ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Paris Arrow

Vatican Pied Pipers are out in full force to brainwash idiot Catholics on what they must believe about Pope Francis so they’ll keep donating millions of dollars to the Vatican Mammon Beast. On September 29, 2014, Andrea Gagliarducci’s article entitled, “Pope Francis, an iron hand against priestly pedophilia. How will the international community react?” — is one of the worst among the Vatican Pied Pipers that only idiot Catholics would buy and believe. In his first paragraph he is already telling one of the worst pathological lies and false tales ever — “The Church is winning its fight against pedophilia through the work that John Paul II started, Benedict XVI carried forward and Pope Francis is continuing.” WTF John Paul II?

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.

MICHIGAN
United States Attorney, Eastern District of Michigan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 29, 2014

Richard James Kurtz, 69, formerly of Clarkston, Michigan, was charged in a criminal complaint with production, transportation, and possession of child pornography, United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade announced today.

McQuade was joined in the announcement by Special Agent in Charge Paul M. Abbate, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Detroit Division.

According to court records, Kurtz, a Jesuit priest and former teacher at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School, was arrested in November 2011—while he was residing in Chicago—for “sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust.” That arrest was based on an arrest warrant issued out of Douglas County, Colorado, for conduct that occurred in 2001. After Kurtz’s arrest in Chicago, two Jesuit priests discovered evidence of possible child pornography crimes among Kurtz’s belongings in Chicago, as well at Kurtz’s former residence in Clarkston, Michigan. The Jesuits provided that evidence to the FBI.

According to court records, the FBI’s investigation revealed that Kurtz surreptitiously videotaped UDJHS hockey players changing in the locker room after games during the 1998-1999 hockey season. Beyond this production of child pornography, the FBI also discovered that Kurtz transferred other child pornographic material from Clarkston to Chicago, and possessed still other child pornography in Clarkston.

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
Times Record

By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau jlyon@arkansasnews.com

LITTLE ROCK — The bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock says a Yell County priest has been removed from the ministry and will not be allowed to function as a priest again because of “credible allegations of sexual misconduct.”

In a homily that Bishop Anthony Taylor delivered Sunday in Russellville, Dardanelle and Danville and that was posted on the the diocese’s website, Taylor said church officials received allegations the previous weekend that Father James Melnick had committed “multiple acts of sexual misconduct with multiple adult victims” over a period of less than a year.

Melnick, 30, was ordained in 2009 and was assigned to Danville and Dardanelle in March 2013, according to the diocese.

“Since there were multiple victims, we seem to be dealing with predatory behavior, not romance,” Taylor said in the post.

Taylor said church officials verified the allegations by interviewing Melnick and some of the victims. He also apologized to any who were harmed by Melnick.

“I sincerely regret the harm you have suffered and in the name of the Church I apologize to you for what Father Melnick has done. Given what was shared with you today and what Father Melnick has admitted to doing, the Church would never allow a priest in situation like this to ever to function as a priest again,” Taylor said in the post.

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.

MICHIGAN
Detroit Free Press

By Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press September 29, 2014

A priest and former University of Detroit Jesuit High School teacher has been charged with child pornography for allegedly videotaping hockey players in the locker room during the late 1990s, the U.S. Attorneys office announced today.

Richard Kurtz, 69, formerly of Clarkston, was arrested in Missouri today and is expected to be extradited to Detroit soon to face charges that could send him to prison for up to 30 years.

This is not a first for Kurtz, who taught chemistry on and off for 25 years at the all-boys Catholic high school in northwest Detroit, starting in 1970.

According to court records, Kurtz was arrested in 2011 while living in Chicago for allegedly sexually assaulting a child in Colorado a decade earlier. After his arrest in Chicago, the government said, two Jesuit priests went through his belongings in Chicago and his home in Clarkston and discovered evidence of possible child pornography crimes.

The priests turned that information over to the FBI, which linked Kurtz to the locker room at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School.

According to court records, Kurtz videotaped high school hockey players changing in the locker room after games during the 1998-99 season. The FBI also discovered that Kurtz was transferring other child pornographic material from Clarkston to Chicago, and possessed other child porn at his home in Clarkston.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
KWCH

The Vatican is investigating Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Missouri, two years after he was convicted of failing to report suspected abuse.

A Finn spokesman says the bishop was notified of the investigation by the papal ambassador in Washington.

The National Catholic Reporter was first to report the inquiry which is being conducted by the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops.

Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa visited the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph last week as part of the investigation. His spokeswoman said Monday only that the visit was private.

Finn is the highest-ranking U.S. church leader to be convicted for failing to take action on child sex abuse claims. He was sentenced to two years’ probation for not reporting a priest who had hundreds of pornographic photos of young girls.

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
We Are Central PA

[with video]

Danielle Krout

JOHNSTOWN, CAMBRIA COUNTY— A federal judge ordered Rev. Joseph Maurizio to stay in the Cambria County Jail.

The 69 year old was in court Monday for a detention hearing after being arrested last week. He was charged by the U.S. Attorney on child pornography and tourism charges.

More than 40 people packed into the Johnstown Federal Courthouse for the hearing, all in support of Maurizio. Many cried as he walked in the courtroom handcuffed escorted by Marshals.

“I thought the two attorneys did a great job the way they are supposed to,” said Father Sean Foley, New Jersey. “I thought the judge was very fair.”

Father Foley came from New Jersey to hear testimony. The prosecution said told the judge ‘they’ve only just scratched the surface of this case.” Investigators are currently going through more than 18,000 images seized from a camera during the September raid.

Prosecutors told the judge two images depict child pornography. They also said they think the 69 year old should remain in jail because since the case went public two victims from the area ages, 5 and 7 have come forward alleging abuse. The defense had no comment about the new allegations, but they did focus on the character or the priest.

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

MICHIGAN
Fairfield Citizen

[Assignment Record – BishopAccountability.org]

DETROIT (AP) — A priest who taught chemistry years ago at a Detroit Catholic school has been charged with child pornography crimes.

The FBI says the Rev. Richard Kurtz secretly recorded hockey players in the locker room at University of Detroit Jesuit High School during the 1998-99 season.

The 69-year-old Kurtz was arrested Monday in Dittmer, Missouri, and will appear in St. Louis federal court Wednesday. It wasn’t immediately known if he has a lawyer. He’ll eventually be transferred to Detroit.

The FBI says the Detroit case is based on child pornography discovered by priests in 2011 at Kurtz’ residences in Chicago and Clarkston, Michigan. He was arrested in Chicago that year on a sexual assault charge in Douglas County, Colorado, involving a minor in 2001.

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
Hamilton and Griffin on Rights

Susan A. Michalczyk and John J. Michalczyk

For us, Susan and John Michalczyk, it all started with a radio program on National Public Radio. Susan heard Bob Hoatson, the Co-Founder of Road to Recovery in New Jersey, address issues of clergy sexual abuse. Susan later recounted the content of the program to John, a documentary filmmaker. We invited Bob to our home outside of Boston, the so-called epicenter of the clergy abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, and we discussed our plans to produce a documentary on the survivors. John had produced 20 documentary films on global conflict resolution and disabilities, many of which were broadcast on television nationally and some internationally. Susan had worked on scripts, narrations, and voice-overs for some of these films. Meeting Bob gave us the spark needed to initiate a film production unlike others we produced.consciencepic

What ensued was a chain reaction that brought together a host of individuals, lay and clergy, advocates and attorneys, all committed to supporting survivors abused by pedophile priests. Once the research was completed, interviews were filmed. These were very tragic narratives recounted by the survivors. The transcriber of the interviews said she would type a few paragraphs and cry, then type some more and cry again. Kris Merrill, Jerry Sypek, Bob Hoatson, Alexa McPherson, Helen McGonigle, and Dave Carney spoke from their fragmented souls about the consequences of being abused by someone who represented God to them. Although the psychological scars were apparent, they remarked, and healing would take a lifetime, in Bob Hoatson’s words, these survivors offered a clear and honest insight into the harm done by a clerical predator.

With a very moving script by Susan, the result was our first documentary on the topic of clerical sexual transgressions, Who Takes Away the Sins: Witnesses to Clergy Abuse that was premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in May 2013, and then screened there again for three evenings in October 2013. The panels of the participants spoke eloquently of the need to reform the Catholic Church and urged the hierarchy to commit themselves to accountability and transparency. Since 2013, the film has been shown on local cable stations and then widely from classrooms and college programs to gatherings of the Voice of the Faithful. Our website (www.etoileproductionsusa.com) provided us with the opportunity to include many further poignant comments by the participants which were unable to be included in the one-hour documentary.

We did not let the urgency of the subject die out. Soon we embarked on a sequel to the film following Susan’s initial idea of tracking down men and women of conscience who reported clergy abuse and were sanctioned by the Church leaders. Some were ostracized, removed from their positions, and deemed disloyal. Others were looked at as traitors to their religious order or Church for breaking the code of silence. Once again, Bob Hoatson as Field Producer contacted his colleagues of the “Catholic Whistleblowers,” inviting them to participate in the documentary. Frs. Patrick Collins, Ronald Lemmert, Bruce Teague, James Connell, and Thomas Patrick Doyle, as well as Srs. Maureen Paul Turlish, Sally Butler, and Claire Smith all agreed to be interviewed, mostly in an office in New York, thanks to the graciousness of Marci Hamilton of the Carodozo School of Law who also provided insights into the extensive phenomenon of abuse in all types of religions and institutions.

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
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho September 29, 2014

“Vatican Says Bishop’s Dismissal Not the Result of Sexual Abuse,” read a Catholic News Service headline published Saturday. The story, written by Francis X. Rocca, tut-tuts those who interpreted the firing of Bishop Livieres of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, as a sign of a Vatican crackdown on sexual abuse. The diocese was investigated by the Vatican in July after local Catholics, including the archbishop of Asuncion, Paraguay, Pastor Cuquejo–the metropolitan bishop–reportedly complained to Rome about several aspects of Livieres’s leadership. Among his concerns was Livieres’s decision to accept and promote a priest, Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity, who had been accused of sexual misconduct by several people dating back to the late 1980s. Rocca’s story suggests that Urrutigoity had little to do with Pope Francis’s decision to replace Livieres.

Coming two days after the Vatican’s arrest of former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, pending a criminal trial on charges of paying for sex with boys during his time as nuncio to the Dominican Republic, the dismissal of Bishop Livieres appeared to be the latest step in a Vatican crackdown on sex abuse. But the Vatican says sex abuse was not a significant factor in Bishop Livieres’s dismissal.

Here’s what Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, SJ, told Rocca: “Let’s not confuse Wesolowski and Livieres; one is a case of pedophilia, the other is not.” Lombardi continued: “Livieres was not removed for reasons of pedophilia. That was not the principal problem.” What was? “There were serious problems with his management of the diocese, the education of clergy, and relations with other bishops,” Lombardi said.”

That sounds a bit like what Lombardi said to the New York Times last week: “The important problem was the relations within the episcopacy and in the local church, which were very difficult.” He explained that the accusations against Urrutigoity were “not central, albeit have been debated.”

For his part, Livieres, a member of Opus Dei, maintains that he was the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by nefarious practitioners of liberation theology, presumably not those who were recently invited to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith–or were they? Considering this explanation comes from a man who on more than one occasion publicly called his metropolitan gay, it may not be totally reliable.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
ABC News

Sep 29, 2014

By RACHEL ZOLL AP Religion Writer

The Vatican is investigating Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Missouri, two years after he was convicted of failing to report suspected abuse.

Finn was notified of the investigation by the papal ambassador in Washington and has “cooperated with the process,” according to Jack Smith, the bishop’s spokesman.

As part of the inquiry, Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa visited the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph last week and spoke with several people, asking if they considered Finn fit for leadership, according to the National Catholic Reporter. A spokeswoman for Prendergast said Monday she could not comment because the archbishop’s visit was private.

Finn is the highest-ranking U.S. church leader to be convicted for failing to take action in response to sex abuse allegations. He was charged in the case of the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, whose computer contained hundreds of lewd photos of young girls taken in and around churches where he worked. Diocesan officials waited six months before they notified civil authorities of the photos. Ratigan pleaded guilty to child pornography charges and was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison.

Finn was sentenced in 2012 to two years’ probation for the misdemeanor, and ever since has faced pressure from local Roman Catholics to step down. Some parishioners petitioned Pope Francis to remove the bishop from the diocese.

Francis has promised he would hold bishops accountable for how they responded when confronted with cases of abusive priests. No U.S. bishop has been removed for covering up for guilty clergy.

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
Addicting Info

Former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who was previously stripped of his title over accusations of child molestation, was arrested last week. With an investigation underway, detectives of the Vatican have recently discovered that Wesolowski’s office computer contained sexually explicit content involving children — over 86,000 images and 160 videos were found. An additional 45,000 photos had been deleted from the computer.

Upon examination, the video files were of teenage boys being forced into sexual acts with each other and adults. The 86,000+ photographs had been neatly organized into category-based folders.

Wesolowski, who was head of the church in the Dominican Republic between 2008 and 2012, was originally allowed to walk freely in Rome despite the allegations of having paid minors for sex. Now, the 66-year-old former Archbishop is limited to a tiny room in the Collegio dei Penitenzieri’s basement, the same building that hosts the Vatican’s court and military police.

Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, said:

“The seriousness of the allegations has prompted the official investigation to impose a restrictive measure that … consists of house arrest, with its related limitations, in a location within the Vatican City State.” (source)

The Vatican also said that Wesolowski’s arrest reflected the wishes of Pope Francis, who has vowed zero tolerance against church officials who commit sexual crimes against children. Previously, the Pope has called sexual abuse an “ugly crime” and compared it to “a Satanic Mass.”

Having previously served in South Africa, Costa Rica, Japan, Switzerland, India and Denmark, authorities are now investigating if Wesolowski might have abused minors at other points in his career. Authorities are also looking for evidence that Wesolowski might have had assistance or been involved in a larger network of pedophiles. To date, Wesolowski is the the most prominent church figure to come under investigation for sexual abuse.

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
Roman Catholic Diocese of Little Rock

En Español

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor delivered the following homily about Father James Melnick at St. John Church in Russellville, St. Augustine Church in Dardanelle and St. Andrew Church in Danville on Sept. 27-28, 2014.

In the Gospel for Monday of this week Jesus said: “There is nothing hidden that will not be known and come to light. Take care then how you hear. To anyone who has, more will be given, and from one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.” (Luke 8:17-18)

The most difficult thing I ever have to do as bishop is come to a parish to inform the parishioners that I have received credible allegations of misconduct against their priest so serious as to require his removal from ministry. Last weekend we received credible allegations of sexual misconduct against Father Melnick and were able to act quickly enough to prevent him from celebrating his last Mass in Danville last Sunday.

Later that day we were able to interview some of his victims and verify multiple acts of sexual misconduct with multiple adult victims during the period of less than a year. Since there were multiple victims, we seem to be dealing with predatory behavior, not romance.

Later Father Melnick admitted that this is true. So please do not blame his victims. They are victims. And moreover, they reported violations of the sacrament of Reconciliation so serious as to require his permanent removal from ministry: absolution of persons with whom he had previously committed sins against the sixth commandment — and thus incurring grave canonical penalties that can only be lifted by the Holy See.

I know that his misconduct has harmed some of you directly and if you have been a victim of his misdeeds or know someone who has been harmed by him here or elsewhere, I ask that you contact the diocese to report the incident for your own good and for the good of the Church. I would also like to offer you the assistance of the Church in securing help if you could benefit from speaking with a psychologist or counselor to deal with what you have experienced.

I sincerely regret the harm you have suffered and in the name of the Church I apologize to you for what Father Melnick has done. Given what was shared with you today and what Father Melnick has admitted to doing, the Church would never allow a priest in a situation like this to ever to function as a priest again. Please pray for him. He needs your prayers, probably more than any of us even realizes.

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
KTHV

YELL COUNTY, Ark. (KTHV) – A Catholic priest serving in Yell County has been removed by the Arkansas Diocese for sexual misconduct.

Bishop Anthony Taylor spoke at mass on Sunday at 3 churches in Russellville, Dardanelle and Danville, saying Father James Melnick had been removed from the ministry.

The Bishop said they had verified multiple adult victims and that Melnick admitted to the incidents.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Bellingham Herald

BY RACHEL ZOLL
AP Religion WriterSeptember 29, 2014

The Vatican is investigating Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Missouri, two years after he was convicted of failing to report suspected abuse.

A Finn spokesman says the bishop was notified of the investigation by the papal ambassador in Washington.

The National Catholic Reporter was first to report the inquiry which is being conducted by the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops.

Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa visited the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph last week as part of the investigation. His spokeswoman said Monday only that the visit was private.

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.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Catholic Insider

In yet another disgrace for the Boston Archdiocese, the keynote speaker at last weeks’ Celebration of the Priesthood dinner/fundraiser was John Allen, associate editor of the Boston Globe. Allen was previously a reporter for the National Catholic Reporter. The fundraiser dinner raised $1.6M and was reported on here in the mainstream press and also on Cardinal Sean’s blog.

BCI and a number of our readers were disgusted to learn that Allen was picked to speak for this fundraiser. The Globe, of course, is opposed to every single one of the moral teachings of the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. One reader asked, “Why do we have an editor from a pro-gay marriage, pro-choice newspaper speaking publicly to an event that honors and supports Catholic clergy?” The Catholic Church is diametrically opposed in philosophy to the secular humanism of the Globe. The choice of Allen is simply further evidence that Cardinal O’Malley is a modernist who does not care about promoting the authentic teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

Also, it should be noted that there have been no communications about the state of the Clergy Fund. Paying the day in and day out operational costs for retired and ill clergy is one thing and it is good that they have stability there. But what about the future for our clergy? Why has the declared deficit of over $175M not been reduced over time? What is going to be done to fully fund the Clergy Fund for future priests? Is the additional $100M+ that used to be in the Clergy Fund deficit now being forgotten about?

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
Sydney Morning Herald

September 30, 2014

Greg Pemberton

The royal commission into child sexual abuse has asked searing questions about the behaviour of people in power across Australian society, writes Greg Pemberton. In Darwin this week, it turns its attention to the homes for Aboriginal children run by missionaries 50 years ago, when government policy was one of assimilation and young children were stolen from their families.

Barbara Cummings, now a 66-year-old grandmother, told the royal commission last week of how she was taken from her mother at the government-run Kahlin Compound for Aborigines. Her mother, Nellie, had earlier been similarly taken as a child from her people on the Daly River and deposited at Kahlin. Conditions there had been criticised by a Commonwealth parliamentary inquiry in 1923, which would lead to its closure in 1939 and replacement by the new Bagot reserve, co-located with the equally new Retta Dixon home, specifically taking the “half-caste” children in order to keep them separate from “full-blood” Aborigines.

If Cummings thought conditions in a missionary-run home would be better than in Kahlin or Bagot, she was shocked when she arrived in the 1950s. “I got terrible thrashings. We all did”,
Based on previously unpublished documents in the National Archives, Fairfax Media can reveal that in the late 1950s, when a reforming senior Darwin official sought to forbid this “corporal punishment” of Aboriginal children in Retta Dixon home, the former governor-general, Paul Hasluck, as Minister for Territories in the late 1950s, overruled him and ensured the missionaries could continue such practices.

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
KFGO

Monday, September 29, 2014
By Carey Gillam

INDEPENDENCE Mo. (Reuters) – It has been 30 years, but Kansas City’s Catholic diocese still should pay a heavy price for allowing a now-dead priest to repeatedly sexually abuse a former altar boy, a lawyer for the alleged victim said in court Monday, kicking off a $10 million lawsuit against the diocese.

Jon David Couzens, then age 10, said he was molested 20 times over two years in the early 1980s by Monsignor Thomas O’Brien, who died in 2013. Couzens was deeply involved in Catholic school and church activities.

The alleged abuse included an encounter in which O’Brien forced Couzens and other altar boys to perform sex acts on each other and on the priest, according to Couzens’ attorney, Rebecca Randles.

The lawsuit alleges that the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph intentionally failed to supervise O’Brien despite years of complaints and allegations by teachers and parents about the priest. Randles asked the jury Monday to order the diocese to pay $10 million in compensatory damages along with punitive damages.

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

Fr. Spadaro says Pope Francis is a leader and is also capable of taking difficult decisions. Organised opposition does exist within the Church

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

The arrest of former nuncio Józef Wesolowski in the Vatican three days ago (Wesolowski had already resigned from the clerical state after being accused of sexually abusing minors) and the replacement of Paraguayan bishop Rogelio Livieres (who was sacked for causing division in the Church after he accused other Paraguayan bishops of not nurturing doctrinal orthodoxy) gave the impression that things are speeding up ahead of the Synod on the Family in the coming weeks. The severity – as per the code of law – shown towards the former Polish archbishop sent out a strong message: that the days where impunity and cover-ups were the norm, have now come to an end. Wesolowski’s arrest is the final step on a path courageously begun by Benedict XVI, who sacked hundreds of priests and quite a number of bishops during his pontificate.

“Francis is a leader and is able to take difficult decisions,” Fr. Antonio Spadaro, editor-in-chief of Jesuit periodical La Civiltà Cattolica told Italian daily La Stampa. “But,” he added, “Pope Francis knows when it is important to do justice and act according to the law in cases such as that of Santo Domingo’s former nuncio.”

Straight after his election, having taken on board all that was said during the general congregations held prior to the conclave, Francis immediately set to reforming the Curia. Because of the inquiries that were being carried out by the Italian magistrates, he was forced to start with the Vatican’s finances. The process was slow and cumbersome and the aim was to make it harder for certain past scenarios to be repeated. But more than the structural reforms he has planned or already begun, it is his personal testimony as pastor and the words he pronounces every day that are calling into question certain dynamics within the clergy which are disfiguring the Church. Like an illness that manifests itself in the games played by cliques that form within the Church, in careerism, in the not-always-so-transparent relations with politics, in excessive bureaucracy and structures which transform into clots of self-referential power, losing sight of the real purpose of their existence: serving the people of God.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Pitch Weekly

Posted By Steve Vockrodt on Mon, Sep 29, 2014

The National Catholic Reporter says that a Canadian archbishop traveled to Kansas City to investigate Robert Finn, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The Kansas City-based news outlet covering Catholicism reports that Ottawa, Ontario, Archbishop Terrence Prendergast paid a visit to Kansas City last week to ask members close to the local diocese about Finn’s leadership.

The Pitch has no independent verification of these claims; calls to the local and Ottawa diocese were not immediately returned.

Jack Smith, a spokesman for the local diocese, told the NCR that no one among the Kansas City diocese leadership was aware Prendergast’s queries, although a spokeswoman for the Ottawa diocese seemed to confirm his travel to Kansas City by couching it as a “private visit.”

Finn is reportedly in Rome for the ordinations of seminarians there. Finn time away in Rome seems to make an investigator’s visit to Kansas City timely.

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
The Guardian

Andrew Brown
The Guardian, Monday 29 September 2014

Kieran Conry’s resignation as the Roman Catholic bishop of Arundel and Brighton at the weekend highlighted traditional faultlines in a church contending with how to handle divorce, birth control and other matters of personal and sexual morality.

The popular bishop left a message to be read from all the pulpits of his diocese in which he confessed to having been “unfaithful to his promises as a Catholic priest”, after the Mail on Sunday published an extract from a love letter he had written to a woman whose husband is divorcing her.

Conry told the newspaper that this relationship was not sexual, and said he was resigning over another relationship that had happened six years ago. He provided no further explanation as to his decision.

Conry was previously in charge of press relations for the Catholic church in England and Wales, and was widely liked and trusted. “He showed how a Catholic priest could be a human being,” said one observer. “Now he has shown us in a way he’d rather not have done.”

The husband of the woman involved in the present case is threatening to sue the Catholic church on the grounds that Conry’s behaviour must have been well known to them.

Traditionalists were jubilant at his resignation. The rightwing blogger Damian Thompson paid tribute to Conry’s human qualities – “he didn’t give us any bullshit and let slip the odd bit of gossip” – but then accused him of bullying a traditionalist parish that was using the Latin Mass, something on which Thompson is a great deal keener than the present pope.

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
Religion News Service

Trevor Grundy | September 29, 2014

CANTERBURY, England (RNS) A 63-year-old Roman Catholic bishop who had an affair six years ago with a woman said he feels calm, liberated and relieved after submitting his resignation to Pope Francis.

In an official statement made public Saturday (Sept. 27), Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton — regions in southern England — apologized for his actions.

“I am sorry to confess that going back some years I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest,” he said. “I would like to assure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.” …

After his resignation, the paper quoted the former bishop as saying: “In some respects I feel very calm. It is liberating. It is a relief.”

But it may not be the end of the matter.

The former bishop now stands accused of a second affair, this one with a married parishioner 20 years his junior who is a mother of two children.

The Mail on Sunday featured a photo of Conry in an open-neck shirt and slacks carrying a shopping bag next to a woman with shoulder-length blond hair. Her face was blanked out by the editor for legal reasons.

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
NBC 10

By Joe Mandak

A federal magistrate has ordered a Roman Catholic priest from Pennsylvania to remain jailed until his trial on sex tourism charges.

The Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr. was arrested last week on allegations that he traveled to Honduras to have sex with children while he did missionary work with the poor. He was placed on leave from the Altoona-Johnstown diocese earlier this month.

At a hearing Monday in Johnstown, prosecutors called Maurizio a danger to the community and a flight risk. But a relative and two family friends cited his religious work and said they have seen him around children and had no concerns about his conduct.

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
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

By Torsten Ove / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Catholic priest in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese accused of traveling to Honduras to have sex with children will remain behind bars pending trial.

A federal magistrate in Johnstown this morning ordered the Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr., 69, detained after the U.S. attorney’s office said he was a danger to the community.

Father Maurizio has been jailed since his arrest last week by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

He is accused of sexually abusing boys in Honduras and possession of child pornography on his computer.

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
Breitbart News

by AUSTIN RUSE 29 Sep 2014

Though it has been only a rumor until now, and has not yet been announced by the Vatican, a close associate of Cardinal Raymond Burke has told Breitbart News that the rumors of his departure are true, and the announcement is expected soon.

The source said Burke has been told he is out as head of the Apostolic Signatura and that he will assume the position of chaplain to the Order of Malta, a do-gooding organization of wealthy and sometimes European-titled Catholics.

Burke is a darling of Catholic conservatives around the world, having taken strong positions against pro-abortion politicians receiving communion, holding firm on traditional liturgy, and even excommunicating women who have tried to become ordained priests.

The source also told Breitbart News that the Pope did not ask Cardinal Burke where he wanted to go, which would have been a friendly gesture to someone the Pope wanted out of the powerful position in what could be considered Chief Justice of the Vatican Supreme Court.

In recent weeks, Burke has been outspoken that the upcoming planning session for the Synod of Bishops cannot change Church teaching on marriage. He went so far as to co-author a book with other Cardinals making this clear, something that puts Burke at odds with some of the closer associates of Pope Franci

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

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor September 29, 2014

One sign that a summit is viewed as crucial is when a tug-of-war breaks out to shape its agenda and outcome. By that standard, the looming Oct. 5-19 Synod of Bishops on the family appears a very big deal indeed.

In the run-up to the synod, we’ve already seen cardinals publicly jousting over the contentious issue of whether the Church ought to relax its ban on divorced and remarried Catholics receiving Communion.

Activists and rank-and-file believers alike have entered the fray on all manner of issues related to the family, with the latest to-do involving a cross-section of 48 mostly conservative intellectuals and ministers, including not just Catholics but also Protestant luminaries such as Rick Warren, urging the synod to hold the line in defense of traditional marriage.

Their open letter to the synod, sent to Rome through diplomatic channels in late September and also posted on the Internet, does not engage any of the hot-button issues expected to surface at the meeting, such as gay marriage or the communion ban for divorced and remarried believers.

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

IRELAND
The Journal

A MAJOR STUDY has found that childhood sexual abuse in Ireland does enormous economic and social damage to survivors, even well into later life.

The survey, conducted by the ESRI and Trinity College Dublin, found that Irish men and women who were sexually abused as children were more than twice as likely as others to be forced out of work by sickness in later life.

Among the other major findings:

* Male CSA survivors are three times more likely than other men to be sick or disabled after the age of 50

* Both men and women abused in childhood are more than twice as likely as others to be out of the workforce due to sickness or permanent disability

* The household income of male CSA survivors is 34% lower than the average

Men abused as children are twice as likely to live alone after the age of 50, compared to other men.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie, one of the researchers, Alan Barrett, said that the study measures, for the first time, the sheer scale and durability of the economic devastation that CSA causes among survivors.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Sep. 29, 2014

A Canadian archbishop visited the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese last week on behalf of the Vatican to investigate the leadership of Bishop Robert Finn, the first Catholic prelate to be found criminally guilty of shielding a priest in the ongoing clergy sexual abuse crisis.

Ottawa, Ontario, Archbishop Terrence Prendergast visited the Midwestern diocese for several days last week, interviewing more than a dozen people about Finn’s leadership, several of those interviewed told NCR.

According to those who spoke with Prendergast, the main he question asked was: “Do you think [Finn] is fit to be a leader?”

The communications officer for the Ottawa archdiocese, Sarah Du Broy, said the archdiocese did not a have comment as “the Archbishop considers it a private visit.”

The director of the Kansas City diocese’s communications office, Jack Smith, said by phone Monday he had “no personal knowledge” of Prendergast’s visit. Later, after checking with “senior leadership” in the diocese, Smith sent an email to NCR, saying, “Nobody has heard of this.”

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
The Australian

SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 1

Dan Box
Crime Reporter

A FORMER victim of a pedophile priest has accused the child abuse royal commission of treating him “with the same lack of ­respect shown to me by the Catholic Church” after his complaint about the conduct of an inquiry went unanswered.

Peter Gogarty, who was repeatedly abused by a Catholic priest during the 1970s, has written twice to commission chairman Peter McClellan about the hearing into unrelated alle­gations of child abuse, held earlier this year.

His first letter, sent in July, criticised the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse for what Mr Gogarty alleged to be “an opportunistic personal attack” on a senior barrister giving evidence.

A second letter, sent this month, criticised the commission’s lack of response, saying: “I have either been forgotten, or I am being ignored and treated with the same lack of respect shown to me by the Catholic Church.”

Mr Gogarty yesterday received a five-sentence reply from the commission’s chief executive, Philip Reed, saying: “I have brought (both letters) to Justice McClellan’s attention.

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
RIA Novosti (Russia)

MOSCOW, September 29 (RIA Novosti) – After having resigned on Saturday for breaking the vows of celibacy, the Bishop of Arundel is now facing a legal threat from a man, whose wife he had slept with, The Telegraph reports.

The 63-year old Kieran Conry confessed being “unfaithful”, after having a relationship with a woman. As a result of breaking his vows of celibacy, the Catholic priest resigned on Saturday, the BBC said.

Now, the husband of the woman, with whom Conry had the love affair, is filing a legal case against the bishop. The 43-year old woman allegedly stayed over at least three nights at Conry’s house earlier this year, The Telegraph said.

Love letters between the two were discovered, in which the priest told the woman that her husband no longer loved her. The man, who has also filed for divorce, claims that the bishop’s sexual affection for his wife was known among the Catholic clergy. Their failure to take actions against Conry’s advances toward the woman has led to the breakup of his marriage, the man said, according to The Telegraph.

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
UTV

A senior police officer described sexual abuse at a Co Down children’s home ran by a Catholic order of brothers as “rampant”, the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry has heard.

On Monday, the inquiry was hearing evidence on the Rubane House in Kircubbin, which was run by the De La Salle religious order from 1951 to 1985.

It was a voluntary children’s home for boys aged between 11 and 16 but from the 1970s it accepted children from the welfare authorities, predominantly from deprived parts of Belfast.

Rubane was the subject of a police investigation in the late 1990s.

Three De La Salle order brothers were charged but none were convicted after their trials did not go ahead because of legal issues.

The inquiry heard that in 1997, RUC Detective Chief Superintendent Eric Anderson, wrote a letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions about sexual abuse of children at the home.

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
The Journal

AN INQUIRY HAS been told that one in five former residents of a children’s home in Co Down were sexually abused.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry is examining allegations made about Rubane House in Kircubbin.

The home was ran by the De La Salle religious order from 1950 to 1985 and its residents were mostly boys aged 11-16. It’s one of 13 Northern Ireland institutions being investigated.

BBC reports that 55 of the 1,050 former residents have come forward to the inquiry to allege they were physically or sexually assaulted, while a further 150 boys made allegations in the past but have not contacted the inquiry.

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
BBC News

Sexual abuse at a children’s home in County Down was equal to, if not worse, than abuse at Kincora Boys Home, an inquiry has been told.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry is examining allegations of abuse at Rubane House, Kircubbin.

The inquiry has estimated that one in five of Rubane’s 1,050 former residents have made allegations of serious sexual or physical abuse.

A total of 13 Northern Ireland institutions are being investigated.

The Kircubbin home was run by the De La Salle religious order, which has already accepted some children were abused.

A lawyer acting for the inquiry said more than 200 children have claimed they were seriously sexually or physically abused at Rubane House, which was open from 1950 to 1985.

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
Road to Recovery

Media Release – September 29, 2014

In 2014, Rev. Roy Alan Drake, SJ has been accused of sexually abusing a minor child at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine, when Rev. Roy Alan Drake, SJ was a professor there and acted as a Jesuit priest

The Northeast Jesuits, formerly the New York Province of the Society of Jesus, refuse to acknowledge and bear responsibility for the allegation of sexual abuse against Fr. Roy Alan Drake, SJ in Maine and give any assistance to the victim, settle and validate his claim, and help him heal

What: A press conference alerting the media and citizens that the Northeast Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) refuses to assist a sexual abuse victim of one its members, Rev. Roy Alan Drake, SJ.

When: Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at 11:00 AM

Where: On the public sidewalk outside the motor vehicle entrance to Fordham University, at the northeast side of the campus on Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY, 10460 near the Bronx Botanical Gardens (the main address of Fordham University, Rose Hill, is 441 East Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458)

Who: Neal E. Gumpel, a native and resident of Connecticut, who has alleged that he was sexually abused as a minor teenager by Fr. Roy Alan Drake, SJ; members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families, including its co-founder and President, Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D.

Why: Neal Gumpel was an unsuspecting, innocent high school minor teenager when his brother invited him to spend a weekend with him at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine. Fr. Roy Alan Drake, SJ was a Jesuit priest who was working at Maine Maritime Academy at the time as a professor and acting as a Jesuit priest. At all times during the period of the sexual abuse, Fr. Roy Alan Drake, SJ was a Jesuit priest although he was on a leave of absence. Fr. Roy Alan Drake, SJ invited Neal Gumpel as a minor teenager to his residence on or near the Maine Maritime Academy campus, plied him with alcohol, and sexually abused him. When Neal Gumpel reported these allegations to the superiors of the Northeast Province of the Jesuit Fathers and Brothers, the Jesuit leaders refused to acknowledge and validate his allegations and told him they were not going to help him heal. Fr. Roy Alan Drake, SJ, who died in 2008, was a repeat sexual abuser of young teenagers. Neal Gumpel and his supporters will demand of the Northeast Province Jesuits, formerly the New York Province of the Society of Jesus, that they acknowledge and validate Mr. Gumpel’s allegations, compensate him for his injuries, and assist in his healing.

Contacts: Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250

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
RTE News

[with video]

Northern Ireland’s Historical Abuse Inquiry has been told that 20% of the 1,000 boys who were residents of De La Salle home in Co Down allege that they were physically or sexually abused.

The home opened in 1950 and closed in 1985 and its residents were mainly boys, aged between 11 and 16 from north or west Belfast.

The information about the percentage of allegations was given this morning by Joseph Aiken, junior counsel to the inquiry, in his opening remarks at the module dealing with the De La Salle home, Rubane House, in Kircubbin, Co Down.

Mr Aiken said allegations of physical or sexual abuse, or both, have been made against all five of the brothers who were in charge of the home up to 1980, but that the De La Salle Order is not in a position to accept the allegations against all of the said individuals.

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

29 SEPTEMBER 2014

Sexual abuse was rampant at a children’s home in Northern Ireland run by a Catholic order of brothers, a former senior police officer has said.

Around a fifth of boys at Rubane House in Co Down were subjected to sexual or physical abuse, according to a public inquiry, equal to if not worse than that at another notorious home, Kincora in east Belfast.

Rubane was the subject of a police investigation in the 1990s, the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry was told. Three De La Salle order brothers were charged but none convicted after their trials did not go ahead due to legal issues.

Former Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) detective chief superintendent Eric Anderson wrote a note to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

It said: “Sexual abuse by a considerable number of the De La Salle brothers on the children and consequently between children is rampant.”

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
City of Angels

By Kay Ebeling, City of Angels

All of a sudden Eric Holder resigns. It looks like Obama’s AG screwed up bad by being too benevolent to “nonprofits” that have Islam in their name. He allowed who knows how many dollars to flow into mosques that produced criminals such as the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston and Alton Nolen in Oklahoma.

This is the same Attorney General who said no when he had an opportunity to file federal indictments against Catholic bishops for aiding and abetting pedophile priests back in 2009-10, astounding crime victims nationwide. Now Holder has made the same mistake with Islamic groups, not believing that a network of criminals could operate at the top echelons of a religion. Holder is now no longer our AG, but we have to deal with the consequences.

Eric Holder did not prosecute the bishops just like he would not prosecute the imans. In the Catholic case it means dozens of felons are still in powerful positions influencing public policy. In the Islamic case, the entire nation’s security has been compromised.

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
MSN News

By Jon Fortenbury of The Atlantic

How a loss of faith can manifest itself in the mind and body

Curtis Penfold got kicked out of his apartment, fired from his job, and left Brigham Young University all in the same week.

He left BYU—a private university operated by The Church of Latter-day Saints—because he had started to disagree with some of the Church’s views, causing tension between him and school officials. His exit from the school caused him to lose his on-campus job, and he subsequently resigned from the Mormon Church. Resigning from the church resulted in getting kicked out of his religiously-affiliated private housing, and he received angry emails from old friends and phone calls from his disappointed parents who said he “lost the light” and “used to be so good.”

“I felt so hated by this community I used to love,” Penfold said.

Penfold originally went to BYU to be around fellow Mormons. But over the course of the two-and-a-half years he spent there, he started to find the lack of LGBT rights in the church distasteful and was unable to reconcile the idea of a loving God with the evil he saw in the world. This loss of faith in God went beyond his separation from Mormonism, leading to months of depression, anxiety over the prospect of no afterlife, and suicidal thoughts. He’s better now, but for a while there were days when he wouldn’t even leave his bed.

Like Penfold, many who leave religion in America become isolated from their former communities, which can make them anxious, depressed, or even suicidal. Others feel liberated. No deconversion story is the same, but many who leave behind strongly-held religious beliefs can see an impact on their health.

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
The Northern Echo

by Mark Tallentire

THE North-East’s most senior churchman has criticised delays to the Government’s historic child abuse inquiry.

The Bishop of Durham, the Right Reverend Paul Butler, predicted the high-profile investigation would not get under way until late November at the earliest and said this was “undoubtedly an unfortunate delay”.

The bishop, who chairs the Church of England’s committee on abuse, cited the “very heavy duties” of the inquiry chair, Fiona Woolf, in her role as Lord Mayor of London.

Mrs Woolf, a 66-year-old commercial lawyer, was appointed after retired judge Baroness Butler-Sloss stepped aside because her brother had handled child abuse cases involving high-profile figures when he was Attorney General in the 1980s.

Addressing an international conference on Church safeguarding in London, Bishop Butler said: “Fiona Woolf, we now know, is to chair the national inquiry.

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
Sydney Morning Herald

September 29, 2014

Louise Hall
Court Reporter

A Sydney student has sued his high school, claiming he was bullied by teachers and forced to do tasks not modified for his learning difficulties and special needs.

Jordan Niko took De La Salle College Revesby Heights, a Catholic boys’ school in Sydney’s south-west, to the NSW Supreme Court, seeking damages for negligence, assault, trespass and breach of contract.

Mr Niko, now 18, claimed the bullying by the principal and teachers continued despite his mother, Julie Southern Niko, warning the school the “lack of respect and care” for her son would aggravate his learning difficulties and special needs.

The school denied all allegations and the parties agreed on a confidential settlement earlier this month.

In a statement of claim, Mr Niko said teachers gave him detention and bin duty, denied him access to the toilet, falsely accused him of violence, criticised, mocked and belittled him, including for his haircut, excluded him from classes and exams, forced him to complete group assignments alone, confiscated his property, and “exaggerated instructions to him.

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

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Mark O’Regan

OUTSPOKEN priest Fr Brian D’Arcy has said the Catholic Church must provide “all necessary support” for an American woman if DNA tests prove Fr Michael Cleary is her biological father.

Fr D’Arcy, who was a close friend of ‘Fr Mick’, said he was traumatised when he first discovered Cleary had fathered two children, with his housekeeper and secret lover, Phyllis Hamilton. “Something died inside me,” he said.

However, with the passing of time he admitted he wasn’t particularly surprised when he read about Felicia Irwin’s story in Saturday’s Irish Independent.

Fr Cleary began a relationship with Phyllis Hamiliton when she was 17 years old and he was 34.

Their first child was given up for adoption, while their second son, Ross Hamilton, lived in the house with Phyllis and the priest.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Published 29 September 2014 | Carey Lodge

The husband of a woman thought to have had an affair with a Catholic bishop is threatening to sue the Church.

The husband, who remains nameless, has branded Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton a “hypocrite”, telling the Mail on Sunday that the clergyman’s behaviour has been “appalling”.

“He is someone capable of creating that emotion and distress without taking any interest in the effect on those going through this,” the man said.

“It smacks of arrogance…The bishop is supposed to set the best example for a lot of people. To think that this is a person who people turn to for marriage advice is unbelievable.”

The man’s lawyer said he is considering legal action against the Church amid allegations that “they’ve known for years that the bishop has been having affairs”.

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
News OK

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A federal magistrate is being asked to decide whether a western Pennsylvania will remain jailed until he can stand trial on charges he traveled to Honduras to engage in sex with children where he had been promoting missionary work with the poor.

The Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr. was arrested Thursday faces a detention hearing Monday in Johnstown.

Bishop Mark Bartchak of the Altoona-Johnstown diocese announced Maurizio was placed on leave Sept. 16. That happened four days after ICE agents searched a private residence and the rectory at Our Lady Queen of Angels’ rectory in Central City, Somerset County, where Maurizio had been pastor.

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

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah MacDonald
Published 29/09/2014

An international meeting of Catholic women priests, women bishops and their support groups which met in Co Louth at the weekend has said the Vatican must overturn its ban on women’s ordination.

The international delegates from Ireland, the US, UK and Australia also expressed anger over the Vatican’s categorisation of female ordination as a crime on a par with clerical paedophilia.

Erin Saiz Hanna of Women’s Ordination Conference in the US told the Irish Independent, “It is very clear they are saying that women are defiling the Eucharist in the same way as men have defiled the Eucharist by abusing children.”

Miriam Duignan, of womenpriests.org, warned that many Catholics “are so afraid of speaking out” on women’s ordination, because the Vatican is liable to excommunicate them or lobby for their removal from their jobs if they work for a church agency.

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
The Spectator

Damian Thompson

Cardinal Nichols this morning faces his biggest crisis since he became Archbishop of Westminster in 2009. On Saturday Bishop Kieran Conry – head of evangelisation for England and Wales – resigned as Bishop of Arundel and Brighton after (at least) two affairs with women became public. Now Conry has told the Mail:

In some respects I feel very calm. It is liberating. It is a relief. I have been very careful not to make sexual morality a priority [in his sermons]. I don’t think it got in the way of my job, I don’t think people would say I have been a bad bishop.

Conry goes on to say that ‘I can’t defend myself. I did wrong. Full stop.’ But he has just defended himself by saying that his womanising didn’t get in the way of his job, that he didn’t preach about sex, and that he was a good bishop.

This is called rubbing the noses of your flock in the sex scandal you’ve just landed on them. As I blogged on Saturday, lots of people – especially including his priests – thought he was an awful bishop, because he treated anyone who disagreed with him with cold arrogance, because he slagged off Benedict XVI and because they knew, but were too polite to say, that he was a womaniser.

Conry also ‘denied to the Mail that Church leaders had known about his affair’. And this is where Cardinal Nichols, President of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, has questions to answer.

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
Coventry Telegraph

Sep 29, 2014 By Jenny Waddington

A Catholic bishop from Coventry has resigned from his post after claiming to have brought ‘shame’ on his diocese and the church.

The Rt Rev Kieran Conry, who is Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, covering Surrey and Sussex, issued a statement on Saturday which said he had “been unfaithful to his promises as a Catholic priest”.

The statement, which was read in all churches of the diocese over the weekend, said: “I am sorry to confess that, going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest.

“I would like to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.

“As a result, however, I have decided to offer my resignation as bishop with immediate effect and will now take some time to consider my future. I want to apologise first of all to the individuals hurt by my actions and then to all of those inside and outside the diocese who will be shocked, hurt and saddened to hear this.

“I am sorry for the shame that I have brought on the diocese and the Church and I ask for your prayers and forgiveness.”

Originally from Coventry, Mr Conry was brought up in a council house on Cannon Hill Road, near Canley cemetery.

The son of a working-class Irish family, he attended All Souls’ Junior School, near Hearsall Common, and was ordained in July 1975 at All Souls’ Church by Archbishop George Patrick Dwyer of Birmingham.

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
The Tablet

29 September 2014 by Abigail Frymann Rouch

One of the most common arguments in favour of ordaining married men is that the Catholic Church in many parts of the world is suffering a priest shortage and it can’t afford to lose any more good men to marriage. Many dedicated Catholic young men don’t even consider the priesthood because they know that a life of celibacy is not for them; the ability to live without the possibility of ever marrying is not a gift they possess.

It is easy to tag the word “scandal” to the sudden resignation of Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton this weekend. The Mail on Sunday reported that he had an affair with a woman six years ago and the paper made allegations about the nature of his relationship with a 43-year-old married parishioner, although he denies their friendship was sexual.

In a message read out at Masses in his diocese this weekend he said he had been “unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest” – but he added “I would like to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.”

So it’s a scandal in as much as he broke the vow of celibacy that he made when he was ordained at 25 and as a result of his affair, lived out double-standards.

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.

MINNESOTA
KAAL

The priest of the St. Victoria Catholic Church apologized to parishioners Sunday after their music director resigned because he’s gay.

On Friday, music director Jamie Manzi-Moore stepped down from his 18-year role with the church, after marrying long time partner last week.

When an anonymous tip came into the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis regarding Manzi-Moore’s recent marriage to partner Garrett Manzi, Archbishop John Nienstedt asked Manzi-Moore to resign.

“He is simply doing what he and his role is called to do,” Father Bob White told parishioners.

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
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Bishop Kieran Conry has resigned his post as head of the English diocese of Arundel and Brighton. An official statement follows, below.

**************************************
The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton covering Surrey and Sussex has issued a statement following his resignation as Bishop of this diocese. This statement will be read in all churches of the Diocese this weekend:

Statement by Bishop Kieran Conry:

I am sorry to confess that, going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest. I would like to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.

As a result, however, I have decided to offer my resignation as bishop with immediate effect and will now take some time to consider my future.

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
Catholic News Agency

By Ann Schneible

Vatican City, Sep 28, 2014 / 10:59 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop Kieran Conry of the U.K. dioceses of Arundel and Brighton has announced his resignation after revealing he has been “unfaithful” to his “promises as a Catholic priest.”

“I am sorry for the shame that I have brought on the diocese and the Church and I ask for your prayers and forgiveness,” he said in a brief statement, which has been read in all the Church’s of the dioceses over the weekend.

In the Sept. 27 announcement, the bishop wrote: “going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest.”

“As a result, however, I have decided to offer my resignation as bishop with immediate effect and will now take some time to consider my future.”

“I want to apologize first of all to the individuals hurt by my actions,” the statement read, “and then to all of those inside and outside the diocese who will be shocked, hurt and saddened to hear this.”

According to a report by The Daily Mail, the reasons behind Bishop Conry’s resignation involved a relationship with a woman six years prior. The U.K. publication also alleges that the prelate was involved more recently with a married woman and mother of two children. According to the report, the bishop denied this more recent affair as having anything to do his decision to step down.

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.

MINNESOTA
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

How’s this for news? A headline in yesterday’s Star Tribune (Minneapolis) reads, “Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis Assigns Accused Priests to Marriage Annulment Panel.” Jean Hopfensperger reports that the marriage tribunal for the archdiocese, which makes rulings on the fate of the troubled marriages of Catholics who turn to the tribunal for annulments, has had sitting on its judgment bench priests known to have engaged in sexual improprieties.

Like Father James McConville, who’s currently sitting on the tribunal, and who was sued for sexual harrassment in 2004 by a female staff member at St. Peter’s church in St. Paul, and then placed on restrictions by the archdiocese. Or like Father Daniel Conlin, who was chief judge of the tribunal in 2004 when he fathered a child with a married church employee. According to Hopfensperger, Conlin left the tribunal in that year, but returned to work on it from 2011 to 2013.

Or like Father Joseph Wajda, who joined the tribunal in 1991 months after settling one of two lawsuits involving allegations of sexual abuse of boys in his parish, and who was the chief judge of the tribunal when he left it in 2002.

A few days ago, when the archbishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis, John Nienstedt, forced the resignation of Jamie Moore, music director of St. Victoria parish in Victoria, Minnesota, after Moore married his partner, Nienstedt told Minnesota NPR,

I can share that all church employees are bound by the Code of Conduct which states “The public and private conduct of church employees can inspire and motivate people, but it can also scandalize and undermine their faith. Church employees must, at all times, recognize and accept the responsibilities that accompany their ministry.”

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
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Monday 29 September 2014

There has been a 30% increase in reports of child abuse in the Northern Territory in the last financial year, an inquiry has heard.

The NT Department of Children and Families (DCF) has also seen a 25% rise in the number of children in out-of-home care, and a 29% increase in investigations into child protection matters in the financial year to 30 June, said Simone Jackson, the executive director of the out of home care division at the department.

“We are all shocked and trying to work out that increase in volume,” Jackson told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Darwin on Monday.

“It’s sad to say we have a lot of parents who are unable to provide the minimum care requirements for their young people. Child protection is the symptom, never the issue.”

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
news.com.au

MORE than 100,000 child porn videos and photos have been found on the computer of former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski who was arrested at the Vatican earlier this week.

The videos and photos were stored on a computer in his office at the Holy See diplomatic compound in the Dominican Republic.

The International Business Times reports that the discovery of Wesolowski’s hoard of porn comes as he was arrested earlier in the week for the alleged sexual abuse of underage boys.

The Il Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that some of the horrors deceives found on the computer included around 160 videos showing teenage boys forced to perform sexual acts on themselves and on adults and more than 86,000 pornographic photos which were methodically archived in several category-based folders.

Investigators said that at least another 45,000 pictures were deleted, while another supply of material was found on a laptop Wesolowski used during his trips abroad.

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.

POLSKA
Deon

[The Domincan Republic Attorney General, Francisco Dominguez Brito, does not preclude seeking extradition of former nuncio Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski. Wesolowski is now under arrest at the Vatican for alleged sexual abuse of children in the Dominican Republic.]

Prokurator generalny Republiki Dominikańskiej, Francisco Domínguez Brito, nie wyklucza możliwości zwrócenia się do Watykanu o ekstradycję byłego nuncjusza, abp Józefa Wesołowskiego – podaje portal DiarioLibre.com.

W związku z komunikatem rzecznika prasowego Stolicy Apostolskiej, ks. Federico Lombardiego SJ, w którym stwierdzono, że były nuncjusz stracił immunitet dyplomatyczny i może być on sądzony także przez inne kraje, Domínguez nie wykluczył możliwości zwrócenia się o ekstradycję. Zastrzegł się jednak, że nie chce spekulować, dopóki nie otrzyma raportu na temat statusu prawnego byłego dziekana korpusu dyplomatycznego oraz jurysdykcji innych państw.

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
Offenbarung Sakularen

[Three young people are set to speak out against former papal nuncio Jozef Wesolowski. They will say he brought them to a rented house in the Dominican Republic and paid them 10 euros each time they were subjected to sexual abuse.]

Der Rahmen Anklage gegen den ehemaligen Nuntius für Kindesmissbrauch verhaftet wird immer ernster.

Die Festnahme des ehemaligen Nuntius Wesolowski – für Pädophilie untersucht und derzeit in den Vatikanischen Gendarmerie genaue Angaben von Papst Francis eingesperrt – könnte in ein paar Monaten in einem Satz umgewandelt werden, da der Rahmen Anklage gegen ihn, die immer deutlicher wird, das scheint zu lassen wenig Hoffnung den ehemaligen Apostolischen Nuntius.

Vor der Entdeckung der geheimen zwischen Computerarbeit und persönlicher Laptop gehalten (es gibt mehr als hunderttausend Bilder und Hunderte von Videos, einige aus dem Internet heruntergeladen, andere von sich selbst “erstellt”); nun beginnen, auch ausbrechen den ersten Beweis der Kinder, die bereits Gegenstand der Aufmerksamkeit der Erzbischof haben.

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.

OSTERREICH
Wir Sind Kirche

Kurz vor dem Katholikentag 2014 hat die vom Innsbrucker Bischof Dr. Manfred Scheuer ausgesprochene Exkommunikation des Ehepaares Dr. Martha und Gert Heizer eine intensive Diskussion ausgelöst. Die in Abstimmung mit der Glaubenskongregation durch Bischof Dr. Manfred Scheuer festgestellte „Selbst-Exkommunikation“ ist kein Ausschluss aus der Kirche, aber die (zeitweise) Aberkennung kirchlicher Rechte und des Sakramentenempfangs.

Kirchenrechtlich scheint der von der Glaubenskongregation betriebene Fall klar zu sein. Doch die Bischöfe müssen sich fragen lassen, welche zukunftstauglichen Gottesdienst- und Gemeindeformen sie anzubieten haben. Die an den Priestermangel angepassten pastoralen Großraumkonzepte mit XXL-Pfarreien führen in die Sackgasse. Das Kirchenrecht verpflichtet die Bischöfe, dafür zu sorgen, dass die Gläubigen Zugang zu den Sakramenten haben (Can. 213). Wäre es nicht besser, Gemeindeglieder zu ordinieren statt zu exkommunizieren, wie Prof. Zulehner vorgeschlagen hat?

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.

OSTERREICH
Radio Vatikan

[Martha Heizer, who heads We Are Church, may have been excommunicated by the Catholic Church but she remains in office. An extraordinary meeting of We Are Church was held this weekend in Salsburg, Austria, and members decided to retain her.]

Die Plattform „Wir sind Kirche” belässt ihre exkommunizierte Vorsitzende Martha Heizer im Amt. Das entschied eine außerordentliche Vollversammlung der Gruppierung am Wochenende in Salzburg, wie kathpress berichtet. Vorausgegangen waren heftige Diskussionen und Gegenstimmen, etwa von Heizers Vorgänger Hans Peter Hurka. Heizers Gegner befürchteten, dass durch den Verbleib des Ehepaares Heizers die Gesprächsbasis der Plattform mit der Leitung der katholischen Kirche zunichte gemacht werde.

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
Citizens Voice

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: September 29, 2014

Ever since The Boston Globe exposed Cardinal Bernard Law’s shell game with pedophile priests about 15 years ago, the Vatican has struggled to deal effectively with innumerable cases that subsequently emerged around the world. From promoting Cardinal Law to a position in Rome to responding poorly to major cases in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, the church has not achieved the moral clarity that the flock and society expect.

Against that checkered history, Scranton Bishop Joseph Bambera and Pope Francis deserve great credit for their fast and decisive actions relative to a priest from Northeastern Pennsylvania who was accused of molesting male students at the former St. Gregory’s Academy in Elmhurst Township.

In 2005 the church settled for $380,000 a federal lawsuit that had been brought by a former St. Gregory’s student against the Rev. Carlos Urrutigoity and another priest. Former Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino removed the Rev. Urrutigoity from the diocese, but he was accepted and promoted in the Paraguayan Diocese of Ciudad del Este.

Advocates for abuse victims learned of the Rev. Urrutigoity’s position and protested, demanding action. Bishop Bambera wrote to the Vatican, characterizing the Rev. Urrutigoity as “posing a serious threat to young people.”

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
MondayVatican

by ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI on 29 SETTEMBRE 2014

In two moves, Pope Francis has shown he intends to strongly carry forward the line of zero tolerance on clergy sex abuse. Two very clear moves: an archbishop has been put on house arrest, another one has been removed from his post. Yet, all of this may not be sufficient to remove the prejudices against the Church for what concerns pedophilia. The Church is winning its fight against pedophilia through the work that John Paul II started, Benedict XVI carried forward and Pope Francis is continuing. But this fight risks to remain hidden, since in the end the real target of the attacks to the Church seem to be just one: to undermine the Church’s moral authority and question its sovereignty.

On September 23, it was announced that Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, the former apostolic nuncio who spent his career in Eastern Europe and that ended up as papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic, has been put under house arrest in the Vatican and will be criminally charged by a Vatican penal court, after the tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had deemed him guilty in the first stage of the process and has defrocked (laicized) him.

On September 25, the Holy See press office announced the dismissal of Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano, bishop of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. The archbishop was dismissed for “grave pastoral reasons” as a result of an Apostolic visit that Pope Francis tasked to the Spanish Cardinal Santos Avril y Castellò. The bishop of Ciudad del Este had been accused of protecting a pedophile priest.

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

FLORIDA
Florida Baptist Witness

Sep 29, 2014
By NICOLE KALIL
Florida Baptist Witness

JACKSONVILLE (FBW)—In an increasingly litigious society, even the church is not safe.

Churches are attractive targets, as people think they have a better opportunity for financial gain by suing an organization rather than an individual.

“A generation ago, suing the church was unheard of,” said Gary Yeldell, attorney, mediator and founder of Wise Counsel Legal Services in Keystone Heights. “Today, there’s a cottage industry of plaintiff lawyers that target churches.”

Churches by their very nature have multiple vulnerabilities. From youth activities, nurseries, preschools and various other ministries to the community such as food pantries and transportation, there are innumerable opportunities for someone to take advantage of the church.

Yeldell said it’s just as common for members to sue as it is for nonmembers.

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 ALAN MURRAY – 29 SEPTEMBER 2014

A former police office who investigated the abuse of children from Kincora Boys’ Home has revealed that police never got the chance to question the MI5 officer responsible for an intelligence gathering operation at the home.

The ex-RUC man has told Sunday Life that detectives were never given access to the MI5 officer to find out what he knew about the exploitation of children placed at the east Belfast home.

He also revealed how police interviewed a number of politicians in Northern Ireland including then DUP leader Ian Paisley. Mr Paisley was not a suspect and was only interviewed as he knew Kincora housemaster and abuser William McGrath.

Investigating officers even had to ask Dr Paisley if he was gay — a question which provoked a roar of laughter from the fiery preacher who founded the Free Presbyterian 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
Mic

By Jared Keller

A former archbishop placed under house arrest by the Vatican on Tuesday allegedly had 100,000 child pornography videos and images hidden on his work computer at the Holy See’s compound in the Dominican Republic, according to a report in Italy’s Il Corriere della Sera newspaper.

The Vatican arrested Jozef Wesolowski on Tuesday under allegations of paying for sex with minors while serving papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic. Wesolowski, who was defrocked by a Vatican tribunal in June, was been placed under house awaiting a criminal trial, Reuters reports. This was the Holy See’s first-ever arrest inside Vatican City on charges of paedophilia.

“A gallery of horrors was kept on his laptop,” Il Corriere della Sera reports. “You see children aged between thirteen and seventeen humiliated in front of the camera, filmed naked, forced to have sex with each other and with adults.”

The Vatican said the arrest reflects the wishes of Pope Francis “that such a grave and delicate case be handled without delay, with the just and necessary rigour.”

The Pope had vowed “zero tolerance” against clergymen who sexually abuse children. In July, Francis met with victims of clerical sexual abuse for the first time in Vatican history, pledging the church officials responsible would be held accountable by the Vatican and likening the abuse to a “sacrilegious cult.”

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
International Business Times

By Gopi Chandra Kharel September 29, 2014

The Vatican is rocked by a massive paedophilia scandal as the highest-ranking Vatican official ever to be investigated for sex abuse is now accused of storing over a lakh child porn videos and images on his computer.

Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, the 66-year-old priest who served as a papal envoy in the Dominican Republic, had been arrested earlier this week at the Vatican and will be charged with sexually abusing minors and child porn possession. He may spend up to 7 years in the Vatican prison.

Investigators are reportedly analysing a computer used by Wesolowski in his Santo Domingo home, where he served as the Holy See envoy from 2008 to 2012.

The probe revealed that the Polish native had more than 1,00,000 files showing under-aged children in sexually explicit situations, II Corriere della Sera newspaper reported. Close to 160 videos showed teenage boys being forced to perform sexual acts on themselves and adults, according to the newspaper.

In what appears to be Wesolwski’s attempt to destroy some of the evidences, investigators found that at least 45,000 photos were deleted. More than 86,000 pornographic photos were also meticulously stored in several category-based folders.

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
Daily Mail

I’m so glad my secret is out, says affair shame bishop: Roman Catholic priest talks of feeling liberated as church chiefs are accused of ‘knowing for years’

By PAUL BENTLEY

A leading bishop who has resigned in shame over an affair said last night that he was ‘relieved’ the secret was out.

Kieran Conry, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, confessed on Saturday to being an ‘unfaithful’ priest.

He also stands accused of a second affair with a married parishioner 20 years his junior, who spent at least three nights at his home.

Last night, Catholic Church leaders were accused of a cover-up, with a lawyer saying they have ‘known for years that the bishop has been having affairs’.

Bishop Conry, 63, said he felt ‘liberated’ knowing he no longer has to bear the burden of his guilt alone.

‘It has been difficult keeping the secret,’ he told the Mail. ‘In some respects I feel very calm. It is liberating. It is a relief. I have been very careful not to make sexual morality a priority [in his sermons]. I don’t think it got in the way of my job, I don’t think people would say I have been a bad bishop. But I can’t defend myself. I did wrong. Full stop.’

Bishop Conry – a leading religious figure close to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the head of the Church in England and Wales – became a bishop in 2001.

He is sworn to celibacy and has for years preached about the Church’s ‘moral authority’ and the importance of the sanctity of family life.

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

Below is the press release from SNAP on the Bishop Livieres issue.

It had appeared as if Livieres had been the first and only bishop removed from office since the Sex Scandal broke over ten years ago. And even though his case was particularly egregious – making an accused child molester his vicar general, even after being warned by other bishops that the man was a danger to others, and then lashing out against the Vatican publicly – still this appeared to be good news. It appeared as if Pope Francis was setting the bar very low, but at least he was setting the bar. After all, if you won’t sack a bishop for making an accused child molester and scam artist his vicar general and allowing him continued access to boys, then how serious are you about reforming the very worst element in the Church?

And indeed for the first time since the crisis, the Vatican seemed to be getting serious about the problem, forcing into “house arrest” an archbishop and former Vatican envoy who is reported to have been molesting boys in the Dominican Republic and who was discovered to have over 100,000 pornographic images of children on his computer.

But now the Vatican makes it a point to slap some cold water in our faces.

Bishop Livieres has NOT been removed for enabling and promoting an accused child molester and scam artist, but for other reasons that apparently the Vatican regards as none of our business, allowing Livieres to spread the story that it’s all a right vs. left power struggle.

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
The Times

Dominic Kennedy

The Roman Catholic Church is facing a lawsuit from an estranged husband after a bishop resigned admitting that he had broken his priestly vows.

Kieran Conry, a trusted aide to the church’s hierarchy, made his admission in a statement read to congregations yesterday.

The potential legal action is based on the suggestion that the church had known for years of the bishop’s alleged romances but turned a blind eye.

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

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The national Religion Newswriters Association has honored the Journal Sentinel’s coverage of the release of archdiocesan sex abuse documents, the controversy over a Wauwatosa priest and the continuing bankruptcy proceedings.

The 2014 Gerald A. Renner Enterprise Religion Report of the Year honors a series or package of stories that shows enterprise and unusual effort, and uses multimedia. The award is named after an award-winning religion journalist and author.

The Journal Sentinel won for a collection of 10 pieces, spearheaded by Annysa Johnson, who has been covering religion for five years. Karen Herzog, Gina Barton, Ellen Gabler, Kevin Crowe, Allan Vestal and Dave Umhoefer of the Journal Sentinel all shared in the award.

The announcement was made at the association’s national convention this month in Atlanta.

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
Express

By: John ReynoldsPublished: Sun, September 28, 2014

The Rt Reverend Kieran Conry, the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, resigned from his post after he admitted to breaking his clerical vows, leading to speculation he had an affair.

Conry’s apology was read out in all churches of the Diocese on Saturday evening and Sunday.

The apology read: “I am sorry to confess that, going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest. I would like to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.

“As a result, however, I have decided to offer my resignation as bishop with immediate effect and will now take some time my future. I want to apologise first of all to the individuals hurt by my actions and then to all of those inside out outside the diocese who will be shocked, hurt and saddened to hear this. I am sorry for the shame that I have brought on the diocese and the Church and I ask for you prayers and forgiveness.”

Conry is sworn to celibacy and his resignation will heap huge embarrassment on the Catholic Church. His resignation is understood to relate to an affair the 63-year-old priest bishop had with a married woman, according to one report. …

Following Conry’s resignation cardinal Vincent Nichols, presidents of the Bishops’ Conference, said: “This is a sad and painful moment. It makes clear that we are always a Church of sinners called to repentance and conversion and in need of God’s mercy. All involved in this situation are much in my prayers today.”

Reaction to Conry’s decision to stand down has been largely sympathetic. Friar Neil Peoples, priest in the diocese of Nottingham tweeted: “Please pray for bishop Conry and the people of the diocese of Arundel and Brighton at this time.”

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 Raw Story

TOM BOGGIONI
27 SEP 2014

tican detectives analyzing a computer used a by an archbishop arrested earlier this week discovered over 86,000 pornographic photos and 160 sexually explicit video files of children, reports the International Business Times.

According to investigators, another 45,000 pictures had been deleted.

Former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, 66, was arrested at the Vatican earlier this week on charges that he paid to have sex with minors when he was a papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic from 2008 to 2012.

Wesolowski is the first Vatican official to be arrested within the city state on charges of pedophilia.

The former archbishop was recalled to Rome by the Vatican last year while still a diplomat in Santo Domingo and relieved of his duties following accusations from Dominican media that he was paying for underaged sex partners.

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

IRELAND
Irish Independent

‘I’m coming home to prove I’m not a child of rape’, says US woman who claims to be Fr Cleary’s daughter

The American woman who believes she’s Father Michael Cleary’s daughter has said she will do whatever it takes to prove he is her biological father.

Felicia Irwin has pledged to travel to Ireland to take a DNA test to disprove claims that she is a child of rape.

An Independent.ie investigation revealed yesterday an American-born woman who was adopted almost 30 years ago believes that she is the biological daughter of singing priest.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Christianity Today

The Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton has resigned after close relationships with parishioners, including one with a married woman.

Kieran Conry, head of evangelisation for the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales and the church’s former head of media, said in a statement read out in all churches in his diocese at Mass this weekend, said: “I am sorry to confess that, going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest. I would like to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.

“As a result, however, I have decided to offer my resignation as bishop with immediate effect and will now take some time to consider my future.

“I want to apologise first of all to the individuals hurt by my actions and then to all of those inside and outside the diocese who will be shocked, hurt and saddened to hear this.

“I am sorry for the shame that I have brought on the diocese and the Church and I ask for your prayers and forgiveness.”

After the statement appeared on his website, detailed allegations were published by the Mail on Sunday in which it became clear the newspaper had been investigating him for several months and that the priestly vow the bishop admits to having broken is that of chastity.

The Mail on Sunday reports the resignation today and discloses that Bishop Conry has had a close friendship with a married mother of two. The Bishop denies that this was a sexual relationship. He has resigned over a separate relationship that he had six years ago.

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
The Age

September 29, 2014

Chris Goddard

“I was a young schoolgirl with everything before me. I was a student doing well at Forbes High School, coming first in four subjects … However, my life and future plans were stolen from me by the criminal actions of an Anglican priest … Donald Shearman.”

This is how Beth Heinrich started her private submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Shearman was an assistant Anglican priest, and he and his wife were in charge of the hostel where Beth boarded.

Beth’s detailed submission about her rape and abuse provides an extraordinary insight into how perpetrators prepare their victims, and just how vulnerable children are.

One day, after many months of sexual abuse, Beth was “labelled promiscuous” and expelled from the hostel.

This is where Beth’s story begins a new and extraordinary trajectory. Her experiences – and the many documents that she has kept – provide the most detailed case study of what is called “secondary victimisation”. Shearman – and the church – kept Beth hostage to his abuse.

Child rapists seek to corrupt the institutions that provide the opportunities for their crimes. Corrupting the host institution provides the cloak of concealment and confusion that denies the victim any chance of justice or recognition.

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

For immediate release: Sunday, Sept. 28

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 )

Vatican officials now deny that a controversial bishop in Paraguay was ousted because he hired and promoted a credibly accused abusive cleric who faced allegations of sexual misdeeds in Argentina, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. (He is Fr. Carlos Urruigoity.)

[Catholic News Service]

That’s basically what we said several days ago:

[SNAP]

[SNAP]

So many people so desperately want to believe that Francis is really addressing the church’s continuing abuse and cover up crisis that they interpret his words about the scandal in the most favorable light possible and then allow themselves to feel comfortable and complacent instead of skeptical and vigilant. It’s a real shame.

We endanger kids and insult victims when we leap to the most rosy conclusions possible about Catholic officials and their handling of this on-going crisis. Let’s give the benefit of the doubt to innocent kids, wounded victims and betrayed Catholics, not to one more popular and powerful Catholic official.

Even now, after decades of horrific disclosures about the complicity of the church hierarchy in child sex crimes, many of us find it hard to accept that a seemingly wonderful priest can molest kids or that a seemingly wonderful bishop can protect predators. And we evidently find it hard to accept that a seemingly wonderful pontiff can continue doing very little to reverse centuries of recklessness, deceit and secrecy with clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

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
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent September 28, 2014

ROME — Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton, previously considered one of the most influential prelates in England, has abruptly resigned after admitting to “being unfaithful to his promises to the Catholic Church.”

In a brief statement, Conry only said that the reasons for his resignation “were not illegal nor did they involve minors.”

According to reports in the English media, Conry stepped down after allegations of affairs with adult female parishioners, although The Daily Mail indicates that Conry has admitted to only one such relationship that allegedly occurred six years ago.

Confronted by reporters at the door of his bishops’ residence last night, he said: “This relates to a relationship of six years ago.”

The identity of woman was not published, as British law protects confidentiality in such cases.

In a statement being read in all Masses in his diocese today, Conry apologized to those hurt by his action and “to all of those inside and outside the diocese who will be shocked, hurt and saddened to hear this.”

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

Group challenges Jeff City Catholic officials
They’re concerned about “troubling school cases”
Three Helias staff accused of “inappropriate” acts
SNAP says bishop should hold an open public meeting
Church officials have pledged “openness” in such incidents

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will

–discuss three “disturbing” cases of inappropriate behavior by Helias High School staff in the last three years,
–call on Jefferson City’s Catholic bishop to hold an open public meeting to discuss these matters, and
–urge anyone who “may have seen, suspected or suffered misdeeds or crimes” by the three individuals to “call police, get help, expose wrongdoing, protect children and start healing.”

WHEN
Sunday, Sept. 28 at 1:15p.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside Helias Catholic High School, 1305 Swifts Hwy, (near Myrtle) in Jefferson City, MO (573 635 6139)

WHO
Two-three members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including a St. Louis man who is the organization’s long time director and was molested by a Jeff City diocesan priest

WHY
In February, Helias art teacher Mark Friggle resigned after making an inappropriate comment to a 14 year-old female student. Former students said that “Friggle had made comments of what they called a perverted nature in the past,” ABC 17 reported.

[ABC 17]

(In on line forums, Allen DeMois, Chris Westergaard, and Megan Rieke defended Friggle. Rieke is Friggle’s niece.)

It was the third “troubling” incident involving a Helias staffer in as many years. So SNAP is urging Jeff City Bishop John Gaydos to hold an open public meeting to discuss the three cases and let parents and parishioners express their concerns and ask questions of diocesan officials.

The other two cases:

1) Last year, Helias teacher and tennis coach Tim Dunville resigned after he wedded a Ukranian woman who was charged with illegally attempting to get married to get U.S. citizenship according to court records. Dunville was allegedly offered $36,000 for his involvement.

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
Yahoo! News

By Mark Piggott | IB Times

The Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, Rt Rev Kieran Conry, has resigned after bringing “shame” on his diocese and being “unfaithful” to his vows.

The Mail on Sunday alleges he has had affairs with two women, one of them a married woman who spent several nights at his cottage in Sussex.

In a statement to be read out in church today Bishop Conry said: “I am sorry to confess that, going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest. I would like to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.

“As a result, however, I have decided to offer my resignation as bishop with immediate effect and will now take some time to consider my future.”

Catholic priests are forbidden from having any form of sexual relationship. Although it is unclear if either of the two alleged relationships were sexual, the Bishop clearly felt he had no alternative other than to resign.

“I want to apologise to the individuals hurt by my actions and then to all of those inside and outside the diocese,” continued the statement. “I am sorry for the shame that I have brought on the diocese and the Church and I ask for your prayers and forgiveness.”

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
APTN

[with video]

APTN National News

Canadian sanatoriums and Indian Hospitals are InFocus this week.

Many Canadians are only beginning to learn about the atrocities that took place at Indian Residential schools and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is bringing the stories of survivors forward.

A deeper look into those decades reveals that children faced more than just the horrors of residential schools.

Last year, APTN reported that First Nation children were being used for nutritional experiments. Then it emerged children were also used as test subjects for tuberculosis vaccine trials in the 1930s and 1940s at a sanatorium in southern Saskatchewan.

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.

HONDURAS/ESTADO UNIDOS
Proceso

Tegucigalpa.- Las autoridades hondureñas informaron que la detención del sacerdote católico estadounidense, Joseph Maurizio Jr, en Estados Unidos, fue parte de una operación coordinada con las autoridades de ese país del norte, en respuesta a una orden de captura emitida por un tribunal de la ciudad de El Progreso, Yoro, desde hace más de un mes.

Elvis Guzmán, portavoz de la fiscalía en la región norte, dijo en declaraciones al noticiero TN5 estelar de Televicentro, que luego de denuncias hechas por niños de un centro de menores que se localiza entre Tela y El Progreso, la fiscalía investigó el caso y comprobó la implicación del sacerdote en el delito de abuso sexual de menores.

Las pesquisas de los fiscales determinaron que el sacerdote estadounidense habría abusado de al menos unos diez menores a quienes pagaba cien lempiras a cambio de que cedieran a sus propuestas sexuales.

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
The Spectator

Damian Thompson

Update: The Mail has now published its allegations against Bishop Conry. They’re much more serious than I imagined. He appears to have behaved disgracefully; by his own admission there is more than one woman involved. I’ll quote only the last paragraph, which goes to heart of the matter: the responsibility of the Catholic Church for allowing this man to run an important diocese during years of rumours, well-founded in at least two cases.

Clare Kirby, the lawyer for the estranged husband, said last night: ‘My client is considering pursuing a possible High Court action against the Catholic Church because they’ve known for years that the Bishop has been having affairs and if they’d taken action he almost certainly would not have lost his marriage and his children would not be having to be brought up in a broken family.’

My original post:

The Rt Rev Kieran Conry, Bishop of Arundel and Brighton and one of England’s most influential Catholic bishops, has suddenly resigned. Here’s his statement, to be read out at Masses in his diocese:

I am sorry to confess that, going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest. I would like to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors. As a result, however, I have decided to offer my resignation as bishop with immediate effect and will now take some time to consider my future. I want to apologise first of all to the individuals hurt by my actions and then to all of those inside and outside the diocese who will be shocked, hurt and saddened to hear this. I am sorry for the shame that I have brought on the diocese and the Church and I ask for your prayers and forgiveness.

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
International Business Times

By Sushmita Sen September 28, 2014

The Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton in England resigned yesterday after admitting that he was unfaithful to his clerical vows as he had a love affair with a married mother of two.

According to Mail on Sunday‘s investigation, love letters has been exchanged between the 63-year-old Bishop Rt Rev Kieran Conry and a woman recently, in which she claimed that her husband doesn’t love her, Mail Online reported.

Apparently the letter did not reveal any sexual relationship between the two, but the woman did spend three nights at Bishop’s property in Pease Pottage, West Sussex. Their affair lasted for more than a year, according to Mail Online.

A hand-written letter, which was dated earlier this month, was sent by the Bishop saying, “Dear, Dear XXXXX’ and signed ‘your K xxxxxx’, said: ‘… It’s all right to say that [your husband] did bad things, but you knew that he didn’t love you. You know (I hope) that I did. And I did, and do.

Further investigation also revealed that Bishop had sent a love letter to a second woman as well, but her identity is not allowed to publish for legal reasons.

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 Eponymous Flower

(Rome / Asuncion) For days, Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano has been in Rome and asking to be received by Pope Francis. Vain. Instead, the bishop was removed from office. This bishop responded to this treatment with a harsh response. Meanwhile there is public celebration in progressive church circles in Paraguay for his removal.

Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano of Ciudad del Este is not a man who minces words. This has made him disliked among Paraguay’s bishops, to which until a few years ago, Bishop Fernando Lugo belonged, the “red bishop” of San Pedro, who preferred to be candidate for a broad leftist coalition as president against the will of Rome and he gave up his episcopate and priesthood.

Bishop Livieres is now the victim of an equally surprising and brutal “decapitation” and because he is not a man of arbitrariness, he responded with a savory letter to the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet.

On the website of the diocese of the dossier from last summer was re-released, with which the diocese had responded to all the rumors and accusations, passed behind closed doors by word of mouth or addressed by the Apostolic Visitor Cardinal Santos Abril y Castello, a personal confidant of the Pope Francis.

Bishop Has Asked for Days to be Received in Rome by the Pope – in Vain

The letter to Cardinal Ouellet and the dossier discloses the ethical, but also formal irregularities of a campaign to discredit a bishop, aimed at his deposition, that has taken place now. “An operation that has an ideological connotation,” the Vaticanist Marco Tosatti.

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 Eponymous Flower

(Asuncion / Rome) Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, dismissed yesterday from his office by Pope Francis, sees himself as a victim of an intrigue, which he describes as “ideological persecution.” In an open letter to the Prefect of the Roman Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the bishop wrote that Pope Francis will have to answer for his decision before God.

At the same time Bishop Livieres announced that he has as yet no knowledge of the contents of the investigation report of the Papal Visitor, Cardinal Santos Abril. As a “son of the Church,” he added, he will abide by the arrangement of the Pope. The letter to Cardinal Ouellet was published by the Paraguayan daily ABC yesterday.

The Vatican justified the resignation for “pastoral reasons” and the “unity of the bishops.” Specific allegations against the bishop dismissed were not disclosed. The Bishop sees himself as a victim of an intrigue of the Paraguayan Bishops. Pope Francis arranged for an Apostolic Visitation in Livieres’ diocese after he publicly accused the Archbishop of Asuncion of homosexuality and demanded his removal from office.

The leading group of the Paraguayan Bishops makes no secret of their satisfaction with the dismissal of Bishop Livieres. Livieres was considered a militant defender of the orthodoxy. In almost every parish of his diocese the Holy Mass was celebrated in the Old Rite. His seminary altogether has many more seminarians than any other of the Paraguayan dioceses and about seven times as many seminarians as the much larger Archdiocese of Buenos Aires.

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.

ROME
Corriere della Sera

[Vatican investigators are reviewing at least three trips former Vatican nuncio Jozef Wesolowski made to Frankfurt, Germany, along with other trips abroad he made between 2011 and 2013. The findings support the hypothesis that the archbishop may have been involved in an international network of pedophiles. The investigators are looking at the 100,000 pornographic images found on Wesolowski’s computer.]

di FIORENZA SARZANINI

ROMA Missioni all’estero per partecipare a incontri a «luci rosse» con minori. Viaggi pastorali che in realtà servivano a nascondere la doppia vita dell’allora nunzio di Santo Domingo, monsignor Jozef Wesolowski. Si concentrano su almeno tre soggiorni a Francoforte e su altri spostamenti all’estero avvenuti tra il 2011 e il 2013, gli accertamenti della gendarmeria vaticana che indaga sugli abusi sessuali su minori compiuti dall’alto prelato arrestato quattro giorni fa per volontà di papa Francesco e tuttora agli arresti domiciliari all’interno della Santa Sede, presso il Collegio dei Penitenzieri. Quanto emerso finora avvalora l’ipotesi che l’arcivescovo fosse inserito in una rete internazionale di pedofili e proprio su questo si concentrano le verifiche disposte dai promotori di giustizia.

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

CONNECTICUT
Middletown Press

Pope Francis is leading the Roman Catholic Church down a new path of contrition over the role it played in protecting priests who sexually abused children. We’re wondering when the message will be heard by his leaders in Connecticut.

“Before God and his people, I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you, and I humbly ask forgiveness,” the pope said in a meeting with victims earlier this year. He also asked forgiveness “for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members as well as by abuse victims themselves.”

At the same time, Pope Francis has criticized materialism in the church and its emphasis on shoring up its own finances over serving the poor.

“Oh, how I would like a poor church, and for the poor,” he said, and, “If money and material things become the center of our lives, they seize us and make us slaves.”

In Connecticut, the Roman Catholic Church apparently remains enslaved.

The spiritual leader of the Archdiocese of Hartford, Archbishop Leonard Blair, is attempting to overturn a 12-year-old state law that lengthened the statute of limitations on filing civil lawsuits over sexual abuse. The church wants to avoid a jury’s order to pay $1 million to a victim of priest sex abuse and, in the process, protect itself from potential claims by others who were assaulted by employees it was protecting.

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.

CITTA’ DEL VATICANO
l’Espresso

George Pell è il braccio destro di di Papa Francesco. Ma l’arresto per pedofilia dell’ex vescovo polacco Wesolowsky sta facendo traballare la sua poltrona. Viste le sue implicazioni in diverse inchieste legate agli abusi sessuali

DI EMILIANO FITTIPALDI

Dopo l’arresto per pedofilia dell’ex vescovo Josef Wesolowski, in Vaticano la tensione è altissima. Soprattutto per i vertici della gerarchia ecclesiastica implicati, in qualche modo, in alcune inchieste sulla pedofilia. A tremare per la sua poltrona è innanzitutto George Pell, cardinale australiano membro del C9 (il gruppo di porporati che consiglia il papa nel governo della chiesa) e nominato pochi mesi fa prefetto della Segreteria dell’Economia, sorta di superministero delle finanze vaticane.

Pell un mese fa è stato interrogato dalla Commissione d’inchiesta sulla pedofilia voluto dal governo di Canberra, su alcune decisioni prese quando era arcivescovo di Melburne e di Sydney. Ma i giudici federali lo hanno interrogato soprattutto sul discusso schema di risarcimento da lui introdotto a partire dal 1996, il cosiddetto “Melbourne Reponse”. Secondo molti studiosi e opinionisti, in realtà, un sistema «progettato per controllare le vittime e proteggere la Chiesa». Se alcuni parenti di bimbi abusati hanno definito a verbale il cardinale un «sociopatico», la studiosa Judy Courtin ha spiegato che le scelte di Pell erano volte a «minimizzare i reati, occultare la verità, manipolare e intimidire le vittime».

Pell – che qualche anno fa è stato assolto per mancanza di prove da un’accusa di molestie su un bambino di 12 anni – ha risposto alle domande giudici con una frase choc, spiegando che la Chiesa non ha responsabilità legali. Per difendersi, ha confrontato i preti pedofili a camionisti che molestano autostoppiste: «Non credo che la compagnia di trasporti possa essere responsabile delle azioni dei suoi camionisti».

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

[Il lato oscuro del Cardinale]

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor September 27, 2014

In bureaucracies everywhere, when someone’s interests are threatened by a cycle of reform, one time-honored resistance strategy is to dig up dirt on the reformers. For maximum effectiveness, the dirt should be related to a brewing crisis in which people are tempted to shoot first and ask questions later.

Whatever its supernatural claims may be, the Vatican is hardly exempt from this very natural law of the jungle.

We’ve already seen it under Pope Francis with regard to Monsignor Battista Ricca, a 58-year-old Italian cleric tapped by the pontiff in June, 2013 as his delegate to the Vatican bank, monitoring a clean-up operation intended to spare the bank future scandals.

In mid-July, 2013, the respected Vatican writer Sandro Magister published charges in the Italian news magazine l’Espresso that Ricca had been involved in homosexual affairs while serving as a papal diplomat in Uruguay a decade before.

While there was no suggestion of sexual abuse or criminal conduct, the revelations were still embarrassing, especially at a time when rumors of a shadowy “gay lobby” that allegedly played a part in the notorious Vatican leaks affair of 2011 and 2012 were in the air.

Now a bigger target seems to be in l’Espresso’s sights, in the form of Australian Cardinal George Pell, the secretary for the economy under Francis and effectively the pope’s finance czar.

On Friday, l’Espresso ran a sensational expose, though not by Magister this time, headlined “The dark side of the Cardinal,” focused on Pell’s record on the sexual abuse crisis facing the Catholic Church in Australia.

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
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

With rebuttals to Vatican Pied Pipers news

Below are rebuttals especially to Catholic Culture – Phil Lawler and John Allen of Crux and Vatican Pied Pipers deceitful brainwashing titles and articles praising Pope Francis and the upcoming – 100% controlled and scripted by the Vatican – [farce] “criminal trial” of ex-papal pimping nuncio Josef Wesolowski. Wesolowski is the highest ranking and most famous pimping pedophile priest and Pope Francis is being forced to do something about him, after all, he has his well-publicised [empty] talks of zero tolerance and [hypocritical crocodile tears] papal apologies to victims. It took one year for Pope Francis and the Opus Dei Beast PR Deceits Team to come up with a [Vatican Circus] solution to their most famous member of the JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army.

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
Mail on Sunday

By JONATHAN PETRE FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

A senior Church of England bishop has criticised delays created by the controversial appointment of a high-profile lawyer to lead the Government’s historic child abuse inquiry.

The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, who is the chairman of the Church’s committee on abuse, said that the long-awaited investigation would not start work until almost five months after it was announced, because of Fiona Woolf’s existing workload.

And he highlighted concerns that until the inquiry begins, officials accused of a cover-up could be shredding important documents.

His intervention comes after The Mail on Sunday revealed Mrs Woolf has close links to Tory grandee Leon Brittan, accused of failing to investigate alleged VIP paedophile rings when Home Secretary.

It can also be revealed that the 66-year-old commercial lawyer, who, as Lord Mayor of London, has spent much of the past month on overseas business, has not yet responded to urgent calls to appear before MPs. Bishop Butler told a child protection conference: ‘Given her very heavy duties as Lord Mayor, it is hard to see how the inquiry will be able to get under way until late November at the earliest.

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
Mirror

Sep 27, 2014 By Ben Russell

The Rt Rev Kieran Conry issued a statement today which said he had “been unfaithful to his promises as a Catholic priest”

A Catholic bishop has resigned from his post, claiming to have brought “shame” on his diocese and the church.

The Rt Rev Kieran Conry, who is Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, covering Surrey and Sussex, issued a statement today which said he had “been unfaithful to his promises as a Catholic priest”.

The statement, which will be read in all churches of the diocese this weekend, said: “I am sorry to confess that, going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest.

“I would like to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.

“As a result, however, I have decided to offer my resignation as bishop with immediate effect and will now take some time to consider my future.

“I want to apologise first of all to the individuals hurt by my actions and then to all of those inside and outside the diocese who will be shocked, hurt and saddened to hear this.

“I am sorry for the shame that I have brought on the diocese and the Church and I ask for your prayers and forgiveness.”

Originally from Coventry, Mr Conry studied for priesthood at the Venerable English College in Rome, according to the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton website.

He attended the Gregorian University and was ordained in July 1975 at All Souls Church in Coventry by Archbishop George Patrick Dwyer of Birmingham.

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

I’ve been reading many different perspectives and speculations about the upcoming Synod on the Family. Repeatedly from the camp of guys who don’t actually live in or lead family units…that would be the hierarchical leaders…I hear variations on the, “We are right; we always were right; we will always be right; therefore the following people can’t have communion” theme. I have two observations / questions regarding this:

1. Humility is the ability to say, “Maybe we were wrong.” Why do you collectively and individually lack the humility and quite frankly, the self-confidence, to ponder that question? Did you not read in last Sunday’s first reading, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts (Is 55:8-9).” Why do you think that your interpretations are immovable and accurate? Why can’t you allow for the possibility that your thoughts and ways are not synonymous with God’s thoughts and ways? Have you idolized yourselves through idolatry of your roles to the point you find your thoughts and teachings equal to God’s? If so, is that acceptable?

2. Even if your teachings are 200% correct, so what? Why would that preclude sharing the body and blood of Christ with people who violate certain teachings? The gospel notes time and again that Jesus shared himself, dined at table, with some of the most notorious sinners. Can you be credible Vicars of Christ if you can’t imitate that signature trait of his?

Why are you only threatened by welcoming certain categories of sinners to the table? You certainly are comfortable welcoming to the communion table members of the sinner category, “irresponsible bishops and sexually abusive priests.” Some of them you not only allow to receive communion, you permit them to consecrate the hosts! This, evidently does not threaten you in the least. But, women who disobey you by claiming to have more insight into their relationship with God that you do…well, gentleman, that seems to scare the holy excrement out of you. Why?

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
The Spectator

Damian Thompson

The Rt Rev Kieran Conry, Bishop of Arundel and Brighton and one of England’s most influential Catholic bishops, has suddenly resigned. Here’s his statement, to be read out at Masses in his diocese:

I am sorry to confess that, going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest. I would like to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.

As a result, however, I have decided to offer my resignation as bishop with immediate effect and will now take some time to consider my future.

I want to apologise first of all to the individuals hurt by my actions and then to all of those inside and outside the diocese who will be shocked, hurt and saddened to hear this.

I am sorry for the shame that I have brought on the diocese and the Church and I ask for your prayers and forgiveness.

Someone on Twitter reacted as follows: ‘There are blind amoeba in Andromeda galaxy who knew about +Conry for decades; everyone knew; any denials by “luvvies” disingenuous.’

Hmm. I didn’t ‘know’ anything. But I doubt there was a Catholic journalist in the country who hadn’t heard rumours that Bishop Conry had a long-standing girlfriend. But we gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Here’s what gets up my nose. I liked Kieran a lot when he was press officer for the English bishops: he didn’t give us any bullshit and let slip the odd bit of gossip. We we all pleased when he was made a bishop. Sure, he was a liberal, but they all were.

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
Mail on Sunday

Bishop has affair with married parishioner …then quits in shame over ANOTHER romance: Bishop of Arundel admits to relationship that broke clerical vows

By ADAM LUCK and JONATHAN PETRE FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

One of the country’s leading Roman Catholic bishops resigned ‘in shame’ today after admitting to a relationship that broke his clerical vows.

In a scandal that will rock the Church, the Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, Kieran Conry, said he had been ‘unfaithful to his promises’.

Separately, a Mail on Sunday investigation has revealed the bishop also had a love affair with a married mother of two.

This newspaper has seen love letters between Bishop Conry, 63, and the woman, written in recent months, in which he tells her that her husband doesn’t love her.

One handwritten letter, which was dated earlier this month and addressed ‘Dear, Dear XXXXX’ and signed ‘your K xxxxxx’, said: ‘… It’s all right to say that [your husband] did bad things, but you knew that he didn’t love you. You know (I hope) that I did. And I did, and do.’

The passionate correspondence, using language reminiscent of the movie Brief Encounter, reveals the pair fell deeply in love and formed a strong emotional bond.

Although the letters do not disclose a sexual relationship, the affair lasted more than a year and involved the married woman spending at least three nights at the bishop’s detached property in Pease Pottage, West Sussex.

The Mail on Sunday has also seen a love letter from the bishop to a second woman, whose name we are not publishing for legal reasons.

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
Catholic News Service

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican denied Pope Francis had dismissed a controversial Paraguayan bishop because of his mishandling of sex abuse accusations, attributing the decision instead to other failings of governance and friction with fellow bishops.

Meanwhile, the bishop described his dismissal as a case of “ideological persecution” because of his opposition to liberation theology.

Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano, 69, was told to step down as head of the Diocese of Ciudad del Este effective Sept. 25, a Vatican statement said, citing unspecified “serious pastoral reasons.”

News reports at the time noted the bishop’s vocal support for Msgr. Carlos Urrutigoity, whom he appointed a high diocesan official even though the priest had been accused of molesting seminarians before coming to Ciudad del Este.

Coming two days after the Vatican’s arrest of former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, pending a criminal trial on charges of paying for sex with boys during his time as nuncio to the Dominican Republic, the dismissal of Bishop Livieres appeared to be the latest step in a Vatican crackdown on sex abuse.

But the Vatican says sex abuse was not a significant factor in Bishop Livieres’ dismissal.

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

The Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton has resigned, saying he has brought “shame” on the diocese.

The Rt Rev Kieran Conry, whose diocese covers Sussex and Surrey, said he had been “unfaithful” to his promises as a Catholic priest.

He said his actions “were not illegal and did not involve minors”.

He apologised to those “hurt by my actions and then to all of those inside and outside the diocese who will be shocked, hurt and saddened”.

He said his resignation would take immediate effect, and he would now take time to consider his future.

Bishop Kieran’s statement did not specify in what way he had been “unfaithful” to his promises but it will be read in all Catholic churches over the weekend.

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
Digital Journal

By Greta McClain

Slaugham – One of England’s most powerful and influential Roman Catholic Bishops has resigned after admitting he has been “unfaithful” to his vows.

Bishop Kieran Conry, the 63-year-old Bishop for the Arundel and Brighton diocese, announced his resignation through a written statement read during masses throughout the diocese on Saturday. In the statement, Conry says:

“I am sorry to confess that, going back some years, I have been unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest.”

Conry assures church members that his behavior did not involve minors or “illegal” activity. He also apologizes for any pain his actions has caused members of his diocese and those outside of the diocese, saying:

“I am sorry for the shame that I have brought on the diocese and the Church and I ask for your prayers and forgiveness.”

There have been long standing rumors that Conry has a girlfriend, however an affair has never been confirmed.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, called the announcement:

“A sad and painful moment. It makes clear that we are always a Church of sinners called to repentance and conversion and in need of God’s mercy.”

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
dotCommonweal

Paul Moses September 25, 2014

A new poll finds Americans are sharply divided on the question of religious liberty. The Public Religion Research Institute reports:

Nearly half (46%) of Americans say they are more concerned about the government interfering with the ability of people to freely practice their religion, while an equal number (46%) say they are more concerned about religious groups trying to pass laws that force their beliefs on others.

Despite the U.S. Catholic bishops’ campaign to highlight religious liberty as an issue, a majority of Catholics (51 percent) fall into the latter camp, while 42 percent said they were more concerned that the government was trying to interfere with the practice of religion. The poll highlights generational and gender differences among Catholics.

Millenials, aged 18 to 34, are far more likely to be concerned about religious groups tyring to impose thier beliefs on others, while those 69 and older are much more likely to be concerned about government interference. Catholic men were evenly divided on this issue, but women were more likely to be concerned about religious groups (55 percent) than they were about government interference with religion (36 percent).

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

Frederick Clarkson on the clear and publicly stated goal of the Christian right’s “Values Voter” Summit with its claim (which I discussed yesterday) that “religious freedom” is under attack in the U.S. right now:

But whatever their numerical goals, they are very clear that the purpose of their “massive election year effort” is in order to take advantage of what they call “an unusual opportunity to shift the balance of power in the Senate” (meaning towards the Republican Party) in the name of the three part agenda of the Manhattan Declaration, “life, marriage, and religious freedom.”

And, of course, as I noted yesterday, and as Jerry Slevin has pointed out repeatedly at his Christian Catholicism blog site and in thoughtful comments at various blog sites, the U.S. Catholic bishops are right at dead center in this sham “religious freedom” political crusade, as they were at dead center in the drafting and promulgation of the Manhattan Declaration, with its clear and evident intent to keep alive culture-war attacks on gay people and women’s reproductive rights for Republican political gain.

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 “difficult decision” to remove Rogelio Livieres following Santos Abril y Castelló’s visit to Paraguay comes amid accusations of embezzlement and the community’s severed ties with other bishops

IACOPO SCARAMUZZI
VATICAN CITY

Pope Francis has taken this “difficult decision” to remove Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano, Bishop of Ciudad del Este (Paraguay’s second major city), for “serious pastoral reasons”. The decision comes after Spanish cardinal Santos Abril y Castelló’s apostolic visit to the country in recent months. The Paraguayan prelate, who is a member of Opus Dei, was accused of concealing the actions of an Argentinian priest who was vicar general of the diocese. The priest was also accused of child abuse as well as embezzlement and had also been at the centre of disputes with other priests and fellow bishops for years. The disagreements were over pastoral questions and past events in connection with the figure of Fernando Lugo, former bishop-turned-President of Paraguay.

The statement issued by the Vatican reads: “Following a careful examination of the conclusions drawn following the apostolic visits carried out by the Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for the Clergy to the bishop, the diocese and the seminarians of Ciudad del Este, the Holy Father has decided to substitute Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano and has appointed Bishop Ricardo Jorge Valenzuela Rios of Villarrica del Espiritu Santo as apostolic administrator of the diocese of Ciudad del Este. This was a difficult decision on the part of the Holy See, taken for serious pastoral reasons and for the greater good of the unity of the Church in Ciudad del Este and the episcopal communion in Paraguay. The Holy Father, in the exercise of his ministry as the ‘perpetual and visible foundation of the unity of both the bishops and the multitude of the faithful’, asked the clergy and all the People of God of Ciudad del Este to accept the Holy See’s decision with a spirit of obedience and docility and without prejudice, guided by faith. On the other hand, the Church in Paraguay, guided by her pastors, is invited to embark on a serious process of reconciliation in order to overcome any form of sectarianism or discord, so as not to harm the countenance of the one Church, ‘born of the blood of His Son’ and so that Christ’s flock may not be deprived of the joy of the Gospel”.

The statement makes no explicit reference to the reasons that led to the Paraguayan bishop’s removal. It was the diocese of Ciudad del Este that contested a number of accusations in a long statement published last August on the occasion of Santos Abril y Castelló’s apostolic visit. Starting with Fernando Lugo’s decision to run for President after resigning from the priesthood. He was eventually elected President of Paraguay and held office from 2008 to 2012. “Livieres spoke out against Lugo running for President, thus becoming the only defender of the Vatican position,” the August statement reads.

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

IRELAND/UNITED STATES
Irish Central

Patrick Counihan @irishcentral September 27,2014

The Irish priest who founded the Boys Town orphanage in Nebraska, inspired a hit movie, and went to war with the Irish government and church in the 1940s over its treatment of children is on a ‘lightening speed’ course to become a saint.

Fr Edward Flanagan warned the Catholic Church of the potential for clerical abuse in state run institutions in Ireland as early as 1946.

He was denounced by the Dublin government and church leaders the Government in 1946 after he labelled State-funded Church-run industrial schools as ‘a scandal, unChristlike and wrong.’

Fr Flanagan went back to America where his pioneering work at the Boys Town orphanage in Omaha, inspiration for the movie starring Mickey Rooney, proved revolutionary.

Now the Irish Catholic newspaper reports that the Roscommon-born priest is being actively considered for sainthood by the Church which once dismissed his views.

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
Toronto Star

By: Allan Woods Quebec Bureau, Published on Fri Sep 26 2014

MONTREAL—Just days before members of the radical Jewish group Lev Tahor fled Quebec for Ontario, child protection authorities received a list containing the names of underaged girls in the community said to have given birth to children fathered by much older men.

It was the second time in the same week that officials responsible for child welfare in Quebec had heard detailed allegations of underaged marriages and possible sexual misconduct within the isolated religious community of about 200 people.

It is not clear what came of the allegations, whether they were fully investigated and if they were eventually verified or debunked.

But just 10 days later, on Nov. 18, 2012, the vast majority of the group boarded buses in the Quebec town of Ste-Agathe-des-Monts in the middle of the night and fled across the Ontario-Quebec border to new accommodations in Chatham-Kent.

Their actions allowed them to evade a massive child-welfare investigation and criminal probe that is unresolved nearly two years later, with the bulk of the group now having resettled in Central America.

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
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Updated September 29, 2014 feast of St. Michael the Archangel

Archangel St. Michael inspires our blogs and he impels us to say something about one of his ugly statues – that resembles a thin woman dressed as a combination of a medieval nun and a Muslim woman in long veil and long feminine robe all in pink – until it is removed from Dumbarton church in Scotland. The statue is a pervert portrayal of St, Michael (which isn’t a surprise) because it was sculpted by a sexual pervert, the famous Eric Gill who was a sexual deviant known to have had intimate relations with two of his daughters and his sisters. Eric Gill’s works are on display in high-profile locations inWestminster Cathedral in London, the BBC’s Broadcasting House and the European HQ of the United Nations in Geneva. The pervert statue in question includes fonts for holy water and a Scottish man is spearheading for it to be removed from Dumbarton 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.