ABUSE TRACKER

MOZAMBIQUE
PUBLICO

Moçambique: Padres investigados por suspeitas de abusos dirigem orfanato e escola que teve apoio de Portugal

[Summary: Priests are being investigated for suspected abuse at an orphanage and school in Mozambique that had the support of Portugal. The allegations are being investigated by prosecutors in Italy and Mozambique at a time when the UN is demanding that abusive priests be removed from from their priestly duties.]

ANA DIAS CORDEIRO 02/03/2014

Uma escola do Centro Polivalente Leão Dehon beneficiou de apoios de Portugal através da colocação de professores. Um deles fez uma denúncia por suspeitas de abusos sexuais de menores contra dois padres italianos nessa cidade moçambicana: o director desse centro e o responsável de um orfanato. O caso está a ser investigado por procuradores em Itália e Moçambique, numa altura em que a ONU exige que padres suspeitos de abusos a menores sejam afastados.

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CANADA
TB Newswatch

By Leith Dunick, tbnewswatch.com

A Catholic priest is facing several sexual assault charges dating to alleged offences against a teenaged male victim between 1987 and 1989.

Now 56, Roger Pronovost was assigned to St. John the Baptist Church in Longlac, Ont. at the time of the incidents.

The suspect faces two counts of sexual assault and a third charge of sexual exploitation.

None of the charges has been proven in a court of law.

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ILLINOIS
WGN

[with video]

In December, Chicago Archdiocese records revealed that a disturbing number of church leaders protected priests accused of sex abuse.

We’re now learning about one woman who stood up to church officials, in an effort to put an end to the behavior.

According to the documents sister peg’s first report of a priest dates back to the 1970′s when she was a principal at St. John Vianney in Northlake.

Peg alerted church officials about Reverend Thomas Job, after several boys told her they had been sexually abused by him.

Although Sister Peg’s says no one listened to her for many years, her efforts are considered courageous and rare, especially for that time.

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NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Sunday, March 2

Statement by Mark Crawford, New Jersey director of SNAP ( 732-632-7687, mecrawf@comcast.net )

Outraged at their archbishop, many Newark Catholics apparently are withholding their donations.

We are grateful that so many parishioners want to show their disapproval of Archbishop John Myers for his financial and sexual abuse scandals.

[The Star-Ledger]

We urge them, however, to give more generously than ever, but to institutions that protect kids, not institutions that endanger kids.

While it’s a tempting response to a callous, selfish archbishop, keeping money in your pocket won’t make children safer or change Myers. Donating to agencies that protect children, help victims and prevent crimes WILL safeguard kids.

So our message to Newark Catholics is: please DO something to show you care about the vulnerable and the needy. Please be even more generous than you usually are (because many need help). But do it carefully, so your contributions will make a real difference and won’t support, in any way, reckless, selfish Catholic officials that their own comfort and reputations above the well-being of others.

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VATICAN CITY
eNCA

VATICAN CITY – The Catholic Church should have more women at all levels of administration, according to a senior cardinal who is close to Pope Francis.

I think women should be present at all levels, even in positions of full responsibility.

“I think women should be present at all levels, even in positions of full responsibility,” German cardinal Walter Kasper told the newspaper of Italian bishops Avvenire.

“A Church with no women is like a mutilated body,” he added.

Last month Francis asked Kasper, who is a respected theologian, to give the introductory lecture at a meeting of cardinals that debated controversial family issues, such as the role of women in the church and its approach towards divorcees.

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CITTA DEL VATICANO
Avvenire

«Il ruolo delle donne nella Chiesa va riconsiderato e integrato nella prospettiva del dinamismo sinodale e della conversione missionaria indicati dal Papa». A partire dalle sue riflessioni sulla famiglia presentate al recente Concistoro, si esprime così il cardinale tedesco Walter Kasper. E parla ampiamente della dibattuta questione della presenza femminile negli ambiti decisionali della Chiesa.

Anticipiamo alcune risposte alla lunga intervista esclusiva di Stefania Falasca pubblicata da Avvenire domenica 2 marzo.

Eminenza, sono in preparazione due Sinodi sulla famiglia. Qual è stato fino a oggi il contributo delle donne nelle assemblee sinodali?

«Finora ai Sinodi le donne sono state presenti generalmente in veste di uditrici e in posizione di scarso rilievo. Ci sono sempre due o tre uditrici che intervengono alla fine dei lavori, quando ormai hanno parlato tutti. Mi domando: come si possono preparare due Sinodi sulla famiglia senza coinvolgere in primis anche le donne? Senza le donne la famiglia semplicemente non esiste. È insensato parlare della famiglia senza ascoltarle. Credo che debbano essere chiamate e ascoltate fin da ora, nella fase della preparazione».

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

[Kasper: per le donne ruoli di responsabilità nella Chiesa – Avvenire]

In his interview with Italian Catholic newspaper “Avvenire”, Cardinal Walter Kasper suggests putting women at the helm of the pontifical councils. According to the cardinal who is against careerism in the Curia and believes in time limits for mandates, “there are too many bishops in the Curia”

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

“Women’s role in the Church should be rethought and integrated into the Pope’s ideas for greater synodal dynamism and a missionary conversion”: women should be offered leadership roles within the pontifical councils and in the future Congregation for the Laity given how many bishops the Curia has. Temporary mandates should be introduced in the Curia to prevent careerism, calling priests who already have some pastoral experience. This was the crux of what Cardinal Walter Kasper said in a long interview with Stefania Falasca published in today’s issue of Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire.

“Up until now, women have generally only attended the synod as auditors, holding roles of little significance,” Kasper said. “There are always two or three female auditors who speak at the end of the meetings when everyone has already spoken. I ask myself how it is possible to prepare two synods on the family without giving a role of primary importance to women? A family cannot exist without women. It makes no sense to speak about the family without listening to what they have to say. I think they need to be called and listen as of right now, as we enter the preparatory phase.”

The German cardinal who gave the opening speech at the recent Consistory on the family went on to say the following: “I think that women need to be present at every level and even given positions of full responsibility. The intuition which the female mind has to offer is a vital resource. A Church without women is a mutilated Church. There are so many of them actively involved in Church bodies. Can we imagine community, charity and cultural centres today with no women? Without them, parishes would close down tomorrow. Women are already ahead and out there in a Church like Francis’ that is “going out”.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher

Why did Catholic Church leaders, including George Pell, take part in a glowing tribute to a pedophile priest, Father Nazareno Fasciale? Why was the church “immensely proud” of a pedophile?

Father Fasciale (pronounced “Fah-SHAH-lay”) was harboured in the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese for 44 years while he committed sexual crimes against girls and boys. The cathedral authorities continually ignored any complaints from Fasciale’s victims. Fasciale knew that the church would protect him.

Finally, in late 1993, some of his victims contacted the newly-formed Broken Rites Australia victim support group. These victims, with help from Broken Rites, forced the church to remove Fasciale from the ministry, although the church covered up his crimes by announcing that his retirement was because of “health” problems.

Meanwhile, Broken Rites discovered more of Fasciale’s victims and introduced them all to Victoria Police detectives. In a police interview, Fasciale admitted indecently assaulting children.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article posted 2 March 2014)

Australia’s national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining a 2007 civil legal case, in which Cardinal George Pell’s legal team crushed one of the church’s Sydney victims, former altar-boy John Ellis. This Pell victory later helped the Catholic Church to avoid, or limit, paying compensation to many victims in other parts of Australia. The church’s evasive strategy became known as the “Ellis Defence”, although it could be called (perhaps more appropriately) the “Pell Defence”.

Commission chief executive Janette Dines said in a public statement early in 2014 that the Royal Commission is examining the original complaint made by John Ellis under the church’s internal Towards Healing process “and the circumstances in which the Catholic Church raised what is commonly referred to as the ‘Ellis Defence”’.

The Sydney victim, John Ellis, had been a 14-year-old altar boy in a suburban parish in 1975, when he was sexually abused by Father Aidan Duggan. The abuse (and the church’s breach of trust) seriously damaged John Ellis’s adolescence and his later personal and working life when he was practising as a solicitor during his twenties and thirties.

In 2002, John Ellis (then aged 40) contacted the Catholic Church’s “Towards Healing” office, lodging a formal complaint about how the Sydney archdiocese has disrupted his life and his career by its action giving Father Duggan easy access to children. The archdiocese (through its Towards Healing office) offered John Ellis a relatively small financial settlement, on the condition that he would sign away his right to tackle the archdiocese for the kind of amount that any other corporation would be obliged to pay to a damaged person.

The Sydney archdiocese’s draft settlement document indicated that the Towards Healing offer was being made on behalf of:

1. Archbishop George Pell (for the Sydney Archdiocese); and

2. the Trustees of the Sydney Archdiocese.

John Ellis refused to accept this Towards Healing offer and decided, instead, to tackle the archdiocese in the New South Wales Supreme Court for a more appropriate sum to cover the loss of his professional earnings – and to teach the archdiocese a lesson about its covering up of clergy sexual abuse. In naming the defendants, Mr Ellis cited the names of the same parties who had been listed by the church in its proposed Towards Healing settlement deed – that is Archbishop George Pell and the Trustees of the Sydney Archdiocese.

In 2006 the Supreme Court granted permission for the “Ellis-versus-Pell” case to proceed in court, but the archdiocese successfully applied to the NSW Court of Appeal.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger
on March 02, 2014

Every year, without fail, Joe Ferri writes a $100 check to the Archdiocese of Newark for the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal, a fundraising drive that benefits a variety of religious causes.

This year, Ferri left the empty envelope on his pew at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Bloomfield. He’s done writing checks.

“If this is the only way I can be heard, so be it,” said Ferri, 70. “I’m disgusted. The archdiocese is not going to get another penny out of me.”

Two weeks after The Star-Ledger disclosed that Archbishop John J. Myers is building a 3,000-square-foot addition on the expansive home where he will spend his retirement, it appears the work will cost the archdiocese far more than the $500,000 allotted for construction.

Parishioners, infuriated by what they call a tone-deaf show of excess at a time when Catholic schools are closing and when the pope has called on bishops to shed the trappings of luxury, say they’re cutting off contributions entirely or sharply curtailing them.

Others said they will continue supporting their local parishes but will ignore the annual appeal, which has been heavily promoted in churches over the past month across the archdiocese, home to 1.3 million Catholics in Essex, Hudson, Union and Bergen counties.

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TEXAS
CBS News – 48 Hours

[with video of the program]

Mar 01

Produced by Lourdes Aguiar, Peter Shaw and Jennifer Simpson Ashmawy

It’s been more than 50 years, but the shadow of the unsolved murder of Irene Garza still hangs over McAllen, Texas.

“This was an atrocious case,” Noemi Ponce Sigler told “48 Hours” correspondent Richard Schlesinger. “And I couldn’t understand it. To this day, I can’t understand it.”

Sigler, who is part of Irene’s extended family, has never been able to forget this case — especially after she visited her aunt’s house several years ago.

“There was a portrait of Irene that I hadn’t looked at in years,” Sigler said. “So, I went up to the picture and I was mesmerized… And that’s when I said … ‘Irene where did you go?’ … I wanna know what happened to her.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Derby Telegraph

By Zena Hawley

TWO women have expressed their anger to a leading clergyman following a Mass intended to bring comfort and healing in the wake of the scandal surrounding disgraced priest Francis Paul Cullen.

They expressed their concerns to the Bishop of Nottingham, the Right Reverend Malcolm McMahon, after the regular Saturday evening service.

It was the first opportunity for Bishop McMahon to speak to the congregation of Christ The King, in Mackworth – where Cullen was formerly the parish priest – following his court appearance last week.

Last Monday, Cullen, aged 85, admitted 21 counts of child sex abuse. Of these, 13 took place between 1957 and 1974 during his time as the parish priest in Mackworth. They involved four former altar boys. He is awaiting sentence on March 24.

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VATICAN CITY
AsiaOne

AFP
Friday, Feb 28, 2014

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Friday said the Archbishop of Cologne Cardinal Joachim Meisner, who has made controversial comments about Muslims, was stepping down from his duties as archbishop after reaching retirement age.

In comments that were widely condemned, the 80-year-old Meisner last month told members of the conservative Neocatechumenal Way Catholic group: “Each of your families is easily worth three Muslim families for me”.

Meisner has been archbishop of Cologne since 1989.

“The Holy Father has accepted the renunciation,” the Vatican said in a statement.

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FLORIDA
Ocala Star-Banner

By Austin L. Miller
Staff writer
Published: Thursday, February 27, 2014

A part-time student ministry intern at Church at the Springs was arrested Wednesday, accused of lewd and lascivious behavior with a teenage girl on church property.

Daniel A. Dominguez, 21, was booked into the Marion County Jail Wednesday evening and was released on $10,000 bond, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. He has since been fired from that job.

The 15-year-old girl was interviewed at Kimberly’s Center for Child Protection in Ocala, according to a Marion County Sheriff’s Office report. She told an investigator that on Feb. 21, while at the church, she was helping with preparation for an upcoming event.

She said Dominguez asked her to help clean water jugs and she accompanied him into the kitchen. There, she said, while joking around, she called him gay. She said Dominguez told her he was not gay and that he could prove it.

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FLORIDA
WESH

OCALA, Fla. —A youth pastor intern molested a teenage girl at an Ocala church last week, deputies said.

According to the arrest report, the 15-year-old girl called 21-year-old Daniel A. Dominguez gay in a joking manner on Feb. 21 at the Church At The Springs at 5424 SE 58th St.

Dominguez allegedly said he wasn’t gay and could prove it then grabbed her and tried to kiss her, deputies said. While the teen resisted Dominguez allegedly molested the girl in various areas, deputies said.

Deputies said the teen was able to push Dominguez off of her and told him that what he did was not right.

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UNITED STATES
Fitsnews

FRONTLINE EXCLUSIVE ROCKS THE VATICAN …

One month before U.S. President Barack Obama pays his first visit to meet Pope Francis at The Vatican, an explosive new report has exposed the seedy side of the Catholic Church.

“Secrets of the Vatican” – a PBS Frontline exclusive which first aired last Tuesday – is a jaw-dropping piece of work, utterly unflinching in its depiction of the church’s ongoing child sexual abuse scandal.

Not only that, it delves extensively into allegations of money laundering on the part of the Vatican Bank – and widespread corruption within the church’s powerful bureaucracy.

“It is unbelievable that this documentary was ever produced and shown on American television, much less by the government’s PBS network,” one source told us in commending it to our attention.

We agree …

The Frontline story begins with the story of Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado. Maciel was the Mexican priest who founded the Roman Catholic Church’s Legion of Christ, an order which recruited young men for the priesthood.

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NIGERIA
Osun Defender

The peace of Akute, Ogun State was disrupted by aggrieved non-governmental organizations, NGOs, and women protesting the relocation of an orphanage allegedly being run by a pastor standing trial on a four-count charge of sexual abuse.

The protesters, led by Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, Executive Director, Project Alert, and Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, founder, Women Arise, were, mostly, lawyers, child right and women activists. They stormed Akute-Ijoko Road at about 12 noon displaying placards with inscriptions: “Say no to child abuse”, “This pastor is a pedophile”, “Orphanage or child abuse center”, “Justice for sexually-abused children”, among others. The protesters lamented that the founder of the orphanage had gone ahead to relocate it when he had not been cleared of the case of sexual abuse hanging on his head.

The protest was prompted by a text message about the relocation of the orphanage allegedly sent by the pastor. The text message read: “RELOCATION OF ORPHANAGE – Beloved, come rejoice with us as we celebrate God’s faithfulness in thanksgiving and dedication of the new place God appointed us at Akute-Ijoko Road on Saturday February 22, 2014, at 11am. Please pray and plan to attend. God bless you.”

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MONTANA
Montana Standard

Decades of abuse: Catholic church will name 50+ priests who abused 100s of children in western MT

By Mike Dennison

Editor’s note: This story is the first of a two-day series on the aftermath of the proposed bankruptcy settlement of sex-abuse cases against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena

HELENA — Most of the 362 sex-abuse victims who sued the Catholic church of western Montana, saying they were abused years ago by priests and nuns, will get monetary damages from a settlement with the church.

But they’ll see something else they consider vitally important, their lawyers say: Public identification of their abusers.

“They wanted their abusers to be publicly identified and for the Diocese to accept responsibility,” says Tim Kosnoff, a Seattle attorney who co-represents 271 of the plaintiffs in two lawsuits. “By that aspect, I think we’ve succeeded.”

Kosnoff and other attorneys who worked on the cases say more than 50 Roman Catholic priests will be named as sexual abusers of children.

Once the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Butte approves the settlement, the names of the abusers will be posted on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena’s website.

Most, if not all, of these priests are dead, attorneys for the plaintiffs say. The bulk of the abuse occurred from the 1940s through the 1970s, although some happened as far back as the 1930s. …

Status of sex-abuse suits against Catholic entities

HELENA – Roman Catholic churches and entities in Montana are dealing with three separate lawsuits accusing church clergy and personnel of sexually abusing children within the church.

Here is the status of these cases:

Helena Diocese cases: On Jan. 31, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena, which covers all or part of 23 western Montana counties, filed for bankruptcy protection as part of a negotiated settlement with 362 plaintiffs in two lawsuits filed in Montana state District Court in 2011.

The Diocese of Helena and its insurers have agreed to pay $15 million in damages to the victims and set aside at least another $2.5 million for victims that may come forward in the future.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Butte, with input from church creditors and the plaintiffs, must approve the settlement before it can take effect. Creditors and plaintiffs will vote within the coming months on the settlement.

Ursuline Academy case: One of the lawsuits against the Helena Diocese includes 95 of the 362 plaintiffs and also alleges that nuns at the now-defunct Ursuline Academy at St. Ignatius abused dozens of Native American children.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 28 February 2014 (VIS) – The Holy Father has accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the metropolitan archdiocese of Koln, Germany, presented by Cardinal Joachim Meisner, upon having reached the age limit.

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GERMANY
ABNA

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – Leader of the Catholic Church has accepted the resignation of a controversial cardinal who had been widely criticized for his anti-Islamic comments.

Pope Francis on Friday accepted the resignation of Cologne’s Roman Catholic archbishop Joachim Meisner.

Meisner’s resignation is said to have been due to his old age but German Muslims’ anger over his anti-Islamic remarks seem to have also played a part.

A few weeks ago he praised the high birth rate among Catholics for making up for large Muslim families.

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DEUTSCHLAND
NDR

[Summary: Bishop Kirsten Fehr reported on sexual abuse scandals in details at the meeting of the synod in Travemunde. She said she has talked with victims of abuse and has appealed for further changes in the church to prevent such cases.]

Die Bischöfin Kirsten Fehrs hat beim Treffen der Synode der Nordkirche in Travemünde ausführlich über die Aufarbeitung des Missbrauchsskandals berichtet. Sie erzählte in ihrem Vortrag von ihren Gesprächen mit den Missbrauchsopfern, stellte die Arbeit zweier Kommissionen vor und warb für weitere Veränderungen in der Kirche, um zukünftig solche Fälle zu verhindern. Sie rief dazu auf, beim Verdacht auf sexuelle Gewalt Courage zu zeigen. Darüber hinaus regte sie neue Regeln für die Schweigepflicht von Seelsorgern an. Möglichen Opfern müsse vermittelt werden, dass sie die Pastoren auch von der Schweigepflicht entbinden könnten.

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

Bistum Münster: 7 Wochen später will das Bistum Münster “immer noch keinerlei Kenntnis von irgendeinem Fall sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Geistliche in Emmerich” haben. Verantwortlicher Pressesprecher: Stephan Kronenburg

28.02.2014

“Die Kommission des Bistums Münster für Fälle des sexuellen Missbrauchs Minderjähriger durch Geistliche hat bislang keinerlei Kenntnis von irgendeinem Fall sexuellen Missbrauchs Minderjährige durch Geistliche in Emmerich.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 03/01/2014

As part of its coverage of child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and elsewhere, the Pioneer Press talked with Ramsey County Attorney John Choi. The following reflects the interview, edited for space and clarity.

Q. What do you think your office will see in terms of future clergy sex abuse cases?

A. We’re aware of many cases that are coming to us from police. One may be imminent. From my perspective, this is just the beginning.

Q. Some have criticized your decision not to charge officials of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis with failure to meet mandatory reporter requirements in the Curtis Wehmeyer case. (Wehmeyer, formerly a priest at Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul, was sentenced last February to five years in prison for sexually abusing two young boys and possessing child pornography.) Can you give some context for that decision, and for your plans going forward?

A. That was the first case involving archdiocese officials that was presented to our office. But the overall investigation of sexual abuse in the archdiocese and how it’s been handled is going to take a really long time. In fact, if we’re talking about this issue a year from now, I won’t be surprised. It’s that big of a task to get through.

A police agency can’t just cut and paste what’s on the Internet or from a news publication and present that to us as evidence. They need to go out and independently seek that information from all these various sources and then try to make heads or tails of all of that — corroborate it, do what investigators do. We are involved with the police to advise them as they are doing their investigation.

The public has seen a lot of coverage of sexual abuse and the archdiocese in the media. I can totally understand the anger and the frustration and the shock of hearing about all of these horrible things that have been happening in the Catholic Church. I share all of that with the public. But I have to protect the process of how we get to certain decisions in the criminal justice system. It’s not about making a conclusion before we even gather evidence. I’m hoping we can give those investigators an opportunity to work and do what they need to do.

We’ve always said this: The facts will lead the way.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Several important new perspectives on Pope Francis were reported recently, including “From Benedict to Francis”, an extremely informed, insightful and frank interview with the UK Tablet’s Robert Mickens, accessible at:

[PBS]

Selections from this full interview were shown recently in a significant USA/TV documentary, “Secrets of the Vatican”. The full documentary is on the PBS Frontine website and accessible here:

[Secrets of the Vatican]

Also, the Irish Times’ reported on the recent Cambridge University lecture on “Governing the Church” by former Irish President, Mary McAleese, accessible at:

[The Irish Times]

These reports arrived against the backdrop of Pope Francis’ pulling Cardinal Pell from Australia and the much anticipated upcoming meeting of President Obama and Pope Francis, discussed at:

[Christian Catholicism]

Robert Mickens studied in Rome in the 1980′s as a seminarian at the top Catholic Gregorian University. He has been The Tablet’s Rome correspondent from 2001 to 2003 and from 2005 to the present. His decade plus of honest and direct reporting from Rome has enabled him to develop a deep team of sources in the Vatican Curia. He also writes the paper’s popular weekly column, ‘Letter from Rome’. Mickens is regularly featured as a Vatican-affairs analyst for the BBC in Great Britain, ABC in Australia and National Public radio in the United States.

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PERU
La Republica

[Summary: Actor Jason Day today explained the reasons why he decided to tell publicly of an attempt by a priest to sexually abuse him when he was a nine-year-old altar boy. It was the right time, he said. He was just coming from a successful campaign targeted exclusively to stop violence against women and girls. He was urging women and girls to break the silence and he decided it was time he also broke his silence. After making a public acknowledgement of what happened to him, he said many people have begun to acknowledge the problem.]

Después de revelar lo que padeció de niño, Jason Day dijo que en muchas personas despertó la “obsesión por decirle al otro lo que tiene que hacer y cómo tiene que hacerlo”.

Una semana después de revelar que fue víctima de un intento de abuso sexual por parte de un sacerdote, el actor Jason Day explica hoy las razones que lo llevaron a confesar un triste episodio de su niñez.

“Decidí revelar públicamente lo que ya había revelado en privado porque me parecía que era el momento oportuno: venía de una exitosa campaña dirigida exclusivamente a detener la violencia contra mujeres y niñas, que invitaba a hacer lo que yo estaba haciendo: romper el silencio. Y romper el silencio no podía suponer un acto de humillación, así que me mantuve firme”, fue lo que escribió el también activista social en su columna semanal del diario La República.

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SCOTLAND
The Observer

Catherine Deveney
The Observer, Saturday 1 March 2014

Three priests and one ex-priest whose allegations of sexual misconduct against the archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, led to his resignation a year ago, have appealed directly to Pope Francis for a meeting in a last-ditch bid for justice.

Describing the church as a “formidable machine” that had blocked any investigation, one told the Observer: “The abuse we received at the hands of Keith O’Brien is dwarfed by the systematic abuse we have received from church officials. They have passed the buck, misrepresented the truth, engaged in cover-up and, having asked for our trust and co-operation, shamelessly procrastinated and hidden behind a veneer of diplomacy and charm. I want to ask Pope Francis, can you sort this out?”

Secret negotiations have been going on between the men and the cardinal’s successor, Archbishop Leo Cushley, since last November. The archbishop insists that only Rome can initiate an inquiry into O’Brien’s sexual behaviour, but he has agreed to an investigation of the cardinal’s financial transactions. In an email to the complainants last December, the archbishop’s vicar general, Philip Kerr, confirmed: “The archdiocesan auditors have been asked to examine the financial accounts which Keith O’Brien personally operated.”

“Lenny”, an ex-priest who rebuffed O’Brien’s advances at a seminary, says that the diocese is a charity and he would have contacted the charity regulator if Cushley had refused the audit. “Keith O’Brien was essentially the CEO of a £9m charity. We want to assure ourselves that this institution is not totally corrupt.”

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TEXAS
Podles.org

Leon J. Podles

Murder Case Study

John B. Feit, a native of Chicago, had an uncle, also named John, who was a priest in Detroit.1

His parents sent John to a seminary in San Antonio when he was thirteen; he studied for the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and was ordained on September 8, 1958. He is a published poet. He was attending a pastoral school of the Missionary Oblates at San Juan, Texas, in 1960. In nearby Edinburg, Texas, Feit often helped out at Sacred Heart Church where Rev. Charles Moran was the pastor.

Maria America Guerra

At 4:30 P.M., on March 23, 1960, Maria America Guerra, age 20, just back from nearby Pan American College, was at her home across the street from Sacred Heart Church in Edinburg.

She went to the outside bathhouse to get cleaned up and noticed a man observing her. He had black hair and horned-rimmed glasses and sat in a blue-and-white 1956 or 1957 car.2 After dinner, Guerra crossed the street. The car was still there. She entered the church and saw the same man sitting in the back; he was wearing black pants and a tan t-shirt. She knelt at the altar rail and was saying her rosary when he looked around the church and walked toward her.

She said

“The next thing I know, he had turned very quick, come to my rear and grabbed me around the head.

He placed a small cloth over my mouth, and I fell backward to the floor. I began to scream now as when I fell, the rag fell free from my mouth. Then while I was on the floor, he tried to cover my mouth with his hands to stop me from screaming and when he did this, one of his fingers went into my mouth and I bit hard. I know I bit very hard because I could taste blood in my mouth.

When I bit him, he threw me toward the south door of the church and ran out the north side door.”3

Maria Christina Tijerna was walking past this church at 6:20 P.M. She heard screams and saw a man hurry from the church clutching a white towel and enter the church sacristy.4 Tijerina saw Guerra run out of church and knock on the rectory door. After Moran’s voice from inside said “Wait a minute,” Tijerina asked Guerra what had happened. Guerra went home and reported theincident to the police that night.5

Feit later said that he had visited Sacred Heart that day, and had been in the church praying until 5:15 P.M., when he left to discuss with Moran the personal problems of a boy he knew. He returned to his blue-and-white 1956 Ford Tudor and went back to San Juan in time to ring the bell at 5:30 P.M. But witnesses in San Juan said he had not rung the bell.6 Moran remembered that Feit was wearing horn-rimmed glasses, a tan shirt, and black pants that day, but had no memory of a discussion about a boy.7

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ROME
Headlines from the Catholic World

Rome, Italy, Feb 28, 2014 / 03:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- At the conclusion of the Legion of Christ’s general chapter, the order’s recently elected general director, Fr. Eduardo Robles Gil, confirmed their commitment to Christ and his reign.

“The center of our spirituality will be Christ, as it always has been. We are Christ-centered; the ‘Regnum Christi’ is the kingdom of Christ,” Fr. Robles Gil told CNA Feb. 25, the concluding day of the order’s general chapter.

“Christ is our life; he is the ruler. We look at him for inspiration. As the Gospel says, he is the way, the truth and the life of every Christian, every priest, and every religious — especially of every Legionary.”

Fr. Robles Gil expressed his gratitude to Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, who was appointed governor of the Legion by Benedict XVI in 2010 after an apostolic visitation determined the order needed “profound re-evaluation.”

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WISCONSIN
Wisconsin Public Radio

[Full video presentation – Secrets of the Vatican]

UPDATED:
Friday, February 28, 2014

By Chuck Quirmbach

Clergy abuse victims are concerned that the re-broadcast of a public television program criticizing the Catholic Church is being limited to the nighttime.

This week, the show “Frontline” aired the episode “Secrets of the Vatican” three times on Milwaukee Public Television (MPTV) at 7, 8, and 11 p.m. Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) aired the episode at 8 and 10 p.m.

MPTV was scheduled to air the show four times during daytime hours, on its public television World Channel. Those airings have been cancelled at the request of World.

Milwaukee Public TV General Manager Ellis Bromberg said he was happy with the program but agreed that the sexual abuse by clergy described on the show was inappropriate for daytime audiences.

“There was adult content,” said Bromberg. “It was inappropriate, we felt – once we got to see it, once we got to screen it – for daytime audiences.”

Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests is one of several Milwaukee abuse victims featured on the “Frontline” episode. He said Bromberg’s explanation does not seem credible.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

[Summary: The commission that investigated the financial management of “Bling” Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz van Elst has completed its work and has sent a report to Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, chairman of the German Bishop’s Conference. The archbiship did not say what is in the report but said he would study the findings.]

Die Kommission zur Prüfung des Finanzgebarens des Limburger Bischofs Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst hat ihre Arbeit abgeschlossen. Der Vorsitzende der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, der vormalige Freiburger Erzbischof Robert Zollitsch, bestätigte am Freitag in Frankfurt, den Prüfbericht des fünfköpfigen Gremiums unter Leitung des Paderborner Weihbischofs Grothe erhalten zu haben. „Ich bin dabei, ihn intensiv zu studieren und dabei, mich mit Rom abzustimmen,“ sagte Zollitsch.

Über den Inhalt des Berichts sagte Zollitsch nichts. Auch wolle er „keine einseitigen Festlegungen“ über das weitere Vorgehen treffen, bevor er sich mit dem Vatikan abgesprochen habe. Mit einer Entscheidung über die Zukunft des Limburger Bischofs ist nach seinen Worten nicht vor der Frühjahrs-Vollversammlung der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz zu rechen. Diese findet vom 10. bis zum 13. März in Münster statt.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Patrick Counihan @irishcentral March 01,2014

Former Irish President Mary McAleese has demanded more influence for women in the Catholic Church.

The well-known politician and now a theologian told a Cambridge University gathering that women, the laity and the Bishops must be given more power by the Vatican church leaders.

McAleese said bishops should not be yes men for those who run the Church from Rome, the Irish Times reports.

She said: “Bishops should be encouraged not to be yes men but leaders who can speak freely, who consult with rank-and-file Catholics and then make decisions along with the pope.

“Senior church leaders have until now believed the church could only survive through unquestioning obedience to the exclusively top-down teaching magisterium.

“That tight-grip approach has had very damaging consequences for the church in the modern world.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mark Hennessy

Sat, Mar 1, 2014

Bishops and the laity, particularly women, must be given greater influence in the Catholic Church, the former president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, has said. She was speaking at Cambridge University.
Bishops should be encouraged not to be “yes men” but “leaders who can speak freely”, who consult with rank-and-file Catholics and then make decisions along with the pope, she said.

Senior church leaders have “until now” believed the church could only survive through “unquestioning obedience to the exclusively top-down teaching magisterium.

“That tight-grip approach has had very damaging consequences for the church in the modern world”, she said, in a lecture on church governance to the Van Hugel Institute in Cambridge last night.

The pope could give a synod of bishops decision-making powers even though “no pope has ever done so and Pope Benedict is on record as being against doing so. Yet this is by far the most straightforward way of creating at least an embryonic form of collegial episcopal decision-making in the Catholic Church, she said.

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KENTUCKY
Christian Post

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
February 28, 2014

A Kentucky pastor has been accused of exposing himself to a teenage girl in a department store in Russellville earlier this month.

Kevin Lohse, who police say is the acting pastor at Woodlawn Baptist Church, was arrested Wednesday on charges of exposing himself to a 15-year-old girl in Burkes Outlet. Police posted a still mage from video surveillance camera footage of the suspect on social media in an attempt to indentify the man.

“In the video [not disclosed to the public], you can clearly see Mr. Lohse manipulating his zipper, then exposing his penis to the 15-year-old girl,” Russellville Police Detective Samantha Reeser told WBKO.

Even though the suspect had left the scene before police arrived, once his image was posted on the police department’s Facebook page and was shared more than 600 times, he later turned himself in to authorities.

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KENTUCKY
Sedalia Democrat

Chris Cooper Managing Editor

An arrest was made Wednesday, Feb. 26th in connection with an indecent exposure case that played out in a local department store on Feb. 13.

According to a police report, Kevin Lohse, pastor at Woodlawn Baptist Church in Russellville, confessed to investigators that he inappropriately exposed himself to a young girl in Burke’s Outlet on Feb. 13, with his seven year old son in tow.

The Russellville Police Department had received a report of indecent exposure at the store after a mother reported that her juvenile daughter was subjected to Lohse’s inappropriate behavior while shopping. The female stated that Lohse had a small child with him and that he possibly left the scene in a van.

Video surveillance from Burke’s Outlet was obtained by the police, and a still image of Lohse was posted to the Russellville Police Department’s Facebook page asking for the public’s assistance in identifying the male. The photo quickly garnered a response of over 600 “shares” and resulted in Lohse turning himself into authorities on Feb. 21st.

According to police, the video showed footage of Lohse with his seven year old son at Burke’s on the day of the incident. He can clearly been seen manipulating the zipper of his pants to expose his genitals, and presenting himself to the juvenile female who was shopping in the junior’s section of Burke’s.

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KENTUCKY
Daily News

Posted: Saturday, March 1, 2014

By DEBORAH HIGHLAND The Daily News dhighland@bgdailynews.com 783-3243

RUSSELLVILLE — A sign outside Woodlawn Baptist Church just outside the city limits advertises a revival Sunday and Brother Kevin Lohse as the church’s preacher.

Across town at Logan County Justice Center, Lohse, 39, is set for arraignment at 12:45 p.m. March 12 on a misdemeanor charge of first-degree indecent exposure.

Lohse, who is the interim pastor at Woodlawn, admitted to Russellville police he was the man seen on video surveillance exposing himself at Burkes Outlet, according to Logan Circuit Court records and a release from Russellville police.

“While inside Burkes Outlet, Lohse was observed on video removing his penis from his pants, attempting to gain the attention of a 15-year-old female nearby,” according to court records. “On the video it is apparent that Lohse is looking for the same female, and walking back to where she is standing to expose his penis.

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KENTUCKY
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A Southern Baptist pastor in Kentucky was charged with indecent exposure in an arrest that police credit to social media.

Kevin Lohse, pastor of Woodlawn Baptist Church in Russellville, Ky., was arrested Feb. 26 after police identified him as the man seen on surveillance video exposing himself to a girl shopping in the junior section of a local department store.

Police in Russellville, Ky., posted on Facebook this image of an unidentified man accused of indecent exposure captured on in-store surveillance video. One week and 646 shares later, they say they have their man.
The Russellville Police Department posted a still image of the suspect on Facebook Feb. 17. One week and 646 shares later, Lohse turned himself in and confirmed he was the man in the security footage, according to a police report quoted by WBKO television in Bowling Green, Ky. Police called it “a prime example of community policing.”

Lohse, a graduate of Liberty University, accepted a call as senior pastor at Southern Baptist-affiliated Woodlawn Baptist Church in June 2013. Before that he was on staff at Pathway Baptist Church Calvert City, Ky., an independent Baptist congregation that identifies with Founders Ministries, a group formed in 1982 to promote Calvinism in Southern Baptist life.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

March 2, 2014

Jack Waterford
Editor-at-large, The Canberra Times

MY BROTHER, he’s got religion
He’s saving young ladies from sin
He’ll save you a blonde for a dollar
My God, how the money rolls in.”

Australians could hardly help but be shocked and appalled by recent evidence coming before the royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse.

The incompetence, negligence and, sometimes effective enabling of abusing teachers in schools is bad enough, casting fundamental doubts about the stewards, the managers or the overseers. But how much more horrible to think that children in obvious need of the state’s tender care and protection – such as orphans in Salvation Army homes, and children made state wards because they were thought to be neglected and abused – being handed over, by our representatives to people who would neglect, and abuse them, physically and sexually, even more.

Thank heavens this could not happen today! Now we know about the risks and temptations of sexual abuse. We know about duty of care. We, or our modern representatives, would never put vulnerable people at risk. Enlightened people run our churches, parliaments, bureaucracies, and institutions. We can be sure the horrible epidemics are no more.

Or can we? It is of the essence of the horrors in the institutions that they represented the best practice of the days in question, endorsed at the time by the whole establishment. This is not to suggest consciousness of abuse – though many players were not so naive as to dismiss the possibility – but a certain blind eye. The sort, for example, some Australians have about conditions in our concentration camps.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Hello,

Thank you to all the wonderful organisations and people who have been helping promote today’s event or otherwise support it.

For those who can’t make it today, the entire event will be being filmed professionally, and I hope to have this film up on the website within a week. There are some fantastic speakers coming along, with important things to say about the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and associated matters.

I look forward to meeting all of you who have been emailing in recent weeks with messages of love and support.

Thank you to The Courier-Mail and Dot Wittington for a moving and respectful tribute to my father in today’s paper.

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OKLAHOMA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

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

We are grateful that an Oklahoma prosecutor plans to appeal a devastating ruling that lets a Jehovah’s Witness elder escape consequences for his heinous child sex crimes by exploiting a legal technicality.

[McAlester News-Capital]

Pittsburg County Prosecutor Danita Williams has said she’ll ask a higher court to let her pursue criminal charges against Ronald Lawrence of McAlester, who allegedly repeatedly sexually assaulted two boys and a girl.

Lawrence had successfully argued that an arbitrary, archaic deadline – known as the statute of limitations – means that he gets to avoid prosecution.

We are appalled that an allegedly spiritual man would seek to hide behind a technicality like this. If he wants to defend himself, let him do it on the merits, not on the technicalities.

And we’re appalled by the apparent silence of the Oklahoma Jehovah’s Witness community. Church officials should be using their resources to aggressively seek out others who saw, suspected or suffered Lawrence’s crimes. They should be begging anyone with information or suspicions of his wrongdoing to call police and prosecutors. They should be pledging to pay for therapy and medical expenses for others he has hurt. They should be reminding church staff, volunteers and members that calling law enforcement about known or suspected child sex crimes is crucial. They should be doing an internal investigation to see if other Jehovah’s Witnesses knew of or suspected his crimes and kept silent or concealed the crimes.

Instead, as best we can tell, they’re doing nothing.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A special service is to be held to help Catholics come to terms with decades of child abuse carried out by a priest.

Francis Paul Cullen admitted abusing children in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire over a 30 year period.

The Bishop of Nottingham will take Mass at Christ the King in Mackworth, Derbyshire, the parish where Cullen first abused children in the 1950s.

He was extradited from Tenerife and admitted 21 counts of indecent assault. He will be sentenced on 24 March.

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UNITED STATES
Irish Central

Sean Dunne @SeanDunneNYC March 01,2014

For the month of March (also known as Irish American Heritage Month) IrishCentral is tapping into the heartbeat of the Irish American community. The Unsung Heroes series features inspiring individuals from across the US who do extraordinary work in their communities and respective fields. From advocates to artists, from local legends to dedicated educators; from a high school baseball team to dynamo nuns in their 80s, these people are making a difference and to them we tip our hats in thanks.

Mari Steed was two-years-old when she was adopted from Ireland by a family from Flourtown, PA. Years later, her search for her birth mother turned up the Magdalene Laundries’ terrifying legacy, and Steed is widely credited for her campaign for justice and the Irish Government’s apology to the Magdalene survivors.

Mari is the daughter of a Magdalene survivor. She was taken from her mother and sent for adoption in America at eighteen months old.

She might never have gone looking for the woman who relinquished her had fate not brought her a great empathy for her mother’s experience. In her senior year of high school, Steed became pregnant by her boyfriend. Her parents sent her to St. Vincent’s, a home in Upper Darby for unwed mot­hers. On rare visits home to Flourtown, young Mari was kept indoors, lest her growing bump may attract neighborhood gossip.

Mari was reunited with her birth mother, who is now known as Josephine Bassett, through her campaign with Justice for Madeline Survivors. Josephine was one of the thousands of women who worked for years in the Magdalene laundries system before the last one closed in 1996. Her mother’s life, Steed told The Irish Voice in 2013, is a “kind of testament to the shadow side of Ireland and the deceitful tale it told itself of a kindly and compassionate social order.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Cormac O’Keeffe

The middle-aged priest was arrested on Wednesday and questioned by a team of detectives tasked with investigating the matter over the last six months, before being later released.

The priest is alleged to have taken regular holidays abroad, staying in luxurious hotels, as well as dining out in expensive restaurants here. The alleged fraud is believed to have gone on for almost 13 years.

Detectives suspect the priest was making false claims for Mass stipends.

Under canon law, a priest is entitled to receive one stipend (share) from the religious order or diocese from collections made during the celebration of Mass and ceremonies such as christenings and weddings.

It is alleged the priest lodged claims on a regular basis, including, it is claimed, under the names of 12 other priests, who were unaware of what was going on. In other cases, fictitious names are alleged to have been used.

A special Garda team is examining stays involving the priest at luxury hotels abroad and purchases of expensive items, including jewellery. Garda sources said they were investigating suspicions the priest may also have had a gambling problem.

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TEXAS
The Monitor

Jared Taylor | The Monitor

Posted on Feb 28, 2014

EDINBURG — Relatives and others advocating the Irene Garza cold case murder be re-examined and go to trial trumpeted Friday another cause to support: Ricardo Rodriguez for Hidalgo County District Attorney.

Rodriguez has enjoyed the family’s support during his bid for district attorney, saying he’d re-examine the 1960 murder case to see whether it should again be taken before a grand jury. But he’s stopped short of making any promises to Garza’s relatives and advocates.

That didn’t stop them from hosting a news conference Friday morning at the Echo Hotel and Conference Center in Edinburg, urging voters to not re-elect incumbent Rene Guerra, who’s been in office more than three decades.

Besides the endorsement, no new information emerged from Friday’s news conference or when The Monitor interviewed Guerra afterward.

Dale Tacheny, an Oklahoma tax attorney who left the priesthood decades ago, told reporters that former McAllen priest John Feit admitted to killing the 25-year-old Garza. He said the admissions came when they both lived at a monastery in Missouri.

In an interview Friday afternoon, Guerra continued to emphasize that he does not believe Tacheny’s testimony would hold up in court, were he asked to testify.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

KEN FOY – PUBLISHED 01 MARCH 2014

Anthony Egan (59) was arrested by gardai investigating the alleged theft of €500,000 from his religious order.

He was released without charge after being questioned for a number of hours at Mountjoy Garda Station yesterday about the alleged offence before being freed from custody.

The Herald reveals that Fr Egan was previously cleared of criminal charges in February 2012 after he was alleged to have falsely advertised his services as a psychiatrist in a national newspaper.

In this new case, a file is now being prepared by the DPP in relation to a complaint by a senior clergyman about the alleged thefts, which are claimed to have taken place over a 13-year period.

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CANADA
CBC News

Ontario Provincial Police have charged a Catholic priest in Geraldton, Ont., with sexual assault for incidents that allegedly occurred in the 1980s.

OPP said Friday they have arrested 56-year-old Roger Pronovost on two counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual exploitation.

The alleged offences involved one male victim who was a teenager at the time the incidents occurred between 1987 and 1989.

OPP say Pronovost was assigned during that period to St. John the Baptist Church in Longlac, Ont.

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PERU
Correo

[Summary: The Christian life sodality has asked actor Jason Day, to clarify his complaint of an alleged attempted sexual abuse by a priest of that organization.]

28 FEBRERO 2014 | LIMA –
El Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana pide al actor Jason Day, quien promueve la campaña pro aborto Un Billón de Pie, que esclarezca su denuncia de un supuesto intento de abuso sexual por parte de un sacerdote de esa organización, pues de no hacerlo se trataría de una difamación.

Como se sabe, el actor escribió una columna titulada “Esto sí es guerra”, publicada en un diario limeño, donde denunció un supuesto intento de abuso sexual en la sacristía de la parroquia Nuestra Señora de la Reconciliación, en la urbanización de Camacho (Lima), cuando se preparaba para su primera comunión, a los 9 años.

En un comunicado, el Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana señala “hemos enviado una carta notarial al Sr. Jason Cuthbert Day Del Solar solicitando que proporcione personalmente su testimonio de estos hechos que permita esclarecer esta situación. Hasta el momento no hemos recibido ninguna respuesta”.

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OKLAHOMA
McAlester News-Capital

Charges have been dismissed for a McAlester church elder who allegedly molested, raped and sodomized three adults when they were children.

The charges were dismissed Wednesday for Ronald Lawrence, 76, of McAlester, an elder with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, according to court records. Associate District Judge James Bland dismissed the charges based on statue of limitation arguments from Lawrence’s attorney; the prosecutor in the case announced her intent to appeal Bland’s decision.

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CANADA
Archdiocese of Canada

Main Office:
31 LeBreton Street North
OTTAWA, ON K1R 7H1
Tel.: 1 (613) 233-7780
Fax: 1 (613) 233-1931
E-Mail: office@archdiocese.ca;
bishopirenee@archdiocese.ca
secretary@archdiocese.ca

No 045 February 28, 2014
Venerable Basil the Confessor

MEMORANDUM

Once again I would like to address you all in this memorandum in connection to the announcement of the verdict in the court case of Archbishop Seraphim in Winnipeg, Manitoba on January 24, 2014.

I wish to again remind all clergy of the Archdiocese of Canada, parish Council members, Archdiocesan Council members or anyone associated with the Administration of the Archdiocese of Canada, The Orthodox Church in America not to participate in any form of fundraising for the defense of the Archbishop Seraphim.

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LOUISIANA
KSLA

[with video]

By Fred Childers

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) –
A Shreveport pastor has been found guilty on all counts in his federal trial on child sex charges.

Andrea Lewis of Act on Faith Church was charged with 3 counts of transportation of minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. He is accused of having sexual contact with girls in his church choir during trips out of state.

“There was a lot going on at this church that should have sent up flags,” Earl Campbell, the federal prosecutor told the jury during closing arguments at the end of the 5 day trial.

The jury deliberated about 3 hours before returning the unanimous decision just after 2 p.m. Friday.

On Thursday, his defense attorneys called character witnesses to the stand, who described him as a godly man and a good man.

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LOUISIANA
Shreveport Times

Written by
Michael Doughty

Andrea Lewis the former pastor from Shreveport charged with sexual contact with minors was found guilty Friday by a federal jury on three counts of transporting minors across state lines to have sex.

The five-day trial in the courtroom of United States District Judge Elizabeth Foote, culminated in the conviction of the 54-year-old Lewis, who was found guilty of abusing his position as a pastor and choir recruiter from 1994 to 2000.

The choir consisted predominately of girls under the age of 18.

It took the jury three hours of deliberation to deliver the verdict, following a week of testimony and exhibits which indicated Lewis transported at least three minors from Texas for sex.

Testimony indicated Lewis threatened the girls not to tell anyone, and used choir trips and other church related travel to cover up the sexual abuse.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2014
BY JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

Amid a series of controversies, the Archdiocese of Newark is planning a $100 million fundraising campaign to support Catholic education, parishes and other initiatives.

Jim Goodness, spokesman for the archdiocese, said that the campaign would go on for several years and that officials were still working on the logistics and strategy.

Archbishop John J. Myers announced in a January letter to the archdiocese’s 1.3 million Catholics that half of the money raised during the capital campaign would go to the archdiocese and the other half to parishes.

The archdiocese would invest its half in long-term endowments for Catholic schools, struggling parishes, seminarians, clergy health care and other areas it regularly funds, Goodness said.

To prepare for the campaign, officials and an archdiocese consultant have conducted studies, spoken with pastors and sent out surveys to parishioners and clergy, Goodness said. The archbishop based his decision to let parishes control half of the money on the “candid feedback,” he said.

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IRELAND
The Journal

A MEMORIAL SERVICE is taking place this weekend in Wexford to commemorate the women who were incarcerated in The Good Shepherd Magdalene Laundry, St. Mary’s in New Ross.

People are asked to meet at the entrance to St. Stephen’s Cemetery, Irishtown, New Ross in County Wexford.

The Good Shepherd Sisters apologised for the abuse uncovered in a report last year. They ran four laundries, including one in Waterford which did not close until 1996.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Derby Telegraph

By Martin Naylor

THE Roman Catholic Bishop of Nottingham will this afternoon speak to Mackworth parishioners about the case of disgraced former Derby priest Francis Paul Cullen.

The Rt Rev Malcolm Patrick McMahon, whose diocese includes Derby, will be addressing the congregation at Christ The King Church.

Father Andrew Cole, private secretary to the Bishop, said: “The Bishop will be celebrating Mass in Christ the King today at 5.30pm.

“This will be the usual timetabled Saturday evening Mass, but obviously his homily – or sermon – will address Monday’s proceedings at Derby Crown Court.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Der Westen

Emmerich. Zeugen sollen sich bei der Polizei melden. Derweil äußert sich das Bistum Münster in einer längeren Stellungnahme zum Thema. Das Bistum betont: Pfarrer sind meldepflichtig, wenn es einen Fall von Missbrauch gibt.

Nach dem Facebook-Beitrag von Thomas Peters und der NRZ-Berichterstattung hat nun die Kriminalpolizei die Ermittlungen zu einem möglichen Missbrauch in Emmerich aufgenommen. Bereits gestern wurden erste Zeugen vernommen. Wie berichtet könnte es einen Fall im Zusammenhang mit der Katholischen Kirche in Emmerich gegeben haben, der in der Zeit vor Pfarrer Karsten Weidisch lag. „Wir bitten Zeugen sich bei uns zu melden“, sagt Polizeisprecher Heinz Vetter.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kurier am Sonntag

[Summary: Has there been a case of abuse in Emmerick in the Munster diocese by one of several members of the pastoral team? According to a Facebook comment the CID has started investigations in Kleve. A police spokesman said there is initial suspicion but the diocese rejected the allegations.]

Emmerich (28.2.22014). Hat es in Emmerich einen Missbrauchsfall durch ein oder sogar mehrere Mitglieder des Emmericher Seelsorgeteams gegeben? Nach einem Kommentar auf Facebook hat die Kripo in Kleve Ermittlungen eingeleitet. „Ja, es gibt einen Anfangsverdacht“, bestätigte am Freitag Polizeisprecher Heinz Vetter dem Kurier am Sonntag.

Auf Facebook hat ein Mann schwere Vorwürfe erhoben. Er behauptet, dass es in der Zeit vor Pfarrer Karsten Weidisch einen Missbrauch durch mehrere nicht näher benannte Mitglieder des Seelsorgeteams gegeben haben soll und „viele wissen davon“.

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

[with video]

By Phil Rogers | Friday, Feb 28, 2014

Two months after a teacher filed suit against Hales Franciscan High School, saying she was fired for reporting a sex incident on school grounds against the administration’s wishes, a second teacher has now been fired, citing the same reasons.

Former Social Studies teacher Stephen Jennings is also suing Hales, saying he was fired last week because he reported the same girl’s allegations to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, as is required by law. Jennings said he went to DCFS at the girls’s request, after she said the school was not doing enough.

“I felt as a teacher, and a man of God, that it was my responsibility to protect the young ladies and support them,” he said.

In his suit, Jennings alleged then-principal Erica Brownfield had even warned the staff not to say anything about the allegations.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

BY MEGAN GRAHAM Staff Reporter March 1, 2014

A second former teacher at a Catholic high school on the South Side filed a lawsuit against the institution, claiming he was fired because he reported an alleged sexual assault involving students to the state.

Stephen Jennings alleges in a suit filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court he was wrongfully terminated from Hales Franciscan High School at 4930 S. Cottage Grove Ave., nearly four months after female students notified him of alleged sexual assaults by male students.

The students came to Jennings weeks after former principal Erica Brownfield conducted a staff meeting in fall 2013 in which she told staff that a female student had possibly been sexually assaulted by male students, the lawsuit said.

She allegedly acknowledged her responsibility to report the incident to the state Department of Children and Family Services but said she was not going to do so, the suit says. She also instructed staff members to not speak to DCFS or report the incident, Jennings claims.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Christianity Today

Timothy C. Morgan POSTED 2/28/2014

Dozens of individuals raised in Chicago’s Jesus People USA Christian community (JPUSA) are alleging that commune members sexually abused them as children, while leaders covered up the abuse for years.

The allegations are contained in a 90-minute documentary film, released today online, and in a civil lawsuit, filed in January in Cook County against the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) and JPUSA in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.

“My intent is to expose truth, bring it to light, because it hasn’t been in the light,” filmmaker Jaime Prater told Christianity Today. “No one loves JPUSA more than I do. It’s my home. Why would I want to see Jesus People shut down? Do I believe that those in power need to step down? Absolutely. But it is my hope that the community can somehow get past this and safety precautions can be put in place to preserve the innocence of children.

“For the first time in the history of Jesus People, former members have come together and coalesced through this journey and have started to heal collectively. My ultimate goal is for reconciliation. When the chips fall where they may and appropriate action is taken towards leadership, I would love to walk in my childhood home again and see where I grew up. That’s irrational. But I’m an optimist. Healing on all sides is certainly possible.”

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ARKANSAS
Time

By David Winograd @davidwinogradFeb. 27, 20141

Seven women who were physically, sexually and psychologically abused by an evangelical preacher have been granted over half a billion dollars in reparations by an Arkansas judge.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that Miller County Circuit Judge Kirk Johnson awarded $525 million to the victims in actual and punitive damages.

Johnson made the default ruling this week against Twenty First Century Holiness Tabernacle Church, after the organization failed to answer charges. The women were abused by Tony Alamo, the church’s leader, when they were members of the ministry.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Mail (UK)

By MICHAEL ZENNIE and ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTER
27 February 2014

Half a billion dollars in damages have been awarded to seven women who were raped and beaten for years by a pedophile televangelist who took them as his ‘child brides.’

They are the victims of Tony Alamo – a charismatic Pentecostal preacher whose massive Alamo Ministries has been branded a polygamist cult.

The women described being repeatedly molested and sexually abused, some starting at age 9, by Alamo.

Despite serving a 175-year prison sentence for rape and child sex trafficking, Alamo and his ministry are believed to have billions of dollars in assets, mostly water rights in California.

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ILLINOIS
Slow Church

March 1, 2014 By Christopher Smith

Although I heard awhile back that that this documentary on the sexual abuse of minors at the Jesus People USA (JPUSA) Community in Chicago was in the works, I happened to see this article on the Christianity Today website this afternoon and saw that it was released today. I knew that it would be one that I needed to watch, so I plunked down my ten bucks and downloaded the movie. You see, I have been acquainted with JPUSA for over 20 years; I have visited their community a couple of times and have friends who are members or former members. There was a block of 5 or 6 years — before my wife and I had kids — in which I attended their Cornerstone Music and Arts Festival every July.

No Place to Call Home is a heart-wrenching movie, offering story after story from victims who were sexually abused as children or teenagers while living as part of the JPUSA community (At one point the film offers the statistic that of 120 former members who were contacted in the course of making the film, over half were victims of sexual abuse at JPUSA). Including among the victims who speak out on camera, is the film’s director and producer Jaime Prater. The movie culminates with three stories of victims who name their perpetrator as Johnny Herrin, a member of the community’s — relatively small — leadership council, the son of the community’s founding pastor (who himself was ousted for sexual abuse), and the drummer for JPUSA’s seminal Christian rock group, The Rez Band. How could such a Christian community that had a relatively high profile in evangelical Christianity over the last four decades foster a culture in which sexual abuse was apparently all too common?

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sun

By RHODRI PHILLIPS, LYNN DAVIDSON & ALASTAIR TAYLOR
Last Updated: 28th February 2014

LABOUR’S Patricia Hewitt last night apologised after The Sun confronted her for backing a paedophile plan for the age of consent to be TEN in certain cases.

The ex-Health Secretary put her name to a document that also wanted to legalise incest. She and Jack Dromey, now a Labour MP, were members of a committee recommending a revolutionary change in child sex laws.

Our investigation showed how she backed the work of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) in the 1970s and 1980s. She said: “I got it wrong on PIE and I apologise for having done so.”

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ROME
Catholic News Service

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) — When accusations of sexual abuse against Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder and then-general director of the Legionaries of Christ, were first published in 1997, Father Eduardo Robles Gil was running one of the congregation’s schools in Mexico City.

Father Robles Gil did not believe Father Maciel had molested boys in his own seminaries, yet the accusations troubled him, and he asked himself what he would do if they turned out to be true.

“I said, ‘I am happy being a priest, it is where God wants me, and he called me to the Legion, so I would continue being a Legionary priest,'” he told Catholic News Service Feb. 28. “Having made that decision, I was no longer affected so much by what might come out in the newspaper.”

Today, Father Robles Gil is the troubled congregation’s new general director. He is the congregation’s first elected leader after nearly four years of Vatican-supervised reform that, he said, have left members full of “hope, enthusiasm (and) optimism.”

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PUERTO RICO
Headlines from the Catholic World

San Juan, Puerto Rico, Feb 28, 2014 / 03:05 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez Nieves of San Juan and Bishop Daniel Fernandez Torres of Arecibo in Puerto Rico have handed over a group of priests accused of sexual abuse to civil authorities.

In statements to the media, Archbishop Gonzalez Nieves said six cases of alleged sexual abuse of minors by priests have been turned over to Puerto Rican prosecutors.

He pledged “the full cooperation of the Archdiocese, regardless of whether the person who committed the abuse is a minister, employee or volunteer. This entire process, while painful, should be an occasion for reaching the ultimate goal, which is the well-being and protection of minors.”

“None of these priests is currently in ministry,” the archbishop emphasized. “Some of the cases have gone before the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and others have exceeded the statute of limitations. One (accused individual) is dead, another was tried in court in Bayamon and another is outside Puerto Rico.”

For his part, Bishop Daniel Fernandez of Arecibo filed a complaint with police and the Department of the Family against one accused priest.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By LOUISE ECCLES

A Roman Catholic priest faces an inquiry after sensationally admitting an affair with a vulnerable parishioner who later died of a drugs overdose.

In an extraordinary series of emails to her son, Father Stephen Cooper confessed he had been seeing nurse Kathleen Lardner in the months leading up to her death.

Extracts from her diary at the time reveal that the hospital ward manager suspected he was seeing another woman and made her feel ‘like a prostitute’.

Ten years on, Father Cooper now admits that Miss Lardner, who suffered from depression and anxiety, called him on the day she died to say she had taken some pills and ask for forgiveness.
But he says that at her insistence he did not phone an ambulance, despite realising she was in a ‘deep depression’.

By the time an ambulance was called by her long-term partner several hours later, it was too late. She died in hospital the same day, aged 41. An inquest found she had swallowed a fatal quantity of her partner’s blood pressure tablets.

Incredibly, Father Cooper presided over her funeral the following week, with her family and friends oblivious to the affair or her desperate phone call.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

BY HOLLY OTTERBEIN

The trial for a Philadelphia priest accused of molesting an altar boy continued Friday.

The accuser, whose name is being withheld, said the Rev. Andrew McCormick fondled him and attempted to force oral sex him when he was 10 years old. He is now 26.

The young man’s parents testified Friday that their son’s behavior changed in the months afterward. His father said he became angry and stopped doing the things he once enjoyed. His mother said he later attempted suicide.

The man’s parents said their son finally told them about the incident in 2011, after he saw in the news that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had suspended McCormick, 57, and several other priests because of sex abuse allegations.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

A tearful mom and dad told a jury today about the noose they found hanging in their son’s closet.

They were followed to the witness stand by a grandfather who was a retired detective.

It was “Pop” who took the first statement from the alleged victim in this case, the 26-year-old man who has accused Father Andrew McCormick of sexually assaulting him back in 1997 when he was a 10-year-old altar boy.

“He was like a wounded animal,” the silver-haired detective said of his grandson. “He was so filled with anxiety.”

In short, it was a great day for the prosecution as three relatives of the alleged victim took turns scoring points against “Father Andy.”

Dad was the lead-off witness. He talked about the 3 a.m. text he received on Dec. 5, 2011 from his son.

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IRELAND
BBC News

Victims of a paedophile priest have been prevented from taking fresh legal action against the Catholic Church.

The High Court in Dublin made the ruling against the trio, who settled cases against Brendan Smyth in 1998.

The victims alleged negligence because complaints made about Smyth in 1975 were not reported.

But the judge said that the alleged new or additional facts were already in the public domain when the cases were settled.

The trio took a case against the Bishop of Kilmore Leo O’Reilly, and Cardinal Sean Brady – the head of the Catholic church in Ireland.

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UNITED STATES
Frontline

[How big a deal was the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI?]

The resignation I think would be more than anything that Joseph Ratzinger has done in his life as a theologian — and he’s written lots of books, and he’s influenced lots of theology in the church as a Vatican official. He was one of the most important for more than 25 years. More than anything that he’s done, he will be remembered for the resignation. …

What was the state of the church that he bequeathed?

When he resigned, Benedict XVI left a church that was almost run into the ground. Some brighter people and more astute people on the workings of the church had confided in me, even people on the inside, he was killing the church. People were moving away from the church; people were leaving the church in droves.

What he did in his seven years as pope or so, is he brought back into the mainstream many fringe groups on the extreme right, groups that did not like or threw into question the reforms that happened at the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. The modernization of the church these people did not like. They wanted to go back to the old Tridentine Mass, the pre-Vatican II Mass, and he allowed them. These people were brought back into the mainstream of the church, even though they’re tiny little pockets, insignificant pockets really, [and] they became the tail wagging the dog.

This was driving away a lot of people, even inside the Vatican. The Vatican is naturally a conservative place. … Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, was too conservative even for them.

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GEORGIA
WSAV

By Shameca Kelley

ATLANTA, GA –
Child sexual abuse impacts 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys before their 18th birthday. Yet, prosecutors say only 1 in 10 actually speak up, but in many cases, not until they are older and well past the statute of limitations for legal action against their abusers.

However, a House Judiciary Committee has passed a new bill, HB 771, which would give victims more time to seek action.

Under current law, child sex abuse victims in the Peach State can only take action against their abusers up to five years after age 18.

If the new bill passes, victims would be able to bring action against his or her abuser up until they reach the age of 30.

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GEORGIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, February 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 proposed bill in George would extend the statute of limitation for child sex crimes 7 years. This is a step in the right direction, but stronger action is needed.

[WSAV]

House Bill 771, which was passed by a House Judiciary Committee, would give victims of child sexual assault and additional 7 years to file lawsuits. As the law stands now victims only have 5 years after they turn 18. Under the new law victims will have until they are 30 years old.

We are glad this small step in the right direction was taken and that lawmakers are acknowledging that many victims of child sexual abuse take years to report their abuse, due to the extreme trauma. We are sure that this law will help many younger people who were abused as kids, but it does nothing for older people.

Statute of limitations in child sex crimes only protect dangerous predators who more often than not will hurt more than one child. To help prevent future crimes removing the statute of limitations is necessary or at least offering a window.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
New York Daily News

BY CAROL KURUVILLA / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014

A former altar boy opened up in court on Thursday about the abuse he allegedly endured under the hands of a trusted Roman Catholic priest.

The Rev. Andrew McCormick, 57, quietly listened to the unidentified young man speak about the sexual encounter that left him scarred at the age of 10.

“I remember trying to hang myself a lot. … Probably every week,” the man, now 26, told a Philadelphia courtroom. “I couldn’t deal with the guilt of what had happened, or what I am.”

McCormick has pleaded not guilty to the crime. The priest, who worked at St. John Cantius Church in Bridesburg at the time, has been placed on administrative leave by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He was arrested in July 2012, the Philadelphia Daily News reports.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, February 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 conservative Christian official from Illinois is on administrative leave following allegations that he sexually harassed women and didn’t report suspected child abuse.

[Religion News Service]

This is the bare minimum. More must be done to protect the vulnerable and expose the truth.

In the charges recently brought by a sexual abuse victim against Bill Gothard, director of Basic Life Principles, we see a very disturbing, but recurring pattern. We have a young person, working for someone that is supposed to be of high principles and above reproach. This responsible person then allegedly violates the trust of the young person, and uses his position of authority to abuse both this victim and others.

We commend the board of this organization for their recent actions; however, we question where they have been on this since the first revelations came forth in 2011.The whistle blowing website Recovering Grace reported that an underage girl was harassed by Gothard in the early 1990s, but was afraid no one would believe her so did not report the crime then.

Were officials unaware all this time of these victims and their claims? Did they notify authorities at once as dictated by civil and moral law? It is unclear in their statement whether Bill was forced to resign, or if he just chose to step aside from his position of power due to the forces that now make the pressure too great to not react.

What we see here is an unfortunate action, and reaction, by those entrenched in positions of trust and power, and how they go about protecting their turf, and the organization, with no regard for the victims and their needs. Where is their outline of action? Where is their plan to address the needs of the victims? Where are their efforts to find others who may have seen suspected or suffered Gothard’s wrongdoing and beg them to call police?

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OREGON
National Catholic Reporter

Dan Morris-Young | Feb. 28, 2014

Editor’s note: This is Part 5 of a five-part series on the dispute between a pastor and his bishop in St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Bend, Ore. Removed from his post last October, Fr. James Radloff filed an appeal, but his request was denied by the Vatican, as the Congregation for Clergy sided with Baker, Ore., Bishop Liam Cary. Dated Jan. 31 and made public in Bend Feb. 14, the decision allows Cary to keep secret the reason for the ouster and permits a continued bar on Radloff’s public ministry. According to Radloff’s canonical adviser, Fr. Thomas Faucher, Radloff received a letter from Cary Wednesday, Feb. 26. It was dated Feb. 21. No details were available to the press. Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here and Part 4 here.

The personality of Fr. James Radloff as well as the termination of some St. Francis of Assisi Parish employees continue to be flashpoints in discussions of why the priest might have been removed as pastor.

Letters in Bend’s major newspaper, The Bulletin, and posts on the NCR website have alternatively chastised and lauded Radloff for staffing changes.

In separate interviews, two parishioners claimed Radloff terminated five employees with no warning not long after assuming reins of the parish, giving them an hour to vacate, in one case eliminating income for a family of six.

Others argue that staff changes were needed. Parishioner Donna Hodson said bluntly Feb. 8, “True, it’s hard to let people go, but the people he let go needed to be let go. How do you fire someone kindly?”

Support independent Catholic journalism. Subscribe to NCR.
Thirty-year parishioner Ken Roberts said, “Radloff was very impulsive and made a lot of decisions without regard for the consequences. He dismissed a lot of good people from the staff when he arrived which alienated many. Some of those are returning under the new regime which is very heartening and it is because Fr. Julian (Cassar) is reaching out to them and trying to heal our community which has been in some kind of turmoil for the last several years.”

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IRELAND
RTE News

The High Court has ruled that three victims of abuse by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth who settled cases in 1998 may not proceed with fresh legal action against the Catholic Church.

The victims had alleged the Bishop of Kilmore and now Cardinal Seán Brady did not take steps to prevent Smyth from abusing children in the 1970s and 1980s.

Bishop of Kilmore Leo O’Reilly was sued as successor to the previous bishop Francis McKiernan. Cardinal Seán Brady is being sued in a personal capacity.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 28, 2014

For more information: Melanie Jula Sakoda ( 925-708-6175 cell, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com ), Cappy Larson ( 415-637-2006, cappy@rlarson.com ), David Clohessy ( 314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )

University piano quartet is criticized
Group was to help convicted child molester
Professors had planned to perform at fundraiser
It’s unclear whether event has been postponed or cancelled
School official claims he “cannot forbid our faculty from performing”

Four Illinois Wesleyan professors and musicians were set to perform at a fundraiser for a convicted child molester. But yesterday, protests by a victims group led to the event’s cancellation or postponement.

Members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, were upset about a planned March 5th fundraiser to benefit Archbishop Seraphim Storheim, once the top Orthodox official in Canada, who was found guilty last month of sexually abusing an altar boy.

Yesterday, SNAP wrote to IWU provost Jonathan D. Green (309-556-3101, jgreen@iwu.edu), asking him to stop The Illinois Wesleyan Piano Quartet from agreeing to perform at the event or at least denounce the quartet for doing so.

SNAP sent similar protest letters to four other groups, asking them to block the fundraiser from happening.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Post

BY NICOLA MENZIE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
February 28, 2014

Bill Gothard has been placed on administrative leave by board members of his nonprofit organization, Institute for Basic Life Principles, amid an investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed several women and young girls.

Billy Boring Jr., one of nine members (including Gothard) on the Institute for Basic Life Principles’ board, told World magazine: “After completion of the review the board will respond at an appropriate time, and in a biblical manner.”

While the investigation was ongoing, Gothard “will not be involved in the operations of the ministry. The board of directors will be prayerfully appointing interim leadership.”

A Christian-run online organization named Recovering Grace has been publishing victim accounts of alleged abuse at the hands of Gothard. Recovering Grace claims to be privy to at least 34 different women who say they were victims of “textbook sexual harassment” and emotional abuse at the hands of Gothard. According to RNS, Gothard was also being investigated for failing to report allegations of child abuse.

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UNITED STATES
World Magazine

By WARREN COLE SMITH
Posted Feb. 27, 2014

The board of directors of the Institute for Basic Life Principles has placed its longtime leader Bill Gothard, 79, on “administrative leave” while the board investigates claims that he years ago engaged in sexual harassment and other misconduct.

Responding to a WORLD inquiry, board chairman Billy Boring stated, “After completion of the review the board will respond at an appropriate time, and in a biblical manner.” Until then, the statement said, Gothard “will not be involved in the operations of the ministry. The board of directors will be prayerfully appointing interim leadership.”

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Sarah Pulliam Bailey | Feb 28, 2014

(RNS) Bill Gothard, an Illinois-based advocate for home-schooling and conservative dress and who warned against rock music and debt, has been placed on administrative leave after allegations of sexually harassing women who worked at his ministry and failing to report child abuse cases.

Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles was once a popular gathering spot for thousands of Christian families, including the Duggar family from TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting.” Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute conferences were also popular among devotees of the Quiverfull movement, who promote large families and eschew birth control.

He’s also rubbed shoulders with Republican luminaries. He and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee were photographed at a campaign lunch together; former Georgia Gov. Sunny Perdue spoke at one of Gothard’s conferences; and Sarah Palin, when she was a small town mayor in Alaska, attended his International Association of Character Cities conferences and declared Wasilla among Gothard’s “Cities of Character.”

In a statement posted Thursday, board chairman Billy Boring told World magazine: “After completion of the review, the board will respond at an appropriate time, and in a biblical manner.” Until then, the statement said, Gothard “will not be involved in the operations of the ministry. The board of directors will be prayerfully appointing interim leadership.”

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CALIFORNIA
New York Daily News

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2014

LAKE FOREST, Calif. — A year after his son’s suicide, popular evangelical pastor Rick Warren is taking on a new mental health ministry inspired by his personal tragedy.

Warren, founder of Saddleback Church and a best-selling author, will team with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange and the National Alliance on Mental Illness to host a daylong event next month focused on helping church leaders reach parishioners who are struggling with mental illness.

The Gathering on Mental Health and the Church grew out of private conversations Warren had with the local Catholic bishop, Bishop Kevin Vann, after his son’s death and his own writings in his journal as he processed his grief. Matthew Warren, 27, committed suicide last April after struggling with severe depression and suicidal thoughts for years.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 28, 2014

For more info: Joelle Casteix 949 322 7434, jcasteix@gmail.com,
David Clohessy 314 566 9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Victims praise Rick Warren/OC bishop event
Daylong seminar to address mental health issues
Education is an important first step, group says
SNAP: “But firing wrong-doers as important as therapy”

A national support group for victims of child sexual abuse is applauding an upcoming church-sponsored mental health seminar, saying it’s a good first step in helping victims and others heal from the pains of mental illness.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPNetwork.org), are calling the partnership between Saddleback Church founder Rick Warren and the Catholic Diocese of Orange, CA, “movement in the right direction” to help victims of child sexual abuse and anyone who is suffering with mental illness.

[New York Daily News]

The seminar, which will be held at the Saddleback Church campus in south Orange County, will feature speakers and small group seminars which will educate ministers and the public on how to compassionately and effectively help those suffering from mental illness.

SNAP leaders say that events like this should be accompanied by decisive action to help those who are suffering due to child sex abuse and cover-ups in Orange County institutions.

“There are three ways we can help victims of mental illness: compassion, intervention, and action,” said Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, SNAP Volunteer Western Regional Director. “But without action—without punishing wrongdoers and those who covered up for them—victims of child sexual abuse who suffer from mental illness are only more isolated, shamed and vulnerable.”

Casteix hopes that church officials in the area will publicly invite abuse victims to attend the event.

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UNITED STATES
Poets & Lunatics: The Power of the Pen on the Journey of Faith

February 28, 2014 By Wendy Murray

I recently watched a Frontline documentary titled “Secrets of the Vatican” highlighting the daunting challenges facing Pope Francis. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, resigned from the office a year ago today (Feb. 28, 2013) under a cloud of corruption and the stench of unresolved rampant sex-abuse cases. The documentary highlights the challenge Pope Francis faces in the unspoken mandate to clean up the Church, most notably the shameful sordid legacy of covering up of rampant sex abuse over many decades that has destroyed lives.

The problem of abuse and cronyism is not exclusive to Catholicism. Evangelical Boz Tchividjian asserts unequivocally that sex abuse among evangelical clergy is ‘worse’ than that within the Catholic church. Tchividijian – a former child-abuse victim; child-abuse prosecutor; founder and executive director of GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment); law professor; author and — it’s worth noting — Billy Graham’s grandson; speaks and writes extensively on issues related to sex abuse within the evangelical faith community. “Christian mission field is a ‘magnet’ for sexual abusers,” he says. “The Protestant culture is defined by independence”– the implication being that this independence, when it comes to confronting pathologies in ministry, sets the table for little if any accountability.

A report published by the Baptist General Convention of Texas (2000) noted “the incidence of sexual abuse by clergy has reached ‘horrific proportions.’” Studies revealed that 40 percent had acknowledged “sexually inappropriate behavior.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Feb. 26, 2014 Faith and Justice

Pope Francis has placed reform of the Vatican as a top priority of his papacy. Whether or not he will succeed remains to be seen.

There are at least three things necessary to successfully reform an institution: changing its culture, appointing key people who support the reform, and putting in place structures, policies, and procedures to concretize the reform.

Changing the culture of an institution is probably the most difficult and the most important. It is not enough to send out memos mandating new policies or to move boxes around in the organizational chart. The attitudes and values of the people in an institution make it what it is, especially if those values are not just talked about but incarnated at the top.

From his first minutes in office, Pope Francis has been trying to change the culture of the institutional church. He has talked about leadership as being for service rather than for status, power, or prestige. He has been critical of clericalism and careerism. He realizes that reform requires a conversion of hearts and minds. And he has not just talked, he has walked the walk. He has modeled what it means to be a good bishop, a good priest, a good Christian.

Second, reform requires putting people who support change into key positions. Francis began this by appointing as secretary of state Pietro Parolin, a highly competent Vatican professional who supports the pope’s vision and agenda.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 28, 2014

Stephen Cauchi and Barney Schwartz

A respected rabbi who was stood down from Melbourne’s Yeshivah College over allegations that he raped a student in the 1970s has had charges against him dropped.

Rabbi Avrohom Glick, 67, was then deputy principal and later principal of the College. He was head of religious studies when he was stood down last December.

Rabbi Glick, of Balaclava, was arrested and interviewed in December and released pending further inquiries.

Yeshivah College principal Yehoshua Smukler said at the time that although “Rabbi Glick is a highly respected staff member and community figure”, he would be immediately stood down.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mary Carolan

A Catholic Bishop has won a High Court court halting three actions for damages brought against him in a representative capacity by a man, his sister and another woman who previously settled Northern Ireland court actions for stg £25,000 each over sexual abuse by paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth.

President of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, today granted an application by Bishop of Kilmore, Dr Leo O’Reilly, for orders halting, on grounds of the previous settlements, the actions brought against him in his representative capacity as Bishop of the Kilmore diocese.

The cases by the three were also brought against Cardinal Sean Brady, who is being sued in his personal capacity arising from his role as part-time secretary to former Bishop of Kilmore, Francis McKiernan, during a church investigation in 1975 into complaints about Smyth.

Cardinal Brady had not made any similar application to that of Bishop O’Reilly and the proceedings against him remain in being.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 28, 2014

For more info: Melanie Jula Sakoda 925-708-6175 cell, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com, David Clohessy 314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Ottawa parish responded quickly to victims’ request for help
Fundraiser for convicted archbishop cancelled or postponed
He was brought to trial last year, accused of molesting 11 year old twin boys
SNAP: “We fear concert is merely postponed, so we hope the other groups we contacted will also step up to the plate”
“Public support for proven molesters is wrong because it deters victims of other child sex crimes from speaking up,” victims say

A victims’ group is grateful that an Ottawa Orthodox parish responded swiftly to their plea for assistance. The church cancelled a fundraiser to benefit an archbishop who was convicted last month of molesting an altar boy, and assured the group that they would never allow it to take place in their facility. However, the event organizers appear undeterred by this set-back.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, were upset about a planned March 5th event to raise money for Archbishop Seraphim Storheim, who was found guilty last month of abusing one of the twins. Storheim is the former head of the Archdiocese of Canada of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). He is suspended by the OCA while he awaits church discipline for his crimes.

Yesterday, SNAP wrote four church institutions connected with the event. The group said the event “hurt at least one child sex abuse victim and deterred other child sex abuse victims from speaking up.” Later during the day, the website promoting the event posted that “The chamber music concert on March 5 at Woodroffe United Church is cancelled due to the change of schedule.”

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TENNESSEE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 28, 2014

Statement by Susan Vance of Knoxville, leader of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 865-927-2923, vancefamily1@comcast.net )

Yesterday, when confronted by a TV reporter, Nashville Catholic officials admitted receiving a report of child sex crimes by a priest that they had kept secret for years. Shame on them.

[Fox 17]

The alleged child molesting cleric is Fr. Gansmann who also spent time in Illinois and Minnesota. Last week, for the first time, Catholic officials in the Twin Cities disclosed, because of a court order, child sex abuse allegations against Fr. Gansmann.

For years, Catholic bishops have pledged to be “open” about clergy sex cases. These two belated disclosures – in St. Paul and in Nashville – show that this pledge is rarely kept.

Those hurt by Fr. Gansmann — in Minnesota and Tennessee – are getting older. Many of them have likely told no one or few people about their pain. Their suffering would be lessened if Catholic officials would “come clean” about these clergy sex crimes and aggressively seek out, and help, these victims. Instead, however, bishops continue their self serving secrecy, letting those trapped in silence, shame, and self blame continue in pain. Again, shame on them.

Roughly 30 US bishops have, under pressure, posted on their websites the names, photos and work histories of child molesting clerics. This is the least Catholic officials can do to protect kids. None of Tennessee’s bishops have done this. Now would be a perfect time for Nashville’s bishop to do this.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Berliner Zeitung

[Summary: Some wounds never heal. So it is with the abuse case involving the Catholic Church in Potsdam and Tegel. An old case of abuse must be reopened because the victim has decided to put on some pressure. A parish priest accused to sexual abuse had been rehabilitated although the church knew he had forced a boy into a sexual act.]

Von Julia Haak

Die katholische Kirche hat einen Priester rehabilitiert, obwohl bekannt war, dass er einen Jungen sexuell missbraucht hatte. Nur weil das Opfer sich wehrt, wird der Fall nun neu untersucht.

Manche Wunden heilen nie. Wenn sie nach Jahren wieder aufbrechen, kommt es für Beteiligte oft überraschend. So ist es auch in einem Missbrauchsfall, der die katholischen Kirchengemeinden Peter und Paul in Potsdam und Herz Jesu in Tegel betrifft. In der katholischen Kirche muss jetzt ein alter Fall neu aufgerollt werden, weil das Opfer plötzlich Druck macht. Ein des sexuellen Missbrauchs beschuldigter Gemeindepfarrer war rehabilitiert worden, obwohl der Kirchenleitung bekannt war, dass er tatsächlich einen Jungen zu einer sexuellen Handlung genötigt hatte.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 28, 2014

For more information contact Barbara Dorris, SNAP Outreach Director (314) 862-7688 home, (314)503-0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com, and David Clohessy, SNAP Executive Director (314) 566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Victims prod Bob Jones University
“Don’t wait for report, act now,” they say
Group wants school to post predators’ names
SNAP: Thirty Catholic bishops have done this
“It’s the least the school can do to protect others,” victims say

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is asking Bob Jones University officials to post on their website the names of “proven, admitted or credibly accused sex offenders who have worked at or attended the school.”

Last week, university officials announced that a report on campus sex crimes would proceed. But their earlier decision to stop the report has led some to question school administrators’ sincerity.

[Religion News Service]

The university’s top staff should be doing everything they can to prevent sexual assault, help victims and expose predators, say leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“Top university staff should take clear steps now to expose the wrongdoers and protect the vulnerable,” said Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, SNAP Outreach Director. “They should not passively sit back and wait for a report to be finalized while offenders walk free and might hurt others, especially offenders who might now be imprisoned had administrators acted more responsibly.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

UPDATED 28 FEBRUARY 2014

A Catholic Bishop has won a High Court court halting three actions for damages brought against him in a representative capacity by a man, his sister and another woman who previously settled Northern Ireland court actions for Stg £25,000 each over being sexually abused over years as children by paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth.

The President of the High Court, Mr Justice Nichoals Kearns, today granted an application by the Bishop of Kilmore, Dr Leo O’Reilly, for orders halting, on grounds of the previous NI settlements, the actions brought against him in his representative capacity as Bishop of the Kilmore diocese.

The cases by the three were also brought against Cardinal Sean Brady, who is being sued in his personal capacity arising from his role as part-time secretary to former Bishop of Kilmore, Francis McKiernan, during a church investigation in 1975 into complaints about Smyth.

Cardinal Brady had not made any similar application to that of Bishop O’Reilly and the proceedings against him remain in being.

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MINNESOTA
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Kristine Ward

One way to sometimes stop people from doing wrong is to punish them for doing wrong. History, psychology and common sense all suggest this approach often works.

But tragically, Catholic officials virtually never use this approach when shocking revelations of clergy sex abuse and cover-up surface.

It’s an approach that St. Paul-Minneapolis Catholic officials might consider as they try to save themselves and their archdiocese from a rapidly expanding scandal that has put dozens of accused clerics in the news over the last few months and several other church staff who reportedly kept quiet about or hid their alleged sexual misbehavior.

When we say “Catholic officials,” we are largely referring to Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piché, who is now in charge of the Twin Cities archdiocese. Archbishop John Nienstedt has stepped aside while an allegation of child sexual abuse against him is investigated.

When it comes to wrongdoers who merit punishment, the St. Paul-Minneapolis church hierarchy has lots of choices.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 28, 2014

Adam Cooper
Reporter for The Age

A former Catholic priest on the sex offenders registry has avoided a jail term despite admitting he breached a court order by umpiring junior cricket matches.

Paul Chris Pavlou, 54, stood in 11 under-15 matches between 2010 and 2012 for the Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association in what was a breach of his obligations as a convicted sex offender, in that he was paid to work with children.

Pavlou also had a previous conviction for failing to comply with conditions of the registry, to which he was added for his 2009 conviction for performing an indecent act with a child under 15 and knowingly possessing child pornography.

At one point in Pavlou’s plea hearing on Friday, County Court judge Paul Lacava asked of defence counsel Sam Stafford: “How many chances does a sex offender have to get before he receives a term of imprisonment?”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Derby Telegraph

By Martin Naylor

A FORMER Mackworth schoolgirl said paedophile priest Francis Cullen burst into tears when her mother confronted him about his abuse more than 50 years ago.

The woman claims her mother was then visited by “a senior member of the Catholic Church” and told the matter would be dealt with – but Cullen remained at Christ the King Church in Mackworth until 1978.

The woman, who does not wish to be identified, has come forward following Cullen’s court appearance in Derby on Monday.

At that hearing, the 85-year-old admitted abusing children over a 35-year period.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

A priest has been arrested after he allegedly used parishioners’ money to fund a lifestyle of luxury.

Detectives nabbed him following a six-month investigation into the Dublin-based cleric.

It came amid complaints he stole cash by making false claims for mass stipends over a 13-year-period.

It is also alleged that the priest, who is in his 50s, lodged claims under the names of other priests who were unaware of the scam.

Under cannon law, a priest can only claim stipends for one mass per day.

It is also alleged the cleric used the money to fund a luxurious lifestyle and enjoyed stays in luxurious hotels, as well as expensive jewellery.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A priest who was jailed for sexually abusing children has had his application for release from prison on compassionate grounds rejected.

Canon Gordon Rideout, from Polegate, East Sussex, was jailed for 10 years in May for 36 separate sex offences.

The priest, in his 70s, abused 16 children between 1962 and 1973, in Hampshire and Sussex.

BBC South East learned he was recently released from prison to attend hospital on a temporary licence.

‘Utter disgust’

He later returned to jail. The Ministry of Justice said the nature of his hospital treatment was confidential.

One of his victims said she felt anguish at Rideout’s “obvious ploy to manipulate the system” with his application.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

TOM BRADY, SECURITY EDITOR – UPDATED 28 FEBRUARY 2014

A PRIEST has been arrested by gardai investigating the theft of more than €500,000 from his religious order.

It follows a six-month investigation by a team of detectives into complaints of theft, which allegedly took place over a 13-year period.

The cash was allegedly taken from the order by making false claims for Mass stipends.

Under canon law, a priest is entitled to receive one stipend from the diocese or the order from collections made during the celebration of Mass.

Additional stipends cannot be claimed if the priest celebrates multiple Masses on one day.

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NEW YORK
Seasons of Grace

February 24, 2014 By Kathy Schiffer

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, in his blog Gospel in the Digital Age, warned New Yorkers this week that they may soon be seeing his name cast in an unfavorable light in the media. The Archdiocese of St. Louis, where he served as auxiliary bishop for a year in 2001-2002, has just been ordered by a court to release documents regarding clergy abuse cases.

Before you get too excited about that, though, let me assure you that the Cardinal assures us he’s been forthright and has done nothing wrong.

On February 18, just before departing for the Consistory in Rome, Cardinal Dolan published a letter to Catholics in the Archdiocese of New York explaining the situation. He wrote:

“…you know how I always try to alert you to any potentially negative publicity about the Church, or about me. Well, there could be some. My home archdiocese of St. Louis just complied with a court order to release the documents regarding cases there of sexual abuse of minors. (Cardinal Egan already did that here a decade ago, sharing all of the information we had on abusive priests with proper district attorneys, something we continue to do today.)

Anyway, since I was an auxiliary bishop in St. Louis for a year (2001-02), and vicar for priests for nine of those twelve months, I would anticipate that my name will again be highlighted in the press. I sure have nothing to hide, and am very much at peace with law enforcements officials reviewing the files. In fact, we already released all the documentation to them a dozen years ago!

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UNITED STATES
These Stone Walls

Editor’s Note: This is Part Two of a guest post by Ryan A. MacDonald. Part One was “The Trial of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Fraud.”

“I don’t share your belief in Father MacRae’s innocence. I just don’t believe a judge and jury would sentence a priest to life in prison with anything less than clear and compelling evidence.”

The above quote was the reply of a prominent American Catholic writer when I challenged him to take a closer look at the trial and imprisonment of Father Gordon MacRae. There is nothing to be gained by publishing the writer’s name. I still hope he might accept my challenge to study this matter with more depth than the New Hampshire news media and priests of the Diocese of Manchester have given it. I have asked the writer to show me the evidence he feels so certain must exist. He is wrong about this. There is simply no factual evidence to support this conviction.

But for some, the absence of evidence is evidence of evidence. That Catholic writer’s presumption about evenhanded justice and due process reflects the naiveté of the innocent and just. I once shared such naiveté, but I have since learned that ignorance is not bliss. I know too much about this case to cling to any delusions that everyone in prison must be guilty, or that a Catholic priest, while actually innocent, could not be railroaded into prison based on false witness.

So does The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz, one of the most just and courageous journalists I know. She has a talent for enabling readers to place themselves in the shoes of the falsely accused, and it’s a terrifying place to be. A recent article, “On Woody Allen and Echoes of the Past” (WSJ.com, February 9, 2014), had that same effect. It isn’t long, but it’s compelling and powerful.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

[with audio]

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Feb 25, 2014

The mother of the boys abused by the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer no longer ends her days with a silent prayer. Memories and flashbacks surface too easily in those quiet moments. Instead, she plays solitaire on her cell phone until sleep.

It’s been nearly two years since she learned that two of her sons were abused by Wehmeyer and that one of the boys, in turn, sexually abused his 5-year-old twin sisters. Last year, a third son told her that he, too, had been abused by the priest. One of the boys, she also learned, abused an additional sibling. In all, six of her nine children have been sexually abused either by Wehmeyer or each other, she said.

Wehmeyer pleaded guilty in 2012 to sexually abusing two of the boys, ages 12 and 14, and possessing child pornography.

The family’s life is now a blur of therapy appointments and psychiatric hospitalizations. It is, the mother said, “a war zone.” She once hoped that some of her sons would become priests. Now she hopes that none commit suicide.

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UNITED STATES
WKCR

Artist: Marci Hamilton
Title: God vs. the Gavel
Album: WCKR Late City Edition
Length: 29:35 minutes (33.86 MB)
Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 160Kbps (CBR)
Date Broadcast: Thu, 27 Feb 2014

Tune in to this Thursday’s Late City Edition for a conversation with Marci Hamilton, expert in constitutional and First Amendment law, and author of God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law. Professor Hamilton discusses what happens when religious liberty and the law come into conflict, especially when First Amendment protection permits and even fosters oppression and abuse.

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