ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Royal commission into child abuse hears that serial child abuser Gerard Byrnes was kept on teaching staff at Toowoomba school

MICHAEL MADIGAN THE COURIER-MAIL FEBRUARY 18, 2014

A QUEENSLAND Catholic school kept a serial child abuser on staff, disciplining him only with a letter and rehiring him a month after he retired.

The national child abuse inquiry was yesterday told the abuse escalated after the principal was first made aware of the behaviour and elected to handle the matter internally.

Thirteen girls were raped and molested by Gerard Vincent Byrnes before he was arrested.

Sitting in Brisbane for the first time yesterday, the inquiry heard how complaints were not investigated despite approved protocols in place for dealing with sexual abuse claims.

The events occurred within the last decade.

Royal commission chief executive Janette Dines labelled the case “confronting” because it was so recent and protocols did not protect the children from the attack.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
News-Leader

Written by
Associated Press

KANSAS CITY — Roman Catholics in the Kansas City area have joined a formal request to Pope Francis to discipline Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted in 2012 of failing to report a priest involved in child pornography.

An online petition signed by more than 113,000 people worldwide asking for Finn’s removal also was sent to the Vatican, The Kansas City Star reported.

Finn, the head of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, was placed on two years of court-supervised probation after pleading guilty to the misdemeanor charge.

The case was related to Finn’s handling of complaints against the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, a priest who admitted taking lewd photographs of young parishioners. Ratigan was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison and 21 years in state prison after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.

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POLAND
The News

A Polish priest was detained on Monday near Krakow in connection with an investigation concerning alleged child abuse in the Dominican Republic.

Przemyslaw Nowak, spokesman for the District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw, confirmed the news on Monday morning.

Father Wojciech G. (full name withheld under Polish privacy laws) has been under investigation by the Polish prosecutor’s office since late September.

The Dominican Republic’s attorney general transferred its case files, containing about 650 documents, to Poland last autumn, and it is understood that if charges are brought, the cleric will be tried in Poland.

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ISRAEL
JNS

By Maayan Jaffe/JNS.org

Sexual abuse of minors has for many years been among the most controversial and suppressed issues in the Jewish community. An inaugural conference in Israel next month will, at the very least, contribute to the conversation on that issue.

“The mere fact that we are talking with each other is crucial,” said Prof. Asher Ben-Arieh, director of the Jerusalem-based Haruv Institute, whose stated mission is “to become an international center of excellence contributing to the reduction of child maltreatment.”

The First International Congress for Child Protection Organizations in the Jewish Community takes place from March 3-5 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Sponsored by Haruv and Magen LeYeladim U’Lemishpachot, the conference will draw representatives from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Belgium, South Africa, and Israel to talk about how to deal with sexual abuse of minors, particularly in the Orthodox Jewish community. Attendees will strategically review the participating organizations and their programs, and collaboratively generate a code of best practices.

“Ultra-Orthodox communities around the world are similar and share communal characteristics,” Ben-Arieh told JNS.org. “We also learned that… in many cases, perpetrators are ‘shipped’ to different communities instead of being dealt with.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

February 17
BY MARY SANCHEZ
The Kansas City Star

If you doubt the power of one person, listen to what happens when one soul is motivated by faith.

The Vatican, maybe even Pope Francis himself, may at long last hear the concerns of many Catholics within the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese. Parishioners here have seen their diocese battered financially, their churches unfairly tarnished by the sins of pedophile priests. For too long, that hurt was intensified rather than lightened by the underwhelming response of church leadership.

In that way, lifelong Kansas City area Catholic Jeff Weis was in sync with many people who watched when Bishop Robert Finn was found guilty of failure to report suspected child abuse in 2012. The charge against Finn involved the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, who was found was guilty of child pornography charges and sentenced to 50 years.

Weis thought Finn would resign. After all, this was the same bishop who promised change after he ushered through a $10 million settlement on behalf of the diocese to 47 victims and their families. But nothing happened.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com

A judge has denied a motion by the Twin Cities archdiocese to prevent Archbishop John Nienstedt from testifying about priests accused of child sexual abuse.

Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North ruled Sunday afternoon that he would not stay his orders of Tuesday regarding the testimony of Nienstedt and former Vicar General Kevin McDonough. He also refused to stay his order that the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona submit names of priests accused of sexual abuse since 2004.

The archdiocese and diocese filed motions Thursday asking Van de North to stay his orders pending their appeal of the issues to the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

The legal wrangling came in the case of John Doe 1 vs. the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona and Thomas Adamson.

Adamson is a former priest who has been sued more than a dozen times for allegedly sexually abusing children.

Attorneys Jeff Anderson and Michael Finnegan, who represent the plaintiff, argued that the judges’ orders should stand.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Canberra

[with audio]

By Sukayna Sadik, Kate Corbett and Genevieve Jacobs

A former Goulburn resident claims he was physically and emotionally abused as a child while in the care of Salvation Army officers from the mid-1960s.

At just four years old, Jim Luthy was orphaned when his mother died and his father abandoned him. He was placed under the Salvation Army’s care in Goulburn but his experiences at the Gill Memorial Home left him traumatised.

“It was a place of extreme brutality,” Mr Luthy told Genevieve Jacobs on 666 Mornings. (Listen to attached audio)

“I was abused physically by a Salvation Army Officer there. I wrote to the Salvation Army, they acknowledged that this officer was an extreme abuser, they didn’t dispute that, eventually. They gave me a number of pay outs for the abuse but I was abused physically, bashed, hit and – for anything – abused emotionally.”

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ILLINOIS
WLS

(BARRINGTON) Two lawsuits are claiming that negligence on the part of officials at northwest suburban Barrington’s Willow Creek Community Church allowed a church volunteer to sexually abuse two young boys in 2012 and 2013.

The most recent suit was filed Thursday, Feb. 13, and claims that the church did not adequately supervise Robert Sobczak, now 20, who allegedly molested the boys, Pioneer Press reports.

Sobczak plead guilty in December to aggravated criminal sexual abuse of an 8-year-old boy that he admitted to molesting during church programs. Sobczak was sentenced to two years of probation and has registered as a sex offender.

A second lawsuit was filed in November by an anonymous couple who claimed that Sobczak had molested their son. In both cases, the children were enrolled in Willow Creek’s Special Friends program for children with special needs.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

By: Leslie Dyste

A Ramsey County judge ruled Sunday the Archbishop and a former Vicar General still must testify on record about how the church handled clergy sex abuse allegations.

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis tried to get last week’s ruling against Archbishop John Nienstedt and Father Kevin McDonough put on hold while it appealed. It argued the court doesn’t have the authority to order them to testify.

On Sunday a judge threw out the request while also denying a request to delay the release of the names of priests accused of sexual abuse since 2004.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The World Today

ELEANOR HALL: The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse is holding its first public inquiry outside Sydney today, investigating a scandal that engulfed the regional Queensland city of Toowoomba just a few years ago.

The case involves the abuse of 13 primary school girls by their teacher, Gerard Byrnes, who pleaded guilty and is now serving a 10-year jail sentence.

The Commission is investigating how the school staff, including the principal, and Catholic Church officials in Queensland dealt with the allegations when they emerged in 2007.

The World Today’s Emily Bourke is at the inquiry in Brisbane and joins us now. Emily, how did the Royal Commission begin today’s inquiry?

EMILY BOURKE: Good afternoon, Eleanor. We’ve been hearing about how Gerard Byrnes, a teacher and the child protection contact person at the primary school in Toowoomba, was charged with 44 child sex offences several years ago, and those offences were committed between 2007 and 2008. All of the students were abused while sitting in Byrnes’ classes, and so he was arrested in 2008 after the first complaint was lodged in 2007.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: ANTHONY LONETREE , Star Tribune Updated: February 16, 2014

Church also must release larger list of priests accused of sexually abusing children.

A Ramsey County District Court judge on Sunday rejected a request by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis that he delay a previous order requiring Archbishop John Nienstedt to testify about the church’s handling of clergy sexual abuse cases.

The archdiocese asked Judge John Van de North in motions last Thursday that he drop the earlier demands while the church proceeded with an appeal.

The judge also refused on Sunday to drop a related requirement — made as part of his Feb. 11 order — that the archdiocese release the names of all local priests accused of sexually abusing children since 2004.

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

Bullying and intimidation claims against Catholic Church by father of victim of sex monster Brian Perkins

THE Catholic Church is bullying and intimidating families seeking justice for the sexual abuse of their intellectually disabled children, a victim’s father claims.

Peter Mitchell says the church has deliberately frustrated victims’ parents by failing to resolve 12 years of legal battles over the molestation of 36 students by paedophile Brian Charles Perkins at St Ann’s Special School more than 20 years ago.

But the church has denied causing any delays in legal proceedings, saying it has provided counselling and support to families.

Mr Mitchell has launched an online petition, which has gathered more than 16,000 signatures, to raise awareness about the case ahead of formal hearings by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Adelaide next month.

Eight people abused as children by Perkins have lodged civil claims against the church and St Ann’s Special School.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A former student protection officer at a Queensland primary school says she could not understand why students who had been sexually abused “didn’t have the courage to come forward”.

Catherine Long was a student protection officer at the Toowoomba primary school where teacher Gerard Vincent Byrnes molested 13 female students, all aged between nine and 10, in 2007 and 2008.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is looking at why Byrnes was allowed to go on offending for more than a year after allegations were first made against him to the school.

Byrnes, the school’s child protection contact, pleaded guilty in 2010 to child sex offences, including rape. He carried out all but two of his crimes in the classroom.

Ms Long, who still teaches at the school, was today questioned by the commission in Brisbane as to why she did not refer one student’s complaint to police or authorities.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

AAP

ANNETTE BLACKWELL
February 17, 2014

An online petition calling on the Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide to settle a 12-year legal battle with parents of profoundly disabled children who were abused at a church school has attracted more than 60,000 signatures in five days.

The petition was started by Peter Mitchell, the father of one of the boys who attended St Ann’s Special School in Adelaide from 1986 to 1991.

It was 10 years later that Mr Mitchell and other parents discovered what had happened to their children.

The former bus driver at the school, Brian Perkins, was arrested in 2001 and later jailed for 10 years.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Lucy McNally

The Anglican Church says it is trying to make amends to around 45 abuse victims by offering some of them up to $75,000 each in compensation.

Last year the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse looked at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore.

Run by the Anglican Church, it was a place of brutal physical and sexual abuse between the 1940s and the 1980s.

The Commission examined the way the church dealt with a group of victims who launched a class action back in 2008.

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SOUTH AFRICA
The Post

February 17 2014
By NTANDO MAKHUBU

Pretoria –

A Pretoria Catholic priest has been arrested for sexually abusing a minor, after the church advised the victim’s family to lay a charge with the SAPS.

He is parish priest of a Catholic Church in the east of Pretoria.

His arrest on Friday was on charges related to inappropriate conduct with a minor, the chancellor of the Archbishop of Pretoria, Father Robert Mphiwe, said on Sunday.

“The complaint was initially laid with the Pretoria Archdiocese in January. The priest was immediately placed on administrative leave,” Mphiwe said.

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POLAND/DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- Polish priest Wojciech Gil (Padre Alberto) was arrested in his country Monday in connection with charges of sexually abusing several boys in a town of the Dominican Republic, outlet thenews.pl reports.

Quoting Warsaw District Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Przemyslaw Nowak, who “confirmed the news on Monday morning,”

News.pl said the pries, whose full name it withheld the under Polish privacy laws, has been under investigation by the Polish authorities since late September.

“The Dominican Republic’s attorney general transferred its case files, containing about 650 documents, to Poland last autumn, and it is understood that if charges are brought, the cleric will be tried in Poland,” the outlet said.

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MINNESOTA
BringMeTheNews

February 16, 2014 By William Wilcoxen

A Ramsey County judge has rejected a request by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to put a deposition of Archbishop John Nienstedt on hold.

The Pioneer Press reports Judge John Van de North upheld last week’s ruling that Nienstedt and former Vicar General Kevin McDonough must answer lawyers’ questions about the church’s handling of clergy sex abuse cases. The archdiocese had sought a delay while it appealed the issue to a higher court.

Van de North also declined to put on hold a separate order requiring the archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona to submit lists of priests who have been accused of sex abuse since 2004, the Pioneer Press says.

The judge ruled on Feb. 11 that Nienstedt and McDonough should be deposed within 30 days.
They will be questioned by lawyers for a plaintiff who says he was abused by Rev. Thomas Adamson in St. Paul Park during the 1970′s. The lawsuit alleges Adamson had admitted molesting boys while he served in the Diocese of Winona and accuses church officials of responding by transferring him to a parish in the archdiocese.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By: Leslie Dyste

A Ramsey County judge ruled Sunday the Archbishop and a former Vicar General still must testify on record about how the church handled clergy sex abuse allegations.

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis tried to get last week’s ruling against Archbishop John Nienstedt and Father Kevin McDonough put on hold while it appealed. It argued the court doesn’t have the authority to order them to testify.

On Sunday a judge threw out the request while also denying a request to delay the release of the names of priests accused of sexual abuse since 2004.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Dear President Obama:

With respect to next month’s scheduled Vatican meeting and the upcoming US Senate elections, please note that Pope Francis, after almost a year as pope, will hold his much anticipated meeting this week with his select council of eight cardinals, with Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley as the US representative. The meeting reportedly will focus on Francis’ top priorities: (1) consolidating his worldwide control over his childless male hierarchical subordinates, and (2) reviewing his efforts to clean up sordid Vatican finances in order, among other goals, to minimize Vatican cardinals’ potential criminal liability exposure for financial misdeeds.

At the same time, Francis and his media echo chamber are increasingly trying to claim counterfactually and inconsistently, apparently to avoid potential legal liability for covering up for priest child abusers, that popes do not control local Church officials. Other Vatican challenges, including addressing pressing issues affecting child protection, responsible family planning and respecting gay persons’ rights, continue mainly simmering on Francis’ back burner, if not already precluded by his often inconsistent utterances.

Cardinal Bertone, former Vatican Secretary of State, has reportedly recently stated that the ex-Pope had first decided to resign in mid-2012, which coincides with the International Criminal Court’s announcement that it would, at least preliminarily, defer pursuing a criminal investigation of the ex-Pope. That meant there was little need for the ex-Pope to remain to oversee his legal defense. Avoiding potential criminal liability appears to be the Vatican’s 11th Commandment and the Vatican’s top priority.

Please also note, President Obama, in anticipation of your March 27 meeting with Pope Francis and for the sake of defenseless innocents and your desired legacy, my concerns as a fellow Harvard Law School graduate and as a Catholic grandparent about the unfolding strategy of Pope Francis and his billionaire backers. Francis apparently is seeking, in effect, to exempt the Vatican both from enforcement of international laws and any independent judicial oversight, especially for child abuse related crimes. Many of these laws apply to and are enforcible against even US Presidents. Stalin was right that the pope has no divisions, but he has legions of hard nosed lawyers, creative publicists, opportunistic apologists and self-interested donors.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry

To view transcripts, evidence or witness statements for a particular session, please click onto the links provided below.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

THE Anglican Church has warned the royal commission into child sexual abuse not to assume multibillion-dollar church assets can be sold to compensate abuse victims.

The warning comes in a submission to the commission from the titular head of the Australian church, Brisbane Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, and two senior church officials.

They were responding to a finding by Simeon Beckett, counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, that the Anglican Diocese of Grafton had enough assets to settle abuse claims from former residents of an orphanage at Lismore in northern NSW.

From evidence presented at a public hearing in November, Mr Beckett found the diocese put its own financial interests above the needs of abuse victims.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Reporter

By MICHAEL GOLDBERG, mgoldberg@thereporteronline.com
POSTED: 02/16/14

SKIPPACK — A Lansdale priest who allegedly admitted to detectives that he touched a man’s genitals without consent in a YMCA locker room in December is headed for trial in the case after waiving his preliminary hearing in district court.

John H. Roebuck, 64 — a parochial vicar at Saint Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church in Lansdale until December, when he was placed on administrative leave by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia — waived charges of second-degree misdemeanor indecent assault and summary harassment on Feb. 11 before District Judge Albert Augustine of Skippack.

Roebuck remains free on $50,000 unsecured bail, which was set by Augustine at his Jan. 17 preliminary arraignment, while awaiting formal arraignment in county court.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Emily Bourke

The child abuse royal commission will today turn its attention to how staff and Catholic Church officials at a Toowoomba primary school in south-east Queensland dealt with allegations of sexual offences against girls between 2007 and 2008.

In 2010, veteran teacher Gerard Vincent Byrnes pleaded guilty to child sex offences committed against 13 girls and was sentenced to 10 years’ jail.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is taking a closer look at how the school dealt with the complaints.

Monique Scattini represented the families of five victims who took legal action and says the abuse could have been prevented.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

PATRICK COUNIHAN @irishcentral February 16, 2014

Religious bodies in Ireland used ‘covert means’ to limit the power of government investigations into clerical sex abuse according to a former Catholic Church watchdog.

Ian Elliott, the author of several reports into child sexual abuse in Irish dioceses, has made the claims in an interview with the Sunday Independent.

In response, a government adviser has expressed ‘profound concern’ to the newspaper over the claims made by Elliott.

Elliott told the Sunday Independent that the work of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church was undermined by religious bodies consistently cutting its funding.

Leader of the board’s investigations until last year, Elliott told the paper that believes that efforts have been made to curtail further probes by starving investigators of resources.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Beaumont Enterprise

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Roman Catholics in the Kansas City area have joined a formal request to Pope Francis to discipline Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted in 2012 of failing to report a priest involved in child pornography.

An online petition signed by more than 113,000 people worldwide asking for Finn’s removal also was sent to the Vatican, The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/1nCmwb8) reported.

Finn, the head of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, was placed on two years of court-supervised probation after pleading guilty to the misdemeanor charge.

The case was related to Finn’s handling of complaints against the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, a priest who admitted taking lewd photographs of young parishioners. Ratigan was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison and 21 years in state prison after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.

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AUSTRALIA
Sunshine Coast Daily

Adam Davies 17th Feb 2014

BRAVEHEARTS founder Hetty Johnston said the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a chance for organisations to air their dirty little secrets once-and-for-all.

The Royal Commission will hold public hearings in Queensland for the first time from today.

The commission will specifically investigate the response by the Catholic Education Office in Toowoomba to allegations of child sexual abuse at St Saviour’s Primary School in 2007.

It will also investigate the response by the principal and other members of staff at the school to the allegations.

It is expected the hearing will run for up to two weeks.

Ms Johnson said the royal commission was not only important for the people involved, but also for every child past, present and into the future.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 17, 2014

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

A Salvation Army officer accused of physically and sexually abusing dozens of young boys at a boys’ home in south Sydney was given the army’s silver star award at a function late last year, despite the allegations against him.

The organisation later celebrated the award in the January edition of its national magazine, on the eve of royal commission hearings that were told details of the horrific acts of abuse he and his colleagues allegedly had perpetrated. Major John McIver was awarded the silver star on December 1 by Commissioner Jan Condon in recognition of the fact that his two sons had become commissioned officers. All parents of officers in the Salvos are given the award, which ”recognises the influence of parents, and significant family and friends, on the lives of their officer children”.

Major McIver’s award was then given special mention in the army’s Pipeline magazine, which published a picture of him and his wife receiving the award and noting that the head of the army’s eastern territory, Commissioner Condon, had attended the ceremony. The picture story was later quietly removed from the Salvation Army’s website.

”It is incomprehensible to me how they could give someone an award who they knew had so many allegations of cruel and brutal treatment of children against him,” the executive officer of abuse survivors group Care Leavers Australia Network, Leonie Sheedy, said.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
SFGate

By NORA HERTEL, Associated Press
Updated 5:04 am, Sunday, February 16, 2014

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — As a TV reporter, Jolene Loetscher told other people’s stories. Now, as an advocate for childhood sexual abuse, she’s telling her story, if somewhat reluctantly.

Loetscher, who was assaulted as a teenager, has started a camp for abused kids and lobbied in support of legislation to remove the statute of limitations in some cases of child rape.

She’s currently helping in an effort to create a panel that would study the issue and recommend policy changes to state lawmakers. It would be called Jolene’s Law Task Force.

“It’s not just ‘Jolene’ that’s going through this,” Loetscher said. “I wanted it to be for all these other voiceless victims.”

An estimated 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are victims of sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 17, 2014

A CATHOLIC priest whose order paid a $43,000 settlement after he was alleged to have sexually abused a child is living in accommodation provided by the church next to a Sydney school.

Teachers at the primary school have privately expressed concern about the presence of the priest, a member of the Vincentian holy order, who is also living close to another two schools.

In 1994, the trustees of the Vincentian Fathers agreed a financial settlement with a man who claimed to have been assaulted several times by the priest, including an attempted rape when he was 14.

Church documents, seen by The Australian, show that the priest “denied the allegations but indicated there were some lesser matters with three, maybe five, students”.

The settlement document shows the alleged victim received $43,000 after agreeing not to take civil or criminal action against the priest and to keep the details of the agreement confidential.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Sunday, February 16, 2014
by Fr Joe Borg

The handling of child abuse cases by the Catholic Church in many countries had been, for many years, nothing short of scandalous. This attitude constituted a horrendous betrayal of the Church, its mission, and worse still, the vulnerable children it was bound to protect. It is true there was a time when the appraisal of the significance from the abuse, its effects and remedies was different from what it is today. But, at best, this can only slightly attentuate certain reactions.

The overall reaction was appalling and we are still paying a horrible high price for the lack of effective action taken. That is the way it was and that is the way it should be described: nothing more, nothing less.

Having said that, I add that the report penned by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child under the guise of a purported defence of children is also worthy of disdain. The report (at least in several parts) smacks more as an endeavour to engage in a culture war against the sexual mores and pro-life stand of the Catholic Church than a genuine attempt to protect and defend children.

Its recommendations for the Church to abandon its teachings on, for example, abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception are not only beside the point but downright counterproductive.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A pedophile teacher’s continued access to primary school children despite Catholic education authorities knowing he was a risk will be the subject of a public hearing of the royal commission into child sexual abuse which opens in Brisbane on Monday.

It is the first hearing by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to be held outside Sydney.

The hearing at the Brisbane Magistrates Court will inquire into the response of the Catholic Education Office, Diocese of Toowoomba, to allegations of child sexual abuse against teacher Gerard Vincent Byrnes at St Saviour’s Primary School in 2007.

Byrnes was jailed for 10 years in 2010 after pleading guilty to 33 counts of indecent dealing with children under the age of 12, 10 counts of rape and one count of maintaining a sexual relationship with a child under 12.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Saturday, Feb. 15

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 Catholic priest, nun and parishioners have filed formal charges with the church headquarters in Rome against Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn for his illegal and hurtful recklessness, callousness and deceit in the horirific case of a serial predator priest.

[The New York Times]

We are deeply grateful to these brave individuals and wish them success. Far too many church employees and members do little or nothing to seek justice and prevent cover ups, even when kids are severely hurt because ofirresponsible prelates.

Catholics are not powerless. They should not pretend to be. This determined group is showing real courage and compassion. Again, we are grateful that they are taking action to safeguard kids by seeking discipline for an egregious wrongdoer.

Bishop Finn should be punished because it is unjust for him to escape consequences for his selfish and hurtful deceptions. And he should also be punished because that’s the best way to deter other bishops in the future from putting their reputations ahead of the safety of children.

We are skeptical of internal church processes and believe that all clergy sex crimes and cover ups should be reported to secular officials. In this case, however, our justice system has done what it can. But he remains in office.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Rhein-Zeitung

[Summary: A priest accused of a boundary violation has been given a “severe reprimand” by Bishop Stephan Ackermann of the Trier diocese and cannot perform priestly duties in public and has been fined 3,000 euros. The action came after a canonical preliminary investigation. A man, now 45, alleged he was abused in 1985 when he was age 16 by the priest. According to church law, a criminal offense could not be proven.]

Koblenz/Trier – Selbst die Kirche wirft nun einem Pfarrer im Ruhestand “sexuelle Übergriffigkeit und Grenzverletzung” gegenüber einem Minderjährigen vor – schwere Konsequenzen erwarten den Mann trotzdem nicht.

Der Mann, der in Koblenz und im Kreis Altenkirchen bis jetzt im Einsatz war, hat einen “strengen Verweis” von Bischof Stephan Ackermann kassiert, darf ein Jahr sein Amt nicht öffentlich ausüben und muss eine Geldbuße in Höhe von 3000 Euro zahlen. Eine Amtsenthebung oder strafrechtliche Konsequenzen kommen auf ihn nicht zu.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KMBC

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —A group of Catholics is calling on Pope Francis to take action against Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn.

A priest, nun and local parishioners have filed a formal request with the church to suspend Finn.

In 2012, Finn was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of failing to report a priest who was involved in child pornography. He remains the bishop in the Kansas City and St. Joseph diocese.

The complaint said Finn’s actions also broke church laws.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Fox 4

[with video]

February 15, 2014, by Kerri Stowell and Kasey Babbitt

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — a group of Roman Catholics are taking a rare step. They’re urging the pope to remove a local bishop from his post. They have been writing letters and signing a petition which will be going straight to Pope Francis.

It’s a story which is making headlines again. Bishop Robert Finn was caught in the middle of a sex abuse scandal and placed on court-supervised probation in 2012. Some parishioners, like Liz Donnelly, don’t believe it’s enough.

“I think we’re meant to stand up for what we believe in. If we don’t speak out, we can’t sit in the pews and grumble,” said Donnelly.

Donnelly, a life-long catholic, wants Bishop Finn removed from his post. She’s one of 13 parishioners, along with a priest, a nun and 113,000 people worldwide writing letters and signing a petition. The documents will be going straight to Pope Francis urging him to make the change.

“The Catholic Church is built on peace and justice principles, yet within the church there’s not justice,” said Donnelly.

Bishop Finn was convicted on a misdemeanor charge of failing to report a priest involved in child pornography.

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FLORIDA
Daily Commercial

Staff report

An organization that advocates on behalf of clergy sex abuse victims has asked the Florida Baptist Convention to reconsider plans to appeal a $12.5 million award to a man sexually abused in Lake County by a minister convicted of molestation in 2007, the ABPnews/Herald is reporting.

“By appealing, at best you’ll be postponing, at a great moral and financial cost, an eventual day of real reckoning,” David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said in a letter to Florida Baptist Convention Executive Director John Sullivan. “At worst, you’ll be hurting not just the victim in this case, but all other victims who have been violated and betrayed by Southern Baptist clergy.”

ABPnews/Herald , created after a merger of the Associated Baptist Press and the The Religious Herald , is the only independent news service created by and for Baptists. It is reporting that Clohessy, an abuse survivor who testified before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002, warned Sullivan that even if successful, “your appeal will only delay the inevitable.”

“Over 25 years of SNAP’s history, we have found that those responsible for injustices are eventually held accountable, not only through the justice system but also through the court of public opinion,” Clohessy said in his letter.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
The Examiner

Sex-abuse scandal at North Beach church the latest dust-up that has garnered worldwide attention

By Chris Roberts @Cbloggy

In a time of trials that have tested the will of the faithful worldwide, the Roman Catholic Church in San Francisco has emerged relatively unscathed.

The sex abuse scandals staining archdioceses in Boston, Los Angeles and now Chicago have had no parallel in San Francisco. Instead, the local archdiocese’s reputation has recently been sullied across the world by lurid claims of sexual battery and harassment, all allegedly committed within one of its most sacred spaces.

A lawsuit filed late last month by a 33-year-old woman formerly employed by the church accuses her ex-bosses of harboring a veritable den of sin underneath the roof of a shrine dedicated to The City’s patron saint. Jhona Mathews alleges that one of the men, who is in his 60s, hired and used her for sex. And a charming and popular priest who wielded significant influence as the archdiocese’s second-in-command let it all happen, the suit claims.

The lawsuit contains lurid details, including paddling the woman’s bare bottom, and comes after years of chaos at the North Beach church, including a fight over interring dead pets and a holy order’s dismissal from the chapel.

HOUSE OF WORSHIP RICH IN HISTORY

Catholics have worshipped at what’s now the corner of Columbus Avenue and Vallejo Street since the Gold Rush days. Once a thriving parish for the Italian-Americans who still lend their culture to the area, damage from the Loma Prieta earthquake and the steady exodus parishioners from the church led the archdiocese to close the Church of St. Francis in the 1990s. It was reborn a few years later in with a new mission, and special status, from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops as the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi — the namesake and patron saint of San Francisco.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
The Examiner

By Chris Roberts @Cbloggy

In a Roman Catholic Church routinely accused of sexual wrongdoing, the San Francisco archdiocese has a distinction: it has been dragged into scandal not by a priest, but by a lay person.

Here, the most-recent sex accusations at a church are centered around a self-styled real estate developer, who gained the trust of priests and fellow worshippers despite a checkered past that includes alleged financial improprieties and a litany of lawsuits.

AN ALLEGED PRIOR THEFT

Before Bill McLaughlin came to San Francisco to became chair of the shrine’s board of trustees, he left a trail of lawsuits and accusations behind him in Marin County, including allegedly stealing money from a former Tiburon mayor’s campaign fund, according to court records.

Therese Hennessy, who served on the Tiburon Town Council from 1995 in 2001, did not call police after she learned her campaign treasurer, McLaughlin, wrote 15 checks to himself from the campaign fund in 2000, she swore in a deposition Feb. 7.

She confronted him and demanded he return the money — and he did. But then Hennessy turned to McLaughlin’s friend and confidante at St. Hilary Catholic Parish, Father James Tarantino.

She says she told the priest that McLaughlin was untrustworthy and was involved in other schemes that defrauded Marin residents out of their money. She added that McLaughlin “should not be placed in a position of having access to church funds,” she said in the deposition.

When Tarantino came to The City to work as Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s chief deputy in 2010, he chose as his residence the empty and available rectory next to the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi. There, McLaughlin made a mark as its most-active lay volunteer.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
The Examiner

By Chris Roberts @Cbloggy

Monsignor James Tarantino has spoken out about an alleged sex scandal at the North Beach shrine next to his residence, saying his reputation has been ruined and his character humbled.

But, he insists, he is not bitter and hopes that all involved find peace and healing.

The San Francisco native had spent 33 years building a sterling reputation as one of the local Roman Catholic Church’s finest priests — a religious résumé that includes rebuilding Marin Catholic High School into an academic powerhouse as its president and transforming a sleepy and rundown Catholic parish in Tiburon into a vibrant community with an active school as its still-revered parish priest.

And now, at 62, with a terminal illness returning after first appearing nearly 40 years ago, his name is connected with an alleged sex scandal at the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi.

“It’s unfortunate,” he said during an hourlong interview with The San Francisco Examiner, his first with media since the scandal broke at the Vallejo Street church that adjoins his residence. “After decades of hard work, my reputation is ruined.”

“But,” he said, “I’m not making it about me. I’m not a victim here.”

He says he is neither angry nor bitter. Tarantino said he prays every day for Bill McLaughlin, the former volunteer and friend of Tarantino’s from St. Hilary’s in Tiburon who is accused by former shrine employee Jhona Mathews of using her for sex.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

The Dark Box John Cornwell Profile Books, £16.99, hbk, 320 pages

15 FEBRUARY 2014

Clerical sex abuse is modern Ireland’s Famine.

Clerical sex abuse is modern Ireland’s Famine. It’s the event which has shaped and shaken the country more than any other. The who, what, when and where are slowly being excavated, but the why still remains unanswered. That’s the task which the Cambridge academic and author John Cornwell sets himself in his new book.

He has a startling and original theory to put forward, which is that the rise in child abuse by priests throughout the Catholic world was linked directly to changes in the customs around first communion and confession which came into force under Pope Pius X in the early part of the last Century.

With Catholicism “seduced and corrupted on every side by secular influences”, Pius was desperate to haul the faithful back into line. One weapon was a ruthless spy network which reported on priests with liberal views in an Inquisition-style “reign of moral terror”.

The other was a hardening of the rules around communion – which he now demanded be taken more regularly, ideally every day– and the declining practice of confession, which suddenly went from an annual to a weekly obligation.

The most radical change, introduced by Papal decree in 1910, was that confession was now required of children, not after puberty as before, but from around the age of seven. This put predatory priests in a position where they had easy access to children.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

ANNETTE BLACKWELL AAP FEBRUARY 16, 2014

THE Anglican Church has warned the royal commission into child sexual abuse not to assume multibillion dollar church assets can be sold to compensate abuse victims.

The warning comes in a submission to the commission from the titular head of the Australian church, Brisbane archbishop Phillip Aspinall, and two senior church officials.

They were responding to a finding by Simeon Beckett, counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, that the Anglican Diocese of Grafton had enough assets to settle abuse claims from former residents of an orphanage at Lismore in northern NSW.

From evidence presented at a public hearing in November, Mr Beckett found the diocese put its own financial interests above the needs of abuse victims.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

SHANE PHELAN – 16 FEBRUARY 2014

THE former head of the Catholic Church’s child safety watchdog has accused religious bodies of using “covert means” to limit its investigations.

The sensational claims were made by Ian Elliott, who has authored several high-profile reports on the handling of allegations of child sexual abuse in various dioceses.

His comments will come as a major embarrassment to the Catholic hierarchy as it seeks to put an end to years of scandal over its handling of child sexual abuse.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Mr Elliott said religious bodies were undermining the work of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCC) by consistently cutting its funding.

He said he believed efforts had been made to curtail further probes of dioceses, missionary organisations and religious orders by starving investigators of resources.

Mr Elliott said he could “see no justification” for this “other than a desire to limit the role of the board by covert means”.

Although the board is independent, it is funded by three major Catholic bodies: the Conference of Religious in Ireland, the Irish Missionary Union and the Irish Bishops Conference.

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RELAND
Irish Independent

SHANE PHELAN PUBLIC AFFAIRS EDITOR – 16 FEBRUARY 2014

THE National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church was set up by church authorities in 2007 as a response to the clerical sex abuse scandals.

Its aim is to offer advice on best practice in safeguarding children to Catholic organisations, assist in the developing of procedures, and to monitor ongoing safeguarding practices.

Funding for the board is provided by three major religious organisations: the Irish Bishops’ Conference; the Conference of Religious in Ireland and the Irish Missionary Union.

Although funded by these bodies, the board was set up to be independent and has a memorandum of understanding with all Church bodies “to enable the unfettered delivery of its functions”.

For its first chief executive, it chose Ian Elliott, the former lead adviser on child protection at the North’s Social Services Inspectorate and a former divisional director of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. A key part of the board’s work has been entering Catholic dioceses and organisations and conducting audits. This included examining how diocesan authorities responded to abuse allegations and safeguarded children in the past, as well as assessing what improvements needed to be made for the future.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

16 FEBRUARY 2014

THE Government’s lead adviser on child protection has expressed “profound concern” after a former Catholic Church watchdog accused religious bodies of using “covert means” to limit its investigations.

The sensational claims were made by Ian Elliott, who authored several high-profile reports on the handling of allegations of child sexual abuse in various dioceses.

He told the Sunday Independent that the work of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, which he led until last year, was being undermined by religious bodies consistently cutting its funding.

Mr Elliott believes that efforts have been made to curtail further probes by starving investigators of resources.

He said he could “see no justification” for this “other than a desire to limit the role of the board by covert means”.

The remarks have already prompted major concerns in political circles.

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INDIANA
Indianapolis Star

Written by
Tim Evans

A man walks into the Marion County Sheriff’s Department and confesses to raping a young woman in 2005.

In Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky — as well as 28 other states across the U.S. — he would have been arrested and prosecuted.

But in Indiana, Bart Bareither walked out a free man.

Why? Because in this state, rape charges no longer can be filed if the incident took place more than five years ago.

Indiana is among just seven states with a statute of limitations of five years or less for filing rape charges. In 11 states, the statute of limitations is from six to 9 years. In 12 others, it ranges from 10 to 20 years. And 20 states have no limit at all.

The unique set of circumstances highlights the delicate balance between liberty and justice that plays an integral part in a criminal justice system based on the classical belief that “it is better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” It also comes as advances in DNA technology are prompting some states to re-examine decades-old limits on prosecuting rape and other sex crimes.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 15, 2014

It’s a measure of how bad things have become for the scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ that the first question a journalist feels obliged to ask the religious order’s new leader is, “Have you ever sexually abused anyone?”

For the record, the answer of Father Eduardo Robles Gil Orvañanos was, “I can promise, swear, whatever you want, that I haven’t. . . it would make no sense at all for us to put someone in a leadership position with something to hide.”

Robles spoke in a Feb. 14 interview with the Globe, his first with an English-language news outlet.

The Legionaries not so long ago were a Catholic powerhouse, a body of gung-ho priests enjoying the support of Pope John Paul II and other Vatican heavyweights and wielding vast political and financial muscle. The order fell from grace after revelations that its founder had lived a shocking double life, including having relationships with two women and fathering up to six children, as well as sexual abuse of young seminarians and, reportedly, even two of his own children.

The founder, Mexican Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, died in 2008. The bombshell about his misconduct, along with scandals involving other prominent Legionaries, makes the order the most polarizing symbol of the broader sexual abuse crisis in Catholicism. A recent Associated Press report described the Legionaries as “one of the most egregious examples of how . . . church leaders put the interests of the institution above those of the victims.”

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

ALAN HOWE HERALD SUN FEBRUARY 17, 2014

IF there is a Heaven, William Booth is in it. A pawnbroker by trade, Booth was converted to Methodism in 1844 and took to it with evangelical enthusiasm.

Falling out with the Methodists, he moved to London where he was struck by the wretchedness of life for so many after the Industrial Revolution. While industrialists had made fortunes, millions were without hope, without work, undernourished and living in disease-infested slums.

A practical man, Booth imagined a Christian response to this squalor. He’d keep preaching the word of his God, but he and his army of volunteers would feed the poor, help find them work and house pregnant, unmarried women who in those days — and until recently — were scorned by their communities and churches.

By the 1880s, his Salvation Army was finding missing people to reunite families, rehabilitating prisoners, detoxing alcoholics and accommodating the homeless.

Booth brought dignity to shunned people who lives had slipped from their control and for whom no one else — much less the organised religions — cared. …

That brand today is in tatters. Cunning paedophiles, knowing the Salvos’ children’s homes would provide a steady supply of vulnerable innocents, aimed at them. Several infestations of them coalesced into debauched tag teams of wicked men and, unusually, some women, to arrange forced, sometimes violent, sex with children in their “care”.

Evidence presented at the Royal Commission into Institutionalised Responses to Child Sexual Abuse about the conduct of some Salvos has been chilling. If it is to be believed — and the Salvos have been paying compensation, so someone does — then they have had officers who truly despised the children entrusted to them.

Evidence heard so far has boys — hungry, shoeless and regularly beaten — being raped by Salvation Army captains, before being sent to other adults’ homes to be further exploited.

One of the Salvation Army officers was Lawrence Wilson who is alleged to have seen the boys as a kind of currency to be used throughout the dark underworld of bisexual paedophilia.

The Salvos have paid out $1.2 million in compensation for his victims. So far.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel
Feb. 15, 2014

When Archbishop Jerome Listecki announced that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee was filing for bankruptcy three years ago, he said it was the only way to ensure the local church could continue its mission and operations, and treat childhood victims of sexual abuse — many of whom had begun to sue — “equitably.”

The archdiocese last week filed its reorganization plan, essentially its proposed road map for exiting bankruptcy. Except for an additional $2.4 million in debt, the plan would allow the 10-county archdiocese — home to some 600,000 Roman Catholics — to emerge for the most part unscathed, from an operational standpoint. Although the archdiocese will have spent an estimated $18 million in legal fees before the bankruptcy is over, the plan calls for it to sell no property; pay all of its vendors (although some would get less than they sought);and continue to fund all of its pension and health care plans.

Whether it treats abuse survivors equitably is another matter. Although all victims would have access to church-funded therapy, whole classes of survivors would receive no financial settlement. Those sexually assaulted as a child by, say, a Catholic schoolteacher or parish choir director would receive nothing. Victims of religious order priests and nun would receive nothing.

In all, 128 of the 575 men and women who have filed sex abuse claims in the bankruptcy would receive a financial settlement — about $27,000 each on average, unless additional funds are secured by suing insurance companies. But even victims of the same priest could be treated differently under criteria proposed by the archdiocese, survivors and their lawyers said Friday.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By Toby Lester | GLOBE CORRESPONDENT FEBRUARY 16, 2014

COLLAPSE is not too strong a word. Fifty years ago, the great majority of Catholics in this country confessed their sins regularly to a priest. Confession, after all, is one of the seven Catholic sacraments. But now only 2 percent of Catholics go regularly to confession, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a nonprofit organization affiliated with Georgetown University—and three-quarters of them never go, or go less than once a year. In many parishes, the sacrament is currently available only by appointment, and in Europe it has declined to such a degree that groups who study Catholic practice there have stopped even asking about it on their questionnaires. Visit a Catholic church today, John Cornwell writes in “The Dark Box: A Secret History of Confession,” and you’re likely to find that church janitors have transformed the box into “a storage closet for vacuum cleaners, brooms, and cleaning products.”

To traditionalists, this might seem like yet another sign of decline in the post–Vatican II era, but Cornwell shows that this isn’t the first time Catholics have largely abandoned confession. The practice, it turns out, has evolved dramatically over the centuries, from a rare communal event to a regular private one, and at a number of points in this evolution has broken down specifically because of concerns about sexual abuse. The box itself is a relatively late innovation, designed in the 16th century to keep priests and women apart.

Cornwell thinks it’s time to reform confession again, in large part because he sees it as a key—and underappreciated—enabler of the recent sex-abuse scandals that have rocked the church. A former seminarian who has written extensively on the papacy and is perhaps best known for his 1999 bestseller “Hitler’s Pope,” Cornwell knows his subject well: He was raised Catholic, went to confession every week from the age of 7 to the age of 21, and was himself propositioned by a priest in the confessional. He ended up leaving the Church for decades, but has returned into the fold late in life, with some ambivalence.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

. .Today’s New York Times reports that a Catholic priest, nun and a small number of Kansas City parishioners are formally appealing to Pope Francis to discipline Bishop Robert Finn, who hails from our town. Later this year, Finn’s two-year probation will end. He was convicted in 2012 of failing to report child sex crimes by Fr. Shawn Ratigan to police.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

February 15
BY DIANE STAFFORD
The Kansas City Star

A group of Roman Catholics based in Kansas City has taken the rare step of petitioning Pope Francis to discipline Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The formal request, initiated by a Milwaukee priest, a nun, and about a dozen parishioners in the Kansas City area, was sent to the Vatican along with an online petition signed by more 113,000 people worldwide asking for the bishop’s removal.

Finn was convicted in 2012 on a misdemeanor charge of failing to report a priest involved in child pornography. Finn was placed on two years of court-supervised probation.

“The priest’s crime that Bishop Finn concealed from civil authorities was of great magnitude,” said the Rev. James Connell, a priest and canon lawyer from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, in a letter to the pope.

“Thus, the harm done by Bishop Finn also was of great magnitude. Yet Catholic Church authorities have taken no action against Bishop Finn that would provide justice and repair scandal, and this lack of action adds to the ongoing scandal of the clergy sexual abuse crisis.” …

“This is quite unusual,” David Clohessy, national director of SNAP, the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests, said of the petition.“The sad truth is that very rarely are Catholic bishops disciplined, and even more rarely do Catholic lay people initiate such requests.”

A United Nations panel this month scolded the Vatican for not holding bishops accountable when suspected of failing to report abuse. Church officials said the Vatican was discussing the issue and that the pope has formed a commission of child sexual abuse.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

By Robert McCoppin, Tribune reporter
10:18 a.m. CST, February 15, 2014

Two lawsuits claim that negligence by officials at Willow Creek Community Church allowed a volunteer to molest two young boys with special needs during church programs.

The latest suit, filed Thursday, alleges that the church did not sufficiently supervise Robert Sobczak, now 20, a volunteer who pleaded guilty in December to aggravated criminal sexual abuse of an 8-year-old boy. Sobczak was sentenced to two years of probation and has registered with the state as a child sex offender living in Niles.

In that case, prosecutors said, the boy was a participant in a church program for children with special needs when Sobczak took the boy into a secluded area and sexually abused him on Feb. 17, 2013.

The boy immediately told his mother and police were contacted, which prompted a broader investigation of whether Sobczak molested any other children, said attorney Kevin Golden, who is representing the boy’s family in a civil lawsuit against Sobczak and the large evangelical church in South Barrington.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Cream City Catholic

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee released its Plan of Reorganization to start closing out the bankruptcy process. I read the statement from Archbishop Listecki and I think this quote pretty much sums up the message for me.

The archdiocese has historically operated on a balanced budget, so the burden of paying off this debt will certainly be part of our penance.

What is so frustrating is that the Archdiocese has continuously imposed its poor leadership and decision-making on all of its members – this is our penance. Not only did those children suffer horrible abuses, but we will all be carrying the financial burden of this tragic disaster for years and years to come. Where do you think this money will come from? This restructuring announcement comes on the heels of the 2014 Stewardship Appeal, when we are all encouraged to give generously to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. No doubt a lot of the money we give will go to paying back this debt. What is very sad to me is that the Catholic Church is responsible for so much good in Milwaukee, but at some point we can’t continue to blindly fund an institution on the premise of being faithful Catholics. It doesn’t make you or me a bad Catholic to question how the money is being spent. Frankly, I don’t trust the leadership to make those financial decisions anymore.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee should have liquidated ALL of its non-essential assets and paid much more to the victims. This festering boil is only a symptom of the problems within the Archdiocese, starting with all of the Weakland-era initiatives and sympathizers. We can only guess at how much money was wasted during the decades-long Weakland reign on bogus projects, initiatives, horrible church “renovations”, pointless and overstaffed offices at the Cousins Center, and the list goes on.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

FEBRUARY 15, 2014 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

In a recent announcement, Archbishop Chaput encourages the clergy and faithful of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to gather on Saturday, March 22, 2014 during the regular 5:15 service at the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul for a Healing Mass for Victims of Clergy Sex Abuse. Archbishop Chaput will be the main celebrant and homilist. Recommended wording for bulletins went out to parishes as well as personal invitations to victims of clergy sex abuse. One sentence read, “as we continue to pray for the survivors of clergy sexual abuse, the healing of the church, and for all those who have been affected by clergy sexual abuse.”

Kathy and I would like to hear everyone’s thoughts on this. What specific actions would you like the Archdiocese to undertake on behalf of victims?

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NEW JERSEY
NewJerseyNewsroom

BY PAT SUMMERS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church fall below cardinals – the so-called “princes of the church” – in the hierarchy, but that doesn’t stop some of them, and their enablers, from aspiring.

The latest case deals with the bishop of the Camden New Jersey diocese (encompassing six southern NJ counties) whose new home cost $500,000, aka a half-million dollars. An AP report in myfoxdetroit.com indicates the 1908 mansion in Woodbury has an in-ground pool, three fireplaces, a library and a five-car garage.

A church spokesperson indicated last month that Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan needs such facilities to meet with donors, benefactors and use as workspace. Sale of the property, owned by Rowan University as a president’s home, was finalized late last year.

Until his move to Woodbury, Bishop Sullivan – formerly “a top administrator in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York” – lived in an apartment at the St. Pius X Retreat House, Blackwood, where other bishops have lived. That building will be sold.

A Bronx native 67 years old, Bishop Sullivan has been a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on child protection, which oversees the church’s efforts to respond to the issue of sexual abuse by clergymen, according to the NYTimes.com. His appointment to the Camden diocese post in January 2013 drew criticism from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a group that advocates for abuse victims.

In 2011, a second New Jersey bishop — David M. O’Connell, who heads up the Trenton diocese — opted not to live in Trenton, but to move instead to a home described as “austere” on a wooded road in Lawrence Township, which happens to have a Princeton mailing address.

The home reportedly has four bedrooms, 3½ baths, a family room, dining room, eat-in kitchen and a vaulted LR, all on 5.8 acres, newjerseynewsroom.com reported. It went for $550,000, reportedly in cash. (The Mercer diocese includes the counties of Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth and Ocean.)

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GEORGIA
Bryan County News

A Catholic priest, who worked in several Georgia towns, including Pembroke, is going to prison after being found guilty of sexually abusing a boy in Ohio.

Father Robert “Bob” Poandl was recently sentenced to 7½ years by a federal court judge in Cincinnati, Ohio, for taking a 10-year-old boy from Ohio to West Virginal in 1991 and sexually abusing him.

“This brave victim and his family should be praised for their courage and their determination,” said Judy Jones of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a Chicago-based support group. “Their compassion and bravery has put this child predator in jail and away from innocent children. It was a long ordeal, but they did not give up.”

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OHIO
Today’s Pulse

By Ed Richter
Staff Writer

CINCINNATI — A priest convicted of taking a 10-year-old boy to West Virginia for sex more than two decades ago was sentenced Wednesday to 7½ years in federal prison.

Robert Poandl, 72, a priest with the Fairfield-based Glenmary Home Missioners, was convicted in September of the Mann Act, which is transporting a minor in interstate commerce with the intent of engaging him in sex. He could have received up to 10 years.

Federal prosecutors say Poandl took the boy to Spencer, W.Va., in 1991 and raped him while visiting a church there.

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CANADA
CBC

Quebec’s provincial police force has been investigating the Lev Tahor community for nearly two years, according to search warrants obtained by CBC and other media outlets that fought to have the documents made public.

The documents are heavily redacted and provide no information as to the nature of the criminal infractions cited as a cause for the warrants — which led to a raid being carried out at two homes in Chatham, Ont., on Jan. 29.

It’s also not public what was seized at the homes.

However, the documents say the Sûreté du Québec has been investigating Lev Tahor members since April 2012 – after receiving information alleging physical abuse of children and unlawful confinement of minors. It was also alleged that underage girls were being forced to marry much older men.

The allegations, which were never cross-examined in court, have not resulted in charges and members of the Lev Tahor group have always maintained they are false.

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CANADA
CTV

CTV Montreal
Published Friday, February 14, 2014

Police in Quebec began investigating the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor back in 2012 amid allegations of child abuse, forced marriages and violence, newly released documents allege.

According to documents used to obtain search warrants, the Quebec provincial police started looking into Lev Tahor after allegations emerged that some teenage girls in the group were beaten and sexually abused.

It was alleged that some girls as young as 14 or 15 were being forced to marry much older men and that some children were taken from their biological parents if the community leader felt they were not being properly taught.

The documents, which contain allegations that have not been proven in court, also allege that some members of the Lev Tahor community were kept under psychological control with medication and that physical violence was used as an educational tool.

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CANADA
eCanada Now

SIDNEY MARTIN · FEB 15TH, 2014

The ultra-conservative Jewish sect called Lev Tahor is claiming persecution at the hands of Canadian police investigators, but details from the police report used to obtain search warrants indicate deeply disturbing allegations prompted the police intrusions. It should be noted that thus far the allegations have not been proven in a court of law.

That said, police detectives conducted interviews with Lev Tahor families living in Quebec and Ontario, which described a heavily restricted society for women and children. The interviews were conducted over a two-year period that started in January 2012. The sect claims that dissident members are to blame for the search warrants being issued and that the former members are fabricating stories in retaliation. Nachman Helbrans made the counter claims.

He is the son of the sect’s leader rabbi Shlomo Helbran. However, he was less specific about what would be prompting the ex-members to retaliate.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

By: Tim Alamenciak News reporter, Allan Woods Quebec Bureau, Published on Sat Feb 15 2014

Allegations of sexual abuse, confinement, and beatings with crowbars, belts, whips and a coat hanger are among the claims detailed in recently released police documents connected with the ongoing investigation into the ultra-orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor.

The documents, the allegations of which have not been proven in court, outline information used to obtain search warrants executed in January on properties belonging to Lev Tahor families in both Ontario and Quebec. The documents chronicle a litany of allegations that paint a picture of a community whose women and children in particular live in a tightly controlled environment with strictly enforced rules.

The heavily censored police documents recount interviews with members of the community, social workers and unnamed witnesses dating back to 2012. The names of any children mentioned are protected by a publication ban.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Derby Telegraph

A PRIEST accused of sexually abusing three altar boys missed his court appearance yesterday as prison staff “forgot” to take him.

Francis Paul Cullen, who spent 18 years working at Christ the King Catholic Church, on the Mackworth Estate, was due for a plea and case management hearing at Derby Crown Court.

But the hearing had to be postponed until Monday.

Prosecutor Sarah Knight told the judge: “It appears the prison has forgotten to bring him. The earliest he could be here now is mid-afternoon.”

As other cases were listed for the courtroom, Judge Jonathan Gosling adjourned the hearing until Monday.

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CANADA
Global News

[with video]

By Anna Mehler Paperny Global News

Quebec police first started hearing the allegations two years ago – of drugged and confined children; corporal punishment, sexual abuse, psychological control, immigration fraud and underage marriage. Social workers found children in piteous states of health.

But it wasn’t until November, 2013 that the Surete du Quebec moved to take some of these children, on a provisional basis, away from the ultra-orthodox haredi Jewish sect, Lev Tahor.

By then, dozens of families had skipped town on a trio of buses bound for Chatham-Kent, Ontario, where they lived in motels and in units of a rural compound called Spurgeon’s Villa. (the bus driver, asked to leave at 1 a.m., said it was his policy not to drive at night. But this customer offered to pay cash)

Documents supporting a police warrant to search those homes were released to reporters Friday after multiple media organizations – Global News among them – fought to make them public.

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MAINE
WCSH

[with video]

PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) – The state’s nearly 200-thousand catholics have a new spiritual leader.

Robert Deeley officially became Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland during a ceremony Today. With much pomp, circumstance and tradition he was installed as Maine’s 12th Bishop, succeeding Richard Malone.

Bishop Deeley was most recently was auxiliary bishop of Boston. Before that he spent several years at the Vatican spending some of that time dealing with the Church sexual abuse scandal.Today he addressed that.

He said the church will continue to support the victims. He said because of the scandal it is not easy to be a priest these days and thanked what he called the faithful priests for their continuing dedication.

He told Maine catholics he will rely on them to help shape his time here overseeing the church.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with audio]

By Emily Bourke

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has experienced a massive spike in calls, letters and emails since the most recent public hearing was held into the Salvation Army.

The inquiry has received around 8,500 calls and 4,000 pieces of correspondence.

But in the past two weeks, there has been a 35 per cent increase in calls, with more than 200 per week.

There have already been 1,200 private sessions conducted, with plans for another 600 before the end of June.

But there are still between 800 and 900 people on a waiting list for a private session with a commissioner.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Charismatismus

[Summary: In light of the UN report on child abuse in the Catholic Church, some experts are wondering whether there is a connection between celibacy and abuse.]

Von Felizitas Küble

In der seit Februar 2010 anhaltenden Mißbrauchsdebatte wird nicht selten die Ehelosigkeit katholischer Priester direkt oder indirekt als Ursache für pädosexuelle Verfehlungen benannt; zumindest wird der Zölibat mit Hinweis auf diverse Vorfälle infrage gestellt – und dies selbst von Seiten kath. Oberhirten (vgl. entsprechende Äußerungen der Bischöfe Lehmann, Schönborn oder Jaschke).

Die Debatte über Kirche und Kindesmißbrauch ist kürzlich durch Anschuldigungen der UNO gegen den Vatikan neu aufgeflammt. Die Frage steht also im Raum:

Besteht ein Ursache-Wirkung-Verhältnis oder zumindest ein gewisser Zusammenhang zwischen dem Zölibat und den Vorfällen von sexuellem Mißbrauch?

FOTO: Das fundierte Sachbuch “Die mißbrauchte Republik” widerlegt viele Klischees und Vorurteile

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DEUTSCHLAND
SR

[Summary: A former Catholic priest from Saarland who has sexually abused minors will probably get off with a severe reprimand and a fine. With this decision, the Trier diocese has completed its preliminary canonical investigation. ]

Ein früherer katholischer Priester aus dem Saarland, der Minderjährige sexuell missbraucht hat, kommt wohl mit einem strengen Verweis und einer Geldbuße davon. Mit dieser Entscheidung hat das Bistum Trier seine kirchenrechtliche Voruntersuchung abgeschlossen.

(15.02.2014) Wegen „sexueller Übergriffigkeit und Grenzverletzung» in vier Fällen hat der Trierer Bischof Stephan Ackermann einem Ruhestandspriester einen „strengen Verweis“ erteilt und eine Geldbuße verhängt. Der ehemalige Pfarrer einer saarländischen Gemeinde muss 3.000 Euro an eine Beratungseinrichtung gegen sexuelle Gewalt an Kindern und Jugendlichen zahlen, wie das Bistum am Samstag in Trier mitteilte.

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ILLINOIS
Belleville News-Democrat

The St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s Office on Friday issued additional charges against a Shiloh man accused of sexually abusing children he met through the First Baptist Church in Fairview Heights.

The Shiloh Police Department continues to investigate the case against 47-year-old Jeffrey D. Strait, of the 2700 block of Lake Lucerne Drive.

On Friday, St. Clair County Assistant State’s Attorney Julie Elliot issued a three-count warrant related to one victim for aggravated criminal sexual abuse with a victim over 13 but under 17 and a two-count warrant related to another victim for aggravated criminal sexual abuse with a victim over 13 but under 17. Both are Class 2 Felonies. An initial four-count was previously filed related to a third victim.

Three other males have come forward with similar claims, which are being investigated. Most of the alleged victims who have come forward are now adults, but police have said the abuses occurred when they were juveniles.

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ILLINOIS
KSDK

[with video]

Brandie Piper, KSDK February 15, 2014

SHILOH, Ill. – A Fairview Heights church official charged with four counts of criminal sexual abuse of a minor earlier this week is facing five more charges.

Jeffrey D. Strait, 47, was charged Friday with five counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse with a victim between the ages of 13 and 17.

Strait, a deacon at First Baptist Church in Fairview Heights, was arrested at his home on Tuesday. He is accused of meeting the male victims at the church, and bringing them to his home, where he abused them.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

JAMIE WALKER THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 12, 2014

Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.

– Saint Thomas Aquinas

Pat Comben is a former Anglican, estranged from the church by his own doing. So bitter was his exit that he’s not sure he is even a Christian. The ex-deacon has had a lot of time to think since he let go of his holy orders on November 22 last year, the day he entered the witness box at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Comben had been registrar of the Diocese of Grafton when a letter arrived in the winter of 2005 detailing how kids had been starved, bashed, indecently assaulted and raped at an Anglican children’s home in Lismore, northern NSW, in the 1950s and 1960s. He professes to have been horrified. Yet he took point position in the protracted compensation negotiations that followed, driving the hardest bargain he could, seemingly without compassion for the victims. Now, he runs a caravan park and takes in people who would otherwise be out on the street.

When he looks into his heart, as he does a lot these days, he wonders where God was while he went toe-to-toe with the complainants’ lawyer, haggling over what compensation should be paid, if at all. This is not about ducking responsibility for his actions, he insists. Comben knows he let the victims down – and it wasn’t only by being miserly. Two priests accused of molesting children were allowed to settle into comfortable retirement without facing church disciplinary proceedings, let alone criminal prosecution.

Comben accepts he should have done more to pursue them. Somehow, he lost sight of what was important and right, and he could only see this “great wood, instead of the individual trees”. Or maybe, as chief commissioner Peter McClellan put it, once he got into the fight, Comben stayed there, consumed by winning it. “I was wrong,” Comben told the inquiry, and the intervening period has only strengthened that belief.

“I feel ashamed,” he says quietly, sipping his coffee on this hot, humid afternoon in Coffs Harbour, where he has started a new life. “I don’t know if I can say any more than that … I feel shame that people we were supposed to help, that I wanted to help, weren’t helped in the way they needed to be.” The response was “over-legalistic”, inappropriate and outside church rules – nearly anything, when it came down to it, except Christian.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

[court document]

[court document via MPR]

By: Megan Stewart

A recent and unprecedented court ruling on church abuse allegations Tuesday is being contested by the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

The archdiocese filed a motion Thursday with Ramsey County Judge John van De North to put on hold a court order which compels Archbishop John Nienstedt and the Rev. Kevin McDonough to give sworn testimony.

The testimony is expected to detail what they know about sex abuse allegations made against priests in the archdiocese.

The archdiocese also gave the judge notice it will be filing with the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

The motion came in addition to the archdiocese releasing a report of financial dealings with sex abuse allegations, which shows church officials spent around $3.2 million for room, board and living expenses for priests and ex-priests accused of sexual abuse or other misconduct.

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MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

By Jerome Christenson

A Ramsey County district court judge has reaffirmed his order that the Diocese of Winona and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis disclose lists of all priests accused — not just those “credibly accused” — of child sexual abuse since 2004.

Judge John Van de North directed that the lists be provided to the court and plaintiffs’ attorneys by Feb. 18. The lists will be sealed from public scrutiny pending the determination by neutral parties if reasons exist why the accusations should or should not be made public.

The judge made his initial order in early January, after the release in December of lists of priests the church considered to be “credibly accused” of abuse. The judge’s order extended the disclosure to all priests who had been accused since 2004 — whether the church considered the accusation “credible” or not, the word used by a nationwide study on child sexual abuse within the Catholic church.

“To date the labeling of accusation as incredible, frivolous or groundless has been done by the defendants, and not by a disinterested party,” Van de North ruled. “It has been done in the context of canonical tenets and ecclesiastical processes whose relevance is a matter of significant debate.”

In other words — it’s time for a court to decide the validity of an accusation, not a diocese, Van de North ruled.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
FEB. 14, 2014

A group of Roman Catholics in Kansas City, Mo., and a priest with expertise in canon law petitioned Pope Francis this week to take disciplinary action against Bishop Robert W. Finn, who was convicted in 2012 of failing to report a priest who was an active pedophile.

The parishioners wrote to Francis asking why he suspended a German bishop who spent tens of millions building his opulent quarters, but left in office a bishop who failed to protect children. They argued that Bishop Finn also broke church law and should be subject to a penal proceeding.

“Your holiness, these past two years have been extremely painful for the Catholic community in this diocese,” wrote John Veal, one of the parishioners. “The anger and hurt is palpable among many who still attend Catholic liturgy, including many priests who feel helpless to speak out. Many laity have left the Church.”

The Catholic church in the United States instituted policies in 2002 that require reporting suspected abuse to civil authorities, but the church has not resolved what to do about bishops who fail to do so. This month, a United Nations panel on children’s’ rights criticized the Vatican harshly for failing to hold bishops accountable, and the Vatican is discussing the issue, church officials said. …

Jack Smith, communications director in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, said, “Bishop Finn has his supporters and his detractors, and people are free to have their own opinion about what happens here. We remain committed to fostering safe environments in all of our schools and parishes, and we’ve made great strides.”

Mr. Smith said that Bishop Finn’s office had received a copy of the letters and other materials, which were sent Tuesday to the Vatican’s representative in Washington to be forwarded to Francis. The materials included letters from a nun and 13 parishioners in Kansas City, and a petition asking for Bishop Finn’s removal signed by more than 113,000 people worldwide.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Feb 14, 2014

Lawyers for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona are seeking to block the depositions of Archbishop John Nienstedt and two other priests and halt the ordered release of the names of priests accused of child sexual abuse since 2004.

In a memorandum filed in Ramsey County District Court late yesterday, the archdiocese argued that the disclosure of the names of the priests, even under court seal, would cause “irreparable harm to the Archdiocese and its clergy.” It said it plans to appeal the judge’s order.

Attorneys for the Diocese of Winona similarly argued that the disclosure of the names “would constitute irreparable and irreversible prejudice” and plans to appeal.

The filings signal a more aggressive legal approach by church officials. Attorneys from three law firms drafted the court filings, and they seek to block all of the judge’s orders this week.

Ramsey County Judge John Van de North had ordered the depositions of Nienstedt, former top deputy Kevin McDonough and the Rev. John Brown, a priest accused of child sexual abuse, within 30 days, at a hearing on Tuesday. He also ordered church officials to turn over the names of priests accused since 2004 to the court under seal by Feb. 18, 2014. The orders were part of a case brought by a man who alleged he was sexually abused in 1976 and 1977 by the Rev. Thomas Adamson.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Gazette

A RETIRED priest has been accused of committing historical sex offences against a boy while he was curate at Crediton Parish Church.

Vickery House, 68, who worked at the church from 1969 to 1976, has been charged with a catalogue of offences following an 18-month police inquiry.

House, a former Church of England priest, faces eight charges of indecent assault on a then-aged 15-year-old boy and five males aged 17 to 34 between 1970 and 1986.

He was charged following the Sussex Police inquiry with offences which were allegedly committed in East Sussex and Devon.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler February 14, 2014

TheMediaReport.com is offering 5 practical suggestions for journalists covering the sex-abuse story as it relates to the Catholic Church. TheMediaReport is a site that doggedly defends the Church against accusations, and in some cases, I think, ends up defending the indefensible. But in this case, the advice is excellent, and any fair-minded journalist should follow it.

To sum up quickly (and to encourage readers to see the full version, anyone following the sex-abuse story should be aware of abuse in other institutions, apart from the Church; should recognize that some of the main players in this drama are motivated by hostility to Catholicism; should notice that a few lawyers have made huge profits on lawsuits; should acknowledge the enormous opportunities for fraud; and should realize that the Church has taken great strides in responding to abuse complaints.

The fundamental point here is that while the Church has richly deserved criticism because of sexual abuse, it’s important to keep things in context. Yes, demand that Church leaders address the issue, holding predatory priests accountable for their actions and their enablers accountable for covering up the crimes. But don’t throw away the rules of evidence, the considerations of fairness, and the principle that someone is innocent until proven guilty.

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OHIO
Wheeling-Charleston Truth

Presented by David Harper to the United States District Court, Southern District of Ohio,

February 12, 2014

I cannot possibly convey the swath of destruction that lay in Robert Poandl’s wake. We all create ripple effects in the universe around us. These ripple effects can be negative, positive or something in between. I have no doubt Robert helped many people and did many good works, making positive ripple effects. His family and friends are convinced of his innocence which both he and I know is amazing. It attests to the power of faith and love. How anyone could sit through his trial and not be convinced of his guilt is remarkable; Robert certainly did not react when a jury of his peers found him guilty. The sad fact is his family and friends do not truly know him. No person can completely know the depths of another person but they are not even close to knowing his true nature. Unfortunately, I was exposed to his true nature in August of 1991 and have been in a living hell much of the time since. I was a kind and trusting child from a modest family, but that ended that night. He used my parents’ faith in God and Catholicism against them. They too were blinded by faith and love. He preyed on the weak and the poor. He preyed on children to satisfy his own deviant sexual desires. He dropped a nuclear bomb on my psyche. These negative ripple effects did not stop with me. They do not stop with his victims but are transferred to those around them. The angry child who felt betrayed by his parents and by God raged against those who he saw as his betrayers. He saw the world as one without meaning or God. He could not reconcile an omniscient and omnipotent God who loved him with the reality of being handed over to a servant of this God by his mother and then anally raped and told he had in some way sinned. This child who had prodigious potential both in physical and mental capacities saw a world around him devoid of love and honesty. He saw hypocrisy everywhere he looked. Give all you have to the poor and come follow me juxtaposed to jeweled golden chalices, ornate decorations and tithing. Confess your sins juxtaposed to the systematic protection of pedophiles within the Catholic Church. That which you do to the least of my people that which you do unto me juxtaposed to his rape and his parents’ admiration for the rapist. He used to love hearing his mother hum church hymns after mass but afterwards it felt like shards of glass sticking into his mind; had she known he wondered. He could not stop this cascade of negativity and hatred.

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ILLINOIS
CLTV

by Gaynor Hall
Reporter

Two lawsuits claim that negligence by officials at a church in South Barrington allowed a volunteer to molest two young boys in a special needs program.

Robert Sobczak Junior, 20, pleaded guilty in December to the aggravated criminal sexual abuse of an 8-year-old special needs boy.

On Friday, the boy’s family filed a lawsuit claiming the ega church was negligent.

It was February 17th 2013, almost a year ago, the 8-year-old boy told his mother, the lawsuit alleges, that Sobczak him into a room and sexually assaulted him.

Sobczak was a volunteer for the “Special Friends” church program and church officials say children in the program– while their parents are in service– are supposed to be under the supervision off at least two people at all times.

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VATICAN CITY
Headlines from the Catholic World

February 14, 2014 By CNA Daily News

Vatican City, Feb 14, 2014 / 04:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Earlier this week reports of a potential new president of the “Vatican bank” were leaked to Italian media, suggesting the possibility of a greater Italian influence in Vatican finances.

“Italia Oggi,” a Milan-based daily specializing in politics, economics, and law, wrote Feb. 11 that Carlo Salvatori could soon be chosen as the new president of the board of directors of the Institute for Religious Works. The Italian banker is currently director of SeaChange and chairman of Lazard Italy.

The Vatican bank board is composed of five bankers and experts, and is currently chaired by Ernst von Freyberg, who undertook the position near the end of Benedict XVI’s papacy.

A source familiar with Vatican finances could not confirm that Salvatori would be appointed, but did tell CNA Feb. 12 that “there is indeed an internal discussion about the opportunities offered by an increasing ‘internationalization’ of Vatican finances, but also about the possibility of returning again to a greater ‘Italian presence’ in finances.”

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MINNESOTA
BringMeTheNews

February 14, 2014 By Liz O’Connell

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is attempting to block a court order to depose Archbishop John Nienstedt and former Vicar General Kevin McDonough within the next month.

Ramsey County District Court Judge John Van de North issued the order in a case filed by John Doe 1, who claimed he was sexually abused by former priest Tom Adamson between 1976 and 1977.

According to a statement issued Friday, the archdiocese filed a motion Thursday to put a hold on the depositions, claiming “the extensive requirements of the judge’s order reach beyond the limits of Minnesota law.”

Lawyers for the archdiocese say Nienstedt, who came to the archdiocese 2007, shouldn’t have to testify on claims that occurred before he arrived.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Friday, February 14, 2014

Source: Jim Accurso

On Thursday, February 13, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis filed a motion with Ramsey County Judge John Van de North asking him to put a hold on the rulings he made at the hearing on Tuesday, February 11 and giving him notice that the archdiocese will be filing a motion with the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Over the past five months, the archdiocese has taken unprecedented actions to address open questions regarding clergy misconduct and our handling of these cases, including the establishment of an independent Task Force to review our practices in this regard and the engagement of a nationally-experienced firm to conduct a thorough review of our clergy files. We have made a public commitment to prudent and ongoing disclosure of substantiated claims of sexual abuse of a minor. We have also committed to remove from ministry any clergy member with a credible claim made against him and immediately alert the public. We have kept both of these commitments and will continue to do so for the healing of victims and the protection of children. We have communicated and reinforced repeatedly that our goals are to protect children, care for victims, and do all in our power to restore trust with the faithful and our clergy who are serving with honor. We have made promises and we intend to keep them.

We are appealing the rulings of Judge Van de North because his sweeping order allows for discovery efforts that are not related to the specific case before the Court which involves a claim from 1976-77 by Thomas Adamson. In short, the extensive requirements of the judge’s order reach beyond the limits of Minnesota law.

The facts involving the history of misconduct of Thomas Adamson are well known, well documented in prior cases and were widely covered by the media decades ago. The Judge’s order calls for Archbishop Nienstedt, who did not arrive in the archdiocese until 2007 and who has no information about Adamson, to testify under oath about the claims of the plaintiff regarding activity that occurred decades before the archbishop’s tenure.

Our appeal also seeks justice for clergy who have been and may in the future be falsely accused. The judge has ordered disclosure of the names of clergy against whom any accusation has been made, regardless of whether these claims meet the minimum standard of credibility or have already been determined to be false.

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OREGON
National Catholic Reporter

Dan Morris-Young | Feb. 14, 2014

The Vatican has declined to intervene on behalf of a priest whose bishop removed him as pastor of a parish in Bend, Ore., in the fall and later barred him from public ministry.

In a decision dated Jan. 31 and reported to NCR on Friday, the Vatican Congregation for Clergy confirmed that Baker, Ore., Bishop Liam Cary was justified in removing Fr. James Radloff as pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Bend on Oct. 1.

According to Radloff’s canonical adviser, Fr. Thomas Faucher, the congregation “has also declined to order Bishop Cary to make public the reasons for the removal” and “declined to order Bishop Cary to rescind his ban on Fr. Radloff from celebration of Mass and from all public ministry.”

Radloff learned of the decision through Faucher early Friday and was not immediately available for comment.

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GEORGIA
Savannah Morning News

Updated: February 14, 2014

By Jamie Parker

A Catholic priest, the Rev. Robert “Bob” Poandl, who once worked at Holy Cross Church in Pembroke and in six other Georgia communities has been sentenced to seven and one half years in prison for transporting a 10-year-old Cincinnati boy to Spencer, W.Va., in August 1991 where he sexually assaulted the child.

Poandl worked in the Savannah diocese, including Holy Cross Church, from 2007-2009 and 2010-2012.

According to Cincinnati.com, Poandl, 73, who is dying of cancer, could have been sentenced up to 10 years in prison. However Judge Michael Barrett said he took Poandl’s health into consideration and recommended Poandl serve his time in a medical facility.

When allegations against Poandl surfaced in February 2012, he was removed from his duties pending an investigation by the Cincinnati-based Glenmary Home Missioners of which he was a member.

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UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

Post by PATRICIA MILLER

The recent report from the UN Commission on the Status of the Child is being criticized as a missed opportunity to hold the Vatican’s feet to the fire on the issue of child sex abuse. Writing in the New York Times, Paul Vallely said the report “blundered into a wider attack on Catholic teachings on contraception, homosexuality and abortion” that allowed the Vatican to claim the UN had “gone beyond its proper area of competence.”

Jesuit priest Thomas Reese called the report an “editorial screed” in the National Catholic Reporter and said that “by getting into issues like abortion, birth control and homosexuality, the report only helps those in the church who oppose dealing with the crisis.”

According to these critics and the Vatican itself, the Commission has no business trying to impose what they precieve as the UN’s progressive morality on the Vatican. The irony is that the Vatican has long attempted to impose its values at the UN under the assertion that its morality is universal.

Under the Vatican’s ideology, women and adolescents have no rights outside the family and only procreative sex within marriage is legitimate. It was first challenged on these views at the historic 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development by a coalition of women’s rights groups. They wanted the UN to state that access to reproductive health services was a basic human right and that women and adolescents had a right to independently access information about their sexual health.

As Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi reported in His Holiness, when Nafis Sadik, head of the conference, sat down with Pope John Paul II to explain why this was important, he shot back, “In this area there can be no individual rights and needs. There can only be the couples’ rights and needs.” And by this he meant that access to reproductive health services and information needed to be policed by men as head of the family.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Ordained a priest of the La Crosse diocese in 1959, Stauber’s career was marked by multiple transfers within and among dioceses. In La Crosse he was a parish priest, as well as a high school teacher and junior high school teacher and principal. He was transferred to the St. Louis archdiocese in the late 1960s, where he also taught and served in parishes. After a four-year sick leave in the late 1970s-early 1980s, Stauber relocated to the San Bernardino diocese. He again moved from parish to parish. During a stint as pastor in 1993, an allegation surfaced that he had sexually abused a minor in another state 22 years previously. He was removed from active ministry. Stauber died as a retired priest of the San Bernardino diocese in 2010.

Ordained: 1959
Died: Aug. 14, 2010

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MINNESOTA
Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 14, 2014

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — Lawyers for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are trying to block a court order requiring Archbishop John Nienstedt to testify about how the church handled clergy sexual abuse and release the names of all local priests accused of abusing children since 2004.

The archdiocese contends Ramsey County Judge John Van de North exceeded his authority in allowing attorneys for an alleged clergy abuse victim to depose Nienstedt and former Vicar General Kevin McDonough.

The archdiocese’s request, filed in Ramsey County District Court, asks for the demands to be dropped while it proceeds with an appeal.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis filed a motion in Ramsey County Court Friday, indicating that an appeal will be filed with the State Court of Appeals over a ruling requiring that Archbishop John Nienstedt and former Vicar General Kevin McDonough be deposed in a sexual abuse case that dates back to the 1970’s.

The archdiocese’s request, filed in Ramsey County District Court, asks for the demands to be dropped while it proceeds with an appeal.

In a statement released Friday afternoon the Archdiocese said Tuesday’s ruling by Judge John Van de North is being appealed because “his sweeping order allows for discovery efforts that are not related to the specific case before the Court which involves a claim from 1976-77 by Thomas Adamson. In short, the extensive requirements of the judge’s order reach beyond the limits of Minnesota law.”

The Archdiocese also has issue with the fact that the Judge’s order calls for Archbishop Nienstedt, who did not arrive in the archdiocese until 2007 and who has no information about Adamson, to testify under oath about the claims of the plaintiff regarding activity that occurred decades before the archbishop’s tenure.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, February 14, 2014

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

Two lawsuits against a church volunteer for child sexual abuse also claim that officials at Willow Creek Community Church were negligent.

[Chicago Tribune]

Robert Sobczak pleaded guilty to sexually abusing an 8 year old boy while at a church program for kids with special needs. Sobczak was a volunteer for the program and was never supposed to be alone with the children. Another family filed a suit against Sobczak for abusing their son when he was 9.

Willows Creek Community Church officials and law enforcement need to urgently investigate how Sobczak was able to be alone with the children. Those who are responsible for this gross negligence should be immediately be fired and reported to law enforcement.

We are grateful for the brave victims who spoke up and told their parents and for their parents for alerting officials. Church officials did the right thing by holding a meeting to inform parent about the abuse claims and we hope they will continue to do outreach to find other victims and those who may have covered up these crimes.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

[with audio]

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis released a trove of financial documents Thursday, detailing publicly for the first time church spending on everything from Catholic schools to clergy sexual abuse claims.

The archdiocese showed a $3.87 million operating loss in fiscal year 2013 compared to a $1.5 million operating surplus the year before. Officials attributed that loss to an increase in reserves the archdiocese might need to cover unknown future costs related to clergy abuse claims.

For years, archdiocese officials declined to release detailed financial statements, making it difficult to assess its finances. By releasing the documents, the archdiocese joins about two dozen other dioceses across the nation who have done so.

“This is frankly a good step,” said Chuck Zech, director of Villanova University’s Center for Church Management and Business Ethics. “It’s long overdue, but a good step overall.”

But although the statements did not show immediate financial problems for the archdiocese, Zech warned that church leaders face significant hurdles in coming years. Among them are costs related to lawsuits by people who alleged that priests sexually abused them.

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UNITED STATES
Stand Firm

A.S. Haley

In September 2010, I put up an analysis, based on ECUSA’s monthly statements and their annual audited statements through 2009, of how much ECUSA and its major dioceses had spent on attorneys’ fees and other costs associated with the (then) 60+ lawsuits as catalogued here (see pgs. 23-26). In order to give as complete a picture as possible, I also included the latest ECUSA budget projection of legal expenses through the triennium 2010-2012.

One has to realize that ECUSA does not make it easy to discover the amounts it spends on litigation—the leadership at 815 Second Avenue would obviously prefer that those who sit in the pews every Sunday and contribute their pledges not be aware of just how many millions have been squandered on ECUSA’s scorched-earth litigation policy.

I am fully aware that those are fighting words to all those who support the current administration at 815 Second Avenue: “Prove it!” they say. Well, in the course of this post, I intend to do just that. So please suspend your judgment until you have digested the entire piece, and checked out all the links to my sources—which are uniformly from ECUSA’s own published financial statements and official minutes. I am a lifelong Episcopalian myself, and I am utterly ashamed and outraged by what the Presiding Bishop and her cohorts are doing in our Church’s name.

In September 2010, I concluded that ECUSA and its Dioceses of Virginia, Los Angeles and San Diego had committed a combined total of Twenty-one Million Six Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars ($21,650,000.00) on litigation since the year 2000. This number I broke down as follows:

Amounts spent 2001-2006 (mostly during the term of Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold; amounts before 2005 estimated, as no longer available online):

$1,344,000

Amounts spent 2007-2009 (the first triennium of Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori—including deposition costs under Title IV):

$10,525,584

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 14, 2014

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

St. Paul Archbishop John Nienstedt is inflicting emotional whiplash on abuse victims and concerned Catholics.

Yesterday, he said (through his public relations team), that he “looks forward to working with the court and all affected parties to promote the protection of children (and) the healing of victims.”

And today, he’s trying (through his lawyers) to block the very disclosures that help protect kids and heal victims, disclosures ordered by a judge who carefully considered the very real public safety risk that result when dozens of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics are allowed to live and work among unsuspecting families and colleagues after being ousted – often quietly – from Catholic parishes because of child sex abuse reports.

[Pioneer Press]

What’s changed in 24 hours? Nienstedt may have thought more about how devastating his deposition – and Fr. Kevin McDonough’s deposition – will almost certainly be. As long as they hide behind their desks and their public relations professionals, Catholic officials can make any claim or promise they like, no matter how far-fetched or absurd. But when they must face tough questions under oath about their complicity, that’s when the facade really begins to crumble. And Nienstedt knows and fears this.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: TONY KENNEDY , Star Tribune Updated: February 14, 2014

Archdiocese files request to block testimony, release of records while it prepares to appeal.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis moved to block this week’s court order that Archbishop John Nienstedt testify about the church’s handling of clergy sexual abuse cases and release the names of all local priests accused of sexually abusing children since 2004.

In a request filed late Thursday in Ramsey County District Court, lawyers for Nienstedt said Judge John Van de North exceeded his authority by ordering the expanded list of abusive priests and compelling Nienstedt and former Vicar General Kevin McDonough to submit to questioning from attorneys of abuse victims. The archdiocese asked for the demands to be dropped while it proceeds with an appeal.

“The legal basis for the broad discovery permitted and the disclosures ordered by the court are highly questionable,” the archdiocese said in a five-page court filing.

In court Tuesday, Van de North ordered the depositions of Nienstedt and McDonough within 30 days and also ordered the archdiocese to create a list of all priests accused of sexually abusing minors since 2004. The list, which the judge said must be prepared by Feb. 18, is in addition to a list of clergy accused before 2004, which was released in December. The new list is supposed to include all priests who have been the subject of abuse complaints since 2004, not just those church officials had determined were “credibly accused.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 02/14/2014

A day after releasing a financial report that pledged greater accountability, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis has filed a motion to prevent depositions of two top officials and “sweeping disclosures” regarding priests accused of sexual abuse.

Church officials want Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North to stay his Tuesday decision allowing the depositions of Archbishop John Nienstedt, former Vicar General Kevin McDonough and accused priest Rev. John Brown, while the archdiocese prepares to appeal to a higher court.

The archdiocese also wants Van de North to stay his order, pending the appeal, that it provide names and other information of priests accused of child sexual abuse since 2004.

In the motion, filed in Ramsey County District Court late Thursday, the archdiocese said the “legal basis for the broad discovery permitted and the disclosures ordered by the court are highly questionable” and “cannot be undone once they are made by the archdiocese.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, February 13, 2014

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

Over the past two weeks, St. Louis Catholic officials have lost important court rulings in two similar but unrelated wrongful death lawsuits stemming from alleged clergy sex crimes.

In one, the archdiocese lost its bid to throw out a suit charging that a young man killed himself in 2009 because he was molested by a priest, Fr. Bryan Kuchar. We are grateful that these brave parents may get their day in court.

And in the other case, the archdiocese lost in a bid to get one of its insurers to pay for a clergy sex abuse settlement stemming from a victim’s 2003 suicide. He was molested by Fr. Michael S. McGrath.

(Last year, a Kansas City man settled a wrongful death suit against that diocese for $2.3 million.

[Courthouse News Service]

We urge anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered the two priests’ crimes to get help and call police. And we urge relatives of clergy sex abuse victims to explore their legal options, both civil and criminal.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Feb. 14, 2014 Faith and Justice

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) was once known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. Later it became the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. Even after the Second Vatican Council, when it got its current name and lost the adjective “supreme,” it was still the top dog in the Roman Curia.

This is the congregation that went after so-called Modernists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It imposed biblical fundamentalism on the church until Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) by Pope Pius XII freed Scripture scholars to use modern literary and scientific tools to study the Bible. It also silenced American Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray when he wrote about issues of church and state, and it took on famous French theologians before Vatican II. …

But the supreme congregation doesn’t look so supreme anymore. It has been publicly criticized by a curial cardinal from Brazil, by the president of the German bishops’ conference, and by two cardinals who are members of the Council of Cardinals, appointed by the pope to advise him on reforming the Vatican. Even Pope Francis told Latin American religious not to worry about the congregation.

* CDF’s decision in 2012 to place the Leadership Conference of Women Religious under the control of three U.S. bishops was made without consultation or knowledge of the Vatican office that normally deals with matters of religious life, the office’s leader complained. It caused him “much pain,” Cardinal João Braz de Aviz said.
* Pope Francis met with top officials of the Latin American Conference of Religious and was reported to have said: “They will make mistakes, they will make a blunder, this will pass! Perhaps even a letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine [of the Faith] will arrive for you, telling you that you said such or such thing. … But do not worry. Explain whatever you have to explain, but move forward.”
* Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, a member of the Council of Cardinals, publicly issued a rebuke of Archbishop Gerhard Müller, current prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on the subject of divorced and remarried Catholics: “The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith cannot stop the discussions.”
* Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, defended a plan to offer Communion to divorced Catholics despite Müller’s opposition.
* Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, coordinator of the Council of Cardinals, told Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper that Müller is “still learning.” As a German theology professor, Rodriguez Maradiaga said Müller is convinced something could “only be wrong or right — and that’s it. But I say: The world, my brother, is not like that. You should be a little more flexible when you hear other opinions so that you don’t only say: No, this is fixed and final.”

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, February 14, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris … ( 314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

We are glad talks are resuming between Bob Jones University officials and GRACE, the non-profit that is looking at sex crimes at the school.

However sexual crimes should be reported to law enforcement by anyone who sees, suspects or suffers them. To most victims this is a frightening prospect but if innocent kids and vulnerable adults are to be protected victims must somehow find the strength, courage and wisdom to call secular officials not religious officials.

None of this would be happening, if not for the real heroes who have already spoken up and refused to accept excuses and evasions from Bob Jones officials. It may take years, but we believe these extraordinarily brave men and women will someday be recognized by university staff, student and alums as the responsible caring pioneers that they are.

We commend each one of them: victims, witnesses and whistleblowers. Regardless of whether this report is ever finalized and released law enforcement officials must be contacted and step up.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

A woman has waived her right to anonymity to reveal allegations of beatings and sexual abuse at a children’s home in Derry run by the Sisters of Nazareth.

Kate Walmsley (57) was a resident at Nazareth House Children’s Home on Bishop Street in the 1960s.

She said she wanted to become the first victim to waive her right to anonymity to help other victims who haven’t yet come forward.

She told the Historical Abuse Inquiry sitting in Banbridge, Co. Down: “I had a dreadful experience from when I was eight until I was 12. I was mentally tortured, physically and emotionally.”

She added: “I had a horrible childhood at Nazareth House in Derry run by the religious orders. I was abused by two priests and also was mentally and physically abused by nuns.

“I just don’t ever want that to happen to another little girl or boy and it’s the only reason that I came forward for the inquiry.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Daily Kos

Newsflash: the folks that run Bob Jones University are horrible people.

For decades, students at Bob Jones University who sought counseling for sexual abuse were told not to report it because turning in an abuser from a fundamentalist Christian community would damage Jesus Christ. Administrators called victims liars and sinners.

Bob Jones hired an outside Christian consulting group to look into how its students were being “counseled” by its staff. Now it’s fired that group, apparently because they were not conducting the investigation in the manner the university expected they would, and we can all read whatever we like into that:

On Friday, Stephen Jones, president of the university and great-grandson of its founder, addressed students and employees, saying, “We grew concerned that in the process, Grace had begun going beyond the originally outlined intentions,” but he would not elaborate.

The apparent short circuiting of the investigation has led to victims going public.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

A former resident of a boys’ home run by the Nazareth nuns in Derry says he was beaten for being left-handed.

Jon McCourt, a resident of St Joseph’s Boys’ Home, Termonbacca, in the 1950s and 1960s, yesterday waived his right to anonymity at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

He told the inquiry: “I remember, when I was about five years old, being constantly beaten by one particular nun, to get me to stop writing with my left hand.”

He said this was a common practice at the time, adding: “They were messing up with how we were wired.”

Mr. McCourt, who campaigned for years for an inquiry into abuse at children’s institutions, also told the inquiry he blamed unionist domination in Derry in the 1950s for him ending up in Termonbacca.

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