ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Bend Bulletin

By Mark Oppenheimer / New York Times News Service
Published Dec 27, 2014

In October, Mark Driscoll, the evangelical pastor and best-selling author, resigned from Mars Hill, his Seattle megachurch. Last month, Mars Hill announced that it was dissolving its network of 13 satellite churches.

In the aftermath of his fall, Driscoll, who was known for his autocratic management style, his quashing of dissent and his unusually frank talk about how Christian wives can please their husbands in bed, had himself to blame. In resigning, Driscoll admitted his failings, citing his “past pride, anger and a domineering spirit.”

But Driscoll cannot take all the credit for his own downfall. For one thing, any faithful Christian would give Satan his due for leading Driscoll astray. Then there is the role played by World, an evangelical Christian newsmagazine that broke one of the most damaging stories about Driscoll. In March, World reported that $210,000 in Mars Hill church funds had gone to a marketing firm that promised to get “Real Marriage,” a book written by Driscoll and his wife, on best-seller lists.

World was not the only outlet to take on Driscoll. Blogger Warren Throckmorton, in particular, persistently chronicled concerns about Mars Hill for the website Patheos. But the story about best-seller lists was also not the first scoop for World, and Driscoll was not the first conservative Christian leader that the magazine had taken on.

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SLOVENIA
STA

Ljubljana, 27 December (STA) – The pre-Christmas address by Pope Francis to cardinals and bishops in the Apostolic Palace shocked even the veterans, as instead of wishing them all the best for Christmas and saying a nice word or two, the Pope uttered one of the most critical speeches of his pontificate, the daily Dnevnik says in a commentary on Saturday.

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UNITED STATES
The Wartburg Watch

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And that which I can do, by the grace of God, I will do.” ~ Dwight L. Moody (Amy Smith’s favorite quote)

Many of our readers have been abused at the hands of authoritarian religious leaders. Others have been sexually abused by pastors and youth leaders who were supposedly God’s men. The evangelical church, until recently, has been able to cover up abusive behavior in church leadership by imposing some sort of made up spiritual crime. These include: do not speak ill of the church; don’t gossip; leave it up to the elders, etc.

The supposed goal seems to be to protect churches from having their dirty laundry aired before the public. Whoever thought this was a good idea obviously missed the Gospel-the real one. He is the Living Word of the Gospel who came to earth as a baby and grew up to die on the Cross for the sins of mankind. Honest believers know that men and women who profess the faith are still capable of sin against others because they understand why Jesus came.

because they supposedly understand the Gospel, church leaders should be the first to declare that sin has occurred in their midst. They should be the first to go to the police and report child sex abuse. They should be the first to comfort those who have been deeply wounded by abuse perpetrated by church leaders because they get it. They know they sin. Jesus said so. Instead, they hide it “under a bushel,” accuse outsiders of being sinners and hang sparkly lights around their congregation in an foolish attempt to hide the dark corners of sin and pain.

The lowly pew sitters are the object of public church discipline while church leaders are quietly moved aside or continue to embraced by others of the inner circle. Such stories include a seminary leader who divorced his wife and came out of the closet; a pastor who kept a paramour and, after a brief respite, is appointed to lead a ministry; pastors who never apologize to victims, and churches which hide behind lawyers over issues of sex abuse in their churches.

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NEVADA
Las Vegas Sun

By Cy Ryan
Friday, Dec. 26, 2014

CARSON CITY – The Nevada Supreme Court opens hearings in the new year with an appeal by the Catholic Church of a $500,000 judgment involving a priest who sexually molested a 13-year-old Las Vegas boy.

The jury verdict in Clark County in December 2012 is against the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, Wisc. for failing to notify Nevada officials of the past history of abuses by now defrocked priest John Feeney.

The Supreme Court has denied previous pretrial motions by the church and allowed the case to go to trial.

Feeney faced numerous allegations in Green Bay and was placed on an indefinite leave of absence. He ended up in Las Vegas where he served at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church. In the Nevada suit, he is accused of rubbing the genitals of the boy twice in 1984 and 1985. The suit was filed in 2008, 23 years after the incidents.

He was convicted of molesting two boys in Wisconsin in 2004 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was released after eight years. But the Green Bay Diocese paid a $700,000 civil judgment.

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ARGENTINA
Radio Salta

El juez de Garantías, Diego Rodríguez Pipino, libró una orden de captura y detención contra el sacerdote italiano Alessandro De Rossi, imputado por el delito de abuso sexual agravado mientras cumplía funciones en la vicaría “María Medianera de todas las gracias” en el barrio Islas Malvinas de la ciudad.

Fuentes extraoficiales sostienen que el cura se encuentra en Roma por lo que la orden de captura internacional se extendió a la Policía Federal, Gendarmería, Cancillería, Policia de Seguridad Aeroportuaria e INTERPOL.

La Vicaria comprende: Bº Islas Malvinas, Bº S.Silvestre, Bº S.Maria, Bº Parque Oeste, Bº S.Isidro, Bº Roberto Romero.

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ARGENTINA
La Gacesta

[The international arrest warrant against priest Alessandro De Rossi shocked those who knew him closely in the Falkland Islands where he was at the vicarage. All interviewed in the neighborhood were surprised he was charged with aggravated sexual abuse. One youth said he never noticed anything unusual.]

El pedido de captura internacional contra el sacerdote Alessandro De Rossi conmocionó a quienes lo conocieron de cerca, en el barrio Islas Malvinas, donde se encuentra la vicaría de la que él se hizo cargo. Jóvenes que asistieron con él a la iglesia, vecinas del barrio y comerciantes de la zona con los que pudo dialogar LA GACETA expresaron, todos, sorpresa y también descreimiento ante la acusación de abuso sexual agravado.

Uno de los jóvenes, que se encontraba en la puerta de la Juegoteca, instalada por el mismo padre antes de partir de Salta, un año atrás, manifestó que jamás notó nada raro. Expresó que a la Juegoteca asistían unos 10 adolescentes, otros 12 jóvenes y varios menores de edad. Destacó, además, que los adolescentes se hacían cargo de cuidar a las criaturas más chicas, de cuatro años.

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VATICAN CITY
Financial Times

When Pope Francis moved out of the papal apartments into a priestly commune upon ascending to the throne of St Peter last year, he Fsaid it was not so much because they were a luxurious affront to his determination to make the Catholic Church once again an advocate for the poor. The papal suite was, he said, like an “inverted funnel”, keeping people whom he regards as the real church out of its aloof institutions.

That comment from the 78-year-old pontiff was an early sign of his determination to make the Church more open, inclusive and accountable. And that ambition was on full display again this week when he scolded members of the Vatican bureaucracy in a harshly worded Christmas greeting that listed “15 ills” weakening their mission — from narcissism to hypocrisy and even “spiritual Alzheimer’s”.

Pope Francis is giving his two-millennia-old institution the biggest shake-up since the Second Vatican Council convened by John XXIII in 1962-65. Vatican II tried to bring the Church into easier alignment with its modern flock, but its flames of reform flickered and died. Decades of papal intolerance ensued, with John Paul II and Benedict XVI enforcing narrow and defensive dogma. But Francis says the Church must now find a “new balance” or collapse “like a house of cards”. In particular, it cannot “insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive measures”.

His attempt to shift debate away from sexual morality might be seen as tactically astute after the avalanche of evidence of priests sexually abusing children in their care — a scandal the Vatican was criminally slow to address. Yet untold millions of Catholics have drifted away from the Church not just because of that but because its obsession with personal morality is so at variance with the lives they live. One of Pope Francis’s first actions was to replace Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of state of the Holy See, who said the media was responsible for the impression that the Church was obsessed with sex. Pietro Parolin, his replacement, promptly observed that celibate priests are a clerical tradition, not a doctrine.

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GUAM
Jungle Watch

A signed and stamped pdf copy can be accessed here.

December 17, 2014

Dear Archbishop Apuron,

These are undoubtedly trying times for the Catholic Church here in our island. I am writing to you because I continue to be saddened by the problems facing our beloved Church in Guam. It is undeniable that our Archdiocese is clearly divided, and that many of our people are angry, distraught, and confused by all the discord within our Church and among our leaders. The people of the Archdiocese – and even the many in our island community who are not Catholic but who are nonetheless concerned for our island – are all looking to you to provide resolution, healing, and closure. Unfortunately, rather than bringing about resolution, healing, and closure, it is clear that information released by the Chancery has only served to further inflame the situation rather than quell it.

With that said, I pray that you take what I am about to say positively, for my sole intention is to offer my thoughts in an effort to foster understanding, reconciliation, and ultimately the restoration of peace and unity within our fractured Church. I understand that there are numerous issues that need to be addressed, but I wanted to specifically focus on the one area that I believe can be immediately improved: the area of finances.

On this subject, I believe I am more than qualified to speak, as it has been my profession for well over 35 years. As you know, for the last thirteen years, I have been entrusted as the Chief Financial Officer of Calvo Enterprises, the largest locally owned company in Guam. Prior to that, I worked in the public sector as Director of the Bureau of Budget Management and Research for the Government of Guam, serving as the Chief Financial Advisor for three governors of Guam. In all of my previous positions, I have enjoyed the complete trust of my employers, who knew that I would always give my best professional advice.

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NEW YORK
Wall Street Journal

By PEGGY NOONAN
Dec. 26, 2014

The Archdiocese of New York is threatening to close down my little church, a jewel in Catholicism’s crown on 89th Street just off Madison, in Carnegie Hill, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. This has caused great pain in our neighborhood this Christmas. St. Thomas More Church is where my son made his first holy communion, where he was confirmed. It is where at the presentation of the cross, on Good Friday, everyone in the parish who wants to—and that is everyone in the parish, poor people, crazy people, people just holding on, housekeepers, shopkeepers, billionaires—stands on line together, as equals, as brothers and sisters, to kiss the foot of the cross. It always makes me cry.

None of this is important except multiply it by 5,000, 10,000, a million people who’ve walked through our doors the past 75 years to marry, to bury, to worship.

There is context, of course, and context must always be respected. New York isn’t the only place that is or will be closing churches, so the story may have some national application.

The Catholic Church, the greatest refuge of the poor in the history of the world, is always in need of money. The New York Archdiocese itself supports schools, hospitals, charities, churches, orders. It is in constant need. There is the refurbishment of mighty St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which has been extremely expensive. There has been the cost, the past 20 years, of all the settlements and legal fees associated with the sex scandals. Compounding this is the constant bureaucratic challenge to manage resources efficiently, professionally.

The Church must save where it can. Churches have been closed. Most had particular stresses in common. Some lost parishioners due to demographic change and a peeling off of the faithful. Some cannot support themselves financially and become a drain on the archdiocese. Some churches have fallen behind in repair and have become structurally dangerous. Some lost their place in the heart and life of their communities.

But the great mystery at the heart of the threatened closing of St. Thomas is that none of these criteria apply to it. Not one.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 24 December 2014).

A former Catholic Brother charged with 252 child sexual assaults appeared in court in Sydney on 24 December 2014 after being extradited to Australia from New Zealand. Bernard Kevin McGrath (formerly a member of the St John of God Brothers) faced an extensive list of charges at Sydney’s Parramatta Local Court – including raping, molesting and abusing 35 children while he worked as a Catholic Brother in New South Wales.

McGrath (born 22 May 1947) was refused bail and was remanded in custody until his next court date, which is 29 December 2014 for a brief administrative procedure. The main court process will begin in 2015.

The Australian government has been seeking McGrath’s extradition for three years for crimes he allegedly committed during his time as a Catholic Brother in New South Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.

In August 2014, he was ordered to surrender to Australia by New Zealand’s Justice Minister. McGrath then lost a New Zealand High Court appeal against the extradition.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah MacDonald

PUBLISHED 26/12/2014

Spies unhappy with the orthodoxy of Irish priests are responsible for fewer than five letters received by the Papal Nuncio every year.

Archbishop Charles Brown said claims that there was a cohort of spies frequently reporting clerics to the nunciature were “exaggerated”.

“It is not the case that there is a huge cohort of spies out there … that’s a bit exaggerated, to put it charitably,” the former Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith official stated.

“Every day at the nunciature I get letters of all types. From people who are upset because the candles have been moved on the altar, to letters written by people who are perhaps deeply psychologically disturbed – and we try to respond to them with compassion.

“I can say before God that people reporting priests to the nunciature are very few – maybe four or five a year. Maybe all of these spies are writing to Rome independently of the nunciature,” Archbishop Brown suggested.

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MAINE
WGME

BANGOR (WGME) — The members of a Greek church are moving on, with a renewed faith, after the arrest of their former priest. Adam Metropoulos is awaiting trial on child porn and sex abuse charges. He was the priest at the St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Bangor. The church suspended Metropoulos and now has a new leader.

The new reverend and his parishioners say they’re looking forward to a new chapter at the church. “The community is warm and nice so I feel very welcome and I feel very much at home. The house was like, oh, it’s not the house I came to. People were gloomy and people were still looking at me like this is that other guy,” Rev. Fr. Makarios Nganga, Interim Parish Priest, said.

The new priest says his wife and children are still in his native Kenya but he already feels like a part of the church community.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Dec 26, 2014

One of the biggest stories of 2014 was the MPR News investigation of the clergy sex abuse cover-up in the Twin Cities archdiocese.

A year ago this month, a Ramsey County judge forced Archbishop John Nienstedt to release the names of priests credibly accused of sexually abusing children. In the months that followed, the archdiocese faced new revelations about how deep the cover-up went and who was involved.

What’s the current state of the scandal?

Much is still happening behind the scenes. Indications are that the archdiocese will file for bankruptcy, though it claims that it hasn’t decided yet. If the archdiocese does file for bankruptcy, all of the church’s finances would be under scrutiny by a federal judge. We don’t know where that would lead or how much money victims would end up receiving.

Has the archdiocese put procedures in place to ensure reform?

Not as far as we can tell. Over the past year and a half, the archdiocese has announced a new task force and appointed various priests and lay people to advise the church on handling abuse complaints, but the structure of the chancery remains the same. The archbishop holds all the power, and does not have to follow anyone’s recommendations. The structure that allowed this cover-up to happen is still in place.

It’s also important to note some context. This isn’t the first time this archdiocese has faced a clergy sex abuse cover-up. Each time, the scandal starts with an allegation that church leaders covered up abuse. Then the archdiocese apologizes, announces new policies, meets with victims and stresses the idea of healing and moving on. Bishops in the 1980s and ’90s said the same things that church leaders say now.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

* “May Jesus save the vast numbers of children who are victims of violence … ; children, so many abused children”, so prayed and preached Pope Francis in his well publicized 2014 Christmas greetings to the world. Seemingly on cue, Francis also lamented that many children are ” … never born because of abortion. …”.

* And let us hope and pray that Jesus does help save all the children. But what about Pope Francis doing more to save some children the pope failed to mention that he actually already has the power to save — like those children who still remain at risk of priest sexual abuse or who struggle to recover from the effects of such abuse worldwide, as well as those millions of children whose parents cannot afford to raise them adequately but had them anyway, thanks to Vatican lobbying against affordable access to contraception for these poor couples. Pope Francis will visit the Philippines in a few weeks and can see for himself the millions of struggling kids there on their own, often abandoned by their destitute parents who were, in effect, denied access to effective and affordable family planning.

* An experienced Vatican journalist recently confirmed, in effect, what numerous reports since the pope’s election about his extensive activities with respect to Vatican financial scandals already suggested clearly. Pope Francis may actually be putting a much higher priority on maximizing Vatican wealth than on protecting Catholic children from priest predators and complicit bishops who protect them. Is that what Jesus would have done?

* Generating unlimited children, of course, is geo-politically a “win win” situation for the Vatican. If the children survive, they then become potential donors and voters subject to Vatican indoctrination and influence. If the children struggle, the burden then is mainly on themselves, their parents and their governments. It is only on the Vatican with whatever papal funds remain, if any, after funding the hierarchy’s high lifestyles, political crusades, escalating legal expenses, etc.. Ultimately, children are optional costs for the Vatican.

* Importantly, Francis recently publicly ambushed his cornered Vatican staff. The hapless Vatican officials are an easy target for the pope since many of them lack career and financial options like many diocesan bishops have available to them. Yet, even so, the pope significantly omitted addressing directly and adequately with the assembled Vatican officials either the child abuse cover up or sexism, two major Vatican “ailments” that he urgently must address more effectively. Why these material omissions?

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PHILIPPINES
The Philippines Star

SKETCHES By Ana Marie Pamintuan (The Philippine Star) | Updated December 26, 2014

My favorite news head on that story about Pope Francis’ greeting to the Vatican Curia is from the Religion News Service: “Merry Christmas, you power-hungry hypocrites!”

RNS reported: The pope’s traditional Christmas greeting to the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Holy See was more “Bah! Humbug!” than holiday cheer as he ticked off a laundry list of “ailments of the Curia” that he wants to cure.

Christmas surely wasn’t merry for a lot of people in the Vatican.

And some members of our local clergy must be having second thoughts about the wisdom of having Francis see for himself the state of the faith in Asia’s bastion of Roman Catholicism. Would Francis also recite a Pinoy version of the 15 Ailments of the Vatican Curia?

The pontiff looks like someone who personally does his homework and is attuned to world affairs. Consider his role in the historic rapprochement between the United States and Cuba. Would Francis say that “spiritual Alzheimer’s” can be catching and has infected certain Filipino bishops?

We can expect this pope, before he visits Manila and the Visayas, to read up on Philippine history, which is inextricably linked with the history of the Catholic Church in this country. Church interference in political affairs, as we all know, did not start in the House of Sin – a reference to the archbishop of Manila during the Marcos regime.

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UNITED STATES
Talk to Action

Frank Cocozzelli
Mon Dec 22, 2014

It has been more than two years since Bishop Robert Finn was convicted by a Missouri criminal court for failing to report child abuse by Fr. Shawn Ratigan. Finn had been warned about Ratigan’s behavior but the prelate inexplicably waited six months before notifying authorities as required by law.

Within that same period of time, Ratigan pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography. He is now serving a 50-year sentence in prison. But Finn walks free.

Enter Pope Francis.

The new pontiff has been a breath of fresh air in many ways. But when it comes to removing Bishop Finn as head of the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph Missouri the air around the pontiff has gotten stale.

That’s why many were encouraged when Cardinal Sean O’Malley was interviewed recently by the CBS News program 60 Minutes. O’Malley is not just any Cardinal. He is a close friend of and advisor to Pope Francis, who appointed him to lead the Vatican’s new sexual abuse commission aimed at strengthening rules to protect children. When the conversation turned to Bishop Finn, Cardinal O’Malley did not mince his words:

Norah O’Donnell: I want to ask you about Robert Finn, who is the bishop of Kansas City/St. Joseph and, as you know, he pleaded guilty to a criminal misdemeanor for not reporting one of his priests to authorities. Bishop Finn wouldn’t be able to teach Sunday school in Boston.
Cardinal Seán O’Malley: That’s right.

Norah O’Donnell: How is that zero tolerance…

Cardinal Seán O’Malley: Well…

Norah O’Donnell: …that he’s still in place? What does it say to Catholics?

Cardinal Seán O’Malley: Well, it’s a question that the Holy See needs to address urgently.

Norah O’Donnell: And there’s a recognition?

Cardinal Seán O’Malley: There’s a recognition of that.

Norah O’Donnell: From Pope Francis?

Cardinal Seán O’Malley: From Pope Francis.

But it was not to be. Or at least not yet. It has been more than a month since that interview when it sounded like Bishop Finn was on his way out the door.

Why is he still there?

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

Frank Bruni

There was a Christmas Eve a little more than a decade ago when I did something that was, for me, rare, at least on a holiday typically spent in full-party mode, with booze, food, family and friends. I went to church.

No one had died. No one was getting married or baptized. This visit was entirely volitional — and, I told myself, ornamental, which was true to a point.

The church, you see, was St. Peter’s Basilica. I was The Times’s correspondent in Rome. And because I covered the Vatican, I had dibs on prime seats relatively close to the altar. Forgive the following mixture of profane and sacred, but you don’t have to be a Beyoncé devotee to say a quick yes to free tickets in the front rows. You go for the pageant and the privilege.

Pope John Paul II presided over the Mass, as best he could. He struggled to form coherent words, a man disintegrating before the world’s eyes, month by painful month. Many of us in the press corps who kept tabs on him and trailed him — to Guatemala, to Croatia, to Poland — were essentially on a deathwatch. …

Now there’s Francis. And things are different. Not different enough, not by a long shot. The church remains wrong on women and wrong on gays, and I’ve noted repeatedly the shameful discrepancy between Francis’ kind words and the unkind firings of lesbian and gay employees by Catholic institutions in the United States.

But almost two years into his papacy, it’s impossible to deny the revolutionary freshness of his posture: humble, receptive, even casual. The pomp is gone and, with it, the air of thundering judgment. If the rules haven’t been rewritten, they seem less like bludgeons than in the past.

Francis doesn’t hold himself high, an autocrat with all the answers. He crouches to a level where questions can be asked, conversations broached, disagreements articulated.

He insists that other church leaders lower themselves as well, and used a traditional Christmas address on Monday not to chide the flock for its transgressions but to remind the shepherds of theirs.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

(Article posted on 22 December 2014.)

Christian Brother William John Obbens (also known as Brother “Dominic” Obbens) has appeared in court, charged with two counts of indecent assault of “a person under 16 under authority”. Police allege that the offences were committed on one boy, then aged 13, in the late 1980s, while Brother Obbens was a teacher at St Patrick’s Christian Brothers College in Goulburn, south-western New South Wales.

The case had its first mention in Goulburn Local Court on 22 December 2014 when the prosecutors officially filed the charges against Brother Obbens during a brief administrative procedure.

Brother Obbens, aged 69, now of Balmain in Sydney, sat behind his solicitor in court.

As often happens, the court adjourned the case for several weeks while the prosecutors and the defence are dealing with some court documentation. The prosecution must provide a brief of evidence to the defence by 28 January 2015, and the defence is to provide a reply by February 11.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 20 December 2014)

One of Australia’s most prominent Catholic religious orders – the St John of God Brothers (SJOG) – has had an entrenched culture of sexual abuse, according to court evidence. The St John of God religious order has specialised in accommodating boys who have an educational or, in many cases, an intellectual disability. This Broken Rites article is about court cases in the 1990s (and also in 2006) involving Brother Bernard Kevin McGrath, who was jailed for committing sexual crimes against disabled victims.

Bernard Kevin McGrath (born 22 May 1947) grew up in New Zealand. In the 1960s, aged 18, he joined the St John of God Brothers (SJOG), a Catholic religious order which was conducting residential institutions in Australia and New Zealand for boys who have an educational or intellectual disability. For his training, he went to Sydney where the SJOG order has its headquartes for Australia and New Zealand. Most of McGrath’s working life has been spent at SJOG institutions in Australia and New Zealand.

McGrath gave details of his SJOG career in a six-hours videotaped interview with New Zealand detectives in 2003. In the videotape, which was shown in a New Zealand courtroom in 2006, McGrath tells how he was bullied by his authoritarian father who pressured him into joining a religious order at age 18. (McGrath’s father had trained for the Catholic priesthood but ended up as a manual worker.)

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 24 December 2014).

A former Catholic Brother charged with 252 child sexual assaults appeared in court in Sydney on 24 December 2014 after finally being extradited to Australia from New Zealand. Bernard Kevin McGrath (formerly a member of the St John of God Brothers) faced an extensive list of charges at Sydney’s Parramatta Local Court – including raping, molesting and abusing 35 children – after being flown in from New Zealand in police custody.

He was refused bail.

The case will come up in court again on 29 November 2014 for a brief administrative procedure.

The Australian government has been seeking McGrath’s extradition for three years for crimes he allegedly committed during his time as a Catholic Brother in New South Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.

In August 2014, he was ordered to surrender to Australia by New Zealand’s Justice Minister and then lost a New Zealand High Court appeal against the extradition.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

[with video]

FROM his comments about “spiritual Alzheimer’s” to his appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, it’s been a big year for Pope Francis.

As the world prepares to celebrate Christmas, we look back on some of the most awesome things the ever-smiling Pope Francis did in 2014:

He blasted the Vatican bureaucracy

Proving he’s not afraid to take on the big guns in the lead-up, Pope Francis issued a blistering critique of the Vatican bureaucracy that serves him, denouncing how some people lust for power at all costs, live hypocritical double lives and suffer from “spiritual Alzheimer’s” that has made them forget they’re supposed to be joyful men of God.

Francis’s Christmas greeting to the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Holy See was no joyful exchange of holiday good wishes. Rather, it was a sobering catalogue of 15 sins of the Curia that Francis said he hoped would be atoned for and cured in the new year.

He had some zingers: How the “terrorism of gossip” can “kill the reputation of our colleagues and brothers in cold blood.” How cliques can “enslave their members and become a cancer that threatens the harmony of the body” and eventually kill it by “friendly fire.” About how some suffer from a “pathology of power” that makes them seek power at all costs, even if it means defaming or discrediting others publicly. …

He promised to take a strong stance against abuse scandals

In April, Pope Francis asked for forgiveness for the “evil” damage to children caused by sexual abusers in the clergy. In his strongest statement on the subject yet, he described the abuse as a “moral damage carried out by men of the Church”, and said “sanctions” would be imposed.

The statement, made in a meeting with a child rights group, didn’t hold back.

Pope Francis pleaded for forgiveness for the “evil” of priests who sexually abused children, and promised to take an even stronger stand than before against Catholic abuse scandals.

“I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil that some priests — quite a few in number, (although) obviously not compared to the number of all priests —  to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children,” he said.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Nishad Sanzagiri

In 2013 Pope Francis had a lot to celebrate. Not only was he named Time magazine person of the year, but was also awarded the title of Esquire’s best dressed man.

But far from resting on his laurels, the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics had a very eventful 2014 too. …

Personally asked for forgiveness for the ‘evil’ of sexually abusive priests

Pope Francis pleaded for forgiveness for the “evil” of priests who sexually abused children, and promised to take an even stronger stand than before against Catholic abuse scandals.

Vatican Radio quoted him as saying: “I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil that some priests - quite a few in number, (although) obviously not compared to the number of all priests - to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Paul Lakeland | Dec. 24, 2014

THE CATHOLIC LABYRINTH: POWER, APATHY, AND A PASSION FOR REFORM IN THE AMERICAN CHURCH
By Peter McDonough
Published by Oxford University Press, $29.95

The Catholic Labyrinth: Power, Apathy, and a Passion for Reform in the American Church is a most unusual and remarkably provocative book, both in its thesis and in the way it is constructed. There are surely very few texts on “the state of the American Catholic church” in which bishops figure very little, the pope even less. There cannot be many written by someone quietly signaling liberal sympathies while being less than enthusiastic about the chance of real change. And this has to be the only one in which Jesus Christ, the Gospel and the Eucharist are remarkable by their almost total absence from the weighty 300 pages of closely argued but elegant and attractive prose.

Author Peter McDonough argues that since the Catholic community as a whole is mildly conservative and fairly complacent, the chances of an end to a moderately authoritarian and insistently hierarchical church are slim. Moreover, the fact that most contemporary Catholics vote with their feet on most if not all of the ethical teaching of the church, both sexual and political, reduces still further any righteous indignation for change. …

One of the more original aspects of the author’s argument is that he marginalized the effectiveness of both conservative and reformist pressure groups in today’s church. While many think of the church as an intensely polarized community, McDonough’s message is that these strong feelings only influence a minority, while the majority of Catholics just go to church and then get on with their lives without paying much attention to either left or right or, for that matter, the voice of ecclesial authority itself.

Conservative Catholic groups, of course, are very well-funded (the Knights of Columbus, Opus Dei, First Things magazine) and have figured out that their struggle is a cultural one in which old-time religion and “family values” blend into a coherent if not particularly influential ideological position. Influential, of course, with a minority of Catholics and, perhaps, a majority of Catholic bishops, but not especially with the mainstream, and destined, thinks McDonough, to fail ultimately to convince a body of believers suspicious of culture warriors and an ethic of sexual repression.

Reform groups, on the other hand, are passionate about internal ecclesial issues but far less well-funded (FutureChurch, Voice of the Faithful, SNAP) and quite disinclined to connect their various platforms to a wider national political agenda. Their cherished causes may find some support among the rank and file of the church, but not enough to inspire real reform.

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UNITED STATES
International Business Times

By Zoe Mintz

It would not be an understatement to say Pope Francis has reached rock-star status. His image has graced the covers of Time Magazine, Rolling Stone and even The Advocate, a gay focused magazine. In March, Fortune called the pontiff one of the world’s 50 greatest leaders. Forbes says he is the fourth most powerful person on the globe. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. His approval ratings are sky high. He even helped broker a historic diplomatic deal between the U.S. and Cuba.

But has he lived up to the hype?

“He absolutely lives up to the hype,” Robert Christian, editor for Catholic blog Millennial Journal, told International Business Times in an email. “Francis’ message is not that he’s perfect — it’s that this is who he is: a guy who cares deeply about the poor and vulnerable, who tries to live simply, who tries to build his life around his love of God and others. People can see with their own eyes this is true, and that’s why he is connecting with them.” …

Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis

The clergy sexual abuse crisis — where thousands of priests have been accused of abusing children over a span of 60 years — is arguably the largest problem the modern Catholic Church faces. It is also the area where Pope Francis has been lagging, according to David Clohessy, the national director of SNAP, or the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — a 12,000-member U.S.-based organization representing victims of clergy sexual abuse. He has wanted doctrinal change for just as long. But he is met with the challenge that most advocacy groups have: Dealing with a 2,000-year-old institution that moves at a very slow speed.

Between the ages of 12 to 16, Clohessy has memories of his childhood priest molesting him during overnight skiing, hiking and boating trips. He suppressed the memories for years, he said, until they flooded back in his mid-30s. He later discovered three of his siblings said they were abused as well.

One of those siblings — his younger brother Kevin — later became a priest. When Clohessy went public with his claims in 1992, one of the youth supervisors in his diocese came forward with a list of names of clergy who teenagers told her “made them feel uncomfortable” during overnight trips. One of those names was Kevin’s. He reportedly would get drunk with the boys and make sexual advances. An 18-year-old said Kevin fed him alcohol and carried him to bed.

In 1993, Kevin was removed from his post and entered a treatment program. Church officials said the allegations against him were “inappropriate and serious” but the sexual behavior was “not criminal, in that it did not involve anyone below the legal age of consent.” He was relocated to a different parish. To the best of Clohessy’s knowledge, Kevin is currently working at a funeral home. He was not criminally prosecuted or defrocked.

“With each new pope there seems that there’s more talk, promises and apologies, but little-to-no decisive reform,” Clohessy said. There are roughly 6,400 priests who have been publicly accused of sexual abuse in the U.S. Clohessy suspects there are more who have been protected by their bishops.

It was only in the past six months or so when Pope Francis began speaking about the crisis. In May, he met with sex abuse victims and called the allegations an “ugly crime” akin to performing “a satanic Mass.” In June, Polish Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski was defrocked after a Vatican tribunal found him guilty of sexually abusing minors. During a homily given in July, Francis called for “zero tolerance” of sex abuse by clergy and met with six more victims. In November, he created a panel of clergy and sex abuse victims that will advise the Vatican on child protection policies. They will meet for the first time at the Vatican on Feb. 6-8.

For Clohessy this isn’t enough.

“In so many other areas the pope’s word is all he has. In terms of peace, hunger, inequality — the pope can’t do anything about those things except exhort. He has incredible power with the abuse crisis,” Clohessy said. Catholics, he added, should “judge him by his deeds and not his words in every area of his papacy.”

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INDIA
Bangalore Mirror

Falsely accused by his wife of indecent behaviour with girls, Shantaraju believes she was after his property

A city pastor who was accused by his wife of indecent behaviour with girls has been cleared by the court. The wife also accused him of being cruel to her and their children. The Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court found that there was no truth in the charges made by the wife, and after more than three years, cleared him of any wrongdoing in its November 22 order. K Shantaraju runs the Children Development Centre in Bethel Church, Siddarthanagar, in Gangammanagudi police limits. The prosecution alleged that Shantaraju had behaved in an indecent manner with girls who were coming to him for tuition. His wife Priyalatha said when she questioned it, Shantaraju was cruel to her and their children, and even threatened their lives. The relatives of Shantaraju were also made accused in the case.

The wife had accused the pastor of sexual abuse of minors, but the CID police found that the allegation of sexual abuse had no truth and the dispute was mainly matrimonial. However, the allegation found mention in the judgment. The judgment said, “It is quite natural that the wife could have developed hatred against her husband and his relatives. This is all the more so when the first accused is suspected to have a relationship with another lady.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

December 25, 2014

Aisha Dow

Dressed in their Sunday best, families across Victoria flocked to church services on Christmas morning. But not everyone was content to celebrate Jesus’ birth the traditional way.

In Sunshine North hundreds gathered at a huge concrete warehouse – Enjoy Church’s western campus – where the “doof doof” of the band could be heard even in the car park. …

Melbourne Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart said sometimes people wonder why bad things happen to good people. He also made a reference the ongoing Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse.

“During these days of the Royal Commission we pray especially for the innocent victims of sexual abuse in the church and acknowledge the courage of those victims who have come forward to speak of their abuse,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
The Times-Tribune

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: December 25, 2014

In addition to the traditional prayers and wishes for peace and goodwill, Pope Francis has presented the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics a distinctly unique Christmas gift — sweeping reforms of Vatican institutions.

Members of the Curia, the powerful cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Vatican bureaucracy, sat before the pope Monday like schoolchildren waiting to see the vice principal.

Pope Francis was unsparing in his assessment of their performance. He accused some of them of using their careers to accumulate power and wealth and, thus, of being hypocritical relative to the church’s fundamental mission — what he called, delightfully, “existential schizophrenia.”

That was just one of the “15 illnesses of the Curia” he defined in a Christmas season address that departed exponentially from its usual collegial tone.

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FLORIDA
Sun Sentinel

By Paula McMahon
Sun Sentinel

A former church and school official pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a federal charge of using a cell phone to lure a teenage boy into sexual activity with him.

Jeffery London, 51, who was a youth mentor at Bible Church of God in Fort Lauderdale and dean of students at Eagle Charter Academy in Lauderdale Lakes, was indicted in the federal case last week. The charge carries a punishment of 10 years to life in federal prison.

State prosecutors in Broward County dropped their remaining child sex abuse charges against Jeffery London, clearing the way for his federal prosecution on a related charge. London was photographed in Broward Circuit Court during the Dec. 8 hearing. (Rafael Olmeda, Sun Sentinel)
Earlier this year, a Broward Circuit Court jury found London not guilty of 27 state charges of lewd and lascivious conduct involving seven boys. London was not released from jail after the acquittal because he still faced additional abuse charges.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

A picture speaks a thousand words. Here are images of the 2 evil Achilles Heels of John Paul II and George W. Bush, two contemporaries in the 20th century who covered-up – through religion – their own worst crimes against children and youth of America and the whole world.

The 2 Evil Achilles Heels of Satanas Saint John Paul II are Cardinal Bernard Law and priest Marcial Maciel, the serial pedophile, pederast, adulterous priest and poster boy of the JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army. Read the related links below for further explanations.

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VATICAN CITY
The National (United Arab Emirates)

Jacopo Barigazzi

December 24, 2014

Iacopo Scaramuzzi is a Vatican analyst. He studied journalism at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and for years has been following the day by day activities of the Catholic Church for Italian media. Here he talks about Pope Francis.

What has changed? How is it possible that Pope Francis is bringing about so much change in a such a short time?

The three main contributors to the Holy See are the US, the German and the Italian [Catholic] churches.

What has changed is that the money management issue has been put on the table of the last conclave. The Americans and Germans pay large amounts of money but what they have been seeing are many scandals, clashes with the Italian central bank and all of these involving mainly Italian cardinals and bishops.

Now there are basically no Italians left in the positions that count?

Exactly. The big donors that now want to have more weight are the starting point of what has followed after Bergoglio’s [Pope Francis] election, the de-Italianisation of the Roman curia.

Now all the top positions are held by non-Italians. At the helm of Ior [the Vatican bank at the centre of many financial scandals from the beginning of the 1970s] now there is French banker Jean-Baptiste de Franssu.

George Pell, who heads the Vatican’s new secretariat for the economy, is an Australian Cardinal.

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VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg Businessweek

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis is celebrating Christmas Eve with a late-night Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica just days after excoriating his staff for a laundry list of sins.

Many of the same cardinals, bishops and priests who received the dressing down will be in St. Peter’s Basilica for the Mass. Several have spoken out in recent days saying Francis was merely asking them to examine their consciences and use the Christmas season to heal.

Wednesday’s Mass kicks off a busy few weeks for the 78-year-old pontiff that includes his traditional Christmas day speech, New Year’s Eve vespers and 2015 greetings a few hours later.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Daily Hampshire Gazette

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Now that’s what we call harkening to the reason for the season. In the second of his annual Christmas addresses, Pope Francis chastised a Vatican leadership in which he said too many prelates preach a Christ-like selflessness but practice a life of backstabbing, power grabs and political maneuvering.

“Brothers, let’s guard ourselves from the terrorism of gossip,” Francis told cardinals and bishops gathered at the Apostolic Palace, The New York Times reports. “The ailment of close circles enslaves their members and becomes a cancer that threatens the harmony of the body.”

Francis’ call to conscience provides the latest, and most dramatic, evidence that the first Latin American pope plans to devote his time at the Holy See to a gospel of inclusion rather than one that has too often excluded the weak, the scorned, the fallen-from-favor. What better message to deliver at this time of year when many celebrate a holy man who devoted his life to embracing the least among us?

In less than two years at the Holy See, Francis has made his home in humble quarters rather than the luxurious papal residence, reminded the church of its duty to the poor, called for acceptance of gay people and pushed for an end to the Cold War between the United States and Cuba.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Republican

By Shira Schoenberg | sschoenberg@repub.com
on December 24, 2014

BOSTON – Two days after Pope Francis delivered a harsh critique of the central administration of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Sean O’Malley said concern about the church administration is widespread and was discussed at the last conclave, when cardinals met to select the pope.

“Whoever was elected the pope knew that one of his biggest challenges was going to be the renewal of the central administration of the church, and Pope Francis is doing that with great energy, and he has our support,” said O’Malley, who is the archbishop of Boston.

Pope Francis made waves with his annual Christmas greeting to the Curia, a group of cardinals, bishops and priests who make up the church administration. The pope accused the Curia of having 15 kinds of spiritual sickness. Among them: “Spiritual Alzheimer’s,” or forgetting one’s connection with God, the sickness of gossip, of “rivalry and vainglory,” of pursuing worldly power and of overly valuing belonging to a closed group. The Associated Press reported that the address was unprecedented in the sharpness of Pope Francis’ rebuke. Some observers suggested that it was prompted by the results of a secret investigation into leaks of confidential Vatican papers to journalists in 2012.

O’Malley sits on an advisory board to the pope that is tasked with helping the pope reform the church administration, which has been plagued with problems including the church’s response to priests accused of molesting children and allegations of corruption within the Vatican bank. O’Malley spoke to reporters in Boston on Christmas Eve before helping serve lunch to homeless people at the Pine Street Inn.

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UNITED STATES
Clarion-Ledger

Chicago Tribune
December 24, 2014

In holiday messages at this time of year, the boss usually musters the energy to say nice things to the people who work for him. Even if he’s exasperated by the performance of his employees or beset by arrogant bullies on the corporate rungs above him.

That’s the generosity of the Christmas spirit, right?

But what if the boss used this holiday interlude not to extol the good but to point out in withering detail his subordinates’ personal shortcomings?

And what if that message resonated well beyond the boss’ workplace, so that all of us could read his remarks and, gulp, see ourselves in the unflinching mirror that he held aloft?

You may have guessed that we’re talking about Pope Francis’ extraordinary Christmas message on Monday.

Instead of a traditional message of charity and hope, Francis excoriated the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Vatican. He accused them of knuckling under to 15 ailments and temptations, including greed, jealousy, hypocrisy, cowardice and, in a memorable phrase, “spiritual Alzheimer’s.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
LifeSite News

At almost the same moment that Cardinal Raymond Burke said in an interview that those defending Catholic moral teaching – and the practice of barring people in irregular sexual unions from receiving Communion – are being marginalized within the Church, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have issued a document for clergy that all but accuses such Catholics of the ancient Donatist heresy.

In a “Reflection Document for Clergy,” the English bishops appear to follow the line of Cardinal Walter Kasper and his followers, saying, “It is not for us to make rash or premature conclusions” about people living in sexual sin.

“We meet people at many different stages of family life which are often not clearly defined in this way nor do they occur in the ‘traditional’ order in which we used to think,” they said.

The bishops go so far as to issue a thinly veiled accusation of heresy against those, like Cardinal Burke, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, Cardinal George Pell and others, who have refused to follow the Kasper line. The document quotes St. Augustine of Hippo, the 4th century Doctor of the Church, who the bishops say “offers us a way of looking at the Church from his age which is still relevant today.”

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Josephine Mckenna | Religion News Service December 24

VATICAN CITY — Cardinal Walter Kasper, one of Pope Francis’ closest advisers, has sought to downplay the pontiff’s scathing critique of the Curia earlier this week.

Kasper, who previously led the Vatican body responsible for promoting Christian unity, said the pope was asking the Curia, or Vatican administration, to examine their conscience in a bid to promote spiritual renewal.

The German cardinal, joined by Argentine Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, said Francis was asking the Curia to set an example.

“The fundamental thing is he wants spiritual reform of the Curia,” Kasper told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Wednesday (Dec. 24).

“Certainly also reform of the structures is important and he is working on that. But the basis of the problem is spiritual.”

The pope announced what he termed 15 illnesses affecting the Curia at his Christmas greetings on Monday, including “spiritual Alzheimer’s” and gossipy cliques.

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UNITED STATES
Forbes

Robert Goulder , Contributor

For centuries the inner workings of the Vatican Bank have been cloaked in secrecy. That was before Pope Francis, who has pledged to restore public confidence in the administration of the Roman Catholic Church. This week we learned the United States and the Holy See have brokered a FATCA agreement for the automatic exchange of taxpayer information. The long arm of the U.S. tax code is nothing short of astonishing.

I don’t recall issues like offshore banking and tax evasion being discussed at Sunday school during my youth, but then I wasn’t an attentive pupil. I suppose it’s possible that bilateral exchange of taxpayer information was mentioned at some point in the Beatitudes, but I’d need to double-check. Probably not, since the Sermon on the Mount predates the drafting of article 26 of the OECD model tax convention.

These days, tax treaties aren’t the only way for nations to exchange bank data. We live in the age of FATCA and its progeny — the OECD’s common reporting standard — which are spreading around the world faster than the good word. From Zurich to Bethlehem, from the Cayman Islands to Galilee, FATCA is everywhere. And as of this week, we learned how Francis views the issue. The pontiff is cool with tax transparency. Depending on how one feels about the issue, this news could be either sweeter than sugar plums, or worse than a lump of coal in your stocking.

On December 22 a Treasury Department Web page noted that the Holy See and the U.S. government have reached an agreement in substance regarding FATCA. That informal accord, concluded November 30, adheres to the FATCA Model 1 intergovernmental agreement. There are no details yet on when a formal signing ceremony will be held. In the meantime, the Treasury Department now includes the Holy See on its expanding list of FATCA-compliant jurisdictions.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Ever wonder how many more child molesting US clerics there are who have never been publicly exposed?

Consider this: On December 9, in one tiny diocese – Gallup, New Mexico – a court filing revealed in five names of “never before disclosed” credibly accused child molesting clerics.

[BishopAccountability.org – KOAT]

Then, on December 16, Gallup Bishop James Wall released names of 20 priests who it deemed “credibly accused” who had never been publicly accused before.

[Gallup diocese]

So to be crystal clear: In just one diocese, in just two weeks, 25 new names of predator priests have been disclosed.

And there are nearly 200 dioceses in the US. . .

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2014

For more information: David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP Director (314) 566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Checks arrive for abuse victims
Dozens settled with KC diocese
In rare move, they share nearly $10 million almost equally
And they include three whose cases were rejected by court
“It’s completely unprecedented,” says support group head

Dozens of Kansas City men and women who were sexually assaulted as children by priests have received their settlement checks, just in time for Christmas. And it what’s being called “an unprecedented act of generosity,” they are essentially sharing millions equally and including in the settlement three other victims whose cases were tossed out on legal technicalities.

“In my 25 years of work on the church’s abuse crisis, I’ve never seen anything like this,” said David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP’s director. “These incredibly kind victims agreed to divide their almost $10 million settlement basically equally and with three other survivors whose cases had already lost because their abuse happened away from church property so they had no legal standing whatsoever. We are so impressed by and so grateful to these incredible individuals.”

In November, almost 30 adults resolved their civil abuse and cover up lawsuits against the KC Missouri diocese and its convicted bishop, Robert Finn. They were represented by KC attorney Rebecca Randles ( 816 510 2704, rebecca@rmblawyers.com ).

“I’m proud of every single abuse victim I’ve represented, and I’ve represented more than 100 of them,” she said. “But I’ve never been more proud of my clients than I am now. Rather than try to ‘compete’ among themselves for a larger amount, they’re showing tremendous sensitivity and kindness to one another.”

The settlement came near the end of a nearly three week trial in which Jon David Couzens said that Msgr. Thomas O’Brien repeatedly molested him and that local Catholic officials could and should have prevented the crimes. O’Brien has been accused of sexually assaulting more children than any Missouri cleric, according to SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“These wounded individuals are heroes for doing so much for so long to expose wrongdoing by Kansas City Catholic clerics. They have been courageous and compassionate and effective,” said Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, SNAP’s outreach director. “This settlement won’t magically heal them of the lifelong traumatic effects of the terrible assaults they endured as children. But we are confident that this settlement will help them in their recovery. And we’re thrilled the checks arrived before Christmas.”

“We hope this outcome will prod others who have been hurt by priests, nuns, deacons, seminarians and other Catholic employees to get help, come forward, expose wrongdoers and protect kids,” said Dorris.

Couzens was sexually violated by another KC priest – Fr. Isaac True. That case settled as well.

Because he endured what SNAP calls “a tough trial and cruel defense tactics by Finn’s lawyers,” the victims voted to give Couzens a somewhat larger share.

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GUAM
Jungle Watch

Father Efren Adversario

Dear Tim and Family,

Greetings to you and your family during this festive time of anticipating the Lord’s coming in our midst. May He give you peace, and reward you generously for the brave endeavors you have undertaken in service of the Holy Mother Church. I would like to have this on jungle watch when you are able to have time. Thank you, once again.

Luke 4:18 ff. “The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me and sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to give liberty to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to bring freedom to the oppressed, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

These words uttered by Jesus Christ echo the words of the prophet Isaiah as he announced the beginning of his public ministry. These are words given to us as a mandate of our discipleship. Christmas is a feast that, although commercialized and often taken out of context, reminds us to heed the profound tome of incarnational salvation. Christmas is not about a vulnerable and helpless little infant or about nebulous little cherubs singing away “Gloria in Excelsis Deo,” as the late Fr. Raymond Brown (with whom I had the honor to work on his library before his death) expounded in his book, the Adult Christ at Christmas,” but a call to arms about the stewardship entrusted to us. …

This Christmas I hereby affix my name to the cause of Concerned Catholics of Guam. I believe in their goal to build bridges and to foster transparency (in all levels of administrative decisions) in the Archdiocese of Agana. More importantly, I believe in the integrity of their leaders. Prior to their incorporation, I had the honor of individually engaging Mr Perez, Ms Lujan, Rev Martinez, and Mr Shinohara on different matters unrelated to the current church brouhaha. They are dyed-in-the-wool Chamorro laypeople (or clergy in the case of Deacon Steve) whose sole purpose is to facilitate healing that comes from seeking answers to issues that current leadership has chosen to arrogantly ignore. They have simply given face to the valid and just right of laypeople to know where their donations go, and to truthful answers to recent decisions. It is that simple! They are respectful (and respectable!) people who would themselves shirk from confrontation but have taken great interest in the inaugural words of Jesus as he started public ministry to bring healing to our church.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk
Follow @directorsilk | Dec 24, 2014

So far as I can tell, it’s unprecedented for a pope to chastise the Curia publicly. When Pope Francis administered those 15 Merry Christmas whacks heard round the world on Monday, he was doing something new under the Roman sun.

That’s not to say that popes have always been happy with the world’s oldest continuously functioning bureaucracy. Martin V, the Italian aristocrat whose election ended the Great Schism in 1417, reduced the cardinals to “quivering, stammering children in his presence,” writes Eamon Duffy in his History of the Popes. One hundred years later, when Leo X discovered cardinals plotting against him, he executed the ringleader and created 31 new ones in a single day.

“How many people work at the Vatican?” a journalist once asked Pope John XXIII. “About half of them,” he famously replied. Francis, who came into office with a mandate to get the Curia working properly, has by word and deed made clear that he means to do just that.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

* May God help Pope Francis! He faces as the last absolute monarch, in an increasingly democratic world, unrelenting and escalating governmental pressures in Australia, the UK, the USA, Germany, China and many countries in between. Yet as his Christmas speech to his Vatican bureaucracy (the Curia) indicated, he is served by some men who are stuck in a Renaissance time warp.

* As Pope Francis tries to sail through a treacherous child abuse and financial scandal triggered tsunami, he might do well to put down the Catechism for a few days and reflect on one of the best informed analysts of Curia behavior, Machiavelli. Perhaps, Francis is already doing this. Ten short examples of Machiavelli’s relevant wisdom are set forth below.

* Before he begins his 80th year in less twelve months, Pope Francis can successfully seize the opportunity, follow his conscience and apply his unique status, forceful temperament and popular appeal. Most importantly, he can declare “infallibly” key changes. By then, he will have received new input from his two advisory Synods of Bishops. He has already been enlightened by his valuable two years of experience as pope.

* Pope Francis now also is unhampered by his prior pastoral positions and unfettered by his earlier ideological constraints as an obedient cardinal, bishop and Jesuit. If Francis fails to act effectively soon, the consequences will likely be quite negative for the leadership of the Catholic Church.

* Pope Francis acts at times like a radicalized realist. His preferred theologian, Cardinal Kasper, describes him as “radical”. Francis is clearly pressing forward relentlessly on a novel path to change. When necessary, he is even bypassing or sidelining fearful and entrenched opponents and factions. His opponents often overlook the many risks that presently exist in the Vatican’s vulnerable predicament. Pope Francis is evidently well aware of these risks. At times, some of his opponents prefer “to play their fruitless fiddles while Rome burns”.

* Pope Francis can accomplish much if he wants to and finds the wisdom and courage to do so. Equally important, it seems unlikely any of his successors will get a more propitious opportunity in the foreseeable future to adopt long overdue changes. It may be now or never for Pope Francis and the Vatican. Does he realize that? His scolding of the Curia suggests he does.

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

WASHINGTON (DC)
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Josh Nathan-Kazis
Published December 24, 2014.

Two new lawsuits aim to hold Modern Orthodoxy’s largest rabbinic organization responsible in the Rabbi Barry Freundel mikvah-peeping scandal.

Both lawsuits allege that the Rabbinical Council of America and Freundel’s own synagogue were aware of inappropriate conduct by Freundel prior to the discovery that he was using a hidden camera to view women as they bathed nude in a Washington, D.C. ritual bath. The lawsuits, which seek class action status, charge that the RCA and Congregation Kesher Israel should have taken measures to remove him from his positions of responsibility based on his earlier behavior.

One of the suits underlines odd behavior by Freundel relating to the mikvah, noting that he allowed non-Jews to attend rituals there and that he invented the notion of “practice dunks.” That suit also quotes an unnamed Kesher Israel staff member saying that Freundel “treated the mikvah like a car wash. Every Sunday, six students at a time.”

That suit charges that Freundel used his role in the RCA’s controversial centralized conversion system to put himself in a position of power over potential converts — a position he allegedly used for sexual exploitation.

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

NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

12/24/14
Hella Winston
Jewish Week Correspondent

When the bribery and extortion charges against chasidic sex-abuse whistleblower Sam Kellner were finally dropped last March by incoming Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson, advocates for abuse victims hailed the decision. At the same time, they urged Thompson to investigate and bring to justice those who allegedly framed Kellner, who was indicted in 2011 under the administration of the former DA, Charles Hynes.

It has now been almost 10 months since the Kellner case was dismissed and the district attorney has taken no action against those who were behind the trumped-up charges.

Now, advocates suggest, there may be at least a partial explanation: Leo Friedman, the son of one of the three witnesses who apparently gave false grand jury testimony against Kellner, Satmar power broker Moses Friedman, was a hefty contributor to Thompson’s campaign.

Moses Friedman, who is known in the Satmar community as Moshe Gabbai for his longtime role as the personal secretary of the previous Satmar rebbe, Moses Teitelbaum, is also a cousin by marriage of Baruch Lebovits, a convicted child molester whom Kellner helped to put in jail.

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

NEW YORK
Wall Street Journal

By MELANIE GRAYCE WEST
Dec. 23, 2014

For dozens of Roman Catholic parishes in the New York area, this Thursday will mark a last Christmas celebration.

The reorganization of 368 Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of New York is entering a new phase as archdiocese leaders begin implementing more than 50 mergers announced in early November and slated to take effect next August.

But some churches aren’t going down without a fight.

At least 18 parishes are now seeking recourse with the Vatican to overturn or limit the scope of the imminent merger, according to Sister Kate Kuenstler, a canon lawyer advising the churches.

Among the parishes at various stages of the appeals process are the Church of the Nativity in the East Village, and the Church of Our Lady of Peace and the Church of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, both on the Upper East Side. The Church of St. Elizabeth is the only one in New York offering regular services for deaf and hearing-impaired Catholics.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

Margery Eagan
On Spirituality columnist
@MargeryEagan

December 24, 2014

Congratulations to Emily Herx, the Indiana Catholic school teacher fired for using in vitro fertilization treatment to become pregnant. Last week she won a nearly $2 million lawsuit against the Fort Wayne-South Bend Roman Catholic archdiocese.

Most heartening: she won on the basis of sex discrimination, meaning the Church can’t always get away with treating women differently than men.

Herx was fired for running afoul of Church teachings on reproductive issues. But her lawsuit argued that the archdiocese had not fired any male teachers who’d run afoul of Church teachings as well by, for example, obtaining vasectomies or agreeing to their wives’ tubal ligations. A federal jury agreed with Herx fast, deliberating but a few hours in a single day.

Her suit also exposed the Church’s continuing double standard between the rank and file and its bishops. While the archdiocese in Herx case cracked down, again, over a matter involving sex and a teacher, the Vatican remains slow to crack down on matters involving sex and its bishops. Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City has become the new poster boy for this double standard. Two years post his criminal misdemeanor conviction for failing to report to police a suspected pedophile priest, Finn is still being investigated by Rome.

Herx, a woman suffering with infertility, notes in her suit that a priest labeled her a “grave, immoral sinner.” What, then, is Finn?

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Please donate today to BishopAccountability.org – your gift is tax-deductible and helps document and promote transparency.

1. Our website hosted 1.5 million unique visitors — a 15% jump from 2013!

2. Our website grew to an astounding 300,000 pages of documents, articles, and reports. We maintain the world’s largest archive of abuse documents outside the Holy See.

3. Our Database of Accused Priests grew by 178 names. It now provides information on more than 4,000 accused bishops, priests, nuns, and brothers.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

LEMA SAMANDAR THE DAILY TELEGRAPH DECEMBER 24, 2014

A FORMER Catholic brother has been extradited from New Zealand after he was charged with 252 child sexual assault offences.

Bernard McGrath, 67, was extradited from New Zealand overnight and was taken to Mascot Police Station where he was charged.

He appeared briefly at Parramatta Local Court today.

He will spend Christmas behind bars and is expected to make a bail application during his next court appearance on January 29.

Strike Force Lozano, comprising detectives from Lake Macquarie Local Area Command, was formed to investigate allegations of multiple child sexual assault offences committed in the 1970s and 1980s at a school near Morisset.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A former Hunter region Catholic Brother accused of a series of historical child sex offences has arrived in Sydney after being extradited from New Zealand.

Police began investigating Bernard Kevin McGrath in 2010 and have been caught up in a long running legal battle to get him back to Australia.

In August, the 66-year-old former Catholic Brother was ordered to surrender to Australia by New Zealand’s Justice Minister.

He appealed to the High Court which last week ruled the extradition would not be unjust.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

Former Catholic brother appears in court after being extradited back to Australia to face 252 child sexual assault charges

By SARAH DEAN

A former Catholic brother charged with 252 child sexual assaults has appeared in court after finally being extradited to Australia from New Zealand.

Former brother Bernard McGrath faced an extensive list of charges at Parramatta Local Court – including raping, molesting and abusing 35 children – after being flown in from New Zealand on Tuesday.

He appeared via video link and was refused bail.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

A former Catholic brother extradited from New Zealand to Australia to face hundreds of child sexual abuse charges has been refused bail in a Sydney court.

Bernard McGrath, 66, is in Australia after a legal bid to block his extradition failed in New Zealand’s highest court earlier this month.

On Wednesday, his matter was mentioned at Parramatta Local Court.

McGrath, who is a New Zealand citizen, didn’t apply for bail which was formally refused, the NSW Department of Justice confirmed.

He is facing a total 252 charges, including 102 counts of indecent assaults on males.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler | Dec 23, 2014

Sometime early in the new year, Pope Francis will reveal the names of the new cardinals who will be elevated at a consistory in February 2015. How many American prelates will be on the list?

Quite likely, none at all.

There are currently 18 US citizens in the College of Cardinals. The only country with a greater representation is Italy, with a staggering 48. By contrast, the entire continent of Africa can boast only 18 cardinals, and Asia only 19. If Pope Francis seeks a geographical balance in the College, he may not want to add to the American contingent.

Look at the numbers in a slightly different way: Today there are 111 cardinals who are under the age of 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a papal conclave; 11 of them are Americans. The US accounts for roughly 7% of the world’s Catholic population, but 10% of the cardinal-electors. On this score, too, there would seem to be no urgent need to increase the American representation.

Again there are some striking contrasts: Brazil, with nearly 12% of the world’s Catholics, would have only four votes in a papal conclave today. Mexico, with almost 9%, would have 2 votes; the Philippines, with a Catholic population nearly the same as that of the US, would also have just 2 votes.

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CANADA
Sun News

MICHAEL MUI | QMI AGENCY

VANCOUVER – A B.C. woman has dropped her lawsuit alleging sexual abuse against former Vancouver Olympics organizing committee CEO John Furlong.

Lawyer Jason Gratl said Tuesday that Beverly Abraham, of Burns Lake, applied to have the suit dismissed, and the request was granted this past Friday in B.C. Supreme Court.

Furlong has always insisted he is innocent of all allegations.

Meanwhile, Gratl has also withdrawn from representing Grace West and Daniel Morice, both of whom also sued Furlong.

He couldn’t provide reasons, however, because of professional confidentiality obligations.

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CANADA
The Tyee

By Bob Mackin, Yesterday, TheTyee.ca

Allegations by one woman that John Furlong sexually, physically and mentally abused her 45 years ago will not be tested in court, but two others who similarly accused the ex-VANOC boss are still scheduled to face him in B.C. Supreme Court.

Beverly Mary Abraham withdrew her lawsuit Dec. 19, two weeks after her lawyer, Jason Gratl, filed notice to quit the case. Gratl is also no longer representing Grace Jessie West or a male victim who wishes not to be named.

In September, the parties set March 30, 2015 to begin an 18-day trial where the allegations would be heard either together or consecutively. Furlong previously claimed his innocence and agreed to pay the costs of the civil trial. November court filings indicate there was a dispute between Gratl and Furlong’s lawyers over whether the trial would be by judge alone or with a jury.

Last June, the court ordered the RCMP’s North District Regional General Investigations Section to release Abraham and West’s investigation files to Gratl. Examination for discovery of Furlong was to be completed by Dec. 31, 2014.

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CANADA
Metro News

By Thandi Fletcher

A woman who claims former Vancouver Olympic CEO John Furlong sexually abused her while he was a teacher in a northern B.C. school has withdrawn her lawsuit.

Beverly Mary Abraham said she decided to drop the civil case after months of careful consideration, saying the stress of the lawsuit was too difficult to bear following the deaths of several relatives this year.

“I was so stressed about everything,” she told Metro from her home in Burns Lake, B.C. “There was a lot of weight on my shoulders.”

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

MARK HUME
VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Dec. 23 2014

Three lawsuits that seek to portray former Vancouver Olympic CEO John Furlong as a repeat sexual abuser appear to be unravelling in the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

One of the three suits has been dismissed. And the two remaining cases are now in doubt with the withdrawal of Jason Gratl, the Vancouver lawyer who was acting for all three accusers.

Beverly Mary Abraham, Grace Jessie West and a man who has asked not to be named, filed sexual abuse claims against Mr. Furlong last year, alleging he assaulted them while they were students of his at a Burns Lake elementary school in 1969-70.

The cases were scheduled to be tried jointly in March, but a motion to dismiss the two remaining cases is expected to be made by Mr. Furlong at a hearing in January.

Mr. Gratl declined comment Tuesday, but in an interview Ms. Abraham confirmed she asked the court to dismiss her claim last Friday, after Mr. Gratl told her he was no longer going to represent her.

“He told me that there was one of his clients that did something wrong and he was charged with it, so he had to walk away,” said Ms. Abraham. “He kind of dropped all three of us together all at once. He didn’t want to drop me but he said that with one, he cannot go to court.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Baltimore Jewish Times

DECEMBER 23, 2014 – א טבת תשעה

BY DMITRIY SHAPIRO

While the criminal trial of Rabbi Barry Freundel, formerly of the Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C., on six counts of voyeurism has not yet begun, some women who allege they are Freundel’s victims have joined a class-action civil lawsuit against his former employers, seeking to be compensated for emotional injuries.

A team of attorneys from the Baltimore-based firm Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin and White LLC, led by attorney Steven Kelly, held a news conference at the National Press Club last week announcing the addition of the Rabbinical Council of America to the list of defendants in the civil action they filed earlier this month.
RCA now joins Kesher Israel, the National Capital Mikvah and Georgetown University as defendants in the suit, all of which are accused of negligently failing to oversee Freundel prior to his arrest in October, despite previous RCA inquiries into improper conduct between Freundel and conversion candidates.

Two plaintiffs who believe themselves to be victims of Freundel (the U.S. Attorney’s office has not publicly released the identities of the six victims listed in the criminal complaint) were also added to the case. They are Emma Shulevitz, 27, of Rockville, and Towson University student Stephanie Smith.

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WASHINGTON
Seattle PI

By Joel Connelly

Mark Driscoll, the blue jeans-clad, controversy-plagued former lead pastor at Mars Hill Church, has resurfaced with a new website, just eight days before the Seattle based mega church he co-founded formally dissolves.

The website, its layout bearing striking resemblance to that of his former church, is offering “free exclusive resources directly from Pastor Mark Driscoll” for those who sign up. The initial offering is a Christmas-themed e-book, “The Boy Who is Lord: Jesus’Birth in Luke’s Gospel.”

The Driscoll site also asks for gifts, saying: ”Your tax-deductible donation allows us to continue hosting and distributing Pastor Mark’s Bible teachings and resources.”

The donations “apparently go to something called Learning for Living, described as ‘an application-pending registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. All donations are tax-deductible in full or in part,’” Warren Throckmorton reported on Patheos.

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CANADA
Blackburn News

BURNS LAKE, B.C. – A woman who dropped a lawsuit alleging former Olympic CEO John Furlong sexually abused her while a teacher in Burns Lake, B.C., says she feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

Beverly Abraham’s lawsuit against Furlong was dismissed in B.C. Supreme Court on Friday with no costs to either party, after she asked the court to allow her to withdraw the legal action.

Abraham said three of her family members have died recently, including her brother who was like a “twin” to her, and she couldn’t handle the stress of the lawsuit on top of her grief.

“A lot was just really heavy on my shoulders. I was going through a lot of stress with this,” she said in a phone interview Tuesday.

She says she decided that discontinuing her lawsuit was the best option for her to move on with her life after consulting with hereditary chiefs from her First Nation.

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

MALTA
Malta Independent

[with photo of the card]

Rachel Attard
Wednesday, 24 December 2014

Dominican friar Charles Fenech has sent a Christmas card to a woman who was allegedly abused by him, The Malta Independent has learnt. The card depicting the scene of the Nativity contained a religious message inside. He signed it by hand and addressed it to her, and her family.

Yesterday week the court started hearing evidence in the case against Fr Fenech, 54, who is facing sexual abuse charges. So far, the alleged victim together with three other witnesses have given evidence behind closed doors. The woman who received the card was one of the witnesses who testified.

The sender’s address on the back of the is that of the Dominican Priory in Rabat. The card was sent in the last week of November as one can see from the Maltapost stamp. That date was before the court hearing. This was the week after The Malta Independent on Sunday published details from a sworn statement given by one of Fr Charles’ alleged victims to the police.

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OREGON
KOIN

HILLSBORO, Ore. (KOIN 6) — A youth pastor is facing criminal charges over claims he sexually abused at least one minor in his church’s basement, the Hillsboro Police Department confirmed Tuesday.

Dylan Ritterman, 27, worked as a youth minister at Bethel United Pentecostal Church, where the alleged molestation is said to have occurred.

Police arrested Ritterman last week after the mother of an alleged victim came forward. The mother told investigators that Ritterman touched her son inappropriately in 2009 and 2010, Hillsboro Police Lt. Mike Rouches confirmed.

The boy, now 18, was 14 and 15 at the time of the purported abuse, Rouches said.

Hillsboro police believe Ritterman may have abused more children but have not released any information regarding additional claims.

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OREGON
Oregonian

By Laura Frazier | lfrazier@oregonian.com
on December 23, 2014

A 27-year-old man has been accused of sexually abusing two teenage boys during his time as a youth pastor at a Hillsboro church, police say.

Dylan Ritterman was arrested Dec. 18 on allegations he “unlawfully touched” two boys, said Lt. Mike Rouches, a spokesman with the Hillsboro Police Department. The boys were 14 or 15 at the time, he said.

Ritterman was a youth pastor at Bethel United Pentecostal Church, Rouches said. At least one incident is believed to have occurred in a room at the church and at least one other in a car after Ritterman drove a boy home, he said.

A call has been placed to the church for comment.

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ARKANSAS
THV

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) – On Monday, a Hot Springs youth pastor was arrested for the rape of a 13-year-old girl.

The victim confirmed that Andrew Lee Jackson, 28, was her youth pastor at her church.

In a police report, the victim stated that she and Jackson engaged in sexual intercourse five different times at his residence that he shared with his wife.

She reportedly explained that she would often spend the night at his home in the living room on the couch with Jackson and his wife on separate sections of the couch.

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Online

By Danielle Kloap

A Hot Springs youth pastor accused of rape has been arrested, according to the Garland County sheriff’s department.

The Jefferson County sheriff’s department arrested Andrew Lee Jackson, 28 of Hot Springs, in White Hall Monday night. He faces three counts of rape.

Police started the investigation involving Jackson and a 13-year-old girl Nov. 7, according to an arrest report.

Police said that the teen told investigators she and Jackson engaged in sexual intercourse three times at Jackson’s home between August and October.

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VATICAN CITY
Rome Reports

[with video]

Being a member of the Roman Curia is more dangerous than it looks. During his Christmas address to its members, Pope Francis asked this selected group cardinals to keep an eye on 15 diseases.

POPE FRANCIS
“A Curia that isn’t self-critical, that doesn’t want to update and doesn’t want to improve, is like a sick body.”

He went on to explain that all the different temptations have the same root, to distance oneself from God. He also referred to what he called “careerism,” that is, the wish to receive more and more titles that only feed vanity.

POPE FRANCIS
“It is the sickness of those people who live a double life. People who want to multiply their power at all costs, even if they have to slander, defame and discredit the other, even in newspapers and magazines.”

The Pope read his address in a very peaceful and quiet way. Still, he also made very strong remarks when he talked about the danger of gossiping.

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UNITED STATES
Questions from a Ewe

Just before I read reports of his Christmas address to the Vatican Curia, I was wondering if Pope Francis ever actually received the Christmas card and other letters I’ve sent him. He doesn’t write…; he doesn’t call…; he doesn’t visit… What’s a girl to think?

However, now I think it’s possible he has received my mail because his “15 Ailments of the Curia” echo many concerns I’ve expressed in my missives. If you’ve not read his list, I encourage you to do so.

As much as I appreciate Francis acknowledging and even chastising the hierarchy for its arrogance, hubris, insensitivity, hypocrisy, insecurity, self-absorption, fear and unhappiness resulting in over-bearing, domineering, control-freak, career-climbing, self-promoting, money-grubbing, gossiping, suck-up, fashionista hierarchy members who travel in cliques, his litany had a glaring omission: the ailment of “sexism.” I don’t know why he overlooked that ailment unless maybe it’s one that plagues him or one he does not acknowledge. Regardless, without addressing it, the other ailments will never be fully addressed.

I actually believe that tackling Pope Francis’ list of 15 without correcting the ailment of sexism likely will just make a sick turn of the crank grinding women down further within the church and society. I don’t know if that would be an intended or unintended consequence but humble, sensitive, secure, confident and happy sexists are still sexists. One might argue that such sexists are even more destructive ones because their charm wins people’s confidence enabling them to manipulate and abuse people more easily.

I think Francis would bristle at being labeled a sexist. I think he probably envisions himself a very pro-female kind of guy what with him appointing 5 whole women to his 30 person International Theological Commission. That mentality is fairly common amongst people of Francis’ and my parents’ generation. They are so indoctrinated into promoting a gender ideology of females’ limitations and duties, that they often see their sexism as just a factual manifestation of nature…”it’s just how things are…” And though some such folks believe themselves to be rather equality-minded, their face-palm worthy sexist statements and actions belie the gender ideology to which they are enslaved.

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CANADA
Vancouver Sun

BY TIFFANY CRAWFORD, VANCOUVER SUN DECEMBER 23, 2014

One of the women who accused former Vancouver Olympic CEO John Furlong of sexual abuse has withdrawn her lawsuit.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge granted Beverly Mary Abraham’s request for dismissal on Friday.

Just over four months ago, Abraham lost her brother and shortly after her cousin and her 16-year-old nephew both died. Then, a month ago, her 91-year-old mother broke her leg and Abraham said she felt like she couldn’t deal with the stress of the lawsuit.

She said after speaking with her husband and hereditary chief, “it was time to let it go.” She said she stands by her allegations but she is too tired and stressed out to continue.

“A lot of weight came off my shoulders. I felt a hundred times lighter instead of dragging all these problems around,” she said Tuesday morning from her home in Burns Lake. “I just want to give it up to God. I told the truth. That’s all that matters. It hurts me deeply inside when I think of all the people that supported me saying ‘way to go Bev.’ It seems to me I let them down, but I had to take care of myself too.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Pilot

Monday, December 22, 2014

Vatican City (ZENIT) — Pope Francis received in audience the Cardinals and Superiors of the Roman Curia Dec. 22 for the presentation of Christmas greetings.

After the greeting of the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Pope gave the Roman Curia the address ZENIT translates below.

* * *
“Thou art above the Cherubim, Thou who hast changed the miserable

condition of the world when Thou made Thyself like us” (Saint Athanasius).

Dear Brothers,

At the end of Advent we meet for the traditional greetings. In a few days we will have the joy of celebrating the Lord’s birth; the event of God who makes himself man to save men; the manifestation of the love of God who does not limit himself to give us something or to send us some message or some messengers, but gives himself to us; the mystery of God that takes our human condition and our sins on himself to reveal his divine life to us, his immense grace and his gratuitous forgiveness. It is the meeting with God who is born in the poverty of the cave of Bethlehem to teach us the power of humility. In fact, Christmas is also the feast of light that was not received by the “Chosen People” but by the “poor and simple people,” who awaited the Lord’s salvation.

First of all, I would like to wish you all – collaborators, brothers and sisters, papal representatives scattered throughout the world – and all your dear ones, a Holy Christmas and a happy New Year. I want to thank you cordially for your daily commitment at the service of the Holy See, of the Catholic Church, of the particular Churches and of the Successor of Peter.

We being persons and not numbers or just denominations, I remember in a special way those that, during this year, finished their service having reached the age limit or having taken on other roles or because they were called to the House of the Father. To all of them also, and to their families, go my thoughts and gratitude.

Together with you I wish to elevate to the Lord a heartfelt and profound gratitude for the year we are leaving behind, for the events lived and for all the good that He willed generously to fulfil through the service of the Holy See, asking Him humbly for forgiveness for the faults committed “in thoughts, words, deeds and omissions.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
RTF

[The Rottenburg-Stuttgart diocese has confirmed that a former Leutkircher pastor was accused of sexually abusing a child. However, no financial compensation has been paid to the victim.]

22.12.2014Die Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart hat einen Medienbericht über sexuelle Vergehen des früheren Leutkircher Pfarrers an einem Heimkind im Grundsatz bestätigt. Allerdings sei das Verfahren im Sommer bereits abgeschlossen und das erlittene Unrecht des Opfers auch finanziell anerkannt worden, stellte die Kommission Sexueller Missbrauch (KSM) der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart am Montag fest. In dem Medienbericht wird allerdings fälschlicherweise der Eindruck erweckt, die Diözese erkenne nur noch bis Jahresende Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs an.

Tatsächlich bezieht sich die Aussage offenbar auf den vom Staat initiierten Heimkinderfonds West. Dieser mit 120 Millionen von Bund, Ländern und Kirchen ausgestattete Fonds zahlte bislang nach einem Anerkennungsverfahren jedem in einem Heim missbrauchten Menschen bis zu 10.000 Euro an Sachleistungen.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Please donate today to BishopAccountability.org – your gift is tax-deductible and helps document and promote transparency.

1. Our website hosted 1.5 million unique visitors — a 15% jump from 2013!

2. Our website grew to an astounding 300,000 pages of documents, articles, and reports. We maintain the world’s largest archive of abuse documents outside the Holy See.

3. Our Database of Accused Priests grew by 178 names. It now provides information on more than 4,000 accused bishops, priests, nuns, and brothers.

4. The Boston Globe’s recent front-page investigative report (at right) and editorial about past cover-up by Robert J. Geisinger, S.J., the Pope’s new prosecutor of abuse cases, was made possible in part by research and documents we shared with the Globe.

5. We produced the first comprehensive analysis of how the pope handled abuse when he was an Argentine archbishop. In July, it was cited in the New York Times, Reuters, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, and the Wall St. Journal.

6. To launch our global database initiative, we published the first database of accused priests in Argentina, the Pope’s home country, in both English and Spanish. In the course of our research, we came to know Argentine victims, including four who unsuccessfully had sought the Pope’s help. We introduced them to each other, and together they wrote a letter to Pope Francis, asking for a meeting.

7. We sent Homeland Security documents we had obtained about a Pennsylvania priest alleged to have sexually molested boys at a Honduras orphanage. Homeland Security investigated, and the priest, Father Joseph Maurizio (at right), was indicted.

8. We caused Pope Francis to remove a bishop (at right below). The Pope’s unusual move came in response to the media uproar caused by our revelation in March that an abusive priest banned from the Scranton diocese had been made second in command of a diocese in Paraguay. Within six months, Pope Francis had removed not only the priest, but the bishop in Paraguay who had hired him.

9. Our authoritative data on church bankruptcies, settlements with victims, and numbers of accused priests were cited by the New York Times, the National Catholic Reporter, Associated Press, the Washington Post, and many other news outlets.

10. We answered individual queries from dozens of survivors. “You are the blessing I’ve been praying for since I finally had the nerve to start speaking up last year,” a survivor wrote to us in October.

Our 2015 Projects Will Include

Completing assignment histories for all 170 accused Jesuits in our database. For the first time, it will be possible to understand the full impact of abuse in the largest religious order. See a sample Jesuit assignment history.

Posting Philadelphia priest files. We will post thousands of pages of Philadelphia files in time for the September 2015 visit of Pope Francis. See the first of the Philadelphia files.

Posting list of accused priests in the Philippines. We will post the first public list of accused priests who have worked in the Philippines in time for Pope Francis’s visit there in January. See a document about one of the priests in the new database.

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

GUAM
Marianas Variety

By Jasmine Stole – jasmine@mvguam.com – Variety News Staff

HAGÅTÑA — Concerned Catholics of Guam President Greg Perez said the recently formed organization is looking forward to meeting Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, Rev. Tadeusz Nowak and Archbishop Martin Krebs when the three visit Guam in January.

Perez said he’s made a request to meet with the three officials between Jan. 4 through the Jan. 10.

“We sincerely believe this (visit) is in response to some of the complaints and concerns and questions that have been raised on island and have made its way to Rome,” Perez said. “We’re looking forward to meeting with them and they will come in and provide solutions.”

Archbishop Hon and Rev. Nowak will be here for the first time in an official capacity, according to Rev. Adrian Cristobal, spokesman for Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron. It will also be Archbishop Krebs’ second visit to Guam in six months.

Hon is the secretary of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and Krebs is the apostolic delegate to the Pacific Islands.

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

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but Pope Francis has been in the news lately. A lot. Headlines yesterday about his scolding of the Vatican Curia ranged from “Francis Gives Roman Curia Officials Coal for Christmas” (Robert Mickens, National Catholic Reporter), to “In Curia: Merry Christmas, You Power-Hungry Hypocrites” (Josephine McKenna, Religion News Service), to “Pope Francis Says the Vatican Curia Is Sick with Power and Greed” (Philip Pullella, Reuters), to “Pope Francis Denounces the Vatican Elite’s ‘Spiritual Alzheimer’s'” (Barbie Latza Nadeau, Daily Beast). I especially like Charles Pierce’s wry summary of Francis’s come-to-Jesus meeting with the Curia:

Spiritual Alzheimer’s?
A mark, that will surely leave.
I’m sure that, within a few weeks, a Senior Vatican Official, or Ross Cardinal Douthat, will explain that the pope really was talking about birth control.
But, still, wow.

As I say, the pope’s in the news. And here’s more good commentary about Francis and his papacy I’d like to recommend to readers today, as you follow the media statements about his remarks to the Curia:

Jason Berry, “How Pope Francis Became the World’s BFF”:

Neither book [i.e., Austen Ivereigh, The Great Reformer and Elizabeth Piqué, Pope Francis: Life and Revolution] gives any coverage to Bergoglio’s handling of clergy sex abuse cases as a bishop and cardinal. The website BishopAccountability.org has posted an extensive file of media reports and documents on scandals in Argentina to suggest that Bergoglio was not a healing pastor to abuse victims. And while as pope he has removed several bishops for child abuse, several prominent cardinals in the Vatican who were grossly negligent in concealing pedophiles, notably the former Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano, have suffered no loss of status. Conversely, Francis has stiffened internal Vatican laws governing child abuse accusations; he has appointed an advisory committee that includes a prominent Irish abuse survivor to develop a policy. The central issue is de facto immunity traditionally given to bishops and cardinals.

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

UNITED STATES
Esquire

By Charles P. Pierce on December 22, 2014

As always, the usual disclaimers are in place, but it seems that Papa Francesco took advantage of his annual Christmas message to give some members of the Clan Of The Red Beanie a good kick right in the chasubles.

The pope denounced the lust for power of ladder-climbing clerics, those who indulge in hypocritical double lives, and lamented a sense of “spiritual Alzheimer’s” that leads clerics to forget the joy that is supposed to animate their lives. He also attacked what he called “existential schizophrenia” and the “terrorism of gossip.” He was especially critical of cliques that “enslave their members and become a cancer that threatens the harmony of the body,” eventually leading to death by “friendly fire.” “These and other maladies and temptations,” Francis said, “are a danger for every Christian and for any administrative organization, community, congregation, parish, ecclesial movement, etc., and can strike at both the individual and the corporate level.”
Spiritual Alzheimer’s?

A mark, that will surely leave.

I’m sure that, within a few weeks, a Senior Vatican Official, or Ross Cardinal Douthat, will explain that the pope really was talking about birth control.

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

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

* Pope Francis surprisingly severely scolded and shamed the Vatican’s bureaucracy, gathered publicly this week for pre-Christmas festivities with the boss. Some of the officials, including Boston’s previously shamed Cardinal Bernard Law, appeared to be in shock, as seen in the PBS video here:

* [PBS]

* Every official was hit — the good, the bad and the ugly. A bit unfair, according to some conservative commentators, who were right on this. The officials may have been expecting good wishes for the season after a tough year. Instead they got a terrible scolding. All manner of immoral actions were cited, they were told, as prevalent in the corridors of Catholic Church power: ruthless careerism, back-biting, narcissism, complacency.

* Pope Francis, following Hans Kung’s medical metaphor, clinically diagnosed no less than 15 specific ailments suffered by Church officials, ranging from a diminishing awareness that the officials’ work had a sacred purpose—to delusions of omnipotence and the terrorism of gossip. Implicitly, Francis indicated he would act to change things soon, no? Will he? Can he? When? How? What was his point in publicly ambushing the entire Vatican bureaucracy? The shrewd ex-bouncer seems always to have a point, even if one has to tease it out at times, no?

* What’s next? Will Pope Francis fire some more officials? Will he act to fix the top down monarchical system that almost inevitably fosters these immoral actions? Francis has not yet “named names” and some of these ailments plague many of his worldwide bishops as well, from many indications.

* Was this just a planned media friendly papal rant of a frustrated ex-bouncer, or is it a prelude to a full housecleaning as openers? After all, criminally convicted Kansas City’s Bishop Finn still remains on his episcopal throne, just one example of Francis’ management omissions so far!

* Was Pope Francis just trying to let worldwide Catholics through him “vicariously vent” their built up hostility to their failed Church leaders? This chilling Christmas rebuke was surprising, especially since Francis has been dealing with the Vatican hierarchy for over four decades, and for over two decades as an episcopal insider. What did he expect to find when he volunteered to be pope at 76 years old?

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

VATICAN CITY
Wall Street Journal – via BishopAccountability.org

By Deborah Ball and Tamara Audi
Wall Street Journal
December 23, 2014

http://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-issues-blistering-critique-of-vatican-bureaucracy-1419278268
Click image at right to view PDF of front page.

Pope Francis launched his harshest criticism to date of the Vatican bureaucracy, likening it to an “ailing body,” and setting the stage for what is expected to be sweeping reform next year.

In his Christmas address on Monday to cardinals and senior officials attached to the Curia, the church’s Rome-based administrative apparatus, Pope Francis warned against “spiritual Alzheimer’s disease,” careerism and gossip.

The harsh critique grabbed wide attention, with the Religion News Service offering a headline that said, “Pope Francis to Curia: Merry Christmas, you power-hungry hypocrites.”

Pope Francis has broken new ground during his papacy in a range of areas, suggesting a more open approach to homosexuals, advocating a stronger role for women in the church, rebalancing the College of Cardinals to increase the weight of the emerging world, and helping support the reopening of relations between Cuba and the U.S.

In a similar vein, the address to the Curia seemed to serve notice that he aggressively plans to take on the problems that have developed in the Vatican bureaucracy during the past decade from infighting among cardinals to embarrassing leaks. …

Terence McKiernan, President of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks the sex-abuse scandal in the church, said the pope’s speech must be followed with real actions.

“This is a very capable man who is really making some remarkable changes. Rhetoric is part of the way you change things, but it needs to be accompanied by real and significant action,” he said.

“He’s opening up a dialogue that never existed before and I think that’s a very healthy thing,” said Raymond Flynn, former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, and a Catholic. “Some people will get their nose out of joint, but in the final analysis I think this makes the church stronger.”

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY JOANNE SWEENEY – 23 DECEMBER 2014

For 17 years she was referred only as ‘Number 51’.

But the little girl who grew up unloved and neglected in an orphanage – now under scrutiny in a major Government investigation – has had the last word.

Marie Therese Rogers-Moloney’s heartrending story of the physical and emotional abuse she experienced at the Catholic Church-run Nazareth House and the search for her parents has resulted in success as a best-selling writer.

The Belfast woman’s memoir – For The Sins Of My Mother – is currently in the top 10 in the best selling list in Eason’s.

The book, which she started to write over 20 years ago, has sold more than 800 copies in just three weeks after being launched by publisher Colourpoint Books at Belfast Castle last month.

The retired nurse and administrative officer will be one of a number of adults cared for by The Sisters of Nazareth congregation at Nazareth House to give evidence at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry next year.

The memoir tells of how she was allocated the number in place of her birth name – which today includes the surnames of both parents – and how she was labelled as “educationally subnormal” by the nuns who looked after her when she retreated into silence in order to escape any mistreatment. Yesterday she told the Belfast Telegraph: “Not all the nuns were bad, but there were three nuns who were just plain cruel and there was no need for it.

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

UNITED STATES
Commonweal

Grant Gallicho December 23, 2014

This is the sixth in a series of posts on the Urrutigoity case. Read the first part here, the second here, the third here, the fourth here, and the fifth here.

The day after Fr. Eric Ensey first sexually assaulted him, John Doe testified, he asked to sleep on the couch. The two were staying with Ensey’s parents in California so that John could visit Thomas Aquinas College. He was considering of attending TAC after graduating from St. Gregory’s Academy in Pennsylvania, where he had met Ensey. It was the fall of 1998. “I remember thinking that I would like to [sleep on the couch],” John would later testify as part of a federal lawsuit alleging that Ensey and Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity had molested him. Yet he was worried that asking to move from Ensey’s bedroom, where the two had spent the previous night, to the sofa “might give some sort of bad connotation.” John thought Ensey’s parents might wonder whether “something had happened, and that was the one thing that I did not want to admit.”

John was upset about what had happened while he stayed at Ensey’s parents. He would later allege that the priest had sexually assaulted him while he was passed out drunk on four occasions during that trip to California. But John “was trying to put it out of my mind.” At the same time, he found it hard to believe that Fr. Ensey “could do something wrong.” By trying to banish those memories, John was able to continue spending time with Ensey when they returned to St. Gregory’s Academy. After resuming his late-night meetings with Ensey, John faced more mockery from classmates. “They made fun of me for spending time with Fr. Ensey,” John recalled, even though it was “very widely known among the students that a good portion of the students drank with Society members.” On one occasion, John returned to his dorm room well after lights out. As he was about to slip into bed, he noticed that someone had spat mucus all over his pillow. “So I didn’t really feel accepted.”

Ensey provided solace. “He made it a point to discuss how friendship should be kept between one or two [people]…and how he was a true friend and no one else was.” By this point, Ensey seemed to be “the only one who understood me…the only one I bothered to invest time in,” John testified. So he continued to participate in Ensey’s brand of alcohol-assisted spiritual direction. On several occasions between the time they returned from California and the time John graduated, Ensey fondled him, according to John’s testimony. (Under oath, Ensey denied assaulting or groping John; efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.)

Yet John still hadn’t told anyone, and he continued spending time with Ensey. That did not mean he was comfortable with the situation. Rather, Ensey had continued to insist that because John was “raised American” he had “Puritanical instincts concerning male friendship,” according to John. Ensey repeated his view “that it was natural for men to sleep in the same bed…[and] to cuddle.” The “Puritanical” aspects of American culture were something Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity was known to complain about, according to other witnesses.

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

CANADA
CKNW

Liza Yuzda
December 23, 2014

One of the women who filed suit against Former Vanoc CEO John Furlong, accusing him of abuse, has withdrawn her lawsuit.

A judge granted Beverly Abraham’s request for dismissal Friday.

Furlong has maintained his innocence.

A year ago police confirmed they found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Furlong.

He’s already taken legal action against reporter Laura Robinson who he is accusing of mounting a ‘malicious’ campaign to destroy his reputation.

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

CANADA
CBC News

By Jason Proctor, CBC News Posted: Dec 23, 2014

A woman who claimed she was abused by John Furlong while he was a teacher in Burns Lake, B.C., has dropped her lawsuit against the former head of the Vancouver Olympic Games.

Beverly Mary Abraham was the most outspoken of three people who filed claims in the wake of a Georgia Straight newspaper article alleging Furlong had mistreated students at Immaculata Roman Catholic School in the late 1960s.

“The reason for it is that it was kind of stressing me out,” Abraham said from her home in Burns Lake. “I’ve been thinking about it for months.”

Justice Miriam Gropper dismissed Abraham’s claim last Friday after she made an application in B.C. Supreme Court. The case was dismissed by consent, without costs to either party. The other two claims continue, but the CBC has learned the lawyer representing both remaining claimants is withdrawing from the lawsuits.

Vehement denial

Furlong has vehemently denied the allegations in all three lawsuits and the newspaper story. He is suing the author of the article, Laura Robinson, but previously dropped a claim against the weekly paper that published the article in September 2012.

His counsel at Hunter Litigation Chambers issued this statement in relation to Abraham:

“Mr. Furlong has always maintained that Ms. Abraham’s claim, as well as the claim of assault by the other two plaintiffs, are false. The dismissal follows the RCMP’s conclusion following an investigation that, ‘Based on the facts uncovered, the allegations made by Beverly Abraham are not supported.'”

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

VATICAN CITY
The Economist – Erasmus

POPE Francis is a bag of surprises. When members of the curia, the Vatican’s Italian-dominated bureaucracy, gathered this week for a pre-Christmas meeting with the boss, they may have been expecting some emollient words of encouragement and good wishes for the season when their faith’s beginnings are enjoyably celebrated. Instead they got a terrible scolding. All manner of pathologies were at work, they were told, in the corridors of ecclesiastical power: ruthless careerism, back-biting, narcissism, complacency. The pope diagnosed no less than 15 specific failings, ranging from “spiritual Alzheimer’s”—presumably, a diminishing awareness that the curia’s work had a sacred purpose—to delusions of omnipotence and the “terrorism of gossip”. Indeed, some Vatican operatives were said to be guilty of “cold-bloodedly killing the reputation of their own colleagues and brothers”.

Many people will immediately understand what the pope was talking about. In the weeks and months before the surprise resignation of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, nearly two years ago, the papacy seemed on the verge of paralysis because of the rumours of financial and sexual scandal that were swirling round the Vatican. Ever since then, the new pope has been working hard to get the curia under control. As the first pope from the global south, he has invited a team of non-Italian prelates to advise him on reforming the administration’s labyrinthine structures. In recent days his Australian adviser on economic matters, Cardinal George Pell, reported that the financial situation was both better and worse than anybody imagined; he had found that “hundreds of millions of euros were tucked away in particular sectional accounts and did not appear on any balance-sheet.”

Strangely enough, the papal scolding comes only days after a historic success for the one department of the Vatican that is widely admired. The historic breakthrough in relations between the United States and Cuba, announced last week, was in large measure orchestrated by the holy see’s diplomatic service, and the Vatican was not shy about taking some credit for this. So was the pope being a tad unfair, or inconsistent, in celebrating a diplomatic triumph one day and excoriating his own bureaucrats a few days later? In fact, both initiatives (helping the breakthrough with Cuba, and the drive to clean up the curia) come from places deep inside the pope’s complex personality, to judge from the biography which I reviewed in this week’s print edition.

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The cardinal claims: ‘The Pope talks about himself as well. Gossip can kill’

GIACOMO GALEAZZI
VATICAN CITY

‘To be honest, nothing like this has ever happened before’. Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, the former Vatican governor and foreign minister, does not hide his surprise. ‘It is the first time this has happened; never before had a Pope set us in the Curia a series of pathologies that we must examine ourselves on.’ All along, says the cardinal who has been head of some of the most important offices of the Holy See for many years, ‘the exchange of Christmas wishes has been a customary occasion, that follows a usual pattern’.

What did you expect from Pope Francis’ speech?

‘On this occasion, his predecessors would usually say nothing but the most relevant events of the past year. They summed up the principal events in the Church and in their apostolic activity. So you could have expected Francis to talk about his travels to the Holy See and Turkey, instead he said nothing about them. Maybe he will refer to these in his speech to the ambassadors to the Vatican.’

How did you welcome the Pope’s warning?

‘It is the request of an examination of conscience, of an end-of-the-year confession. For the first time a Pope asks the Curia to examine itself on a number of problematic issues. For instance, on the basis of my experiences of the Curia, I believe that a simplification of procedures would diminish scandals.’

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

REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
Caracol

[The Dominican Attorney General said today that so far they have received no official report from Polish authorities on a dismissal of the case in that country against exnuncio Jozef Wesolowski, accused of sexual abuse in the Caribbean nation.]

La Procuraduría General dominicana dijo hoy que hasta el momento no hay ningún reporte oficial de las autoridades polacas sobre una desestimación en ese país del caso contra el exnuncio Jozef Wesolowski, acusado de abuso sexual de menores en la nación caribeña, tal como informó la prensa.

Agencia EFE | 22 de Diciembre de 2014

Santo Domingo, 22 dic (EFE).- La Procuraduría General dominicana dijo hoy que hasta el momento no hay ningún reporte oficial de las autoridades polacas sobre una desestimación en ese país del caso contra el exnuncio Jozef Wesolowski, acusado de abuso sexual de menores en la nación caribeña, tal como informó la prensa.

“Las informaciones provenientes de un diario polaco, no citan nombres de autoridades, solo “fuentes cercanas a la Fiscalía”. No es oficial”, indicó la Procuraduría a través de un mensaje en Twitter, en el que se refirió a las versiones de medios sobre una desestimación del caso en Polonia contra Wesolowski por supuesta falta de evidencias.

La Procuraduría explicó, además, que en este momento se llevan a cabo dos procesos por presuntos abusos por parte de sacerdotes polacos en República Dominicana con dos “jurisdicciones diferentes”: en Polonia contra el religioso Wojciech Gil y en el Vaticano contra Wesolowski.

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

POLAND
The New York Times

By JOANNA BERENDT
DEC. 22, 2014

WARSAW — Poland has suspended an investigation into the Polish-born former Vatican ambassador, Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who has been accused of sexually abusing boys while serving in the Dominican Republic.

Przemyslaw Nowak, a spokesman for Warsaw’s regional prosecutor’s office, said Monday that the investigation had been suspended for purely formal reasons. The Dominican investigators have not responded to Poland’s requests for materials and evidence concerning the allegations against Mr. Wesolowski, who has been defrocked. The inquiry could begin again if the Dominican Republic shares — or officially declines to share — the requested documentation, Mr. Nowak said.

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

UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

One of the readers of my latest post (It’s Not the Abuse Crisis – It’s the Neglect Crisis) somehow got it into his head that I was making the claim that only the liberals are to blame for the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Church – which would be a pretty insane position for me to take. Perhaps he hasn’t read my criticisms of all of the so-called “conservative” bishops who have enabled abuse, such as Finn, Carlson, Niendstedt, Livieres, etc.

In fact, as everyone knows (but this lone reader), the Abuse crisis cuts across the Big Divide. If liberals could point to hung-up conservatives as abuse enablers, they would, except that conservatives can point to loosey-goosey liberals as abuse enablers. The problem continues to be so wide-spread that every single type of bishop is guilty – and while some of the worst are from the right, some of the worst are also from the left.

But this shows how strange our thinking is.

Conservatives in the Church are a weird bunch, rebelling against the Church on Torture and Lying and Economic issues; but liberals in the Church are even stranger, for not only do the liberals rebel on any issue that has to do with our “naughty bits”, the liberals go one step further and make the appallingly stupid mistake of thinking that Church teaching is up for grabs, and that it can be changed, despite 2,000 years of history to the contrary. Not only can it be changed, it will be changed! Just wait long enough and the bishops will endorse “gay marriage”, contraception, abortion and pornography – all things most bishops even now wink at and ignore … but someday these will be positive goods that the bishops will not only tolerate and enable – the bishops will proudly endorse every last one of them! What a strange fantasy to have.

There are days when I wish I was taller than 5′ 10″. But I don’t demand that the yardstick be changed and that feet and inches be redefined to make me 6′ 3″. In other words, I can understand not liking the measure the Church proposes by which we are to measure ourselves in relation to Christ. I can understand ignoring that measure, discrediting it, making fun of it. What I can’t understand is how changing that measure will somehow change us. My height will not change regardless of any tricks I play with the ruler. But liberals are in awe of their ability to alter reality by changing the standards by which we measure reality.

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

GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

Guam – Just a few days after Deacon Steve Martinez was practically fired as a Deacon of the Church, Archbishop Anthony Apuron has decided to reinstate him.

In a letter Deacon Steve Martinez wrote to his supporters, he announced that just a few days after he was censured by the Church as Deacon, he was reinstated. However, Deacon Martinez notes that he’s not out of the woods yet.

Instead, Archbishop Anthony Apuron gave him a new deadline of January 19 to cut ties with the Concerned Catholics of Guam, a new organization whose mission is to investigate the Archdiocese of Agana and to provide a forum for concerned Catholics who feel they have been mistreated by the Church.

Last week, after failing to meet a 24-hour deadline to leave the group, Deacon Martinez accepted Archbishop Apuron’s punishment.

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

CANADA
StarPhoenix

A former Saskatoon youth pastor will spend two years under house arrest and 20 years on the national sex offender registry for a child luring conviction.

Kris Allan Gowdy, 44, was sentenced on Friday in Durham Region court in Oshawa, Ont. He was convicted following a trial earlier this year of luring a child over the Internet. A charge of attempted aggravated sexual assault was dropped in 2013.

Gowdy worked as a youth pastor at Saskatoon’s Lakeview Church between May 2011 and July 2012, before his arrest in Ontario, where he was living at the time.

After his arrest, a church official said Lakeview Church was not aware of any inappropriate behaviour involving Gowdy during his employment.

In August 2012, Gowdy was arrested in Ontario after making arrangements on social media to meet a 15-year-old boy for a sexual encounter. The boy was actually an undercover police officer.

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

VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

VATICAN CITY—Pope Francis may be known for his generosity when it comes to the needy, giving out 400 sleeping bags to Rome’s homeless and opening the doors of previously shuttered convents to Syrian refugees; but on Monday he made it absolutely clear he won’t be showing the same kindness to the Curia, the clerics who run—or think they run—the worldwide Catholic Church from their comfortable positions in Rome.

In language that left these officials stunned and silent, Francis denounced those among them who “create a parallel world of their own, where they set aside everything they teach with severity to others and live a hidden, often dissolute life.”

The pope didn’t just deliver a lump of coal to the Curia this Christmas; he set it ablaze, outlining what he called 15 ailments that he says are ruining the Catholic Church, ranging from “spiritual Alzheimer’s” to “existential schizophrenia” which the pope described as “the sickness of those who live a double life, fruit of the hypocrisy typical of the mediocre.” They are afflicted with “progressive spiritual emptiness,” he said, which no amount of academic honors and degrees can fill. …

Francis’s comments were met with scorn, reportedly garnering scant applause or none and plenty of glances among the cardinals who expected the usual benight season’s greetings from the pope. Writing in the Boston Globe, Vatican expert John Allen calls the pope’s address “risky” because like a president lambasting congress, the pope does need his Curia to make the changes he so strongly desires: “To insiders, it threw a key question into sharp focus: Is Francis in danger of alienating the very people he will need, sooner or later, to actually get anything done?”

The Vatican’s English language spokesman Father Thomas Rosica said that the pope’s words were prophetic. “Now and then in our religious history, prophets arise to call us back to our origins, our roots and also our intended mission,” Rosica wrote in a note to the press. “That is what Pope Francis is doing. His words apply not only to the Roman Curia at the Vatican but to the entire Church throughout the world. His words are also valid for many institutions in the world today that lose sight of their original mission.”

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

NEW YORK
CBS 6

[with video]

Updated: Monday, December 22 2014

FONDA – A Northville man has been arrested, charged with sexual contact with a minor.

State Police say 50 year old David Dickey had sexual contact with a 16 year old earlier in the summer of 2014. Investigators say he was directing a play for a local Fulton County Church group when he became involved with the teen.

He was charged with Sexual Abuse and Endangering the Welfare of a Child. He was arraigned in Town of Mayfield Court and out on $1,000 bail.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 43

DECEMBER 22, 2014, BY HOWARD SHEPPARD

DAUPHIN COUNTY, PA (WPMT) Dauphin County Judge Richard A. Lewis sentenced former youth minister and a former Dauphin County Domestic Relations Officer, Joshua Markelwitz, of Enola, to 12 years to 24 years in a state prison for charges stemming from his sexual molestation of a minor. Prior to sentencing Judge Lewis classified Markelwitz a Sexually Violent Predator under Pennsylvania’s Megan’s Law statute.

Markelwitz, 28, met his victim and her family through his church when she was about 11 years old.

Markelwitz was a youth leader at the church and her guitar teacher when he began molesting her. He molested the victim on numerous occasions over the period of approximately 3 years. The victim reported the abuse to the police when she was 15 years old.

During the course of the investigation another teenage victim, from Cumberland County, came forward indicating that Markelwitz also had a sexual relationship with her. Markelwitz met the Cumberland County victim when he was a volunteer with her high school band. Markelwitz began a sexual relationship with her after she turned 16 years old. Charges related to the Cumberland County case were consolidated into the Dauphin County prosecution. Markelwitz also admitted to charges related to the Cumberland County victim when he pleaded guilty before Dauphin County Judge Richard A. Lewis back on June 5, 2014.

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NEW YORK
News 10

MAYFIELD, N.Y. – The New York State Police arrested a Northville man for allegedly having inappropriate sexual contact with an underage teenager.

David Dickey is accused of having sexual contact with a 16 year old earlier in the summer. He was directing a play for a local Fulton County church group when he became involved with the teenager, according to police.

The 50-year-old was charged with Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree and Endangering the Welfare of a Child. He was arraigned in the Town of Mayfield court and posted $1,000 bail. He will reappear in the Town of Northampton Court on January 8, 2015.

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NEW YORK
Albany Times Union

MAYFIELD — State Police on Monday arrested a Fulton County man for allegedly having inappropriate sexual contact with a 16-year-old while directing a play for a local church group.

David E. Dickey, 50, of Northville, was charged with sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child, both misdemeanors.

Dickey became involved with the teen while directing a play earlier this summer, police said.

He was arraigned on the misdemeanors in Mayfield Town Court and posted $1,000 bail. He is to reappear in Northamption Town Court in January.

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OREGON
KPTV

[with video]

By Ben Senger

(KPTV) –
Hillsboro police arrested a youth minister in the sexual abuse of two boys at the church where he worked.

Officers took Dylan Ritterman into custody on Thursday on more than a dozen counts of sex abuse charges.

Police told Fox 12 there are at least two victims who Ritterman allegedly abused in the basement of the Bethel United Pentecostal Church in downtown Hillsboro.

The allegations were reported to police by the mother of one of the victims, who is now 18. She told police that Ritterman touched her son inappropriately in 2009 and 2010, when the boy was 14 and 15 years old, respectively. Police said the suspect would also drive the victim home occasionally.

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TEXAS
Yuma News Now

Dallas, Texas – A former north Texas youth minister was indicted by a federal grand jury last week on child pornography offenses, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Garland Police Department investigated.

Derek Hutter, 37, was charged with one count of attempted production of child pornography and one count of receipt of child pornography. He was arrested on those charges and entered a not-guilty plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul D. Stickney Dec. 18.

Hutter worked as a youth minister at the South Garland Baptist Church in Garland, Texas.

The indictment alleges that about Aug. 14, 2014, Hutter sent an email to Jane Doe #1, a minor girl, requesting she take sexually explicit photos of herself and text them to him. The indictment further alleges that about Sept. 14 Hutter received images of child pornography on his email account.

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UNITED STATES
PBS Newshour

GWEN IFILL: Pope Francis took church leaders and Catholics around the world by surprise today when he used an annual Christmas event in Rome to sharply rebuke and audience of top church officials for their shortcomings.

The cardinals, bishops and priests of the Curia, who run the Holy See, sat mostly silent and unsmiling as the pope delivered a scalding review of their behavior.

POPE FRANCIS, Leader of Catholic Church (through interpreter): Let’s start with the sickness of feeling immortal, immune or, even more, indispensable and therefore of neglecting the necessary routine checkups.

GWEN IFILL: Francis said the Vatican officials have a spiritual Alzheimer’s that makes them forget their real purpose, and he listed 15 illnesses, or sins, from vanity to gossip-mongering to materialism.

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VERMONT
WCAX

[with video]

By Alex Apple

BURLINGTON, Vt. – Vermont Catholics have a new leader. Pope Francis appointed Christopher Coyne as the 10th Bishop of Burlington.

“Bishop Coyne arrives as our new bishop and spiritual leader with many rich and varied experiences of church lives,” said Monsignor John McDermott, introducing Bishop Coyne Monday morning in Burlington.

The New England native comes to Vermont after four years serving in Indiana. “I come with no pre-established plans or any agenda other than to serve my brothers and sisters as a faithful disciple,” Bishop Coyne said.

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Lester HioThe Straits Times
Tuesday, Dec 23, 2014

The Franciscan friars in Singapore said yesterday that they were not affected by a financial scandal exposed by the worldwide head of their Catholic religious order.

Last week, Friar Michael Perry, leader of the Order of Friars Minor (OFM), revealed that the organisation which has its headquarters in Rome is broke after “questionable financial activities” by some members.

The friars in Singapore declined to comment on the scandal, but assured donors that funds here are unaffected.

“There has been no impact, as we have never invested with them,” said Father Clifford Augustine, parish priest of the Church of St Mary of the Angels, which the friars run in Bukit Batok East.

The local chapter of the OFM is registered as a company limited by guarantee, which means that every dollar is accounted for by local auditors, he explained.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Financial Times

Kiran Stacey, Political Correspondent

Theresa May will next month make a third attempt to propose a suitable person to run an inquiry into the alleged sexual abuse of children by politicians, six months after announcing the probe.

The home secretary is likely to choose a judge that would preside over hearings, government officials said on Monday. This means witnesses could be required to testify but also that the inquiry could take years to reach a conclusion.

Ms May is also poised to scrap a panel that was appointed to look into the sex abuse allegations and replace it with a new system to reflect the new statutory powers that the inquiry will be given.

“Theresa May has her heart in the right place but I’m not sure about other people. I can’t help thinking that there is something afoot when you have establishment figures chosen to chair it who are wholly inappropriate because they are connected to some of those involved,” said Simon Danczuk, Labour MP for Rochdale.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Crux

By Robert Costello
Special to Crux December 22, 2014

In the weeks since Pope Francis convened a Synod of Bishops from around the world to discuss issues important to family life, there has been a lot of talk about whether the Church should be more welcoming to gays, allow divorced/civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion, or make annulments easier to obtain.

In the coming year, bishops are supposed to talk to their congregants and each other about the Church’s stance on these and other issues, all related to keeping families strong and together.

Yet the most destructive thing to happen to Catholic families in the history of the RCC is being completely ignored: clergy sexual abuse of children. The Church’s treatment of children is a record of carnage.

I know! I was sexually abused by my parish priest. It not only ruined my life; it also destroyed my family.

The Rev. John M. Cotter started to abuse me when I was seven years old and in second grade at St. Theresa of Avila School in West Roxbury, Mass. The sex abuse lasted for six and a half years. He was everywhere a little boy could be. Being a member of the parish meant that I was an altar boy, involved with the Cub Scout – Boy Scout program, CYO (Catholic Youth Organization), and school. He even abused me in my own home when I was very sick on the living room sofa while my mother was in the kitchen preparing him lunch.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor December 22, 2014

ROME – Pope Francis delivered a blistering criticism of the headquarters over which he presides on Monday, ticking off a catalogue of “spiritual diseases” to which he believes Vatican officials are susceptible, such as careerism, arrogance, and gossip, calling it all the “pathology of power.”

His annual Christmas speech to the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s central administrative bureaucracy, played around the world as a scathing indictment. To insiders, it threw a key question into sharp focus: Is Francis in danger of alienating the very people he will need, sooner or later, to actually get anything done?

“I have to say, I didn’t feel great walking out of that room today,” one senior Vatican official said, who had been in the Vatican’s Sala Clementina for the speech and who spoke on the condition he not be identified.

“I understand that the pope wants us to live up to our ideals, but you wonder sometimes if he has anything positive to say about us at all,” the official said, who’s been in Vatican service for more than two decades.

For the record, this was an official who describes himself as an “enthusiast” over the direction being set by Pope Francis.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: “One of the Most Creative Things That’s Happened to the Catholic Church in America Has Been This Vast Exodus of Catholics from the Church”

James Carroll in a recent interview with Michael Schulson:

One of the most creative things that’s happened to the Catholic Church in America has been this vast exodus of Catholics from the church. Everybody who leaves the church, whether it’s women who are impatient, fed up with the second-class status of women, or whether it’s people who are fed up with this clerical sex abuse scandal, whatever it is: everybody who leaves the Church is a challenge to the church to do a much fuller job of reckoning with the truth of this situation.

“A much fuller job of reckoning with the truth”: since every Catholic who leaves (and/or is shoved away from the Catholic table) is an indictment of a catholic church’s claim to be truly catholic, to be able to cope with the multivalent truths of many different kinds of human beings, to set a table big enough that we all can sit around it . . . . A church that exists to serve and include only the few, to endorse the truths of the lives of only the select chosen, cannot honestly call itself a catholic church.

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