ABUSE TRACKER

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.

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
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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
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.”

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 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.”

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
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.

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
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.

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
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. . .

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.

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.

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
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.

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
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.

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

* 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.

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
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?

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
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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
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.

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
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.

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

CANADA
The 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.

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
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.”

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

CANADA
The 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.”

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)
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.

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
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.

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
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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
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.

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
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.

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
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.”

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 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.”

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.

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.

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
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.

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
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.

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
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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
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.

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

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.

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
National Catholic Reporter

Robert Mickens | Dec. 22, 2014 A Roman Observer

ROME
It’s now all but official. Pope Francis and certain members of the Roman Curia’s old guard are openly at battle for the soul and future of the Catholic church. And their clash is over a sense of entitlement and privilege traditionally tied to a clericalist ethos and court mentality that has long held sway at the Vatican.

The Argentine pontiff pretty much confirmed that on Monday in his annual pre-Christmas meeting with the Curia’s top officials during which he denounced a long list of bad attitudes and behavior he believes are ailing the church’s central offices. (Read Joshua J. McElwee’s excellent report on the 15 illnesses that, according to Francis, are threatening the Curia’s spiritual and moral health.)

The 78-year-old pope delivered his screed to the cardinals and bishops — that’s exactly how many people inside and beyond the walls of the Vatican will read it — just a little more than 24 hours after France’s oldest national paper, Le Figaro, published a cover article in its Sunday magazine titled, “The Secret War Inside the Vatican: How Pope Francis is shaking up the Church.”

The conservative paper’s highly respected Vatican analyst, Jean-Marie Guénois, claimed in the article that the “climate inside [the Vatican] is not good.” He wrote that “fear reigns” among many officials and employees who do not like how the pope is dismantling traditional protocols and who are nervously waiting to see how his eventual structural reforms will affect them. Guénois quoted one of these officials as saying, “His way of governing is disconcerting.” …

Even though the Jesuit pope did not name names, it’s clear he believes some of these cardinals and bishops are inflicted with the “ailments” he listed — an exaggerated sense of self-importance, lust for power and control, lack of empathy for others, opposition to the movements of the Holy Spirit, careerism, and the “very serious evil” of leading a double life, which he labeled “existential schizophrenia”.

The officials, all wearing black cassocks with their red and violet skullcaps and sashes, sat stony-faced throughout the stinging address, which went on for slightly more than 30 minutes.

Uncharacteristically, the pope hardly looked up from his written text and made only a couple, very minor unscripted remarks. His delivery was slow and deliberate. The prelates politely, but unenthusiastically applauded at the end.

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
Sydney Morning Herald

December 23, 2014

Philip Pullella

Vatican City: The Vatican’s top administrators would have been expecting an exchange of pleasantries at their annual Christmas meeting with Pope Francis on Monday.

Instead, Francis chose the occasion to issue a stinging critique, telling the priests, bishops and cardinals who run the Curia, the central administration of the Roman Catholic Church, that careerism, scheming and greed had infected them with “spiritual Alzheimer’s”.

Francis, the first non-European pope in 1300 years, has refused many of the trappings of office and made plain his determination to bring the Church’s hierarchy closer to its 1.2 billion members. To that end, he has set out to reform the Italian-dominated Curia, whose power struggles and leaks were widely held responsible for Benedict XVI’s decision last year to become the first pope in six centuries to resign. …

“This is the ideological and religious manifesto of a radical reform of the Curia,” Carlo Marroni, a Vatican expert with the Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore, said. “He doesn’t describe the details of the reform that we will most likely see next year, but he indicated the principles according to which the Church has to change, at least in the pope’s intentions.”

In his Christmas speeches, Benedict XVI, now pope emeritus, had often issued programmatic statements for the year to come, and talked about controversial issues like same-sex marriage. However, he had not used such a stern tone.

Last year, in his first Christmas speech to the Curia as pope, Francis warned his prelates against drifting “downwards towards mediocrity,” and urged them to be “conscientious objectors” to gossip.

In a meeting with the Vatican’s employees soon after his speech to the Curia, Francis repeated his plea for forgiveness, asking the laypeople who work for the Vatican to pardon his shortcomings and those of his collaborators, as well as some scandals that have hurt the church.

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
Oregonian

By The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — To the Catholic Church’s “seven deadly sins,” Pope Francis has added the “15 ailments of the Curia.”

Francis issued a blistering indictment of the Vatican bureaucracy Monday, accusing the cardinals, bishops and priests who serve him of using their Vatican careers to grab power and wealth, of living “hypocritical” double lives and forgetting that they’re supposed to be joyful men of God.

Francis turned the traditional, genteel exchange of Christmas greetings into a public dressing down of the Curia, the central administration of the Holy See, which governs the 1.2-billion strong Catholic Church. He made clear that his plans for a radical reform of the structures of church power must be accompanied by an even more radical spiritual reform of the men involved. …

“This is a speech without historic precedent,” church historian Alberto Melloni, a contributor to Italian daily Corriere della Sera, said in a telephone interview. “If the pope uses this tone, it’s because he knows it’s necessary.”

Melloni noted that until Francis was elected, the Vatican bureaucracy largely answered to no one, saying “an entire generation of the Curia ran it as if they were pope.” St. John Paul II was too busy traveling the world, and later too sick, to pay attention to administrative details, and Benedict left the minutiae of running a government to his deputy, later determined to have been part of the problem.

The Rev. Robert Wister, a church historian at Seton Hall University, said Francis was essentially asking the Curia to undergo an examination of conscience, asking them to reflect on how they had sinned before God before going to confession.

“Perhaps he believes that only a severe rebuke can help turn things around,” he said.

The cardinals were not amused. Few smiled as Francis spoke, and at the end they offered only tepid applause to a speech that was so carefully prepared it had footnotes and Bibilical references. Francis greeted each one, but there was little Christmas cheer in the room.

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
Los Angeles Times

By TOM KINGTON

Pope Francis on Monday launched a stunning attack on the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Vatican, accusing them of succumbing to greed, jealousy, hypocrisy, cowardice and “spiritual Alzheimer’s.”

In a pre-Christmas speech to the officials of the Roman Curia, Francis kept the season’s greeting to a minimum, choosing instead to ask prelates to make “a real examination of conscience.”

Francis then listed 15 “illnesses” he said they were prey to, including the “terrorism” of gossip, which he called a “cowardly” disease which could kill the reputation of a colleague “in cold blood.”

Top of the list was the fault of feeling “immortal, immune or even indispensable,” which Francis said could be remedied by a visit to a cemetery to see the graves of those who once felt immortal.

Francis also slammed prelates for showing off, accumulating wealth and leading double lives, which he said could lead to “existential schizophrenia.” …

“I have never seen a Christmas speech like this; this felt more like Lent,” said Maria Antonietta Calabro, a Vatican specialist at Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper. “Francis was elected to clean up the Curia and he is returning to this theme and strongly reasserting his authority.” …

Francis also attacked those who “discredit others, even in newspapers and magazines” to build their own power, even if they claim they are doing so “in the name of justice and transparency.”

Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was tasked by Francis with giving order to Vatican finances, recently wrote an article for a Roman Catholic publication claiming he had found millions of euros unaccounted for only to have Vatican officials deny funds were concealed.

“It looks like Francis is referring to Pell, which is ironic because Pell is his man,” said Calabro.

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
Bustle

LAUREN BARBATO

Pope Francis delivered his annual Christmas message on Monday, and it ended up being a lot less festive than expected. Instead of spreading some Christmas cheer, the pope harshly criticized Vatican bureaucracy. All Francis wants for Christmas is for everyone to stop gossiping — is that so much to ask for?

While addressing senior Vatican officials, which includes bishops and cardinals who serve the Holy See, Francis laid out their laundry list of sins — 15, to be exact. Some of the sins these Vatican officials have committed are the lust for power, feelings of superiority, and the “terrorism of gossip.” What a way to end the year.

Francis began by suggesting that the Vatican has been “exposed to sickness,” causing it to become an “ailing body” that has weakened the Catholic Church. The first sickness, the pontiff said, was “considering oneself ‘immortal’, ‘immune’ or ‘indispensable’.”

Francis continued:

A Curia that is not self-critical, that does not stay up-to-date, that does not seek to better itself, is an ailing body. … It is the sickness of the rich fool who thinks he will live for all eternity, and of those who transform themselves into masters and believe themselves superior to others, rather than at their service.

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

* Aging Pope Francis cannot clean up the Catholic Church “mess” and its rigged leadership transition process, unless he moves now to restore the Church’s consensual management structure with its democratic accountability. It is basic “Management 101″. Changing the obsolete top down monarchical management structure, and curtailing the resulting and continuing priest child abuse and financial scandals, among others, cannot be avoided any longer! It appears to be “now or never” for Pope Francis and the Vatican.

* The first Catholics consensually managed their leaders; Catholics can and must do so again, as discussed below. Otherwise, the Vatican Titanic will continue to sink.

* Unless Pope Francis acts promptly, while he yet is still able, to make the worldwide Catholic 0.01% leadership accountable again to the Catholic 99.9% laity, he will likely fail.

* Now in his 79th year, Pope Francis has once again raised unexpectedly his mortality, volunteering that he will not “be around” in connection with Rome’s Olympic bid. He had also a few months ago publicly broached with reporters the prospect of his own death in “two or three years”, while also not ruling out retirement before then.

* Pope will be nearing his 80th year, when his all “celibate male” Final Synod of Bishops gives him in less than ten months their recommendations for Church reforms. It appears to be now or never for this pope to make a real difference in Church reform that is not just a temporary fix that can be readily reversed by his soon to be secretly selected successor, perhaps Cardinal Sodano’s protege, Cardinal Parolin.

* Pope Francis now has the full power to change the procedures for selecting bishops, including the Bishop of Rome (i.e., the Pope himself). He needs to begin now to change these procedures promptly, just as he created his Council of Cardinals out of thin air, it appears. Canon law is whatever a pope says it is, in the final analysis.

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 KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

22 DECEMBER 2014

A campaigning MP has called for the reinvestigation of the suspicious deaths more than 20 years ago of two whistleblowers who he believes had significant information relating to organised child abuse.

And John Mann called on Home Secretary Theresa May to lift the restrictions of the Official Secrets Act in relation to historic abuse, which he believes are holding back former Special Branch police officers from coming forward with vital information relating to allegations of a child sex ring linked to powerful people in Westminster in the 1970s and 1980s.

Mr Mann’s comments came as a second Labour MP warned that the Government looks as though it does not “want to get to the truth” about historic child abuse after Mrs May indicated that a troubled inquiry panel commissioned to look into the issue could be disbanded and replaced.

Simon Danczuk said victims would be dismayed at the lack of progress in the probe, and could not help worrying that the litany of mistakes – including the resignation of two chairmen following claims about their perceived closeness to establishment figures – was “deliberate”.

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
Think Progress

BY JOSH ISRAEL POSTED ON DECEMBER 22, 2014

In 1882, a group of Catholic men gathered together by New Haven, CT pastor Father Michael J. McGivney incorporated an organization to provide for the families of its deceased members. More than 125 years later, the Knights of Columbus boasts of more than 1.8 million members and of “donating more than $167.5 million to charitable needs and projects” in 2012. Among its members: presidential 2016 hopeful Jeb Bush (R), Speaker of the House John Boehner (R), and Justice Samuel Alito.

But while much of the Knights’ charitable efforts in recent years have supported purely altruistic causes such as the Special Olympics and Habitat for Humanity, millions of their charitable dollars have funded a very socially conservative ideological agenda: opposing abortion, LGBT rights, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and pornography, while supporting public funding for religious organizations.

While legally independent from the Catholic Church, the Knights of Columbus entities call themselves the church’s “strong right arm.” The main national organization, a tax-exempt 501(c)(8) “Fraternal Benefit Society,” provides insurance-type benefits to its membership, much like a life insurance company. In 2012, the organization’s revenue and expenses exceeded $2 billion. While only Catholic men above the age of 18 are allowed to join, Catholic women are permitted to join a much smaller affiliated auxiliary organization called the Columbiettes.

The Knights also operate a legally-separate but affiliated charitable arm called the Knights of Columbus Charities Inc. That tax-exempt non-profit organization made about 57 percent of its annual grants in 2013 to efforts to “promote matters affective life family, marriage and similar priorities in building a culture of life.” More than $1 million of that went to support “Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” a network of facilities that dissuade women from choosing to terminate their pregnancies, often by sharing misinformation.

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
Huffington Post

Burke E. Strunsky
Prosecutor

Faith is a deeply personal experience, and I don’t say this as a politically correct sound bite. I truly believe that I’m lucky to live in a country that values the right of its citizens to freely practice religion if they so choose. However, as a criminal prosecutor, I am repeatedly faced with situations in which people forsake reason for faith or forsake faith for reason. It’s a false dilemma–a needless collision of choices. Too many make the tragic mistake of relying solely on their faith in cases of crimes, particularly child sexual abuse. Some religious groups might see these events as strictly a crisis of the soul when, in fact, concealing these atrocities only contributes to even deeper spiritual crises for the victims and their families. That’s why I make this plea to families of all faiths: Please do not rely exclusively on the guidance of your religious institutions to deal with the crime of child molestation. If people truly believe in God or a higher power, then they should open their minds and hearts to the possibility that, in addition to their capacity to believe, they also possess the ability to reason for a reason.

It’s impossible to pinpoint the first primordial whispers of faith or even the birth of religion–itself a communal kind of faith. Since the earliest man tilted his head to the cosmos and wondered, “Where does it all come from?” humanity has been searching for the meaning of life. Regardless of one’s personal beliefs, faith and religion appear to be distinctly human phenomena, pointing us in the same direction toward the same intangible reality of a higher purpose or an unexplainable force that guides and connects us. Thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote that in the search for truth, humans possess two unique sources of knowledge–reason (natural) and faith (supernatural)–and that the two were never meant to contradict one another but rather to work together.

Secrecy is essential to the crime of child molestation and when it encounters the sacred secrecy inherent to some religious organizations, an atmosphere is created in which the predator can thrive. Psychoanalyst Sue Grand has studied child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church and sums up the crisis from both psychological and religious perspectives: “Secrecy, concealment, denial, ambiguity, confusion: These are Satan’s fellow travelers, requiring elaborate interpersonal and intrapsychic collusion between perpetrators and bystanders. The operations of silence potentiate evil and remove all impediments from its path.”

Historically, the most prominent religious organizations involved in criminal and civil child sexual abuse cases included the Roman Catholic Church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon Church).This certainly doesn’t mean that people who belong to these groups are more likely to sexually abuse children than are, say, Methodists, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, or Hindus. Rather, it’s the manner in which these institutions have sometimes handled sexual molestation accusations that is problematic. It often leaves the pedophile free to roam and attack again.

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
The Daily Beast

Jason Berry

The first Jesuit pope has endeared himself to people not so much through his religion but through his humane politics, which were forged in repressive Argentina.

In the 20 months since his bow from the balcony above St. Peter’s Square after the conclave, introducing himself as the bishop of Rome, Pope Francis has registered in poll after poll as the most popular person in the world.

“Barack Obama gets an average of 1,300 retweets on his account; Pope Francis gets twenty thousand,” wrote Alma Guillermoprieto in a June 23 profile of the pope for Matter, signaling another sign of this pope’s status.

Popes, presidents, the Dalai Lama, certain first ladies, and movie stars typically lead such surveys; but after decades of scandals over sexually abusive priests and financial corruption reaching into the Vatican Bank, the church’s reversal under Francis is a striking media narrative. For much of the popular tide behind him reflects another reality: his politics have an appeal that reaches far beyond the declining number of church-going Catholics. Not since 1989, when John Paul II bestrode the global stage as a catalyst in the collapse of the Soviet Empire, has a pope stirred such feelings of hope. John Paul was youthful in his sixties with a radiant charisma. Francis is well into his seventies, looks it, has a mild demeanor and soft speaking style; but his rhetoric is electrifying.

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
Nova News

Former Yarmouth priest granted full parole on November 2012 conviction for indecent assaults

YARMOUTH – A former Yarmouth County priest who was sentenced in November 2012 after pleading guilty to sexually abusing six young boys dating back to the mid 1960s to the earlier 1980s has been granted full parole.

Albert LeBlanc – who was 83 years old when he was sentenced in a Yarmouth courtroom to five-and-a-half years in prison – was granted full parole in early December.

The victims of his crimes have been made aware of the Parole Board of Canada’s decision.

As part of his parole conditions, LeBlanc must immediately report all intimate relationships and friendships with females and males who have parental responsibility for male children under the age of 18.

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
NPR

KRISHNADEV CALAMUR

Pope Francis has blasted the Vatican’s top bureaucrats at an annual Christmas gathering, accusing the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Curia of “spiritual Alzheimer’s” and careerism.

“Sometimes, [officials of the Curia] feel themselves lords of the manor – superior to everyone and everything,” Francis told the Curia’s assembled members, according to Vatican Radio, which carried a report of the meeting titled “Pope Francis: Christmas greetings to Curia.”

The Curia is dominated by Italians who oversee the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. Francis, an Argentine, is the first non-European to hold the papacy in more than a millennium. The former Cardinal had not worked in the Curia before his election, and has made reform of the Vatican a major part of his agenda.

“The Curia needs to change, to improve … a Curia that does not criticize itself, that does not bring itself up to date, that does not try to improve, is a sick body,” he 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.

VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (UK)

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
Monday 22 December 2014

Pope Francis ended the year with a scathing critique of the church’s highest-ranking officials, including a list of 15 “ailments” that he said plagued the Vatican’s power-hungry bureaucracy.

The Argentinian pontiff used a traditional Christmas greeting to the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Holy See to portray a church hierarchy that had lost its humanity at times, a body consumed by narcissism and excessive activity, where men who are meant to serve God with optimism instead presented a hardened, sterile face to the world.

The 78-year-old pope’s second Christmas speech since his election in 2013 was met by tepid applause among his Vatican audience, according to the Associated Press, and just a few smiling faces.

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
USA Today

Josephine McKenna , Religion News Service December 22, 2014

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Pope Francis launched a blistering attack on the Vatican bureaucracy Monday, outlining a “catalog of illnesses” that plague the church’s central administration, including “spiritual Alzheimer’s” and gossipy cliques.

The pope’s traditional Christmas greeting to the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Holy See was less an exchange of warm wishes than a laundry list of what the pontiff called the “ailments of the Curia” that he wants to cure.

In a critique that left many of the assembled clerics clearly uncomfortable, the 15 ailments in Francis’ “catalog of illnesses” reflected the take-no-prisoners approach he promised when he was elected nearly two years ago as an outsider with little direct experience in Rome.

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
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Dec. 22, 2014

ROME
Pope Francis on Monday used an annual pre-Christmas meeting with the cardinals and bishops of the Vatican bureaucracy — normally an exchange of good wishes and blessings — to issue a scathing critique of them, warning against 15 separate “diseases” in their work and attitudes.

Saying he wanted to prepare them all — including himself — to make “a real examination of conscience” before Christmas, Francis said while the Vatican bureaucracy was called to “always improve and grow in communion,” it was also prone to “disease, malfunction, and infirmity” like every human institution.

“I believe it will help us [to make] a ‘catalog’ of diseases … to help us prepare for the sacrament of reconciliation, which will be a good step for all of us to prepare for Christmas,” Francis said.

Many of the 15 diseases given by Francis were frank and blunt: a feeling of indispensability like a “rich fool”; of having a “spiritual Alzheimer’s” that makes a person dependent on the present; of living an “existential schizophrenia” of double lives that create “parallel worlds”; and a “terrorism of gossip” that sows discord and that amounts to “cold-blooded murder” of friends and colleagues.

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.

VERMONT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Dec. 22

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

We are deeply disappointed that Pope Francis has promoted Cardinal Bernard Law’s former mouthpiece. For years, time and time again, then Fr. Christopher Coyne repeated deceptive public relations spin about heinous child sex crimes and callous cover ups by Law and other Catholic officials.

[Burlington Free Press]

Ironically, on the same day that headlines tout a tongue-lashing of self-serving church bureaucrats by Pope Francis, the Vatican announces the promotion of an aide to perhaps America’s most self-serving church bureaucrat ever.

[Island Packet]

While a bishop in Indiana, we prodded Coyne to aggressively reach out to anyone who may have seen crimes by Fr. Francis Markey who was arrested by US marshals at his Indiana home in connection with the alleged rape of a 15-year-old boy twice, including the day of the boy’s father’s funeral.

As best we can tell, he ignored our request.

[SNAP]

And he did absolutely nothing in Boston or Indianapolis that gives us any hope he’ll be any better on children’s safety than his predecessor.

So we urge Vermont Catholics and citizens to be skeptical and vigilant and report known or suspected clergy sex crimes and cover ups to secular authorities, not church officials.

In many ways, Francis is very different than Benedict. When it comes to the abuse crisis, however, he really isn’t. Both popes promote church officials who ignored or concealed known or suspected clergy sex crimes, time and time and time again. Today’s announcement continues that depressing pattern.

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 Information Service

Vatican City, 22 December 2014 (VIS) – This morning in the Clementine Hall the Holy Father held his annual meeting with the Roman Curia to exchange Christmas greetings with the members of its component dicasteries, councils, offices, tribunals and commissions. “It is good to think of the Roman Curia as a small model of the Church, that is, a body that seeks, seriously and on a daily basis, to be more alive, healthier, more harmonious and more united in itself and with Christ”.

“The Curia is always required to better itself and to grow in communion, sanctity and wisdom to fully accomplish its mission. However, like any body, it is exposed to sickness, malfunction and infirmity. … I would like to mention some of these illnesses that we encounter most frequently in our life in the Curia. They are illnesses and temptations that weaken our service to the Lord”, continued the Pontiff, who after inviting all those present to an examination of conscience to prepare themselves for Christmas, listed the most common Curial ailments:

The first is “the sickness of considering oneself ‘immortal’, ‘immune’ or ‘indispensable’, neglecting the necessary and habitual controls. A Curia that is not self-critical, that does not stay up-to-date, that does not seek to better itself, is an ailing body. … It is the sickness of the rich fool who thinks he will live for all eternity, and of those who transform themselves into masters and believe themselves superior to others, rather than at their service”.

The second is “’Martha-ism’, or excessive industriousness; the sickness of those who immerse themselves in work, inevitably neglecting ‘the better part’ of sitting at Jesus’ feet. Therefore, Jesus required his disciples to rest a little, as neglecting the necessary rest leads to stress and agitation. Rest, once one who has brought his or her mission to a close, is a necessary duty and must be taken seriously: in spending a little time with relatives and respecting the holidays as a time for spiritual and physical replenishment, it is necessary to learn the teaching of Ecclesiastes, that ‘there is a time for everything’”.

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 KINGDOM
RT

Survivors of alleged Westminster child sex abuse have called on the government to replace the current inquiry with a more powerful body. Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the Home Secretary was considering disbanding the investigation entirely.

A letter written to Home Secretary Theresa May by survivors of child abuse urged that powers be given to a new inquiry which would have the authority to “compel witnesses to give evidence under oath.”

The letter, which was shown to the BBC, reportedly requested a “replacement of the current panel” and an increase in “statutory powers,” it was reported Sunday. Signed by an organization of survivors and professionals, the letters claimed that more powers would “increase confidence” in the inquiry.

“It is essential that those conducting the inquiry have appropriate experience, are free from strong links to prominent establishment figures or any other potential conflict of interest and have a proven track record of promoting survivors’ rights,” the letter 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 KINGDOM
BBC News

[with audio]

22 December 2014

Dozens of child abuse survivors have urged the government to scrap an inquiry into historical abuse and replace it with a more powerful body.

In the letter to Home Secretary Theresa May, survivors, survivors’ groups and associated professionals call for a new inquiry with the power to “compel witnesses to give evidence under oath”.

Ian McFadyen is an abuse survivor and campaigner who signed the letter.

He told the BBC 5 live Breakfast that he felt the inquiry “must have teeth”.

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
euronews

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican’s top administrators would have been expecting an exchange of pleasantries at their annual Christmas meeting with Pope Francis on Monday.

Instead, he chose the occasion to issue a stinging critique, telling the priests, bishops and cardinals who run the Curia, the central administration of the Roman Catholic Church, that careerism, scheming and greed had infected them with “spiritual Alzheimer’s”.

Francis, the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, has refused many of the trappings of office and made plain his determination to bring the Church’s hierarchy closer to its 1.2 billion members.

To that end, he has set out to reform the Italian-dominated Curia, whose power struggles and leaks were widely held responsible for Benedict XVI’s decision last year to become the first pope in six centuries to resign.

“The Curia needs to change, to improve … a Curia that does not criticise itself, that does not bring itself up to date, that does not try to improve, is a sick body,” he said in a sombre address.

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
BBC News

Pope Francis has sharply criticised the Vatican bureaucracy in a pre-Christmas address to cardinals, complaining of “spiritual Alzheimer’s” and “the terrorism of gossip”.

He said the Curia – the administrative pinnacle of the Roman Catholic Church – was suffering from 15 “ailments”, which he wanted cured in the New Year.

Pope Francis – the first Latin American pontiff – also criticised “those who look obsessively at their own image”.

He has demanded reform of the Curia.

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
Mittelbayerische

VON NIKOLAS PELKE, MZ

HEIDECK Die Gebetsbücher sind längst vergriffen, als die letzten Besucher in den Gottesdienst eilen. Die Stadtpfarrkirche ist besetzt bis auf den allerletzten Platz. Ein Blick in die Gesichter der Menschen an diesem Samstagabend zeigt: Die Katholiken in Heideck sind durch die Bank angespannt.

Wie wird der Pfarrer Tobias Göttle seiner Gemeinde im mittelfränkischen Landkreis Roth gegenübertreten? Nach all dem was passiert ist in den letzten 16 Monaten. Nach den schweren Vorwürfen des Kindesmissbrauchs und den Monaten in der Untersuchungshaft. Alle sind sie heute gekommen, um dabei zu sein, wenn der alte und neue Pfarrer ein paar Tage vor Weihnachten in den Kreis der Gemeinde zurückkehren soll. Darüber sprechen, wie sich das anfühlt, will vorher keiner. Was könne man schon sagen, wenn ein katholischer Geistlicher einen Jungen sexuell missbraucht haben soll? Die Öffentlichkeit sei allzu schnell bereit gewesen, den ungeheuerlichen Verdacht für bare Münze zu nehmen. Waren die katholischen Priester nicht genau aus diesem Grund zuletzt weltweit in die Schlagzeilen geraten? Auch in Heideck hat es Schlagzeilen gegeben. „Pfarrer hinter Gittern“ war nur eine davon.

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
Nordbayern

The Heidek parish priest was returned to service this past weekend after he was cleared of charges of sexual abuse of a minor. He was greeted with applause.]

HEIDECK – Dass in einem Gotteshaus Beifall aufbrandet, ist eher selten. Am Samstagabend jedoch gab es für den Heidecker Stadtpfarrer in der Kirche St. Johannes der Täufer reichlich Applaus, nachdem dieser die vergangenen Monate aus seiner Sicht hatte Revue passieren lassen, in denen er dem Verdacht des sexuellen Missbrauches eines Minderjährigen ausgesetzt und deswegen ein Vierteljahr in Untersuchungshaft war (wir berichteten mehrfach). Nachdem der Haftbefehl gegen ihn aufgehoben und die kirchenrechtliche Untersuchung abgeschlossen war, kehrte der Geistliche am Samstag an seine alte Wirkungsstätte zurück – in Begleitung des Eichstätter Bischofs Gregor Maria Hanke.

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
Radio Oberland

[Abuse Ettal Abbey: court date is set]

Montag, 22. Dezember 2014
Er soll zwischen den Jahren 2001 und 2005 mehr als 20 Kinder sexuell missbraucht haben – Jetzt steht der Gerichtstermin für den angeklagten Pater aus dem Kloster Ettal. Wie das Tagblatt mitteilt muss er sich zum ersten Mal am 22. Januar vor der Jugendstrafkammer des Münchner Landgerichts verantworten. Für die Verhandlungen sind sieben Tage angesetzt.

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
Bild

[A priest named only as George K. (56) has been accused of abusing children, including his godson. The vicar at Willich was in charge until 2008 of several municipalities in the Lower Rhine and is said to be accused of at least 23 cases of abuse.]

VON JOACHIM OFFERMANNS

Krefeld (NRW) – Er ist ein Mann Gottes: Doch Pfarrer Georg K. (56) wird beschuldigt, ihm anvertraute Kinder missbraucht zu haben. Selbst das eigene Patenkind war nicht vor ihm sicher.

Der Pfarrer aus Willich, der bis 2008 verschiedene Gemeinden am Niederrhein betreute, soll zwischen 2001 und 2006 das zunächst 11 Jahre alte Patenkind in mindestens 23 Fällen missbraucht haben.

Von dem nackten Kind soll er Fotos gemacht haben. In zwei Fällen, so die Anklage, hat er mit dem Kind vor den Übergriffen Marihuana geraucht. Außerdem soll er den damals 8 Jahre alten Bruder des Jungen dreimal missbraucht haben – so zum Beispiel bei einem gemeinsamen Sauna-Besuch.

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
Bundespresse REPORT 2014

Sexueller Missbrauch Minderjähriger durch katholische Geistliche in Deutschland | Fernau / Hellmann | Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft

[Sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy in Germany | Fernau / Hellmann | Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft]

Im vorliegenden Sammelband werden erstmals empirische Befunde zum sexuellen Missbrauch durch katholische Geistliche in Deutschland präsentiert. Die Datenbasis bilden zwei Betroffenenbefragungen, die vertiefende Erkenntnisse über Hintergründe, Besonderheiten und Folgen von innerkirchlichen Missbrauchserfahrungen liefern: eine quantitative Fragebogenerhebung sowie eine qualitative Interviewstudie.

Schwerpunkte der quantitativen Untersuchung sind die Analyse von zentralen Charakteristika der Taten sowie von psychosozialen Folgen, welche diese bei den Betroffenen auslösten. Ferner werden die Reaktionen der Behörden und der katholischen Kirche auf Offenbarungen von Betroffenen in den Blick genommen. Im Fokus der qualitativen Forschung steht die Rekonstruktion verschiedener biografischer Umgangsformen mit den Missbrauchserfahrungen. Dabei wird insbesondere der Rückgriff auf katholische Glaubensvorstellungen in der Auseinandersetzung mit der erlebten sexuellen Gewalt beleuchtet.

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

An analysis of the speech to the Curia. The Pope does not introduce a new project from the top but the way of mercy that the Church has always recommended in order to cure the 15 ‘diseases’

GIANNI VALENTE
VATICAN CITY

In his traditional speech to the collaborators of the Roman Curia, a few days before Christmas, Pope Francis avoided customary evaluations of the past year and did not launch programmatic discussions or key words on which to realign the language and initiatives of the Vatican congregations. The Pope spoke to the heads of the Vatican congregations in the Curia about the life of the Curia and its ‘diseases’. His speech expounded a detailed, collective ‘examination of conscience’, recommended to cardinals, bishops and monsignors called to collaborate with him in the Vatican.

The Pope took on the role of spiritual father, educated at the school of St. Ignatius. He did not have any qualms about calling the pathologies, affecting his immediate surroundings, by their name. He did it with lucidity and ‘expertise’ of the object, frustrating once again the stereotype of the Latin-American alien who is not used to the ‘complexities’ of Rome and Europe, with which critics and neo-courtiers attempt to neutralise him. Pope Francis highlighted the root of the curial diseases, as well as providing an ample symptomatology and, above all, he suggested remedies. He started from the rediscovery of the nature of the Church as ‘Mystical Body’ of Christ, according to the consecrated form of Pius XII’s encyclicals ‘Mystici Corporis’.

The ‘Messiah complex’ is mostly responsible for these pathologies among ecclesiastics also in the Curia. This complex often takes over circles and ambitious ecclesiastics, used to putting the teaching about the necessity of grace on the backburner; a teaching already pronounced by Christ to his disciples. Pope Francis said that ‘it must be clear to us all that without Him we can do nothing’. Christmas, said Pope Francis to the officials of the Curia, is a favourable chance to rediscover this dynamic of grace told in the Gospel, because ‘it is also the festival of a light that is not welcomed by the “chosen people” but by the “poor and simple” who awaited the salvation of the Lord.’

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

Francis invites his collaborators to examine their conscience to confess their ‘sins’ in today’s speech. He mentions vainglory and feeling essential, as well as ‘spiritual Alzheimer’s’ and hoarding money and power. The Pope also speaks of closed circles and worldly profit, as well as the ‘terrorism of gossip’

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

15 diseases listed and explained, one by one in detail. In his second Christmas speech to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis identifies and explains 15 shades of sin, inviting everyone to ask for God’s forgiveness. The same God who ‘is born in poverty in a cave in Bethlehem to teach us the power of humility’, and was welcomed not by the “chosen” people but by the “poor and simple”. Pope Francis asks his collaborators to really examine their conscience in preparation for confession before Christmas.

Francis explains that these ‘diseases’ and ‘temptations’ do not only concern the Curia but ‘are naturally a danger to every Christian and every curia, community, congregation, parish, and ecclesiastic movement’. The Pope, however, clearly identifies these as present within the environment where he has been living for 21 months now.

The Pope said that ‘it would be good to think of the Roman Curia as a small model of the Church, that is as a “body” which earnestly attempts to be more alive, healthier, more harmonious and more united in itslef and in Christ every day”. The Curia, like the Church, cannot live ‘without having a vital, personal, authentic and solid relationship with Christ’. And a member of the Curia who does not draw from that every day will become a mere bureaucrat. He adds that ‘ we will talk about the list of diseases which, following the Fathers of the desert, will aid us in preparing for confession’.

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 Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis received the heads and other senior officials of the departments of the Roman Curia on Monday, in their traditional exchange of Christmas greetings. In remarks prepared for the occasion and delivered Monday morning, the Holy Father focused on the need for those who serve in the curia – especially those in positions of power and authority – to remember and cultivate an attitude and a spirit of service.

“Sometimes,” said Pope Francis, “[Officials of the Curia] feel themselves ‘lords of the manor’ [It. padroni] – superior to everyone and everything,” forgetting that the spirit, which should animate them in their lives of service to the universal Church, is one of humility and generosity, especially in view of the fact that none of us will live forever on this earth.

This “disease” of feeling “immortal” or “essential” – irreplaceable – was one of fifteen maladies, which Pope Francis identified during the course of his address: from a tendency to prefer Martha’s portion over Mary’s, to over-planning (and micromanaging), to wearing being a perpetual downer and wearing a “funeral face” all the day long.

“These and other maladies and temptations,” said Pope Francis, “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.”

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.