ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A priest from East Sussex has been charged with sex offences against two boys.

Christopher Howarth, 66, of Rocks Park Road, Uckfield is accused of 24 offences including sexual assault against the boys, now aged 19 and 20.

The offences are alleged to have taken place between 2004 and 2012. Mr Howarth has been bailed to appear before magistrates in Brighton on 20 February.

Sussex Police there were no allegations of offences against any other person.

A spokesman said the alleged offences took place in the Uckfield area. The charges followed an investigation by child protection detectives.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Boz Tchividjian | Feb 7, 2014

I recently came across a legal alert from a Christian organization that directs pastors who learn of suspected child abuse to first conduct their own internal investigation “to decide whether the situation requires reporting to the authorities.” Yikes!

As I work with churches and other Christian institutions, I often encounter professing Christians who struggle with whether they should first report suspected child abuse to the civil authorities. As above, they are often directed to report abuse suspicions to leadership who then decide whether or not to involve the authorities. Double yikes!!

A church elder once told me that if he received a disclosure of child sexual abuse, his first response would be to interview the alleged victim. His rationale was that he wanted to “be sure that the allegations are legitimate before reporting to the police and ruining the man’s reputation”. When asked what training he had to conduct a child forensic interview, the man was silent. When asked whether he wanted the responsibility to determine the validity of a very serious felony, he started to shrink back in his chair. I then asked whether he was prepared to violate mandated reporting laws. Fortunately, the elder got my point, changed his opinion, and acknowledged his need to learn more about child sexual abuse. An issue often at the heart of this critical struggle is whether the Church is obligated to subject itself to the laws of man when it believes that it is capable to address the sin “in-house”.

Let’s make sure we all understand one important truth, child sexual abuse is both a sin AND a serious crime. In order to effectively carry out its responsibility of protecting children and punishing perpetrators, all 50 states have laws that mandate certain citizens to report suspected neglect or abuse of children. Violation of mandated reporting laws not only fails to protect children, but also enables the perpetrator to avoid criminal prosecution. Scripture says, For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good (Romans 13:4). This clearly indicates that a central purpose of civil government is to do good. If that is the case, can there be any greater good carried out by civil government than to punish citizens who violate laws designed to protect society’s most vulnerable members? In order to carry out this good, the authorities must be notified of the alleged offense. Governments are incapable of protecting little ones and punishing offenders if its citizens remain silent in the face of such evil.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, February 07, 2014

Statement by Peter Isely of Milwaukee, board member of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 414-429-7259, peterisely@yahoo.com )

Papal spokesman claims UN panel “gave more credence to NGOs” over church officials. This is simply not true.

[Associated Press]

The UN panel gave credence to decades of well documented horrific crimes and cover ups. Catholic officials can’t spin or promise their way out of the crisis. Catholic officials should not be surprised when well educated objective adults judge them on consistent self serving actions, and not on professed intentions to do better in the future.

The Vatican’s belligerence is deeply disappointing. Listening and learning, not ducking and dodging, can help protect children. People should ask themselves “who do I believe an impressive impartial panel of experts with an unblemished track record, or a handful of powerful complicit clerics with an extraordinarily blemished track record?”

Pope Francis should instruct prelates to call off attack dogs and study the full UN panel report and start taking tangible abuse prevention steps. This is the only way the church hierarchy will be able to start safeguarding children and restoring its justifiably tattered reputation.

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UNITED STATES
City of Angels

Kay Ebeling

(First installment of a book to be published here a chapter at a time. Please support this project by clicking the PayPal “Buy Now” button on the left with High $5’s. You are buying readership.)

Faster Than the Speed of Life Chapter 1: First Light

Elgin, Illinois May 2013
I walked all the way to the end of the train then, quick, turned around and walked back. That blew his cover. The guy following me kind of jumped, got a what the f— expression on his face, then recovered and nodded like a polite stranger as I walked past him. But for that brief moment of eye contact I knew, and he knew I knew.

I walked up the hill to my apartment and spent the day laughing in an isolated sense of victory.

See, I had a feeling that because of my blog, they’d put a device somewhere in my apartment that allowed them to read everything on my computer. So as a test, I journalled an elaborate plan involving a Chicago church and Father Horne. I tapped details about it on my keyboard knowing the spooks were reading every bit of it and freaking out, I even emailed myself the journal to “save it in the cloud,” and make sure they’d read it.

Then that Sunday morning at the Elgin Metra station, I blew their cover.

It felt good to out-trick them. “What, did they think I was going to do, throw eggs at a church?” .

Heh heh.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Friday 7 February 2014

The Salvation Army’s decision to allow a man with a history of abuse to re-enter its ranks was the worst mistake in its history, an inquiry has been told.

The Salvos had already dealt with many allegations of brutal sexual and physical abuse by Lawrence Wilson, a former manager of boys homes in NSW and Queensland, a hearing of the royal commission into child sex abuse heard in Sydney.

Major Peter Farthing, who is co-ordinating the Salvation Army’s response to the commission, said he expected more victims to come forward.

Answering questions about how Wilson, who was dismissed from the army in 1961, applied to re-enter in 1965, Farthing said it had never been policy to check references when hiring staff.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX AND RICK MORTON THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 08, 2014

AS a young man living in southern Sydney during 1974, Peter Farthing and his family would regularly welcome a boy from the nearby Salvation Army home to lunch on Sunday afternoons. They would share lunch and watch television together. “It was an experience for him to escape the home,” Farthing said.

It was only decades later, as personnel officer for the Salvation Army, that the now Major Farthing began to learn just how much that boy needed to escape.

Over the past fortnight, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard that boys at Bexley were raped and beaten until they bled under the sadistic rule of the home’s manager, Captain Lawrence Wilson.

Amid some of the most distressing evidence yet uncovered by the commission, experts believe the current crisis may be unprecedented in the international history of the Salvation Army. Many have also been surprised it is the Salvation Army, a widely trusted charitable organisation, that has been so exposed, rather than one of the established churches widely expected to be the focus of the commission’s work.

Evidence of brutally degrading treatment has been uncovered by the commission at four Salvation Army homes in Queensland and NSW.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Feb. 7, 2014 Faith and Justice

The U.N. committee report on the Vatican’s role in sexual abuse was a missed opportunity. It could have played an important role in improving the church’s handling of sexual abuse; instead, it was an editorial screed.

Any examination of the sexual abuse crisis needs to do three things: 1) Review the historical facts of sexual abuse and how it was handled by the church; 2) examine current policies and procedures and how they are being enforced; and 3) make recommendations for improvement.

The report by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of Children, like many other examinations of the crisis, skips the hard work of step two, which means the recommendations in step three are meaningless.

When it comes to the historical record, the church deserves to be raked over the coals. It went through at least three stages of responding to abusive priests, all of which proved to be disastrous.

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ROMA
El Espectador

El sacerdote mexicano Marcial Maciel, fundador de la congregación ultraconservadora Legionarios de Cristo, fue acusado por ocho exmiembros de esa comunidad de haber sido víctimas de abuso sexual cuando eran adolescentes en Italia y España. Entonces Maciel negó las acusaciones de pederastia diciendo que era un complot en su contra. En todos los estrados judiciales donde intentaron llevarlo, sus abogados aseguraron que esto no era cierto.

En medio del escándalo, en 2004, el papa Juan Pablo II le dio su bendición con motivo de su aniversario de ordenación sacerdotal. Según una investigación ordenada por el entonces prefecto de la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, Benedicto XVI, Maciel tenía una doble vida: tuvo al menos cuatro hijos, era pederasta y drogadicto. Incluso lo señalan de haber plagiado el libro “El salterio de mis días”, lectura de cabecera de los Legionarios. Hay excolaboradores que lo han acusado de haber envenenado a su tío abuelo. Pero no solo eso. Las denuncias por abusos llegaron al Vaticano pero el entonces papa Juan Pablo II, gran protector de Maciel, las ignoró y siguió apoyando a Maciel.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
El Nuevo Herald

BY POR NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS

CIUDAD DEL VATICANO — El Vaticano contraatacó al comité de Naciones Unidas que emitió un duro reporte sobre los casos de abuso sexual contra menores cometidos por sacerdotes, acusándolo de excederse en su mandato y desacreditar al organismo internacional.

Agregó que el comité ha adoptado posiciones “prejuiciadas” de grupos de apoyo anticatólicos y ha minimizado el estatus único de la Santa Sede y sus esfuerzos para atender la crisis desatada por los abusos sexuales en años recientes.

El Vaticano también criticó lo que llamó publicidad “absolutamente anómala” que el comité dio a su informe y prometió que más tarde dará una respuesta más extensa.

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Huffington Post

Editor’s note: The following is excerpted from “Can We Save The Catholic Church?” by Hans Küng. Reproduced by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.

The Arab Spring has shaken a whole series of autocratic regimes. With the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the election of Pope Francis, might something like this be possible in the Catholic Church as well – a ‘Vatican Spring’?

Of course, the system of the Roman Catholic Church is quite different from those prevailing in Tunisia and Egypt, to say nothing of the absolute monarchies like Saudi Arabia. In all these countries, the reforms that have taken place until now are often no more than minor concessions, and even these are often threatened by those who oppose any progressive reforms in the name of tradition. In Saudi Arabia, most of the traditions, in fact, are only two centuries old; the Catholic Church, by contrast, claims to rest on traditions that go back twenty centuries to Jesus Christ himself.

Is this claim true? In reality, throughout its first millennium, the Church got along quite well without the monarchist–absolutist papacy that we now take for granted. It was only in the eleventh century that a ‘revolution from above’, started by Pope Gregory VII and known as the ‘Gregorian Reform’, gave us the three outstanding features that mark the Roman System to this day:

• a centralist–absolutist papacy;
• clericalist juridicism; and,
• obligatory celibacy for the clergy.

Efforts to reform this system by the reforming councils in the fifteenth century, by the Protestant and Catholic reformers of the sixteenth century, by the supporters of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and, most recently, by the champions of a progressive liberal theology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, managed to achieve only partial success. Even the Second Vatican Council, from 1962 to 1965, while addressing many concerns of the reformers and modern critics, was effectively thwarted by the power of the papal Curia and managed to implement only a few of the demanded changes. To this day the Curia – in its current form a creature of the eleventh century – is the chief obstacle to any thorough-going reform of the Catholic Church, to any honest ecumenical reconciliation with the other Christian Churches and the world religions, and to any critical, constructive coming-to-terms with the modern world. To make things worse, supported by the Curia, under the previous two popes, there has been a fatal return to old absolutist attitudes and practices.

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VATICAN CITY
swissinfo

February 7, 2014

ROME (Reuters) – The Vatican sought to defuse tensions with the United Nations on Friday after a damning report which accused the church of covering up child sex abuse by priests.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi adopted a markedly softer tone to Wednesday’s sharp criticism of a report by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The paper accused the Church of valuing its reputation above the protection of children and demanded the Vatican turn over suspected offenders to civil justice.

The Vatican had originally planned a muted response, according to a person familiar with the matter, but attacked the report’s demands that the church scale back its opposition to abortion, artificial contraception and homosexuality.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican said it would continue to adhere to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and give an attentive response to the U.N. committee monitoring adherence to the treaty, despite what it views as unfair criticism and suggestions from the committee that would violate church teaching.

The Vatican will follow the procedures foreseen by the treaty “with openness to criticisms that are justified, but it will do so with courage and determination, without timidity,” said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman.

Father Lombardi issued a statement Feb. 7, two days after the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child insisted the Vatican was not doing enough to prevent clerical sexual abuse of children and even suggested that, for the good of children, the Catholic Church change its teaching on abortion, contraception and homosexuality.

Committee members went “beyond their competence and interfered in the doctrinal and moral positions of the Catholic Church,” the spokesman said, adding that the committee’s suggestions reveal an “ideological vision of sexuality.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

Former residents of Nazareth House Children’s Home in Derry will next week start giving evidence to a public inquiry probing allegations of abuse at kids’ care homes.

The Historical Abuse Inquiry, sitting in Banbridge, Co. Down, is investigating abuse claims against children’s residential institutions across the North between 1922 and 1995.

Among the homes under the spotlight are St Joseph’s Boys’ Home, Termonbacca, and Nazareth House Children’s Home, Bishop Street – both runs by the Sisters of Nazareth.

Hearings of the inquiry are to resume on Monday with the first oral testimony from former residents of the Bishop Street kids’ home.

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CANADA
Thompson Citizen

Federal government suing Corporation of Catholic Entities Party to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement for $1.5 million

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

BY JOHN BARKER
EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET

The federal government is suing the Corporation of Catholic Entities Party to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement, created in 2006 to oversee the undertakings of the group of 54 Catholic dioceses and religious congregations under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement, for $1.5 million in contested expenses on funds.

The Catholic entities had sought mediation over the disputed expenses, but the federal government opted to litigate the matter.

The Corporation of Catholic Entities Party to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement reached a $79-million agreement involving Canadian Catholic participation in residential schools almost a decade ago in an out-of-court settlement. The corporation was created in 2006 to oversee the undertakings of the group of 54 Catholic dioceses and religious congregations under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement, as there was no one central Catholic entity, unlike the Anglican, Presbyterian and United Churches, who are also parties to the agreement, to enter into negotiations or reach an agreement with.

The $79-million agreement involved three phases, including a $29-million first phase cash donation on the part of the entities to be provided for healing and reconciliation programs for those impacted by residential schools.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Rundschau

[Summary: Father Klaus Mertes, who revealed abuse at Canisius College, said there are legitimate criticisms in the United National report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church but he doesn’t believe in mandatory reporting to police. He said some victims groups are also against “automatism.”]

Als Rektor des Canisius-Kollegs hat Pater Klaus Mertes einst den sexuellen Missbrauch an der Schule enthüllt. Den aktuellen UN-Missbrauchsbericht hält er teilweise für naiv, trotzdem enthalte er berechtigte Kritik an der Kirche.

Klaus Mertes ist Jesuit und war elf Jahre lang Rektor an der Berliner Jesuitenschule Canisius-Kolleg. Er war maßgeblich für die Enthüllungen über den sexuellen Missbrauch am Kolleg verantwortlich und setzte sich für die Aufklärung ein. Derzeit leitet er das Kolleg St. Blasien.

Pater Mertes, gehen Sie mit der Kritik der UN an der katholischen Kirche konform?

Nicht jede Kritik ist sachlich und sachdienlich. Zum Beispiel kann ich nur den Kopf schütteln, wenn der UN-Bericht immer noch auf einer zwingenden Meldepflicht von Missbrauchsfällen an die staatliche Justiz herumreitet. Darüber sind wir in der Diskussion längst hinweg. Gerade die Opferschutzverbände warnen vor solch einem Automatismus.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Tagesspiegel

Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, der Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Fragen des sexuellen Kindesmissbrauchs, sieht Defizite bei Kirche und Staat.

Das UN-Kinderschutzkomitee hat ein hartes Urteil gefällt: Die katholische Kirche gehe mit den Missbrauchsfällen fahrlässig um, wolle sich der weltlichen Justiz entziehen und befördere sogar noch die Fortsetzung des Missbrauchs. Sind die Vorwürfe gerechtfertigt?

Die UN schauen auf die Kirche weltweit. Da kann ich mir kein Urteil bilden. In Deutschland hat die Kirche ernsthafte Anstrengungen unternommen, um die Fälle aufzuarbeiten. Aber es fehlt eine umfassende Aufarbeitung. Die Zusammenarbeit mit dem Kriminologen Christian Pfeiffer scheiterte vor einem Jahr.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

The film, starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, tells the true story of Philomena Lee’s search for the son she was forced to put up for adoption through the Seán Ross Abbey mother and baby home in 1952, when she was 19.

Ms Lee, who met Pope Francis on Wednesday, also attended the screening along with her daughter, Jane Libberton, and Coogan, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film.

Susan Lohan, co-founder of the Adoption Rights Alliance, who is also in Rome as part of the Philomena Project, said the Pope’s private secretary, Monsignor Guillermo Karcher, indicated that he did not view the film as anti-Catholic and would recommend it to Pope Francis.

Some critics in the US had hit out at the film as being “90 minutes of organised hate”.

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VATICAN CITY
Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey)

VATICAN CITY – Agence France-Presse

The Vatican on Friday criticised a damning UN report on the Catholic Church’s handling of child sex abuse cases, saying it had “grave limits” and accusing UN committee members of following “prejudiced” views.

“The recommendations published by the committee appear to present… grave limits,” spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement on Vatican Radio’s website, defending the efforts made to stamp out abuse.

“More attention was devoted to well-known non-governmental organisations that are prejudiced against the Catholic Church and the Holy See than to the positions of the Holy See,” Lombardi said.

“It makes one think the report was already written or already well advanced before the hearing” of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva in which delegates last month grilled a Vatican delegation.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Online

[On the manner of proceeding in cases of the crime of solicitation (1922) via BishopAccounability.org]

[Crimen Sollicitationis (1962) – via BishopAccountability.org]

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – For most people, why the Church would seemingly cover up the criminal behavior of abusive priests and clergy remains an enduring mystery – and a scandal! It simply makes no sense that the one institution on the planet, with the highest moral authority investment, would do so little to discipline those who abuse children.

For the past century, some priests have largely gone unpunished for their crimes against children, protected by which should be the world’s most trusted institution. Yet since the 1980s and 90s, case after case surfaced that demonstrated the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, meaning its bishops and archbishops, had knowledge of predatory priests, and instead of reporting those priests to the civil authorities, seemed to cover up the crimes and either fire the priests, shuffle them off to seclusion and treatment, or in the worst cases, sent them to other parishes where they continued to abuse children.

Please pray for the victims of abuse in the Church.

Only in rare cases, were the priests actually handed over and prosecuted by the civil authorities. Why was this so?

The answer apparently goes all the way back to Vatican City, and a special decree issued by Pope Pius XI in 1922. That decree reinforced 1,500 years of previous papal decrees upholding what is known as the “privilege of clergy.” The term “privilege” in legal parlance does not refer to special treatment but to a concept within the law of evidence.

Privilege of clergy is a church policy first establish in the fourth century. It holds that the clergy of the Church, when accused of crime, should be disciplined within the Church, rather than by civil institutions.The Church has a Code of Canon Law and a judicial process, including penalties, rules of evidence, and trials established within her – as a part of her internal government as a society in her own right.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- Dominican Republic’s Catholic bishops (CED) on Thursday admitted it modified their photo released to media January 21, which it affirms was taken around five years ago.

It said the photo was updated several times from various changes of the CDE during that period. “That will continue to do be done until we can take a new picture with the presence of all the bishops.”

The original photo had included former Vatican envoy Jozef Wesolowski, whisked out of the country by the Holy See once the scandal broke of his alleged sexual abuse of minors. His image was replaced with that of Santo Domingo auxiliary bishop Francisco José Arnáiz, who was hospitalized for treatment.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

GERARD HENDERSON THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 08, 2014

PEDOPHILIA is now regarded, in the West at least, as the vilest of crimes. So much so that most pedophiles are regarded as more evil than most murderers. Yet there appears to be a different approach to the perpetrators of such wrongdoing according to whether he (and it is invariably a male) is a believer or a secular type.

The message out of Geneva this week was one of absolute condemnation of the Catholic Church and its leadership in the Vatican. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child delivered a scathing rebuke concerning how the Holy See has handled allegations of sexual abuse by its priests and religious brothers over the years.

The UN panel even went to the extraordinary length of criticising the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion, contraception and homosexuality.

This is an improper intervention by the UN in an area outside its mandate. Membership of the Catholic Church is voluntary and no one is compelled to follow the teachings of the Pope. Moreover, unlike certain parts of the Islamic faith, there are no penalties for acts of apostasy by Catholics. Indeed, some of the church’s most vocal critics are former or disillusioned Catholics and they are not threatened by death or injury. Child abuse is a crime, obviously. Catholicism’s approach to abortion, contraception and homosexuality is a mere belief, which is shared by some other religions.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Philomena Lee, the woman who inspired Stephen Frears’ Oscar-nominated film “Philomena”, gave an interview at the end of a press conference in Rome yesterday. When Philomena became a teenage mother, she was sent to a convent and forced to give up her baby son when he was born.

IACOPO SCARAMUZZI
ROME

In a statement given after Wednesday’s General Audience in the Vatican, she said she felt “honoured” and “delighted” to have met Pope Francis. She said she no longer felt bitterness towards the Catholic Church: “After such a long time — Anthony would be 62 this year — so how could I go through a whole of life holding a grudge?” But she confessed that at the start of her ordeal she did feel hurt, sad and angry and added that yesterday’s brief encounter finally liberated her from an entire life of shame. Philomena Lee is an elderly Irish lady. Back in 1952, when she was still just a teenager, she got pregnant out of wedlock. She was sent to a convent as many other teenage mothers were at the time and when her son was born she was forced to give him up. The child was sent to the United States, where Philomena went to search for him 50 years later, accompanied by journalist Martin Sixsmith. Now her story has been made into a film directed by Stephen Frears. “Philomena” has been a box office smash hit and was nominated for an Oscar. The real Philomena told her story and spoke about her meeting with Pope Francis at a press conference held at Hotel Eden in Rome yesterday morning.

“It was a great honour to meet the Pope; he is a special person; he moved me,” Philomena Lee said. Answering journalists’ questions about the film, accompanied by Steve Coogan, the star, co-writer and producer of “Philomena”, Lee said her meeting with the Pope was “very brief”. “The Pope welcomed us and listed to us carefully,” she said.

What did you feel when you met the Pope?

“You were made to feel so bad about having a baby out of wedlock. I’ve carried the guilt inside for 50 years, without telling anybody. The only person who knew about it was my brother. When I met the Pope yesterday I finally felt liberated, I no longer had to feel guilty. I hope and I believe that Pope Francis will stand beside me in my fight to help thousands of mothers and children shed light on the truth regarding their own stories.”

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ROME
Vatican Insider

The General Chapter has elected Eduardo Robles Gil as its new general director. “We are grieved that many victims and other affected persons have waited so long in vain for an apology and an act of reconciliation on the part of Fr. Maciel. Today, we would like to issue that apology”

GIACOMO GALEAZZI
VATICAN CITY

It’s white smoke for the Legion. Fr. Eduardo Robles Gil was has been elected general director of the Legion of Christ, the religious order which the Holy See placed under the administration of an external commissioner following the sex abuse scandals involving its founder Marcial Maciel Degollado.

The Legion held an Extraordinary General Chapter in Rome, chaired by pontifical representative Velasio De Paolis, electing Gil and all other members of the Legion’s central government.

The official communiqué states that “since the Chapter is the highest internal authority that represents the whole Congregation, it seems necessary for us to take a stance regarding the significant events that have occurred in the past nine years.” “With this, we want to define conclusively the posture of our Congregation with respect to the behavior of Fr. Marcial Maciel and his role as founder, in continuity with the decisions of the Holy See and the previous declaration of all the major superiors of the Legion of Christ.”

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UNITED STATES
National Secular Society (UK)

Posted: Fri, 07 Feb 2014 11:08 by David Clohessy

After hearing the UN’s scathing attack on its child abuse record, the Vatican’s counter-attack against its critics is a familiar tactic, argues David Clohessy

Inadvertently, by their comments over the past day, Vatican officials are essentially proving what a UN panel has concluded: that the Catholic hierarchy is not reforming its handling of clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

For decades, when abuse and cover up reports surface, many church officials “shoot the messenger” and divert attention. Vatican staffers are doing that now.

One of them, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, attacks the motives of 21 independent children’s experts who volunteer to serve on a respected United Nations panel, calling them “ideological” and implying they are deceitful (The report, he claims, “appears to have been written before (Vatican) representatives even had a chance to tell their side of the story…”

He also says that “the report in some ways is not up to date” even though the panel met with Vatican officials just last month (and spent hours quizzing both abuse victims and Vatican staffers).

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) The Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, has issued a Note to Vatican Radio (of which he is Director-General) regarding the United Nations, the Holy See, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child, in the wake of the Committee’s Concluding Observations on the reviewed Reports of the Holy See (and five member states that are also parties to the convention).

Fr. Lombardi SJ writes, “It is impossible not to see that the final recommendations of the Committee appear to present – according to the judgment of those, who followed closely the process that preceded them – serious limits,” noting in particular the Observations’ conspicuous lack of understanding of the specific nature of the Holy See – a lack he describes as, “particularly grave.”

The most serious issue with the Observations is found in the Committee’s apparent overstepping of its own purview. “The observations of the Committee,” writes Fr. Lombardi, “seem to go beyond its competencies, and to interfere in the very doctrinal and moral positions of the Catholic Church,” specifically regarding abortion, contraception, family education and other related areas.

Fr. Lombardi SJ stresses that, while the Holy See has been subjected to “unjustly harmful” media attention, it is also true and at least equally important to recognize that the Committee itself has received “serious and well-founded” criticism. He goes on to underline that, while the United Nations organization as such is not responsible for the shortcomings of the Committee, public opinion has assigned the organization the brunt of negative fallout from the Committee’s conduct.

The three-page Note also reviews in detail the Holy See’s history of support for the work of the United Nations, as well as the history of the Holy See’s adherence to and participation in the Convention on the Right s of the Child (the Holy See was one of the earliest adherents to the Convention).

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ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires Herald

Nice of Pope Francis to pay tribute to the dead firefighters of Barracas but how much substance lies beneath this gesture and many others since the Buenos Aires archbishop became head of the Catholic Church almost a year ago? Not very much, according to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, which has slammed the Vatican’s inaction over cracking down on pederasts. Nor is the UN committee being unduly impatient — it took Pope Francis fully nine months even to announce the creation of a commission to study sex abuse within the Church (a classic delaying tactic in itself, at least according to Juan Domingo Perón, who famously said: “If you want something to fail, create a commission for it”) with precious little advance since then. The gestures in which the Argentine Jesuit so excels are all which can reasonably be expected in the honeymoon period of any leader but with his first anniversary as pontiff rapidly approaching, Pope Francis should be moving past this stage by now.

Most of the UN committee’s demands can be summed up as placing children first — the core of its mission. This is precisely what the Church fails to do when it refuses to end impunity and the code of silence protecting perpetrators, transferring offenders rather than probing or punishing them in any way — nor has the training of priests been updated to counter abuse since the issue came to light. It is also curious that such a highly centralized institution as the Catholic Church (surely its most salient distinguishing feature when compared with the multiplicity of Protestant denominations and sects) should disclaim any control over its dioceses and parishes around the world — an unsatisfactory response. Even now (since 2010) the Vatican will not go beyond ordering bishops to report abuses when required by law enforcement authorities — there is nothing towards the Church uncovering and reporting these crimes on its own initiative. In the law of the Pope’s native country, covering up a felony is also a crime in itself normally punished by imprisonment of up to 15 years in the most serious cases or at least a fine for minor offences. And yet the Church has no provisions for prosecuting or punishing members of its hierarchy who protect predatory priests.

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UNITED STATES
The Pilot

Sister Mary Ann Walsh

Sexual abuse of a minor is a sin and a crime and no organization can become complacent about addressing it. The Catholic Church has certainly done more than any other international organization to face the problem and it will continue to lead in doing so.

In the United States, the number of cases of sexual abuse of minors by clergy has plummeted. This is in no small part due to the fact that millions of Catholic children have been instructed on safe environments and tens of thousands of adults who work with them in the Church have gone through background checks and safe environment education. In 2012, for example, dioceses and religious institutes conducted background checks on 99 percent of clerics, 97 percent of educators, 95 percent of employees, and 96 percent of volunteers. Every diocese has a victim assistance coordinator who assists those who have been abused and a safe environment coordinator who works to prevent abuse from occurring again.

The Vatican also has shown resolve in addressing the issue. Pope John Paul II changed the age of maturity in Church law so more abuse cases could be prosecuted. Pope Benedict called on every bishops’conference in the world to develop policies. Pope Francis recently announced a commission to strengthen the Church’s handling of sexual abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, February 7 – This week’s report by the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child shows “grave limits” in a misunderstanding “of the specific nature of the Holy See”, Spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said Friday, accusing the committee of prejudice while insisting relations with the UN as a whole were still sound. On Wednesday the Committee issued a wide-ranging report that excoriated the Vatican for adopting policies that it said allowed sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children by clergymen and demanded immediate action. Lombardi said the Vatican was entitled to be “baffled” by the Geneva-based committee’s failure to understand the makeup of the Church, not just as a religious institution but as a juridical entity. Critics of the report argue it asks too much of the Holy See, which despite being the central government of the international Church is nevertheless incapable of directly overseeing every local parish that caters to the world’s more than one billion Catholics. For instance, it would be impossible, critics add, to track spending on children in Catholic institutions worldwide, or to create an international monitoring body to be made accessible to all children in all the Church’s hundreds of thousands of educational institutions, as the report urges it to do.

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VATICAN CITY
Bloombrg Businessweek

By Andrew Frye
February 07, 2014

The Vatican said it was treated unfairly in a child-sex abuse report issued this week by a United Nations panel, while reiterating it will continue to cooperate with the committee for the protection of minors.

“It is typical, in fact, that these organizations don’t want to recognize how much has been done by the Holy See and the Church in recent years in recognizing errors, renewing laws and developing educational and preventative measures,” Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s spokesman, said today in a statement. The Holy See “will continue in its commitment to implement the convention and maintain an open and constructive dialogue.”

The Feb. 5 report, published by the Geneva-based UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, accused the Vatican of enabling sex offenders and protecting its reputation rather than victims, which it said numbered in the tens of thousands. The findings also said children entrusted to the Catholic Church’s care were endangered by beatings, sexuality-based discrimination and a culture that stigmatized reproductive education and health.

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VATICAN CITY
Kansas.com

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press
Published Friday, Feb. 7, 2014

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican struck back Friday at a U.N. human rights committee that issued a scathing report on sex abuse by priests, accusing it of straying beyond its mandate and discrediting the U.N. as a whole by adopting the “prejudiced” positions of anti-Catholic advocacy groups.

The Vatican said the U.N. committee had ignored both the Holy See’s unique status and its efforts to address the abuse crisis in recent years, noting that it had provided this information to the committee in writing and in person. It blasted what it called the “absolutely anomalous” publicity the committee gave its report and promised a full response at a later date.

The Geneva-based committee on Wednesday accused the Vatican of systematically placing its own interests over those of victims by enabling priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children through its own policies and code of silence.

It recommended the Vatican immediately remove any priest suspected or known to have abused children, open its archives on abusers and the bishops who covered up for them, and turn the cases over to law enforcement.

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ALABAMA
WAFF

[with video]

By Diana Crawford

MUSCLE SHOALS, AL (WAFF) –
The entire Highland Park Baptist Church Congregation is struggling to cope with the news about Children’s Pastor Jeffrey Eddie who was charged with multiple counts of sodomy and sex abuse involving children.

Dr. Drew Jamieson, a licensed marriage and family therapist, said if you attend Highland Park Baptist Church it’s vital you find out if your child is a victim of the alleged sexual abuse.

Many kids are afraid or embarrassed to come forward with that information. They think they have done something wrong and fear they will get in trouble.

Dr. Jamieson said parents first need to sit down with their children and ask them questions. Find out what they have heard about the situation, how it makes them feel, and if there was ever a time that something comfortable or inappropriate happened.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes&Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Galileo. Copernicus. Burning Joan of Arc and witches. For 20 centuries the Vatican has been rendering – papal erratic and tyrannical – judgements on men, women and countries. But today that Catholic Tradition was kaput as a secular committee of the United Nations rendered judgement and condemned the Vatican for its hidden bestial sexual crimes against children. According to the UN findings, in the latter-half of the 20th century, “the Holy See adopted policies and practices that led to continued abuse by, and no punishment for, the perpetrators” – priests sexual abusers – against “tens of thousands of children…for decades”! The UN today proves that the 21st century planet is no longer at the mercy of the religious narcissistic Pope’s ostensible dogmatic authority and his fictitious Merlin sorcery of the Eucharist where he and priests cannot clone an ant or a cat and therefore they cannot clone Jesus’ flesh-and-blood either.

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CANADA
Canada.com

BY MARK KENNEDY, POSTMEDIA NEWS FEBRUARY 6, 2014

OTTAWA — The federal government appears to be dragging its feet on a court-ordered obligation to provide millions of documents from Library and Archives Canada to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that is examining the residential schools scandal.

The records are needed by the commission to learn the truth of the decades-long saga, such as piecing together the role played by the federal government — including former cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats.

Between the 1870s and 1996, about 150,000 aboriginal children were pulled from their homes by the federal government and sent to the church-run schools, where many suffered physical and sexual abuse and at least 4,000 died.

Postmedia News has learned that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government, a full year after being ordered by a court to produce the records to the commission, hasn’t even issued a request for proposal (RFP) for outside firms to bid on a contract to sort through the documents at federal archives so they can be passed along.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Salvation Army has confessed that ‘evil people’ perpertrated sex abuse in its homes because of poor regulation and appalling ignorance of the psychological needs of children.

Major Peter Farthing told a hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Friday that homes in the 1960s and ’70s would have lacked written policies and were often run by poorly trained managers.

Over two weeks the commission has heard of horrendous physical and sexual abuse in four homes – the Endeavour Training Farm at Riverview and the Alkira Home for Boys at Indooroopilly, both in Queensland; and in NSW the Bexley home in south Sydney and Gill Memorial Home, Goulburn.

Mr Farthing who is co-ordinating the Salvation Army’s response to the royal commission also said ‘some perpetrators were plain evil people … and the worst offenders were the worst liars’, who were believed over children, employees or lesser ranking officers.

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ROM
SAZ

Sexueller Missbrauch gegen Minderjährige: Legionäre Christi sagen Sorry! “Mehrere Kinder gezeugt”

Die Legionäre Christi verfügen vor allem in Mexiko und Spanien über erheblichen Einfluss. Jetzt rückt Gründer Marcial Maciel in die Schlagzeilen.

Der ultrakonservative Orden Legionäre Christi hat sich in deutlichen Worten für den sexuellen Missbrauch durch ihren verstorbenen Gründer Marcial Maciel entschuldigt. «Wir wollen unser Bedauern über den Missbrauch minderjähriger Seminaristen und die unmoralischen Taten mit erwachsenen Männern und Frauen ausdrücken», hieß es in einer am Donnerstag veröffentlichten Stellungnahme. «Wir verurteilen dies aufs Schärfste.»

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CALIFORNIA
Modesto Bee

BY SUE NOWICKI
snowicki@modbee.com
February 6, 2014

STOCKTON — In an update on its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, Bishop Stephen Blaire on Tuesday evening released a report saying Nevada bankruptcy Judge Gregg W. Zive has been appointed to act as a mediator between the Stockton Diocese and its major creditors.

Last week, diocesan attorneys filed a schedule of assets and liabilities. Assets totaled $7.2 million, which included real estate estimated at $2 million, and liabilities totaled $11.9 million. That did not include any costs from claims of pending lawsuits alleging clergy abuse.

The diocese also has put all documents relating to the Chapter 11 filing online on their bankruptcy attorney’s website. They can be found at www.ffwplaw.com. Click on “cases” in the left margin; log in with the user email cases@ffwplaw.com and the password “password.” Then click on the link for the Roman Catholic Bishop of Stockton and select the files and documents you want to see.

Those documents show, among other things, the diocese’s top 20 creditors. They include the pastors of several parishes and individuals who helped purchase the diocesan property in downtown Stockton and unknown damages in four pending lawsuits, two by southern California attorney John Manly and two by Sacramento attorney Joseph George.

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UNITED STATES
RH Reality Check

by Angela Bonavoglia
February 6, 2014

In a scathing report released Wednesday on the Holy See’s adherence to the principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, an aggressive United Nations committee knocked the Holy See off the high ground.

Stunning in its frankness and scope, the report began with the unequivocal rejection of the Holy See’s specious claim that while the Vatican City has a hallowed place in the international community (for example, as a non-member permanent observer at the UN), it is utterly impotent over the workings of the millions of institutions worldwide operating in the Catholic Church’s name.

Recognizing that subordinates of Catholic religious orders are, by canon law, “bound by obedience to the Pope,” the committee rejected the Holy See’s claim of impotence. By ratifying the convention, the committee contended, the Holy See committed itself to implementing the convention “not only on the territory of the Vatican City State but also as the supreme power of the Catholic Church through individuals and institutions placed under its authority.”

The report left no doubt about the committee’s lack of faith in the Holy See’s efforts so far to come to terms with the decades-long epidemic of child sex abuse by Catholic clerics worldwide. “The Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators,” wrote the committee.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Wall Street Journal

By NICHOLAS G. HAHN III
Feb. 6, 2014

The biting winter in Chicago has been especially cold for the Catholic Church, with the revelation on Jan. 21 of embarrassing church documents describing how the archdiocese handled claims of sexual abuse. Yet a fresh chapter in the archdiocese’s history is waiting to begin as Pope Francis considers who will replace Cardinal Francis George —the current archbishop has been due to retire for more than two years.

The pope’s choice will likely signal how he intends to steer the Catholic Church in America. “I think this is going to be the most important decision by Pope Francis for the U.S. church,” Massimo Faggioli, an assistant professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, told the Associated Press last week.

Mr. Faggioli might be right. Chicago is regarded by many Catholics as America’s premier archdiocese. Its bishops become leaders of the church in the U.S., either in name or through influence. Cardinal Francis George, who has held that position since 1998 and is the former president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (2007-10), has become an intellectual hero for conservatives. One of his most prominent messages has been to decry the mounting dangers to religious freedom in the West. Liberals have often found him wanting, and fondly recall his predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, as an example of the sort of new leader in Chicago that Pope Francis should select. As so often happens with those trying to interpret Pope Francis, on the left and the right, they see in him a reflection of their own hopes.

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DEUTSCHLAND
RP

[Summary: Jesuit Father Klaus Mertes criticized the UN on handling of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. He said he could only shake his head when the UN experts spoke of a mandatory duty to report cases of abuse to state authorities. He said the UN included in the report other issues that were “thrown into the pot.” He added that the report did contain much legitimate criticism.]

Köln. Jesuitenpater Klaus Mertes hat den UN-Bericht zum Umgang der katholischen Kirche mit sexuellem Missbrauch von Kindern scharf kritisiert. Er könne “nur den Kopf schütteln”, wenn die Experten des UN-Kinderrechtskomitees UNCRC von einer zwingenden Meldepflicht von Missbrauchsfällen an die staatlichen Behörden redeten.

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VATIKAN
Radio Vatikan

[Fr Hans Zollner: The Church is committed to safeguarding children]

Als zusätzlichen „Ansporn“ für die Arbeit des Heiligen Stuhles im Bereich Kinderschutz wertet der Vizerektor der Päpstlichen Universität Gregoriana die Empfehlungen des UN-Kinderrechtskomitees (UNCRC). Das Expertengremium ist in seinem Bericht am Mittwoch mit dem Heiligen Stuhl hart ins Gericht gegangen und hat ihm Mängel im Bereich des Kinderschutzes vorgeworfen. Es war das erste Mal, dass sich der Heilige Stuhl der turnusmäßigen Evaluierung durch das UNCRC stellte. Das wurde auch höchste Zeit, hält Jesuitenpater Hans Zollner im Interview mit Radio Vatikan zunächst fest. Zollner ist mit dem Zentrum für Kinderschutz der Gregoriana, das die päpstliche Uni in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Erzbistum München und Freising und der Klinik für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie der Uni Ulm auf die Beine stellte, seit Jahren in der Präventionsarbeit der katholischen Weltkirche aktiv.

„Ich habe den Eindruck, dass sich der Heilige Stuhl keinen Gefallen damit getan hat, dass er vierzehn Jahre lang nicht die entsprechenden Berichte, die eingefordert wurden, lieferte und sich erst jetzt entschlossen hat, nach Genf zu gehen, um sich dem zu erwartenden Fegefeuer auszusetzen. Das war für die Leute – ich habe mit jemandem gesprochen, der dort präsent war – höchst schwierig und unangenehm. Natürlich mussten da die Vertreter des Heiligen Stuhls alles auf sich nehmen, was sich an Wut, Enttäuschung und auch berechtigtem Ärger über sie ergoss.“

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POLENS
Bote

[Summary: The Polish section of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights said on Thursday it is bringing suit against the Catholic Church as an institution-as-a-whole. A man, who alleged he was abused by a priest, chose civil action after the church rejected a claim for compensation in October. The priest in question was sentenced in 2012 to two years in prison.]

Warschau. – Wie die polnische Sektion der Helsinki-Stiftung für Menschenrechte am Donnerstag mitteilte, verklagt er darüber hinaus auch die katholische Kirche als Institution insgesamt – eine Premiere, wie Adam Bondar von der Helsinki-Stiftung mitteilte.

Der Kläger entschied sich zu der Zivilklage auf Zahlung eines Schmerzensgeldes in Höhe von 200’000 Zloty (fast 58’200 Franken), nachdem die Kirche im vergangenen Oktober einen direkten Anspruch auf Entschädigung zurückwies. Der betreffende Priester war 2012 zu zwei Jahren Haft verurteilt worden.

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VATIKAN
Radio Vatikan

[Summary: The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has commenced an investigation against Chilean Bishop Cristian Contreras regarding allegations of sexual abuse. The bishop himself asked the Vatican to investigate after the allegations were raised. The bishop described the allegations as baseless. The Chilean news portal CIPER reported that in January two priests from Mexico went to Chile to investigate.]

Die Glaubenskongregation hat ein Ermittlungsverfahren gegen den chilenischen Bischof Cristian Contreras eingeleitet. Die vatikanische Behörde überprüft die Anschuldigung des sexuellen Missbrauchs. Der Bischof habe selber beim Vatikan um Ermittlungen gebeten, nachdem Vorwürfe gegen ihn erhoben wurden. Das teilte Bischof Contreras in einer Erklärung seines Bistums San Felipe mit. Der Bischof bezeichnete die Anschuldigungen als haltlos. Zuvor hatte das chilenische Nachrichtenportal CIPER berichtet, im Januar hätten zwei Geistliche aus Mexiko auf Bitten der Glaubenskongregation Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen Contreras und andere hochrangige Kirchenvertreter vor Ort untersucht.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

[Summary: On the day after the UN children’s right committee criticized the Vatican for its handling of child sexual abuse cases, the issue is a hotly debated topic. Prominent Germany Catholics rejected the criticism there was a faint “mea culpa” from Rome.]

Auch am Tag nach den Vorwürfen des UN-Kinderrechtskomitees an der Missbrauchsaufarbeitung des Heiligen Stuhls – und der Kritik des Vatikan an der UN – wird das Thema heiß diskutiert. Während am Donnerstag Prominente deutsche Katholiken die Kritik der UN zurückwiesen, lässt auch der Vatikan den Vorwurf der Untätigkeit nicht unwidersprochen stehen. Es gab aber auch ein leises “mea culpa” aus Rom.

Aus Deutschland meldete sich Alois Glück, der Präsident des Zentralkomitees der deutschen Katholiken (ZdK), zu Wort und sprach von einer konsequenten Kursänderung der Kirche. Allein Papst Benedikt XVI. habe in zwei Jahren knapp an die 400 Priester wegen Missbrauchs aus dem Amt entlassen. In Deutschland und in einer Reihe anderer Länder habe man “ganz klar Konsequenzen gezogen aus dem Fehlverhalten der Vergangenheit”, so Glück im Deutschlandfunk. Bezogen auf die Vergangenheit, seien die Vorwürfe des UN-Komitees “nicht völlig unberechtigt”, räumte er ein. Und: Bei einzelnen nationalen Bischöfskonferenzen gebe es noch ein Ringen um den richtigen Kurs, etwa in Polen , wo der Schutz der Institution Kirche teils noch höher gewichtet werde.

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ALABAMA
WAFF

By Diana Crawford

HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) –
The case of child sexual abuse at a Muscle Shoals church is certainly not the first incident to happen in North Alabama or across the country. There is an entire network of professionals who aim to help victims of child sexual abuse called The Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests.

Barbara Dorris, our area’s director of the organization said child abuse in churches is a problem that’s been happening for a very long time in all different denominations.

In fact, the group has a website called Stop Baptist Predators that focuses specifically on child sex abuse within the Baptist Church. One expert said child abuse in churches is nothing new and happens a lot more than we realize, but we are starting to hear about it more because the victims are beginning to feel safer in reporting these crimes.

In the past it was even more difficult for the victims to come forward in a church situation because the predator is a trusted member of the clergy, and the church would often ignore the problem or simply re-locate the pastor in question while doing nothing for the victim.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Fri, Feb 7, 2014

The Irish Catholic Church’s child-protection watchdog has welcomed this week’s UN Committee on the Rights of the Child report on the Vatican’s handling of clerical child sexual abuse.

In particular, the Maynooth-based National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) welcomed the recommendations on eliminating corporal punishment where children are concerned, and it calls for an internal church inquiry into the religious who ran the Magdalene laundries and to pay compensation to the women in them.

Observations

Last night the board said that “as an organisation we are pleased that a significant number of observations and recommendations [in the UN report] relating to child abuse in the Catholic Church are already in place due to the work of the NBSCCCI and the church.

“To cite a few examples; clear procedures are now in place for reporting to the civil authorities and children’s rights awareness training has been taking place.

“We believe that we have come a long way in recognising the rights of children to protection, but we are acutely conscious that there is no room for complacency.”

It welcomed the UN recommendation that the Vatican “establish a mechanism at a high level with the mandate and capacity to co-ordinate the implementation of children’s rights across all pontifical councils, episcopal conferences” as well as all “that functions under the authority of the Holy See”.

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ROME
LifeSite News

BY HILARY WHITE, ROME CORRESPONDENT
Thu Feb 06, 2014

ROME, February 6, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Italian Catholic commentators have blasted the February 5 report from the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child that demanded the Catholic Church change or ignore its teachings on human sexuality and abortion. Writing in the Catholic opinion daily La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, religion expert and sociologist Massimo Introvigne blasted the Committee for issuing “indiscriminate accusations” based on “statistical folklore” from outdated and biased sources.

The report on the Vatican City State’s compliance to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Introvigne wrote, “is evidence of how the tragedy of pedophile priests is used as an excuse and a cudgel to attack the Catholic Church.” It enjoins the Church “‘urgently’ to change its doctrine on homosexuality, abortion and contraception, and to rely upon ‘politically correct’ expert committees even for the interpretation of Sacred Scripture,” he said today.

In the name of protecting children from sexual abuse, the report demands that the Church drop its anthropological understanding of the complementarity of the sexes and its teaching on sexual purity. It “invited” the Church to “review Canon Law” to see what circumstances would “allow” abortion, contraception and the kind of radical “sex education” that normalizes homosexuality.

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ALABAMA
WHNT

by Josh Voight

MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. (WHNT) – The defense attorney for a children’s minister charged with sexual abuse filed a motion to have his clients bond lowered Thursday.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Jeffery Dale Eddie, Highland Park Baptist Church children’s minister, was arrested and charged with two counts of child pornography, 31 counts of second-degree sodomy and three counts of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12.

Eddie’s attorney asked the court to lower his bond from $1,030,000. A judge has not made a ruling on that motion. Eddie’s attorney also asked that the case be dismissed. A judge threw out that motion.
His defense also filed a motion requesting to have the court find Eddie a new attorneym citing a lack of funds.

Court documents, released Wednesday morning, state that while being questioned on Sunday afternoon, Eddie “confessed to performing oral sex and other acts on several of the minor members of his church, numerous times.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 07, 2014

REVELATIONS of widespread and brutal child sexual abuse at Salvation Army-run homes across Australia have brought “a great deal of disgrace and shame” to the church organisation, one of its senior officers says.

Giving evidence this morning to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Major Peter Farthing said the army had not yet formally investigated how this abuse was able to take place.

Children in four Salvation Army-run boys’ homes in NSW and Queensland were beaten until they bled, locked in a cage and raped by staff, the commission has heard, as well as being sent to other adults’ homes to be abused.

“This hearing, I think it’s brought a great deal of disgrace and shame to the Salvation Army, which is felt by all our people,” said Major Farthing, who, as the organisation’s former personnel officer, dealt with many of these allegations of abuse.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

The Maltese bishops have refused to give their views on the conclusions of a UN report about the way the Vatican handled clerical sexual abuse cases.

Archbishop Paul Cremona and Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna both refused to comment, saying the Vatican had already said the observations will be subjected to a “thorough study and examination”.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child demanded that the Vatican turns in known or suspected paedophile priests to the law enforcement authorities of their respective countries.

Its report also asked the Holy See to hand over all the documents it possessed on sexual abuse on “tens of thousands” of children so the culprits and those who concealed the crimes are held accountable.

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ALABAMA
WAFF

[with video]

By Marie Waxel

MUSCLE SHOALS, AL (WAFF) –
The attorney for a children’s pastor accused of sexual abuse filed several motions at a hearing Thursday, including a motion to dismiss, which a judge struck down.

Jeffrey Eddie faces a list of charges including sodomy, child sexual abuse, and child porn. He was the administrator and children’s pastor at Highland Park Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals.

The attorney then filed a motion to lower Eddie’s bond, as well as a motion for the court to appoint an indigent attorney to represent Eddie further, stating his client has no money with which to keep his current representation. These motions are still pending.

According to court documents filed in this case, a church employee first witnessed Eddie involved in suspicious behavior Jan. 22. That person didn’t notify church leaders until five days later on Jan. 27. The documents then say on Jan. 29, church leaders approached Eddie about the allegations and asked to review his church-issued electronics. On Feb. 1, church leaders reported finding pornographic material, which was when police were called.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Times

By Wesley Pruden-The Washington Times
Thursday, February 6, 2014

The Vatican asked for it, with its stalling on what to do about pedophile priests, and putting off what the pope and his bishops know is inevitable. But neither the Roman Catholic Church nor, God knows, the United Nations, comes into the court of public opinion with what the lawyers call, with no intended irony, “clean hands.”

There’s little the Vatican can say about the scandal of its priests except to say it’s sorry, and the Roman church has done that. More than that, the Vatican has taken some steps to make sure that scandal will be resolved and certain amends made. But there’s a lot more to do, as the Vatican concedes.

The U.N.’s Committee on the Rights of the Child, based in Geneva, scorches the Vatican for its transfers of errant — and in many cases, criminal — priests from one parish to another, in some cases giving a predator a virgin field for exploiting rapacious lust.

If Pope Francis wants a few pointers on how to resolve this scandal permanently, I could offer the obvious tips. If priests must suppress the most compelling of natural human instincts, Rome will continue to recruit a large number of undesirables, men who are constitutionally unable to live up to the teachings of the church, no matter how hard they try.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti

Police were receiving fresh allegations against a Salvation Army officer right up until his death, the royal commission into child sexual abuse has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining allegations of sexual abuse at four Salvation Army boys homes between the 1950s and the 1970s

Homes at Bexley in Sydney’s south, Goulburn in southern New South Wales, Indooroopilly in Brisbane and Riverview on the outskirts of Ipswich and are a key focus.

Detective Inspector Paul Jacob from the NSW Sex Crimes Squad has told the commission he received a letter from Salvation Army Major Peter Farthing in June 2008, detailing fresh allegations against another officer.

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AUSTRALIA
Goulburn Post

By LOUISE THROWER Feb. 7, 2014

A SALVATION Army officer described as “the most prolific of alleged child sexual abusers” was dismissed from the organisation but re-accepted four years later.

In the interim, Captain Lawrence Wilson served as a government child welfare officer, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard.

When finally brought to trial in 1997 for alleged sexual abuse of two boys at the Salvation Army’s Bexley Boys Home, he was acquitted of all charges.

Sixteen former residents of Gill Memorial Boys Home, Bexley, Indooroopilly and Riverview institutions have alleged at the Commission that Wilson sexually abused them.

The Army’s Major Farthing has described Wilson as the Eastern Territory’s “most serious offender.”

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

Source AAP

The voices of the outraged are getting louder.

The UN has added its call to the chorus from inquiries across the globe demanding the Catholic Church come clean about sex predators in its ranks.

Above the din, or ironically maybe because of the din, you can hear for the first time the voices of people who stayed hidden because they felt the shame and confusion of the oppressed.

As children they were given into the care of adults who ran homes for charitable institutions like the Salvation Army or the churches. Once in these homes they were often met not with benevolence but with real cruelty and a relentless undermining of their own worth.

This arrangement happened because governments across the world, including in Australia, never provided enough cash to take care of children in need and were glad when the good people of organisations like the Salvation Army came forward to help.

Governments have always provided a “poor service for poor children” said former Queensland senior public servant Janice Doyle when she was asked by Justice Peter McClellan, chair of the royal commission into child sexual abuse, to ponder why abuse in homes was widespread.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness have come under fresh pressure to set up a clerical abuse inquiry after a scathing UN report was released.

It accused the Vatican of systematically turning a blind eye to decades of sexual assaults on youngsters by priests and demanded the Holy See hands over known or suspected offenders.

The report by the UN Committee On The Rights Of The Child said Catholic officials imposed a “code of silence” on clerics and moved abusers between parishes “in a bid to cover up crimes”.

It said the Vatican must release an archive of evidence about attacks of tens of thousands of kids and take measures to prevent a repeat of scandals such as the Magdalene Laundries, where girls had to work in Church-run institutions.

The study has sparked a renewed appeal for the First Ministers to set up a clerical abuse investigation in Northern Ireland. Hundreds of victims have been left out of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry which is examining sexual, physical and emotional assaults suffered by children in homes here between 1922 and 1995.

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UNITED STATES
Ledger-Enquirer

Did the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child presume to be speaking for the people of every member nation when it delved into matters of Catholic Church doctrine? If so, the UN just took another big step toward irrelevance — a status its harshest critics think it achieved long ago.

That’s a shame in this case, because the UN report on the specific issue of child sexual abuse within the church, and on the Catholic hierarchy’s response (or lack of it), has some real moral authority.

“Child victims and their families have often been blamed by religious authorities,” the UN panel wrote, “discredited and discouraged from pursuing their complaints and in some cases humiliated … Well-known sexual abusers have been transferred from parish to parish or to other countries in an attempt to cover up such crimes, a practice documented by numerous national commissions of inquiry.” The report documented “a code of silence imposed on all members of the clergy under penalty of excommunication.”

Make no mistake: The church — as many genuinely outraged priests and other Catholic officials openly attest — richly deserves universal censure for its protect-our-own response to child rape and molestation within its ranks. It’s especially vulnerable to such censure given the fact that the Catholic Church, like every other faith institution, regularly weighs in with public pronouncements on humanity’s moral issues.

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CALIFORNIA
Santa Barbara Independent

Caring Enough to Care: Clergy Sexual Abuse and the Healing Process

Wednesday, February 5, 2014
by PAUL FERICANO

“Up until now there has been so much focus on the judicial parts of [clergy abuse], but the pastoral response of the church is very, very important. And the Holy Father is concerned about that.” —Cardinal Sean O’Malley. OFM Cap., Archbishop of Boston, December 5, 2013

The words “pastoral response” conjure up an almost idyllic sense of spiritual nurturing by those in the church who seek to make good. But the term has become a confusing buzz phrase in the lexicon of church jargon. When applied to survivors of clergy sexual abuse, “pastoral response” often represents a formless, catch-all ministry aimed at assisting those whom the clergy has harmed but with no clear idea on how to do it effectively. I don’t doubt the good intentions behind such labors. In fact, this kind of outreach by the church is absolutely essential to the healing process. What I do question is the resolve and commitment of these efforts when there’s scarcely any consistency in how the work is conducted and how survivors are being served. The roots of pastoral response should stem from a passion for ministry like no other vocation the church has experienced. But how can the clergy answer this call and what does pastoral response look like?

This calling to assist survivors is not a very comfortable place for the clergy to be in. It puts survivors in an awkward position as well. A great deal of misunderstanding is fueled by fear on both sides. We read a lot in the media about survivors who claim they want nothing to do with the church. That’s understandable. But it’s hardly the whole story. The vast majority of survivors I know and work with don’t want the church to forget them. Many, from those who choose to say nothing to those who never stop talking, want the church to accept responsibility and behave in ways that indicate Jesus isn’t just some guy who hangs out on a cross. Survivors expect church leaders to practice compassion not preach it. They believe the church should never stop reaching out to survivors even when it appears they don’t want them to. That’s the tricky part. It’s where the push of pastoral response meets the pull of survivor needs.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Public Radio

By RACHEL LIPPMANN

Latest development, Feb 5, 2014:

Missouri’s Supreme Court has ordered the Archdiocese of St. Louis to give the names of priests and other church employees credibly abused of sexually abusing minors to a plaintiff in a lawsuit.

Shortly after the court’s two-line order yesterday, the Archdiocese turned over the list of 240 complaints made against 115 priests and employees since 1986. A court order keeps the names of the accused and the victims sealed to the public.

In a statement, the Archdiocese said it had fought the case to “protect the privacy rights of all involved, including victims who had no connection to current litigation and who had come forth confidentially regarding their reported allegation.

“We appreciate the concern given this case throughout the appellate process,” the statement continued, “and although we share the disappointment of the many innocent individuals who will be affected by it, the Archdiocese of St. Louis will comply with the order.”

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UNITED STATES
CNN

By Mary Dispenza

(CNN) — Finally. Finally. Finally, a strong important voice in the world, the United Nations, speaks out on behalf of the rights of children and condemns the Vatican and the bishops for crimes of violence, rape and sexual abuse against children by transferring pedophile priests from parish to parish, withholding documents for prosecution and perpetuating an institutional culture of secrecy and shame.

What’s truly shameful is that the Catholic Church was not itself that strong and important voice, protecting “the least of these.” It’s shameful that in spite of Pope Francis’ refreshing compassion toward the poor and downtrodden, to date he has not addressed the issue fully. Pope Francis is caught up in the shame and like most of his brother bishops, seems unwilling to say, “Enough is enough — not ever again in our church will one of these little children be harmed.”

The media have said the church is suffering from a “code of secrecy.” Kirsten Sandberg, the chairwoman of the United Nations, put it this way: “We think it is a horrible thing that is being kept silent both by the Holy See itself and in local parishes. ”

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The Economist

Erasmus

AS I said in my initial response, this week’s UN report on child abuse in the Catholic church seemed both too broad and too narrow to address this enormously grave subject. But the report does at least throw into sharper relief a problem of our times: the difficulty that arises whenever a religious institution practises a body of law which co-exists with, and sometimes competes with, secular law.

The legal system used by the Catholic church is known as canon law. Many of its provisions are of little interest, arguably, to people outside the church; they concern, for example, the relations between different levels of church authority, and the prerequisites for a marriage which the church can recognise. But canon law also provides for the investigation of serious misdeeds, including sexual ones, by clergy. It has no power to send anybody to prison but it can be used to defrock a priest or excommunicate a lay-person. So as well as exercising full state power in one small place—the Vatican City—the pope and his team do have a say, putting it mildly, in what happens in many other places.

Now there have been several times in the last decade or so, as abuse scandals were erupting in one country after another, when the Holy See insisted that it could only take full responsibility for what happened in the small patch of Rome that it fully controlled. Accurately enough, the UN retorts that Catholic leadership must also be held to account for things that happen under its influence, and under its rules, across the world. After all, the Holy See is a player in diplomatic affairs (with permanent observer status in the General Assembly and full participation in many UN conventions) by virtue of its global role, not just its administration of a small piece of real estate.

These days, in every country where the influence of the Catholic faith is strong, the church faces a dilemma which the child-abuse revelations have made razor-sharp. Does it cling as long as possible to the privileges and immunities it has traditionally enjoyed under canon law, or does it renounce those privileges and turn all investigations over to the state authorities? If it insists on investigating child-abuse cases internally, then its responsibility for whatever horrors (including cronyism and cover-ups) are ultimately uncovered will be all the greater. But if it accepts the principle that secular state institutions must have absolute primacy in at every stage then it loses all control over the fate of people under its authority.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AAP FEBRUARY 07, 2014

THE number of children absconding from a Salvation Army home in Queensland reached unprecedented levels at a time a child prostitution ring was believed to be operating in the area.

In 1973, 12 boys ran away 30 or 40 times from Alkira, a home for boys at Indooroopilly, run by the Salvation Army – and in 1975, in particular, a boy would run away for a few days and then return, an inquiry into child sexual abuse has been told. In 1975 government authorities were made aware police were investigating allegations four pedophiles were operating in the northern Brisbane suburbs and the Gold Coast.

Jan Doyle, a senior social worker for the Queensland Department of Children’s Services in the 70s, told the royal commission into child sexual abuse the number of runaways was exceptional in 1973. She also said that in 1975 she was deeply concerned about the whereabouts of one boy, HT, who frequently ran away from Alkira, so she spoke to the police Juvenile Aid Bureau.

Ms Doyle said she sought permission to run an advertisement with a photograph of HT requesting information about his whereabouts and that she remembered talking to welfare departments in NSW and Victoria about him.

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CHILE
CIPER

[Summary: For 20 days in January, two Mexican religious investigated allegations of child sexual abuse said to have been perpetrated by Bishop Christian Contreras Molina and Mariano Labarca, former superior general of the Orden de los Mercedarios. The mission for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith included other charges that were kept secret.]

Enviados del Vaticano investigan denuncia de abusos sexuales de obispo de San Felipe y ex superior mercedario

Por : Gustavo Villarrubia en Reportajes de investigación
Publicado: 05.02.2014

Por más de 20 días, en enero pasado, dos religiosos mexicanos investigaron en Chile y bajo total reserva denuncias de abuso sexual contra menores que habrían perpetrado el obispo Cristián Contreras Molina y el ex superior general de la Orden de los Mercedarios, Mariano Labarca. La misión encomendada por la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe abarcó otras acusaciones que se mantienen en secreto y tuvo lugar en el momento en que la Iglesia expulsó del país a otra orden por conductas homosexuales y abuso de menores. Este es el duro cuadro que Ezzati enfrenta a días de ser investido cardenal.

La mañana del pasado domingo 5 de enero un hecho inusual digitado directamente desde el Vaticano rompió la rutina del nuncio apostólico en Santiago. El arzobispo Ivo Scapolo debió recibir en su residencia oficial, ubicada en calle Sotero Sanz Nº 200 (Providencia), a dos sacerdotes mexicanos enviados por Roma: César García y Daniel Jiménez. Su misión era confidencial. Ambos religiosos, de la diócesis de Guadalajara, son jueces eclesiales y fueron enviados a Chile por la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe (CDF). Según confirmaron a CIPER en el Arzobispado de Santiago, es la primera vez que esa importante instancia vaticana envía a Chile una misión que debe investigar en terreno los abusos sexuales cometidos por sacerdotes.

Los recién llegados, sacerdotes canonistas, uno en calidad de instructor y el segundo como notario, traían la misión de interrogar a víctimas y victimarios de algunas de las más importantes investigaciones por abuso sexual que actualmente se desarrollan al interior del clero chileno. Entre los acusados hay al menos dos obispos y dos superiores de órdenes religiosas de la Iglesia Católica -mercedarios y jesuitas-, además de una docena de sacerdotes cuyos nombres permanecen en estricta reserva.

CIPER no pudo precisar cuántas investigaciones fueron las que los sacerdotes García y Jiménez realizaron en terreno en el país. Pero sí se pudo constatar que ambos entrevistaron a testigos y posibles víctimas de abusos cometidos por el obispo de San Felipe, Cristián Contreras Molina (mercedario); y el sacerdote chileno Mariano Labarca, quien fue superior general de la Orden Mercedaria entre 1998 y 2004, el sitial de mayor jerarquía a nivel mundial de esa congregación.

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CHILE
Nacion

OBISPO DE SAN FELIPE INVESTIGADO POR ABUSO SE DEFIENDE: PIDO A LOS FIELES QUE CREAN EN MÍ

[Summary: The church has received another blow after it was revealed that two Mexican priests, sent directly from the Vatican, are investigating alleged child sexual abuse involving an unknown number of clerics in Chile. These include Bishop Cristian Contreras Molinas of San Felipe and Mariano Labarca, former superior of a religious order. According to the publication CIPER, Cesar Garcia and Daniel Jimenez of the Guadalajara diocese, were sent by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.]

Un nuevo golpe recibió la iglesia tras revelarse que dos sacerdotes mexicanos, enviados directamente desde el Vaticano, investigan supuestos abusos sexuales a menores de parte un número indeterminado de clérigos en Chile, entre ellos el obispo de San Felipe, Cristián Contreras Molina y el ex superior general de la Orden de los Mercedarios, Mariano Labarca.

Según publicó Ciper, los mexicanos César García y Daniel Jiménez (de la Diócesis de Guadalajara) fueron enviados a Chile por la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe (CDF) para indagar en las acciones de los mencionados religiosos.

Ante esta información, Cristián Contreras salió a dar la cara asegurando que siempre se ha apegado a los valores cristianos y que toda suposición de abuso no es tal.

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CHILE
Digital Journal

By AFP
Feb 6, 2014

The Vatican has opened an investigation into a Chilean bishop for alleged sexual abuse, the local Church leadership said Thursday.

A statement released by Chile’s Catholic church leadership said San Felipe bishop Cristian Contreras had “expressed the wish” for the allegations against him to be investigated.

Contreras denies the allegations as “completely unfounded.”

The case came to light after an investigation by the Center for Investigative Journalism, or CIPER, which revealed the archdiocese had received complaints from other priests of suspected abuses by Contreras — in one case against a 15-year-old child.

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ALABAMA
AL.com

By Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com
on February 06, 2014

CHICAGO – The director of a nationwide support group for victims of sex abuse by religious leaders said he hopes the whistleblower in the case of a Muscle Shoals pastor will encourage others to come forward.

David Clohessy, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued a statement this morning after reading about the arrest of Jeffrey Dale Eddie, 41, a children’s minister at Highland Park Baptist, on two counts of child pornography, 31 counts of second-degree sodomy, and three counts of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12. He is being held in Colbert County Jail on $1 million bond.

It’s the second such case at a Colbert County church within a month. In January, Oliver Brazelle, 79, the former music director at the First United Methodist Church in Sheffield, was charged by Lauderdale County authorities with second-degree sexual abuse and one-count of second-degree sodomy.

In the case of Jeff Eddie, known to congregants as “Brother Jeff,” police received a tip from a church staff member, an act Clohessy praised.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Rev. Harold J. Greif was a Jesuit who spent the bulk of his priesthood in Alaska. He was ordained in 1940 and died in 1991. Greif was the subject of allegations of sexual abuse by at least two people, according to bankruptcy reorganization documents from the diocese of Fairbanks in 2010.

Ordained: 1940
Died:Oct. 28, 1991

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Carol Glatz Catholic News Service | Feb. 6, 2014

VATICAN CITY Pope Francis reconfirmed Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko as president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and German Bishop Josef Clemens as secretary.

Among the 14 new members named Thursday were Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia; Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila, Philippines; Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna; and Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, Germany, who is also part of the pope’s eight-member Council of Cardinals that advises the pope on reorganizing the Roman Curia.

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UNITED STATES
WBUR – Hear and Now

[with audio]

A new United Nations report is bluntly critical of the Vatican, saying it has adopted polices that allowed priest to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades.

The widely anticipated report from the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child goes on to say that the Vatican is guilty of a “code of silence” that has “systematically” put the reputation of the church and offending priests over the protection of child victims.

The Vatican says the report goes too far when it also includes criticism of the church’s teaching on conception and birth control, human sexuality and abortion.

That report comes as a Catholic-affiliated publisher in Poland issues a controversial book of Pope John Paul II’s notes.

Vatican expert and journalist John Allen joins Here & Now’s Robin Young to discuss both the U.N. report and the book.

Interview Highlights: John Allen

On reaction to the U.N. report

“I suspect reaction to it — both at the Vatican and in the wider Catholic world — is going to be mixed, because the cause of child protection here is bundled, as you indicated, with the culture wars. It also is basically telling the Vatican they need to repeal Catholic teaching on abortion, birth control and gay marriage. You know, my reaction to that as a journalist is, ‘how to you spell non-starter.’ You know, those things are just not going to happen. And I suspect there will be some backlash that will want to style this report somehow as driven more by politics than a real concern for the protection of kids.”

On the impact of the U.N. report

“The child sexual abuse scandals in Catholicism are real, the need for reform is real. There still is a division in the church between reformers and those who are kind of in denial, and that’s true at the grassroots, it’s true of the leadership. This report was an opportunity to strengthen the hand of the reform cause by making very specific recommendations that would be hard to argue with. And the fear would be that by bundling this with the very divisive matters of the culture wars, you’ve given ammunition to those in denial, to say ‘eh, this is all politics.’”

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ROME
Boston.com

By NICOLE WINFIELD / Associated Press / February 6, 2014

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Legion of Christ religious order has elected a new superior and governing council for the first time since the Vatican took it over in 2010 amid revelations that its founder was a pedophile and a fraud.

But in a clear sign that the Vatican didn’t trust the Legion’s own choices, the Holy See itself appointed two comparatively reform-minded priests to serve on the order’s governing council, including the new No. 2.

The new general director is the Rev. Eduardo Robles Gil, a Mexican who was a longtime collaborator with the Legion’s disgraced late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel. Legion priests who have left the order called him a ‘‘spiritual son’’ of Maciel and say his election shows no break from the order’s troubled past.

Robles Gil said Thursday he adopted as his own a statement issued by the Legion in which it distanced itself from Maciel, apologized to his victims, acknowledged its own problems and vowed to reform.

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UNITED STATES
Legal Broadcast Network

[with video]

Secret Files of Church Dioceses Disclosed in Sex Abuse Scandal, With Jeff Anderson, Attorney in St. Paul, Minnesota

In litigating against church dioceses in sexual abuse cases for over 30 years, attorney Jeff Anderson, of Jeff Anderson and Associates in St. Paul Minnesota, has found that every diocese keeps secret files that demonstrate known histories of offenders in almost every instance. Anderson began to reveal this through litigation.

In 2005, he negotiated a case in Chicago that every case that had an offender, the church would agree to release the file, however, the settlement grew quite complicated, which led to a review of all those files. After 30 files were reviewed, an agreement was made to have those files released to the public both for the healing of the survivors and to protect public safety. Unfortunately, Anderson says, it became so controversial with the arch dioceses, it was difficult to extract the files and make them public. They began mediating, arbitrating and fighting for several years which ultimately led to a release of the files on January 15. At that time, Anderson was finally able to publicly disclose the files of those 30 offenders and under the agreement there’s still another 35.

The secret files are profiles and portraits of the same pattern he’s seen across the country for 29 years, Anderson says. This pattern was the same choices made by top officials, to include making sure they protect the offender from prosecution or public exposure, to make sure that the reputation of the dioceses is preserved and to get help for the offender and move them to another location, treated or untreated and mislead those where he had been known to be abused.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Agency

Washington D.C., Feb 6, 2014 / 12:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- U.S. Catholic leaders criticized a United Nations committee report for trying to impose secular moral views and failing to acknowledge advancements made by the Church in the area of child protection.

Austen Ivereigh, founder of Catholic Voices, an organization of lay faithful who defend the Church’s teaching in the public sphere, called the report “ignorant and misguided.”

He said that it “betrays an extraordinary misunderstanding of the nature of the Church and the Holy See” while seeking to “impose an ideology of gender and sexuality in violation of the U.N.’s own commitment to religious freedom.”

In a blog post analysis on Catholic Voices’ website, Ivereigh responded to a report issued Feb. 5 by the U.N. Committee on the Protection of the Child, which claimed that the Vatican “systematically” adopted policies allowing priests to rape and molest children.

The report also criticized the Catholic Church’s teachings on contraception, abortion and same-sex “marriage,” suggesting that the Church change its canon law to support these “rights.” …

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R.-Fla.), himself a Catholic, said the U.N. report “has overreached in its efforts to discredit the Catholic Church’s core teachings.”

While the report serves as a legitimate reminder of the essential obligation to protect children, he said, it also seeks “to make political statements about Catholic doctrine on abortion, contraception, and marriage.”

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ROME
BBC News

The Legion of Christ Catholic order has for the first time apologised to the victims of sexual abuse carried out by its founder, Father Marcial Maciel.

In a statement, the order condemned the “reprehensible and objectively immoral behaviour” of the Mexico-born priest.

Father Maciel led the order from its foundation in 1941 until 2006, when Pope Benedict ordered him to retire.

He abused seminarians as young as 12, and died in 2008 aged 87 without ever being convicted of his crimes.

A Vatican investigation also found out that he had fathered several children by at least two women, and used drugs.

“We want to express our deep sorrow for the abuse of minor seminarians, the immoral acts with men and women who were adults, the arbitrary use of his authority and of material goods,” said the Legion of Christ in a statement.

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UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatched

Vatican, ‘Cool Pope’ Blast UN Link Between Sexual Abuse Scandal and Church Attitudes on Gays, Contraception, Abortion

Post by PATRICIA MILLER

What’s remarkable about the profile of Pope Francis in the current issue of Rolling Stone isn’t its content—after all, it largely consists of information that’s been reported elsewhere—it’s that it exists at all. In Rolling Stone. Fascination with “Cool Pope Francis”—as Gawker dubbed him—is running so high that even a magazine usually devoted to guitar gods and pop princesses devoted nearly 8,000 words to the pontiff.

While that article attempts to determine just how much of an agent for change Francis might actually be, the big question, as commentators like Mary Hunt here on RD have asked in one form or another, is how much headway he can make—or wants to make—on reforming church doctrine on the role of women, contraception and LGBT issues.

But as the report released today by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child slamming the Vatican for its handling of clergy sex abuse illustrates, no matter how well-intentioned (or Cool) Francis may be, the problem is that the Church still doesn’t recognize what the real problem is.

The report acknowledges some progress on abuse made under Francis, notably the announcement of an independent commission, but also says: “The Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators.”

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – A long-awaited UN report on the Vatican abuse scandals of decades past fires harsh criticism at the Church. The report, as well as victims and their advocates, all cite traditional Vatican secrecy as a key reason why many child abusers were left to repeat their crimes.

The report serves as a literal rap on the knuckles for the Vatican, by the UN, for the sins of its recent past.

Please pray for all those involved in cases of abuse. Pray for justice, pray for peace.

For its part, the Catholic Church, particularly under Benedict and Francis, has accepted its culpability in these cases, and continues to take steps to prevent the abuse of more children by unfit clergy.

Benedict made public apologies for the acts committed by members of the clergy in decades past and defrocked hundreds of offenders during the last two years of his pontificate. Pope Francis doesn’t appear to be letting up either. Pope Francis has said that Catholics should be ashamed of these incidents, and that everything possible to protect children must be done.

In the past, bishops notoriously discouraged victims from going public with her accusations, and generally handled the problems internally. In some cases, that meant discreetly moving priests to monasteries, or into treatment programs. In other cases priests were simply moved to neighboring parishes, and in most cases those priests continued to repeat their crimes.

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MISSISSIPPI
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A Mississippi judge on Wednesday refused to reduce a 10-year prison sentence he handed down to a former Southern Baptist traveling evangelist and popular youth speaker convicted of video voyeurism in 2012.

“I think basically I got you right,” DeSoto County circuit judge Gerald Chatham told prisoner Sammy Nuckolls, who preached at churches across the country and events including LifeWay Christian Resources Centrifuge summer camps before he was caught secretly recording video of women while they took showers and during other private moments in Arkansas and Mississippi and allegedly in Texas and Virginia.

Nuckolls, who acknowledged at trial watching women at his home in Olive Branch, Miss., without their knowledge, filed a motion in June requesting judicial review of two five-year sentences that run consecutively and 11 others that are concurrent. Had all 13 sentences been consecutive, it would have added up to 65 years.

After 17 months behind bars, however, Nuckolls’ lawyer said his client is remorseful, has learned from his mistakes and due to restrictions that come with being a registered sex offender, would pose no danger to society. Attorney Ronald Michael of Booneville, Miss., asked the court to give Nuckolls credit for time served and place him under house arrest with monitoring and treatment for as long as Judge Chatham desired.

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ROME
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 06, 2014

A religious order that’s become a leading symbol of the sexual abuse scandals in Catholicism today expressed “deep sorrow” for abuse and sexual misconduct committed by its once-powerful founder, and also announced the election of new leadership intended to steer the order on a reform path.

The apology by the embattled Legionaries of Christ comes one day after the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a scathing report on the Vatican’s response to the abuse scandals, at one point expressing specific concern about the recruiting practices of the Legionaries.

Founded by the late Mexican Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado in 1941, the Legionaries of Christ and their lay arm, the Regnum Christi movement, became a powerful force in the Catholic Church during the Pope John Paul II years, enjoying the favor of the late pope and support from influential prelates around the world.

In 2006, however, Maciel was sentenced to a life of prayer and penance by Pope Benedict XVI following accusations of sexual misconduct and abuse, which included relationships with two women and fathering up to six children, as well as abuse of young members of the order and, allegedly, two of his own children.

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ROME
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Legion of Christ religious order has elected a new Superior-General and governing council .

The new Superior is the Mexican-born Father Eduardo Robles Gil.

Please find below the translation from Spanish of the Communiqué of the Extraordinary General Chapter of the Legionaries of Christ about the path of renewal the order has undertaken.

1. The Extraordinary General Chapter, which is convened in Rome and is being presided over by the Pontifical Delegate, Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, publishes this communiqué about the path of renewal that we are traveling. We address this communiqué to all those who have followed the recent events in our religious congregation, especially to our brother Legionaries of Christ, to the lay consecrated men and women, and to the rest of the members and friends of the Regnum Christi Movement.

2. This is the first meeting of the General Chapter since 2005. Since the Chapter is the highest internal authority that represents the whole Congregation, it seems necessary for us to take a stance regarding the significant events that have occurred in the past nine years. With this, we want to define conclusively the posture of our Congregation with respect to the behavior of Fr. Marcial Maciel and his role as founder, in continuity with the decisions of the Holy See and the previous declaration of all the major superiors of the Legion of Christ1. As well, we offer some initial reflections on the most important points of the process of renewal of our Congregation. Throughout the coming weeks, we will continue to analyze the different issues that demand our attention, and we will give orientations to the new government of the Legion for the journey yet to come.

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ROME
Headlines from the Catholic World

Rome, Italy, Feb 6, 2014 / 10:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Legionaries of Christ revealed the names of their new general council on Feb. 6, also issuing a formal apology to those hurt by the immoral actions of their founder.

The announcement of the new superiors comes in wake of the Legionaries’ first General Chapter meeting, which began on Jan. 9, and was mandated by Benedict XVI in wake of the revelation of the double-life led by the congregation’s founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel, who is since deceased.

In a Feb. 6 press release, the Legionaries revealed the election of Fr. Eduardo Robles Gil as their new General Director, and Fr. Juan José Arrieta, as Vicar General.

“Since my ordination, I have served in different parts of the world and in different types of ministry: schools, family ministry, administration or as a superior of a Legionary community,” Fr. Eduardo recalled in the press release, “Now, I will have to get used to Rome.”

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Francis X. Rocca Catholic News Service | Feb. 6, 2014

ROME Representatives of the Legionaries of Christ, meeting to reform their troubled congregation nearly four years after it was effectively taken over by the Vatican, announced a new slate of leaders Thursday and formally apologized to victims of their disgraced founder.

The statement by the congregation’s extraordinary general chapter, released Thursday, expressed “deep sorrow” for the late Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado’s “reprehensible and objectively immoral behavior,” including “abuse of minor seminarians,” “immoral acts with adult men and women,” “arbitrary use of his authority and of material goods,” “indiscriminate consumption of addictive medicines” and plagiarism.

Saying they were “grieved” it had taken so long to apologize to Maciel’s “many victims,” the members of the chapter acknowledged a “long institutional silence” in response to accusations against him and offered a progress report in efforts to overcome the founder’s demoralizing legacy.

The gathering of 61 Legionary priests from 11 countries, which opened Jan. 8 and is expected to last until the end of February, is the culmination of a reform process that began with a Vatican-ordered apostolic visitation in 2009. That investigation was prompted by revelations Maciel, who died in 2008, had fathered at least one illegitimate child and sexually abused minors.

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ALABAMA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, February 6, 2014

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

A children’s minister from Alabama has been charged with over 30 counts of child sexual abuse.

Jeffery Dale Eddie was investigated after police got a call from someone at the Muscle Shoals church concerned about Eddie’s behavior.

[Montgomery Advertiser]

We are so grateful to the brave whistleblower that altered authorities. It is through the brave actions of whistleblowers and victims that keeps dangerous predators away from children. We hope his arrest will give courage to anyone who may have seen, suspects, or suffered sexual abuse to call authorities.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Feb. 6 2014

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

A Legion of Christ official apologized to victims today.

[Reuters]

Apologies are easy but reform is hard. And actions, not words, protect kids. So we urge Catholics to ignore the latest words from this disgraced, secretive, scandal-ridden order and insist on tangible steps that will safeguard children.

Who in the Legion – past or present – hid Fr. Marcial Maciel’s crimes? Who in the Legion – past or present – are hiding other clergy sex crimes? Who in the Legion – past and present – engages or engaged in financial fraud?

And what punishment is being meted out to these Catholic officials.

When we know these answers and see these steps, we’ll begin to believe the Legion may be headed in the right direction. To assume that now, however, is foolish. Worse, it’s a disservice to vulnerable kids around Legion clerics now and an insult to wounded adults suffering because of Legion clerics.

Notice what Legion officials apparently did not say today:

– “If you were hurt by one of our clerics, call the police.”
– “We’re now lobbying for better secular laws that protect kids.”
– “We’re now posting all our predator priests on our website” or even
– “We’re not releasing their names, but here’s how many Legion priests have molested kids.”

Not a single fact or tidbit of useful information. Just more words.

And denouncing a widely-documented molester, womanizer, thief and fraud is no act of courage.

Yesterday in Geneva, an Ethiopian man on a United Nations panel essentially told Catholic officials that his committee is not in the business of declaring ‘well said’ but rather in the business of declaring ‘well done.’

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POLSKA
Gazeta

darez 06.02.2014

Pierwszy w Polsce pozew za pedofilię przeciwko Kościołowi katolickiemu ma dziś trafić do sądu. Marcin K., 26-latek z Kołobrzegu, którego sprawę szeroko opisywaliśmy w TOK FM, chce przeprosin w prasie i 200 tys. zł zadośćuczynienia – wyjaśnia Adam Bodnar z Helsińskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, która pomagała mężczyźnie.

Pozew skierowany jest przeciwko skazanemu za pedofilię byłemu duchownemu Zbigniewowi R., ale także przeciwko parafii św. Wojciecha w Kołobrzegu i kurii koszalińsko-kołobrzeskiej.

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POLAND
GlobalPost

Agence France-Presse February 6, 2014

Poland’s powerful Roman Catholic church is being sued for damages for the first time by the victim of a paedophile priest, a human rights group said Thursday.

A demand for 47,500 euros ($63,500) was made by a 25-year-old male — identified only as Marcin K — who was molested as a child, Adam Bondar of the Helsinki Foundation that has taken up the unprecedented case, told reporters in Warsaw.

A Catholic priest was sentenced in 2012 to two years behind bars in the case, but his diocese refused to be held financially liable.

“It is the first civil lawsuit against the (Polish) Catholic church,” Bodnar said, adding that more than a dozen priests have been convicted of paedophilia in Poland.

“But there has never been a case in which a victim sues not just the perpetrator but also the church as an institution,” he added.

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UNITED STATES
Newsmax

Thursday, 06 Feb 2014

By Bill Donohue

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has just released a report on the way the Vatican has responded to the sexual abuse of minors by priests. The 15-page report contains not a single footnote, endnote, or any other mode of attribution. But it does provide plenty of evidence as to its real agenda.

The U.N. panel is using the sexual abuse of minors as a pretext for its true objective: It wants the Vatican to submit to its authority, and not just in instances involving international law — it wants the Catholic Church to change Canon Law and to adopt a secular sexual ethics.

As such, it is one of the most ambitious power-grab efforts ever undertaken by a U.N. committee. The panel is also profoundly ignorant of the data.

On page 3 of the report, the panel says the Holy See should “undertake the necessary steps to withdraw all its reservations and to ensure the [U.N.] Convention’s precedence over internal laws and regulations.” (Its emphasis.)

It is quite explicit: “The Committee recommends that the Holy See undertake a comprehensive review of its normative framework, in particular Canon Law, with a view to ensuring its full compliance with the Convention.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, head of the Institute of Psychology at the Gregorian University in Rome and Centre for the Protection of Minors, says the Church has learnt lessons and has made great strides in the safeguarding of children.He made the comments to Vatican Radio following the publication of a report issued on Wednesday by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child which accused the Vatican of turning a blind eye to decades of sexual abuse of children by priests.

The report comes less than a month after a meeting between the United Nations Committee and a Holy See delegation in Geneva.

Fr Zollner said the report was “harsh in parts but recognises that the Holy See and the Church as a whole has made steps forward.”

Asked about references made in the report to issues such as abortion, homosexuality and contraception, Fr Zollner said there was no reason for these issues to be included, he said, “it looks as if some people… just wanted to make their point…”

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler February 06, 2014

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which has instructed the Vatican on proper treatment of children, includes representatives from Ghana, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Russia, and Sri Lanka.

Would you rather have your child raised at the Vatican or in one of those countries?

The UN committee, which criticized the Vatican for discrimination against girls, includes members from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Egypt.

How well are girls treated in those countries?

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UNITED STATES
Nonprofit Quarterly

WRITTEN BY RUTH MCCAMBRIDGE CREATED ON THURSDAY, 06 FEBRUARY 2014

In a scathing report, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child took the Vatican to task for maintaining a corporate culture within which child predators were systematically protected from exposure and prosecution. The report called the culture a “code of silence” and it called on the Vatican to release all documents on its internal investigations into charges of abuse.

The committee wrote that it “is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators.”

But NPQ suggests that readers take a look at the report itself (linked above) because not did only it deal with child sexual abuse, it also took the Church on for its positions on abortion, domestic violence, institutionalization of children and same sex marriages among other things. In short, the report is a bold human rights gauntlet. How will the pope respond?

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ROME
Legionaries of Christ

ROME (February 6) – Fr. Eduardo Robles Gil, LC, has been elected General Director of the Legion of Christ.

On January 20th, the Extraordinary General Chapter of the Legion of Christ elected Fr. Eduardo and the other members of the central government of the Legion.

The election was personally confirmed by the Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo, O.F.M., secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life on February 6, 2014.

Along with his election, the Vicar General, Fr. Juan José Arrieta, LC, and one of the general councilors, Fr. Juan Sabadell, LC, were named by the Holy See. Two more general councilors, Fr. Sylvester Heereman, LC, and Fr. Jesús Villagrasa, LC, were elected by the chapter members. Fr. José Gerardo Cárdenas, LC, has been elected General Administrator. Fr. Clemens Gutberlet, LC, has been elected General Procurator.

Here is a run-down of the entire outcome of the election:

General Director: Fr. Eduardo Robles Gil, LC.
Vicar General: Fr. Juan José Arrieta, LC.
General Councilor: Fr. Sylvester Heereman, LC.
General Councilor: Fr. Jesús Villagrasa, LC.
General Councilor: Fr. Juan Sabadell, LC.
General Administrator: Fr. José Gerardo Cárdenas, LC.
General Procurator: Fr. Clemens Gutberlet, LC.

The General Chapter published the announcement of the election of the new central government simultaneously with the publishing of a in which the members of the chapter take a conclusive stance on Fr. Marcial Maciel and on the path of renewal the Legion of Christ has been travelling.

Fr. Eduardo Robles Gil, LC

Fr. Eduardo brings a wide range of spiritual and apostolic experience to his role as General Director. He has exercised his ministry principally in Spain, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. He has served as a director of several schools, as a superior of several Legionary communities, as territorial administrator for two years in Mexico and as a section director of Regnum Christi, spiritual director and local coordinator of apostolate. He helped found the Legion and Regnum Christi’s presence in Brazil. In 2011, he was named to the Outreach Commission created by Card. Velasio De Paolis to work with the abuse victims of Fr. Marcial Maciel. He began to serve as a major superior in the Legion in August, 2013, when he assumed the post of Territorial Director of Mexico.

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ROME
Legionaries of Christ

ROME (February 6) – The representatives of the Legion of Christ meeting in an Extraordinary General Chapter this week approved a wide-ranging communiqué. The document is an effort by the chapter members to define conclusively the posture of the congregation with respect to the behavior of Fr. Marcial Maciel and his role as founder in continuity with the decisions of the Holy See and previous statements by the Legion. It concludes with an apology to any and all who have been hurt of the congregation’s shortcomings.

Fr. Eduardo Robles Gil, LC, the newly elected General Director of the Legion, summarized the intention of this communiqué in the following way: “The Chapter marks both an ending and a new beginning. This is what many of the chapter fathers feel and that’s how we have expressed it in the chapter hall. But, so that it can truly be a new beginning, it is necessary to put the challenges of the past in their place. This is why the Chapter decided to publish a statement for the Legionaries, the members of Regnum Christi and for all those who have been following our recent history. We can’t erase the past. We have to learn the lessons, mourn what occurred, trust in God’s mercy and, like St. Paul, run forward in pursuit of the goal of reaching Christ.”

The General Chapter issued this communiqué simultaneously with the publishing of the results of the election of the new central government.

Regarding Fr. Maciel

The communiqué offers a summary of what has been learned of Fr. Maciel’s misbehavior to date, how his actions influenced the Legion and what the Legion is doing in light of these discoveries.

“When we ponder the magnitude of the evil and scandal caused, we realize that we are under the merciful gaze of God who, with his providence, continues to guide our steps. United with Jesus Christ, we hope to be able to redeem our painful history and overcome with good the consequences of evil. Only in this way can we consider what has taken place in light of the Gospel and build our future on the solid foundations of trust in God, of fidelity to the Church, and of the truth.”

“Our founder died in 2008. We ask God to have mercy on him. At the same time, we want to express our deep sorrow for the abuse of minor seminarians, the immoral acts with men and women who were adults, the arbitrary use of his authority and of material goods, the indiscriminate consumption of addictive medicines and the act of presenting writings published by third parties as his own. We find the incongruity of presenting oneself as a priest and a witness of the faith continuously for decades while hiding this immoral behavior to be incomprehensible. We firmly condemn this. We are grieved that many victims and other affected persons have waited so long in vain for an apology and an act of reconciliation on the part of Fr. Maciel. Today, we would like to issue that apology as we express our solidarity with these persons.”

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ROME
Reuters

BY PHILIP PULLELLA
ROME Thu Feb 6, 2014

(Reuters) – A disgraced Catholic religious order whose late founder lived a double life as a paedophile, womanizer and drug addict officially denounced him on Thursday and apologized to his “many victims”.

The Legionaries of Christ, which former members said was run like a cult rooted in secrecy, accused Father Marcial Maciel of “reprehensible and objectively immoral behavior” as head of the order from 1941 until former Pope Benedict removed him in 2006.

Once a darling of the Vatican because it attracted many Catholics to religious vocations and made sizeable financial donations to the Church, the order has been in Vatican receivership since 2010 and came close to being disbanded.

The apology, issued by delegates from around the world meeting in Rome to set a new direction for the order, came a day after a United Nations committee singled it out in a scathing report accusing the Church of ignoring child abuse by priests.

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UNITED STATES
Voice of Russia

The UN has accused the Vatican of adopting policies that allowed priests to rape and molest thousands of children over decades. And international community demands that all clergy who are suspected or known child abusers should be “immediately removed”. In its report, the UN committee severely criticized the Holy See for its attitude toward homosexuality, contraception and abortion stating it should review its policies. David Clohessy, national director and spokesman for the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the largest and oldest self-help group for victims of clergy molestation in the United States, spoke to the Voice of Russia correspondent on the issue.

David, let’s just jump right in and – can you give us a comment on the news that in its report, the UN watchdog for children’s rights has accused the Vatican of “systematically” adopting policies allowing priests to sexually abuse thousands of children?

We believe that the Vatican panel is right on target. Church officials have known about and concealed this crisis for decades, they continue to. They say all the right things in public, but their private behavior is radically different. They continue to rebuff law enforcement and intimidate victims and move predators. So we are very grateful that the UN has done this investigation and released this report.

I’ve got to be honest with you, basically what you described is a conspiracy and a conspiracy that hides a crime is in itself a crime. How are these people not in jail?

It is a very good question. Bishops are very smart men, they have plenty of smart lawyers and they are very careful to keep their fingerprints of these cases and to keep the documents that prove their complicity hidden. And sadly too often secular officials in government and law enforcement have been far too timid to do what this UN panel has done and launch investigations and file prosecutions. So we hope that that will be one result of this disclosure. We hope that government officials and law enforcement officials will develop some spine and start similar probes themselves at the national level across the globe.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, February 6, 2014

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (312-399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com)

Four years ago, a priest was reported to Catholic officials for alleged child sexual abuse. Eight months ago, that priest was sued for alleged child sexual abuse.

Now, finally, Cardinal Francis George discloses that allegation. But he won’t say why he kept the accusation secret for years and the lawsuit secret for months.

[Chicago Tribune]

Making a bad situation worse, as best we can tell, Fr. Wilk has not been monitored and could have preyed on other children or be preying on them now.

We desperately hope that, over the past four years, Fr. Wilk has not assaulted another child.

Where is the archdiocesan lay review board? Why are they not up in arms about this reckless and hurtful delay? Imagine if Fr. Wilk were accused of stealing money from the church. Think it would have taken four years for archdiocesan staff to resolve it?

Our hearts ache for both Fr. Wilk’s victim and for that victim’s father. Four years of irresponsible behavior by Catholic officials – who kept this serious allegation hidden – must have been very tough to take.

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MEXICO
Pulso

[Summary: Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Mexico have recognized the UN committee report that it said the church adopted policies that allowed priests to rape thousands of children for decades. Victims and activists in Mexico said at a press conference Wednesday that the pope has the opportunity to recognize institutional responsibility of the Holy See and to take steps to face up to and prevent reoccurence. Jose Barba, a former Legionanaire, who reported being a victim of Fr. Marcial Maciel, said he now will know whether the pope’s statements will have real effects within the church.]

Víctimas de abuso sexual de sacerdotes católicos en México reconocieron al comité de las Naciones Unidas que señaló que el Vaticano adoptó políticas que permitieron a curas violar a miles de niños por décadas, aunque advirtieron que sigue pendiente la batalla por llevar a todos los pederastas y a sus encubridores en la Iglesia a que enfrenten la justicia civil.

Las víctimas y activistas mexicanos dijeron el miércoles en rueda de prensa que el Papa Francisco tiene la oportunidad, que no quisieron aprovechar sus antecesores, de reconocer la responsabilidad institucional de la Santa Sede en los abusos sexuales en que han incurrido los sacerdotes y tomar medidas para enfrentarlo y evitar que vuelva a ocurrir.

José Barba, un ex legionario que denunció haber sido víctima junto a otros seminaristas del abuso sexual del fundador de los Legionarios de Cristo, Marcial Maciel, dijo que ahora se podrá conocer si las declaraciones del Papa pueden tener “efectos verdaderos” dentro de la Iglesia.

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UNITED STATES
Cardinal Newman Society

February 6, 2014, at 9:34 AM | By Matthew Archbold

A United Nations committee’s criticisms of the Catholic Church’s handling of sexual abuse by clergy outrageously included criticisms of Catholic schools that rise to the level of anti-Catholicism, argues Deacon Keith Fournier at Catholic Online.

“It intruded into the doctrine, teaching, discipline and rights of the Church,” he writes. “It insisted that the Church change its unchangeable teachings. It even scolded the Church on how she instructs children in Catholic schools and sought to impose a curriculum.”

The report issued by the Convention on the Rights of a Child outrageously included several criticisms of Catholic schools including:

The Committee urges the Holy See to adopt a rights-based approach to address discrimination between girls and boys and refrain from using terminology that could challenge equality between girls and boys. The Committee also urges the Holy See to take active measures to remove from Catholic schools textbooks all gender stereotyping which may limit the development of the talents and abilities of boys and girls and undermine their educational and life opportunities…

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VATICAN CITY
NorthJersey.com

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 6, 2014
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Irish woman who inspired the Oscar-nominated film “Philomena,” about a mother forced to give up her son for adoption, says she doesn’t blame the Vatican for her ordeal despite a damning U.N. report holding the Holy See responsible for such practices.

Philomena Lee spoke Thursday after meeting briefly with Pope Francis and screening “Philomena” for Francis’ personal secretary at the Vatican.

Lee was sent to a Catholic church-run workhouse in Ireland after she got pregnant as a teenager in 1952. Her son was sent to the United States to be adopted when he was 3.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Conversation

David Pilgrim
Professor of Health and Social Policy at University of Liverpool

The blame game about child abuse in the Catholic Church continues. While the Vatican are to give due consideration to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s demand to remove offenders and hand them over to the civil authorities, a major sticking point remains. The church puts canon law above civil law; outsiders such as the UN are depicted as “interfering”. At times, the church also argues that these matters are historical and that it was not the responsibility of the Vatican but of local dioceses and their bishops.

The reputation of the church is clearly a central concern for its current defenders, and its public apologies to victims tend to ring hollow. This reflects a central political stand-off of our postmodern times: are we really prepared to accept theocratic authority as superior to the legal rules of a shared civil society?

The institutional abuse of children is certainly not limited to the Catholic Church, but as a case study, the Catholic scandal does highlight the complexity of learning about child protection in any society. There are many nuances here, which might be missed if we focus too narrowly on the problem of “paedophile priests”. The problem at large can be wrongly reduced to an aberration, merely to an unfortunate prevalence of bad apples in the barrel. Instead, the barrel itself must also bear critical examination.

A wider lens

For a start, much of the proven abuse in the church was physical and emotional, and not sexual – though these processes were often intermingled. Regimes of cruelty were fostered by physical isolation, where adults had unbridled power over children. We know that institutional abuse in a wide range of settings is characterised by multiple, not single, forms of isolation. If we think about the creation of isolation and its predictable risks in systems, we can widen our focus beyond the sexual pathology of individuals and begin to see how abuse can arise from the collective policy decisions of those with good intentions.

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BELGIE
Deredactie

Het vernietigende VN-rapport over kindermisbruik door geestelijken is “oneerlijk, verdraaid en ideologisch gekleurd”. Dat zegt aartsbisschop Silvano Tomasi, die vorige maand verhoord werd door de VN-commissie. In een persmededeling had het Vaticaan eerder laten weten dat het de conclusies van het rapport “grondig zal bestuderen”.

Tomasi leidde de delegatie die midden vorige maand verhoord werd door de VN-commissie die het rapport heeft opgesteld. Hij zei vanmiddag op Radio Vaticaan dat ngo’s die pleiten voor het homohuwelijk wellicht de VN-commissie hebben beïnvloed om “een ideologische lijn” in het rapport af te dwingen.

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NEDRLAND
RKK

Hilversum (van onze redactie) 5 februari 2014 – Het bestuur van de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk heeft beleid gevoerd waardoor het mogelijk was dat pedofiele geestelijken kinderen seksueel konden misbruiken. Zo luidt het oordeel van de Commissie voor Kinderrechten (CRC) van de Verenigde Naties in een vandaag in Genève gepresenteerd rapport.
Nieuwe wetten

De CRC acht het noodzakelijk dat de Kerk in haar canoniek recht regels opneemt die minderjarigen tegen misbruik moeten beschermen. Ook zouden alle dossiers van verdachte geestelijken moeten worden opgengesteld. De VN-kinderrechtencommissie sprak half januari met afgevaardigden van de Heilige Stoel.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

[Summary: The UN criticized the Catholic Church for their work with children, especially abuse, cover-up, corporal punished. Conclusion: The Vatican protects its reputation and not the rights of minors. The report is a secular settlement with the church’s double standards.]

Von Barbara Hans

Die Uno kritisiert die katholische Kirche für ihren Umgang mit Kindern – insbesondere Missbrauch, Vertuschung, Züchtigung. Das Fazit: Der Vatikan schütze seinen Ruf, nicht die Rechte Minderjähriger. Der Report ist eine weltliche Abrechnung mit der kirchlichen Doppelmoral.

Hamburg – Es ist ein Aufeinanderprallen zweier Welten: Die Vereinten Nationen, gegründet, um den Weltfrieden zu sichern – und die Weltkirche, die seit jeher Sonderrechte pflegt und verteidigt, vor allem gegen einen sich wandelnden Zeitgeist. Die Vereinten Nationen haben dem Vatikan in ihrem aktuellen Bericht zu Kinderrechten ein schlechtes Zeugnis ausgestellt. Der Kirchenstaat sei vor allem darauf bedacht, sich selbst zu schützen – nicht aber die Kinder in seiner Obhut. Schadensbegrenzung heißt aus Sicht der katholischen Kirche demnach, Schaden von der eigenen Reputation abzuwenden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
taz

[Summary: It’s perpetrators protection from above. The UN has accused the Vatican of lack of action of abuse but the church pouts and continues to do nothing for the victims. It is business as usual.]

Die UNO traut sich was: Sie wirft dem Vatikan mangelnde Aufarbeitung vor. Die Katholische Kirche schmollt und tut weiterhin nichts für die Opfer. Alles wie gehabt.

Bei oberflächlichem Hinsehen möchte man meinen: Alles wie gehabt. Der Vatikan steckt Prügel ein, muss sich erneut nicht bloß den massenhaften Missbrauch von Kindern durch Angehörige des Klerus, sondern obendrein auch die flächendeckende Vertuschung dieser Verbrechen vorwerfen lassen – und hat als Reaktion auf die Vorwürfe wieder einmal die gut eingeübte Beleidigte-Leberwurst-Nummer zu bieten.

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