ABUSE TRACKER

ILLINOIS
CSNChicago

A pastor is accused of molesting a boy from his congregation over a period of several years.

The Rev. John Hays, 57, of the First Presbyterian Church of River Forest is charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the alleged abuse involved an 8-year-old boy from the church and continued for six years. The alleged victim is now 19.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

June 24, 2014

Paris Arrow

The Opus Dei Beast PR Stunt of the Day is the Italian Mafia members excommunication which is a Hollywood strategy copycat attempt to divert Catholics’ attention away from the truth especially on 6 issues that won’t go away, see below.

Our initial reaction was, here goes another “Argo and John Paul II make believe legends” again except this time it is Pope Francis in the starring role of the greatest Pretender and Impostor of Jesus – taking on the Italian Mafia like in an action packed movie concocted by Opus Dei Beast PR Deceits Team. Read our article, Argo &“saint” John Paul II are make-believe legends of Hollywood and the Vatican, the twin cities that “lie for a living” http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/07/argo-john-paul-ii-are-make-believe_11.html

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that the underling purpose of this Mafia Pope Francis connection of course is to divert the world’s attention away from the bestial JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army that can’t seem to go away even after the canonization of John Paul II. And now another Catholic scandal has erupted in Ireland on the bestial priests’ female counterparts – the Irish Catholic nuns akin to Nazis that has recently caught the world by storm. Opus Dei Beast’s puppet the (AP) Associated Press tries to paint a more “sober” image of the nuns and try to put a lid on the story, but it’s too late, the genie has escaped the bottle. Then the Opus Dei Beast PR Deceits Team tries to wipe out the Catholic scandals by saying that everybody is doing it anyway.

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

John Warhurst | 29 June 2014

Rotten apples with the caption ‘Australian owned and grown’We should open our eyes and take in what multiple government inquiries are telling us about Australian society at the moment. It is not enough to focus on just one; we should consider the revelations cumulatively. It is little exaggeration to say that almost no major institution in our society, public or private, has been left untouched. We should join the dots and cry.

There are many inquiries underway. The four most significant are being conducted by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, the New South Wales Independent Commission against Corruption, and the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce. Each of them is broad and the preliminary findings and the content of public hearings, on top of what we already know from previous investigations and trials, point towards damning conclusions.

A significant focus of the Child Sexual Abuse commission has been dioceses and orders of the Catholic Church. But hearings have also focused on the terrible shortcomings of government-run institutions, other churches and secular non-government organisations, including the Salvation Army, the Scouts and the YMCA. The police and the legal profession have also been implicated.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Nick Squires, Rome

Pope Francis will for the first time meet victims of clerical sex abuse, including British victims, at the Vatican next week.

Sources confirmed to The Telegraph that the encounter, which will also include Irish, Polish and American victims, will take place at his private residence, Casa Santa Martha, a Vatican guesthouse in the shadow of St Peter’s Basilica.

It will be the first such meeting of Francis’s pontificate, after he was elected in March last year as the successor to Benedict XVI, who also met groups of victims.

It will be a private meeting and the Vatican is keen to keep the exact date and time under wraps.

Such encounters could help the process of healing for people left traumatised by their childhood experiences, one former victim of sex abuse said.

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UNITED STATES
Star Democrat

Surely one of our world’s most endangered species — up there with the mountain gorilla or the Sumatran tiger — is the church “ministerius youthii.”

That was the conviction of the late Louis McBurney, a Mayo Clinic-trained psychiatrist who spent decades at his Colorado retreat center helping ministers crushed by the demands and temptations of their jobs. Youth ministers, for example, face stunning parental expectations, low pay, the loss of privacy and a nagging sense of powerlessness.

Plus, it’s hard to work with adolescents in a sex-soaked culture. Many older teens think they are more mature than they really are, noted McBurney in his 1986 volume, “Counseling Christian Workers.” Consider the case of “Joe,” a newly married seminary graduate who was energetic, talented and driven. Then, there was this one girl.

“She was a beautiful 17-year-old who was more mature than her peers,” wrote the psychiatrist. “They began to play tennis together, and she was frequently the last to leave group activities. Joe couldn’t remember who made the first move to sexual intimacy, but once that happened, it snowballed.”

Many were hurt in the train wreck that followed — an all-too-common scenario that, in the past, often played out behind closed doors with parents and church leaders hiding the damage. Times have changed, to some degree, after years of public debate about the sexual abuse of minors by clergy, teachers, coaches and other trusted adults.

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KENTUCKY
Christian Post

Kentucky Church Hires Registered Sex Offender as Pastor; Man Now Faces Charges of Alleged Rape, Sodomy of 14-Y-O Boy at Church

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
June 24, 2014

A Kentucky church that hired a pastor with full knowledge that he’s a registered sex offender, is now the scene of an another alleged crime in which the minister is accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy who attended the church.

Roy Neal Yoakem, who leads the New Gospel Outreach Church in Scottsville, Kentucky, allegedly raped a 14-year-old boy at the church and police believe that another incident occurred in a nearby town, reported WSMV.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

Updated: Thursday, June 26 2014

By: Marc Stempka

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. — The leader of the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown will be moving from his residence, with the diocese selling the bishop’s home to help pay, in part, for claims made regarding sexual misconduct cases, according to a diocesan spokesperson.

Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown spokesman Tony DeGol said in a release Thursday Bishop Mark Bartchak will move from his home in Frankstown Township, outside of Hollidaysburg, to the rectory at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in downtown Altoona.

DeGol said the Diocesan Finance Council and the College of Consultors approved the sale of the home, with proceeds from the sale being used for diocesan pastoral needs, which includes care for victims in sexual misconduct cases.

“Bishop Bartchak’s decision to sell the residence and move to the cathedral rectory has been under consideration for some time,” the release said. “In all of his previous assignments, the bishop has resided with other priests, and he is looking forward to that arrangement once again.”

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AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury

By KATE McILWAIN June 27, 2014

Wollongong Bishop Peter Ingham has told a public inquiry of his repeated attempts to stop an accused child molester from working as a priest while the Vatican stalled.

In the witness box at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Bishop Ingham said he was frustrated and disappointed at the length of time it took the church to stand down former priest John Nestor.

Mr Nestor was suspended from the ministry in 1997 after he was convicted, but later acquitted on appeal, over aggravated indecent assault charges of a 15-year-old altar boy.

When more complaints emerged about his behaviour towards boys at summer holiday camps, the diocese continued to pursue his dismissal.

Bishop Ingham began his tenure in Wollongong in 2001, amid an appeal to the church’s highest judicial authority, the Apostolic Signatura. This was launched by the Wollongong diocese after another church body – the powerful Congregation for the Clergy – had ruled Mr Nestor should be allowed to work as a priest despite the child abuse allegations.

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NIGERIA
allAfrica

Daily Trust

BY TONY ADIBE, 26 JUNE 2014

Enugu — The arrest and subsequent prosecution of one pastor Timothy Ngwu for alleged sexual harassment, and indiscriminate impregnating of both married and single women in his church, has again raised the issue of clerics whose stock in trade is to sleep with female members of their church.

Timothy Ngwu, said to be a self-acclaimed Pastor, who also doubles as the Leader and General Overseer of Vineyard Ministry of the Holy Trinity, Ihe-Owerre, Nsukka Loocal Government Area of Enugu State is currently remanded in Enugu prison for impregnating over 20 female members of his church.

The bubble burst when Mrs. Veronica Ngwu, wife of the pastor, could no longer bear the randy life style of her husband, and blew the whistle for his arrest by the police.

At the time of filing in this report, Pastor Ngwu has put over 20 female members of his church in the family way, insisting that he was obeying God’s injunctions.

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MINNESOTA
Monticello Times

Former St. Henry’s pastor, music director Harry Walsh answers questions about allegations, tries to clear reputation

By Tim Hennagir
June 26, 2014

When Harry Walsh heard a knock at his door last Dec. 17, two Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) reporters standing in bone-chilling temperatures greeted him.

The former St. Henry’s Catholic Church pastor and music director said he wasn’t about to let two unknown souls freeze to death, so he invited them inside his home.

“They were out on the doorstep, and they identified themselves as being from MPR, and they asked me if I was Harry Walsh,” he said.

“They were standing out in the sub-zero cold, and I said, ‘Come in out of the cold.’ I didn’t have the heart to leave them standing there,” Walsh said. “They came uninvited and unannounced.”

Two days later, MPR broke a lengthy investigative story online entitled, “Abuse claims kept secret allowed priest to minister and teach sex ed.”

Walsh said one of the reporters asked him about sexual abuse allegations involving a person in Detroit. The reporter asked Walsh if the allegations were true, and questions about his position on celibacy involving priests in the Catholic Church and his employment with Wright County Human Services, which ended a week later during a scheduled board meeting.

“I’m trying to adjust to the fact that I’m not needed in the community, county, church and school,” Walsh said in an interview with the Monticello Times.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

June 25, 2014

Tom McIlroy
Legislative Assembly reporter at The Canberra Times

A Canberra priest has defended his role in investigating allegations of child sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church, amid criticism of his decision not to keep records.

Last week, former NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell accused Father Brian Lucas, the secretary of the Australian National Catholic Bishops Conference, and another priest of being responsible for “criminal inaction”.

Mr O’Farrell called for the leaders of the church in Australia to remove Father Lucas.

The Canberra-based priest, who is also a trained lawyer, has answered questions in two inquiries about his involvement in handling of abuse claims dating back to the late 1980s.

This month Father Lucas told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse sitting in Canberra he kept no notes of a 1993 meeting with serial paedophile Brother Kostka Chute.

Giving evidence to the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry in the Hunter region, Father Lucas said he conducted as many as 35 interviews with accused priests, and sought to convince them to resign from public ministry or work with children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Irish Independent

Posing for photographs with corpses. Making jewellery out of glass eyes taken from dead bodies and sexually abusing vulnerable patients aged five to 75. Such revelations about the late British DJ Jimmy Savile, shockingly exposed as a prolific abuser never called to account for his crimes, are beyond comprehension.

Yesterday a report into 28 UK hospitals, including Leeds General Infirmary and Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, unveiled a sickening catalogue of sexual abuse by a single individual not seen in Britain or Ireland since the controversy over the late paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

Just as Ireland was convulsed by the prevalence of abuse by clerics – and the subsequent handling of complaints by the Catholic hierarchy when that crisis emerged – our neighbours across the water are experiencing their own historic child protection nightmare whose reach has extended beyond Savile.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

June 27, 2014

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

When a Catholic priest was formally dismissed by the Pope in the wake of sexual misconduct claims, he made a “veiled threat” to sue the Bishop who delivered the news.

Wollongong Bishop Peter Ingham told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that John Nestor refused to accept that he was to be dismissed by papal decree after a lengthy battle to oust him from the ministry which went all the way to the Vatican.

Bishop Ingham told Mr Nestor he was not going to make the Pope’s decision in 2008 widely known.

“I told him the situation and I said I’d be letting the clergy know but I wasn’t planning to make it public,” he told the commission.

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IRELAND/VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew, Patsy McGarry

Thu, Jun 26, 2014

Sources in Rome have confirmed that Pope Francis will meet clerical sex abuse victims, including Irish victims, in the Vatican sometime next week. On the papal flight back to Rome following his recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Francis told reporters that he would be meeting a group of victims, probably sometime in early July.

Vatican practice where such meetings are concerned usually entails no advance warning, with news of the encounter relayed to the media only after the victims have met the pontiff. In theory, this is to avoid any form of media concentration on what for many victims is a difficult and tortured “spiritual” moment.

However, given that Francis himself released the news on the papal flight, the only blanks to be filled in concern the names and origins of the victims. Vatican sources suggest they will come from Ireland, the US, Britain and Poland.

It is expected that the meeting will take place in the Domus Santa Marta, the Vatican bed and breakfast that Pope Francis uses as his residence in preference to the Apostolic Palace.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Northern Echo

THE Bishop of Durham has called for a public inquiry into abuse as peers expressed anger and disgust over the scale of Jimmy Savile’s sexual abuse in hospitals across the country.

The Right Reverend Paul Butler said cases like Savile and Rochdale highlighted that “we have a long history of abuse within institutions” including schools, care homes and churches.

“If we don’t face up to the past failures we will never really improve the future,” he told the Lords.

“Powerful people have engaged in serious abuse and worked with each other to create opportunities and share their vices and victims.”

He said an independent inquiry should examine institutionally based abuse going back up to the past 50 years.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 26, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314-503-0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

A Catholic newspaper says that next weekend, the pope will reportedly meet with clergy sex abuse victims from four countries: the U.S., Britain, Poland and Ireland.

[The Irish Catholic]

In each of those four countries, hundreds or even thousands of victims are bravely speaking up and protecting children by exposing clerics who commit and conceal heinous clergy sex crimes.

There’s a lesson here for victims across the world: despite deep pain and long odds, by overcoming your fears and uniting with other victims, you can attract attention and sometimes prod Catholic officials to do something. More importantly, by stepping forward, you can reduce your shame, get some help and begin – no matter what the church hierarchy does or doesn’t do – to really protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.

Apparently, the pope is not meeting with any victims from the developing world, which is sad, because the plight of clergy sex abuse victims there is even more desperate than the plight of victims in developed nations. It would be encouraging if Francis would include Argentinean victims in this meeting, especially Julieta Añazco (who was abused by Fr. Ricardo Gimenez who is still a priest in Buenos Aires), Sebastian Cuattromo (who was abused by Fr. Fernando Enrique Picchiochi) and Beatriz Varela (whose son was abused by Fr. Ruben Pardo).

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AUSTRALIA
Daily LIberal

By STEPHANIE KONATAR June 27, 2014

A NEW counselling support service, Sexual Assault Counselling Australia, was launched yesterday in Dubbo by Gemini Bakos, Duty Officer, Orana Local Area Command.

Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia (RDVSA), formerly NSW Rape and Crisis Centre, established the service to assist those impacted by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The purpose of yesterday’s seminar was to raise awareness of the services Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia provide among people within the industry.

“The impact of sexual assault is trauma, which can reek all sorts of havoc on a person and it can be difficult to assess and treat,” Karen Willis, Executive Officer of RDVSA, said.

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MICHIGAN
Record-Eagle

BY MATT TROUTMAN
mtroutman@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — An Honor man’s admission to a pastor about a sexual assault on a young boy at church can be used as evidence in a criminal trial, state appellate judges ruled.

Steven William Richard, 29, faces accusations he molested a boy, then 6, in the bathroom of Immanuel Baptist Church in Grand Traverse County’s Garfield Township during a January 2013 church service. He’d been scheduled to stand trial last year in 13th Circuit Court on a sex crime charge, but an appeal put that on hold.

Michigan Court of Appeals judges this week ruled Richard’s statements to a church pastor after the incident don’t fall under the state’s clergy-penitent privilege. Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Bob Cooney said that puts the case back into 13th Circuit Court Judge Philip Rodgers’ courtroom for trial.

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AUSTRALIA
Follow 1 in 3’s Blog

An Australian bishop has testified that until 2000, the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy discouraged bishops from taking action against priests accused of sexual abuse.

Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide told a government commission that when bishops sought to discipline abusive priests, “the Congregation for the Clergy consistently made things difficult for them in trying to do that.” He said that the Vatican dicastery regularly supported accused priests who wanted to remain in active ministry.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, who was prefect of the Congregation for Clergy from 1996 to 2006, acknowledged in a 2010 interview that he encouraged bishops to protect priests from prosecution for sexual abuse.

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MICHIGAN
Fox 17

by Paul Cicchini
Reporter

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (June 25, 2014) – District Court documents from Calhoun County are revealing the details of a sexual encounter a former radio host is accused of having with a child.

According to the bench warrant for John Balyo, the former WCSG host took an 11-year-old boy to a hotel in Battle Creek where the child performed oral sex on Balyo.

Ofc. Eric Andrews told the court the victim was also fondled during the encounter.

The document also shows Balyo confessed to the sex act during an interview with police, after he was advised of his Miranda rights.

Balyo is being held without bail on two counts of criminal sexual conduct, one charge in the first-degree and one in the second-degree.

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MICHIGAN
Newschannel 3

[with video]

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – Newschannel 3 has uncovered new information in the case of a former Christian radio host charged with having sexual contact with a child.

John Balyo, a former on-air personality at Christian radio station WCSG was charged with two counts of felony criminal sexual conduct on Monday.

Police say his victim is a 12-year-old boy.

Federal officials confirmed that Balyo had been renting a storage unit in Plainfield with some disturbing things in it.

When searching the unit, police found kids clothing, duct tape, handcuffs, and chains.

They also found children’s obituaries, and body parts from a mannequin.

Wednesday, Newschannel 3 obtained court documents that give more detail on what Balyo is accused of doing.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

[with video]

PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — Target 8 investigators have learned that a Christian radio host charged with raping an 11-year-old boy had a rented storage unit full of disturbing items.

According to federal agents, John Balyo, 35, told investigators about the storage unit when he was interviewed on June 20. He gave the agents consent to search the unit, which is located at West River Storage Suites on Samrick Avenue NE in Plainfield Township.

Among the items in the unit was a suitcase that held children’s socks and costumes, duct tape, four pairs of handcuffs, zip ties, rubber gloves, chains and a padlock, authorities said.

In addition, investigators found file folders full of magazine and newspaper articles about missing children, as well as copies of children’s obituaries, authorities said.

A federal source told Target 8 that agents found a bag containing various dismembered body parts from a medical mannequin in the storage unit.

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MICHIGAN
Daily Mail (UK)

By LOUISE BOYLE

Ex-Christian radio host who ‘admitted raping an 11-year-old boy’ had duct tape, handcuffs and chains in his storage unit

A former Christian radio host, who admitted to raping an 11-year-old boy, had a rented storage unit where he kept a ‘bondage kit’ of handcuffs, chains and duct tape, the FBI confirmed to MailOnline today.

John Balyo, 35, has been charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct after he confessed last week to having sex with a child.

It is claimed that Balyo, from Battle Creek, Michigan, paid a man to arrange a sex session with a minor for him.

He was arrested last Friday while at the Big Ticket Christian music festival in Gaylord, Michigan. He was a morning show host on Christian station WCSG.

The handcuffs and other items were found in a suitcase after police searched a storage unit in Plainfield Township last Friday.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman told MailOnline on Thursday that while being interviewed, Balyo indicated that he had a storage unit and gave officers permission to search the space.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By John Tunison | jtunison@mlive.com
on June 25, 2014

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Federal authorities are confirming that a storage unit rented to former WCSG radio host John Balyo had a “bondage” kit that contained items including handcuffs, chains and duct tape.

Balyo is charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving an 11-year-old boy. Police allege he paid a Battle Creek man to arrange for him to have sex with minors.

The “bondage” type items were discovered in a suitcase after a Friday, June 20, search of a Plainfield Township storage unit. Investigators also found a padlock, rubber gloves and children’s socks, authorities said.

A Homeland Security Investigations source said Balyo gave police consent to search the unit after he was arrested at a Christian music festival in Gaylord.

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MICHIGAN
Gaylord Herald-Times

GAYLORD — A former downstate Christian radio station host who was arrested on criminal sexual conduct charges June 20 at the Big Ticket Festival in Gaylord has been denied bond.

John Balyo, 35, of Caledonia, was arraigned in Calhoun County’s 10th District Court Monday on one count each of first degree criminal sexual conduct and second degree criminal sexual conduct.

The charges are punishable by up to life in prison and up to 15 years in prison, respectively.

Federal investigators confirmed that on June 20, items which could be used for bondage, including handcuffs, duct tape, rope, zip ties and socks, were found in a Plainfield Township storage unit, rented out by Balyo. Plainfield Township is located approximately 10 miles north of Grand Rapids.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By John Agar | jagar@mlive.com
on June 26, 2014

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – After the arrest of Christian radio host John Baylo on child-sex allegations, supporters of his wife, Bethany, and her son are raising funds on her behalf.

Organizers set a $50,000 goal for the online fund drive.

“I hope many small donations turn into a river of blessing for you,” a donor wrote. “May God’s love show through these tokens of support for you and your son.”

The website said: “On June 20, 2014, Bethany and her son’s world was turned upside down by unforeseen circumstances. A new bride of just seven weeks, this now single mom is now experiencing something that no person should have to endure. Bethany has always been the first one to reach out and help others, now it’s our turn to help her and her son.”

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Jun 26, 2014 By Pat Flanagan

It will be the first time since his election that the Pontiff has met with victims to hear of their experiences

Pope Francis will meet Irish survivors of clerical abuse in the Vatican next week, it emerged today.

It will be the first time since his election that the Pontiff has met with victims to hear of their experiences.

It will also be the first time a Pope has met Irish survivors.

Pope Francis has promised to continue a “zero tolerance” approach to abuse.

The Irish Catholic newspaper reported several survivors will travel from Ireland for the meeting, expected to take place at the Vatican guest house where the Pontiff has made his home.

It is understood they’ll be accompanied by clerical abuse victims from other parts of the world, including Britain, the US and Poland. One abuse survivor, Amnesty International Ireland chief Colm O’Gorman, said last night that the Pope must not merely listen, but respond.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (UK)

Lizzy Davies in Rome
The Guardian, Thursday 26 June 2014

The Vatican has blamed a pernicious mixture of insensitive priests, “conspicuously lavish” clerical lifestyles, the sex abuse scandal and a morally-lax modern culture dominated by the mass media for large numbers of Catholics no longer living their private lives according to church teachings.

In a document seen as the working paper for a hotly-anticipated meeting later this year, the Vatican said responses to a questionnaire it sent out globally last year showed that many ordinary believers were either ignorant of teachings on topics such as marriage and divorce or regarded them as overly intrusive.

The document found that insufficiently clear explanations, bad homilies and ill-prepared priests sometimes appeared to be to blame for the gulf between theory and practice. But it added: “On the other hand, many respondents confirmed that, even when the Church’s teachings about marriage and the family is known, many Christians have difficulty accepting it in its entirety.”

Pope Francis announced last year that the theme of October’s extraordinary session of the bishops’ synod would be devoted to the family, and the challenges the church faces when trying to connect with its flock on issues such as abortion, gay rights and artificial contraception.

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MONTANA
Greenwich Time

By MATT VOLZ, Associated Press
Updated 12:02 pm, Thursday, June 26, 2014

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Attorneys for an order of nuns plan to ask a judge Thursday for a new round of negotiations to settle claims of child sex abuse by priests and nuns in Montana, a request that comes less than three weeks before the first trial.

The first three plaintiffs who say they were abused as children in western Montana are scheduled to go to trial July 14. Additional trials with similarly small groups of plaintiffs are planned but not yet scheduled against the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province.

The order of nuns and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena are defendants in two lawsuits filed in 2011 on behalf of 362 plaintiffs who say they were sexually abused in schools, churches and orphanages across western Montana between the 1940s and the 1970s.

The diocese filed for bankruptcy reorganization in federal court earlier this year as part of a $15 million proposed settlement with the plaintiffs. The Ursulines are not participating in the settlement.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

JUNE 27, 2014

Dan Box
Crime Reporter
Sydney

A CATHOLIC priest barred from working publicly over allegations of child abuse continued to say mass and celebrate weddings in Australia and overseas while the Vatican spent years ­debating what action to take against him, the royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is investigating the church’s handling of John Gerard Nestor, who was defrocked in 2008, nearly 20 years after the church became aware of complaints against him.

Despite being suspended while the Vatican decided his fate, Mr Nestor wrote to his Australian bishop in about 2003, saying he was working at a US university where “50 people have returned to the sacraments as a result”.

“I have even recently cele­brated marriages of university students … with no objection from the bishop,” Mr Nestor wrote in a separate letter sent to the bishop of Wollongong in 2004.

Mr Nestor was barred from working publicly as a priest in 1997, following his conviction and subsequent acquittal on appeal for indecent assault, while the church investigated other abuse allegations against him.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Magazine

By Jeannette Cooperman June 20, 2014

They set up a counseling practice together, fell in love, married. Both had treated victims of sexual abuse. Then Patrick Fleming, a former priest himself, began treating priests who’d been perpetrators, and he asked his wife, Sue Lauber-Fleming, to help him run a therapy group at the residential facility just outside St. Louis where these men now live. Sue shook the day that she told them her own story, of being abused by her pastor, a monsignor, when she was 4 years old. But since then, the Flemings have met hundreds of times, in groups and individually, with dozens of priests convicted of sexual abuse. In one of their books, Broken Trust, they note that in the media, “each priest appears as a sad news photo of a man in black and in trouble.” There’s no clue as to why they did what they did or whether they realize the damage. After counseling these priests for 12 years, the Flemings have some insight.

PF: We have worked with victims of all kinds of abuse, and we know how horrible the acts are and what damaging effects they have. So none of what I’m going to say about perpetrators is to excuse what they have done. But what we have seen is that this is clearly a sickness. These men have been scorned, vilified, raked through the coals, and really judged to be evil in some way. But pretty often, they have been sexually abused themselves—[about two-thirds] of the time—and nearly all of them experienced some other kind of trauma when they were growing up. As they start to recover, they start—in most cases, not all—to have deep remorse about what they have done and deep shame. Their level of pain is often as intense as, or greater than, their victims’. SL: As intense. I would not say greater.

How long can their denial last? SL: One priest, in group, kept saying, “But I didn’t abuse them. I just was loving them.” He’d spent time in prison already. This went on and on. PF: We challenged him regularly. We can tell these stories really directly: “This is what your victim experienced. This is the pain; this is the emotional damage; this is the sexual damage; this is the spiritual damage. Does that sound like love to you?” SL: Three years later, it finally clicked: “Oh! I was needing love, and I used them to fulfill my need for love.”

It took three years? SL: Yeah. And insurance says see somebody for six months.

So what worked? PF: I think it was the honesty of other people in the group, and gradually working his denial down—by this time, Sue had shared her own story. Rarely, actually, is it time and distance.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

KARLIS SALNA
June 26, 2014

The former canonical advocate for a priest accused of molesting boys once called a church investigation into the alleged abuse a “witch hunt” and a “charade”, but now says he was later shocked by the evidence.

Father John Nestor was charged and convicted of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old altar boy in Wollongong in 1996 but was later acquitted on appeal.

Further allegations later surfaced, prompting attempts to have Father Nestor removed from the ministry and setting in train a church investigation under canon law.

The Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, at a hearing in Sydney on Thursday, heard that even before the criminal charges and church investigation, other members of Wollongong’s Catholic Diocese had become aware of Father Nestor’s activities.

Father Mark O’Keefe told the commission that, when he was an assistant priest at Nowra in November 1988, he had become aware of Father Nestor running summer camps for boys.

He heard that boys on one of the camps, which included lessons on “manliness”, had to run naked from a bus to a water hole and back, and that there were group shower sessions.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Brad Ryan

A priest who heard rumours of “boys running naked” at camps run by another priest says he refused to help promote the so-called “summer safaris”, but did not report his concerns to authorities.

Father Mark O’Keefe has been giving evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which is examining the case of former Wollongong priest John Nestor.

Mr Nestor was defrocked in 2008 after an investigation commissioned by the local diocese found he engaged in sexual misconduct at the camps between 1989 and 1993.

Father O’Keefe, now a parish priest in Wollongong, told the commission he became aware of the camps while working as an assistant priest in Nowra in 1988.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites Australia researcher (article posted 26 June 2014)

A priest of the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese, Father James Henry Scannell, aged 88, is currently undergoing a jury trial on charges that he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old altar boy more than 40 years ago. The alleged victim (now in his fifties) finally contacted the police after learning that his aunt’s funeral in 2010 was to be conducted by this priest, the court was told.

In the early 1970s, according to court documents, Father Scannell was stationed at St Anne’s parish in East Kew, Melbourne, where the 12-year-old served as an altar boy and attended with his aunt.

Father Scannell (date of birth 17 April 1926) is accused of sexually assaulting the boy at the priest’s parish house between August 1970 and July 1972 when the boy was aged between 11 and 13. Father Scannell has pleaded not guilty to one charge of buggery.

Father Scannell is alleged to have led the boy into his bedroom and then sexually assaulted him one day when the boy was at the priest’s house working for pocket money.

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IRELAND
Journal

POPE FRANCIS IS to meet with Irish survivors of clerical abuse next weekend.

It will be the first time since his election that the Pontiff has met with those who have been abused to hear of their experiences.

It will also be the first time that Irish survivors of abuse have met with a Pope.

The Irish Catholic reports that a number of Irish survivors will travel to the Vatican for the meeting which is expected to take place at the Vatican guesthouse – where the Pope lives.

They will be accompanied by survivors of clerical abuse from other parts of the world including Britain, the United States and Poland.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ABC News (Australia)

Jimmy Savile, the late BBC TV presenter revealed two years ago to have been one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders, might have sexually abused dead bodies in a hospital where he worked as a volunteer, say health investigators.

In 2012, police said Savile, one of the Britain’s best-known celebrities in the 1970s and 1980s, had sexually abused hundreds of victims, mainly young people, at hospitals and at BBC premises over six decades until his death aged 84 in 2011.

A series of reports covering 28 hospitals where he had worked showed Savile had used his fame and charitable work to get unsupervised access to patients, raping and sexually abusing boys, girls, men and women aged between five and 75 in wards, corridors and offices. …

Savile was knighted by Queen Elizabeth and honoured by the Pope for his voluntary work at hospitals, which he exploited to gain unprecedented access to patients.

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AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury

By KATE McILWAIN June 26, 2014

Unanderra priest Father Mark O’Keefe was questioned about his support for an accused child molester – in defiance of his bishop’s orders – at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Thursday.

Wollongong priest John Gerard Nestor was convicted of aggravated sexual assault towards a teenage boy in 1996 but was later acquitted.

After other complaints about Mr Nestor’s behaviour at summer altar boy camps and a long campaign by the Wollongong Catholic Diocese, he was defrocked by decree of the Pope in 2008.

In 1998, however, Fr O’Keefe allowed Mr Nestor to conduct Mass at his Unanderra church despite instructions from then Wollongong Bishop Philip Wilson that he not do so, the commission heard.

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VATICAN CITY
Headlines from the Catholic World

Vatican City, Jun 26, 2014 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a statement released by Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J., the Vatican spokesman revealed that the Holy See is to appoint an adviser to assist the Legionaries in the revision of their newly-drafted constitutions.

Having received numerous questions from journalists regarding the state of the Legionaries in light of the set revisions, Fr. Lombardi published the answers he received from spoken with Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz and Archbishop Jose Rodriguez Carballo, who are currently overseeing the process.

Cardinal Braz de Aviz serves as prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and Archbishop Carballo as the congregation’s secretary.

In the statement published June 25, Archbishop Carballo explained that the identity of the Vatican-appointed adviser has not yet been released, but that as “a gesture of fraternal closeness” he and Cardinal Braz de Aviz will meet with the Legionaries general director, Fr. Robles Gil, July 3 to discuss the needed changes to their constitutions and to reveal who the adviser will be.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

by Michael Kelly
June 26, 2014

EXCLUSIVE

Irish survivors of clerical abuse will travel to Rome next week for a key meeting with Pope Francis The Irish Catholic has learned.

It will be the first time since his election that the Pontiff has met with those who have been abused by priests and religious to hear of their experiences. Francis has promised to continue a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to abuse.

The Irish Catholic understands that a number of Irish survivors will travel for the encounter which is expected to take place next weekend at the Vatican guesthouse where the Pope has made his home.

It is understood that they will be accompanied by survivors of clerical abuse from other parts of the world including Britain, the United States and Poland.

The encounter with the Pope, which Vatican sources say will afford survivors the opportunity to recount their suffering first-hand to Francis, will be private. Survivors will then be able to decide whether or not they want to speak to the media about the papal meeting with many expected to remain anonymous.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Jun. 26, 2014 NCR Today

Pope Francis is to meet with survivors of clergy sexual abuse for the first time as pontiff next week, according to a report Thursday by the independent Irish newspaper The Irish Catholic.

Survivors of abuse, the newspaper reports, will be meeting Francis at the Vatican guesthouse where the pontiff lives. Among those met by Francis will reportedly be survivors from Ireland, Britain, the U.S., and Poland.

The encounter would follow remarks made by Francis during a press conference after the pontiff’s trip to the Holy Land in May, when he said he would be hosting such a meeting. Timing of the event would also place it during the same week as the July 1-4 meeting of the Council of Cardinals, the eight-cardinal group that is advising the pontiff on reforming the governance of the church.

Among members of that group is Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who is serving on a new papal commission on clergy sexual abuse and had been asked by Francis to set up a meeting with survivors.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MICHAEL WALSH THE AUSTRALIAN JUNE 26, 2014

SEXUAL assault reports hit a four-year high last year, with victim support groups attributing the rise to awareness created by the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics today reveals almost 20,000 sexual assaults were reported to police in 2013, an increase of 8 per cent on the previous year.

While all states and territories recorded an increase, the largest change was seen in Tasmania where the number of reports rose by 48 per cent. This was followed by New South Wales with an 11 per cent increase.

NSW Rape Crisis Centre executive officer Karen Willis said it was encouraging that more victims were coming forward.

“This is great news, because what we know is that only 17 per cent of people who experience sexual assault report it to police. We know it’s really difficult for victims to come forward,” she said.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

An alleged victim was compelled to come forward after 40 years of silence by the prospect of his aunt’s funeral being conducted by the priest he says sexually abused him as a boy.

James Henry Scannell, 88, is accused of luring an altar boy to the bedroom of his Melbourne home in the early 1970s and sexually assaulting him.

When Scannell agreed to conduct the funeral of the boy’s aunt in 2010, the alleged victim told his family to find another priest, prosecutor Kristie Churchill said.

The former altar boy, now aged in his 50s, approached police just months later, Ms Churchill told Scannell’s Victorian County Court trial.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

The former canonical advocate for a priest accused of molesting boys once wrote to the accused and told him he had “suffered enough”.

The former canonical advocate for a priest accused of molesting boys once called a church investigation into the alleged abuse a “witch hunt” and a “charade”, but now says he was later shocked by the evidence.

Father John Nestor was charged and convicted of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old altar boy in Wollongong in 1996 but was later acquitted on appeal.

Further allegations later surfaced, prompting attempts to have Father Nestor removed from the ministry and setting in train a church investigation under canon law.

The Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, at a hearing in Sydney on Thursday, heard that even before the criminal charges and church investigation, other members of Wollongong’s Catholic Diocese had become aware of Father Nestor’s activities.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

There are Eight kinds of power the Vatican exercises to control Catholics, other people and countries. They are traditional, charismatic, coercive, social, legal, remunerative, expert and ecological powers. All Americans must decipher which of these power(s) control them – so they can set America free from the Vatican Mammon Beast a.k.a. Opus Dei Beast and all their deceptions and tentacles on the American dollar — for America is the main donor of the Vatican. Two other articles affirm this. “Why America needs to confront the Vatican”

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UNITED STATES
Intermountain Catholic

Friday, Jun. 27, 2014

By Msgr. M. Francis Mannion
Pastor emeritus of St. Vincent de Paul Parish

More than one commentator has suggested recently that Pope Francis is all symbolism and little substance. I disagree. (For one thing, I think symbolism is substance.)

Here are six areas in which Pope Francis has made real differences that are unlikely to be overturned by a future pope.

1. The end of the imperial papacy. “Conservative” theologians never tire of saying that the Church is not a democracy. That’s true. But neither is it a monarchy, never mind an empire. It is, as Cardinal Avery Dulles said, “a community of disciples.”

Pope Francis is no imperial figure. He does not live in the Apostolic Palace, but in a guesthouse. He has avoided much of the traditional papal regalia. He dislikes the idea of a papal court, with its myriad of ceremonial attendants. He travels in a modest car, even on occasion on a bus (with cardinals).

2. More effective communication. Traditionally, popes have spoken with extreme caution and avoided spontaneous comments. Now, Francis gives daily homilies off the cuff. He speaks freely to crowds – and never over their heads. His engaging and open style of communication has mesmerized the media, and it is often said of Pope Francis that “The world is listening.”

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WASHINGTON
National Catholic Reporter

Catholic News Service | Jun. 25, 2014

SEATTLE
Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain said Tuesday that he hopes the settlement of 30 claims of sexual abuse will bring victims “closure and allow them to continue the process of healing.”

The Seattle archdiocese settled cases involving abuse that the victims said was carried out by members of the Christian Brothers at two institutions managed by the order in western Washington.

The most recent cases in question were nearly 30 years old and some dated back almost 60 years, according to an archdiocesan press release announcing the settlement, which totaled $12.1 million.

A teaching order, the Christian Brothers operated the Briscoe School, a boarding and day school for boys in the Kent Valley, beginning in 1914. The order also staffed and managed Bishop O’Dea High School, an archdiocesan school, from its opening in 1923.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Jun. 26, 2014
Synod on the Family

Struggles faced by faithful around the world in following Catholic teachings stem mainly from ineffective education in those teachings and the pervasive effect of a relativistic culture, states the guiding document for an upcoming Synod of Bishops on the family.

The document, anticipated by many Catholics as a barometer for what to expect from the synod, also strongly reinforces church teachings regarding the indissolubility of marriage, the restriction of marriage to heterosexual couples, and that partners must be open to having children.

At the same time, the document states, the church must respond with mercy to the struggles of families to adhere to sometimes controversial teachings — like those prohibiting divorce and remarriage, contraception, cohabitation, and same-sex marriage — and “support her children on the path of reconciliation.”

Released by the Vatican on Thursday, the document was prepared for an extraordinary Synod of Bishops to be held in October. Called by Pope Francis last year, the 2014 synod is the first of two back-to-back yearly meetings of the world’s Catholic bishops at the Vatican on the theme of “pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization.”

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NEW YORK
The Riversale Press

Child abuse victims stung by Albany inaction

By Shant Shahrigian
Posted 6/25/14

Horace Mann School graduate Joseph Cumming says it took him 34 years to fully realize his treatment at the hands of his music teacher Johannes Somary was sexual abuse. But by then, even if he had wanted to, it was far too late for him to take legal action. New York’s criminal and civil statute of limitations for sexual abuse of minors is five years after the victim turns 18.

After revelations of decades of abuse involving more than 30 victims at Horace Mann emerged in June 2012, the Bronx District Attorney’s office said the limitations prevented it from prosecuting any of the perpetrators.

The state legislature’s recent failure to take up the Child Victims Act — which would eliminate the criminal and civil statues of limitations for child sexual abuse and create a one-year window for past victims to seek justice — infuriated Mr. Cumming and other survivors.

They placed the blame on state Sen. Co-Majority Leader Jeff Klein, the leader of the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), who decides which bills come to the floor of the senate in consultation with Republican Co-Majority Leader Dean Skelos.

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MASSACHUSETTS
MassLive

By State House News Service
on June 25, 2014

BOSTON — Gov. Deval Patrick on Thursday will sign bills raising the minimum wage to $11 per hour by 2017 and extending the statute of limitations in civil child sex abuse cases.

The minimum wage bill (S 2195), which Patrick will sign at 11 a.m. in the Statehouse’s Nurses Hall, increases the wage from $8 per hour in three annual steps and gives Massachusetts the highest minimum wage in the country.

The bill also includes unemployment insurance reforms and increases wages for tipped workers to $3.75 from $2.63.

At 2 p.m., Patrick is scheduled to sign in Room 157 a bill extending the statute of limitations in civil child sex abuse cases (H 4126).

The bill extends the statute to 35 years after a victim turns 18, up from three years, meaning individuals can file lawsuits until they turn 53 years old. The bill also allows individuals who discover late in life they’ve suffered emotional and psychological harm to file a claim seven years after the discovery, up from the current three years.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

June 26, 2014

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

A disgraced clergyman claimed it was ”common practice” for priests to sleep with boys when he was under investigation by Catholic Church assessors as part of the Towards Healing process.

The Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard that defrocked Wollongong priest John Nestor denied that sharing a bed with teenage boys was inappropriate.

Mr Nestor was convicted of sexually molesting a 15-year-old altar boy in 1996 but later acquitted on appeal. He is not expected to appear at the hearing, which is examining how the Catholic Church deals with cases in which convictions have not been made against priests accused of wrongdoing.
In a 1998 letter read out to the royal commission on Wednesday, Mr Nestor told Catholic Church investigators he had done nothing wrong by sharing a bed with the boys.

”I deny inappropriate behaviour, in the circumstances,” he wrote.

”This allegation must be considered in the context of common practice of other priests at the time.”

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The working document for the October 2014 extraordinary Synod of Bishops offers a picture of the Catholic Church today struggling to preach the Gospel and transmit moral teachings amid a “widespread cultural, social and spiritual crisis” of the family.

The 75-page “instrumentum laboris,” published by the Vatican June 26, is supposed to “provide an initial reference point” for discussion at the synod, whose theme will be the “pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization.”

The document is based principally on comments solicited in a questionnaire last November from national bishops’ conferences around the world. But it also reflects comments sent directly to the Vatican by individuals and groups responding to the questionnaire, which was widely published on the Internet.

Topics in the working document include some of the most contested and controversial areas of Catholic moral teaching on the family, including contraception, divorce and remarriage, same-sex marriage, premarital sex and in vitro fertilization.

Bishops’ conferences responding to the questionnaire attributed an increasing disregard of such teachings to a variety influences, including “hedonistic culture; relativism; materialism; individualism; (and) the growing secularism.”

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VIRGINIA
Northern Virginia Daily

By Joe Beck

LURAY — A former pastor in Luray and Shenandoah County has pleaded guilty to six counts in a child molestation case in Page County Circuit Court.

The plea agreement of James Richard Daley, 71, a pastor at the Lebanon Lutheran Church in Lebanon Church for several years in the 1980s, did not specify any sentencing recommendations but Daley could spend the rest of his life in prison. Page County Commonwealth’s Attorney Kenneth Alger II said the five felony counts of indecent liberties with a child and one felony count of aggravated sexual battery to a child less than 13 years old carry a prison term of up to 45 years.

Daley’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Aug. 25.

Alger said in an interview Wednesday that he consulted with the victims and their families about the plea agreement, and all of them supported it.

Daley was initially charged with 12 counts of aggravated sexual battery to a child less than 13. Alger said the investigation involved several victims but the grand jury indictments pertained to only one.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

BY BRAD RYAN
June 26, 2014

A Catholic priest who criticised an investigation into allegedly abusive priest John Nestor says he did not know about the evidence in the case and it “shocked” him when he later saw it.

Canon law expert and priest of 50 years, Rev Dr Kevin Matthews, says he now believes his criticisms were “over the top” and Mr Nestor “violated many boundaries”.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining the case involving Mr Nestor, a former Wollongong priest who was the subject of numerous complaints about his conduct towards young boys.

After Mr Nestor was convicted of abusing an altar boy in 1996, local bishop Philip Wilson tried to remove Mr Nestor from the ministry, even though the conviction was overturned a year later.

The commission has heard Bishop Wilson’s efforts to defrock Mr Nestor were resisted by the Vatican for years, until Mr Nestor was dismissed by Pope Benedict in 2008.

Rev Matthews acted as Mr Nestor’s ‘canonical advocate’ – an adviser in canon law and “companion on the journey”.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

David Unze, dunze@stcloudtimes.com

COLLEGEVILLE – St. John’s Abbey Abbot John Klassen this week defended his response to clergy sex abuse allegations, issuing a statement that says the abbey strives for transparency and the truth, even when allegations against a monk are unfounded.

A 1,051-word statement from Klassen this week to the St. John’s Prep School community included his “personal reflections” on whether the abbey’s responses to abuse allegations have “fallen short of what is expected.”

Klassen cited a letter he said he recently received that asked where the “public voice” of St. John’s is when abuse allegations are made.

“I know we are bound to disappoint some of our friends who believe we respond too timidly and others who see our responses as incomplete and even disingenuous,” Klassen wrote.

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AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury

By KATE McILWAIN June 25, 2014

A former Wollongong bishop felt so strongly that a priest accused of child molestation should not be allowed to practise he was willing to “take the matter all the way to the Pope” and resign if necessary, the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard on Wednesday.

Philip Wilson, now the Archbishop of Adelaide, also criticised the Congregation for the Clergy (CFC) – one of the Vatican’s most powerful bodies – for always taking the side of priests accused of abuse.

Archbishop Wilson was being questioned about events in 1997 on day two of the hearing into the Wollongong Catholic Diocese’s response to child sexual abuse complaints against then Father John Nestor.

At that time, Mr Nestor had successfully appealed a conviction of aggravated indecent assault against a 15-year-old altar boy.

However, due to other complaints – including that Mr Nestor had watched boys showering, made boys bathe naked, conducted bodily “soap inspections” and touched a boy “on the penis and the bum” – Archbishop Wilson was seeking to bar him from working in the ministry until further assessments had been done.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

MARK COLVIN: The Catholic bishop of Wollongong Peter Ingham has appeared before the child abuse royal commission and expressed his frustration with the Vatican at the spent years trying to stop a priest from working in the community, especially with children.

Bishop Ingham said despite Father John Nestor’s eventual acquittal on charges of indecent assault, his past behaviour represented an unacceptable risk and he should not be allowed to work in public ministry.

He also echoed the views of his predecessor who said he would have to resign if John Nestor was allowed to continue to work as a priest.

Emily Bourke has the story.

EMILY BOURKE: The royal commission is continuing to shine a light on internal processes of the Catholic Church, and in particular it’s forced the door open on how the Church investigates and establishes the facts around child sexual abuse allegations brought against priests or religious.

Today, a leading canon lawyer, Kevin Matthews, revealed some serious shortcomings.

Under questioning by Justice Peter McClellan and counsel assisting Angus Stewart, Dr Matthews admitted that cases against priests are frequently tossed out because they can’t be proved through the canon law process.

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IRELAND
Catholic News Service

By Michael Kelly
Catholic News Service

DUBLIN (CNS) — The Irish government is finalizing the parameters of a judicial inquiry into church-run state-funded mother and baby homes.

The inquiry comes amid increased disquiet about some of the reporting of the original story of St. Mary’s Home in Tuam, run by the Bon Secours congregation of nuns.

In May, local historian Catherine Corless revealed her research, which found that between 1925 and 1961, 976 infants died in the home for unmarried mothers and their children. She had found no evidence that they were buried in local cemeteries and instead believed that the children may have been buried in a common grave on the site.

However, several media outlets began reporting that the children had been “dumped” in a disused septic tank on the site. Within days, the international media was gripped by the story — much of which turned out to be factually inaccurate.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Financial Intelligence Unit (AIF) of the Holy See and Vatican City State signed a bilateral cooperation agreement with Argentina on Tuesday, in an effort to expand the international network “to fight money laundering and the financing of terrorism”.

Read the official statement below:

L’Autorità Informazione Finanziaria (AIF), the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Holy See and Vatican City State, has formalized its bilateral cooperation with Argentina, signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at the Vatican on Tuesday.

The MOU was signed in the Palazzo San Carlo by the Director of AIF, Rene Bruelhart, and the President of the Unidad de Información Financiera (UIF) of Argentina, José Sbattella.

“We’re very pleased to have signed this MOU with Argentina today,” Bruelhart said. “This is an important step to further expand the network to support global efforts to fight money laundering and the financing of terrorism. We’re looking forward to fruitful cooperation with Argentina, which will be beneficial to both parties.”

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CHILE
La Tercera

Llegué tarde a la lectura de “El fin de la inocencia” del periodista y ex seminarista Juan Carlos Cruz, luego de haber abordado muy tempranamente las dos contundentes investigaciones periodísticas que existen sobre el siniestro caso del cura Karadima: “Los secretos del imperio Karadima”, del equipo de Ciper Chile, liderado por Mónica González, y “Karadima, el señor de los infiernos”, de María Olivia Monckeberg, que se publicaron el año pasado. (Leer reseñas: http://noticias.terra.cl/ximena-torres-cautivo/blog/tag/los-secretos-del-imperio-de-karadima/ y http://noticias.terra.cl/ximena-torres-cautivo/blog/2011/04/28/karadima-el-senor-de-los-infiernos-habla-su-autora/)

Por estos días, la gente que lee y compra libros le ha dado la preferencia al testimonio en primera persona de Juan Carlos Cruz, donde relata de una manera transparente y casi ingenua la tragedia de su vida: el abuso sexual y sicológico que padeció en la otrora tan respetable Parroquia El Bosque, donde tenía su imperio Fernando Karadima.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas C. Fox | Jun. 25, 2014 NCR Today

SAINT LOUIS, MO — Since its inaugural gathering in June 2012, a meeting that drew some 240 priests to St. Leo University northeast of Tampa, Fla, the Association of U.S. Priests, which claims more than 1.000 members, has said it wants to give priests a voice.

Using a numbering system to indicate degrees of support, the association passed eight resolutions dealing with priest support of the new Roman Missal translation, for the late Cardinal Bernardin’s Common Ground initiative, immigration support, married clergy, workers’ pensions, input into the selection of bishops, broadening the association’s membership base and fostering greater dialogue with the bishops.

This is how they fared: With 3 being the highest scored and representing “very strong favor” and -3 being the lowest and representing “very strong disfavor,”

* a resolution to form a task force to keep track up difficulties priests are experiencing with the new translations received a 2.8.
* a resolution calling for more transparency and involvement in the selection of bishops also received a 2.8.
* a resolution calling for the establishment of an immigration working group in support of comprehensive immigration reform received a 2.72
* a resolution calling upon the U.S. bishops to support a married priesthood received a 2.5 score
* a resolution calling for support for worker’s pensions received a 2.1
* and a resolution calling for support of inter-church dialogued based on Cardinal Bernardin’s “Common Ground” initiative received 2.0.

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MEXICO
La Tarde

* La Procuraduría señaló que en caso de ser necesario recurrirán a la Interpol para la ubicación y detención del cura Eduardo Córdova

La Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado de San Luis Potosí (PGJE) dio a conocer que se obtuvo por parte de un juez, la orden de aprehensión contra el sacerdote Eduardo Córdova Bautista, acusado de pederastia.

La Procuraduría señaló que en caso de ser necesario recurrirán a la Interpol para la ubicación y detención de Eduardo Córdova, acusado de abuso sexual de menores cuando se desempañaba como sacerdote de la Arquidiócesis de San Luis Potosí.

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MEXICO
Entorno Inteligente

Vanguardia / Un Juzgado Penal otorgó a la Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado (PGJE) una orden de aprehensión en contra del sacerdote Eduardo Córdova Bautista, acusado de los delitos de abuso sexual calificado, corrupción de menores y privación ilegal de la libertad en agravio de 19 menores.

El procurador estatal, Miguel Ángel García Covarrubias, informó que solicitará el apoyo a todas las Procuraduría de Justicia del país para la localización y captura del religioso.

Dijo que de ser necesario recurrirá a la Interpol mediante la emisión de la “ficha roja”, para su búsqueda internacional.

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MEXICO
Quincy Herald-Whig

MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexican authorities say a judge has ordered the arrest of a now-suspended priest accused of sexually abusing minors in the northern state of San Luis Potosi.

The state attorney general’s office said Wednesday that Eduardo Cordova is considered a fugitive.

Earlier this month, 19 people filed a criminal complaint alleging that they were sexually abused by Cordova and that his archdiocese covered up the allegations for years.

The complaint was filed in San Luis Potosi, where Cordova had recently served as the archdiocese’s legal representative.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) In a statement released on Wednesday, the Director of the Holy See Press Office spoke about the situation of two religious orders, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, and the Legionaries of Christ, based on information received from the Secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

The statement said that Father Fidenzio Volpi, who has been appointed as Commissioner to supervise the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, along with all the seminarians of the Order, were received by Pope Francis in an audience at Casa Santa Marta on June 10. The audience was described as “a gesture that demonstrates the interest with which Pope Francis is following the situation of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, and his closeness to the work that the Commissioner is undertaking in the name of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.” The statement said the Holy Father was being kept informed of all that was being taken in regard to the situation. Currently, a residence is being sought in Rome where the student brothers of the Institute who are attending Pontifical Universities in Rome can live in order to continue their studies.

Wednesday’s statement also addressed the situation of the Legionaries of Christ. Following the celebration of a General Chapter, the Legionaries have returned to the competence of the Congregation for Consecrated life. The Legion had been under an Apostolic Delegate, whose work concluded with the General Chapter. As a “gesture of fraternal closeness,” the statement said, the Prefect and the Secretary of the Congregation will visit the headquarters of the Legionaries on 3 July to discuss personally the corrections that should be made to the Constitutions presented to Dicastery, and to announce the name of the Pontifical Assistant.

The statement noted that the corrections to the Constitutions are very few.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Richard Chin
rchin@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 06/25/2014

A former top official in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis will have to undergo further questioning in a sexual abuse lawsuit against the church, according to a decision Wednesday by a Ramsey County judge.

The Rev. Kevin McDonough, former vicar general for the archdiocese, had been required to give depositions in a lawsuit about the church’s handling of child-abusing priests.

District Judge John Van de North ruled in a hearing on the lawsuit of a plaintiff known at Doe 1. Doe 1 is suing the archdiocese, alleging former priest Thomas Adamson molested him in 1976 or 1977 when Adamson served at St. Thomas Aquinas in St. Paul Park.

Van de North also said Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt won’t be questioned again by attorneys suing the church.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

We’re glad a high ranking Twin Cities Catholic official will be deposed again and hope his archbishop will also insist that he be questioned by police too.

[Star Tribune]

Fr. Kevin McDonough very likely knows more about clergy sex crimes and cover ups than any church employee in Minnesota. For years he was the “go to guy” in pedophile priest cases in the Twin Cities area. We believe that dozens of kids were assaulted because Fr. McDonough misled parishioners and protected predators. And we believe that Fr. McDonough should be defrocked.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Catholic Review

June 24, 2014

By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON – Parishioners who have occupied a closed Massachusetts Catholic church for nearly a decade said they plan one final petition to Pope Francis to prevent the building from being sold by the Boston Archdiocese.

Jon Rogers, a member of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish in Scituate, said petitioning the pope was a last resort measure. Despite the step, he said he was not sure it would succeed.

“We promised 10 years ago when we started this we would exhaust every avenue of appeal,” Rogers told Catholic News Service June 24.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini parishioners have kept an around-the-clock presence in the church since October 2004 in the hope that various appeals based on canon law would be successful. The parish was one of 70 that closed beginning in 2004 in a downsizing plan carried out under Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley.

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UNITED STATES
Mennonite Life

Peter Dula
ISSUE 2014, VOL. 68

In 1970, Geoffrey Hartman, a young professor of literature, brought his friend Paul de Man to join him in the English department at Yale. In the ensuing years, the two of them became close colleagues in the American reception of Jacques Derrida for whom, in 1975, they arranged a recurring visiting appointment. The three became close friends and together changed the way American professors and students thought about literature. But they couldn’t have come from more different backgrounds. At the age of nine, Hartman had been in Kindertransport, the program that evacuated Jewish children from Germany to England in 1939. He didn’t see his mother again for 6 years. Derrida had to leave his school in Algiers when the quota for Jewish students was reduced and Algerian Jews lost their citizenship. De Man, it turns out, was a crassly opportunistic Nazi collaborator who wrote a series of anti-Semitic articles in the Belgian press in the ‘40s1. What does it mean that these three, with such different histories, could agree on so much about literature and philosophy?

Reading the reviews of Evelyn Barish’s new book on de Man2, I couldn’t help but think of John Howard Yoder. As de Man’s students and colleagues have struggled to come to grips with his Nazi past, so Mennonite theologians and others are now, finally, trying to learn how to think about Yoder’s violence against women. We all owe Barb Graber and Ruth Krall a great deal for refusing to let us (by which I mean myself and other Mennonite theologians who write about and teach Yoder) continue to ignore the facts of Yoder’s violence. Graber asked us to do something specific: Welcome, encourage and make efforts to include analysis of the astoundingly ironic disconnect between Yoder’s orthodoxy and his severe lack of orthopraxy.3 In what follows, thanks to Mennonite Life, I take up that invitation. I begin with de Man’s case not to imply that such a task is impossible, but to acknowledge how complex it can be. All ideas are products of a social location. But, as the de Man story shows, how they are so, is an incredibly complex question. There is no straight line of determination between life and work; there are countless crooked and tangled threads. In what follows I try to identify and follow one thread in Yoder.

While I am a theologian, deeply indebted to the work of Yoder, my teaching responsibilities tend to be for EMU’s Religious Studies curriculum. So aside from an essay in our introductory Christian ethics course and an essay in an anthropology of religion course, I have only taught Yoder at length in one class, a topics seminar on political theology in the Fall of 2011. That seminar spent one class period (out of four on Yoder) talking about Yoder’s sexual violence and if and how we should relate that to his work.

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UNITED STATES
Menno Snapshots

Published: June 19th, 2014, Posted by: Annette Brill Bergstresser

The Discernment Group, convened by Mennonite Church USA to address issues related to sexual abuse, has been working hard on multiple fronts.

The group met on June 3 in Elkhart, Ind. Carolyn Holderread Heggen, who serves as an advisor to the group, was able to join us for the entire meeting. We also conferred with Rachel Waltner Goossen, the historian who is researching Mennonite institutional responses to reports of John Howard Yoder’s sexual violations in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s.

Here are several emerging initiatives the group has been tending to:

1. Documenting the scope of Yoder’s abuse and the church’s response to it. An issue of Mennonite Quarterly Review focusing on sexual abuse in Mennonite contexts is planned for early 2015. It will include an article by Goossen on Mennonite church institutional responses to Yoder’s sexual abuse of women. In the meantime, we want to report several findings as we have revisited the legacy of Yoder’s sexual violations. We are discovering from previously unexamined institutional and personal files, which include memos by Yoder himself, additional evidence of sexual violation perpetrated by Yoder on many women, including students, missionaries, church workers and others. We are also learning how long it took church leaders to intervene effectively. There are documented reports of sexual violation by Yoder, including fondling and sexual intercourse. In some instances, women who engaged in sexual encounters were persuaded, at least initially, by Yoder that such behavior was permissible between Christian “brothers” and “sisters.” Many others resisted his unwanted advances, and were perplexed and distressed by his pursuit.

While a four-year church accountability process for Yoder began in 1992, doubt lingers about its outcome since very little about this process was communicated to the general public. In 1996, when the process concluded, recommendations were made for “the continuing use of an accountability plan” and that “the church use his [Yoder’s] gifts of writing and teaching.” Additionally, very little has been communicated about the prolonged and devastating impact that Yoder’s sexual abuse has had on many women. There is much for the church to lament about the harm inflicted on these individuals, as well as the grief experienced by family members of all involved, and by colleagues and administrators who tried to call Yoder to account.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the second retraction by the Associated Press (AP) over Ireland’s “mass grave” story:

AP issued its first retraction on June 20 regarding its stories of June 3 and June 8 on Ireland’s “mass grave” story. On June 23, AP reporter Shawn Pogatchnik issued a second, more complete, retraction; his article was titled, “Media Exaggerated Horror Tale at Irish Orphanage.” Here is an excerpt of what he said:

“The reports of unmarked graves shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the Irish public, who for decades have known that some of the 10 defunct ‘mother and baby homes,’ which chiefly housed the children of unwed mothers, held grave sites with forgotten dead. The religious orders’ use of unmarked graves reflected the crippling poverty of the time, the infancy of most of the victims, and the lack of plots in cemeteries corresponding to the children’s fractured families.”

“Contrary to the allegation of widespread starvation highlighted in some reports, only 18 children were recorded as suffering from severe malnutrition. While publicly available records are incomplete, sporadic inspection reports indicate that the orphanage’s population exceeded 250 throughout the worst years of child mortality, when overcrowding would have encouraged the spread of infection.”

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UNITES STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Robert McClory | Jun. 24, 2014 NCR Today

The strong public scolding Cardinal Gerhard Müller delivered in April to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious really disturbed many Catholics. It was so obviously out of sync with Pope Francis’ call for dialogue, discernment and especially respect when discussing matters of faith.

Yet, Müller’s blunt, confrontational accusations stirred little immediate reaction. It was as if people were stunned into silence by the contrast between the pope’s approach and that of the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

Some wondered if the pope and Müller might be playing a good-cop-bad-cop routine for reasons that were not clear. The LCWR leadership refused to respond to Müller’s specifics and said they somehow had a fruitful dialogue with the cardinal and affirmed their determination to stay at the table despite the cardinal’s opening rant. And several coalitions of reform groups urged the pope to apologize for an outburst so contrary to his own approach.

For more than a month then, there was mostly silence and a turn to other topics. I was not aware of any bishops or priests speaking out until a brisk retort to Müller was issued by the little known Association of U.S. Catholic Priests (AUSCP) at their meeting in Seattle on June 2. The association, formed three years ago, had been docile and relatively invisible until now. In a letter addressed to Francis, however, they expressed “sadness and dismay” at Müller’s “abuse of the process” with the sisters. Here are a few samples from their candid statement.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona

[summary page]

[with press packet]

Abuse Summary Release
Monday, June 23 at 11:00 a.m.
Cathedral of Sacred Heart, St. Thomas Room
360 Main St, Winona, MN (SE parking lot entrance)

WINONA, MN – June 23, 2014 – In an unprecedented effort for transparency and healing, today the Diocese of Winona voluntarily released an abuse summary of details and facts surrounding 13 priests who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse while serving in the Diocese of Winona decades ago. Nine of the thirteen priests on the list are deceased, two have been laicized, and two are pending laicization. No priests of the Diocese of Winona who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse are still in active ministry. The Diocese concern is for the rights of everyone involved and the abuse summary complies with legal restrictions about privacy of medical and mental health information and protects the victims and the innocent. There is full disclosure of the identity of abusers.

“We are committed first and foremost for the compassionate healing for the victims and their families. We remain steadfast to finding and telling the truth and are vigilantly committed to ensuring these unspeakable crimes against children never happen again,” said Most Reverend John M. Quinn, Bishop of the Diocese of Winona.

Nearly all of the sexual abuse committed in the information made public today happened in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Many of the priests who had sexually abused children were sent for treatment and diagnosis when the accusations of abuse were made known to the Diocese. In many of the cases, priests were assessed, diagnosed and treated by medical professionals and were recommended they could return to active ministry.

“Today, we know much more about the diagnosis and treatment of pedophilia than we did twenty years ago. The compulsion to abuse is present in 4 percent of the general male population, about the same percentage you see in the priest population,” said Nelle Moriarty, Chair of the Diocesan Review Board and member to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) National Review Board. “The USCCB’s Charter for the Protection of Youth and Young Persons recognizes that second chances cannot be given when the safety of our children and young persons are at risk,” said Moriarty.

This knowledge and awareness has empowered the Church to take extensive measures to ensure that our children are safer than ever before. The Diocese of Winona is in full compliance with the Charter, adopted by the U.S. Bishops in 2002 and requires that no priest with even one substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor can serve in public ministry. The Diocese of Winona has a zero tolerance policy for child sexual abuse and has adopted a policy that goes above and beyond the legislature’s mandatory reporting requirement, by reporting all accusations of child sexual abuse to law enforcement, not just those within three years of the report, as required by statute.

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MINNESOTA
Winona Post

By Chris Rogers

For the first time ever — as best as church officials could tell — an American diocese voluntarily released the details of reports of child sexual abuse by its priests and a Winona bishop publicly stated that he believes that the allegations are true.

Following a court order, the Diocese of Winona (DOW) released the names of 14 priests “credibly accused” of child sexual abuse last December. On Monday, the diocese released additional information about reports of abuse the diocese received over decades, including, in many cases, when the reports were made and what was done.

“We have learned that we need to be transparent and honest in order for people to understand that what we’re doing [now] is different and children are being protected,” said Bishop John Quinn, explaining the decision to release the summaries. DOW Director of Communications Joel Hennessy and public relations consultant Laurie Archbold noted the criticism of the diocese in recent news reports, and described the release as an opportunity for the diocese to be honest about the past and demonstrate how it has changed.

Most of the reported abuses took place during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Nine of the alleged abusers are deceased, two have already been laicized, and another two are facing laicization. In most of the cases, reports of abuse were apparently not relayed to law enforcement officials. The Minnesota mandatory reporting law, which requires people who work with children to convey reports of child abuse to law enforcement agencies, was enacted in 1975.

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ITALY
Washington Post

Italian priest charged with soliciting sexual favors from desperate refugees

BY JOSEPHINE MCKENNA | RELIGION NEWS SERVICE June 25

ROME — The Catholic Church in Italy is facing an embarrassing scandal after the arrest of a priest accused of demanding sexual favors from immigrants seeking political asylum in Sicily.

The Rev. Sergio Librizzi, who was also the director of the Catholic charity Caritas in the Sicilian city of Trapani, was arrested at his parish on Tuesday (June 24) as he was preparing for Mass.

Prosecutors charge that Librizzi sought sexual favors from newly arrived migrants fleeing the Middle East and Africa in exchange for help with residency visas, as well as from the poor who sought help from the charity.

The priest’s arrest is particularly embarrassing for the church given Pope Francis’ strong stand in support of the immigrants flooding the area. Soon after his election last year, Francis’ first pastoral visit outside Rome was to the island of Lampedusa, near Sicily, where he called for greater solidarity and an end to the “global indifference” over refugees.

There has been a surge in refugees fleeing conflict and poverty in Syria, Iraq and other countries. Last month, the Italian government said the number of refugees and other migrants reaching its shores had risen to more than 39,000 in the first half of 2014.

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MINNESOTA
Daily Reporter

By AMY FORLITI Associated Press

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — Attorneys for victims of alleged sexual abuse by clergy are asking the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to turn over electronic files about accused priests so they can verify who had information about these priests, and when they had it.

In a hearing Wednesday, Ramsey County Judge John Van de North asked both sides to submit more information before he decides whether the archdiocese has to turn over emails, texts and other computer data.

The documents are being sought in a lawsuit that alleges church officials created a public nuisance by keeping the names of accused priests secret.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

Attorneys for victims of alleged sexual abuse by clergy are asking the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis to turn over electronic files about accused priests so they can verify who had information about these priests, and when they had it.

In a hearing Wednesday, Ramsey County Judge John Van de North asked both sides to submit more information before he decides whether the archdiocese has to turn over the emails, texts and other computer data.

The documents are being sought in a lawsuit that alleges church officials created a public nuisance by keeping the names of accused priests secret.

The archdiocese says it has already provided the information, but the plaintiffs say it’s not in a format that allows them to see when the documents were created or modified.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: June 25, 2014

Judge rules that the Rev. Kevin McDonough must testify again, but not Archbishop John Nienstedt.

A Ramsey County District judge Wednesday ordered that the former vicar general of the Twin Cities Archdiocese, the Rev. Kevin McDonough, submit to another round of questioning on the church’s handling of clergy sex abuse.

However, Judge John Van de North rejected a move to require Archbishop John Nienstedt to return for further questioning.

The order came during a hearing in which attorneys for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis asked the judge to halt further demands for information from attorney Jeff Anderson. Anderson’s St. Paul firm represents a man whose lawsuit prompted the first round of depositions this spring.

Tom Weiser, attorney for the archdiocese, said the church welcomes the opportunity for McDonough to return to testify, “while it wasn’t our first choice.”

Anderson said the ruling will allow him to continue to unearth information on how the archdiocese has handled abusive priests.

“We’re comforted to know that more information that needs to be revealed is going to be,” he said.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

It’s sad to see Catholic officials exploiting and misrepresenting the First Amendment. It protects belief, not actions.

[Star Tribune]

Minnesota church officials say they should get to continue keeping secrets about clergy sex crimes and cover ups because the First Amendment protects them. But we find it very hard to imagine that the Founding Fathers envisioned that provision would be used to shield powerful officials who repeatedly put kids in harms’ way.

This isn’t complicated. People can think anything they want. They can’t, however, do anything they want. That’s simple common sense. It’s the basis of civilized society.

We hope the judge will reject Minnesota Catholic officials’ argument that their callous actions and incriminating records about helping predators and endangering kids should be kept hidden.

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OREGON
Catholic Sentinel

The Archdiocese of Portland is being sued for $8.1 million by a man who claims to have been sexually abused by a deceased Portland priest.

The man claims that between 1969 and 1972 – when he was between the ages of six and nine – Archdiocese of Portland priest Father Maurice Grammond abused him between 10 and 20 times.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Irish Post

By Niall O Sullivan on June 25, 2014

OUTRAGED crowds are due to gather outside London’s Irish Embassy next week at a vigil for hundreds of babies who died in Ireland’s homes for unmarried mothers.

Organisers said they are expecting a large turnout as the city’s 180,000-strong Irish population gets its first chance to react to the discovery of 800 dead babies at a home in Tuam, Co. Galway.

“Our sense is that people here are very upset about the allegations that have emerged surrounding infant mortality rates in different homes,” said London-based Avril Egan, whose mother was in one of the institutions.

She added that people were particularly “disturbed” by allegations from former residents that nuns refused to give women painkillers during childbirth because they were “sinners”.

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WASHINGTON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 25, 2014

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

Thirty brave child sex victims have settled their abuse and cover up suits against Seattle Catholic officials. We applaud these courageous and determined individuals and suspect that there are dozens more victims in the Seattle area – from these two parochial schools and other schools – who remain trapped in silence, shame and self-blame.

We hope this settlement will encourage them to step forward, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

It’s tough for any abuse victim to speak up. But it’s especially tough when the perpetrator is a powerful religious figure. And it’s especially tough to report abuse in Catholic schools. The classes tend to be closely knit, so many victims fear that if they speak up, others will find out who they are and what happened to them. And many who graduate from Catholic high schools carry a mass of confusing feelings. On one hand, they are convinced they got a good education and they’re grateful for it. On the other hand, they know they should never have been assaulted. But deep loyalty to their alma mater is one added factor that keeps many Catholic school victims quiet.

We are grateful these 30 individuals have worked so hard and long to hold complicit church officials accountable for their reckless actions. It’s a shame that Catholic officials drag these cases out for years, but we appreciate the persistence of these victims who have suffered so much for so long.

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WASHINGTON
MSN

By Eric M. Johnson of Reuters

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The Archdiocese of Seattle has agreed to pay about $12.125 million to 30 men who alleged they were sexually abused as children and teens at two Seattle-area schools from the 1950s until 1984, their attorney said.

The men alleged in lawsuits filed in King County Superior Court that the Catholic district failed to shield them from known abusers at Seattle’s O’Dea High School and at Briscoe Memorial School, in nearby Kent, plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Pfau said in an interview.

The schools were operated jointly by the Christian Brothers of Ireland religious order and the Archdiocese of Seattle, which owned both schools, he said. The settlement agreement, which had been negotiated over the past year, was announced on Tuesday.

The agreement comes weeks after Pope Francis said the Roman Catholic Church had to take a stronger stand on a sexual abuse crisis that has disgraced it for more than two decades.

Media in the U.S began reporting in the early 2000s how cases of abuse were systematically covered up and abusive priests were shuttled from parish to parish instead of being defrocked and handed over to civil authorities.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

Vatican comments on recent reports on Franciscans of the Immaculate, Legion of Christ

Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Holy See Press Office, has issued a statement in response to questions related to recent media reports on the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate and the Legionaries of Christ.

Andrea Tornielli has reported that Pope Francis met on June 10 with members of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. Father Lombardi confirmed that Pope Francis met on that day with Father Fidenzio Volpi, the community’s commissioner, and all of the community’s seminarians, and stated that the community is searching for a house in Rome so that the seminarians could study at a pontifical university.

In response to reports on the Legionaries of Christ, Father Lombardi said that with the drafting of a new constitution for the community, the work of the pontifical delegate (Cardinal Velasio de Paolis) has concluded and the Legionaries again fall under the purview of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

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MINNESOTA
Austin Daily Herald

By Trey Mewes and Jenae Peterson

Area Catholics and Pacelli Catholic Schools families are left with more questions than answers after the Diocese of Winona revealed Monday that a former priest may have sexually abused a teenager during his time in Austin. Yet local leaders say the news only shows the need for more transparency when it comes to sexual abuse in schools.

“What happened today in Austin has happened in the Twin Cities repeatedly, and every time it is with more feelings of disappointment, a sense of betrayal, a lack of trust,” said Pacelli President Jim Hamburge. “All of those things come to mind because they shouldn’t have happened in the first place and once it happened, [the accused] never should have been in a position to harm anyone else.”

The diocese released more details about 14 priests accused of sexually abusing children earlier this week. The list of priests includes Jack Krough, who served in Austin from 1976 to 1980 and from 1996 to 1998.

Krough taught at Pacelli High School during his tenure in the 1970s. In 1993, he admitted a photo of a nude 16-year-old male found in his home was taken by him in 1978. Krough also admitted he sexually abused a minor between 1979 and 1981 when he was confronted with accusations in 1997, during his second stint in Austin.

He was sent to St. Luke’s Institute after both admissions for treatment and assessment, and went back into ministry each time. He resigned from the ministry in 2002, after he was confronted in another incident involving inappropriate touching.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 9

posted by Mike Durkin

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) –
Attorneys for the victims of alleged sexual abuse by Minnesota priests are asking a judge to order the release of church emails and text messages related to abuse allegations.

St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson said they need to verify which individuals, at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona, knew about allegations of abuse and when they knew it.

The electronic records are being sought in a lawsuit that alleges church officials created “private and public nuisances by failing to disclose information about certain priests accused of sexually abusing minors.”

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: June 25, 2014

Plaintiff’s attorneys want to question archbishop and get more documents. Church lawyers say some records are protected by First Amendment.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis went to court Wednesday to try to halt further demands for information about how the church handled priest sex abusers.

Attorneys for an alleged victim of clergy abuse asked a Ramsey District Court judge to approve a second round of depositions from Archbishop John Nienstedt and former vicar general Kevin McDonough.

They’ve also asked that records from the archdiocese’ priest personnel board be included in the documents the archdiocese has been required to submit to them. The archdiocese has said the records are protected by the First Amendment.

The hearing before Ramsey District Court Judge John Van de North is part of a lawsuit filed last year on behalf of a man who claimed he had been abused decades earlier by the Rev. Thomas Adamson, who later left the priesthood.

It contends that church officials here and in the Winona Diocese put children and others at risk by failing to disclose information about priests who had been accused of abuse.

The lawsuit has led to unprecedented disclosure of church filesand the release of names of more than 100 priests accused of child sex abuse in every diocese of the state except New Ulm.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 25, 2014

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

A Michigan pastor deceived his flock, claiming that his associate pastor went on leave for “personal reasons” when in fact the associate faces child abuse charges. It is extremely disingenuous and dangerous for church officials to be so misleading in child abuse cases.

[Grand Haven Tribune]

Last Sunday, Rev. Tom Cook of First Presbyterian Church in Grand Haven gave a vague reason to his members for associate pastor Scott Robertson leave.

Church officials have an obligation to tell the truth to their community. Alerting parents about potential predators allows them to properly protect their children. It also encourages victims who are suffering in silence and self-blame to speak up. Rev. Cook should be ashamed of himself and should be disciplined.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

JUNE 26, 2014

Dan Box
Crime Reporter
Sydney

THE Vatican actively prevented bishops taking action against sexually abusive priests as recently as 2000, the royal commission has heard, with the Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide saying that he considered resigning his position over one such case.

Giving evidence yesterday to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Archbishop Philip Wilson said the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Clergy “always came down on the side of the priests” accused of child-sex abuse.

“There was a phenomenon going on where bishops, particularly in the US, were trying to deal with these cases involving abuse and the Congregation for the Clergy consistently made things difficult for them in trying to do that,” Archbishop Wilson said.

“The Congregation for the Clergy always came down on the side of the priests and the instructions they gave to the bishops were (that) what they had done had to be put aside and the priest allowed back into ministry.”

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MICHIGAN
Grand Haven Tribune

BECKY VARGO
GRAND HAVEN
JUN 25, 2014

The Rev. Tom Cook of First Presbyterian Church announced to his congregation on Sunday that Scott Robertson, the Grand Haven church’s associate pastor of Family Life, was on leave dealing with a personal situation.

Members of the congregation said Cook didn’t share any more information, and Cook is on vacation this week and not available to answer questions from the Tribune. Office staff declined to comment.

Robertson, 32, could be arraigned today on a fourth-degree child abuse charge, said Capt. Mark Bennett of the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department. The Grand Haven man is being charged with causing injury to his then 3-month-old son.

The misdemeanor charge carries a maximum penalty of up to one year in jail.

Bennett said the county prosecutor’s office likely authorized the lesser charge because the child is almost fully recovered. In addition, the father has no criminal history and is no longer living at home.

Robertson pleaded no contest in May to a Michigan Department of Human Services petition seeking to take the child out of his care.

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OREGON
KOIN

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 25, 2014

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

Another clergy sex abuse and cover up lawsuit has been filed against the Portland Catholic archdiocese stemming from crimes by a notorious serial predator, Fr. Maurice Grammond.

[KOIN]

We applaud this brave man for exposing incredibly irresponsible actions by several top Catholic officials who repeatedly refused to tell police, parents or parishioners about a clearly dangerous child molesting cleric.

It’s very tough for child sex abuse victims to disclose their suffering. It’s even harder for them to seek justice and expose wrongdoing in court. But it’s crucial if kids are to be safer and crimes are to be prevented.

We hope that families will learn of this lawsuit and discuss ‘safe touch’ with their kids. We hope that employers will learn of it and work harder to screen potential employees and respond quicker and better when abuse reports are made or abuse suspicions are raised.

Most of all, we hope that this courageous man’s lawsuit will prod others who have been betrayed by child molesting clerics and irresponsible church supervisors to step forward, get help, expose wrongdoers, deter wrongdoing, protect kids and start healing.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, June 23, 2014

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

ALBUQUERQUE – In less than six month’s time, the Diocese of Gallup has racked up more than $600,000 in legal and accounting fees and expenses since it filed its Chapter 11 petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Those “first interim” professional fees, totaling nearly $612,000, were detailed in several hundred pages of court documents.

Quick payment, however, may not be forthcoming.

According to the court file, the Gallup Diocese is not currently able to pay its own bankruptcy attorneys and accountants. Like clergy sex abuse survivors who have to submit their claims to the court by the Aug. 11 deadline, the diocesan attorneys and accountants may have to wait for payment until the diocese sells off property, taps into insurance policies and possibly draws from the financial assets of other Catholic dioceses and religious orders who allowed their sexually abusive clergy to serve in the Diocese of Gallup.

The diocese filed its Chapter 11 petition on Nov. 12, 2013, in response to what Bishop James S. Wall said were mounting clergy sex abuse legal claims and lawsuits.

The diocese had been named as a defendant in 13 such lawsuits in Arizona’s Coconino County Superior Court, and the first case was slated for a jury trial in February of this year. By filing for bankruptcy, Wall halted all those civil cases, spared his church officials from court depositions and testimony, and kept the Gallup Diocese’s child sex abuse history from a jury.

First interim fees

The Diocese of Gallup’s bankruptcy case, however, is proving to be costly in other ways. The diocese’s three currently active law firms and one accounting firm recently submitted their first interim fees and expenses to the court for a total cost of $611,916.63.

*Quarles & Brady of Tucson, the diocese’s lead law firm in the bankruptcy, submitted an application for payment for the period of Nov. 12, 2013 to March 31, 2014. Quarles & Brady requested payment of $450,601.03, which included $426,550 for fees and $24,051.03 for expenses.

*The Albuquerque law firm of Walker & Associates is providing a supporting legal role in the bankruptcy case. Attorney Thomas D. Walker submitted an application for payment of $18,062.40, which includes legal fees, expenses and gross receipts taxes. Walker’s billing period extends through April 30, 2014.

*The Albuquerque law firm of Stelzner, Winter, Warburton, Flores, Sanchez & Dawes, which is listed as special counsel for the diocese, submitted an application for $4,820.69 for legal fees, expenses and gross receipts taxes for a billing period through March 31, 2014. According to the law firm, most of its work for the diocese was related to “routine employment law-related services” rather than to the Chapter 11 reorganization. Prior to the bankruptcy, attorney Robert P. Warburton of the Stelzner firm represented the Diocese of Gallup in many of its clergy abuse lawsuits and legal negotiations.

*Keegan, Linscott & Kenon, an accounting and financial consulting firm from Tucson, submitted its application for payment for $138,432.51, which includes professional fees and expenses. The firm’s interim billing period goes through March 31, 2013.

The Diocese of Gallup is also responsible for paying the legal fees and expenses of the legal counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which advocates for the interests of clergy sex abuse claimants in the case.

Tasks and challenges

According to statements made by Quarles & Brady, the Stelzner law firm, and the Keegan accounting firm, the three companies did not charge the Gallup Diocese their full professional rates. All claimed they offered the diocese various financial discounts, and Quarles & Brady stated the firm had written off over $60,000 of its time.

Last week, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma issued orders approving the interim compensation fees and expenses submitted by those three firms. Thuma authorized “such compensation and expenses as and when sufficient funds become available to do so.”

Thuma has yet to rule on Walker & Associates’ application for payment.

In the Quarles & Brady application, the law firm included an itemized list of legal fees by category that is nearly 120 pages in length. Some of the more critical legal tasks include dealing with bank accounts improperly opened by parishes and missions using the diocese’s tax identification number, determining what real estate property the diocese owns because the diocese did not maintain such a list, trying to ascertain market values of property, researching information about insurance coverage, sorting out oil and gas leases, negotiating with various creditors such as utility companies and banks, and reviewing diocesan files to identify potential claims against the diocese.

According to the Keegan accounting firm, it faced a number of challenges because the diocese’s chief financial officer, Deacon James Hoy, resigned two months before Wall made his Chapter 11 announcement.

“The Debtors are currently without a Chief Financial Officer …, and did not have one for several months pre-petition,” the firm stated in its application for payment. “The Debtors also did not have accounting software or systems that were appropriate for their operations.”

The accounting firm stated it “had to perform both high-level analysis and ground-level operational and training functions” as it worked with Hoy’s staff.

Identifying assets

So how will the Diocese of Gallup eventually pay the ongoing fees for all these attorneys and accountants and settlement money to clergy sex abuse claimants?

According to court documents, attorneys for the diocese and the Unsecured Creditors Committee have been working to identify potential diocesan financial assets.

The Gallup Diocese owns considerable property in Arizona and New Mexico, some of which will be sold. Quarles & Brady stated it has been identifying “property that is not critical to the continued mission and ministry” of the diocese that could be sold to fund a plan of reorganization.

Thuma also approved the diocese’s hiring of the Insurance Archaeology Group, a New York company that specializes in the forensic review of insurance assets.

In his diocese’s application to the court to hire the company, the Gallup bishop stated Insurance Archaeology Group “has a team with the required expertise, experience, and resources to locate and recover documentation of missing liability coverage and other historic insurance issues.”

According to Wall, the company “will be able to review the earliest available insurance records, research top priority internal records, investigate related internal record sources, and identify potential outside sources.”

Some of those potential outside sources most probably include other Catholic dioceses and religious orders that allowed their sexually abusive clergy to serve in the Gallup Diocese.

Currently, the Unsecured Creditors Committee has a motion before the court requesting the Diocese of Corpus Christi in Texas be compelled to produce a number of documents concerning the Rev. Clement A. Hageman, a sexually abusive priest who left Corpus Christi and served in the Gallup Diocese for more than three decades. The Corpus Christi Diocese is objecting to the motion, and Thuma has scheduled a final hearing on the matter Wednesday.

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MEXICO
e-Consulta

[Summary: Archbishop Rafael Romo Munoz knew for two years accusations, allegations and complaints against priests for sexual harassment of children and allowed them to continue in the church. Three investigations by various agencies provided enough for the Vatican to order temporary suspension of seven priests. Five were removed from parishes while two continue in the parishes. The archdiocese confirmed suspension of Jeffrey David Newell, pastor of Our Lady of the Incarnation in Camino Verdo; Enrique Tenorio Perez of St. Martin Caballero in Colonia Las Villas; and Aurelio Castillo Aguilar, priest of St. James Church. The archbishop explained that priest Danilo Pietro Zanini continues in his parish because he has not received instructions from the Vatican. The archbishop also denied that pastor Carlos Vastillo was involved in the investigations. These two names appeared as suspected pedophile in the “Dossier Tijuana Saint and Sinner blog.]

Tijuana, Baja California (SinEmbargo/Zeta).– Durante dos años, el Arzobispo de Tijuana, Rafael Romo Muñoz, tuvo conocimiento de señalamientos, acusaciones y denuncias en contra de sus sacerdotes por acoso sexual a menores y les permitió continuar dentro de la Iglesia, mientras víctimas, testigos y clérigos dieron cuenta de las acciones de los párrocos inculpados. Tres investigaciones realizadas por diferentes instancias brindaron evidencia suficiente para que El Vaticano ordenara la suspensión temporal de siete sacerdotes. Cinco fueron removidos de las parroquias que dirigían y alojados en propiedades pertenecientes a la Iglesia, dos más continúan al frente de sus iglesias.

La Arquidiócesis de Tijuana confirmó la suspensión de los padres Jeffrey David Newell, párroco de la iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación en Camino Verde; Enrique Tenorio Pérez, padre de la iglesia San Martín Caballero en la colonia Las Villas y Aurelio Castillo Aguilar, presbítero de iglesia Santiago Apóstol, en la colonia Reforma. El Arzobispo Rafael Romo Muñoz explicó que del sacerdote Danilo Pietro Zanini aún no recibe instrucciones del Vaticano para suspenderlo, por lo que continúa en la parroquia San José de la colonia Durango. Además negó que el párroco Carlos Castillo esté implicado en las investigaciones. Estos dos nombres aparecieron como presuntos pederastas en el blog “Dossier Tijuana: Santa y Pecadora” del laico Teodoro Uckerman, quien denunció el caso públicamente, denuncia que fue retomada por la prensa local.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Eilish O’Regan
Health Correspondent

THE remains of 474 infants – who died in mother-and-baby homes and hospitals – were used for research and doctors’ training in Irish universities for a quarter of a century, the Irish Independent has learned.

New figures reveal the full extent of the practice of doctors using “unclaimed bodies” for anatomical study up until the mid-1960s with no evidence of consent being obtained.

There were 474 unclaimed infant remains transferred to the medical schools at four universities from 1940-1965 for the “study of the anatomy and the structure of the human body”.

The latest revelations come in the wake of renewed controversy over standards of care in the mother-and-baby homes across the country following the discovery of mass infant deaths at St Mary’s in Tuam, Co Galway.

The baby remains were transferred to UCD, Trinity College Dublin, the Royal College of Surgeons Dublin, and NUI Galway until a campaign by the college professors got under way to encourage voluntary donation.

The infant remains transferred to the medical school in NUI Galway came from two Galway hospitals as opposed to directly from mother-and-baby homes, according to records. It is unclear what the circumstances of the deceased babies’ parents were. The Central Hospital in Galway had a TB ward and was replaced by the Regional Hospital Galway in the early 1950s.

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WASHINGTON
Seattle Times

Posted by Paige Cornwell

The Seattle Archdiocese has agreed to pay $12.125 million to 30 men who say they were sexually abused as children decades ago at Seattle’s O’Dea High School and Briscoe Memorial School in Kent.

In lawsuits filed in King County Superior Court, the men allege the Seattle Archdiocese failed to protect them from known abusers, including two former O’Dea teachers who were members of the Christian Brothers Catholic order, which filed for bankruptcy in April 2011. The Christian Brothers operated O’Dea and Briscoe, a former orphanage and boarding school for boys, but both schools were owned by the Archdiocese.

“I deeply regret the pain suffered by these victims,” Archbishop J. Peter Sartain said this afternoon in a statement. “Our hope is that this settlement will bring them closure and allow them to continue the process of healing.”

Seattle attorney Mike Pfau, who represented the 30 men, said today the settlement puts an “end to the ugly chapter for the Archdiocese.” He said his clients, who range in age from 42 to 68, feel relieved after the decade of litigation in the wake of the abuse, from the early 1950s until 1984.

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CANADA
The StarPhoenix

A Catholic archdiocese in northern Alberta has been linked to a series of alleged sexual assaults dating back to the 1950s by four victims who filed lawsuits this month.

Though the three men and one woman all filed statements of claim against the Catholic Archdiocese of Grouard-McLennan, the allegations span three decades and several members of the archdiocese. All four attended St. Bernard Mission School at the time of the alleged abuse. The four lawsuits total $890,000.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Priest accused of sexual assault asked to preside at funeral of alleged victim’s aunt, court told

June 25, 2014
Adam Cooper
Court reporter for The Age

A man who claims he was sexually assaulted by a priest as a boy reacted with disbelief when told about 40 years later that the same man would conduct his aunt’s funeral, a jury has been told.

Former priest James Henry Scannell is accused of sexually assaulting a boy at the priest’s then home in Kew between August 1970 and July 1972 when the boy was aged between 11 and 13. Mr Scannell, now 88, has pleaded not guilty to one charge of buggery.

Mr Scannell is alleged to have led the youngster into his bedroom and then sexually assaulted him one day when the boy was at the priest’s house working for pocket money.

Prosecutor Kristie Churchill, in her closing submission in the County Court on Wednesday, told the jury the boy was “frozen in fear” and experienced pain and discomfort while being assaulted.

Afterwards, the boy was told to have a shower and give confession before he walked home crying, the jury heard. He never returned to the priest’s home.

But defence counsel Max Perry told the jury it was difficult to prove one person’s allegation against another when so much time had elapsed.

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IRELAND
Journal

THE MINISTER FOR Justice has announced approval for legislation that will support survivors of Magdalene laundries.

Frances Fitzgerald announced that the Government has, this morning, agreed to her proposal for publication of the scheme of a new bill.

Commenting in the Dáil during Parliamentary Questions, the Minister further announced that, to date, lump sum payments totalling €12.8m have been made under the Magdalene Redress Scheme to 357 former residents of Magdalene Laundries, with further offers still being made.

* The bill will give survivors:
* Access to health services;

An exemption from means test criteria for certain State services and schemes (including the Nursing Home Support Scheme)

Fitzgerald added that legal provision is being made for relatives to act on behalf of any of the women who do not have the capacity to act of their own behalf.

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ROME
Matter

If you intend to be a proper Catholic priest, you would be wise to follow the little formalities of the church. When in Rome, for example, you are required to wear your cassock or at least a clergy shirt, and bishops and cardinals are expected to wear their flowing robes. But Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was cardinal of Buenos Aires before he became known to the world as Pope Francis, hated pomp and ceremony and was not very proper at all. He kept his scarlet robes in a convent founded by an Argentine nun, so he wouldn’t have to carry the damn things back and forth to Vatican City. Before heading for a priests’ residence in central Rome he would stop by the convent, chat for a bit, and pick up the garments, which had been reverently pressed and folded for him by the nuns.

Bergoglio stopped at the convent one last time, last year in March, on his way to the historic conclave of 115 cardinals that would elect him the first Latin American pope and the first from the order of the Society of Jesus—the Jesuits. He must have had a very good idea of his chances. Little known beyond Argentina, he had nevertheless finished second in the vote that elected Benedict XVI in 2005. It was understood that he was an outlier, ascetic, unconventional to a fault, but he seemed to be the right kind of pope to clean up the world’s oldest and largest institution, hemorrhaging followers and riddled as it is with ancient vices, and bring it into the XXIst century.

What may not have been so clear to the cardinals who chose him above all others at that conclave is that Francis would enter the Vatican like Jesus into the Temple or a bull into a china shop, knocking over conventions and rules with abandon. And what stunned everyone was that, from the moment he stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter’s for the first time on that drizzly evening, he would channel a ravening hunger for change among millions of people all over the world. He certainly didn’t look like a world-changer. A mild-mannered, slightly stooped, grandfatherly old man dressed in simplest white—no lace and scarlet finery for him—he stood quietly contemplating the crowd for a very long minute before uttering a hearty buona sera! with a pronounced Argentine accent. The effort of bending forward to receive the people’s blessing made Francis’s back tremble slightly, and watching on a screen I, a non-Catholic, was moved, too.

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MICHIGAN
New York Daily News

BY NINA GOLGOWSKI
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, June 24, 2014

A Christian radio host in Michigan has allegedly admitted to raping a 12-year-old boy.

John Balyo, 35, formerly of radio station WCSG, was arrested at last Friday’s Big Ticket Christian music festival in Gaylord, Mich. after authorities say he paid to have sex with the boy on May 17.

His accused rape-date organizer, Battle Creek resident Ronald Lee Moser, 42, was later arrested on June 5 after authorities stormed his home and found him with a 12-year-old boy, MLIVE.com reported.

Moser was also found with a cell phone containing photos of the boy wearing a thong in sexually suggestive poses and several online photo albums containing child pornography that authorities believe he traded online.

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WASHINGTON
Q13 Fox

SEATTLE — The Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle announced Tuesday that it reached a $12.1 million settlement involving 30 claims of sexual abuse by members of the Christian Brothers order, which operated The Briscoe School in the Kent Valley and Seattle’s Bishop O’Dea High School.

The most recent cases in the settlement are nearly 30 years old, with some dating back nearly 60 years, the archdiocese said.

The settlement was funded by archdiocese insurance programs.

A teaching order, the Christian Brothers operated The Briscoe School, a boarding and day school for boys in the Kent Valley, beginning in 1914.

The order also staffed and managed Bishop O’Dea, an archdiocese high school, from its opening in 1923.

“I deeply regret the pain suffered by these victims,” Archbishop J. Peter Sartain said in a news release. “Our hope is that this settlement will bring them closure and allow them to continue the process of healing.”

In lawsuits filed in King County Superior Court, the plaintiffs alleged both the Christian Brothers and the Seattle Archdiocese failed to protect them from known abusers.

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