.

A lot of the control exercised by the Archbishop occurs in the areas of religious practice, such as the appointing of pastors, establishing regulations for the administration of the sacraments, and even dictating prayers and special collections for charitable purposes. A court is unlikely to consider these aspects of Archdiocesan control when determining whether the parish is an alter ego because of constitutional issues arising from the First Amendment. What will be of interest to the court is the extent to which the Archbishop’s authority over the temporal operations of the parishes and institutions exceeds that which is permitted by those corporations’ governing documents.

As I have already mentioned, the alter ego claim was posited by the Creditors Committee in the bankruptcy proceedings of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, but the Committee’s motion for an alter ego judgment and substantive consolidation failed. The Committee’s argument for the determination was ‘that the Parishes and the Debtor are part of a single enterprise, both financially and operationally, and that the Parishes are incapable of surviving as independent entities without the Debtor’s financial and operational support.’ The Committee also noted the overlap between the leadership of the Archdiocese and each Parish. Furthermore, while the Committee conceded that each of the Parishes was separately incorporated, it alleged that the Debtor and the Parishes do not adhere to typical corporate formalities and separateness.

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SPAIN
The New York Times

By RAPHAEL MINDER
FEB. 14, 2015

GRANADA, Spain — David Ramírez Castillo first met his parish priest, the Rev. Román Martínez, as a 7-year-old catechism student. Later, he became one of his altar boys. Step by step, Mr. Ramírez says, the priest convinced him that to deepen his faith he should spend more time with him and the other clergy members.

What started as afternoon visits after Mass turned into overnight stays and weekends away in a shared bed, including at the Summit, a private hilltop villa complete with a swimming pool, he says.

There, Mr. Ramírez, now 25 and still a Catholic, says he was repeatedly abused by Father Martínez or made to watch him and others, including several priests, perform sex over three years, starting in 2004 when he was 14. The priests deny the accusations, and a lawyer representing them called the charges “invented.”

Nevertheless, the case, which includes allegations of a sex ring and a cover-up involving as many as 10 priests — accusations supported by one other plaintiff as well as by several witnesses — has become one of the most serious sexual abuse scandals to emerge under Pope Francis.

It has also become a prime example of the more open and assertive approach to the issue of clergy sexual abuse that Pope Francis has taken as he shifts the tone in a Vatican long criticized for neglecting decades of abuses by priests in parishes around the world.

Though the Vatican’s record remains mixed in following up on the numerous sexual abuse cases that precede this one, Mr. Ramírez wrote the pope about his claims last August, he said. Just days later, the pope called him, encouraging him to pursue his complaints, and then personally ordered an investigation into the case, demanding complete transparency.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis must end now the Vatican’s pervasive secrecy and media manipulation policies that he inherited from ex-Pope Benedict. Francis bravely confronted corrupt Vatican officials at Christmas. Now before Easter, Pope Francis must confront their longtime incompetent leader, ex-Pope Benedict, whose proxies still seek to stymie Francis’ reform efforts. Francis must now release the so-called Gay Lobby Report and make the ex-Pope’s butler available with impunity for media interviews. Francis will begin his 80th year in less than ten months and is running out of time. It is now or never.

Papal moral authority, the main source of modern papal power, will continue to decline as escalating governmental investigations and insider leaks from the ex-Pope’s proxies and others steadily erode worldwide trust in Catholic Church leaders. When criminal actions have occurred, as evidently they have at the Vatican, it is inevitable (and proper) that official refusals, to meet reasonable requests for access to relevant information and records, will be seen as hiding the truth.

The latest demand for reasonable archive access is from Jesuit educated Gerald Posner, author of the important new expose, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican” , see at [Amazon]“. Posner’s latest plea for transparency about Holocaust victims’ related secret archives, almost three quarters of a century later, is now in the frequently conservative Los Angeles Times, “It’s high time for Pope Francis to open the Vatican Bank’s files” here,

[Los Angeles Times]

. As Francis faces continued opposition from the ex-Pope’s proxies, likely with the ex-Pope’s acquiescence if not encouragement, it is even more important to set the full record straight now, please see, ” ‘There is an ‘anti-Francis faction’ in Rome, says Irish priest” here,

[Irish Independent]

, and see also, “Pope Francis vs. Pope Benedict: Who is Infallible ? ” here,

[Christian Catholicism]

The overall implications and fatal flaw of Francis’ present approach are discussed in my remarks, “The Crisis Pope Francis Faces” here [Christian Catholicism] .

Reporters often object to their colleagues being bullied, as they should. Vatican bullying also impedes reporters’ digestion of persistent papal propaganda. Vatican reporting is already a tough enough assignment without “Jesuit bouncer tactics”. Yet, an Italian TV reporter who dared to ask, at the recent sex abuse commission’s farcical press conference about holding bishops accountable, why there were delays in the Vatican’s controlled criminal trial of Archbishop Wesolowski (who is accused of sexually abusing five youths in the Dominican Republic), had her microphone taken from her at the direction of Jesuit Fr. Lombardi, the pope’s spokesman, for daring to press the question. So much for accountability and transparency! Bullying always backfires, at least with the media. Fr. Lombardi should publicly apologize to the reporter, who was just doing her job, well and bravely at that! Lombardi cannot expect the “softball treatment” from all reporters that he too often gets, for example, from the Boston Globe’s John Allen or the National Catholic Reporter’s Josh McElwee.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Jennifer McShane
PUBLISHED 14/02/2015

An Irish priest has said that the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) is part of an “anti-Francis faction” opposed to Pope Francis”.

Speaking on Radio One today, Fr Tony Flannery (68) said CDF’s Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller was also the leader of an anti-Francis group or faction against the Pope in the Vatican.

“Müller is the leader of an anti-Francis faction in the Vatican in Rome,” the Galway cleric told the Miriam Finucane show.

“He would generally be seen as the leader of that. There is an enormous power struggle going on in the Vatican, at the moment, there’s no doubt about that,” the 68-year-old said.

“A lot of people there who are very unhappy with the type of thing that Francis is doing,” he said, adding that he was a fan of Francis and liked the way he was going about reforming the church.

Fr Flannery also said that the Pope was unable to touch the power of the CDF, who are still “very strong and powerful.” …

“At the height of the clerical sexual abuse cases in Ireland, I wrote in an article “The priesthood in Ireland now is not as Jesus intended,” he said.

He said that this led to him being “silenced” by Rome, but he chose to ignore that, but added that he cannot officially practice Ministry.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) The Director of the Holy See’s Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, says the decentralization of the Curia, the role of women and the ongoing economic and administrative reforms were among the main topics discussed by the cardinals at the Consistory on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. Father Lombardi’s remarks came at a press briefing on the 2nd day of the cardinals’ discussions on reform of the Roman Curia.

Speaking to the journalists gathered at the Holy See’s Press Office, Father Lombardi said the discussions at the Extraordinary Consistory had proceeded in a “very calm and constructive” atmosphere and the last 24 hours had seen speeches by 40 cardinals on a broad range of topics. He confirmed that Pope Francis was present during the sessions but did not speak himself. Father Lombardi said one of the recurring themes during the discussions was the relationship between the roman Curia and the local Bishops Conferences and how to decentralize the Curia “in a spirit of subsidiarity.” In this context, he said speakers spoke of the need to decide which responsibilities should be handled by the Curia and which by the local Church but also of how the central role of the Curia is important in countries where the local churches are in “a situation of weakness.”

Turning to the role of lay people and women within the Vatican, Father Lombardi said a number of speakers expressed the hope of “an increasingly active role” for them, especially when it comes to the issue of women holding positions of leadership within the roman Curia.

Friday morning’s session was entirely given over to a wide-ranging discussion on the ongoing economic reforms being carried out by the newly-formed Secretariat for the Economy. Cardinal George Pell, the Secretariat’s head and three other speakers gave a presentation, supplemented by slides, on the current state of the Vatican’s finances. Father Lombardi said many of those present expressed appreciation for the new shape of the Holy See’s finances that is emerging thanks to these reforms. He said this reform process comes across as a fairly “convincing” one that is earning plaudits for its “transparency and competency.” Father Lombardi said Friday afternoon’s session was scheduled to include a presentation by U.S. Cardinal Patrick O’Malley reporting on the work of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran Feb 13, 2015

The board of trustees and alumni association at Shattuck-St. Mary’s expressed “unqualified support” for the school’s president, Nick Stoneman, in a letter to alumni sent in response to an MPR News report that found Stoneman authorized a $12,500 confidential payment to a teacher caught with child pornography.

The letter said Stoneman acted swiftly to protect students, find out what happened and upheld “our legal and ethical responsibilities.”

MPR News reported last week that Stoneman had negotiated a confidential separation agreement with teacher Lynn Seibel in 2003 after the Faribault boarding school found child pornography on his work computer. Stoneman did not call police, and Seibel continued to work with minors in other states.

Police learned of the pornography in 2012 while investigating allegations that Seibel sexually abused students at Shattuck-St. Mary’s. In 2013, Seibel pleaded guilty to abusing six Shattuck-St. Mary’s students from 1999 to 2003.

Abby Carlstrom Humphrey, the chair of the board of trustees, and Maggie Osterbauer, the president of the alumni association, praised Stoneman’s leadership in the Feb. 9 letter to alumni.

“It is this very type of clear focus on doing the right thing that has led the Board of Trustees and Alumni Association to lend their unqualified support to Nick and his entire leadership team — a group of individuals eminently qualified, capable, and committed to bringing to life the mission of the School and providing compelling opportunities for the students it serves,” they wrote.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 13, 2015 by Henry Benjamin

Rabbi Yaakov Glasman, president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria between 2009 and 2012 when the RCV was seeking to shape community responses to the issue of child sexual abuse.

Rabbi Glasman agreed with Counsel assisting Commission Maria Gerace’s statement was that he understood that there might be “conflicting community attitudes to coming forward, to report abuse or to deal with the authorities”.

When asked if he was aware of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities when educating in the area of child abuse or domestic abuse, Rabbi Glasman said their training was more in line with the teaching of jewish ethics but that he would pass on information of the Charter to the current president.

Rabbi Glasman told the Commission that he had children currently attending the Yeshiva Beth Rivkah College. He was asked if he had any concerns about the current policies or procedures in relation to Yeshivah Beth Rivkah College “would you allow your children to attend?” Rabbi Glasman responded: “Quite the contrary. If I had concerns my kids wouldn’t be there now.”

Rabbi Yakov Glasman responding to Tom Danos that he had been advised that his appearance at the Commission was not necessary but he had volunteered to do so.

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AUSTRALIA
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

After hearing long hours of testimony – often very shocking testimony – from child sex abuse victims and their families, Chabad rabbis and officials including a top Chabad lay leader, the Australian Royal Commission investigating child sex abuse at Chabad institutions has concluded its hearings.

Some highlights:

• Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, currently the head of the Organization of Rabbis of Australasia and police chaplain admitted telling a victim that the victim was wrong to have sent a politely worded email to the Chabad community that asked people to cooperate with police investigating the abuse and to contact the police directly if they had been victimized.

Kluwgant’s asserted reason for doing this was because he had acted as a broker, bringing together police and top Chabad rabbis to discuss the child sex abuse issue and work out a way forward in which those top rabbis would sign a letter calling on the community to cooperate with the police investigation and to report any child sex abuse to the police. Judaism, Kluwgant said, wants one clear voice sounded in unity – not several voices, even if those several voices are all saying the same thing. The man’s email – Kluwgant claims he did not know the man was victim until later – ruined that.

Kluwgant admitted the email was polite, well written and “brilliant” and Kluwgant said he did not disagree with its content in any way. The only issue, Kluwgant said, is that it was sent. But Kluwgant went on to say that if he had known the man was a child sex abuse victim, he (Kluwgant) would have signed the email letter with him.

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GUAM
Jungle Watch

ThoughtfulCatholic.com blogger, Chuck White, has written a letter to Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco advising him that Fr. John Wadeson may have returned to San Francisco and be ministering secretly there. Read it here:

Dear Archbishop Cordileone

Below is a review of the Wadeson file.

11/15/2002 – Fr. John Wadeson, formerly a priest of the religious order Society of the Divine Word (Societas Verbi Divini – S.V.D.), otherwise known as Missionaries of the Divine Word, after being granted an indult of voluntary exclaustration (release from his order) is incardinated as a diocesan priest in the Archdiocese of Agana by Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron.

02/17/2004 – Fr. Wadeson’s name appears on a report by the Archdiocese of Agana which is published in the Los Angeles Times. The report notes that Fr. Wadeson was twice accused of sexually molesting minors between the years 1973 and 1977 when he was assigned to Verbum Dei High School in the Los Angeles diocese.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 13 February 2015)

Christian Brother William John Obbens (also known as Brother “Dominic” Obbens), now aged 69 and living in Sydney, will face four charges of indecent assault of “persons under 16 under authority” when his case has another mention in court in March 2015. Police allege that the offences were committed on two boys, then aged 13 and 12, in the late 1980s, while Brother Obbens was a teacher at St Patrick’s Christian Brothers College in Goulburn, south-western New South Wales.

Obbens was arrested at his Sydney home on 11 December 2014 by detectives from Goulburn (in a special unit called Strike Force Charish). The investigators are Senior Detective Dave Turner and Senior Detective Michael Callegha. A leading officer in the Goulburn Detectives Office is Detective Sergeant Matt Woods.

This case had its first mention in Goulburn Local Court on 22 December 2014 when the prosecutors officially filed the charges against Brother Obbens relating to one boy. The court granted an adjournment, during which the prosecutors and the defence were to exchange some court documentation.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 13 February 2015)

Christian Brother William Peter Standen (known as Brother “David” Standen), who has taught at Catholic schools in Sydney and regional New South Wales, will face a total of 31 child-sex charges when his case comes up for another mention in court in March 2015. The case had a mention in court on 11 February 2015 for a brief administrative process.

The police investigation is being conducted by a unit of detectives at Goulburn, southern NSW, where one of Brother Standen’s former schools (St Patrick’s College) was located.

According to court documents, Brother Standen is alleged to have assaulted 17 boys at this school between 1978 and 1981.

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

Most of the 20 new cardinals created today by Pope Francis never thought they’d be wearing the cardinal’s red hat. Most of them never wanted to be a cardinal.

And that, perhaps, is the most important defining quality of the pope’s choices, as he shifts the College of Cardinals away from careerists and toward pastors who, as true shepherds, “live with the smell of the sheep.”

Sure, geography is part of the pope’s plan. By choosing cardinals from such far-flung places as Tonga, Myanmar and Cape Verde, he is expanding the global mix in an institution that has been dominated for centuries by Europe.

The pope is also choosing prelates from small dioceses, places that have never had a cardinal before. I think this is a deliberate move to end the perception that cardinals should be the most powerful church leaders from the most populous and “important” archdioceses.

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MISSOURI
Columbia Tribune

By JANESE SILVEY

Friday, June 1, 2012
Updated: 10:19 am, Wed May 8, 2013

Harold Warren continues to prepare bodies for visitations and funerals even though he’s no longer licensed to do so, according to a lawsuit filed against his employer, Millard Family Chapels, late last week.

Rosetta “Darla” Fisher and Heidi Wick-Houser are suing the funeral home company for wrongful termination after both were fired Aug. 31.

Owner Reid Millard told them it was a business decision to eliminate the positions, although the lawsuit says the same jobs later were advertised as being open. Their attorney believes they were fired for complaining about Warren.

“There were two things they complained about — Harold Warren working there and operating without a license, and they were asked to do things that put their own license in jeopardy,” Columbia attorney George Smith said.

The lawsuit also accuses Kevin Clohessy — a former priest accused of clergy sexual abuse in 2003 — of not holding a license while performing duties. Instances recorded in the lawsuit span from April 2011 to August, but the petition says Clohessy managed the Columbia funeral home for more than a year before that. The Missouri Division of Professional Registration shows Clohessy was issued a funeral director license on June 15.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Radio New Zealand

The British Government is considering extending the scope of the child sexual abuse inquiry led by New Zealand’s Justice Lowell Goddard.

A Home Affairs Committee report says it should cover Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than just England and Wales.

The BBC reports the independent inquiry was set up by the Home Secretary last year to consider whether public bodies and other institutions failed in their duty to protect children.

The inquiry will investigate whether “public bodies and other non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse in England and Wales”.

Justice Goddard said it would seek to “revisit past wrongs”, find out what happened and look at what is currently happening to ensure there is “not only redress but, most importantly, that children now and for the future are protected”.

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UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Times

Op-Ed

By GERALD POSNER

Pope Francis, who has worked hard to carve out a reputation as a reformer, is facing one of his most daunting challenges when it comes to the Catholic Church’s finances, particularly the Vatican Bank. Since World War II — when the bank was created as the equivalent of the Federal Reserve combined with a commercial bank — it has operated with few checks and balances. Over the decades, it has become embroiled in seemingly endless scandals that include questions about wartime profiteering with Nazis, gigantic business schemes and political slush funds.

The Vatican did not even have a law against money laundering until 2011. Some previous popes — including Paul VI in the 1960s and John Paul II in the 1980s — had promised upon their election to tame the church’s unruly finances. But they were inevitably defeated by entrenched powers inside Vatican City who pretended to embrace reforms while working surreptitiously to maintain the bank’s outlier status. The issue facing the church is whether Francis, riding a remarkable wave of international popularity and goodwill, can accomplish what frustrated his predecessors.

Since becoming pope in 2013, Francis has energetically tried to remake the bank into a transparent and accountable institution through decrees, key appointments and an overall reorganization. By tapping outsiders for important management and enforcement roles at the Vatican Bank, he has started to loosen the grip of old-guard clerics, mostly Italian, who have long wielded the city-state’s money power. And Francis’ appointment of a respected cardinal, George Pell of Australia, to oversee a new uber financial department, has received a mostly positive reception from Vatican watchers.

But has Francis done enough? Will the Vatican Bank move forward as a compliant member of the international financial community, or will it remain the equivalent of an offshore bank in the heart of Rome? It is too early to tell, in part because no one is certain how long Francis will be pope.

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Mail (UK)

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY, Feb 14 (Reuters) – Pope Francis on Saturday inducted new Roman Catholic cardinals to the group that will choose his successor, telling them their high rank was a call to be humble and work for justice.

Francis elevated 20 prelates, many of them from developing countries, at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica. It was attended by former Pope Benedict XVI, making only his fifth public appearance at a church event since his resignation in 2013.

In his homily, Francis said being a cardinal “is not a kind of accessory, a decoration, like an honorary title”. He warned against being “puffed up with pride”, adding: “Nor are church dignitaries immune from this temptation.”

Cardinals are the pope’s highest ranking aides in Rome and around the world. Those under 80 can enter a secret conclave to elect the next pontiff after Francis’s death or resignation.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
The Post and Courier

Christina Elmore

A Baptist preacher who once owned a wayward boys home that closed its doors 30 years ago in Walterboro amid accusations of physical abuse and kidnapping has died.

Mack Ford, 82, of Louisiana, was found dead in his home around 8 p.m. Wednesday, The Times-Picayune of New Orleans reported. He appeared to have died from natural causes, according to the news outlet, though an autopsy was scheduled.

Ford’s name gained notoriety locally in 1984 after two children who ran from his New Bethany Baptist Church Home for Boys in Walterboro complained to authorities of the conditions there.

Colleton County sheriff’s deputies raided the facility in May of that year and found evidence of a jail-like cell, handcuffings, beatings and spankings with a plastic pipe that had been referred to as “the rod of correction,” authorities reported at the time.

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FLORIDA
WFTS

Edward Lawrence

A former priest convicted of molesting boys will walk out of prison Saturday to the shock of his victims.

Robert Schaeufele pleaded guilty in 2003.

“It’s like a bomb dropped at your feet,” said Chris McCafferty, one of his victims.

McCafferty put this day out of his mind because he thought it wouldn’t come for another 13 ½ years.

But a legal technicality will allow the former priest who admitted to sexually abusing McCafferty and other children will walk out of prison.

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CANADA
The Peterborough Examiner

By Kennedy Gordon, Peterborough Examiner
Friday, February 13, 2015

A former pastor was found guilty Friday of two sex-related charges involving a then-teenaged boy 25 years ago.

Mr. Justice Hugh O’Connell found Clifton Pelley guilty of sexual assault and gross indecency, but not guilty of three other charges involving a different man who alleged Pelley drugged him and sexually assaulted him as a teen.

O’Connell told the court he had no difficult believing the testimony of the victim, who said Pelley had taken him into a church office after a tri p to the U.S. In 1985 and told him he had the authority of the church and the police to inspect his genitals.

Pelley told the then-16-year-old that a girl had been impregnated on the trip and he had to look for a distinctive marking on the genitals of the boys of the church. The boy agreed and Pelley carried out the inspection.

“I did not find this to be scripted evidence. Rather, I found it to be very telling testimony … very truthful,” O’Connell said. “I completely accept that Mr. Pelley used the ruse of the pregnancy” to carry out the abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 13, 2015 by Henry Benjamin

The final day of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse saw Rabbi Zvi Telsner complete his evidence followed by appearances by Rabbi Klugwant, Rabbi Smukler

During the course of his testimony Rabbi Telsner expressed his view that gays and pedophiles could be cured.

The following is the evidence under questioning by Christine Hanscombe

CHRISTINE HANSCOMBE: Do you accept the proposition that pedophiles can be for want of a better word cured by counselling and spiritual guidance

RABBI ZVI TELSNER: There is a possibility. I am not an expert in the field. I suspect there may be a small percentage possibility. I can’t really say.

CHRISTINE HANSCOMBE: It would appear that Rabbi Groner held the view that some form of spiritual care might cure David Cyprys. Is that an issue that you know anything about Rabbi Groner considering.

RABBI ZVI TELSNER: You said about spiritual care. What do you mean about spiritual care?

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Michael O’Loughlin
National reporter February 13, 2015

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s ongoing efforts to reform its financial dealings were given a thumbs-up from the world’s cardinals in Rome today, a Vatican spokesman said.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi briefed reporters after a three-hour meeting of the College of Cardinals, during which the prelates were given an update by the pope’s point man on finances, Australian Cardinal George Pell, and three other leaders of the clean-up operation launched under Pope Francis.

The cardinals were appreciative of Pell’s work, Lombardi said.

“This type of reform helps the credibility of the Church, [and] there’s a sense that this spirit should also spread to dioceses,” he said.

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VATICAN CITY
Standard-Times

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Saturday promoted the No. 2 officer of the Swiss Guards to commander of the colorful, 500-year-old army, whose members take an oath to protect pontiffs.

The Vatican said that Lt. Col. Christoph Graf will now command the guardsmen, who stand vigilant during papal ceremonies.

Graf, who joined the Guards in 1987, takes the place of Col. Daniel Anrig, who had been commander since 2008.

Francis didn’t elaborate about why he asked Anrig to step down, except to say it was time for “renewal.” Anrig said in a recent interview that he didn’t ask why he was sent packing. There were reports that Anrig’s style, described as severe, didn’t sync with Francis’ informality. The pontiff, in an interview in December, denied that Anrig was removed because he was too rigid.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

By Andrea Gagliarducci

Vatican City, Feb 13, 2015 / 02:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Reform was the watchword as cardinals met at the Vatican for briefings about the state of Vatican finances and about the work of a pontifical commission that protects minors.

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna spoke with CNA about the extraordinary consistory of cardinals, reporting that “we are in the middle of a discussion, there are things to be refined, but there is a strong papal will to carry forward the reforms, and I can sense this among cardinals as well.”

Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, discussed the extraordinary consistory in a media briefing.

According to Fr. Lombardi, the extraordinary consistory took place “in a serene and constructive atmosphere.” The press office director said that 164 cardinals took part, including the 19 of 20 cardinals-to-be who will receive their red hats on Saturday.

He stressed that no decisions may be expected from it.

The extraordinary consistory was supposed to end the morning of Feb. 13, but a new session was added to allow Cardinal Sean O’Malley, president of the Pontifical Commission of Protection of Minors, to report about how the commission is shaping its statutes and outlining its future work.

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PUERTO RICO
ABC News

Associated Press

A priest in Puerto Rico has been charged with lewd acts in a case that authorities say involved a 14-year-old boy.

Police said Friday that 50-year-old Floyd Lenin McCoy was arrested and later released on $5,000 bond. He is scheduled to appear in court March 4 and has been ordered to wear an ankle monitor.

It was not immediately clear if he has a lawyer.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Mayaguez contacted prosecutors about the case and suspended McCoy from a church in the western town of Hormigueros. The island’s Justice Department says the alleged incidents occurred between 2013 and 2014.

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PUERTO RICO
Primera Hora

[Mayagüez. The Rev. Floyd McCoy, a suspended priest of the parish of La Monserrate in Hormigueros, arrived this morning to court to face charges of lewd acts. The District Attorney Mayagüez, Blanca Portela, presented today charges of lewd acts committed between 2013 and 2014 against a minor.]

Por Daileen Joan Rodríguez
02/13/2015

Mayagüez. El suspendido sacerdote Floyd McCoy de la parroquia La Monserrate en Hormigueros, llegó esta mañana al Tribunal de Primera Instancia, para enfrentar cargos por actos lascivos.

La fiscal del distrito de Mayagüez, Blanca Portela, presentaría hoy cargos por actos lascivos cometidos entre el 2013 al 2014 contra un menor de edad.

El sacerdote fue suspendido por orden del obispo Roberto Gonzalez en septiembre de 2014, cuando surgió la querella.

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VATICAN CITY
euronews

We speak to Sébastien Maillard, Vatican correspondent for the French newspaper la Croix, about the latest organisational reforms in the Roman Catholic Church civil service, the Curia.

Fabien Farge, euronews: “It’s been a busy week in the Vatican, two years after Pope Benedict’s shock abdication. His successor, Pope Francis, launched ambitious reforms of the Catholic Curia. Sébastien, where are we with this famous reform of the Curia, and why change it?”

Sébastien Maillard: “Before the Conclave at which Pope Francis was elected almost two years ago, in March 2013, all the cardinals assembled and agreed it was high time to tackle this reform. The pope has waited for real movement on it before reconvening the cardinals. At this stage, in the past few days, he’s been consulting them for advice about the reform they asked for, a sort of mandate they entrusted to him after his election.”

euronews: “That mandate is already under way. There has already been a reshaping of the economic and financial services, even a secretariat for the economy.”

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

David Gibson | February 13, 2015

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis’ new cardinals, who will be formally installed on Saturday (Feb. 14), represent everything the pope says he wants for the future of Catholicism: a church that reaches out to the periphery and the margins, and one that represents those frontiers more than the central administration in Rome.

That’s why he picked cardinals for the first time ever from countries like Myanmar and Cape Verde, as well as one from the Pacific archipelago of Tonga, which has just 15,000 Catholics out of a population of 100,000 spread across 176 islands.

The 15 new cardinals who are of voting age — five new “honorary” cardinals are over 80 and ineligible to vote for the next pope — come from 14 countries and include prelates from Ethiopia, Panama, Thailand and Vietnam, and from places in Europe far removed from the traditional power dioceses of Old World Catholicism.

In fact, only one new cardinal comes from the Roman Curia, the Italian-dominated papal bureaucracy that Francis is struggling to tame in the wake of a series of scandals that revealed a deep dysfunction at Catholicism’s home office.

But will diversifying the College of Cardinals make it look more like the church’s global flock of 1.2 billion members? Or will it leave the electors so fragmented by geography, language and viewpoints that they won’t be able to serve as a counterweight to career churchmen in Rome?

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Saturday, Feb. 14

Statement by Mary Caplan of New York City, SNAP Leader, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 917 439 4187, mcaplan682@aol.com )

On Sunday, the hierarchy of the Catholic church becomes more inclusive than ever as prelates are promoted from several new nations. For the safety of kids, this could be problematic.

[Crux]

In our experience, very few church officials handle clergy sex crimes and cover ups well. Bishops in the developed world, however, have made minimal progress but only because they’ve been forced to act due to civil lawsuits, journalistic investigations, educated laity and well-funded, sophisticated law enforcement agencies. Sadly, these factors are less prevalent in the developing world.

In the developing world, there tend more religious order priests, closer ties between government and religion and a wider power and education gap between clerics and lay people. These are problematic factors too.

So bishops in those regions tend to be even less responsive and forthcoming about clergy sex crimes and cover ups. Put more bluntly, they tend to conceal clergy sex crimes more because they know they can get by with it more.

In the larger picture, adding more prelates from traditionally under-represented regions of the world may be just and healthy. But we fear it won’t make kids safer and may in fact make kids more vulnerable.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WCHS

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Charleston police said six people were arrested in a prostitution sting Thursday, including a county school superintendent and a pastor.

Police said Wetzel County Schools Superintendent Dennis Albright, 57, and Bradford Poe, 48, a minister in Proctorville, Ohio, were both arrested in the sting overnight Thursday. Albright and Poe are charged with engaging in prostitution.

Police said Albright told them he was in town to push a bill through the Legislature. Albright is a former Braxton County Schools superintendent.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The World Today

ELIZABETH JACKSON: At the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse the head rabbi of Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre has denied preaching against victims reporting their abuse to police.

But Rabbi Zvi Telsner says he apologises if he caused any victim or their family pain.

Victims have told the royal commission that they and their families were ostracised by the Yeshivah leadership and community after reporting their abuse to police.

Our reporter Samantha Donovan is covering the royal commission in Melbourne and she joins us now.

Sam, what exactly did the rabbi say in these sermons?

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Well, to explain the lead-up Elizabeth, in 2011 a furore erupted in Melbourne’s ultra-orthodox Jewish Yeshivah community when a victim of child sex abuse at Yeshivah College, Manny Waks, went public with allegations that several boys including himself had been abused at the school.

And he alleged to a newspaper that the Yeshivah leadership had covered it up and named Yeshivah’s head rabbi, Rabbi Groner, as having done nothing to remove a serial abuser from the school.

Manny Waks and another witness, AVB, have told the royal commission that they urged other victims to go to the police and that this angered Rabbi Groner’s brother-in-law, Zvi Telsner, who by this time had taken over as head rabbi after Rabbi Groner’s death.

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The Economist

Erasmus

A COUPLE of days ago, a senior African cleric was holding forth on the need to combine religious instruction with, in the broadest sense, sex education. Both at home and at school, declared Archbishop Henri Isingoma, boys must be taught about the higher purpose of sex as “the way God wanted to make the human race continue”. Another acute problem, he added, was “ignorance of the responsibilities of men towards women.” He was speaking in a webinar organised by a department of the global Anglican church, drawing in clergy and church workers from their own and other Christian confessions.

So…was this one more depressing display of the giant cultural gap between the liberal north and the traditional south, especially over sexuality, which is tearing apart the 80m-strong Anglican Communion, and many other religious bodies?

No, it was nothing of the kind, and that’s what made the discussion more worthwhile. The topic was “gender-based violence” which is a catchall term that describes both domestic cruelty and the still-greater horrors that take place on battlefields when soldiers run amok and commit rape. Victims of GBV are mainly female, but they also include men and boys. And the striking thing was that on this exceptionally grave subject, “conservatives” and “liberals” plainly find it useful to talk and cooperate, and the talk goes well beyond platitudes.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 13, 2015

ROME — Pope Francis’ finance czar today informed fellow members of the College of Cardinals that the Vatican has more than $1.5 billion in assets it didn’t previously know it possessed, although that potential windfall has to be balanced against a projected deficit of almost $1 billion in its pension fund.

The discoveries mean that the Vatican’s total assets rise to more than $3 billion, roughly one-third more than previously reported.

The cardinals were also informed that the Vatican’s real estate holdings may be undervalued by a factor of four, meaning that the overall financial health of the Vatican may be considerably rosier than was previously believed.

The disclosures at the closed-door meeting by Australian Cardinal George Pell, installed as secretary for the economy a year ago, was part of a wide-ranging overview of efforts at financial reform under Francis presented today to cardinals from around the world.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, February 13 – As an extraordinary consistory of cardinals continued two days of meetings Friday at the Vatican, child sexual abuse was on the agenda with an update on a commission appointed by Pope Francis on the protection of minors, according to a Vatican press release. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who heads the commission, gave a presentation to the College of Cardinals, said the director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi. Reports on financial reforms in the Vatican, including at the scandal-plagued Vatican Bank, were also presented as the cardinals continue to work on changes to the Roman Curia. That is the central body though which the pontiff runs the Catholic Church. It has reportedly been hit by infighting in recent years and in December the Argentine pontiff warned that the quest for power risked infecting clergymen with “spiritual Alzheimer’s”. As Francis opened the extraordinary consistory on Thursday, he described its goal as being “always that of promoting greater harmony in the work of the various dicasteries and offices”. He added that “reform is not an end in itself, but a means to give a strong Christian witness; to promote a more effective evangelization; to promote a more fruitful ecumenical spirit; to encourage a more constructive dialogue with all”. Saturday an ordinary consistory will see 20 new cardinals created at the Vatican. The reform of the Curia is part of the Francis’s drive to overhaul Vatican structures after the Church’s image was tarnished by scandals regarding child-sex abuse, financial and media leaks during the papacy of his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The government is being urged to extend the scope of the child sexual abuse inquiry to cover the whole of the UK – rather than just England and Wales.

The investigation should cover Scotland and Northern Ireland, including claims of abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast in the 1970s, a Home Affairs Committee report said.

The panel must seek to avoid “gaps” between the various inquiries, it said.

The Home Office said the report had been noted and was being considered.

The independent, panel-led inquiry was set up by Home Secretary Theresa May last year to consider whether public bodies and other institutions failed in their duty to protect children.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY NAOMI LONG – 13 FEBRUARY 2015

The new chair of the statutory inquiry into historic child abuse allegations this week told a Westminster committee she is willing to discuss including Kincora Boys’ Home as part of the investigation.

It has given new hope to the victims and survivors of the east Belfast home, following several setbacks to the original investigation caused by the resignation of its two previous chairs.

In spite of Home Secretary Theresa May’s statement to the House of Commons that her department’s investigation would be limited to England and Wales, Justice Lowell Goddard’s confirmation that she would raise it with the Home Secretary, if she felt it necessary, allows another opportunity to put Kincora on the agenda.

Kincora is already being probed by Sir Anthony Hart’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry. But I have previously gone on record to state how Kincora is uniquely different to other homes being investigated in Northern Ireland.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

SCOTTISH ministers have rejected proposals from MPs to extend the scope of a UK government-backed child sexual abuse inquiry to cover Scotland as well as England and Wales.

Westminster’s home affairs committee, said an independent, panel-led inquiry set up by Home Secretary Theresa May to examine abuse in England and Wales should also include Scotland and Northern Ireland to “avoid gaps” between investigations in different parts of the UK.

The Scottish Government has already announced its own plans for a statutory public inquiry to examine historical cases of abuse of children in care north of the border, where child protection is devolved to Holyrood.

Ministers today rejected the call from MPs to extend the influence and authority of the inquiry ordered by the Home Secretary, which a Scottish government spokeswoman said was a “primarily a matter for the UK Government”.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

In two weeks in February 2015 Pope Francis has uncovered finally, in secret meetings with Cardinals, his real plans and timetable, after two years of spinning the media and worldwide Catholics. Despite his disarming public smile and massive media efforts, the pope’s plans are basically a continuation of his two failed predecessors’ oppressive policies and teachings, only now under tighter papal control.

Holding bishops accountable for child abuse has this week been buried in a farcical “do nothing commission”, that is now even promoted by well intentioned but misguided abuse survivors. Money matters are being dealt with by disgraced Cardinal Pell, who proved by his brutal treatment of priest abuse survivors in Australia that he can be expected always to put the financial fortunes of the Catholic Church’s clerical leadership ahead of Jesus’ Gospel mandates.

Pope Francis is evidently stretching out making “formal infallible papal decisions”, including on divorced and gay Catholics, on women’s perpetual inequality, on confirming the contraception ban, et al., to help (1) US bishops and their low tax billionaire donors (with help from Cardinal Burke’s contrived and planned anti-gay marriage pitch to fundamentalist US voters) elect Jeb Bush as US president next year, and (2) then to help German bishops thereafter to save their $7 billion annual tax subsidy. This continuity of the essential elements of the last two pope’s disastrous policies is captured in “a thousand words” in a revealing photo, at the secret Cardinals’ meeting, of Pope Francis and Cardinal Sodano running the show as a team, see here,

[National Catholic Reporter]

The overall implications and fatal flaw of Francis’ plans are discussed in my remarks, “The Crisis Pope Francis Faces” here,

[Christian Catholicism]

Cardinal Sodano has been the most powerful Cardinal since the 1870 Vatican Council I first made popes “infallible”. Sodano’s longtime protege, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, is being groomed by “interim Pope Francis” to be the next pope, likely to occur soon after next year’s critical US elections since Francis’ friendly facade is needed to help get more US Latino voters to vote Republican.

Sodano was “de facto pope” during much of John Paul II’s reign. He treated the priest sex abuse scandal as an annoying distraction. Sodano’s Easter 2010 world televised address to Pope Benedict referred dismissively to the abuse scandal. Sodano arrogantly told the bewildered Benedict and the world that “… The People of God are with you and do not allow themselves to be impressed by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials that sometimes assail the community of believers” . (emphasis mine). Has Cardinal Sodano really ever asked the People of God — his biggest mistake, no?

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

David Unze, dunze@stcloudtimes.com February 13, 2015

A prominent attorney representing clergy sex abuse victims this week released a list of 17 clergy from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis who have been accused of sexual abuse or misconduct with a minor. The men have been identified in notice of claims submitted to the Archdiocese and its insurance carriers, the first step toward a possible lawsuit. The 17 names have never before been made public. The same list that attorney Jeff Anderson released is also on the archdiocese’s website.

The priests on the lists are deceased, permanently out of public ministry, on leave from ministry or on restricted ministry while the claim is being investigated. The archdiocese also posted a larger list of men with substantiated claims of sexual abuse of a minor while assigned as clergy in the archdiocese. One name added to that list this week is Michael Bik, a former monk from St. John’s Abbey.

Bik’s name appeared previously on a list of abbey monks with substantiated allegations of abuse against them. Bik was permanently removed from ministry in 2002.

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NEW MEXICO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 13

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach CA, western regional director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (949 322 7434, jcasteix@gmail.com)

When it comes to kids’ safety, there’s no excuse for incomplete or inaccurate information, especially when the potential threat involves alleged clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

So for public safety, Gallup Bishop James Wall should immediately

— honor his promise answers and answer questions about Fr. Ravi Kiran’s sudden departure from St. Anthony Mission months ago,
— add more proven, admitted and credibly accused predator priests to his diocesan list,
— reverse his decision and post photographs of the credibly accused abusers on church websites, and
— aggressively seek out others who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups in Gallup and beg hem to call law enforcement.

Wall will claim his bankruptcy notices meet this request. He’s wrong. Bankruptcy notices are about a financial deadline. They’re not about prosecuting criminals. They’re not about keeping predators away from kids. They’re not about real justice, healing, prevention and truth telling.

Catholics and citizens need and deserve more honesty from Wall than he’s providing. Parishioners should donate elsewhere until their bishop

It’s important to be generous. But we hope New Mexico Catholics will give to organizations that prevent child sex crimes, not organizations that conceal them.

The claim by one of Wall’s public relations staffers (made to the Gallup Independent newspaper) that “Sometimes it takes a while to dig through the files” is both laughable and disingenuous. At some point, we predict, Suzanne Hammons, will look back with shame and regret that she made such a ridiculous and irresponsible claim and was part of a calculated decision to delay disclosing important information that could have helped keep innocent kids safe and helped wounded victims heal.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 13

Statement by Peter Isely of Milwaukee, board member of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 414 429 7259, peterisely@yahoo.com )

Last week, Boston Cardinal O’Malley said the church needs new guidelines to discipline bishops who conceal abuse. He told journalists in Rome “When you don’t have a clear path to respond in cases of sexual abuse, people tend to improvise. And when they improvise, they make many mistakes.”

Two full years ago, O’Malley told the Boston Globe the very same thing: “. . .if you don’t have policies, you’ll be improvising, and when you improvise, you make a lot of mistakes,” he said.

[Boston Globe]

How many more children have been raped or sodomized by priests over those two years? How many bishops have concealed child sex crimes over those two years?

And guess when the first US pedophile priest made national headlines? It was 30 years ago, when Fr. Gilbert Gauthe was convicted of abusing as many as 39 young children.

[BishopAccountability.org]

We may seem impatient. Martin Luther King ends his famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail by begging his critics for forgiveness if he’s shown “unreasonable impatience.” But he begs God to forgive him if he has “a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Soli Salgado | Feb. 13, 2015

At the Synod of Bishops on the family held at the Vatican in October 2014, several couples from around the world were invited to attend as representatives of the Catholic laity. One American couple, Alice and Jeff Heinzen, spoke about the beauty of family life and the advantages of natural family planning, a practice embraced in the church’s teachings.

But Deborah Rose-Milavec, executive director of FutureChurch, said, “While their voice and constituency should be represented, they should not be overrepresented. The purpose of the synod is to break new ground on these issues and to develop pastoral practices that reach out to Catholics who have not felt welcomed because they do not entirely conform to current teaching and practice.”

In an effort to “widen the circle” at the second synod on the family, scheduled for October 2015, reform groups FutureChurch, Voice of the Faithful and the American Catholic Council have drafted a petition calling for more diverse laity to be invited. Twenty other organizations have joined the cause. The letter, which launched Jan. 21, addresses Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, and the bishops of the world. Organizers plan to deliver it March 4 by mail and email to the bishops, and hand-deliver a copy to Baldisseri at the Vatican.

The petition names groups of people that will be discussed according to the 2014 synod document, known as a lineamenta, and therefore should be included in the conversation:

* Divorced and remarried people;
* Cohabitating couples;
* Interfaith families;
* Impoverished families;
* Single parents;
* Families with lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender members;
* Same-sex couples;
* Families torn by the violence of war and abuse.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

The bishops of Scotland have met with a leading Vatican exert on prevention of clergy abuse of children as part of their efforts to learn from past cases and continue to develop best practice.

Mgr Robert Oliver travelled to Salamanca in Spain to address the bishops during an in-service session at the end of January. Bishop Joseph Toal of Motherwell said it was part of the bishop’s desire to ‘demonstrate to survivors a willingness to listen and an expression of understanding in the context of carefully prepared personal meetings.’

“The Catholic Church in Scotland is committed to learning from past mistakes, developing best practice and allowing external scrutiny of our work,” he said. “The priority principle must be assistance to the victims of abuse.”

Pope Francis appointed Mgr Oliver as the new secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors last year. The Pope established the commission to advise him directly and to propose initiatives to encourage local responsibility within the Church.

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LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 13

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com , davidgclohessy@gmail.com )

A Baptist preacher who was accused of molesting kids and ran a controversial South Carolina childrens’ home has passed away.

Mack Ford opened and operated childrens homes in Louisiana and in Waltersboro, SC. He allegedly assaulted girls in Louisiana.

According to the New Orleans Picayune, “In both of those locations, abuse allegations resulted in criminal charges, though not against Ford.

In 1981, Longstreet school manager L.D. Rapier was arrested and charged with cruelty to children after four boys ran from the home and told authorities they’d been beaten. The charges were eventually dropped.

In 1984, South Carolina authorities closed the Waltersboro home after they found a 14-year-old sleeping in a windowless padlocked cell, where he had been for several days. Two employees there were charged with unlawful neglect of a child and kidnapping, and they eventually pleaded to a lesser charge of false imprisonment.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 13 February 2015 (VIS) – The Extraordinary Consistory of the College of Cardinals with Pope Francis did not complete its work this morning as expected. The meeting will continue during the afternoon, with an update on the work of the Commission for the Protection of Minors by its president, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, explained the director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., during a press conference today.

Yesterday, Thursday, the meeting continued in a serene and constructive atmosphere, with interventions by a further 28 cardinals who offered different perspectives on the reform of the Curia, focusing on the relationship between the Curia and the local Churches, and underlining the importance of better serving the Church in the world. They spoke of “decentralisation”, and the theme of “subsidiarity” was recurrent. Further reflection was invited on what can be done better and where: or rather, in which cases it would be more useful for the Roman dicasteries to act, and when instead the involvement of the dioceses or the episcopal conferences would be more useful.

Other interventions were dedicated to the usefulness and importance of the central service of the Holy See, bearing in mind the experience in various countries where the local church is weak and may be subject to pressure, and is therefore supported by the work of the Vatican.

Coordination within the Curia was addressed not with a merely functional focus, but rather from the perspective of a sense of communion between the different dicasteries, of communication that creates union in the common mission. More specifically, the interministerial commissions were referred to as tools for achieving this objective and the importance of continuity in this dimension of coordination was noted.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Feb. 13, 2015 NCR Today

VATICAN CITY The Catholic cardinals meeting with Pope Francis to discuss reform of the Vatican are continuing their conversations and are not expected to make any formal votes approving or disapproving changes to the church bureaucracy, the Vatican said Friday.

Speaking in a briefing with the press, spokesman Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi again indicated that the process to reform the Vatican bureaucracy may take longer than originally expected.

The some 160 prelates in Rome to discuss the reform, the spokesman said, have talked about the need to have a “gradual path” where some changes to the bureaucracy, known as the Roman Curia, may happen before a new organizational chart explaining the role of all Vatican offices is completed.

The cardinals are meeting Thursday and Friday at the Vatican to discuss the process of reform, which seems to be languishing in debates over the purpose, scope and role of the Curia.

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UNITED STATES
Homiletic & Pastoral Review

JANUARY 29, 2015 BY RICHARD P. FITZGIBBONS, M.D.

The evaluation process of accusations against priests in regard to determining their suitability for priestly ministry would benefit from greater justice and knowledge of psychological science. There are presently severe weaknesses in this process that should be addressed.

Response to Accusations

The practice of immediately removing a priest from ministry after an accusation is made should be reevaluated unless it has significant credibility. When the accusation is questionable and involves supposed boundary violation, grooming behavior, or consensual sexual behavior with an adult, the removal from active ministry harms the good name of the accused priest. A more just approach is that given to most other professionals who continue in their work while accusations are being evaluated.
Also, many priests have complained that some diocesan officials have treated them in a manner that lacked any sense of justice or charity, as though they were already convicted of criminal behavior, based on an unproven allegation.

An inappropriate response of some diocesan investigators is to go to the accused priest’s parish and communicate to parishioners the (unproven) accusations against him. Then, parishioners are asked to report any information they may have of any inappropriate behavior by the accused priest. Such behavior could create false memories in parishioners1 and harm the accused priest.

The Accuser

Justice requires an in-depth knowledge of the accuser, given the prevalence of false accusations in the culture such as occurred in the false memory epidemic against fathers that was influenced by mental health professionals.2 This knowledge would include an identification the accuser’s emotional background with his/her father because unresolved anger with a father can be misdirected, perhaps even unconsciously, at another father figure, the priest. It is also vital to evaluate any major weaknesses in secure attachment relationship from childhood and adolescence with parents, siblings and peers, and any traumatic experiences in adult life.

At a 2012 Rome conference on the crisis, a priest-psychologist stated that 95 percent of accusations against priests are valid in his experience. Most mental health professionals with expertise in working with priests do not accept such a view and have extensive experience with false accusations against priests and others, particularly related to divorce and custody issues.

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UNITED STATES
Rhymes with Religion

Boz Tchividjian | Feb 13, 2015

Not long ago, a friend was staying overnight with a family during an out of town visit. That evening, the family had a group of friends and acquaintances over for dinner and conversation. Sometime during the dinner, one of the male guests got up from dinner and sat in the adjoining living room. During and after dinner, my friend observed this male guest remain in the living room talking and playing with the elementary age son of the guests. At first, my friend did not think anything of the fact that this young man was spending time with this boy. However, as the evening went on, my friend realized that the attention of this adult was focused exclusively upon this child as they played on the couch together, touched each other’s faces, and engaged in other seemingly “innocent” physical contact. At some point, my friend became troubled with the ongoing contact between this guest and the child. After dinner, my friend overheard the young man invite the boy to follow him to the (dark) basement to go hide during a game of hide and seek. At this point, my friend became conflicted about whether she should say something to the boy’s parents or simply leave the situation alone.

My friend’s predicament is not unique. In the past 20 years, I have come across many situations where folks have found themselves conflicted about whether to say something after observing unsettling behavior between an adult and a child. Unfortunately, too many have decided it’s best to remain silent. A silence that is all too often fueled by fear. Here are five common fears that can convince us to “leave the situation alone”:

Fear of being wrong: We fear that we could be wrong since no blatant abuse was observed. We second-guess our instincts and all too often convince ourselves that our worries are unfounded. We decide it’s best to remain silent.

Fear of being right: We fear the incredibly dark possibility that someone we actually know may be grooming a child for abuse. Such depravity is too much for us to comprehend and is much easier to deny. We decide it’s best to remain silent.

Fear of being ignored: We fear that our concerns will be ignored by those who refuse to believe that suspecting adult could possibly have had any sinister motives for their behavior. In her book, Predators, psychologist Anna Salter writes,

“…those who see child molesters as monsters seem the quickest – when their neighbor, friend, or family member – to say that it is definitely a false report.”

We decide it’s best to remain silent.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

The Concerned Catholics of Guam has sent the Archdiocese of Agana two separate letters but has not yet received a response.

Guam – The Concerned Catholics of Guam organization is challenging Archbishop Anthony Apuron to sign over ownership of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary back to the Archdiocese of Agana. But local Catholic observer Tim Rohr suspects the Archbishop will not be able to, not because he doesn’t want to but because, as Rohr explains, he doesn’t have the power to.

The letter was dated January 14. In it, the Concerned Catholics of Guam urges Archbishop Anthony Apuron to quitclaim the Redemptoris Mater Seminary. This real estate transaction would essentially transfer full ownership of the property over to the Archdiocese of Agana. There is much controversy over this property valued at $40 million. Local Catholic blogger Tim Rohr shares with us his observations.

“Well the question is if he’s really in control of both then why deed it over in the first place. Well we know why he did that. He did that because he was told to do that. So basically the CCOG is calling his bluff and simply saying, ‘Well, okay, if you really are in control of both corporations then what reason would you have to deed it in the first place?'” says Rohr.

In fact, Rohr believes the Archbishop will not only refuse to sign a quitclaim deed, he won’t be able to. He says this is because, based on the way the documents are written, “on paper the archbishop only controls 25 percent of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary,” he points out.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FEBRUARY 14, 2015

Michael McKenna
Reporter
Brisbane

THE Anglican Church has expressed­ disappointment that Australia’s royal commission into child abuse appears to have ignored­ its request to investigate the cover-up of the rape and beatings of young boys at one of its Queensland boarding schools in the 1960s.

North Queensland Anglican Bishop Bill Ray said yesterday he now feared the extent of the sexual abuse by former principal Robert Waddington and other clergy at St Barnabas boarding school in Ravenshoe, southwest of Cairns, would remain a secret.

Bishop Ray formally asked the royal commission to use its special powers to investigate the abuse and response of church ­officials to complaints of victims of the late Reverend Waddington, who later rose to become one of the church’s senior clergymen in Britain.

Waddington later abused children in England, and it was revealed that at least three young clergymen he hired and mentored in the north Queensland boarding school were later jailed for child abuse offences at other schools around Australia.

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 13, 2015

ROME — Because he’s such a beguiling media personality, Pope Francis says and does lots of things that get spun as revolutionary but really aren’t. Saying Catholics don’t have to breed “like rabbits,” for instance, is irresistible as a sound-bite, but remarkably old-hat as official teaching.

Saturday, however, shapes up as the real deal, perhaps the most revolutionary day so far in Francis’ two-year run.

By creating 20 new cardinals from all around the world on that day, this first pope from the developing world is poised to change Catholicism forever — not in terms of the ideology of left v. right, perhaps, but definitely in terms of the geography of north v. south.

Equally consequential, this is the second consistory of Francis’ reign, meaning the ceremony in which new cardinals are inducted, and it cements impressions that Francis has overhauled the criteria for making these all-important picks.

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GUAM
Concerned Catholics of Guam

On February 11, 2015, the Concerned Catholics of Guam delivered an official letter addressed to Archbishop Anthony Apuron asking him six questions about the Annual Archdiocesan Appeal which will commence on Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2015.

Click the link below to view and download the letter:

Letter to Archbishop Apuron, dated Feb. 10, 2015

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

02/12/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

Earlier today, in the same ‘Archdiocesan Update’ that contains a reminder that the Congregation for Clergy insists on the ‘importance of ensuring the proprietorship of personal data contained in parish archives remain exclusively with the Catholic Church’ (ahem, too late for us), there is a link to FAQs by the Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, John Nienstedt, who suggests that his residence may soon be up for sale.

Q. Is the archdiocese considering selling some property?

A. That is a possibility. Property that could potentially be sold is the Chancery building, the Hayden building [the old Cathedral School building] and the archbishop’s residence in an effort to decrease operating costs and use all available resources to help those affected by clergy sexual abuse while continuing the mission of the Church.

Of course, the same article also contains this:

Q. Did the archdiocese create organizations like the CSAF to protect its assets from creditors during the Reorganization process?

A. No.

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

“Downsizing expectations.”

That’s the title I’d give Father Federico Lombardi’s briefing today on the College of Cardinals’ meeting to discuss Roman Curia reform.

For one thing, the cardinals were told it could take years to complete the reforms. An explicit comparison was made to Pope John Paul II’s modifications to the Roman Curia, which took 10 years to design and implement, with multiple stages of consultation and approval.

I’m not sure Pope Francis has 10 years to dedicate to this project.

The cardinals were also offered a vague outline of a proposal to combine six or seven pontifical councils into two new congregations, which are more important Curial agencies. The hypothesis, which has been floating around a while, would foresee a Congregation for Laity, Family and Life, and a Congregation for Charity, Justice and Peace.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Feb. 13, 2015

Can the content of a confession be revealed in court? Must a priest report to police information about the abuse of a minor that he hears in confession? Can a priest reveal what he was told in confession if the penitent gives him permission?

These issues are being debated because of a court case involving the diocese of Baton Rouge, La.

The case involves the 2008 confession of a then-14-year-old girl, Rebecca Mayeux. She says she told Fr. Jeff Bayhi, pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Zachary, La., on three different occasions that she was kissed and fondled by a now-dead lay member of the parish.

According to the Times-Picayune, the parents of the minor say the priest in the confessional told the girl to deal with it herself because “too many people would be hurt.” The girl said, “He just said, ‘This is your problem. Sweep it under the floor.’ ”

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IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Kelly Catholic News Service | Feb. 12, 2015

DUBLIN
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said he would seek assurances from religious congregations operating in his diocese that they are rigidly following child protection guidelines after a fresh round of audits raised serious concerns.

In a statement Tuesday, Martin said it was “appalling” that some major religious congregations had delayed fully implementing the church’s child protection guidelines and that, in some cases, this process only really got underway in 2013.

Martin said the delays left him “seriously concerned.”

The Irish church’s monitoring watchdog, the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, published 16 reviews on the implementation of policies in religious congregations — eight male, eight female.

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VATICAN CITY
Ames Tribune

By Flavia Krause-Jackson and Alessandra Migliaccio
Bloomberg News

He’s met with a transgender man, told Catholics not to breed like rabbits and washed the feet of a Muslim woman. While all this may sound like he’s ready to overturn dogma, Pope Francis’ real interest is geopolitics.

In less than two years in office, Francis has nudged the conversation away from abusive priests and used the image makeover to wade into such as matters as Cuba-U.S. relations and climate change. In September, he will become the first religious leader who serves as a head of state to address a joint session of Congress.

“He’s capitalizing on the fascination that he exercises,” said John Wauck, a professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. “He’s gotten the attention of the world and is using it.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

By Keith L. Alexander, Michelle Boorstein and Peter Hermann February 12

Law enforcement officials said there may be at least 150 women who allegedly were secretly video­taped by a prominent D.C. rabbi as the women prepared for a ritual bath, according to three people briefed on the investigation.

The Orthodox rabbi, Barry Freundel, was arrested in October on charges that he videotaped six women in the nude while he was at Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown. He has pleaded not guilty. He has not been charged with any additional counts.

At a meeting at the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Wednesday, two people present said some of the women and their attorneys were told by law enforcement that there may be more victims. Authorities said they were looking for help in identifying 88 women whose images appeared on the video.

Another 64 women were allegedly videotaped between 2009 and 2011 and could not be part of a case since they are outside of the statute of limitations, those people said.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Daily Mail (UK)

By Kate Pickles For Mailonline and Associated Press

A rabbi has been accused of secretly videotaping more than 150 nude women at a Jewish ritual bath.

Barry Freundel was charged with voyeurism in October last year in relation to recordings of six women while he was at Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown. He denies the charges.

Following an investigation, it has been claimed Freundel had filmed 152 women.

During a meeting with victims Wednesday evening at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, prosecutors discussed the number of victims revealed by an investigation along with the benefits of a plea deal in the case.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY NAOMI LONG – 13 FEBRUARY 2015

The new chair of the statutory inquiry into historic child abuse allegations this week told a Westminster committee she is willing to discuss including Kincora Boys’ Home as part of the investigation.

It has given new hope to the victims and survivors of the east Belfast home, following several setbacks to the original investigation caused by the resignation of its two previous chairs.

In spite of Home Secretary Theresa May’s statement to the House of Commons that her department’s investigation would be limited to England and Wales, Justice Lowell Goddard’s confirmation that she would raise it with the Home Secretary, if she felt it necessary, allows another opportunity to put Kincora on the agenda.

Kincora is already being probed by Sir Anthony Hart’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry. But I have previously gone on record to state how Kincora is uniquely different to other homes being investigated in Northern Ireland.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

Source: AAP
13 FEB 2015

Rabbis fear some of their colleagues with “fringe” views on pedophiles have damaged the standing of Australia’s Jewish leadership.

A royal commission has wrapped up in Melbourne after two weeks of examining the response of Jewish schools and centres, in Sydney and Melbourne, to a string of child sexual abuse cases going back to 1980.

Under questioning, some rabbis have put forward controversial views, including that ageing pedophiles who have not offended in decades deserve leniency, or that they could be “cured” and still maintain regular contact with children.

One rabbi told the commission that about the time he received a child abuse report in 2002, he “did not know that as a fact” it was against the law for an adult to touch a child’s genitals.

Rabbi Yaakov Glasman, a former president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, called such opinions “fringe”.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

PAEDOPHILES and gay people could probably be cured, a rabbi has told a child abuse Royal Commission.

But Rabbi Zvi Telsner, spiritual leader of Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne, believes it would require both extended therapy and time.

“There is a certain belief that if someone, for example, after 20 or 25 years, has not committed any offences, and all of this time has gone to therapy, there would be a good possibility that the person may have been able to change his way of life,” Rabbi Telsner said on Friday.

“I’m saying through therapy, and through counselling, and if you see that over the last 20 odd years the person has been able to control themselves being amongst children, the possibility (is) that he is in control of himself.” Rabbi Telsner was giving evidence to the royal commission that’s examining institutional responses to reports of child sex abuse. The rabbi was asked if he held the same views about homosexual people.

“I would say the same thing could happen to someone who was gay, I would suspect,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Manny Waks fought back tears as he described how it felt to be an 11-year-old boy taunted in the school yard by students who knew he’d been sexually abused.

He’d been molested by a man (named only AVP for legal reasons) and his fellow Yeshivah College students found this out.

Manny’s life got even worse – when the caretaker at his school also began to prey on him, subjecting him to repeated sexual abuse.

This man, David Cyprys, assaulted Manny and at least eight other boys while he worked at Yeshivah College during the 1980s and 1990s.

‘Most of the time I felt completely deserted and alone,’ said Mr Waks, now 38, describing his school years to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Melbourne.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 13, 2015

Jane Lee

Australia’s most senior rabbi this week sent a text message calling the father of three child sexual abuse victims, including prominent victims’ advocate Manny Waks, a “lunatic” who had neglected his own children.

Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, gave evidence on the last day of the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Abuse’s Melbourne hearing.

Zephaniah Waks, Manny’s father, has told the Commission he felt forced to move to Israel with his wife after being ostracised the ultra-orthodox Jewish Chabad community for supporting Manny in publicly discussing his abuse.

Rabbi Kluwgant told the Commission that he only watched parts of Mr Waks’ testimony to the inquiry last Tuesday.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Friday 13 February 2015

The most senior rabbi in Australia called the father of three sons who were sexually abused a “lunatic” who was guilty of “killing” the Orthodox Jewish community within which his sons had been violated.

On Tuesday Zephaniah Waks told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse how he and his family were ostracised and bullied by religious leaders after speaking out about the abuse of his sons at the Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne. He had demanded to know from senior religious leaders within the Orthodox Chabad community why they had ignored it.

On Friday the commission heard that as Waks was giving his harrowing evidence, the president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, sent a text message to the editor of the Australian Jewish News.

“Zephaniah is killing us,” the message read. “Zephaniah is attacking Chabad. He is a lunatic on the fringe, guilty of neglect of his own children. Where was he when all this was happening?”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Jean Edwards

Australia’s most senior rabbi sent a text message calling a father whose children were molested at Melbourne’s Yeshivah College a “lunatic” who neglected his children, the royal commission into child sexual abuse has heard.

Rabbi Meir Kluwgant admitted sending the message about Zephaniah Waks to the editor of the Australian Jewish News, Zeddy Lawrence, on February 3.

The Waks’s lawyer Melinda Richards SC put it to the rabbi that he sent an SMS to Mr Lawrence which read: “Zephaniah is killing us, Zephaniah is attacking Chabad, he is a lunatic on the fringe, guilty of neglect of his own children, where was he when all this was happening?”.

“I may have sent that, yes,” Rabbi Kluwgant replied.

The rabbi is the president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia.

He initially said he did not recall sending the text message and denied watching or listening to Mr Waks’s testimony.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY STEVEN ALEXANDER – 13 FEBRUARY 2015

Pressure is growing for the Kincora scandal to be included in a major child abuse inquiry after a powerful Westminster committee said the investigation should be extended to Northern Ireland.

The Commons Home Affairs Committee today strongly endorsed the appointment of New Zealand High Court judge Justice Lowell Goddard to head an inquiry into historical child sex abuse. MPs also called for the scope of the inquiry to be extended to cover Scotland and Northern Ireland – including the allegations of abuse involving prominent public figures at the Kincora Boys’ Home in east Belfast in the 1970s and 80s.

On Wednesday Justice Goddard told the committee that she was willing to discuss the inclusion of Kincora in her inquiry with the Home Secretary Theresa May if she felt it appropriate. Ms May previously said the inquiry will be confined to England and Wales.

Three senior care staff at the home were jailed in 1981 for sexually abusing 11 boys. However, there have been constant claims that MI5 allowed the abuse to continue, as it allowed the security service to blackmail powerful political and establishment figures who were paedophiles.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

Anonymous are about to wage war on rich and powerful covering up child sex abuse in ‘nightmarish’ Friday 13th march

LAMIAT SABIN Friday 13 February 2015

Masked protesters will march on the homes of “elite” paedophiles and public figures they claim have been involved in the “nightmarish” cover-up of child sex abuse.

In a video released on YouTube, Anonymous says it has exposed a club of people in positions of trust and responsibility that have been murdering and torturing children.

“Friday the 13th will see us become the nightmare on Elite Street,” the message says.

“Politicians, royals, media, religious figures, singers, actors, men and women; it seems that the long grotesque arm of this club has no bounds.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Greenville News

Donna Isbell Walker, diwalker@greenvillenews.com February 12, 2015

Hope, survival and justice were the themes of Thursday’s Julie Valentine Luncheon.

Two victims of sexual abuse shared their stories at the annual fundraiser for Julie Valentine Center’s sexual assault- and child abuse-prevention programs, and their prevailing message was that victims should never shoulder the blame for their abusers’ actions.

Jim Clemente, a retired FBI profiler, recounted his ordeal of teen sex abuse at a church camp, and his mission to educate parents and children that predators most often are outwardly “nice” people who prey on vulnerable kids.

Jen Bicha told her story of years of rapes by her older brother and the search for healing that ended with her brother’s conviction and prison sentence.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The government is being urged to extend the scope of the child sexual abuse inquiry to cover the whole of the UK – rather than just England and Wales.

The investigation should cover Scotland and Northern Ireland, including claims of abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast in the 1970s, a Home Affairs Committee report said.

The panel must seek to avoid “gaps” between the various inquiries, it said.

The Home Office said the report had been noted and was being considered.

The independent, panel-led inquiry was set up by Home Secretary Theresa May last year to consider whether public bodies and other institutions failed in their duty to protect children.

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CANADA
Global News

By Blaine Gaffney
Reporter Global News

VERNON – The “controlling and manipulative” Okanagan man believed he had the blessing of the Bible when he beat his children.

But a judge says that doesn’t excuse criminal conduct and he sentenced the man to 4.5 years imprisonment.

The assaults took place in the family home at or near Armstrong between October 2009 and August 2012 when the three children were between the ages of 18 months and four years.

Their father, identified in court documents as L.I., would frequently hit the children with a nine inch long wooden comb, or his hands, causing bruises and welts.

On one occasion, L.I. pinned his two-year-old son to the floor and covered his mouth and nose until the child’s face turned red.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Jean Edwards

The head rabbi of Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse he believes a gay person can be “cured” by therapy, like a paedophile.

Rabbi Zvi Telsner told the commission he believed there was a possibility paedophiles could be cured by counselling and spiritual guidance.

When asked if therapy could do the same for someone who is gay, he replied: “I would say the same thing can happen to someone who is gay, I would suspect. There is a possibility, I’m not discounting that”.

Rabbi Telsner said therapy could help paedophiles change their behaviour.

“There’s a certain belief that if someone for example after 20 or 25 years has not committed any offences, and all of this time has gone to therapy, there would be a good possibility that person may have been able to change his way of life,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

SHANNON DEERY HERALD SUN FEBRUARY 13, 2015

RABBIS embroiled in a sex abuse crisis that has rocked Melbourne’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community still “don’t get it”, a senior figure has admitted.

On the last day of royal commission hearings into Yeshiva Centres in Melbourne and Bondi, Rabbi Yaakov Glasman said some Chabad figures were still clueless when it came to handling child sexual abuse.

Rabbi Glasman, the immediate past president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, said the hearings had caused untold damage to the Jewish community because of a handful of radical-thinking rabbis whose evidence has sparked widespread outrage.

“It would be an understatement to say we are deeply disturbed by some of the comments made by some rabbis,” he said.

“There can be no words to mitigate the damage that they have caused.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 13, 2015

According to Melbourne’s Monash University research, the fully observant or frum community in Victoria accounts for about 15% of the Victorian Jewish community.

This includes Adass, Chabad/Lubavitch and observant Modern Orthodox Jews. Hence, the Chabad community is a very small percentage of the overall Jewish community but it is also the main source of Rabbonim for the mainstream Orthodox Jewish community. This means that it dominates the Rabbinic Council of Victoria, which is the peak body for the Orthodox Rabbinate.

The Yeshivah Centre is the leadership centre for the Lubavitch community whose key institutions includes various community institutions, most notably Chabad and Yeshivah Synagogues, Chabad Youth and Yeshivah Beth Rivkah College.

None of the Yeshivah or Chabad organisations are members of the mainstream Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) and tend to operate separately to the rest of the community, which includes Modern Orthodox, Conservative or Masorti, Progressive Judaism and secular Jews.

The vast majority of Jews in Victoria identify as Orthodox because of tradition or family connection to an Orthodox Synagogue. Nevertheless, most of these Orthodox Jews are not particularly observant, and would find their views on social and communal issues far closer to the views of the general Victorian community rather than anything espoused by the Chabad leadership.

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

By Jonathan Pitts
The Baltimore Sun

Episcopal Church officials are considering whether the Rev. Heather Elizabeth Cook — now facing criminal charges in connection with a drunken driving accident that killed a bicyclist in December — may have lied about her struggles with alcohol to smooth her path to election as the No. 2 bishop in the Diocese of Maryland last year.

In a written notice to Cook made public this week, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said church investigators have received information about “misrepresentations” regarding her “experience with alcohol” that she allegedly made in connection with her candidacy for bishop suffragan.

That information is cited as one reason church officials acted this week to formally restrict Cook from acting as a member of the clergy.

In a case that has roiled the national church and sparked controversy about how it elects its bishops, the mention of “misrepresentations” marks the first time officials have raised the possibility Cook lied during the search process for bishop suffragan, the second-ranking official in a diocese.

According to the notice from Schori, the church is looking at whether Cook gave false information to her former employer, the Diocese of Easton, about her history with alcohol as the Maryland diocese conducted background searches on its final three final candidates. The national church is conducting an investigation that could lead to disciplinary action against Cook.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

New York Archdiocese Parishioners See System of Secrets as They Fight Church Closings

By SHARON OTTERMAN
FEB. 12, 2015

For aggrieved parishioners at churches ordered closed or merged by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan last November, it seemed like a simple task: Get a copy of the formal decree of his decision on their parishes, so they could properly appeal to the Vatican.

So across the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, they began calling and writing letters to Cardinal Dolan and his senior aides, asking for the decrees. Some seven weeks later, a definitive answer came back: No, they could not have copies.

But archdiocesan officials said they would allow parishioners to view the documents — under certain conditions.

There could be no photographs and no transcriptions. Notes could be taken, but sometimes only after the document was out of sight. Viewings were by appointment, monitored by archdiocesan officials, parishioners who saw their decrees said.

The rules bewildered parishioners, who feared they might be stymied in filing their appeals. And several leading canon lawyers interviewed this week said they represented a highly unusual departure from church norms.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

13 FEBRUARY 2015

Home Secretary Theresa May has been criticised by MPs for refusing to release details of the salary of the new head of the inquiry into historic child sex abuse.

The Commons Home Affairs Committee strongly endorsed the appointment of the New Zealand High Court judge Justice Lowell Goddard to head the inquiry after the two previous chairs were forced to step down over perceived conflicts of interest.

But the committee said it was “disappointed” that Mrs May had refused to disclose her proposed salary range, saying only that it would be “in line with other public appointments of this nature”.

“This is not in line with the open and transparent approach we would expect in the course of a pre-appointment process,” the committee said.

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CANADA
Castanet

By Carmen Weld Feb 12, 2015

An Armstrong father will spend 4 1/2 years behind bars after he beat his family in the name of God.

The 42-year-old man, called L.I. to protect the identity of the victims, was convicted of seven counts against his 30-year-old wife and children in 2009 and 2010. These include six counts of committing assault and one count of sexual assault.

The assaults all took place in their family home near Armstrong, between October 2009 and August 2012, when the three children were between the ages of 18 months and four years.

According to B.C. Supreme Court Justice Frank Cole’s judgment, L.I., formerly a pastor doing missionary work in Africa, used faith as a defence for his actions.

Cole said when the wife would attempt to stop L.I. from hurting the children, he would shush her and say, “This is the way the Bible tells us to treat children. Otherwise, they will become liars and prostitutes.”

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The rising waves from government investigations, from Australia, to the UK, to Minneapolis USA and elsewhere are hammering the Vatican Titanic. And the international priest abuse survivor group, SNAP, has finally called for US Federal officials to pursue a national investigation, like Australia has and the UK is just beginning. A USA investigation is coming in due course, unless Pope Francis is successful in getting a right wing ally like Jeb Bush elected US President next year in the expectation of burying any US national investigation.

Yet Catholic Church leaders this week are continuing to sail blindly, full steam ahead, into the priest child abuse iceberg, with their latest secretive meetings of over 150 Cardinals in their full red dress uniforms. The Cardinals are meeting to discuss re-arranging the crews’ deck chairs on the sinking Vatican Titanic to enhance papal power.

Please see “Pope Francis Must Fire Cardinal Pell Now‏” here, [Christian Catholicism], “NY Times Pulls Punches As SNAP Jabs Pope & US Pols On Abuse Ploys“, here, [Christian Catholicism] “Will UK Probe of Teresa May Compel Ex-Pope Benedict To Testify?‏‏‏” , here [Christian Catholicism] and The Crisis Pope Francis Faces. Please see also prominent Australian abuse advocate, Aletha Blayse’s persuasive case for a US presidential investigation commission like Australia already has, here,”Child Abuse, War, and the Need for a National Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse”, here, [Christian Catholicism]

By now many Cardinals must be worried that they jumped too fast out of ex-Pope Benedict’s overheating frying pan into Pope Francis uncontrolled fires. Authoritarian Francis is often wrong but rarely in doubt.

Just follow some of the latest papal wizard’s meanderings down the Yellow Brick Road. Don’t breed like rabbits, just don’t use the Pill. It is selfish not to have children and more are better. Help the poor, but honor, like he seems to do, the crony capitalist billionaires from Wall Street, Big Oil and Big Media who help keep the poor, well poor, and the Catholic Church’s leaders rich. Protect children, but don’t report priest child abuse to the police unless legally obligated to do so. Say that bishops should be held accountable, then study how to do so forever. Slap your kids, but do so respectfully. Protect women, but oppose treaties that actually seek to do so. Be nice to abuse survivors, but go bankrupt to avoid compensating them justly, or if you are Cardinal Pell, grind the victims into unconditional surrender. Don’t judge gay folks, just ostracize them from Church institutions as Archbishop Cordileone is now doing in San Francisco..

Is Pope Francis really shrewd, or just opportunistic, or even duplicitous and hypocritical? Perhaps his advanced age and overwork and excessive traveling has caught up to him? He had planned to retire several years ago. He may have to soon enough.

The Cardinals began with greetings today (2/12/15) from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals and the dominant Vatican bureaucrat for most of a quarter century. His longtime protege and likely next pope, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, was at Pope Francis’ right hand during the past two days as the elite Council of Cardinals rubber stamped the pope’s reorganization plans to consolidate the pope’s power.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP

The principal of a Melbourne Jewish school will be next to give evidence to an inquiry into responses to sexual abuse at Jewish schools and community centres.

Yeshivah College principal Rabbi Joshua Smukler will testify on the final day of hearings at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Friday.

Yeshivah Melbourne spiritual leader Rabbi Zvi Telsner is also expected to continue his evidence.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Jewish Daily Forward

Rabbi Barry Freundel secretly videotaped at least 150 women in the mikveh at his prominent Washington D.C. synagogue, prosectors reportedly told a meeting of alleged victims.

The disgraced Orthodox cleric has been criminally charged with peeping on six naked women in the ritual bath at Kesher Israel.

But prosecutors said the number of victims is far higher at a closed-door hearing, the Associated Press reported.

The AP quoted three separate sources who revealed details of the meeting at which the new information was disclosed. Prosecutors are discussing the possiblility of a plea deal and want to gauge the willingness of victims to testify about the potentially humiliating invasions of their privacy.

The revelation dramatically expands the scope of the legal problems facing Freundel. He faces misdemeanor voyeurism charges in connection with the six women who have come forward to accuse him so far. But he could now face scores more criminal counts.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
TribTown

By JESSICA GRESKO Associated Press
First Posted: February 12, 2015

WASHINGTON — A rabbi accused of secretly videotaping nude women at a Jewish ritual bath recorded more than 150 women, prosecutors said during a meeting with victims, the first specifics they have given on the scope of the man’s recording.

When prosecutors charged Barry Freundel with voyeurism late last year, they based the accusations on recordings of six women but indicated more had been filmed. During a meeting with victims Wednesday evening at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, prosecutors discussed the number of victims revealed by an investigation along with the benefits of a plea deal in the case.

The meeting was closed to the press. But three people who attended told The Associated Press what was discussed. Two individuals spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the closed-door meeting.

The third person, a victim, is not being identified because The Associated Press does not identify victims of sex crimes.

Freundel’s attorney, Jeffrey Harris, did not immediately return a call Thursday requesting comment. William Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia, which is prosecuting the case, declined comment, citing an ongoing investigation.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
WBAL

Prosecutors say a rabbi is accused of secretly videotaping more than 150 nude women at a Jewish ritual bath, the first specifics they have given on the scope of the man’s filming.

Those details were divulged at a meeting with victims Wednesday night at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, according to three people who attended the meeting. The meeting was closed to the press.

Two spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the closed-door meeting.

A third is a victim of the sex crime and is not being identified by The Associated Press.

When prosecutors charged Barry Freundel with voyeurism late last year, they based the accusations on recordings of six women but indicated more women had been filmed.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Prosecutors told alleged victims of Rabbi Barry Freundel that Freundel allegedly secretly videotaped more than 150 nude women at the mikvah (Jewish ritual bath) located next to his Modern Orthodox synagogue in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, the AP reported. This confirms earlier reports by FailedMessiah.com and other media that number of Freundel’s alleged victims was likely to be at least 100.

Prosecutors held a closed meeting with a group of Freundel’s alleged victims Wednesday night at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, three people who attended the meeting told the AP.

Two of those three people reportedly spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the meeting while the third is a victim and therefore is not being publicly identified.

The current charges against Freundel – once one of the most powerful rabbis in America – are based on the videotaping of six women in the Capital Mikvah located next to the Kesher Israel synagogue Freundel headed for decades until he he was fired late last year over the voyeurism.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NBC Washington

Sources told News4 more charges could be brought against a D.C. rabbi accused of secretly videotaping women participating in ritual baths at the Georgetown’s National Capital Mikvah.

Rabbi Barry Freundel was arrested in October 2014, and sources tell News4 police have identified 152 women being recorded while bathing at the mikvah; 88 women were recorded in the past three years and 64 were recorded more than three years ago.

The videos date back to 2009.

Wednesday night, a meeting was held with his alleged victims in which a possible plea deal was discussed. Sources told News4 prosecutors won’t settle for probation and want Freundel to spend time behind bars.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

ANNE CLARK, RIVER FOREST, ILLINOIS February 12, 2015

Pope Francis’ new anti-sex abuse commission met recently in Rome. Members demanded bishops be held accountable for how they handle allegations. The Vatican has vowed that it’s “keenly aware that the issue of accountability is of major importance.”

The St. Cloud Times reported June 11 that the ex-headmaster of St. John’s Preparatory School was accused of sexual abuse. “The allegations of inappropriate contact by the Rev. Timothy Backous surfaced in a letter sent May 31 by Chris and Kathy McDermid, who live in St. Cloud and whose son was in the choir when it made a trip to Europe in 1990, to Archbishop John Nienstedt of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The letter was copied to (St. John’s Abbot John) Klassen and St. Cloud Bishop Donald Kettler.”

Minnesota Public Radio reported June 11 that the McDermids met with the head of St. John’s at the time, Abbot Jerome Theisen. They said “Theisen promised that Backous would no longer be allowed to work with the boys’ choir or students at St. John’s, the McDermids said, adding they put the matter behind them.”

Backous went on to serve as athletic director of St. John’s University and headmaster of St. John’s Prep. The family was not notified of this continued contact with children or that the promise he would no longer be allowed to work with children had not been fulfilled.

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