ABUSE TRACKER

CANADA
CBC News

The commission delving into the sordid legacy of Canada’s residential schools was wrapping up nearly four years of public hearings Sunday, where thousands of victims recounted stories of cruelty and abuse at the hands of those entrusted with their care.

The heart-breaking accounts — almost all videotaped — will now form part of a lasting record of one of the darkest chapters in the country’s history.

For many, being able to tell their stories was at once cathartic and a validation.

“Many times, I was hearing my own story being told in front of me and that became very emotionally challenging because I need to deal with that personally,” Chief Willie Littlechild, a commissioner and himself a residential school survivor, told The Canadian Press.

“At the same time, I think it helped on my own healing journey.”

Vicki Crowchild, 80, of the Tsuu T’ina Nation outside Calgary who attended a school as a child, agreed that the opportunity to talk of her past after her abuser told her no one would ever believe her was hugely beneficial.

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IRELAND
Highland Radio

It’s emerged a diocese in Minnesota is suing the diocese of Clogher, alleging it sent a priest to Minnesota knowing he was a child abuser.

Irish Central reports the New Ulm diocese has filed a lawsuit against the diocese, which encompasses parts of Monaghan, Fermanagh, Tyrone and Donegal.

The lawsuit alleges that Clogher sent a pedophile priest, Father Francis Markey, to Minnesota in 1981 without revealing his past. The lawsuit also names the the Servants of the Paraclete religious order.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Donegal Democrat

Fr Eugene Boland, the Donegal priest who was cleared of sexual assault charges in 2012, has resigned.

The Diocese of Derry confirmed that he has stepped down from his work in the parish of Cappagh, Co. Tyrone and a new parish priest will be appointed in “due course”.

Fr Boland, a native of Moville, was charged with five counts of indecent assault on a 14-year-old girl in St Joseph’s parochial house, Galliagh, Derry on dates between June 1990 and June 1992.

When he was charged in 2010, he relinquished his duties until the case was finalised.

He was acquitted of all charges last June and had only returned to parish work a fortnight ago.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Posted on March 29, 2014 by lewisblayse

A while ago, when I sent out an email about the availability of my father’s memorial film, including to representatives from the Salvation Army, I received a reply from Peter Farthing, of the Salvation Army, in which he said,

“Thank you Aletha, it is clear that your father’s memorial was a fittingly weighty event which will contribute to the ongoing quest for justice in this crucial area.”

I have just written back to Mr Farthing and James Condon, of the Salvation Army Australia, with an invitation for them to speak with me about why I have taken the stance I have taken, and why I am angry about how my father, Lewis Blayse, and his family were treated, on the very slim chance that they may actually want to know. On the slim chance that they may actually want to understand why I am doing what I am doing.

I wrote:

“Dear Mr Farthing and Mr Condon,

Yes, this is a “crucial” area. Really, I have no idea why you have written to me referring, in an apparently approving tone, to my quest for justice when it is your organisation that is blocking my and others’ quests for justice.

I am trying to secure the safety of my family and to help others avoid going through what I’ve gone through and what my father has gone through and make sure that they don’t live in the pain they do anymore, because no-one should have to endure what my father and his family have had to endure. No-one should have to live as I now have to live, never having gotten to see the person they loved more than anyone else in the world in a good and safe place and with peace of mind after decades of suffering.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Beaking News

A priest who was acquitted in 2012 of sexual assault charges has resigned from ministry in the Diocese of Derry.

Fr Eugene Boland, a parish priest in Cappagh, County Tyrone, stepped aside four years ago while allegations were being investigated.

He had resumed his duties just two weeks ago, after it was confirmed legal proceedings and Church processes had been completed.

The Donegal-born priest’s resignation was announced in a statement issued by the Diocese.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 28, 2014

Peter FitzSimons
Columnist

The Cardinal George Pell’s testimony at the royal commission? I just don’t get it. Not simply the staggering lack of genuine contrition from one who has presided over an era that has seen the widespread sexual abuse of children at the hands and worse of priests whose care they were entrusted to. And not only because so much of his testimony seemed to contradict the sworn testimony of so many of his underlings. No, most amazing was his use of the ‘‘I can’t recall,’’ answer when it came time to discuss financial transactions to compensate victims as recently as 2007. What I don’t get is – all put together – how someone so totally exposed as being at best incompetent and always so very vague, can rise to the third most powerful position in the worldwide Catholic Church?

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

[Summary: Prof. Dr. Liidicke, a canonist, said one of the problems the researchers face is that crucial material is in the secret archives but much of this material is destroyed or in Rome.]

„Sexueller Missbrauch an Minderjährigen durch katholische Priester, Diakone und männliche Ordensangehörige im Bereich der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz“ – Das ist der Titel des neuen Forschungsprojekts, das am Montag vorgestellt wurde. Ein Forschungskonsortium von sieben Professoren soll dazu in den nächsten drei Jahren entscheidendes herausfinden. Ein erstes Projekt dieser Art sollte der Hannoveraner Kriminologe Dr. Christian Pfeiffer vor drei Jahren starten: Er hatte sich aber letztes Jahr im Streit mit der Bischofskonferenz getrennt. Verbunden bin ich jetzt mit dem katholischen Kirchenrechtler Norbert Lüdecke von der Universität Bonn. Herr Lüdecke, dass Pfeiffer die Forschung in den Kirchenarchiven aufgegeben hat, das hing mit bestimmten kirchenrechtlichen Regelungen zusammen. Worum ging es da?”

Prof. Dr. Lüdecke: “Also, es kam mehreres zusammen, dass das Projekt gescheitert ist. Ein Hauptgrund war dafür, dass Pfeiffer zugesichert worden war, dass er alle erreichbaren Quellen bekommt. Er hat das verstanden, in dem Sinne, dass er das, was es tatsächlich gibt, einsehen und bearbeiten kann. Die Bischöfe hatten aber von vornherein gemeint, was „rechtlich“ erreichbar ist. Und da gehört – nun ganz entscheidend – ihr Geheimarchiv nicht dazu!

Das Problem: die entscheidenden Materialien müssen aber im Geheimarchiv sein – nämlich alle Verfahren über Sittlichkeitsdelikte. Alles, was es da vor 2000 gibt, muss dort sein, soweit es nicht zehn Jahre nach einem Urteil oder nach dem Tod des Täters vernichtet worden ist, auftragsgemäß. Nach 2000 ist es auch da nicht mehr, sondern in Rom.”

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY and GABRIEL WINGATE-PEARSE March 30, 2014

THE Office of the Children’s Guardian is conducting a risk assessment of a Muswellbrook Catholic priest over historic child abuse allegations.

Father John Alexander stood aside from parish ministry in November last year after the allegations triggered the need for a risk assessment under new child protection legislation.

He will remain on leave until the office provides a risk assessment for his ‘‘working with children’’ check, Maitland-Newcastle Diocese vicar-general Brian Mascord said.

Muswellbrook parishioners were advised of the priest’s status in a statement by Bishop Bill Wright.

The priest was the subject of ‘‘third-party accusations relating to incidents that were alleged to have occurred almost 30 years ago, prior to his becoming a priest’’, Father Mascord said.

The allegations had been investigated before and finalised.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A priest who was acquitted in 2012 of sexual assault charges has resigned from ministry in the Diocese of Derry.

Fr Eugene Boland, a parish priest in Cappagh, County Tyrone, stepped aside four years ago while allegations were investigated.

He had resumed his duties just two weeks ago, after it was confirmed legal proceedings and church processes had been completed.

The priest’s resignation was announced in a statement issued by the Diocese.

Therapy

The statement said Fr Boland had offered his resignation and that a new parish priest would be appointed in “due course”.

Fr Boland, of Killyclogher Road in Omagh, was acquitted of indecently assaulting a teenage girl in June 2012 following an eight-day trial at Londonderry Crown Court.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Bucks County Courier Times

By Elizabeth Fisher Correspondent

Three more Lower Bucks County parishes have been targeted for closing by the Philadelphia Archdiocesan Strategic Planning Commission. This is the second round of announcements released by the commission this week.

St. Ann Parish in Bristol, Our Lady of Fatima and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parishes — both in Bensalem — will close if Archbishop Charles Chaput approves the panel’s recommendations. A final decision will be announced May 30.

The news came a week after officials announced that other churches in Lower Bucks could close. Immaculate Conception in Bristol Township could merge with Queen of the Universe in Middletown and St. Joseph the Worker in Falls could merge with St. Frances Cabrini in Falls.

“The SS St. Ann is in turbulent waters, but remember that Jesus is with us on the ship,” the Rev. Gerard Lynch, parochial vicar of the parish, told his congregation at the 5:30 p.m. Mass on Saturday Night. He also urged the worshipers to pray for all the affected parishes.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

RELATED DOCUMENTS

• Read the Monument Builders lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Newark
• Read the Newark Archdiocese’s response
• Read the email from Andrew Schafer to Msgr. Michael Andreano
• Read an excerpt of Andrew Schafer’s deposition

By Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger
on March 30, 2014

Looking to wring more revenue out of its Catholic cemeteries, the Archdiocese of Newark in recent years quietly entered the headstone and mausoleum business, a lucrative venture for which the archdiocese acknowledges it must pay a particular state tax.

Yet over the past eight years, it hasn’t paid a penny, The Star-Ledger found.

According to court records and the plaintiffs in a legal fight that could reshape New Jersey’s funeral industry, the archdiocese owes the state tens of thousands of dollars — if not more than $100,000 — in so-called use taxes, which are based on the wholesale prices of monuments and private mausoleums.

The disclosure could create new public relations difficulties for Archbishop John J. Myers, who has faced a torrent of criticism from inside and outside the archdiocese since The Star-Ledger revealed last month he is building a lavish extension on his future retirement home in Hunterdon County.

Legal papers connected to the case also show how the archdiocese has transformed its burial grounds into a source of enormous income, with millions of dollars flowing into the Newark chancery each year, possibly in violation of a state law that restricts the use of cemetery revenue.

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ITALY
The Local

A leading Italian cleric has defended the decision to adopt a Vatican-approved policy which exempts bishops from having to report cases of suspected child sex abuse to the police.

“The Vatican requires national laws to be respected, and we know that there is no such duty (to report abuse) under Italian law,” Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting in Genoa.

The conference published guidelines on Friday which stipulated that clergy are under no obligation to inform the authorities about suspected abuse but have a “moral duty” to act to protect the vulnerable and “contribute to the common good”.

The guidelines sparked fury among victim support groups, with the US-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) deploring the “stunning, depressing and irresponsible contradiction between what Vatican officials say about abuse, and do about abuse.”

The Church has repeatedly been accused by victims of covering up abuse by priests and simply moving predator clerics from one diocese to another rather than reporting them, thereby putting other children at risk.

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MINNESOTA
Shakopee Valley News

A man with ties to a church in Savage was arrested by Pope County police Friday on suspicion of soliciting a minor with an electronic device.

Matthew Thomas Boos, 24, is a youth pastor at River Valley Church in Savage, and is currently in custody at Douglas County Jail. Pope County does not have its own jail.

Additional details will be reported as they become available.

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VATICAN CITY
Sky News (Australia)

Vatican police have apprehended a US man and a Dutch man trying to deposit billions of euros and US dollars in fake bonds in the Vatican bank.

The men were stopped by the police when they approached one of the guarded gates at the Vatican and asked to be let through to the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) as the bank is formally known, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

The bonds were discovered in a briefcase they were carrying and the men were handed over to Italy’s financial police, who found false passports and other fake documents in their hotel rooms.

The haul came a day after Italian prosecutors said two former top executives at the Vatican bank will go on trial for money laundering in a case that led to the seizure of 23 million euros ($A34.37 million).

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VATICAN CITY
The Local

Vatican police on Saturday apprehended an American and a Dutch man who were trying to deposit billions of euros and US dollars in fake bonds in the Vatican bank.

The men were stopped by the police when they approached one of the guarded gates at the Vatican and asked to be let through to the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) as the bank is formally known, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told AFP.

The bonds were discovered in a briefcase they were carrying and the men were handed over to Italy’s financial police, who found false passports and other fake documents in their hotel rooms.

The haul came a day after Italian prosecutors said two former top executives at the Vatican bank will go on trial for money laundering in a case that led to the seizure of €23 million ($32 million).

IOR press officer Max Hohenberg said the American and Dutch man “are neither clients of the bank, nor were they expected”.

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VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post

Posted: 03/29/2014

ROME (AP) — Italian finance police say a suspected plot to swindle the Vatican bank was foiled after Vatican guards became suspicious of two foreigners who tried to enter the bank with a briefcase filled with false financial certificates.

The Finance Guard official leading the Italian probe was not available early Sunday for details. But the police operations center confirmed a report Saturday night by the Italian news agency ANSA that a Dutchman and a U.S. man were stopped after they tried to convince Vatican security officers they had business at the bank, which is not open to the general public. Police wouldn’t say when the incident occurred. ANSA said the pair aimed to fraudulently obtain lines of credit.

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MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

Leslie Hittner

Since the First Sunday of Advent, 2013, there have been at least 10 stories in the Winona Daily News about the Diocese of Winona’s involvement in the Catholic Church cover-up of priestly sexual abuse.

Indeed, the Church’s “shepherds” seemed to have been shepherding teams of lawyers who graze in courtrooms instead of “the flock.”

Ten stories about the Diocese of Winona and the cover-up.

Zero stories about the Diocese of Winona and the season of Advent.

When I was working for my brother, who owned and operated our family’s trucking business, he used to say, “Watch what a business advertises. That will be an area where it is weak. That will be what it does not do right. That will be an area where that business struggles.” That’s why nearly every forced release of information about the priestly sexual abuse cover-up is accompanied by official statements that review the policies and procedures that the church has set in place “to protect the children.”

It’s not because the church does these things that such statements are released. It’s because the church didn’t do these things.

Remember also, that throughout all of this, few if any bishops have been held accountable by the church. The church continues to deflect the public’s attention about its sexual abuse issues by pointing to sexual abuse and sexual abuse cover-ups elsewhere — as if that makes some sort of a difference.

Well, gentlemen, it doesn’t.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 29, 2014

Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer

The now infamous case of the brilliant lawyer and sex abuse survivor John Ellis before the child sex abuse royal commission has laid bare for the first time not just the Sydney Catholic archdiocese’s wealth but the cold, dark heart of its handling of child sex abuse complaints.

The three-week hearing before Justice Peter McClellan has demonstrated in excruciating detail the exercise of power, against a vulnerable man, at the highest levels of the church and of the law in Sydney.

Cardinal George Pell, who on evidence before the commission called all the shots in the Ellis case, takes up a new job running the Vatican’s finances on Monday.

McClellan has instructed his people to secure the cardinal’s return to the witness box in Melbourne later in the year, when the commission will inquire into the ”Melbourne Response” set up by Pell in 1996 to deal with sex abuse complaints.

Until then we have learnt:

Accounts tendered in evidence sensationally revealed for the first time the financial position of what is likely Australia’s richest archdiocese. It is open for McClellan to conclude that it made low payouts to sex abuse victims because it chose to prioritise other uses, such as saving.

The archdiocese’s assets have nearly doubled since 2004, to over $1 billion at the end of 2013. While liabilities and expenses grew similarly, the net position is a healthy one: net assets grew from $103 million in 2000 to $192 million in 2013.

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CANADA
CTV

John Cotter, The Canadian Press
Published Friday, March 28, 2014

EDMONTON — The man heading the commission into the trauma caused by Indian residential schools says Ottawa plans to cut a program that helps survivors of the system to heal.

Justice Murray Sinclair said the program is for people who have told their stories of abuse at Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings across the country.

Sinclair said the federal government is also balking at recommendations to improve mental health services that would help the extended families of these victims, especially in remote rural and Northern communities.

“Health Canada has decided on its own, without consultation with us or any other entity engaged in the Indian residential school settlement agreement, that effective this year, they are going to be terminating the Resolution Health Support Program, and leaving survivors who continue to experience personal difficulties after this event to essentially leave them on their own to find their own form of treatment,” Sinclair told The Canadian Press.

“Our point is you can’t expect people to heal immediately or to be able to overcome the personal difficulties they feel as a result of feeling those experiences again. And that healing is going to take some time.”

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Updated March 29, 2014

Paris Arrow

President Obama should return his Nobel Peace Prize which he never worked for and does not deserve. Obama mocked the Nobel Peace Prize when he went to the Vatican and praised Pope Francis the Pretender and Impostor of Jesus with pre-scripted statements prepared by the Opus Dei PR Deceits Squad: “The Holy Father has inspired the peoples of the entire world – and me too – with his commitment to social justice… especially for people who are the poorest and most vulnerable among us.” WTF**k? “His commitment to social justice” – really, in what planet? From his hundred billion Euros Vatican Palace throne out-of-touch with reality –preaching what his Opus Dei PR Deceits Team concoct pathological lies day after day – while he and they do the opposite? Where are the “poorest and most vulnerable” in the planet betwen the Vatican Bank and Secret Vatican Swiss Banks?

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ITALY
SBS (Australia)

AAP

Italy’s Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco has defended a Vatican policy exempting bishops from having to report suspected child sex abuse to the police.

A leading Italian cleric has defended a decision to adopt a Vatican-approved policy exempting bishops from having to report suspected child sex abuse to the police.

“The Vatican requires national laws to be respected, and we know that there is no such duty (to report abuse) under Italian law,” Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting in Genoa on Saturday.

A day earlier, the conference published guidelines stipulating that clergy are under no obligation to inform authorities about suspected abuse but have a “moral duty” to act to protect the vulnerable and “contribute to the common good”.

The guidelines sparked fury among victim support groups, with the US-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) deploring the “stunning, depressing and irresponsible contradiction between what Vatican officials say about abuse, and do about abuse”.

The Church has repeatedly been accused by victims of covering up abuse by priests and moving predator clerics from one diocese to another rather than reporting them, thereby putting other children at risk.

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IRELAND
Sunday World

By Niamh O’ Connor

I went to court this week to tell a priest I had known and trusted that he was the last person I expected to see there on paedophile charges.

I just wanted to look Fr Denis Nolan in the eye. I also asked him if it was true, though he had already pleaded guilty to all charges.

“I’ll tell you sometime over a cup of tea,” he said, lying through his teeth. Again.

Brave teenager John Paul Hunter was the sex victim of predator Nolan from the ago of 12.

Now 19, John Paul waived his right to anonymity to name and shame the parish priest, from the small town of Rathnew in Co. Wicklow, who was jailed for seven years for repeatedly sexually abusing him.

Wiping away tears, John Paul told me after the hearing: “I’m just so happy it’s over. He ruined my life.

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ROME
Deccan Herald

AFP | March 29, 2014

Rome: A leading Italian cleric on Saturday defended the decision to adopt a Vatican-approved policy which exempts bishops from having to report cases of suspected child sex abuse to the police.

“The Vatican requires national laws to be respected, and we know that there is no such duty (to report abuse) under Italian law,” Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting in Genoa.

The conference published guidelines on Friday which stipulated that clergy are under no obligation to inform the authorities about suspected abuse but have a “moral duty” to act to protect the vulnerable and “contribute to the common good”.

The guidelines sparked fury among victim support groups, with the US-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) deploring the “stunning, depressing and irresponsible contradiction between what Vatican officials say about abuse, and do about abuse.”

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BERMUDA
Royal Gazette

By Jessie Moniz Hardy

After being involved in a groundbreaking Canadian commission to look at child sex abuse within the Catholic Church, Dr Nuala Kenny, paediatrician and Catholic Sister of Charity, was confident the problem was on its way to being solved. That was back in the 1990s.

Since then she has often been left wondering ‘have we learned nothing’ as church sex scandal after scandal has erupted worldwide.

Dr Kenny was on the island this week to speak about child sex abuse within the church, and other issues related to bioethics.

She is the author of ‘Healing the Church: Diagnosing and Treating the Clergy Sexual Abuse Scandal’.

She served on the Newfoundland Archdiocese of St John’s Commission of Inquiry following the Mount Cashel revelations of the 1980s. This scandal involved the widespread abuse of children in the Mount Cashel orphanage in St John’s, Newfoundland. In 1988 she became a professor and head of the paediatrics department at Dalhousie University and chief of paediatrics at the Izaak Walton Killam Children’s Hospital (now the IWK Health Centre) and later, deputy health minister for Nova Scotia.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: March 27, 2014

Officials also sought an extension for turning over some documents.

The Twin Cities archdiocese will begin releasing its files on clergy child sex offenders to the court next week, but it is unlikely to include the entire 60,000 documents.

Facing a deadline next Tuesday for releasing the mountain of paperwork, the archdiocese on Thursday asked Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North for an extension.

Van de North said that if the church cannot produce all of the documents by Monday, the church should — for starters — provide those most relevant to the deposition of Archbishop John Nienstedt, which is scheduled for April 2.

But the delayed rollout could prompt another legal problem for the church. If documents released later require further questioning of Nienstedt, there will be a request for another deposition of the archbishop, said Jeff Anderson, attorney for the alleged victim whose case has prompted the document release.

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CANADA
Edmonton Journal

BY DENE MOORE, THE CANADIAN PRESS MARCH 28, 2014

VANCOUVER – The death records of tens of thousands of First Nations children who died during the time residential schools were operating in Canada have been handed over to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Several provincial governments gave up the records to the commission, which will now cross-reference the information with student lists to determine who among the children died while in the care of the church-run schools and where they might be buried.

“We hear from the survivors about having lost loved ones in the schools and not knowing what their fate was, what happened to them, whether they died and, if they died, where they’re buried,” said Kimberley Murray, executive director of the commission. “It’s an important truth they need to have before they can move forward to reconciliation.”

British Columbia opened the floodgates with the release of 4,900 death records for children aged 4 to 19 — the first batch a few months ago and the latest on Friday.

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ROME
International Business Times

By Jerin Mathew March 29, 2014

The lawyers for Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the former head of the Vatican bank who has been sacked after receiving a unanimous vote of no-confidence from his board, has threatened to sue the bank over his “unfair” dismissal.

Gotti Tedeschi was ousted by its lay board in the wake of the “Vatileaks” scandal, in which former Pope Benedict’s butler leaked the Vatican’s secret papers to the media.

While voting to fire him, the board claimed Gotti Tedeschi was an ineffective and divisive manager.

Gotti Tedeschi said he was ousted because he wanted to bring more transparency to the bank’s dealings – an issue that embarrassed the bank for decades.

Gotti Tedeschi had been under investigation over alleged money laundering, but the case against him was shelved after a court ruling, which said he had nothing to do with the day to day operations of the bank and was working to bring it in line with international anti-money-laundering standards.

Gotti Tedeschi’s lawyers said in a five-page statement entitled “The Rehabilitation of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi” the judgment proved he was a capable manager who acted in the best interests of the bank and encouraged him to take legal action to clear his name.

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IRELAND
The Journal

ABUSE SURVIVOR MARIE Collins received a call last week offering her a seat on the the Vatican’s new Pontifical Council for the Protection of Minors.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie, she said that she was hopeful that the new council will bring about much needed and long over due change within the Vatican.

“I had no idea I was even being considered for the role until I received a call on Friday offering me the position. It was a complete surprise to me,” she said.

Voice on the council

When asked was it something she jumped at or had to think about she said that when she heard about the establishment of the council in December she thought it was very important to have a survivors voice on the council.

“I knew that it was vital that a voice of a survivor be in that discussion,” she said, adding she could not turn down an opportunity where she would be a voice to those that were abused.

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ROME
The Local

Paolo Cipriani, the former director general of the bank formally known as the Institute for Religious Works, and his deputy Massimo Tulli are accused in a case that led to the seizure of €23 million ($32 million).

Italian media reported prosecutors as saying that Cipriani and Tulli had signed off on the suspicious payment and former president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi had instead tried to enforce money laundering laws.

The two were forced to resign last year, three days after a senior Vatican accountant — Monsignor Nunzio Scarano — who held accounts at the bank was arrested in Italy for suspicious cash transfers.

Tedeschi, who was himself ousted in 2012 in an unusually public showdown with the bank’s board, was instead entirely cleared by the investigation and
threatened legal action for damage to his reputation.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Eric J. Lyman Religion News Service | Mar. 28, 2014

VATICAN CITY Pope Francis met Friday in a closed-door meeting with the German churchman known as “Bishop Bling,” Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, whose extravagant and expensive lifestyle cost him his job.

Tebartz-van Elst, 54, spent more than $40 million of church money renovating his home in Limburg, Germany. He became a worldwide phenomenon, in part because his lifestyle clashed so sharply with that of Francis, known for living in spartan and humble surroundings and for preaching restraint and austerity.

Vatican sources confirmed Tebartz-van Elst met with the pontiff at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. But there was no information about what the two men discussed or what conclusions were drawn.

Among the expenses from the refurbishment of the residence: $300,000 for an ornamental fish tank, $2.4 million on bronze window frames, and $240,000 on a spiral staircase. Tebartz-van Elst blamed the expense on a deputy who failed to keep track of cost overruns.

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AUSTRALIA
Sunday Herald

RUTH LAMPERD SUNDAY HERALD SUN MARCH 30, 2014

TALL George Pell might have been anything other than a priest. That’s what most of his classmates expected. A teacher. A footballer for Richmond. A lawyer, maybe.

So when he lined up for the priesthood at the Werribee Corpus Christi seminary in the summer of 1960, it surprised many of his school friends.

Young George hit 6 ft 3 (1.9m) by the time he was 15. He was commanding and jovial, the centre of boarding house social life. The boys at St Patricks College, Ballarat, thought they had him worked out. But with a devout Irish Catholic mother and a priest uncle, the jump to the seminary may not have been so hard to fathom.

It emerged during his training years that he was a stickler for church-ordained truth and tradition. He loved a debate, particularly so because, as a former colleague says, he was “always right”. He was “dismissive” of those who didn’t agree with him.

His liturgical accent would have been at home in the wooden panels of a courtroom. At least two of his former classmates could more easily see a black lawyer’s gown billowing about his broad shoulders, a white wig on his head, not a cross hanging by a chain around his neck.

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FLORIDA
Orlando Sentinel

By Erica Rodriguez, Orlando Sentinel
6:36 p.m. EDT, March 28, 2014

A Lake County church deacon turned himself into authorities Friday after a girl younger than 10 years old told investigators that he sexually battered her in a tree house behind his home.

Lake County sheriff’s investigators believe 65-year-old Thomas Warren Halsey sexually battered the girl at his Leesburg home.

Halsey had been a deacon with First Baptist Church of Leesburg for the last two years, said Art Ayris, the church’s executive pastor, but is now being removed from that position.

In an interview with investigators, the girl said Halsey told her to inappropriately touch him in the tree house and under the sheets while she was on his bed. The girl also told investigators Halsey exposed himself to her in the tree house. She detailed much of the abuse then stopped short by telling investigators the incident was “creepy” and she did not want to further discuss it, according to an arrest report.

Halsey told investigators in an interview that the girl more than once touched him inappropriately without his consent, once under the covers in his bed and another time while he was holding her baby sister. Halsey also told investigators the girl once asked him to take off his clothes and she would runaway if he did not agree. Halsey said after every incident he made the girl’s mother aware of the behavior, which she denied.

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FLORIDA
Daily Commercial

Millard K. Ives | Staff Writer millardives@dailycommercial.com

A deacon at a Leesburg church was arrested Friday on charges that he forced a child to perform sex acts in a treehouse at his home.

Thomas Halsey, 65, with First Baptist Church in Leesburg, turned himself in at the Lake County jail, according to Lake County Sheriff’s Office. He was charged with two counts of sexual battery on a child under 12 and was held without bail.

The brown-colored brick, two-garage home is nestled in a residential neighborhood in the 6000 block of Sunnyside Drive in Leesburg. In the back yard is a three-story green tree house with a deck swing and chairs visible on the second floor.

Sgt. James Vachon called it an elaborate treehouse which could fit beds inside.

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FLORIDA
WESH

[with video]

LEESBURG, Fla. —A deacon at the First Baptist Church in Leesburg was arrested Friday in a child sex case.

Lake County Sheriff’s Office deputies said Thomas Halsey sexually abused a young girl for two years.

Halsey is accused of sexual battery on a child under 10 years old. Investigators said the young girl said Halsey forced the child to perform sexual acts on him inside his home and his tree house, located in his backyard.

Deputies said Halsey denied the accusations and claimed the child initiated the sexual acts. According to the arrest report, Halsey told investigators the child “asked him to take off his clothes and lay on top her while she was naked.”

As a deacon, Halsey worked with widows, but never with children, investigators said.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Radio Vatikan

[Summary: Bishop Emeritus Franz-Peter Tebartz van Elst said he now realizes he made mistakes and he has asked for forgiveness. He issued a statement after his audience Friday with Pope Francis.]

„Mit dem Wissen von heute erkenne ich, dass ich Fehler gemacht habe. Auch wenn sie niemals aus Absicht entstanden, haben sie Vertrauen zerstört.“ Das schreibt der emeritierte Bischof von Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, in einer Erklärung, die er nach seiner Audienz bei Papst Franziskus an diesem Freitag veröffentlicht hat. Er bitte alle um Vergebung, die unter seinen Versäumnissen gelitten hätten oder immer noch litten, so der Bischof.

In der Entscheidung des Papstes, seinen im Oktober angebotenen Rücktritt anzunehmen, sehe er die Chance für einen Neubeginn, „nicht nur für das Bistum Limburg, sondern auch für mich.“ Er bitte darum, seine Stellungnahme zum Prüfbericht als Episode zu betrachten und nicht als Beginn einer neuen Auseinandersetzung. In den Medien war diese Stellungnahme als nachträgliche Rechtfertigung des Bischofs gelesen und als Zeichen seiner Uneinsichtigkeit gedeutet worden.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Times-Leader

March 29. 2014

SCRANTON — In recent weeks, officials of the Diocese of Scranton were notified that the Rev. Carlos Urrutigoity is exercising priestly ministry and was recently named the Vicar General of the Diocese of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay.

Urrutigoity served within the territory of the Diocese of Scranton as a member of the Society of St. John from 1998 until 2002, when he was suspended from ministry following accusations of misconduct. The society was suppressed in 2004 by then Bishop Joseph Martino.

Despite Martino’s consistent expression of grave reservations about the cleric’s suitability for priestly ministry, Urrutigoity was incardinated into the Diocese of Ciudad del Este in 2008.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Boz Tchividjian | Mar 28, 2014

A few months ago I was told about a new film that documents the sexual abuse perpetrated upon children at a place called Jesus People USA. At the time, I had never heard of Jesus People USA. So I made contact with Jamie Prater, a former resident of Jesus People USA, who has spent the past years pouring his life into making this eye-opening documentary. After watching No Place to Call Home, I learned that Jesus People USA is a Christian community on the north side of Chicago. It is a place that holds wonderful childhood memories for many of its former members. It is also a place where the bodies and souls of dozens and dozens of precious children were eviscerated through systemic sexual abuse. A place where sexual offenders roamed freely and had easy access to vulnerable little ones, who were often outside the care and supervision of their parents. This was no place to call home.

As I watched this film and listened to the many heartbreaking interviews, I found myself overwhelmed. If we are honest, I wonder how many other Christian environments may be No Place to Call Home for His little ones?

Below is my exclusive interview with Jamie Prater:

Boz: Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me. What is No Place To Call Home about?

Jamie: No Place To Call Home chronicles the lives of several people born and raised in Jesus People USA Evangelical Covenant Church. The film begins in 2008 when I’m living in Asheville, North Carolina and follows my journey back to Chicago and through my discovery of what would be dozens upon dozens of cases of child sexual abuse.

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FLORIDA
WFTV

[with video]

LEESBURG, Fla. — A deacon at First Baptist Church in Leesburg is accused of sexual battery on a girl under 10-years-old.

Thomas Halsey, 65, turned himself in to authorities Friday afternoon after investigators obtained his arrest warrant.

The victim’s mother reported that Halsey had been sexually abusing her daughter over a course of two years, but the victim told her mother about the alleged abuse this month.

In the arrest affidavit, the victim said she performed a sex act on Halsey on March 21 inside a large treehouse in Halsey’s backyard.

The treehouse is multi-level and contains bunk beds on the top level.

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COLORADO
KKTV

A teen says her suburban Denver pastor sexually assaulted her as many as 50 times over three years.

KUSA-TV reports that an arrest affidavit for 51-year-old Gerald Clark says the alleged abuse began in 2009. It said the teen recently confronted Clark because she was worried about others in the church youth group.

Clark was arrested Wednesday on one count of sexual assault on a child by someone in a position of trust. He’s been released on bond. It’s not clear if he has a lawyer and telephone numbers for his home and Jericho Ministries International have been disconnected.

The affidavit says the alleged victim is 17 and lived with Clark and his wife during summers.

Clark is due to appear in court next week.

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MISSOURI
Fox 4

[with video]

March 28, 2014, by Melissa Stern

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Two south Kansas City Catholic Elementary school band teachers have been fired. The two teachers were placed on leave earlier in March. The school principal sent a letter home to parents Thursday with the news that they have been let go.

“It’s very important that the protection of children is a top priority in all instances, and I think this decision best protects children,” said Jenifer Valenti, the ombudsman for the Catholic Diocese for Kansas City and St. Joseph. She says the firing of St. Thomas More Elementary school band teachers Gregg Briggs and Tod Barnard was for the best.

“The investigation in Independence stemmed from Mr. Briggs offering a ride to a student in Independence,” said Valenti.

No charges have been filed against Briggs, but the letter to parents states he was terminated after a review by the school’s independent review board.

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CANADA
Our Windsor

Brant News
By Natalie Paddon

Chris Morrison is seeking accountability and compensation for the suffering he endured.

The victim of sexual assault at the hands of Rev. George Ferris announced during a Friday media conference that he has filed a $3.1-million lawsuit against both the retired Anglican church minister and the Anglican Diocese of Huron.

The 43-year-old Paris resident filed a statement of claim on Jan. 24.

In November, the 66-year-old Ferris was convicted of two counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual exploitation against Morrison.

In January, Ferris was sentenced to four years in prison.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Times-Tribune

BY DAVID FALCHEK (STAFF WRITER)
Published: March 29, 2014

The bishop of the Diocese of Scranton agreed to pen a letter to Pope Francis warning about a priest accused of child molestation who has risen to second-in-command in a Paraguayan diocese.

At the request of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera said he shared their “outrage” at the ascension of Monsignor Carlos Urrutigoity, defended the actions of his predecessor, Bishop James Martino, but ignored the group’s other far-reaching requests.

SNAP reproduced the bishop’s letter on its website. Diocese of Scranton spokesman William Genello confirmed the reproduction of the letter is accurate and declined to comment further.

Bishop Bambera said he has no jurisdiction in another diocese, but he would express his personal concerns about Monsignor Urrutigoity to Vatican administrators.

“I have begun the process of bringing this dire situation to the attention of the Holy See in the hopes that the matter will immediately be examined further by those with competency over it,” he wrote. “My intention is to do all I can to make sure this matter is addressed appropriately and expeditiously.”

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ROME
NASDAQ

By Dow Jones Business News, March 28, 2014

ROME–An Italian judge dismissed prosecutors’ investigation into the former chairman of the Vatican’s bank over possible noncompliance of money laundering rules, his lawyers said on Friday, accusing the bank’s board of damaging the Holy See after it fired him two years ago.

The ruling stated that Ettore Gotti Tedeschi wasn’t involved in the 2010 financial transaction that is being probed by local prosecutors for alleged violations as he wasn’t involved in the day-to-day running of the bank, said his lawyers in a statement, which includes a copy of Rome Criminal Court Judge Flavia Costantini’s order dated Feb. 19.

Rome prosecutors had agreed with the dismissal request of Mr. Gotti Tedeschi being removed from formal investigation, according to the judge’s order.

Pope Francis, who was elected just over one year ago, has set as a priority an overhaul of the Vatican’s finances and its scandal-probe bank. In January, Pope Francis replaced all but one of the five cardinals in the commission that oversees the bank as he placed a firmer hold on the financial institution.

In September 2010, Rome’s prosecutors had placed Mr. Gotti Tedeschi and the then-director general Paolo Cipriani of the Institute for the Works of Religion, or IOR, as the Vatican bank is officially called, under investigation for alleged irregularities in a request of transfer of money from an IOR account at an Italian bank.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

BY PHILIP PULLELLA
VATICAN CITY Fri Mar 28, 2014

(Reuters) – In a new blow for the troubled Vatican bank, lawyers for its former head who was abruptly fired in 2012 threatened legal action on Friday to clear his name and show that he was unfairly dismissed.

The surprise move by lawyers for Ettore Gotti Tedeschi came after months of relative calm for the Vatican bank under its new president, German Ernst Von Freyberg.

Gotti Tedeschi was ousted after a no confidence vote by its lay board on May 24 at the height of the “Vatileaks” scandal, in which former Pope Benedict’s butler leaked the pontiff’s personal papers to the media.

The board said Gotti Tedeschi was fired because he was an ineffective and divisive manager. He said he was ousted because he wanted to introduce more transparency to the bank, which has been an embarrassment for the Vatican for decades.

Gotti Tedeschi had been under investigation by Rome magistrates on suspicion of money laundering, but last month a judge ruled that the case against him be shelved.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – AM

ELIZABETH JACKSON: The parents of two abuse victims say they want the Catholic Church to act urgently to remove a cap on payment to abuse victims.

Anthony and Chrissie Foster say Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, this week personally promised them that the $75,000 cap would be abolished.

But the couple say they have heard nothing from the Archbishop of Melbourne, the man responsible for actually making the change.

Cardinal Pell this week publicly apologised to a victim of child sexual abuse, saying the Catholic Church failed in its moral and pastoral responsibilities.

Alison Caldwell reports.

ALISON CALDWELL: It was the news Anthony and Chrissie Foster had been waiting for for 18 years; that the Catholic Church would remove the cap on payments to victims of child sexual abuse.

It now stands at $75,000.

Anthony Foster says he got a commitment from Cardinal George Pell during a meeting on Thursday night.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Breda O’Brien

Sat, Mar 29, 2014

The appointment of Marie Collins to the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors is highly significant. It is a tribute to Marie Collins herself, who has been an articulate and dedicated campaigner on issues of child sexual abuse.

She made an impressive presentation at a major international summit on child abuse in 2012 at Rome’s Jesuit-run Gregorian University, which was co-sponsored by several Vatican departments.

Some 100 representatives of bishops’ conferences and 30 religious superiors attended the conference, and some were visibly shaken and moved by hearing what a victim had to say.

Other members of the new commission include Rev Hans Zollner, the vice-rector of the Gregorian University, a psychologist who organised the 2012 seminar, and Baroness Sheila Hollins, a British psychiatrist and former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Half the current commission’s members are women, and they are all heavy-hitters, including a former prime minister of Poland, Hannah Suchocka, who was appointed as prime minister under Lech Walesa, because she was highly regarded by politicians from many different parts of the political spectrum.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic World Report

March 28, 2014

By Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille

I confess that I really don’t want to talk about sex abuse in the Church again. But Pope Francis does, so perhaps we might help him and his newly appointed commission by taking a trip through some unexpected and ancient terrain.

I was at work on an article several summers ago about the vexed question of “canonical territory,” especially regarding Catholic-Orthodox relations in Ukraine and Russia. I never finished that article, in part because I am constitutionally prone to the sins of sloth and gluttony and decided that martinis and cigars in my backyard while reading books on totally unrelated topics were much more interesting activities, and so I fled from my computer to my chaise longue. But all was not lost: in my research for that article, and as penance for my sins of the flesh, I had forced myself to slog through every canon I could lay my hands on from local, provincial, regional, national, and ecumenical councils in both East and West. I was looking to see what, if anything, they said about questions of territory and jurisdiction.

I was not, in other words, looking for canons dealing with clerical discipline, but in my reading it quickly emerged that I could not avoid them, since it seems that almost every council ever held had to deal with clerical malfeasance in one form or other. Naughty priests are not new! Council after council seemed to have something to say about priests or bishops who commit offenses, especially those of the flesh—adultery, sodomy, and the abuse of minors. Again and again one thing was clear: clerics of any rank (including those in minor orders) who were guilty of any sexual sin at all were to be removed from office and never again allowed to hold any clerical office anywhere in the Church. This was a life sentence.

Another discovery staggered me: this penalty of permanent deposition was to be applied even to consensual sins involving adults. Thus if a priest was having a consensual affair with a woman in his parish, which both freely entered and willingly consummated, he was to be removed forever. Even if the woman did not want him punished—even if she had confessedly seduced him—he was still to be removed.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

David Marr
theguardian.com, Friday 28 March 2014

St Mary’s was not overflowing at Cardinal George Pell’s farewell. The music was magnificent and 20 bishops followed the candles and banners in procession. But the governor general, prime minister and premier were somewhere else for the night. Rows of stack-away chairs stood empty.

Pell looked weary but cheerful. Less than four hours before appearing in cope and mitre under the arc lights of the cathedral, he had been in the witness box of the royal commission into institutional responses to child abuse delivering one last apology to John Ellis. Some of the time since had been spent praying at the shrine of St Mary MacKillop.

Officials last seen in the witness box gave readings and led prayers. Not among the familiar faces at the celebrations was Ellis, once a devout Catholic who came three times a week to mass is in this building. That life is behind him now.

Though they have faced each other at the commission over the past week, they’ve met only once. In a sense, the meeting was routine. It’s what victims of priests are offered when their battles with the church are done, every last detail settled, money paid and apologies made. As Pell’s chancellor Brian Rayner explained to the commission: “I would offer the person a discussion with the cardinal, a cup of tea, where he would then personally continue that apology.”

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ITALY
The Independent (UK)

Italy’s bishops pass Vatican-backed rule that child molestation does not have to be reported

The rule was passed at a conference on Friday

KASHMIRA GANDER Author Biography Friday 28 March 2014

The Italian Bishops’ Conference said the guidelines published on Friday reflected suggestions from the Vatican’s office that handles sex abuse investigations.

Victims have denounced how bishops systematically covered up abuse by moving priests while keeping prosecutors in the dark.

Only in 2010 did the Vatican instruct bishops to report abuse to police — but only where required by law.

Italian guidelines cite a 1985 treaty between the Vatican and Italy stipulating that clergy aren’t obliged to tell magistrates about information obtained through their religious ministry. The guidelines remind bishops, however, they have a ”moral duty“ to contribute to the common good.

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CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald

Published March 28, 2014

Writing and researching Petitot must have been a journey of constant discovery for author Susan Haley.

The weighty tome is the product of almost a decade of work, and tells the story of Emile Petitot, a man historically known in Canada for his work as a priest, a missionary, a writer and an ethnographer.

But it just takes a quick flutter of fingers on a keyboard to learn that he has a remarkably dark history. According to a variety of interviews with Haley, including one with the Northern Journal, she was surprised to discover that the Canadian explorer was also a pedophile and subject to symptoms of a bipolar disorder.

This could be why she chose to tell the story the way she did. Her storytelling is fluid, bouncing back and forth from the 1800s to modern day, and it’s told through the eyes of a few different characters, each one affected in their own way by the mad priest. Luckily, the plot has the main character, Marcus, to keep it on track.

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AUSTRALIA
Haaretz (Israel)

SYDNEY – A former Chabad-Lubavitch youth leader in Melbourne accused of child sex crimes has been found dead in a suspected suicide on Thursday, triggering acrimonious accusations that “community vigilantes,” “thugs” and those who conducted “trial by media” have “blood on their hands.”

The body of Aron “Ezzy” Kestecher, 28, was found in his apartment on Thursday.

Kestecher was accused of multiple allegations of child sex abuse against minors and was due to face court in June, police confirmed on Friday.

Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant visited family and friends on Thursday. “I provided a measure of support and comfort to his family members and his close friends, as well as the first responders to this most tragic of events.”

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AUSTRALIA
Jewish Daily Forward

JTA

Aron “Ezzy” Kestecher, a former Chabad-Lubavitch youth leader in Melbourne who was accused of child sex crimes, died in a suspected suicide.

Kestecher, 28, was found dead in his apartment Thursday. He was accused of multiple allegations of child sex abuse against minors and was due to face court in June, police confirmed Friday.

Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, said he visited the family on Thursday.

“I provided a measure of support and comfort to his family members and his close friends, as well as the first responders to this most tragic of events,” he said. “The deceased was a very special young man, but he was also deeply troubled.”

The Lubavitch websites Crownheights.info and shmais.com both posted death notices expressing their “profound sadness, deep pain and shock.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Pilot

ON: 3/28/2014, BY CHRISTOPHER S. PINEO

BRAINTREE — A local clergy abuse survivor and playwright welcomed the news that Pope Francis had tapped Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley to serve as one of the first members of the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Michael Mack, creator and performer of the one-man play “Conversations with My Molester: A Journey of Faith,” said a Vatican announcement, March 22, that the pope had established the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors came as welcome news to the survivor of clerical sex abuse.

“I think it was an important step,” said Michael Mack, creator and performer of the one-man play “Conversations with My Molester: A Journey of Faith.”

“I am especially excited by the makeup of the commission, because there are actually more laypeople than clergy on it — five laypeople, three clergy,” he said. “I was really pleased to see that one of those laypeople is a sexual abuse survivor herself.”

Mack said that aspect of the commission gave him hope because the commission will include the voice of a survivor — Marie Collins, a native of Ireland who survived abuse as a 13-year-old girl.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, March 28, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, outreach director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

We have three objections to these new claims by US bishops.

[U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops]

First, if over a decade, my car tires become bald and I buy new ones, they’ll likely cost more than the old ones did. It’s silly – or even deceitful – for me to brag that my spending on “safety” has gone up. But that’s what bishops are doing today.

It’s painful to watch them stretch and distort the truth for another public relations ‘win.’

Second, Bishops desperately keep trying to pretend this on-going crisis is somehow “in the past.” They do this in a range of ways, but among their most popular is to claim or suggest that most cases happened decades ago.

The truth is we simply cannot know. That’s because it nearly always takes victims decades to come forward and report the crimes they’ve suffered. So at best, it’s disingenuous and at worst it’s deceptive for Catholic officials to claim the rate of clergy sex crimes is declining.

Bishops and their public relations professionals aren’t dumb. They know delayed reporting is almost always the norm but they misrepresent what this means time and time again. By doing so, they are recklessly endangering kids by encouraging complacency when vigilance is required.

Finally, since it was adopted a decade ago, the bishops’ extremely vague, weak and rarely-enforced abuse policy has been consistently weakened and sporadically followed. So these alleged “audits” are nearly meaningless.

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CANADA
CBC News

Canada’s privacy watchdog is looking into a possible breach of personal information belonging to residential school survivors, after an adjudicator working for the agency handling their compensation claims filed a police report citing blackmail.

The Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat is the administrative body that manages the claims made by residential school survivors. It is an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal established in 2007 under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

Indian residential school survivors can seek compensation for suffering “sexual or serious physical abuse or another wrongful act” through an independent assessment process managed by the agency.

A spokesperson for the agency told CBC News on Wednesday that “an individual contacted the Secretariat earlier this month” claiming to have information relating to claims made by residential school survivors.

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CANADA
Edmonton Journal

Truth and Reconciliation Commission to compile estimate of how many students died at residential schools

BY BRENT WITTMEIER, EDMONTON JOURNAL MARCH 28, 2014

EDMONTON – Some are a mix of good and bad times. Others have been dulled into resignation and resentment. Some are just a few words.

Survivor stories were front and centre Friday on the second day of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission national event, running four days at the Shaw Conference Centre.

The words spoken are as different as the settings. For those preferring to make private statements, there’s a room behind a curtain. On the same floor, others tell their stories before hundreds of listeners.

More than 21,000 people are expected at the four-day event, the seventh and final event of the $60-million Truth and Reconciliation Commission, formed in the aftermath of a $5-billion settlement between the federal government, Canadian churches and aboriginals in 2007.

Between the 1870s and 1996, more than 150,000 aboriginal children were placed in 139 federally funded, church-run schools, mostly in the northern and western portions of the country. The schools were plagued by abuses and poor conditions. Alberta had 25 schools recognized under the settlement, more than any other province or territory.

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NEBRASKA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, March 28, 2014

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

A Catholic panel has released a report on whether and how bishops are abiding by the vague, weak and virtually never enforced “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

The Diocese of Lincoln is once again in violation of the Charter. The diocese did not allow church ‘auditors’ to come in and do their jobs.

[U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops]

Bishop James Conley had only been the bishop of Lincoln for a month in 2012, but that was plenty of time to make a positive change. We are disappointed that he is following in his predecessor’s footsteps and not honoring their commitment to protect children.

We hoped Bishop Conley would have made a difference. We hope he honors his pledge and his duty and complies with the Charter for the 2014 review though we doubt he will.

We also hope that every single person who sees, suspects or suffers clergy sex crimes in Nebraska to call police officials, not Catholic officials.

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CANADA
Sun News

VINCENT BALL | QMI AGENCY

BRANTFORD, Ont. — A Paris, Ont., man and survivor of sexual abuse has launched a $3.1-million lawsuit against his abuser and the Anglican Diocese of Huron.

Chris Morrison, 42, who didn’t reveal for decades that he had been abused by a minister of his church in the 1980s, announced his lawsuit at a press conference Friday. He is being represented by Rob Talach, of Beckett Personal Injury Lawyers, of London, Ont.

The lawsuit names George Ferris and Incorporated Synod of the Diocese of Huron as the defendants.

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UNITED STATES
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

This links to the full Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

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UNITED STATES
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

March 28, 2014

Most cases reported last year occurred 30-40 years ago, some go back half a century

More than 4.6 million children, 99 percent of priests have had safe environment training

Archbishop Kurtz pledges to heal, educate, prevent abuse, hold abusers accountable

WASHINGTON—U.S. dioceses and religious orders in 2013 increased what they spent on child protection by more than 50 percent over what they spent the year before, according to the 2013 report from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). In 2013, dioceses and religious orders spent $41,721,675 for child protection efforts, an increase of more than $15 million over the previous year, when they spent $26,583,087.

The numbers were reported in the “2013 Survey of Allegations and Costs: A Summary Report for the Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.” The Georgetown University-based research organization has gathered information since 2004, as part of an annual report required by the U.S. bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.” The full report can be found at

www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/2013-Annual-Report.pdf

The survey also found that in 2013 the total number of new allegations and victims decreased to its lowest level since CARA began collecting the data. The number of offenders decreased by six percent, and the number of allegations and victims decreased by one percent.

Deacon Bernard Nojadera, director of the Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection, said one reason for increased costs on child protection was “the rechecks of background for a majority of diocesan personnel. This year, for instance, in many dioceses it was time for the every-five-year background check renewal. There was also an increase in the number of roles that required background checks.” He noted that “some dioceses realized that the system that was used 10 years ago is no longer adequate to the task at hand and bought more sophisticated programs to help keep track of training, background checks, risk management, payroll, etc.” He added that “it is encouraging to see dioceses putting the necessary resources into ensuring the safety of children in its parishes and schools.”

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GERMANY
Irish Independent

PUBLISHED 28 MARCH 2014

26.03.2014: Einführende Erläuterungen zum Abschlussbericht über die Prüfung der Baumaßnahmen auf dem Domberg in Limburg PDF (32,40 KB)

26.03.2014: Abschlussbericht der Prüfkommission über die Baumaßnahme auf dem Domberg in Limburg

A disgraced German bishop, who resigned over his misuse of Church funds, spent €213,000 on an ornamental fish tank.

The extravagant purchase was just one item listed in a report into Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst’s spending.

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst stepped down on the same day that a report was published detailing his extravagances

The extravagant purchase was just one item listed in a report into Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst’s spending.

The leadership of Germany’s Catholic Church on Wednesday published the 108-page document detailing the Bishop of Limburg’s renovation of his headquarters.

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VATICAN CITY
ANSA

(ANSA) – Vatican City, March 28 – Pope Francis met briefly Friday with German Bishop Franz Peter Tebartz-van Elst from the Limburg diocese, whose resignation was accepted earlier in the week as a result of a spending scandal. The pope met for about 10 minutes with Tebartz-van Elst, who is to be assigned to a new post as a result of an investigation into his spending. Dubbed the ‘gold-plated bishop’ for allegedly spending 31 million euros to remodel his residence next to the cathedral, Tebartz-van Elst was suspended by the Vatican last October, when he tendered his resignation. According to some reports, the so-called ‘bishop of bling’ outfitted his residence with a $20,000 bathtub, $500,000 built-in closets and a $35,000 conference table. Tebartz-van Elst is also in hot water concerning a lawsuit against German newsmagazine Der Spiegel over an earlier article about his spending and has also been accused of lying in a separate matter.

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ROME
Anchorage Daily News

ROME — Two former top managers of the Institute for Religious Works, or IOR, the Vatican’s scandal-tainted bank, will go to trial over money laundering charges, Italian prosecutors said Friday.

Former IOR Director General Paolo Cipriani and deputy Massimo Tulli quit their positions in July, days after the arrest of a high-ranking Vatican prelate who allegedly used the bank to launder money on behalf of wealthy family friends.

Tulli and Cipriani are accused of having broken anti-money laundering law in connection to the transfer of $31.5 million from an account IOR held at a Rome branch of Credito Artigiano, part of Milan-based Credito Valtellinese.

The date for the start of their trial has yet to be set.

Italian authorities seized the funds in 2010, holding on to them for about one year.

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ITALIA
RAI

Pedofilia, Cei: il vescovo ha il dovere morale di denunciare abusi ma nessun obbligo giuridico

Secondo il documento il vescovo, non rivestendo la qualifica di pubblico ufficiale, non ha l’obbligo giuridico – salvo il dovere morale di contribuire al bene comune – di denunciare all’autorità giudiziaria notizie riguardanti casi di abuso sessuale nei confronti di minore da parte dei sacerdoti. Ai vescovi si chiede però “una speciale cura” nel valutare le vocazione al sacerdozio

“Il vescovo, non rivestendo la qualifica di pubblico ufficiale, non ha l’obbligo giuridico,
salvo il dovere morale di contribuire al bene comune, di denunciare all’autorità giudiziaria” notizie riguardanti casi di abuso sessuale nei confronti di minore da parte dei sacerdoti. E’ quanto contenuto nelle “linee guida” rese note dalla Cei, la Conferenza episcopale italiana.

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ITALIA
Avvenire

È stato pubblicato oggi il testo definitivo delle “Linee guida per i casi di abuso sessuale nei confronti di minori da parte di chierici” (LEGGI), predisposte e approvate dalla Conferenza episcopale italiana sulla base delle indicazioni della Congregazione per la dottrina della fede. Il testo, disponibile sul sito della Cei, è composto da una premessa, tre capitoli : “Profili canonistici”, “Profili penalistici e rapporti con l’autorità civile”, “Il servizio della Segreteria Generale della Conferenza Episcopale Italiana”, e alcuni allegati.

“Il triste e grave fenomeno degli abusi sessuali nei confronti di minori da parte di chierici – si legge nella premessa – sollecita un rinnovato impegno da parte della comunità ecclesiale, chiamata ad affrontare la questione con spirito di giustizia, in conformità alle presenti Linee guida. In quest’ottica, assume importanza fondamentale anzitutto la protezione dei minori, la premura verso le vittime degli abusi e la formazione dei futuri sacerdoti e religiosi. Il vescovo che riceve la denuncia di un abuso deve essere sempre disponibile ad ascoltare la vittima e i suoi familiari, assicurando ogni cura nel trattare il caso secondo giustizia e impegnandosi a offrire sostegno spirituale e psicologico, nel rispetto della libertà della vittima di intraprendere le iniziative giudiziarie che riterrà più opportune”.

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ROME
Gazzetta del Sud

Rome, March 28 – Italian bishops do not have the “legal obligation” to report cases of child-sex abuse by priests to the judicial authorities, according to guidelines released by the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) Friday. The guidelines said, however, that bishops had a “moral duty to contribute to common good”. “Not having the role of a public official, the bishop does not have the legal obligation to report (cases) to the judicial authorities, aside from the moral duty to contribute to the common good,” the guidelines read on child-sex abuse cases.

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ROME
Star Tribune

Article by: Associated Press
Updated: March 28, 2014

ROME — Italy’s bishops have adopted a Vatican-backed sex abuse policy that says they have no obligation to inform police if they suspect a child has been molested.

The Italian Bishops’ Conference said the guidelines published Friday reflected suggestions from the Vatican’s office that handles sex abuse investigations.

Victims have long denounced how bishops systematically covered up abuse by shuffling pedophile priests around while keeping prosecutors in the dark. Only in 2010 did the Vatican instruct bishops to report abuse to police — but only where required by law.

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ROME
Wall Street Journal

By Liam Moloney

ROME–An Italian judge dismissed prosecutors’ investigation into the former chairman of the Vatican’s bank over possible noncompliance of money laundering rules, his lawyers said on Friday, accusing the bank’s board of damaging the Holy See after it fired him two years ago.

The ruling stated that Ettore Gotti Tedeschi wasn’t involved in the 2010 financial transaction that is being probed by local prosecutors for alleged violations as he wasn’t involved in the day-to-day running of the bank, said his lawyers in a statement, which includes a copy of Rome Criminal Court Judge Flavia Costantini’s order dated Feb. 19.

Rome prosecutors had agreed with the dismissal request of Mr. Gotti Tedeschi being removed from formal investigation, according to the judge’s order.

Pope Francis, who was elected just over one year ago, has set as a priority an overhaul of the Vatican’s finances and its scandal-probe bank. In January, Pope Francis replaced all but one of the five cardinals in the commission that oversees the bank as he placed a firmer hold on the financial institution.

In September 2010, Rome’s prosecutors had placed Mr. Gotti Tedeschi and the then-director general Paolo Cipriani of the Institute for the Works of Religion, or IOR, as the Vatican bank is officially called, under investigation for alleged irregularities in a request of transfer of money from an IOR account at an Italian bank.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Nottingham Post

In the week that 85-year-old former priest Francis Cullen was jailed for 15 years for historic sex crimes, Dr Samantha Pegg, senior lecturer in law at Nottingham Law School, looks at the issues raised by the case

FRANCIS Cullen was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment after admitting sexual offences against seven children.

Cullen, who served as a priest in Nottingham and Derbyshire, admitted 21 counts of sexual abuse over a 34-year period.

He was charged by Nottinghamshire Police with sexual offences in 1991 and swiftly absconded from bail, before being extradited last year on a European arrest warrant after he was discovered in Tenerife.

Interestingly, Cullen was not – in a strict legal sense – “wanted”.

Although an arrest warrant had been issued when he fled, such warrants are not issued in perpetuity, and his was withdrawn in 2000. Warrants are subject to review and can be withdrawn if the evidence no longer supports a prosecution, there is no public interest in pursuing the case or it is unlikely an arrest will be made.

Undoubtedly many will question the wisdom of withdrawing the warrant when Cullen was suspected of such grave offences, particularly in the current climate of concern regarding historic sexual offences.

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IRELAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, March 28, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

A group hired to investigate the Irish Catholic church’s child safety policy has been accused of omitting key information. If it is true and they omitted information and are denying it, we are deeply disappointed and concerned.

[Irish Independent]

The protection of children should be a number one priority. When valuable and relevant information is omitted from reports it does a disservice to those children who were egregiously hurt, future victims, and church parishioners.

The church has long maintained that they would be open and transparent, but they denied the former chief executive access stating “there was no basis for review”. That doesn’t sound very open and transparent to us. Why deny access to an investigation aimed at improving church policy unless there is something to hide?

We hope that watchdog group will investigate this omission further and that the church will not impede anymore reviews.

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VATICAN CITY
New Haven Register

By The Associated Press
POSTED: 03/28/14

VATICAN CITY >> The ousted president of the Vatican bank came out swinging Friday after he was cleared in a money-laundering investigation, accusing the bank’s board of causing “grave damage” to the Holy See by firing him in 2012.

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi ended a nearly two-year silence with a statement issued after a Rome judge threw out a Vatican bank-related investigation against him. The court ruled Gotti Tedeschi had nothing to do with daily operations at the Institute for Religious Works and was in fact working to bring the Vatican’s financial institution into line with international anti-money-laundering standards when he was fired.

In a five-page statement entitled “The Rehabilitation of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi,” the banker’s attorneys said the ruling vindicated their client and “shows the unfounded … accusations” made by the bank’s board when it fired him.

The lawyers threatened legal action and said the ruling showed the board had committed “grave errors and thus grave damage to the Holy See” by firing their client when he was working to improve transparency and accountability.

Gotti Tedeschi’s May 2012 ouster was an unusually brutal public dressing-down of a Vatican official said to have had the ear of Pope Benedict XVI. In explaining its no-confidence vote at the time, the bank’s board issued a stinging, nine-point statement accusing him of a host of personal and professional shortcomings.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

MARCH 28, 2014

GUEST BLOG BY BETH

I am at a loss for words after I meet one of our survivors and/or attend a vigil. The most recent vigil/protest outside the cathedral was no different. I always leave these events, if you can even call them that, changed – as if in peaceful mourning or as if I had just visited a very sacred place.

I had planned on attending the special mass for our clergy abuse survivors just to hear first hand what Archbishop Chaput had to say but when I heard many of our survivors were invited but not included in the planning process I changed my mind. I thought it was best to attend but be present outside in support of all those survivors that were unable or in good conscience could not go inside.

As a practicing catholic I was a little torn about not going in to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. Many times I have gone to adoration and wept before Jesus praying for our survivors by name and I believe he heard my prayers. But I knew Jesus wanted me outside on the sidewalk when Vicky, one of our survivors who has become a good friend, emailed and asked if I would come stand with her and support her as she stood outside the cathedral.

The events that unfolded on the sidewalk were very touching. I met family members of the man who was supposed to testify against Fr. Brennan. He is no longer with us but his family will forever keep his memory alive. I also met the mother of one of Fr. McCormick’s victims. One thing I have noticed is that a few of the victims families I have meet recently have members that have jobs in law enforcement. It brought home to me the fact that clergy sexual abuse can happen to anyone’s child.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Merkur

[Summary: Father G. has been indicted for sexually abuse more than 20 youngsters under age 14 at the Ettal monastery. The allegations are massive, according to Margaret Notzel, spokesman at the Munich higher regional court.]

Die Anklage allein schnürt einem die Kehle zu: In über 20 Fällen soll Pater G. Schutzbefohlene unter 14 Jahren am Kloster Ettal sexuell missbraucht haben. „Die Missbrauchsvorwürfe sind relativ massiv“, fasst Margarete Nötzel, Sprecherin am Oberlandesgericht München, die Anklage der Staatsanwaltschaft zusammen. Damit wird sich bald die Erste Jugendstrafkammer des Landgerichts München II intensiv befassen. Der Vorsitzende Richter Thomas Bott hat die Anklageschrift unverändert zur Hauptverhandlung zugelassen. Damit wird ein dunkles Kapitel in der Geschichte des Kloster Ettals noch einmal aufgerollt – um es dann endgültig zu schließen. Denn juristisch geht es nur noch um Pater G. und die Frage, was er getan oder nicht getan hat.

15 Patres und weitere weltliche Erzieher sollen Schutzbefohlenen am Kloster körperliche Gewalt zugefügt oder sie sexuell missbraucht haben. Dies besagt der Abschlussbericht von Thomas Pfister, den er im April 2010 vorlegte. Ein Unrecht, das vor allem zwischen 1960 und 1990 geschehen sein soll. Das bedeutet auch: Einige Beschuldigte sind tot, viele Taten sind verjährt. Für Pater G. gilt das nicht. Die Vorwürfe gegen ihn beziehen sich auf die Jahre 2001 bis 2005. Als Präfekt und Religionslehrer war er damals am Kloster Ettal tätig. Er habe sich Buben „mit sexueller Disposition genähert“, gibt Nötzel sinngemäß aus der Anklageschrift wider. 2005 waren die Vorwürfe bekannt geworden. Doch ein externer Gutachter, den das Kloster beauftragt hatte, entlastete Pater G.: Er sah keine Hinweise auf einen sexuellen Missbrauch. Anders die Staatsanwaltschaft. Und anders offenbar auch die Jugendstrafkammer.

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GROSSBRITANNIEN
Aktuell

Das teilte die britische Staatsanwaltschaft am Donnerstag mit. Dem 82-Jährigen werden unsittliche Übergriffe auf einen damals 12- oder 13-jährigen Jungen sowie auf einen 19 oder 20 Jahre alten Mann vorgeworfen. Zudem muss er sich vor dem Gericht in Brighton wegen Fehlverhaltens in seinem Amt verantworten. “Es wird angenommen, dass er zwischen 1977 und 1992 mehrere junge Männer sexuell missbraucht hat”, hieß es von der Staatsanwaltschaft.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

[Summary: A priest who offered money to a 15-year-old for sexual act, the former priest must now pay a 6,000-euro fine. The Trier diocese placed him on leave in 2012 after hearing of the allegations. In the meantime, the 67-year-old priest has retired.]

Weil er einem 15-Jährigen Geld für sexuelle Handlungen angeboten hatte, muss ein ehemaliger Priester 6000 Euro zahlen. Das Bistum Trier hatte ihn 2012 nach Bekanntwerden der Vorwürfe beurlaubt. Mittlerweile ist der 67-Jährige im Ruhestand. Das kirchenrechtliche Verfahren läuft noch.

Die Staatsanwaltschaft Saarbrücken hat das Verfahren gegen einen ehemaligen katholischen Priester wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs unter Auflagen eingestellt. Der Geistliche war angezeigt worden, weil er einem 15-Jährigen Geld für sexuelle Handlungen angeboten hatte.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, March 28, 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 )

No one should be satisfied with the firing of two credibly accused child molesting KC Catholic school teachers. This is a disturbing case of continued irresponsible behavior by church officials with many unanswered questions.

[KCTV]

Kids are of course a bit safer now that Gregg Briggs and Tod Barnard will no longer be at St. Thomas More Elementary School. (Barnard faces criminal charges, Briggs does not.)

But as we pointed out weeks ago, one of the teachers (Briggs) was apparently quietly removed and the teacher who replaced him (Barnard) is now charged with child sex crimes.

[SNAP]

Catholic school officials admit they were told on March 3 that the police were investigating an allegation about a school employee. But twice, Catholic officials apparently choose secrecy over openness. First, they kept the allegation hidden from parents and the public for almost two weeks. Second, they apparently quietly suspended the accused and kept the suspension hidden from parents and the public for almost two weeks too.

Shame on them.

Those ten days of secrecy gave a potential criminal plenty of time to destroy evidence, intimidate victims, threaten whistle blowers, discredit witnesses, fabricate alibis, “lawyer up,” and molest more children.

Finn and his top aides are being careful to try and distance themselves from this latest in a long string of child sex crime and cover up cases in the KC diocese. But in a rigid hierarchy like the Catholic Church, it’s virtually certain that St. Thomas More principal Brian Borgmeyer did not unilaterally decide to suspend a teacher for alleged child sex crimes, bring in a replacement, and hide the allegations for days, weeks or months. It’s virtually certain that he consulted with diocesan headquarters staff before he opted to quietly sit on the first set of allegations and the suspension.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Yahoo News

By Jason Sickles, Yahoo
Yahoo News

The Rev. James Brzyski allegedly began molesting John Delaney when the altar boy was 11, persuading the child to keep quiet by saying his parents condoned their sexual relationship.

“This guy had me all screwed up in my head,” Delaney said.

More than 30 years later, the now defrocked Philadelphia Catholic priest is still trying to manipulate the narrative.

When asked about Delaney by Yahoo News, Brzyski, 63, was silent for several seconds. Then he blurted out, “Quite a liar, John is,” and hung up the phone.

Delaney, now 42, brushed off Brzyski’s denial.

“You tell him John Delaney’s coming for him,” he said in a thick Philly accent. “I’m not a little kid anymore. You can’t do this to me. I’m going to fight back now.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 28 March 2014 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father received in audience:

– Bishop emeritus Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg, Federal Republic of Germany.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, March 28, 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 )

Scranton’s Catholic bishop has responded to our recent letter by ignoring three of our four concerns, but pledging to write the Pope about a predator priest. (A copy of the letter is below.)

Scranton Bishop Joseph Bambera dodges our plea that he

–publicly reveal the records that allegedly show that Scranton diocesan officials warned “the appropriate” church staff about Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity,

– launch an independent investigation into who, if anyone, in the Scranton diocese may have ignored or concealed Fr. Urrutigoity’s crimes, and

–aggressively reach out – using church bulletins, parish websites and pulpit announcements – to anyone else who may have seen, suspected or suffered Fr. Urrutigoity’s crimes and urge them to call law enforcement.

In addition, Bambera has made one promise: to contact Pope Francis about Fr. Urrutigoity. That’s something, but not much. If he follows through, that will be a step forward, but a small one. As we’ve said before, private letters between church officials about predator priests usually seem to protect no one except the reputations of those involved. And we’re not optimistic about this because even if Bambera writes the strongest possible letter to the Pope, we doubt Francis will act. His track record on abuse cases – both as pope and as archbishop – has been and remains dismal.

Finally, we question Bambera’s claim that he “will continue to encourage anyone who may have suspected, witnessed or suffered abuse at the hands of Father Urrutigoity or any other cleric to immediately report this crime to law enforcement.” He has two options. He can passively sit back, do little or nothing to find these people and say the right things if or when one of them step forward. Or he can actively reach out – as we’ve urged him to do – using church bulletins, parish websites and pulpit announcements – to find these people.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Deutsche Bischofskongerenz

[Summary: The audit report regarding construction projects in the Limburg diocese.]

26.03.2014: Einführende Erläuterungen zum Abschlussbericht über die Prüfung der Baumaßnahmen auf dem Domberg in Limburg PDF (32,40 KB)

26.03.2014: Abschlussbericht der Prüfkommission über die Baumaßnahme auf dem Domberg in Limburg

Nach der heute bekannt gewordenen Entscheidung des Heiligen Stuhls zur Situation im Bistum Limburg und der Erklärung des Vorsitzenden der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, Kardinal Reinhard Marx, wird jetzt der „Abschlussbericht über die externe kirchliche Prüfung der Baumaßnahme auf dem Domberg in Limburg“ veröffentlicht.

Die vom Bischof von Limburg beim Vorsitzenden der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz erbetene Prüfungskommission hatte ihre Arbeit im Oktober 2013 aufgenommen. Auftrag der Kommission war es, die Kosten, die Finanzierung und die Entscheidungswege aufzuzeigen, die den Bauprojekten zu Grunde liegen. Der Bericht der Prüfungskommission unter Vorsitz von Weihbischof Manfred Grothe (Paderborn) wurde Ende Februar 2014 zunächst dem damaligen Vorsitzenden der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, Erzbischof Dr. Robert Zollitsch, übergeben. Ebenso erhielt der Bischof von Limburg, Bischof Dr. Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, ein Exemplar. Am 3. März 2014 überreichten Erzbischof Zollitsch und Weihbischof Grothe den Prüfungsbericht der Bischofskongregation im Vatikan. Dabei bekräftigte Erzbischof Zollitsch die von Kardinal Giovanni Lajolo, Bischof Dr. Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst und Domdekan Dr. Günther Geis im September 2013 getroffene Vereinbarung, dass die Ergebnisse offengelegt würden, sobald die maßgeblichen Beratungen in Rom abgeschlossen seien.

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GERMANY
Washington Post

BY TERRENCE MCCOY
March 28

On Wednesday, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of a longtime German cleric who today is known as the “Bishop of Bling.” Francis’s rationale: Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, who looks like the pastoral theorist he is, had spent a mind-boggling $43 million on home renovations at his palatial pad in Limburg, Germany.

The revelation, delivered in a 108-page report, created a big time optics problem for Pope Francis who has tried to infuse the Catholic Church with humility. Francis — who met with President Barack Obama on Thursday to discuss “the poor, the marginalized…and growing inequality” — drives a Ford Focus. He also resides in a Vatican guesthouse, and likes to be called the Bishop of Rome, the most modest of his many titles.

Thursday, the Vatican still hummed with gossip. Tebartz-van Elst issued a statement in which he tried to shift blame to his top deputy, Vicar General Franz Kaspar, who he claims failed to oversee his spending habits.

Tebartz-van Elst said he’s not qualified to understand that building things can at times cost money. “As I am not an authority in the area of church management, as my qualification is in pastoral theory, I have to relinquish responsibility to Kaspar, who was the only person with an overarching view of the seat’s assets.”

He claimed, the Local reports, that the lavish expenses were because he had witnessed other construction go wrong. So, he felt he needed to “observe the quality and durability of [this] entire project.”

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CITTA DEL VATICANO
La Stampa/Vatican Insider

L’ex presidente, prosciolto a febbraio dalla magistratura italiana, annuncia azioni legali contro chi ha «denigrato» la sua «figura umana e professionale»

ANDREA TORNIELLI
CITTÀ DEL VATICANO

La notizia sta nelle ultime righe di un lungo comunicato stampa a firma dei due avvocati Fabio Palazzo e Stefano Commodo: «il dott. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi ha incaricato i propri avvocati, ora che la vicenda è stata chiarita da una ineccepibile indagine della magistratura italiana, di prendere una serie di iniziative in sede giudiziaria per reagire ai numerosi attacchi mediatici tesi a denigrare la propria figura umana e professionale, essendo deciso a dimostrare anche per le vie giudiziali l’infondatezza delle accuse che gli sono state mosse dai Consiglieri al momento della sua estromissione».

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ROMA
Il Fatto Quotidiano

di Marco Lillo e Valeria Pacelli | 28 marzo 2014

Si chiude la vicenda giudiziaria di Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, l’ex presidente dello Ior, finito sotto inchiesta della procura di Roma per omissioni legate alla violazione della normativa antiriciclaggio, quando guidava la banca vaticana. Il gip lo ha archiviato, accogliendo le richieste dei pm Nello Rossi e Stefano Rocco Fava. E il banchiere potrà prendersi qualche rivincita: ha già incaricato i suoi legali, gli avvocati Fabio Palazzo e Stefano Maria Commodo, di prendere iniziative contro i consiglieri dello Ior che lo sfiduciarono il 25 maggio 2012 accusandolo di “comportamenti erratici e sbagliati” e di “incapacità”.

Gotti Tedeschi ritiene che “il decreto di archiviazione crea le premesse per l’accertamento delle reali motivazioni della sfiducia, in particolare (…) i membri del Consiglio dello Ior che, sfiduciandolo, hanno di fatto creato la situazione per il verificarsi di gravi errori e quindi gravi danni alla Santa Sede. Il Cda – secondo Gotti – ha consentito che si mantenessero i cambiamenti, criticati da Moneyval, della legge antiriciclaggio, anche consentendo indirettamente il ridimensionamento dell’Aif, da indipendente a dipendente da Organi della Santa Sede”.

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ROME
Gazzetta del Sud

Rome, March 28 – A Rome judge on Friday upheld a request from prosecutors to shelve an investigation into the former head of the Vatican Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, over alleged money laundering. In 2010 the probe led in to the freezing of 23 million euros over two cash transfers involving the bank that were deemed suspicious. Gotti Tedeschi resigned from the bank, whose official name is the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), in May 2012 following a no-confidence vote by the supervisory board, amid reported disagreements on efforts to get the Vatican on the white list of financially transparent countries. The image of the bank has been hit by a series of scandals over the years. Italian banks effectively stopped dealing with the IOR in 2010 after the Bank of Italy ordered them to enforce strict anti-money laundering criteria to continue working with it. From January 1 to February 12 last year the Bank of Italy froze all credit-card and ATM transactions inside the Vatican City over its failure to fully implement international anti-money-laundering standards.

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Reporter

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: March 28, 2014

VATICAN CITY — The ousted president of the Vatican bank has come out swinging, accusing the bank’s board of causing “grave damage” to the Holy See by firing him.

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi ended a nearly two-year silence with a statement Friday by his lawyers. It came after a Rome judge threw out a money-laundering case against him by ruling that he had nothing to do with daily operations of the Institute for Religious Works and was in fact working to bring the financial institution into line with international anti-money laundering standards.

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AUSTRALIA
The Raw Story

By Agence France-Presse
Friday, March 28, 2014

Child rights advocates on Friday rejected an apology from Australia’s top Catholic cleric George Pell over sex abuse in the Church, saying it was “hypocritical” and lacked credibility.

Cardinal Pell, who takes up a high-powered job as head of a new Vatican finance ministry next week after being hand picked by Pope Francis, said child sexual abuse was a “terrible blight” on the Church.

In his last sermon before leaving Australia for the Holy See, he acknowledged priests, religious leaders and others linked to the Church had abused those they were supposed to protect.

“I apologise once again to the victims and their families for the terrible suffering that has been brought to bear by these crimes,” he said from the pulpit of Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral at a thanksgiving mass on Thursday night.

It followed Pell’s appearance earlier that day at a royal commission into child sex abuse, when he personally apologised to a former alter boy, John Ellis, who fell prey to a paedophile priest.

A spokeswoman for advocacy group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Nicky Davis, said the apologies were “completely hypocritical” and Pell showed no emotion when addressing Ellis.

“His tone was completely flat, there was no emotion, no humanity there … that’s not how you apologise to someone,” she said.

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INDIA
The Times of India

SALEM (TN): A septuagenarian temple priest was arrested on Fridday for allegedly sexually harassing a minor girl at the temple premises at a nearby area, police said.

The 73-year-old-man, a widower, sexually harassed the eight-year old girl after yoga class on Thursday evening by inappropriately touching her, they said. The priest was allegedly often in the habit of doing this to other minor girl students.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

LATELINE BY HAMISH FITZSIMMONS

Cardinal George Pell has told the parents of two child sex abuse victims the Church will review its compensation payments, even if it costs hundreds of millions of dollars.

Anthony and Chrissie Foster’s two daughters were repeatedly raped in primary school by their parish priest, Father Kevin O’Donnell.

Emma Foster later committed suicide and her sister, Katie, took to binge drinking and was left disabled after being hit by a car.

The Fosters met Cardinal Pell after his appearance at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney yesterday.

Last night’s meeting was very different to when the Fosters first met with then Archbishop Pell over a decade ago, when they emerged feeling bullied and scorned.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 28, 2014

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

A woman who was repeatedly sexually abused by a Salvation Army officer from the age of four later watched in horror as her mother married the man, the Royal Commission has heard.

The abuse survivor’s mother then kicked her out of the family home, claiming the allegations against her new husband were lies.

The woman, known as JD, said she was first molested by the officer at the age of four, not long after she was formally brought into the Salvation Army through a “dedication ceremony”.

About 14 years later, after suffering more abuse at the officer’s hands, JD learned the man was about to become her stepfather.

“I remember around Christmas my mother told me that she was going to marry him,” the woman, now 40, told the Commission.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti

A woman has told an inquiry she was whipped, humiliated and denied basic needs at a Salvation Army children’s home in Queensland.

The examination of the Salvation Army by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has so far concentrated on abuse at the charity’s boys’ homes.

Cherryl Eldridge today became the first woman to tell the commission of abuse at the hands of Salvation Army officers, and also criticised the charity’s treatment of abuse victims.

She was taken to a children’s home at Toowoomba as a six-year-old girl, after being told her parents could not care for her.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Friday 28 March 2014

A man kept in solitary confinement in a boy’s home run by the Salvation Army, in which he was made to sleep where he defecated, has vehemently refused to accept an apology for the abuse he suffered, the Royal Commission into Institutional Abuse was told on Friday.

“If I see one of those uniforms come within a metre of me, you’d better be there … okay, just keep them away from me,” the man said when asked if he would accept an apology from the Salvation Army for the abuse he suffered at the Riverview Training Farm in Queensland in 1971.

“If I see that Gestapo come near me …,” he added.

The man, identified as JE, spent 12 days at Riverview when he was 15 after he and his brother were transferred from the Westbrook Farm Home for Boys, where they were sent after being arrested for joyriding.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

By FR ALEXANDER LUCIE-SMITH on Friday, 28 March 2014

That the Vatican has “accepted the resignation of” the Bishop of Limburg – or to put it into real English, given him the sack – is highly unusual.

The Vatican always speaks in an elaborate kind of code which invites interpretation. Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst will shortly be given a new assignment, we are told, and this new position will undoubtedly be something that sweetens the bitter pill of his removal from Limburg. Moreover, the new job will take care of the question of what to do with one who remains a bishop, even after he has lost his diocese. He will probably be given some quite prestigious but largely ceremonial appointment, in which the city of Rome abounds. (Something similar was done for Bernard, Cardinal Law, though not for Keith O’Brien.)

The sacking of a bishop is quite difficult to achieve if the bishop puts up a fight, as the incumbent has rights in Canon Law, and cannot simply be removed from his diocese without due process. Therefore, one assumes that what has happened here is a series of delicate negotiations which have resulted in the bishop “going quietly”.

Some people would maintain, and they may well be right, that more bishops and other clergy should be sacked by the Pope. But there are many reasons why this hardly ever happens. Think back for a moment to the case of Bishop Gaillot of Evreux, who was removed from post because he was regarded as heterodox. This hardly solved the problem: indeed, it made a martyr out of the bishop and turned the affaire Gaillot into a cause celebre, which was highly damaging to the unity of the Church.

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IRELAND
National Board for the Safeguarding of Children

The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) categorically refutes any suggestion that its final report into the diocese of Down & Connor published in December 2013 omitted relevant matters from the audit process as per statements attributed to Mr. Ian Elliott and recently reported in various media. Before his retirement on 30 June 2013, Mr. Elliott participated in field work as part of the audit process and prepared a first draft report which reflected very positively on the diocese of Down and Connor. While preserving its tone, there was a need to augment it with work which had to be undertaken after Mr. Elliott’s retirement and to stress test the contents in order to complete the review in line with the methodology established by the Board.

There were two comments in Mr Elliott’s report which were not detailed in the final report. The first of these related to relationship issues between the Diocese and the Board – which in the assessment of the review team could not be reflected in the final report as such did not fall within the terms of reference. The second comment related to the management of a particular case which the reviewers could not include; in Mr Elliott’s report he referenced abuse of three men by an unspecified priest, he did not make any reference to child abuse in the context of the particular priest involved. Given that adult abuse does not fall within the terms of reference of the work of the Board or the review process and there were no supporting data whatsoever provided by Mr. Elliott in relation to this comment, the particular reference to the priest was removed. The point arising from this case which was made by Mr Elliott, namely, a lack of evidence on all files of recognition and monitoring of risk, risk assessment and risk management/safety plans did remain in the final report and is referenced on pages 12 and 27. That point was based on supporting data examined by the National Board.

For the avoidance of any doubt, Mr Elliott’s initial draft report was positive and the final review report built on that initial draft. The two comments which were removed were removed by the reviewers for wholly legitimate reasons and in accordance with the methodology employed by the National Board in relation to the conduct of such work particularly to ensure that it acts within its terms of reference and its comments and findings are backed up by empirical evidence. The important issue highlighted by Mr. Elliott, which related to the assessment and management of risk, remained in the report while the reference to an unspecified priest was removed.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

SHANE PHELAN PUBLIC AFFAIRS EDITOR – PUBLISHED 28 MARCH 2014

THE Catholic Church’s child safety watchdog has rejected claims by its former boss that a report into the handling of abuse omitted relevant information.

In a statement, the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children said it categorically denied any suggestion that its report last year on the Diocese of Down and Connor “omitted relevant matters from the audit process”.

Earlier this month the board’s former chief executive, Ian Elliott, told the Irish Independent that serious concerns he had about the handling of an abuse case were omitted from the report.

He alleged that the diocese blocked the release of information it held about its handling of the case of ex-priest Jim Donaghy, who was jailed for 10 years in 2012 for abusing two altar boys and a trainee priest.

Mr Elliott conducted audit “field work” in the diocese, which covers Antrim, Down and parts of Derry, in May of last year. He retired the following month.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Fri, Mar 28, 2014

The Catholic Church’s child protection watchdog, its National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC), has said it “categorically refutes” challenges by former chief executive Ian Elliott to its audit of Down and Connor diocese.

The audit was led by Mr Elliott over four days in Down and Connor last May. Earlier this month Mr Elliott said that, as published last December, the audit findings “do not reflect the findings from the fieldwork”.

Concerns

He said that, such were his concerns at what he found last May that, after the first two days there, he met Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Treanor and NBSC chairman John Morgan. “I made them directly aware of the findings,” he said. “I am deeply concerned at attempts by the diocese to attribute that review [audit] to me.” Published on December 10th last, the audit found that the diocese had produced an “excellent result”.

In a statement on its website the NBSC says it “categorically refutes any suggestion that its final report into the diocese of Down & Connor published in December 2013 omitted relevant matters from the audit process as per statements attributed to Mr Ian Elliot. ”

It says that before his retirement last June, Mr Elliott “prepared a first draft report which reflected very positively on the diocese of Down and Connor. While preserving its tone, there was a need to augment it with work which had to be undertaken after Mr Elliott’s retirement and to stress test the contents in order to complete the review in line with the methodology established by the board.”

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AUSTRALIA
YouTube

Published on Mar 27, 2014

Cardinal Pell’s recent appearance in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse leads Mungo to want to draw his attention to the correlations between criminal law and the Gospel According to St Matthew.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

[with video]

MINNEAPOLIS – In a case of Catholic Church versus Catholic Church, a clergy sex abuse lawsuit pits one diocese against another.

In a rare legal move, the Diocese of New Ulm is suing another diocese and a religious order, accusing both of sending a priest to New Ulm in the early 1980s without telling the diocese that the priest had long history of being accused of child sexual abuse.

The New Ulm Diocese lawsuit stems from another lawsuit filed in 2013 by a man named in court documents as John Doe 103, who says Markey groped him and his two brothers when Markey was invited to his family’s home for dinner in 1982. The man asked that MPR News and KARE-11 hide his face to protect his family. He says at the time of the alleged assaults, Markey was filling in at rural churches in Henderson and Jessenland. John Doe 103’s family attended both churches.

“He was at our parish for like seven to ten days and he was in our house for two hours and he abused three people,” said John Doe 103 in an interview.

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COLORADO
Fairfield Citizen

DENVER (AP) — Authorities say a suburban Denver pastor has been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child.

KUSA-TV reports (http://tinyurl.com/nch69px ) 51-year-old Gerald Clark was arrested Wednesday on one count of sexual assault on a child by someone in a position of trust.

No phone number could be found for Clark, and he didn’t appear in online jail records. It wasn’t known if he had an attorney.

An arrest warrant affidavit says Clark is pastor of Jericho Ministries in Broomfield and previously served at a Westminster church. Jericho Ministries didn’t have a working phone number.

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AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury

By RICHARD ACKLAND March 28, 2014

COMMENT

The joy of commissions, royal or otherwise. In a place where the rules of evidence don’t get in the way of finding the truth, a good commissioner or counsel assisting can really fire up the proceedings.

And commissioner Peter McClellan with counsel assisting Gail Furness, at the royal commission into child sex abuse, are on fire.

Over this week there has been a spellbinding display of the moral vacuum at the heart of two mighty institutions – the Catholic Church and the law.

Cardinal George Pell slithered all over the place as he was questioned about the church’s conduct in the infamous Ellis case. Everyone else was to blame, his lawyers, his private secretary, the unreasonableness of his litigation opponents.

Because the damage done to victims of child sexual abuse is not necessarily manifest immediately, John Ellis had to apply for an extension to the limitation period so as to bring his civil claim against the church.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Cardinal George Pell has promised to review compensation payments for Melbourne church abuse victims and has conceded it may cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Cardinal Pell met with Anthony and Chrissie Foster, whose two daughters were abused by a priest in Melbourne and told them a cap on payments would be eliminated.

He also told them during the meeting, which took place on Thursday after Cardinal Pell completed his evidence to the royal commission into child sexual abuse, the church would review all existing payments.

‘I stated that we needed to see the Melbourne cap eliminated, revisiting all the existing claims and in line with civil limits,’ Mr Foster told ABC TV.

‘I also said to him that this will cost the Catholic Church in Melbourne several hundred million dollars.

‘His response was he nodded and said ‘yes’.’

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