ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

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

A British Catholic, Austen Ivereigh, has blasted the United Nations panel that found that Catholic officials “still place children in many countries at high risk of sexual abuse, as dozens of child sexual offenders are reported to be still in contact with children.”

[Catholic Voices]

Let’s take a quick look at some of his claims.

He claims Vatican officials were “ambushed” by the panel.

— I’m not positive, but I’ll bet that Vatican officials knew back in 1990 they would be questioned periodically on their compliance with the treaty. The Catholic hierarchy saw this coming long ago. In fact, they asked for it when they wanted to be treated like a nation and signed the treaty.

So this is not the UN “coming after” the Vatican. It’s simply the UN doing what the Vatican agreed to have them do.

He calls the panel a “kangaroo court.”

Really? The panel is a group of more than 20 volunteers from across the globe who are experienced in children’s issues. They’re with the United Nations, a pretty respected institution. They spent more than a year on this effort, giving equal opportunities to both abuse victims and church officials. A kangaroo court? Hardly.

He claims the report “was designed to produce headlines like the BBC’s — ‘UN slams Vatican for protecting priests over child abuse’ — in order to sustain the myth of the Church, and the Vatican in particular, as an unreformed institution.”

Really? He knows the alleged hidden and impure motives of more than 20 veteran children’s advocates he’s never met, from across the globe, who are experts in children’s safety but have somehow conspired to abuse their positions and this process just to embarrass Catholic officials? Really?

He claims that “since 2001,” the Vatican “has been the catalyst of . . . best practices, cajoling bishops’ conferences across the world to put in place measures of the sort pioneered in the US and the UK.

–-Really? Where’s the evidence? He doesn’t cite or show a single document that indicates this.

On the contrary, church records obtained through civil lawsuits show – over and over and over again – that some bishops wanted Vatican approval to more quickly deal with predator priests but were repeatedly rebuffed by church bureaucrats in Rome. (See the Fr. Lawrence Murphy case in Wisconsin, among many others.)

In fact, in 2002, Vatican officials severely weakened the US bishops’ draft abuse policy by removing a mandatory reporting provision and replacing it with the far weaker and vaguer instruction to ‘comply with applicable civil laws.’

(He may be confused. It was 2001 when then-Pope John Paul II ordered bishops across the world to send all their abuse reports to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. That, however, helped ensure secrecy, not openness.)

In 2011, Vatican officials did urge that bishops’ “CIRCULAR LETTER” IS THE EVIDENCE. IT’S IN THAT DOC THAT THE CDF “CAJOLED” BISHOPS’ CONFERENCES TO ESTABLISH GUIDELINES FOR HANDLING SEXUAL ABUSE.

He claims that “The best interests of children . . .has been a central tenet of the Holy See’s efforts for at least the past decade.”

Really? In our view, the Vatican ever-so-slightly (and belatedly) gave a slap on the wrist to a notoriously corrupt serial predator (Fr. Marcial Maciel) and ever-so-slightly sped up a smart legal defense and public relations maneuver – the defrocking of a tiny handful of the most egregious child molesting clerics, long after they’ve been caught and have devastated dozens of lives. That’s about it.

If Vatican officials put “the best interest of children first,” why won’t they turn over an accused Polish bishop, wanted for allegedly molesting several kids in the Dominican Republic, to law enforcement officials?

If Vatican officials put “the best interest of children first,” why do they let bishops suspend proven, admitted and credibly accused predator priests but not house or monitor them, so they end up living (and sometimes working) among unsuspecting neighbors who are never warned there’s a predator in their midst?

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014

For more information:

David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP Director (314) 566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Clergy sex victims seek more info on charges
NH church official pled guilty to felony theft
But amount he stole from 3 institutions remains hidden
“Citizens and Catholics deserve to know more,” SNAP says

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is urging New Hampshire’s Catholic bishop and attorney general to release more information about the crimes of an admitted thief who has been a long time top diocesan official.

[New Hampshire Public Radio]

[Concord Monitor]

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are urging Bishop Peter Anthony Libasci and Attorney General Joseph Foster to “tell parishioners and the public how much Msgr. Edward Arsenault has stolen and whether he’s suspected of other misdeeds too.”

“Catholic bishops have pledged to be ‘open’ about clergy crimes, yet Bishop Libasci is revealing almost nothing about Msgr. Arsenault’s theft,” said David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP’s director. “We understand not wanting to compromise an on-going investigation, but can’t see how telling people whether this diocesan official stole $4,500 or $450,000 – and may have broken other laws – hurts in any way.”

“No one in the Manchester diocese has said anything for months about the accusation that Msgr. Arsenault has committed sexual misconduct with an adult,” said Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, SNAP’s outreach director. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or years to determine whether that allegation has merit and it’s callous and self-serving for Bishop Libasci to let this charge languish.”

“We hope these officials will do the right thing and disclose more about both the theft and the abuse allegation and any other wrong doing,” Dorris said. “We also hope that anyone who has seen, suspected or suffered clergy crimes and cover ups in New Hampshire – whether financial or sexual – will report to secular officials, not church officials.”

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UNITED STATES
Daily Kos

Betty Clermont

A “dossier” accusing papal nuncio Archbishop Josef Wesolowski of sex abuse of minors was sent to Pope Francis sometime in July by Santo Domingo Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez. The pope found the information credible enough to dismiss Wesolowski, nuncio to both the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, on Aug. 21 via confidential letter N.2706/PR to the bishops of both countries.

Neither the civil authorities nor the public knew about Wesolowski until a local TV program did an expose’ on Aug. 31. The result of a year-long investigation, the broadcast contained testimony from residents of the Zona Colonial in Santo Domingo that Wesolowski paid minors for sex.

Three days after the TV broadcast, a local bishop confirmed that Wesolowski had been recalled for sexually abusing minors.

Wesolowski reportedly had left the country only a few days before. There were accusations that the pope allowed his nuncio to escape and speculation that Wesolowski fled to Haiti where children are even more desperately poor.

On Sept. 23, the Dominican Republic’s Justice Ministry confirmed there was evidence of pedophilia against Wesolowski. A deacon confessed to “pimping” minors for the prelate who allegedly waited in his vehicle nearby. The deacon, Francisco Javier Occi Reyes, who is being held in pretrial prison on pedophilia charges, was arrested when one of Wesolowski’s alleged victims alerted a police officer. The deacon said on that occasion Wesolwski left but said nothing because he thought the Church’s influence would get him out of prison.

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UNITED STATES
City of Angels

Kay Ebeling

They’re going to use the abortion references in the UN report to disparage the entire report, thus being able to ignore and negate the part about clergy abuse:

This was probably the Vatican scheme from the start. Why else “cooperate” with the UN commission at all?

Who inserted the abortion and reproductive rights issue and language into a report on abuse and neglect of children?

Now the Vatican has a door wide open allowing them to refuse to have anything to do with the UN Commission and get away with it.

And that’s just what they will do. Watch.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

[with video]

6 February 2014

A Vatican spokesman has accused the United Nations watchdog for children’s rights of ‘”intervening” in doctrinal practice.

A report by the group denounced the Holy See for adopting policies which allowed priests to sexually abuse thousands of children. It also criticised Vatican attitudes towards homosexuality, contraception and abortion.

Father Thomas Rosica, of the Holy See press office, told BBC Newsnight that the Catholic Church accepted it had a problem with child abuse and that “crimes had been committed”, but said the committee had “gone over the top in asserting themselves in areas over which they have no competence whatsoever”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

By FR ALEXANDER LUCIE-SMITH on Thursday, 6 February 2014

I was out and about yesterday, and so not at home to pick up the email from a television news programme asking me to give a live interview about the recent UN report on the Vatican and what is always known as “clerical sex abuse”.

If I had been available, what would I have said?

Any proper response would have to rely on a thorough reading of the entire UN report, something for which one does not have the time, nor, often, reports being what they are, the inclination. But one can rely on reports of the report, such as the one in the Daily Telegraph, or this unusually long, detailed and balanced one in the Guardian.

First a bit of background. This matter is not primarily about “clerical sexual abuse” per se. The Holy See is a signatory to the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, and thus the UN has the right to monitor the way the Holy See implements this charter of rights. The committee’s remit is thus a broad one, enabling it to look at child welfare in toto, not just part of it. Of course it has chosen to focus on sexual abuse, and this is hardly surprising, as sexual abuse is a serious issue in child welfare, indeed the most serious issue.

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ROME
Telegraph (UK)

By Nick Squires, Rome 06 Feb 2014

A woman whose three-year-old son was taken from her by the Catholic Church more than 60 years ago has called on the Vatican to open up its files on the policy of forced adoptions.

Philomena Lee’s tragic story inspired the film Philomena, which stars Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, who wrote the screenplay.

Mrs Lee, now 80, who met Pope Francis on Wednesday at an audience in St Peter’s Square, was 18 and unmarried when she fell pregnant in Ireland in 1952.

Like tens of thousands of other Irish women, she was told her pregnancy out of wedlock was a sin and was shamed into giving up her child for adoption.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

The Chicago Archdiocese has added a former Roman Catholic priest at a Schaumburg church to its updated list of clergy who have substantiated allegations of abuse against them, the Chicago Tribune is reporting.

Joseph Wilk, the former pastor of St. Matthew Catholic Church in Schaumburg, was accused of abusing a 10-year-old in 1995, the Tribune is reporting.

Archdiocese officials on Wednesday confirmed the addition of Wilk’s name to a list of priests who have substantiated claims of abuse against them, the Tribune reports on their website.

Wilk resigned from the priesthood in 2010, the Tribune reports.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Editorial

Even when the survivors catch a break – and catch a big one they did in the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child Report – they still can’t catch a break.

First, the break they caught: for the first time, on a major international scale the world has heard what the victims have been saying for years. That’s historic. The David of Truth has slain the Goliath of the Code of Silence.

For that, the survivors deserve an immense amount of credit.

It’s only through the courage, the perseverance, and the suffering of the survivors that the people in the pews and the world at large have learned of the extent of this largest crisis in the Roman Catholic Church in 500 years.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child Report is described in news reports as “scathing,” and “blistering” against the Vatican regarding sexual abuse.

The Church is called out on a global stage for its “code of silence” and the upholding of the Church’s reputation and the protection of the perpetrators over concern for and action on behalf of children — the victims.

Here are links to news coverage of the UN Report:

[New York Times]

[Catholic Culture]

[Los Angeles Times]

Within the Los Angeles Times report is the UN Document.

The report did call for the “immediate removal of all known and suspected child abuses” from their positions and the referring of the matters to law enforcement for prosecution

The report did acknowledge the cover –up by the hierarchy

What it did not do is call for the removal, immediate or otherwise, of those who covered up from their positions of authority and esteem in the Church or the entry of law enforcement to investigate them.

We ask our readers to act and re-double efforts as citizens to be heard at every level of government in the United States, at the federal level in the US Departments of Justice and State, the Congress, State Legislatures and School Boards to move the fight forward to protect children and open wide the opportunities for access to justice to survivors.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 6 February 2014 (VIS) – Yesterday afternoon Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, permanent observer for the Holy See at the United Nations in Geneva, commented on the concluding observations of the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child, which were very critical regarding the issue of the abuse of minors by members of the clergy and the actions taken by the Vatican and the Holy See on the matter, and urges revision of the Church’s teaching on certain themes such as contraception and abortion.

“My first impression: we need to wait, read attentively and analyse in detail what the members of this Commission have written”, commented the nuncio. “But my first reaction is of surprise, because of the negative aspects of the document they have produced and that it looks almost as if it were already prepared before the meeting of the Committee with the delegation of the Holy See, which had given in detail precise responses on various points, which have not been reported in this conclusive document or at least have not seemed to be taken into serious consideration. In fact, the document does not seem to be updated, taking into account what, over the last few years, has been done by the Holy See, with the measures taken directly from the authority of Vatican City State and then in various countries by the individual Episcopal Conferences. It therefore lacks a correct and updated perspective, which in reality has seen a series of changes for the protection of children that, it seems to me, are difficult to find, at the same level of commitment, in other institutions or even in other States. This is simply a question of facts, of evidence, which cannot be distorted!”.

With regard to the Holy See’s reaction to the document, the archbishop affirmed that “the Holy See will respond, because it is a member, a State that is part of the Convention: it has ratified it and intends to observe it in the spirit and letter of this Convention, without added ideologies or impositions that lie outside of the Convention itself. For instance: in its Preamble, the Convention on the Protection of Children talks about the defence of life and the protection of children before and after birth; whereas the recommendation made to the Holy See is that of changing its position on the question of abortion! Of course, when a child is killed it no longer has rights! Hence this seems to me to be a real contradiction of the fundamental objective of the Convention, which is the protection of children. This Committee has not done a good service to the United Nations, seeking to introduce and request the Holy See to change its non-negotiable teaching! So, it is somewhat sad to see that the Committee has not grasped in depth the nature and functions of the Holy See that, however, has expressed clearly to the Committee its decision to carry forward the Convention’s requests on the rights of the child, but defining precisely and protecting first of all those fundamental values that give real and effective protection to the child”.

The observer for the Holy See also commented on the fact that the United Nations had said at one time that the Vatican had responded better than other countries to the protection of minors, and with regard to the change of opinion expressed in the document published yesterday, he said, “the introduction to the final report recognised the clarity of the answers that were given; there was no attempt to avoid any request made by the Committee, on the basis of the evidence available, and where there was no immediate information, we had promised to provide it in the future, according to the directives of the Holy See, as all countries do. So it seemed to be a constructive dialogue and I think it should remain as such. Therefore, given the impression received through direct dialogue by the delegation of the Holy See with the Committee and the text of the conclusions and recommendations, it is tempting to say that probably that text had already been written, and does not reflect the input and clarity, other than by some hasty addition, to that which had already been offered. So we must, with serenity and on the basis of the evidence – because we have nothing to hide! – bring forth the explanation of the position of the Holy See, respond to the questions that remain, so that the fundamental objective that is to be pursued – the protection of children – can be achieved. We are talking about 40 million cases of child abuse in the world: unfortunately some of these cases – even though in small proportions in comparison to all those that are happening in the world – affect people in the Church. And the Church has responded and reacted and continues to do so! We must insist on this policy of transparency, of no tolerance of abuse, because even one single case of child abuse is one case too many!”

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

In Newcastle Local Court (New South Wales) on 5 February 2014, a Marist Brother (Darcy John O’Sullivan, known as Brother “Dominic”) was committed for trial on eight charges of indecently assaulting four schoolboys in the 1970s. In written police statements, the former students alleged that they were indecently handled by Brother Dominic while in class, and they allegedly saw him placing his hands into other students’ shorts.

Brother “Dominic”, now elderly, is retired from teaching and resides at a Marist Brothers facility in Queensland. He was charged under his birth name, Darcy John O’Sullivan. “Dominic” is the religious name that he adoped when he joirned the Marist Brothers.

Police charged Brother Dominic with having indecently assaulted the four boys, aged 14 and 15, at the Marist Brothers Hamilton school in Newcastle. The offences allegedly occurred in 1971 and 1972.

The court received written statements, signed by each of the ex-students.

The statement from one student alleged that Brother Dominic put his hand up the boy’s shorts and squeezed the boy’s penis. The boy stated that he yelled at Brother Dominic: ‘‘F— off and leave me alone’’.

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INDIA
Hill Post

Dhradun: Perturbed by the alleged molestation attempt of a 28-year-old woman in a Delhi hotel by the ‘rawal’ (chief priest) of the famed Badrinath shrine, that has sent shock waves amongst the Hindu community in general and residents of the upper reaches of Uttarakhand in particular, the Badri-Kedar Temple Committee has decided to ban pilgrims going to the residence of the ‘rawal’ and other priests and dignitaries of the temple for their blessings.

Hoping that this would prevent the pilgrims from coming to a one-to-one meeting with the ‘rawal’ and other dignitaries, and thereby avoid such a situation which has made the head of the Committee members and the Hindu community hang their heads in shame, there was a strong feeling that the practice of going to the residences of the ‘rawal’ and other dignitaries of the temple created personal attachments and relations, which were best avoidable.

Amongst other preventive measures that have been adopted following the arrest of the chief priest of the temple, Keshavan Namboodri, by the Delhi police in the alleged molestation bid, the Committee has also decided that all workers and volunteers working at the temple premises will wear dhotis while in the temple, so that they can be easily identified. It was decided that employees and volunteers not wearing dhotis would not be allowed inside the temple premises.

Even as the special committee formed by the Badri-Kedar Temple Committee to probe into the allegations of molestation by the ‘rawal’ has got in touch with the Delhi police to get information in the matter before a final decision on the continuing of Keshavan Namboodri as ‘rawal’ is taken, it was also decided that use of mobile phones would be banned in the temple premises.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

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

Because the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has no police power, it relies on moral pressure to get member states to adopt its child protection recommendations. That is obviously what it hoped to accomplish with Wednesday’s report on the Vatican and the child abuse scandals that have rocked Catholicism over the last dozen years, issuing a stinging indictment of what it called a culture of “impunity” for perpetrators.

There is a strong possibility the fusillade from the UN panel may backfire, however, by blurring the cause of child protection with the culture wars over sexual mores.

In several sections of its report, the committee joins its critique on abuse with blunt advice to Rome to jettison church teaching on matters such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception. At one stage, the panel even recommends repealing a codicil of church law that imposes automatic excommunication for participating in an abortion.

Not only are those bits of advice most unlikely to be adopted, they may actually strengthen the hand of those still in denial in the church about the enormity of the abuse scandals by allowing them to style the UN report as an all-too-familiar secular criticism driven by politics.

That could overshadow the fact that there are, in truth, many child protection recommendations in the report that the church’s own reform wing has long championed.

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VATICAN CITY
New Straits Times

The UN’s damning report on the Vatican’s handling of child sex abuse cases has turned up the pressure on the Church to convince a sceptical international community it has adopted a zero-tolerance approach.

“The Vatican has taken some steps forward, but they have been largely symbolic: energetic words rather than actions. The UN is right to have spoken out so strongly,” Vatican commentator Paolo Flores D’Arcais told AFP.

The Church was denounced by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on Wednesday for failing to stamp out predatory priests, and urged to hand over known and suspected abusers for prosecution.

The UN committee’s recommendations are non-binding but have held up a fresh mirror to highly damaging Vatican failures.

The report was a bolt from the blue for an institution revelling in the popularity of its new pope, Francis, who has spoken little of the abuse and who appeared to hope the Church had left the crisis behind it.

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UNITED STATES
NPR – All Things Considered

[with audio]

by SYLVIA POGGIOLI
February 05, 2014

The United Nations watchdog for children’s rights has accused the Vatican of caring more about its own reputation and members of the clergy than the victims of sexual abuse. The group is calling for the Vatican to immediately remove any priests suspected of sexually abusing children.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I’m Audie Cornish.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I’m Melissa Block. The Vatican is angered by a UN report issued today that looks into the church’s record on child sexual abuse. A UN committee on the rights of children is demanding the Roman Catholic Church turn over archives relating to how it dealt with priests. It accuses the Vatican of policies that effectively allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children worldwide. NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli joins me from Rome to talk about that.

And Sylvia, tell us more about just what this report says.

SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: Well, it expressed grave concern that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed by priests and has not taken the necessary steps to address cases of child sex abuse. The report came out just a few weeks after Vatican officials were grilled for an entire day in Geneva on the Holy See’s implementation of the international treaty on the rights of the child.

The report also urges the Vatican to immediately remove all known or suspected child abusers from the clergy and turn them over to the police. And in the key point, the committee rejects the Vatican’s longstanding claim that it does not control bishops or their abuses priests. The report claims the Holy See is responsible for implementation of the international treaty it signed, not just in Vatican City, but around the world as the supreme power of the Catholic Church.

BLOCK: Now, Sylvia, this report from the UN also went beyond the issue of child sex abuse. It also called for changes in traditional church attitudes. What specifically did it say?

POGGIOLI: Well, the committee severely criticized the Vatican for its attitudes toward homosexuality, contraception and abortion and urged it to review its policies to insure children’s rights and their access to healthcare, including abortion, for example, in a case to save the life of a young mother. In response, the Vatican said the report was distorted, unfair and ideologically slanted.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KSHB

By: ALAN SCHER ZAGIER

ST. LOUIS (AP) – The Missouri Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Archdiocese of St. Louis must release the names of more than 100 church employees accused of sexual abuse over the past 20 years as part of a civil lawsuit it faces.

The denial of an archdiocese request upholds a St. Louis judge’s earlier decision. The names will be released only to an unnamed woman suing the diocese and her attorneys, not to the general public.

The lawsuit was filed in 2011 by a 19-year-old woman who claimed the abuse began when she was 5 years old and attended St. Cronan’s parish.

The priest, who was later defrocked, had been convicted of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy at a parish in University City decades earlier. He then received treatment and was reassigned to St. Cronan’s.

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IRELAND
Reuters

By Padraic Halpin FEBRUARY 5, 2014

Advocacy groups for women forced to work at the Catholic Church’s notorious Magdalene laundries in Ireland backed calls from the United Nations for religious orders to pay compensation and face prosecution for decades of abuse.

In an unprecedented report on Wednesday, the U.N. demanded that the Vatican “immediately remove” all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers. It also urged the Holy See to conduct an investigation into the laundries.

Women, many unmarried mothers, sent to the laundries were made wash items for business, hospitals and state bodies in slave-like conditions, and were often subject to cruel and degrading treatment as well as physical and sexual abuse, the report by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said.

“The state has allowed the perpetrators of these crimes to get away without taking responsibility,” said Steven O’ Riordan, director of Magdalene Survivors Together. “The religious orders are still not being held accountable, they have never apologized directly for their part in running the laundries.”

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY BRIAN HUTTON – 06 FEBRUARY 2014

The United Nations has openly challenged Pope Francis to launch an investigation into decades of abuse of girls and young women at Catholic-run workhouses in Ireland.

It has also demanded the religious orders involved or the Vatican itself pay compensation to survivors and families of victims of the notorious Magdalene Laundries.

In a blistering attack on Rome’s response to the laundries scandal – recalled in the recently Oscar-nominated film Philomena – the UN’s children’s rights watchdog said the church took no action to investigate the abuse.

Nor did church authorities compel nuns who ran the workhouses to co-operate with police inquiries into those who organised and knowingly profited from unpaid work by girls incarcerated in the laundries, the UN said.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

06 FEBRUARY 2014

THE United Nations has singled out Ireland’s Magdalene laundries scandal as part of a devastating onslaught on the Catholic Church’s handling of clerical abuse.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child accused the Vatican of systematically turning a blind eye to decades of sexual abuse of children by priests, and demanded it immediately turn over known or suspected offenders to face justice.

And the UN committee launched a scathing attack on Ireland’s shameful treatment of women incarcerated in the Magdalene laundries.

Crucially, the UN report stated that the Magdalene women who were “arbitrarily confined” in institutions run by four religious orders of sisters should be paid compensation by the church.

The United Nations report was issued on the same day that Pope Francis met Philomena Lee, the campaigner who has called on the Government to open up adoption records and reunite mothers separated from their children as a result of forced adoption.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE STATE HAS been called on to begin immediate action on the Magdalene Laundries restorative justice scheme.

The call came from JFM Research as it welcomed a UN Report on the Holy See.

Today’s report from the UN watchdog for children’s rights said that the Vatican should immediately remove all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers, and turn them over to civil authorities.
Magdalenes

Today, JFM said that the Catholic church and the four religious orders that ran Magdalene Laundries in Ireland “have refused to accept unanimous survivor testimony that they were imprisoned and subjected to forced labour and torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – AM

[with audio]

TONY EASTLEY: A United Nations committee is calling on the Vatican to immediately remove all known and suspected child abusers from their posts and hand over their files to police.

In a damning report the UN’s watchdog for children’s rights lambasted the Vatican for implementing policies it said allowed thousands of children worldwide to be abused.

The Catholic Church in turn has accused the UN body of interference and of being out of touch.

Europe correspondent Barbara Miller reports.

BARBARA MILLER: The report by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child pulls no punches.

Committee chairwoman Kirsten Sandberg:

KIRSTEN SANDBERG: The main finding of the committee was that the Holy See has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators.

BARBARA MILLER: The committee said the Church should remove immediately from their positions all known or suspected child abusers and hand over any case files to relevant authorities.

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GENEVA
PRI

[with audio]

A United Nations panel had harsh words for the Vatican overs its handling of child sex abuse cases.

Kirsten Sandberg, chairwoman of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, said the main finding of the report was that the Holy See adopted policies and practices that led to continued abuse by, and no punishment for, the perpetrators.

“The Holy See has consistently placed the preservation of the reputation of the Church and the protection of the perpetrators above children’s best interests,” she said.

The panel asked the Vatican to remove all known or suspected child molesters from their posts and report them to civil authorities. It also demanded that the Vatican open its files on members of the clergy who had “concealed their crimes” so that they could be held accountable.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Maeve O’Rourke and James M Smith

Thu, Feb 6, 2014

It is almost a year since the Taoiseach made his emotional apology to survivors of the Magdalene Laundries, and yet these women continue to suffer poverty, ill-health and trauma after decades of State-sponsored abuse.

It may surprise the Irish public to discover no legislation has been tabled to provide for the restorative justice scheme recommended by Mr Justice John Quirke last May. To those of us who campaigned against previous denial and delay, this represents more of the same.

Over the past few weeks, Magdalene survivors have begun to receive formal offer letters from the State. In them, the Department of Justice offers a lump sum payment, but states that all other aspects of the scheme remain subject to legislation or discussions with other Government departments.

These additional elements are therefore unspecified, apart from the statutory old age pensions, to be paid from “early 2014”. Disturbingly, many core aspects of Mr Justice Quirke’s scheme are not mentioned in the Terms of an Ex Gratia Scheme , a 13-page document accompanying the offer letters.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti
Updated Wed 5 Feb 2014

An inquiry into physical and sexual abuse at a Salvation Army boys home in Queensland has been told child welfare officers were aware of the concerns, but the home continued to operate.

A former social worker Roy Short has been asked why more was not done to address reports of severe abuse at the boys home.

Salvation Army officers are accused of beating and raping boys at the Alkira boys home in the Brisbane suburb of Indooroopilly in the 1970s.

Lawyers at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse have been attempting to gather further information in light of revelations that boys were also being flown to Sydney as part of a prostitution network.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

Source AAP

The Salvation Army wanted to know why the NSW department of child welfare had not let them handle a child sex abuse allegation against one of their officers instead of going to police, an inquiry has heard.

The chief executive of the NSW Department of Community Services, Maree Walk gave evidence at a public hearing of the royal commission into child sexual abuse in Sydney on Thursday.

Her evidence was based on a review of how the department supervised two Salvation Army homes in the 1970s – Bexley Boys’ Home in Sydney’s south and the Gill Memorial Home in Goulburn.

Documents showed that in February 1974, a NSW welfare officer reported to police that the manager of the Gill home, who has been identified as X17, had indecently assaulted a boy.

Records also show a Salvation Army officer identified as Major X4 called the department “to raise the question of why the matter had not been handled by way of reference direct to the Salvation Army”.

The welfare officer at the time responded that the provision of the law required it be referred and wrote a memo saying “Major X4 was obviously disappointed in this attitude, but I am still of the opinion that was the correct course to take”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti

A former child welfare officer has launched a stinging attack on state and federal governments, telling a public inquiry they have historically failed to properly provide for children in need.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is currently examining four boys homes operated by the Salvation Army in New South Wales and Queensland.

Former residents have cried as they recalled years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Salvation Army officers and older boys in the 1960s and 1970s.

Janice Doyle was a supervisor at the Queensland Department of Children’s Services in 1975 and observed conditions in Salvation Army homes at Riverview and Indooroopilly.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

United Nations Releases Scathing Report on Handling of Abuse Crisis by Catholic Authorities

The United Nations Committee on Protection of the Rights of the Child has now released its report (pdf file) following the Vatican’s grilling (and here) by that committee in mid-January. The report is scathing. The committee report urges the Vatican to act immediately to remove from ministry all priests known to have abused or suspected of having abused children, and to report them to civil authorities.

In dry, understated statements, the committee notes (e.g., I.2) that the Vatican has stonewalled the U.N. for years now, as that body has sought to call the Vatican (and the Catholic hierarchy as a whole) to accountability for its handling of the abuse crisis in the Catholic church. As the report suggests, at the recent hearing before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Vatican continued its obfuscation, refusing to answer direct questions in any direct manner:

The Committee regrets that most of the recommendations contained in the Committee’s concluding observations of 1995 on the initial report of the Holy See (CRC/C/15/Add.46) have not been fully addressed (IV.9).

The committee flatly rejects (III.8) the argument that Archbishop Silvano Tomasi and Bishop Charles Scicluna sought to float at their recent hearing before the U.N. committee–that is, that the Vatican has no effective authority over bishops in dioceses around the world, or over the superiors of religious communities. The committee also rejects the Vatican argument that it has complied with the concerns of the U.N. about children’s rights and safety, when canon law continues to ignore the provisions of the U.N. about these matters, “in particular those relating to children‘s rights to be protected against discrimination, violence and all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse” (IV.13)

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
FEB. 5, 2014

A United Nations report excoriated the Vatican on Wednesday for failing to live up to international commitments to protect children, finding the widespread sexual abuse of children by priests had been compounded by church policies that allowed abusers to continue to prey on youngsters.

The documented evidence in recent decades shows the finding by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child was a well-deserved judgment, particularly as Vatican officials continue to insist the many thousands of cases of child rape and abuse by clergy were a matter outside their domain and best left to the discretion of local civil authorities.

The United Nations panel went to the heart of the matter in rejecting the church officials’ claims that they were responsible for enforcing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child only within the geographical limits of Vatican City and not globally through their power over the Roman Catholic diocesan hierarchy.

In practice, this policy fed the pattern of cover-up by local church officials who sent abusers to other parishes and ducked the obligation to notify civil authorities of crimes. Since it was the Vatican that ratified the children’s rights convention, it is responsible for ensuring its provisions are followed down to the parish level, the report said.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

[with audio]

By SBS

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child says tens of thousands of children worldwide had been abused systemically for years within the Catholic Church, and little has been done to redress the wrong doings.

The report accuses the Catholic Church of covering up the crimes by transferring abusers to different parishes, which it says facilitated the continuation of abuse.

It criticises the Church for dealing with accusations behind closed doors, allowing the vast majority of abusers to escape judicial proceedings.

Victims of clergy abuse advocate, Wayne Chamley of Broken Rites, says the church still doesn’t realise that the era of policing itself has finished.

“They don’t seem to realise that those days are over and what’s been going on around the world in things like the royal commision in Ireland, and the royal commission in Australia the Victorian inquiry etc, they’re being required to come to a process of scrutiny that they can’t control and they still don’t have the mindset that the days of self examination are over. It’s just not acceptable to the public and it’s not acceptable to the government.”

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NEW ZEALAND
Radio New Zealand

An organisation representing male survivors of sexual abuse including some abused by priests, says the Catholic Church in New Zealand, like other countries, is still in denial.

In a scathing report on the Vatican’s policies, the United Nations’ watchdog for children’s rights says Church officials imposed a code of silence on clerics and moved abusers from parish to parish in an attempt to cover up such crimes.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child says “tens of thousands of children worldwide” were abused systemically for years within the Catholic Church. It urged Church hierarchy to “immediately remove all known and suspected child sexual abusers and refer them to relevant law enforcement authorities for investigation and prosecution purposes”.

The Catholic Church in New Zealand says all complaints of abuse are given to police and a code of silence has not been evident in the country for at least 20 years.

A spokesperson for its national office for professional standards, Bill Kilgallon, said cover-ups did happen in the past.

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VATICAN CITY
euronews

The Vatican has described a scathing United Nations report in which the Catholic Church is accused of turning a blind eye to decades of child sex abuse by priests, as “distorted” and “unfair”.

In a written statement the Church reiterated its commitment to defending and protecting the rights of the child and described the UN report as ideologically slanted.

The Vatican’s Ambassador to the UN, Silvano Maria Tomasi added that the Holy See as head of the Vatican City had already changed its procedures and introduced measures which are specifically designed to prevent child sex abuse.

The UN committee which wrote the report, heard first hand witness statements from abuse victims at a grilling of the Vatican delegation in Geneva last month.

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UNITED STATES
Voice of Russia

[with audio]

By Andrew Hiller

WASHINGTON (VR)– The care of our children, both physical and psychological, is one of the most important duties of a family, community, or culture. When cracks appear in that duty, even if from a small minority, it can cause great concern. On Wednesday, a United Nations panel strongly rebuked the Vatican arguing that it has failed to acknowledge the scale of sexual abuse that has been perpetrated by its clergy and facilitated by policies that have led to “the continuation of the abuse and the impunity of the perpetrators.”

To analyze the UN’s remarks and how the Catholic Church can or should respond, VR’s Andrew Hiller spoke with Father Thomas J. Reese. Reese is a Senior Analyst for National Catholic Reporter.

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IRAN
Press TV

[with video]

A group representing victims of child sex abuse at the Catholic Church has called on the Vatican to prosecute offending priests.

In an interview with Italy’s edition of the English-language news publisher, The Local, on Wednesday, Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said more action needs to be taken by the Holy See concerning systematic child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

“Church officials have refused to take any action that will protect children. All Pope Francis has done is set up a commission but that does not protect children,” Blaine said.

A report by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recently shed new light on decades of such scandals.

The report criticized the Holy See for adopting policies that allow the clergy to sexually abuse children with impunity.

The Vatican, however, said in a statement that it was committed to “defending and protecting the rights of the child” and would submit the findings to “a thorough study and examination.”

However, SNAP described the Vatican response to the UN report as inadequate, adding that child abuse will remain as long as those church officials who are protecting the offending priests are not prosecuted.

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ALABAMA
Montgomery Advertiser

MUSCLE SHOALS – The children’s minister at a northwest Alabama church is facing more than 30 counts of sex abuse.

Muscle Shoals Police Chief Robert Evans said 42-year-old Jeffrey Dale Eddie of Muscle Shoals is charged with 31 counts of second-degree sodomy, three counts of sexual abuse of a child younger than 12 and two counts of possession of obscene material depicting children.

Eddie’s lawyer, Billy Underwood, said his client is a well-loved children’s minister at Highland Park Baptist Church.

Underwood told The TimesDaily that there are two sides to every story. Underwood said he thinks there’s “another side to the story that might exonerate him.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Eamon Duffy
The Guardian, Thursday 6 February 2014

This history of Catholic confession is in large part an impassioned response to sexual abuse by the clergy. But does it focus too much on sex?

Any Catholic over the age of 50 will have vivid memories of a now largely abandoned spiritual discipline, weekly or monthly visits to church to confess one’s sins to a priest. Beforehand, you prayerfully examined your conscience, working through the ways in which you might have broken the commandments, or succumbed to the “capital” or deadly sins – pride, envy, lust, wrath, avarice, gluttony and sloth. When your turn came (there was usually a queue) you entered the “dark box” of John Cornwell’s title, where, behind a shuttered grille, the priest waited for you to unload your fardle of failings. He might ask for clarification or offer advice before imposing a “penance” (usually reciting a few Hail Maries). Then, while you said an “act of contrition”, expressing sorrow and resolve not to sin again, the priest pronounced absolution.

This ritual might be a cursory routine lasting a couple of minutes or a searching ordeal that probed the soul. As parish priest and university chaplain, the future Pope John Paul II regularly detained penitents for up to an hour. Protestants dismissed confession as a licence to commit sin, confess glibly, then sin again. Posh Catholics in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited spoke of “going to scrape”, which perhaps lent credibility to the Protestant charge. But one way or another, in the years after the Second Vatican Council, those long queues dwindled to nothing, as Catholics in their millions simply stopped attending. Despite vehement attempts by John Paul II to promote its revival, frequent confession is now the custom of the few.

Private confession originated among soul-searching Irish monks in dark-age Europe. Backed by a ferocious tariff of punishments or “penances” for grave sins, the practice spread to the wider church, as a way of regulating the morals of a half-Christianised and often brutal lay world. Pastoral common sense gradually moderated the penances, and annual confession became mandatory for adults in the early 13th century as the emerging parish system gave everyone access to a local priest. This new discipline was in part a way of policing morals, in part a forum in which, as anxiety grew about heresy, orthodox Christian teaching could be transmitted and quizzed. From the 16th century onwards spiritual directors saw the sacrament as a means of promoting a more interiorised religion among the pious, while revivalist Catholic preachers saw it as an instrument to convert and civilise rural populations, whom they perceived as barely Christian and sunk in sin.

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FINLAND
Helsinki Times

A United Nations committee issued a scathing indictment Wednesday of the Vatican’s handling of cases of child sexual abuse involving clerics, releasing a report that included criticism of church teachings on homosexuality, gender equality and abortion.

The report demanded that the Vatican immediately turn over to criminal investigators any known or suspected abusers and end its “code of silence” by enforcing rules ordering dioceses to report abuse to local authorities. It also called on the Vatican to open its archives on sexual allegations against clerics.

The range of the report appeared to infuriate the Vatican, which last month sent two top officials to appear before the UN panel in Geneva for the first public accounting of the Holy See’s handling of abuse allegations. Officials said they are still studying the findings, but responded angrily to what they described as recommendations that are ideologically biased. They said the United Nations has no right to weigh in on church teachings. …

Although some Catholic leaders deemed the report anti-Catholic, an expert on the United Nations said there generally isn’t tension between the organisation and religion.

Wednesday’s critique of the Catholic Church around reproductive issues in particular recalled the clash of worldviews with the Holy See at the 1994 UN population conference in Cairo, where some participants called the Vatican to task for its stance against contraception. But some experts said it was rare for the United Nations to comment on religious doctrine.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Jack Quann

The head of Amnesty International in Ireland says the Vatican must not turn itself into a victim over a scathing report from the UN. A high-level committee yesterday accused it of failing to protect children from sexual abuse.

It also called for the church to investigate the Magdelene Laundries in Ireland and similar institutions.

The UN Committee of the Rights of the Child is also demanding all archives be handed over so any culprits can be held to account. The report was produced following the public questioning of Vatican officials last month.

The month-long investigation examined cases of clerics who have been “involved in the abuse of tens of thousands of children worldwide”.

The Committee said their investigation had shown the Holy See has adopted policies which has led to the continuation of abuse.

Kirsten Sandberg, Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, said yesterday “It is a horrible thing that has been kept silent…the abuse has been going on and on”.

It has now recommended the Holy See immediately share any information on all cases of abuse – which follows criticism that the Vatican has declined to provide any data relating to the scandal.

The Committee has recommended the Holy See establish a framework for reporting and ensuring all members of the Catholic Church are educated on the issue.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has released the full text of its report that blasted the Vatican’s response to the abuse scandal.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child is responsible for examining compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a 1989 treaty signed by 193 states. (The United States is not bound by the treaty: although President Bill Clinton signed it in 1995, the Senate has not ratified it.) The Holy See signed the treaty in 1990, putting forward three reservations as it did so:

[The Holy See] interprets the phrase `Family planning education and services’ in article 24.2, to mean only those methods of family planning which it considers morally acceptable, that is, the natural methods of family planning.

[The Holy See] interprets the articles of the Convention in a way which safeguards the primary and inalienable rights of parents, in particular insofar as these rights concern education (articles 13 and 28), religion (article 14), association with others (article 15) and privacy (article 16).

[The Holy See declares] that the application of the Convention be compatible in practice with the particular nature of the Vatican City State and of the sources of its objective law (art. 1, Law of 7 June 1929, n. 11) and, in consideration of its limited extent, with its legislation in the matters of citizenship, access and residence.”
The treaty requires signatories to submit a report on their compliance within two years of ratification, and thereafter every five years. The Holy See submitted its first report nearly two decades ago but did not submit its second report until recently. At the beginning of its own 2014 report, the committee stated that it “regrets that the second periodic report was submitted with a considerable delay, which prevented the Committee from reviewing the implementation of the Convention by the Holy See for 14 years.”

In its 14-paragraph 1995 report on the Holy See’s compliance, the committee noted three areas of concern and offered five suggestions and recommendations. The committee asked the Holy See to withdraw its three reservations, expressed concern about gender discrimination in “Catholic schools and institutions,” and expressed concern about “the insufficient attention paid to the promotion of education of children on health matters, the development of preventive health care, guidance for parents and family planning education and services.”

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ALABAMA
WAFF

[court document]

[with video]

By Diana Crawford

MUSCLE SHOALS, AL (WAFF) –
The pastor of Highland Park Baptist Church spoke briefly Wednesday about the arrest of a children’s pastor facing charges of sexual abuse.

He has declined all requests for a separate interview, but at a press conference Wednesday, Pastor Brett Pitman said the church is outraged and saddened by the events that have unfolded over the last few days.

Pitman stressed the church’s top priority is to help those involved. He said children or families in search of counseling may contact the church office for assistance. He also thanked every person that has come forward, saying they are the heroes and should be treated as such.

“First and foremost, we are striving to assist any children and families that have been affected by these events. The health and well-being of these children is our number one priority at this time. For years, Highland Park Baptist Church has invested in the Shoals community and we are committed to helping our entire community cope with this situation,” Pitman said at the press conference.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Nicole Winfield, Vatican City

In a damning report, the UN committee also severely criticised the Holy See for its attitudes toward homosexuality, contraception, and abortion and said it should change its own canon law to ensure children’s rights and their access to healthcare are guaranteed.

The UN blasted the “code of silence” that has long been used to keep victims quiet, saying the Holy See had “systematically placed preservation of the reputation of the Church and the alleged offender over the protection of child victims”. …

Executive director of abuse survivor group One in Four Maeve Lewis said: “This vindicates absolutely what survivors of abuse have been saying over the past decade. The Vatican has always tried to lay responsibility for child sexual abuse on the individual offenders and on local bishops.

“It has never admitted that its policies and regulations ensured that priests were protected at the expense of children’s safety. This falsehood is now exposed.

“If the Vatican is to retain any credibility it must immediately abide by the committee’s recommendations, hand over all its records and immediately put in place a policy of mandatory reporting of sexual crimes.”

The report urged the Holy See to establish clear rules for the mandatory reporting of abuse to police and to support laws that allow victims to report crimes even after the statute of limitations has expired.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear Pashman, Tribune reporter
9:22 p.m. CST, February 5, 2014

The Chicago Archdiocese has updated its list of clergy who have substantiated allegations of abuse against them to include a former Roman Catholic priest who was sued last May over claims of child sexual abuse.

Joseph Wilk, the former pastor of St. Matthew Catholic Church in Schaumburg, was accused in a suit filed in May of abusing Donnie Ophus starting in 1995, when he was 10 years old. Abuse continued after Ophus turned 18, according to the suit.

Archdiocese officials on Wednesday confirmed the addition of Wilk’s name to an online list of dozens of priests who have substantiated claims of abuse against them.

The suit claims that Wilk provided alcohol to Ophus and on two occasions in 2002 gave him $200 or $300. In an interview with the Tribune, Ophus said he threatened to go to authorities in 2003 if the priest didn’t give him $3,000. The priest gave him the money but made him agree in writing that he would not report the abuse to law enforcement or church authorities, Ophus said.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KSDK

[with video]

Mike Rush, KSDK February 5, 2014

ST. LOUIS – After a months-long legal fight, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Archdiocese of St. Louis must reveal the names of priests accused of sexually abusing minors. This all comes on the same day the United Nations is denouncing the Vatican for how they’ve handled sex abusers.

On the world stage, the Catholic Church is pushing back against the UN’s scathing report, but locally, with its legal options appearing to be exhausted, the Archdiocese of St. Louis is giving in, agreeing to reveal priests’ names it fought so hard to conceal.

The priests’ identities must be provided not to the public, but to lawyers suing on behalf of a female victim.

In a statement following the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling, the archdiocese said, in part, “We appreciate the concern given this case throughout the appellate process, 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 court order entered by the Missouri Supreme Court.”

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UNITED STATES
NET – PBS Newshour

GWEN IFILL: The Vatican has long been criticized for its handling of sexual abuse cases, but today’s report from a United Nations panel was especially harsh.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child said the Vatican had not adequately acknowledged past crimes, and cultivated a code of silence that provided immunity for perpetrators. The Vatican calls the report distorted and unfair, in that it ignores corrective actions taken by the church.

Here to flesh out those arguments are Reverend Thomas Rosica, chief executive officer of Canada’s Catholic Salt and Light Television Network and an English-language spokesperson for the Vatican, and Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the center for constitutional rights.

Reverend Rosica, how does this report, in your opinion, differ from what we have heard before?

REV. THOMAS ROSICA, Catholic Salt and Light Television Network: First of all, let me address the question of sex abuse, and that this report has a central mission to address that.

It is criminal. It is evil, and the church is doing everything possible to address the issue, particularly since 2001, when all of this exploded in Boston and other places in the United States. What I find disturbing about the report, basically three areas. It’s a great deal of ignorance that the committee reveals in the report, first of all, ignorance of what the church has already done, and what the church is doing, especially under the pontificate of Pope Benedict, and now under Pope Francis.

Secondly, there is gross mis-ignorance — gross ignorance, I should say, of the understanding of the reality of the church. How is the church structured? One could read the report and get the impression that the church is this huge monolithic structure, the headquarters, if you will, dictating to all the branch offices.

That’s not the reality of the church. And a very serious point of the report is its ability to meddle in the internal life of the church, in the basic tenets of our faith, what some would call the doctrinal issues. And the report is contradictory in a couple areas. …

KATHERINE GALLAGHER, Center for Constitutional Rights: Well, we see today is quite a historic day.

We at CCR represent of Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests. And for survivors who have been working for decades to bring to global attention the scope and scale and the severity of sexual violence against children, we are very gratified by the U.N.’s report today. It’s notable that the U.N. calls out not just the perpetrators, the individual perpetrators, but also the higher-level officials whose own practices and policies have enabled the continuation of sexual violence by covering up instances of violence — violence, by requiring confidentiality, by shifting priests from one jurisdiction to another without any warning, where they again commit more acts of sexual assault.

So we see today’s report, which recognizes that the Catholic Church, the Vatican puts its reputation over the safety of children, as a very, very welcome report.

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VATICAN CITY
Channel News Asia

VATICAN CITY: The UN’s damning report on the Vatican’s handling of child sex abuse cases has turned up the pressure on the Church to convince a sceptical international community it has adopted a zero-tolerance approach.

“The Vatican has taken some steps forward, but they have been largely symbolic: energetic words rather than actions. The UN is right to have spoken out so strongly,” Vatican commentator Paolo Flores D’Arcais told AFP.

The Church was denounced by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on Wednesday for failing to stamp out predatory priests, and urged to hand over known and suspected abusers for prosecution. …

“Publicly remove offenders from ministry”

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) dismissed as inadequate the Vatican’s tense response that it had “taken note” of the UN report and would submit it to “a thorough study and examination”.

“Bishops don’t move predators, shun victims, rebuff prosecutors, shred evidence, intimidate witnesses, discredit whistleblowers, dodge responsibility, fabricate alibis… because of inadequate ‘study’,” SNAP said.

“The quickest way to prevent child sexual violence by Catholic clerics is for Pope Francis to publicly remove all offenders from ministry…. But like his predecessors, he has refused to take even tiny steps in this direction,” it said.

The Vatican’s secretary of state Pietro Parolin spoke of the Church’s “desire to adhere to the commission’s needs”.

But frustration over the Vatican’s handling of the matter was expressed even by some Catholic groups.

“If the pope is serious about turning the page on this scandal, he should immediately dismiss any bishop who oversaw a diocese in which a priest who abused children was shielded from the civil authorities,” said Jon O’Brien, head of the US lobby group Catholics for Choice.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By Michael Rezendes and Lisa Wangsness | GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 06, 2014

The Vatican was the subject Wednesday of a blistering critique by a UN human rights committee that accused the Catholic Church of systematically adopting policies that permitted priests to sexually abuse tens of thousands of children globally over the last several decades.

The United Nations committee faulted the church for failing to take effective measures to reveal the breadth of clergy sexual abuse in the past, and for not adopting measures to sufficiently protect Catholic children in the future.

“The committee 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,” the report said. …

Terence McKiernan, president of the Massachusetts nonprofit Bishop Accountability, predicted that the impact of the UN findings will likely be profound.

“The depth and gravity of the Catholic Church’s abuse problem have now been confirmed by an international body,” McKiernan said.

Thomas H. Groome, professor of theology and religious education at Boston College, said the committee’s report should spur the Vatican to adopt stronger policies to prevent abuse.

“Whatever excuses the church may have cited for its egregious handling of clergy sexual abuse in the past (e.g., that it didn’t know the harm this did to children), it certainly has no excuse going forward,” Groome said in an e-mail. “It must embrace this report, facing it with total honesty, and then determine to implement what needs to be done to ensure that our church is never again so irresponsible and our Catholic faith never again so betrayed.”

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew

There is little doubt but that the “negative” tone of yesterday’s UN report took the Holy See by surprise.
Three weeks ago, when the Vatican made its deposition in Geneva, it had done so in a climate of cordial co-operation, where its answers to hard questions seemed well received.

The Vatican delegation believed it had managed to get across one of its key points: that the Holy See had finally begun to get its house in order on the clerical sex abuse issue.

Implicit point

That point was implicit in a remark made in Geneva by former Vatican prosecutor Bishop Charles Scicluna, who said the Holy See now “gets it”, suggesting that in the past it had misunderstood and underestimated the clerical sex abuse issue.

The man who led that Holy See delegation, the Vatican’s permanent representative in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, seemed to reflect this view when he told Vatican Radio yesterday: “The report . . . points out a rather negative approach to what the Holy See has been doing and has already achieved in the area of protection of children. The first impression is that the report is in some ways not up to date.”

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UNITED STATES
Washington Times

By Meredith Somers-The Washington Times Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Conservative Catholic groups expressed outrage Wednesday over a U.N. panel’s scathing report on the Vatican’s sex abuse scandal, saying the oversight group overstepped its authority by calling for the Catholic Church to change some of its fundamental laws on homosexuality, birth control and abortion.

The Holy See referred to some parts of the report as “an attempt to interfere” with church teachings, and other Catholic advocates called the document offensive and an attack on the church.

“It shows a certain ignorance of how the church works,” said Ashley McGuire of The Catholic Association. “They don’t just change canon law. The church’s teachings, many of them are thousands of years old and are grounded in deep moral principle. To just fire a shot off the bow and not look at the actual reality of the last 10 years seems totally unfair and undermines the credibility of the report.”

Issued Wednesday by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, the report is a response to the Holy See’s January update on how it is handling issues related to decades of child sex abuse by priests in the U.S. and around the world, and what it is doing to help the thousands of victims.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
TheMediaReport

Is the Catholic Church now responsible for hunting down and shadowing every past employee accused of abuse, and then constantly publicizing their whereabouts, no matter how long ago the alleged abuse occurred? A recent front page article for the Philadelphia Daily News by William Bender certainly appears to suggest so.

There can be no doubt that the alleged crimes committed by former Philadelphia priest James Brzyski years ago were abominable. But in an especially bad piece of journalism filled with hype and sensationalism (see the image of the front page of the Daily News that day), Bender quite incredibly faults the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for not issuing perpetual public updates on the exact whereabouts of Brzyski, even though he last functioned as a priest some 30 years ago.

Consider the following facts which Bender either ignored or only summarily mentioned:

* Records show that when the Archdiocese of Philadelphia first learned of allegations of abuse concerning Brzyski in 1984, it immediately removed him from his assignment;
* Bryzyski never again functioned publicly as a priest once the Archdiocese removed him; and
* the Archdiocese has publicly posted Brzyski’s assignment record on its web site for several years for anyone with an internet connection to review.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Review

SUBMITTED ON FEBRUARY 05, 2014

The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled that the Archdiocese of St. Louis must release the names of alleged victims and priests who have been accused of sexual abuse of minors.

In its Feb. 5 ruling, the court denied a writ of prohibition requested by the archdiocese in response to a recent court order by Judge Robert Dierker granting a plaintiff’s attorney’s request for the release of contact information of alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse and of priests who have been accused of abuse. The ruling covers abuse allegations first made within the time frame of July 1, 1983 and June 30, 2003.

All information to be released is subject to a protective order, entered by Dierker, to prohibit public disclosure.

A statement from the archdiocese said that it will comply with the order. The statement also noted that although some allegations date back as far as the 1940s, all were reported within a 20-year window from 1983-2003. Most of the allegations predate the Catholic Church’s Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which was passed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002.

Dierker’s order stemmed from a 2011 lawsuit filed by a woman who said she was sexually abused by the former Father Joseph Ross, who has since been removed from the priesthood and from the clerical state.

In its statement, the archdiocese said it litigated 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 allegations. The request for information includes names, addresses and phone numbers.

“It is our fervent hope that today’s ruling will not deter victims from coming forward to report abuse,” according to the statement. “Sexual abuse is a sin and a crime. It remains the firm commitment of the Archdiocese of St. Louis to root out this evil whenever and wherever it presents itself within our ranks.

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ROME
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew

There was widespread reaction in Rome, in Ireland and across the world to the report by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

In Rome, the Holy See issued a statement rejecting the Geneva committee’s attacks on Catholic teaching in the area of sexual mores.

“The Holy See . . . regrets to see in some points of the concluding observations an attempt to interfere with Catholic Church teaching on the dignity of the human person and in the exercise of religious freedom,” it said.

The UN watchdog for children’s rights said the Holy See should hand over its archives on sexual abuse so that culprits, as well as “those who concealed their crimes”, could be held accountable. Photograph: Tony Gentile/ReutersReputation of church ‘placed above children’s best interests’
“The Holy See reiterates its commitment to defending and protecting the rights of the child, in line with the principles promoted by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and according to the moral and religious values offered by the Catholic Church.”

‘Discriminatory’

Paragraph 25 of the committee’s report complains about the use of “discriminatory” language such as illegitimate children. It also argues that church teaching can lead to “the social stigmatisation of and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adolescents and children raised by same-sex couples”.

Lobby groups for victims of clerical sex abuse said the UN body’s findings supported long-held opinions.

In Ireland, One in Four said: “The report contains a scathing critique of the Catholic Church’s attempts to cover up the extent of the sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy and its failures to report incidents of abuse to civil authorities. This report by an international neutral body confirms what has long been suspected: that the Vatican had a far greater knowledge of the extent of clerical sexual abuse than it has ever acknowledged.”

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties said the report was “a devastating critique of systemic child protection failures by the Vatican”, and called on the papal nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, to indicate what action would be taken “to ensure that these shortcomings are rectified”.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Fox 2

[with video]

February 5, 2014, by Charles Jaco

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI)– The Missouri Supreme Court Wednesday ordered the St. Louis Archdiocese to turn over the names of more than 100 priests suspected of sexually abusing children over decades.

The names of the priests will be sealed, available only to the attorneys for a woman suing the archdiocese. She claims she was sexually abused by a priest starting when she was five years old and that the list of names going back to the 1980′s will show the archdiocese has a decades-old pattern of covering up for pedophile priests.

The Archdiocese was first ordered to turn over the names by a St. Louis Circuit Court Judge in November. But the archdiocese repeatedly appealed saying it was concerned with the privacy of both the accused and the victims. Following Wednesday’s Missouri Supreme Court ruling, the archdiocese says it will turn over the names, covering over 200separate incidents dating back to the 1980′s. In a statement, the Archdiocese said in part:

“The Archdiocese had litigated to protect the privacy rights of all concerned, including victims who had no connection to the current litigation and who had expressed anonymity regarding their reported allegation. The request for information includes not only names, but also addresses and phone numbers.”

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SPAIN
Zee News

Madrid: Spanish prosecutors have opened an investigation into newly chosen Spanish Cardinal Fernando Sebastian Aguilar after a gay-rights group accused him of hate speech for calling homosexuality a “defect”.

The public prosecutor for the southern province of Malaga, Juan Carlos Lopez, said he had opened a preliminary inquiry “to clarify whether the allegations constitute a criminal offence,” according to a document obtained yesterday.

Sebastian, who is close to Pope Francis, is one of 19 new cardinals chosen by the pontiff last month to be officially appointed on February 22.

A week after being picked, the 84-year-old archbishop emeritus of Pamplona gave an interview to a Malaga newspaper that drew condemnation from gay-rights activists.

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NEW JERSEY
Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on February 05, 2014

The most surprising thing about today’s scathing United Nations rebuke of the Vatican over decades of unchecked child abuse had nothing to do with its content. The allegations of systemic rape and cover-ups weren’t new, nor even shocking. The report compiles a tragic list of known crimes, and scolds the Catholic Church for inaction.

The surprise, instead, was the church’s response: outright criticism of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which conducted the inquiry, coupled with the tired “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” defense the church reserves for its strongest critics.

At its lowest point, the Vatican’s response accused the committee – a panel of independent experts on global children’s issues, not UN member states – of being co-opted by gay rights and gay marriage supporters.

The clumsy retort shows that Pope Francis – who’s winning fans even among the world’s atheists for his commentary on emerging issues of gay rights and income inequality – hasn’t scratched the surface of the church’s Dark Ages mindset.

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VATICAN CITY
CTV (Canada)

Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press
Published Wednesday, February 5, 2014

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis came under new pressure Wednesday to punish bishops who covered up for pedophile priests when a UN human rights panel accused the Vatican of systematically protecting its reputation instead of looking out for the safety of children.

In a scathing report that thrilled victims and stunned the Vatican, the United Nations committee said the Holy See maintained a “code of silence” that enabled priests to sexually abuse tens of thousands of children worldwide over decades with impunity.

Among other things, the panel called on the Vatican to immediately remove all priests known or suspected to be child molesters, open its archives on abusers and the bishops who covered up for them, and turn the abuse cases over to law enforcement authorities for investigation and prosecution.

The committee largely brushed aside the Vatican’s claims that it has already instituted new safeguards, and it accused the Roman Catholic Church of still harbouring criminals.

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GENEVA
The New York Times

LAURIE GOODSTEIN, NICK CUMMING-BRUCE and JIM YARDLEY
FEB. 5, 2014

In a hard-hitting report applauded by victims as a landmark in the Roman Catholic Church’s clerical sex-abuse scandal, a United Nations committee on Wednesday called on the Vatican to remove all child abusers from its ranks, report them to law enforcement and open the church’s archives so that bishops and other officials who concealed crimes could be held accountable.

The report, issued by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, is likely to put pressure on Pope Francis to make concrete changes in the way the church handles abuse cases and put some muscle into the commission on abuse that he announced in December, whose members and mission have not yet been specified.

The Vatican responded on Wednesday that it had already made many of the changes called for in the report, and that the report’s conclusions were out of date.

The report, however, was harshly critical of the church’s current practices, not just those of the past. “The committee 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,” the report concluded. …

But the Vatican press office said in a statement that it regretted to see the United Nations committee “attempt to interfere” with Catholic teaching and the church’s “exercise of religious freedom.”

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a blog post that the report was “weakened” by the panel’s decision to include objections to Catholic teaching on culture war issues. …

Barbara Dorris of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, who was abused by a priest as a child, said the report was “long overdue.”

“It is wonderful that the U.N. has spoken so clearly about what the Vatican has done — and what it has failed to do,” said Ms. Dorris, who is based in St. Louis, Mo. “To us, it is a call for the civil authorities to step in. Church officials have proved they cannot police themselves.”

But Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the pope’s permanent observer to the United Nations in Geneva, characterized the United Nations report in a radio interview as “a rather negative approach” to steps the Vatican had already taken, and said the report “in some ways is not up-to-date.” He said a Vatican delegation had told the committee about “concrete measures” that were being taken, including the new papal commission.

Ashley McGuire of The Catholic Association, a lay organization founded to help defend the church in the news media, called the report a “stunning and misguided attack” that “overlooks the fact that the Catholic Church is the leading advocate for women and children and human rights in general around the world,” on issues like sex trafficking and child hunger.

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GlobalPost

Agence France-Presse February 5, 2014

The UN denounced the Vatican on Wednesday for failing to stamp out child abuse, and called on the Church to remove all clergy suspected of raping or molesting children.

The following are paedophilia scandals that have rocked the Roman Catholic Church in recent years:

– Canada: The Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s, Newfoundland was closed in 1990 after it emerged that staff had systematically abused 300 residents over several decades.

In 2002, associations representing more than 10,000 self-declared victims joined forces to seek compensation.

– United States: In 2004 a criminal investigation found that 4,400 priests had sexually abused minors between 1950 and 2002, and that the abuse had affected about 11,000 children.

The former archbishop of Boston, Bernard Law, was forced to resign in 2002 for having protected paedophile priests, and former archbishop of Los Angeles Roger Mahony agreed to pay $660 million to 500 presumed victims.

– Ireland: In one of the most staunchly Catholic countries in Europe, a priest admitted to sexually abusing more than 100 children, while another said he had abused minors regularly over 25 years.

A total of 14,500 Irish children are reported to have been victims of abuse by clergy.

– Germany: In early 2010, hundreds of alleged cases of child sex abuse in church institutions emerged, notably at the Jesuit college Canisius in Berlin where about 20 cases were reported.

In late 2012, a report said at least 66 church officials had been accused of sex abuse.

– Belgium: Former bishop of Bruges Roger Vangheluwe resigned in 2010 after acknowledging that he had abused two nephews. Thousands of other potential cases have emerged since then.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (UK)

Lizzy Davies in Rome and Henry McDonald
The Guardian, Wednesday 5 February 2014

The leadership of the Roman Catholic church is engaged in a tense standoff with the United Nations after a damning report on the Holy See’s handling of the clerical sex abuse scandal was branded out of date, unfair and ideological by a top Vatican official.

After the appearance last month of a Holy See delegation before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the expert panel published a series of highly critical observations accusing the church of failing to acknowledge the scale of the problem and implementing policies that led to “the continuation of the abuse and the impunity of the perpetrators”.

The committee said it was particularly concerned that, when dealing with allegations of children being abused by priests, “the Holy See has consistently placed the preservation of the reputation of the church and the protection of the perpetrators above children’s best interests”.

The panel also found fault with some central church teachings and their impact on children’s health, urging the Vatican to reconsider its stance on abortion and contraception, and encouraging it to tone down criticism of homosexuality in an attempt to reduce “social stigmatisation” and violence against gay youths and children raised by gay couples.

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GENEVA
Women News Network

(WNN) United Nations, Geneva, SWITZERLAND, WESTERN EUROPE: As the UN monitoring Committee on the Rights of the Child issues a pointed, detailed and critical report on Wednesday Febrary 5, the centuries long Vatican policy of impunity to report child predators may be cracking open ‘a tiny bit’ as the UN Committee asks for the impunity to stop for officials who have been given authority by the Holy See.

Reviewing numerous reports and child sexual abuse cases that provide a window into the tortures of secrecy and guilt for children under child abuse within the Roman Catholic Church, the UN child rights committee is bringing the Holy See to task.

Asking that the office of the Pontiff open the files to bring detailed information on child sexual abuse cases forward, the UN Committee also asked for details showing how the Holy See is restricting members of authority within the Church after knowledge of their sexual predatory behavior against children has been discovered.

While some measures to begin to discuss the decades old problem have been put in place more recently by the Church, the issue of child predators who remain hiding inside the Church is a concern for child advocates who are now also trying help adult survivors of sexual abuse.

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CANADA
Our Windsor

OTTAWA – A Canadian expert on Roman Catholicism says a United Nations committee overstepped its mandate in a scathing report that accused the Vatican of systematically covering up child sexual abuse by priests.

Robert Dennis, vice president of the Canadian Catholic Historical Association, said the UN panel watered down its advocacy of child sexual abuse victims by criticizing the Roman Catholic church for its doctrine on homosexuality, abortion and contraception.

Dennis said that by taking on core Catholic doctrine, the panel detracted from its examination of a serious issue facing the church — the decades-long coverups of sexual abuse by clergy in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Germany and elsewhere.

“We can’t blend these issues together. The report itself probably would have been more effective if it stayed more focused on this crucial question of child abuse,” said Dennis, also a Queen’s University professor in Kingston, Ont.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

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 p. 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.”

In other words, the teaching body of the Catholic Church, the Magisterium, i.e., the pope in communion with the bishops, should yield to the U.N. This would be the equivalent of asking the United States Congress to make sure its laws are in compliance with U.N. strictures. Hubris is too mild a word to describe this unmitigated arrogance.

On pp. 12-13, the panel says it wants the Catholic Church to change its teachings on abortion and contraception; it also says the Church needs to do more about HIV/AIDS.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KPLR

February 5, 2014, by Chris Smith

JEFFERSON CITY, MO (KTVI) – The Missouri Supreme Court Wednesday issued its ruling on whether the ST. Louis Archdiocese should hand over the names of priest accused of sexual abuse. The full panel of justices ruled that the Archdiocese must turn over the names of the priest, ending the battle over releasing the names first ordered by St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Robert Dierker.

The Post-Dispatch, reports that the order is part of a 2011 suit filed on behalf of a then 19-year-old woman, who accused a priest of sexual abuse from 1997-2001.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 05, 2014

ST. LOUIS — The Missouri Supreme Court says the Archdiocese of St. Louis must release the names of church employees accused of sexual abuse over the past 20 years.

The Wednesday ruling upholds a St. Louis judge’s earlier decision. The names will be released only to an unnamed woman suing the diocese and her attorneys, not to the general public.

The archdiocese subsequently released a list of 240 complaints made against 115 priests and other employees since 1986. A court order keeps the names sealed to the public.

The lawsuit was filed in 2011 by a 19-year–old woman who claimed the abuse began when she was 5 years old and attended St. Cronan’s parish.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Archdiocese of St. Louis must turn over names of accused priests, state supreme court rules

By Jennifer S. Mann jmann@post-dispatch.com 314-621-58041

ST. LOUIS • The Archdiocese of St. Louis must release the names of some 100 priests who have been credibly accused here of sexual abuse of minors, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.

The ruling, issued by a full panel of judges, is likely the end of the legal battle over the disclosures ordered by St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Robert Dierker.

The order is part of a 2011 suit filed on behalf of a then-19-year-old woman, who said she was sexually abused from 1997-2001 by the since-defrocked Rev. Joseph Ross. Her lawyers are trying to show church officials had a pattern of ignoring warning signs and shuffling abusive priests to other parishes, rather than addressing the allegations.

The archdiocese, while fighting further disclosures, released an anonymous matrix of 240 complaints made against 115 church employees. It deemed only 40 of those complaints “unsubstantiated.” Dierker ordered that was not enough and the names must also be turned over to the plaintiff’s lawyers — with the exception of those unsubstantiated cases.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Wednesday February 5

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

For the third time, a court has basically told Archbishop Carlson to turn over records about 115 child molesting St. Louis clerics. We hope he complies. And we hope Carlson’s flock insists that he also reveal how much money he’s spent just on his hard-ball ‘delay and attack’ strategy in this one case.

This brave young woman and her attorney will learn these predators’ names, but the public likely never will. So it’s crucial that those who saw, suspected and suffered these horrific crimes to speak up, instead of waiting for secular judges or Catholic officials to disclose them.

No one knows how many of these 115 child molesting clerics are now coaches, tutors, teachers or still clerics. Even if they’re retired, they’re still uncles, sons and brothers with access to their relatives’ children. Any reasonable person would and should assume they’re still potentially dangerous. And many of them are working or living among us, but Carlson is protecting them – and himself – instead of protecting us and our kids.

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UNITED STATES
Feminist Majority Foundation

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has urged the Vatican act to address child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy members and take measures to prevent it from happening in the future.

The CRC recommended that the Holy See remove all clergy who are confirmed or suspected child abusers from their positions immediately, to turn them in to authorities, and to provide the UN with an archive of evidence about the abuse – which they have so far declined to do. The CRC also urged the Vatican invite outside experts and victims to participate in an investigation of child abuse, the abuse of women in Magdalene laundries, and the way these situations were handled by church authorities. The Vatican must should also pay full compensation to victims and families, among several other recommendations.

“The Committee 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,” the Committee said.

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ILLINOIS
Desplaines Valley News

By Dermot Connolly • Thu, Feb 06, 2014

The Jan. 21 release by the Chicago Archdiocese of 6,000 pages of documents relating to sexual abuse by priests dating back decades, reminded some area residents of the local connections to the scandal that continues to have repercussions.

Members of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests maintain that the information does not go far enough, and point out that the documents were released to plaintiffs’ lawyers to comply with a settlement agreement, rather than willingly.

The documents include information about 30 of at least 65 priests for whom the archdiocese has substantiated claims of child abuse.

Those not included belong to religious orders, and church officials said members of religious orders, unlike diocesan priests, are not under the control of Cardinal Francis George.

Few people contacted wanted to comment by name, but words such as “disgusting,” “disgraceful” and “sinful” were used to describe the scandal, which was uncovered on a national and international scale in the 1990s.

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El Commercio (Peru)

La Iglesia Católica romana ha sido acusada durante décadas de abusos sexuales contra menores por parte de su clero. Aquí algunos de los escándalos más destacados de los últimos años:

ESTADOS UNIDOS

En Estados Unidos se desató un gran escándalo en el 2002 después de que el diario “Boston Globe” denunciara el fracaso de la jerarquía clerical en tomar medidas contra un sacerdote acusado de abusar de más de 130 niños durante tres décadas. Ello provocó la renuncia del cardenal Bernard Law como arzobispo de Boston y desató una oleada de nuevas revelaciones.

De acuerdo con grupos de defensa de las víctimas, miles de sacerdotes estadounidenses fueron acusados de abuso sexual. La Iglesia pagó más de 3.000 millones de dólares a las víctimas y al menos ocho diócesis se declararon en bancarrota.

IRLANDA

En la década de 1990, más de 1.000 víctimas dieron testimonio en Irlanda del abuso de sacerdotes en instituciones infantiles financiadas por el Estado. También trascendieron detalles de maltratos de mujeres y niñas en lavanderías católicas manejadas por monjas

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UNITED STATES
Road to Recovery

Road to Recovery, Inc.
(assisting victims of sexual abuse and their families)
P.O. Box 279
Livingston, NJ 07039
862-368-2800
roberthoatson@gmail.com

MEDIA RELEASE

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

United Nations Committee on Children’s Rights rightly blasts Vatican for negligence
Church abusers must be removed permanently and referred to law enforcement

Road to Recovery, Inc. applauds the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of Children for issuing a scathing and accurate criticism of the Catholic Church’s handling of sexual abuse cases by its clergy, religious, and lay people. The UN Committee cited the fact that “tens of thousands of children worldwide” had been systematically sexually abused for decades in the Catholic Church.

The United Nations report got to the heart of the matter by pointing out that as an institution, the Catholic Church has not, cannot, and more than likely will not police itself and treat childhood sexual abuse as the crime it is. Additionally, the report cites the Vatican for not treating the issue of sexual abuse of children with urgency and outrage. Instead, the Vatican spent more time protecting its image and defending abusers. Clergyman and other abusers were protected; children were not.

The United Nations report was critical of the Vatican’s arrogance, displayed in a number of ways. The Church failed to submit data on child sexual abuse in a timely fashion, and it usually handled cases secretly, thumbing its nose at any entity outside itself that wished to hold it accountable. Several grand jury reports in the United States concluded similarly; there was a concerted effort to keep sexual abuse quiet.

In our opinion, the United Nations report got it right. In fact, every organization that has investigated the Church’s handling of child sexual abuse has concluded the same thing: the Church deliberately placed itself first and children second. The Church still protects itself, ostracizes whistle blowers, and lacks an action plan to address child sexual abuse appropriately.

Road to Recovery calls for a massive reform of the Catholic Church’s approach to child sexual abuse. All sexually abusive clergymen, religious, and lay people must never serve in the Church again, all Church leaders who have covered up sexual abuse of children must be fired, and those who are criminally charged and convicted must serve jail time.

Finally, Road to Recovery calls on United States Attorney General Eric Holder to commence a federal investigation of the United States Catholic Church and its handling of child sexual abuse. The results of such an investigation should lead to indictments, trials, and sentences, if appropriate.

Contact: Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc., Livingston, NJ, 862-368-2800
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA, 617-523-6250

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2014

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

Inadvertently, by their comments over the past few hours, 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. . . ”

[Gazzetta del Sud]

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).

[Vatican Radio]

(If an archbishop blasts an objective panel of volunteers who work for children in public like this, imagine how bishops treat victims in private.)

Another “Vatican insider,” who is nameless, tells an Irish journalist that the UN report was full of “spite” and attempt to “bash the Church,” while of course providing not a scintilla of evidence to support such a claim.

[Telegraph]

This kind of attack is part and parcel of the long-standing, deeply-rooted Catholic clerical culture and practice of assaulting those who report abuse and cover up or question the hierarchy’s handling of abuse and cover up.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Bishop Tomasi said it seems as though the report was prepared before the Holy See’s discussions with the Committee on the Rights of the Child, adding that the Committee may have been influenced by pro-homosexuality NGOs

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

“The initial reaction was one of surprise.” It seems as though the report was prepared before the meeting with the Holy See delegation which gave detailed answers on a number of points.” The Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN in Geneva, Bishop Silvano Tomasi did not hide his dismay at the concluding report published today by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The report claims that the Holy See is continuing to violate the rights of children.

Vatican Radio interviewed Tomasi.

“There is a need to read and analyze the recommendations proposed by the committee calmly and in detail, “Tomasi said. “But our initial reaction is one of surprise because the negative tone of the document produced makes it seem as though it was prepared before the Committee’s meeting with the Holy See delegation, during which clear responses were given on a number of aspects. There was no mention of these in the concluding document or at least they don’t appear to have been taken into consideration.”

The Vatican diplomat went on to say that “it seems as though” the document “has not been updated according to what the Holy See has done in the past years, with measures introduced directly by the Vatican City State and then by the Episcopal Conferences of the various different nations.” The document therefore “does not offer a correct or up-to-date picture of the situation, as a number of changes have been made to ensure the protection of children; it seems to me that changes of this kind are difficult to find in other institutions and State. These are simply the facts, it is evidence which cannot be distorted.”

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GENEVA
Shanghai Daily

Feb 06,2014

ROME, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) — A United Nations committee on Wednesday slammed the Vatican for adopting policies that allegedly allowed priests to abuse children with impunity, and asked all priests known or suspected to be abusers to be removed immediately.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) said in a 16-page report that it was deeply concerned “about child sexual abuse committed by member of the Catholic churches operating under the authority of the Vatican, with clerics having been involved in the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children worldwide.”

Several scandals over child sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church broke in Europe, Canada, and the United States, mainly since 2002.

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GENEVA
NPR

by SYLVIA POGGIOLI
February 05, 2014

The United Nations watchdog for children’s rights has accused the Vatican of caring more about its own reputation and members of the clergy than the victims of sexual abuse. The group is calling for the Vatican to immediately remove any priests suspected of sexually abusing children.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

“It’s looking more and more like the Jane Doe vs. Fr. Joseph D. Ross and the St. Louis archdiocese trial, set for later this month, will end up being postponed. Both sides are still waiting for the Missouri Supreme Court to rule on whether Archbishop Robert Carlson will hafe to turn over to Ken Chackes, the alleged victim’s attorney, the names of 115 archdiocesan employees who have been accused of molesting children.

“We’ll be sad if this brave young woman’s long struggle for justice is postponed again because Catholic officials exploit every possible delay and protecting their reputations instead of fighting fair and letting this case go to trial,” said SNAP’s David Clohessy.

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VATICAN CITY
Independent Catholic News (UK)

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva has given his reaction to the ‘harsh’ report from the committee of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In an interview with Vatican Radio today, he said the report has “a rather negative approach to what the Holy See has been doing and has already achieved in the area of the protection of children.”

“The first impression is that the report in some ways is not up to date, not taking into account some of the clear and precise explanations that were given to the committee in the in the encounter that the delegation of the Holy See had with the committee three or four weeks ago.

“Second, I would say that there is a difficultly apparent in understanding the position of the Holy See that cannot certainly give up certain teachings that are part of their deep convictions and also an expression of freedom of religion and these are the values that in the tradition of the Catholic Church sustain the common good of society and therefore cannot be renounced, for example the committee asked for acceptance of abortion and this is a contradiction with the principle of life that the convention itself should support recommending that children be protected before and after birth.

“If a child is eliminated or killed we can no longer talk about rights for this person, so there is a need to calmly and in detail analyzing the recommendations proposed by the committee and provide an accurate response to the committee itself, so that there will be no misunderstanding on where we stand and the reason why we take certain positions.

“I would add that the practical remedies for preventing cases of abuse of children in forms of laws or decisions of Episcopal Conferences of directives for the formation of seminarians constitute a package of measures that is very difficult, I think, to find other institutions or even other states that have done so much specifically for the protection of children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A woman from Warwickshire who was abused by a Catholic priest has welcomed an order from the UN today, that the Vatican should remove priests suspected of abuse from parishes, and hand them over to police.

Sue Cox, from Gaydon, gave evidence at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child which has been investigating abuse by Catholic priests.

Today the committee ordered the Vatican to hand over archives concerning abuse by priests. The Vatican said it was committed to protecting children

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UNITED KINGDOM
Channel 4

Jackie Long

In some ways, the damning UN report into the Vatican’s handling of child abuse is no surprise, but the details still hold the power to appal.

Priests who were well known abusers were moved from parish to parish or sent abroad.

Tens of thousands of children across the world suffered while the Vatican, with its code of silence, allowed the vast majority of their abusers to evade justice.

Nuns and priests who did speak out were ostracised and condemned. Priests who refused to denounce child abusers were congratulated.

This was a Church which put its reputation above the safety and well being of children.

Perhaps worst of all, the report says, the evidence it has gathered proves children are still at risk from abuse by priests allowed to live and work unchecked in many countries across the world.

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GENEVA
The Age (Australia)

The Vatican hits back at UN report on child sex abuse while a victim welcomes new recommendations

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Voices

Posted on February 5, 2014

The UN watchdog on children’s rights which recently hauled the Vatican over the coals for its handling of sex abuse has today released its recommendations. The report is not only ignorant and misguided, peddling myths for which there is no foundation, but 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 UN’s own commitment to religious freedom.

Although the Holy See has responded diplomatically to the report (see below), promising to look at the recommendations, the Secretariat of State cannot possibly accept them without doing violation to the nature of the Church. By adopting the mythical framework peddled by victims’ advocacy groups and lawyers, and ignoring the evidence put to it by the Holy See on 16 January (see CV Comment here, and Archbishop Tomasi’s speech here), the Committee has shown itself to be a kangaroo court. The Holy See can only now consider withdrawing its signature to the Convention. The Committee has very seriously undermined both its own credibility and that of the UN as a whole.

The 16-page UN report is so full of crass errors and myths that it is impossible to tackle them all. But the principal faults can be gathered under the three headings of 1) ignorance about the Church’s record on abuse 2) misunderstanding about the Church 3) attempt to impose an ideology of sexuality and gender.

1) Ignorance of the Church’s record of abuse

Nowhere is the Report is there an acknowledgement that the Catholic Church in the western world has led safeguarding, creating guidelines and best practices which are routinely recommended by governments to other institutions to emulate. Nor does it acknowledge that the Holy See at least since 2001 has been the catalyst of those best practices, cajoling bishops’ conferences across the world to put in place measures of the sort pioneered in the US and the UK. Instead, the Report peddles the myth (29) that “the Holy See has consistently placed the preservation of the reputation of the Church and the protection of the perpetrators above children’s best interests”. If there is substance to that claim pre-2000, the opposite is now the case, and nowhere is this acknowledged. This, no doubt, was designed to produce headlines like the BBC’s — ‘UN slams Vatican for protecting priests over child abuse’ — in order to sustain the myth of the Church, and the Vatican in particular, as an unreformed institution, when all the evidence points the other way.

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Feb 5, 2014

Last month, the Vatican presented a report on its efforts to deal with the abuse of minors in the church to the U.N.’s Committee on the Rights of the Child. There are so many problems with today’s response from the Committee that it must be considered a lost opportunity to encourage the Holy See to do the right thing.

These problems, ranging from the factual to the philosophical, have been specified in no uncertain terms by the distinguished English Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh. Not least among them is a profound confusion over the nature of the Catholic Church as an institution in the world. Consider the following statement:

While being fully conscious that bishops and major superiors of religious institutes do not act as representatives or delegates of the Roman Pontiff, the Committee nevertheless notes that subordinates in Catholic religious orders are bound by obedience to the Pope in accordance with Canons 331 and 590. The Committee therefore reminds the Holy See that by ratifying the Convention, it has 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 thus proceeds to treat the Holy See as a state actor (the Vatican City State) wherever the church happens to be, holding it responsible for child protection in the way it would treat any country that is a signatory of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. That extends to making changes in canon law that go so far as to allow abortions for girls who become pregnant as the result of abuse.

Yet at the same time, the report recognizes that those subordinate to the Holy See operate under the legal system of other states. Indeed, the Holy See is called upon to ”[e]stablish clear rules, mechanisms and procedures for the mandatory reporting of all suspected cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation to law enforcement authorities.”

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GENEVA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Feb. 5, 2014

A United Nations watchdog group for children’s rights chastised the Vatican Wednesday for a series of substandard policies that fall short in protecting children, specifically from sexual abuse.

The condemnation came from the U.N. Committee on Convention of the Rights of the Child, which is made up of 18 independent experts that monitor the implementation of the 1989 U.N. treaty — ratified by the Vatican in 1990 — related to child protection and children’s rights.

While it welcomed the Vatican’s recent “open and constructive dialogue” and the Vatican’s willingness “to change attitudes and practices” related to child protection, the committee noted that the Vatican’s response to the U.N. body came “with a considerable delay” of 14 years. The U.N. committee said that most of its recommendations following its initial 1995 review had not fully addressed.

Though the latest U.N. report addresses a range of issues, such as the Vatican’s use of discriminatory terms like “illegitimate children,” or its handling of children born of priests, the U.N. child’s rights committee held its “deepest concern” for the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy, estimating that clergy have “been involved in the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children worldwide.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Deutsche Welle

[Summary: Christian Pfeiffer, director of the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony, once headed a research project on behalf of the Catholic Church to examine cases of abuse by priests. He called for more transparency in handling the files and then his contract for the research was ended by the church in early 2013. Pfeiffer said the United Nations is correct in its criticism of the church. In the 1950s through 1970s priests were allowed to continue to work and were not punished.]

Christian Pfeiffer ist Direktor des Kriminologischen Forschungsinstituts Niedersachsen. Er war im Auftrag der Katholischen Kirche Leiter eines Forschungsprojektes, das die Missbrauchsfälle durch Priester untersuchen sollte. Nachdem er mehr Transparenz in der Aktenbearbeitung gefordert hatte, löste die Katholische Kirche den Vertrag Anfang 2013 auf.

DW: Herr Pfeiffer, die Vereinten Nationen haben den Vatikan wegen Tausender Fälle von sexuellem Kindesmissbrauch aufgefordert, sich von überführten oder verdächtigen Priestern zu trennen. Was halten Sie von dieser Initiative der UN und wie realistisch ist es, dass sie Erfolg hat?

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DEUTSCHLAND
Deutsche Welle

[Summary: Christian Weisner of We are Church said the church has had a huge problem for decades. Compensation payments, especially in the United States, are in the millions. The church has lost credibility, he said.]

DW: Herr Weisner, ist der Bericht des UN-Kinderrechtsausschusses eine Ohrfeige für die Katholische Kirche?

Christian Weisner: Ich glaube, es ist wichtig, daß die Katholische Kirche sich als Weltorganisation auch den kritischen Augen der Vereinten Nationen und seinem Kinderrechtsausschuss stellt. Die Katholische Kirche hat seit Jahrzehnten ein riesiges Problem. Sie hat mit Entschädigungszahlungen vor allem in den USA schon Millionen verloren. Und vor allem hat sie ihre Glaubwürdigkeit verloren. Man muß aber auch anerkennen, daß es jetzt spät – hoffentlich noch nicht zu spät – auch in der Katholischen Kirche Bemühungen gibt, sich dieser schwierigen Frage zu stellen: Warum kommt sexuelle Gewalt auch in der Katholischen Kirche vor, wo die Kleriker doch einen hohen Anspruch haben und verkünden? Und warum ist dies Jahrzehnte lang vertuscht worden? Und das muss ein Anstoß sein, dass die Katholische Kirche sich jetzt weltweit dieses Problems endgültig und positiv und konstruktiv annimmt.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

MEDIA RELEASE
(For immediate release)
6th February, 2014

On the 31st of January, long-time social justice and child protection activist, Lewis Blayse (born Lewin Blazevich), passed away.

It was on the anniversary of his marriage to Sylvia Blayse (nee Tunley), herself a long-time social justice activist. It was also just after he had conducted an interview with the ABC’s 7:30 Report about the current Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the re-airing of the 2003 ABC Four Corners story “The Homies”, which featured Lewis’ story.

Before he died, he had been writing a daily blog about the Royal Commission and associated matters at www.lewisblayse.net.

A public Memorial Event celebrating Lewis’ extraordinary life will be held at the Alumni Court at the University of Queensland’s St Lucia campus (Queensland, Australia) on Saturday, the 1st of March (1-4pm), which anyone who knew Lewis or supported his work are invited to attend.

While the main focus will be upon Lewis’ life, there will also be a theme of child protection, and what key activists in the field hope to see come out of the Royal Commission.

Lewis’ wife, Sylvia, is also currently negotiating with the university for Lewis to be awarded his PhD posthumously, as a mark of respect for his work both as a scientist and as a campaigner for the rights of children to grow up in a safe and loving environment.

It is hoped that an announcement in this regard will be made at this event. As Lewin Blazevich, he had completed an Honours degree in Biochemistry and had spent two years working towards his PhD, for which he had completed the research, and had been accepted as a full candidate by the Professorial Board.

Details regarding speakers are still being worked out, but Lewis’ eldest daughter, Aletha Blayse, will be officiating the event and making opening remarks. Interested parties wishing to say a few words at the event are invited to contact Lewis’ daughter, Aletha on the details below.

Media enquiries: aletha.blayse@gmail.com or 0457151278 (text messages only, please).
University of Queensland contact: Lily White, Security Administration Officer – Events, Property & Facilities Division | The University of Queensland | QLD 4072 | Australia, t. 07 3365 6003 | f. 07 3365 1600 | m. 0408 570 796 | e. sao@pf.uq.edu.au | w., www.pf.uq.edu.au

Aletha Blayse

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

Vatican thumbs its nose at UN report blasting them for covering up sex crimes.

At face value, it really doesn’t seem like such a tough request. On Wednesday, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child delivered their hard-hitting final report with blunt recommendations after last month’s panel on child sex abuse with Vatican officials in Geneva. In the report, they lambasted the Vatican’s “code of secrecy” in covering up years of clerical sex abuse involving children and demanded the “immediate removal” of any and all clergy currently working in dioceses that have been accused of child abuse or child pornography. A very defensive Vatican statement said that the UN’s recommendations would be “submitted to a thorough study and examination.” Silvano Maria Tomasi, the Vatican’s observer at the UN in Geneva, later implied that the child rights group was crossing the line. “Trying to ask the Holy See to change its teachings is not negotiable,” he told Vatican Radio.

The United Nations has been trying to reign in the Vatican on the issue of the child sex abuse scandal for nearly a decade. In the first line of the report, they thanked the Vatican for submitting questions clarifying its second periodic report to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the Vatican is a signatory. But they added, “The Committee however regrets that the report was submitted with a six-year delay and that the Holy See did not respond to questions relating to the implementation of the Optional Protocol by persons and institutions placed under its legal authority.”

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SPAIN
UPI

MADRID, Feb. 5 (UPI) — Improvement in the Catholic Church’s handling of child sex abuse cases is forthcoming, a Vatican spokesman said Wednesday after a U.N. condemnation.

Speaking in Madrid at a national bishops’ conference, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said a plan to improve the Church’s transparency in dealing with sex abuse cases will be released soon.

His comments came after the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child denounced Vatican behavior in allegedly shielding clergy in decades of sexual abuse incidents. The committee urged the Vatican Wednesday to hand over its archives on sexual abuse to the United Nations so suspected abusers and “those who concealed their crimes” can face justice.

Lombardi said the Church’s plan would be revealed “in the coming days or weeks,” the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

Vatican City, Feb 5, 2014 / 11:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In wake of the U.N. Child Protection Committee criticizing Vatican policies and calling for the Church to change its doctrine, a leading archbishop countered that the committee’s analysis fails to be objective.

“The concluding recommendations…point out a rather negative approach to what the Holy See has been doing and has already achieved in the area of the protection of children,” Archbishop Silvano Tomasi told Vatican Radio on Feb. 5.

Archbishop Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva, made his comments in response to Wednesday’s U.N.-authored Rights of Children report claiming that the Vatican “systematically” adopted policies allowing priests to rape and molest children. The document was issued following a Jan. 16 committee hearing in Geneva on global children’s rights.

Charging the Church to open its files on previous cases of abuse and criticizing their stance on homosexuality, contraception and abortion, the report suggested the Church change its canon law to ensure that what it called children’s rights, including access to health care, are guaranteed.

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GENEVA
BBC News

The UN has called on the Vatican to “immediately remove” all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers.

It denounced the Holy See for adopting policies which allowed priests to sexually abuse thousands of children, and criticised its attitudes towards homosexuality, contraception and abortion.

The Vatican responded by saying it would examine the report – but also accused its authors of interference.

BBC News looks into the background of the crisis – in 60 seconds.

Video produced by Michael Hirst

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GENEVA
The Economist – Erasmus

People all over the world who abhor the unspeakable horror of child abuse will generally be pleased to read that a United Nations committee has excoriated the Vatican for the crimes of the past and the continuing failure of the Holy See to tackle those crimes or prevent their recurrence. The UN committee charged with implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child has published a report saying 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 abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies which have led to the continuation of the abuse by, and the impunity of, the perpetrators…”

The report rejected attempts by the Vatican to limit its responsibility for the behaviour of Catholic agencies round the world; the Holy See must be held to account for misdeeds in all countries, given its role in exercising “the supreme power of the Catholic church through individuals and institutions placed under its authority,” it said. The committee also implies that the church is continuing to hide behind its own legislative system—canon law—to condone abuse. It singles out the church’s failure to investigate and punish the abuses suffered by Irish girls in the Magdalene laundries, a form of workhouse that was run by Catholic sisters until 1996.

The report also raises a ragbag of other issues, effectively urging the church to make sweeping changes to its own doctrine. It says canon law should be amended “with a view to identifying circumstances under which access to abortion services can be permitted” for girls, and it notes with concern the Holy See’s “past statements and declarations on homosexuality which contribute to social stigmatisation of and violence against LGBT adolescents and children raised by same sex couples.”

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IRELAND
Reuters

BY PADRAIC HALPIN
DUBLIN Wed Feb 5, 2014

(Reuters) – Advocacy groups for women forced to work at the Catholic Church’s notorious Magdalene laundries in Ireland backed calls from the United Nations for religious orders to pay compensation and face prosecution for decades of abuse.

In an unprecedented report on Wednesday, the U.N. demanded that the Vatican “immediately remove” all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers. It also urged the Holy See to conduct an investigation into the laundries.

Women, many unmarried mothers, sent to the laundries were made wash items for business, hospitals and state bodies in slave-like conditions, and were often subject to cruel and degrading treatment as well as physical and sexual abuse, the report by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said.

“The state has allowed the perpetrators of these crimes to get away without taking responsibility,” said Steven O’ Riordan, director of Magdalene Survivors Together. “The religious orders are still not being held accountable, they have never apologized directly for their part in running the laundries.”

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INDIA
Business Standard

Press Trust of India | Dehradun February 5, 2014

Badri-Kedar Temple Committee today sought from Delhi police details of the alleged molestation case in which the chief priest (Rawal) of Badrinath temple Keshavan Namboodiri has been arrested.

“We have sought details related to the case from the Delhi police to help probe the matter by a panel constituted by the Badri-Kedar Mandir Samiti,” its chief Ganesh Godiyal said.

The committee has already suspended the chief priest of the Himalayan shrine after he was arrested by Delhi police on alleged molestation charges.

The report of the panel constituted by the committee will be placed before the Committee board, he said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release – Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Statement by Kate Bochte, SNAP member ( 630 768 1860, keight@sbcglobal.ne t)

It took almost nine years – and dozens of lawsuits – to get records on 30 archdiocesan predator priests released by the Chicago archdiocese.

That’s fewer than half of the 65 predator priests George admits to, and less than one fourth of the 121 predator priests listed by an independent group called BishopAccountability.org.

So at this rate, we’ll get another 35 predator priests’ records in around 2025, assuming that dozens more victims file dozens more lawsuits and insist on more disclosure.

And we’ll never see the records of the other 56 predator priests who worked and abused in the Chicago archdiocese but who George refuses to take any responsibility for (because another Catholic entity, a religious order, signs their paychecks).

According to the Tribune, “The archdiocese said it is developing a method to release the rest of the files.” What “method” is needed?

It’s not rocket science. Someone has to read the files and redact the names of victims, then release them. That’s it. Each file might take a day or two, but not more. (Recall that last month, victims’ attorneys got 6,000 pages of records. A week later, they were able to make those records available to the public.)

Keep in mind too that Catholic employees are members of a feudal system. They aren’t union employees. They can’t sue Cardinal George if they feel he’s been unfair to them. (We know of only a handful of cases in which predator priests have sued their bishops. We know of no cases in which those predator priests have succeeded.)

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

Irishwoman Philomena Lee and actor Steve Coogan have met the Pope as they brought a campaign for the release of secret adoption files to the Vatican.

Mrs Lee’s 50-year search for the son she was forced to give up for adoption in her homeland inspired the actor’s latest Oscar-nominated film, Philomena.

She is now leading a campaign to help reunite families who were separated through forced adoption in Ireland.

Coogan, who wrote, produced and starred in the film, is supporting her project.

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VATICAN CITY
Telegraph (UK)

The Vatican may have come in for an unprecedented roasting by the UN committee in Geneva, but don’t hold your breath for concrete action to be taken any time soon, writes Nick Squires

By Nick Squires, Rome 05 Feb 2014

That is not only because the Holy See moves with glacial slowness but because Vatican officials continue to believe that they have already taken adequate measures to address the scourge of child sex abuse by clergy.

They point out that Pope Francis announced in December that he would form a special commission to address the issue, although victims’ groups quickly described the initiative as “meaningless” and “like offering a Band Aid to a cancer patient.”

Vatican officials also insist that the Catholic Church has been unfairly singled out for criticism on the issue.

“Things have changed drastically and most dioceses now have new rules” for dealing with priests suspected of molesting children, a Vatican insider said.

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GINEBRA
BBC

Naciones Unidas acusó al Vaticano de adoptar políticas que permitían a sacerdotes violar y acosar sexualmente a decenas de miles de niños.

En un informe sin precedentes y escrito con lenguaje cáustico, el Comité de Derechos del Niño de la ONU exigió que el Vaticano destituya de inmediato a todos los miembros del clero que son reconocidos o sospechosos de ser abusadores de menores.

El Comité de los Derechos de Menores de la ONU dice estar profundamente consternado de que la Santa Sede no ha reconocido la extensión de los crímenes cometidos y exhortó a la Iglesia Católica a abrir sus archivos.

Añade que la Iglesia debería reportar todos los casos a las autoridades civiles.

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GINEBRA/CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
El Mundo (Espana)

* Dice que la Santa Sede ‘ha adoptado políticas’ que han permitido que siguieran los abusos
* Denuncia que no se han adoptado ‘las medidas necesarias’ para proteger a los menores
* Sentencia que la Santa Sede incumple los derechos fundamentales del menor

IRENE HDEZ. VELASCO
Corresponsal
Roma

La Santa Sede debe “inmediatamente” retirar del sacerdocio a todos aquellos curas que han cometido abusos sexuales contra menores o que se sospecha que puedan haberlos cometido y denunciarlos ante las autoridades civiles, porque hasta ahora “ha adoptado políticas y prácticas” que han hecho que continuasen esos abusos contra decenas de miles de niños. Eso es lo que sentencia el durísimo informe que hoy el Comité de la ONU sobre los Derechos del Niño ha dado a conocer respecto a los casos de pederastia que en los últimos años ha sacudido a la Iglesia católica.

El organismo de la Naciones Unidas encargado de velar por la infancia es taxativo: El Vaticano debería entregar toda la información que tiene sobre sacerdotes pederastas a las autoridades civiles, para que de ese modo los responsables de haber abusado sexualmente de menores así como “quienes han encubierto sus crímenes” puedan ser juzgados. “La Comisión está profundamente preocupada por el hecho de que la Santa Sede no haya reconocido la importancia de los crímenes cometidos, no haya adoptado medidas necesarias para gestionar los casos de abusos sexuales contra menores y proteger a los niños y haya adoptado políticas y prácticas que han llevado a la continuación de los abusos y a la impunidad de los culpables”, se afirma en el documento, que concluye asegurando que la Santa Sede incumple los derechos fundamentales del menor.

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GENEVA
The Times (UK)

James Bone in Rome and Ruth Gledhill

A UN panel on child abuse condemned the Vatican today for humiliating victims to protect the church and predator priests.

The UN committee on the rights of the child called on the Catholic church to remove all suspect clergy from their posts immediately and refer their cases to police.

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UNITED STATES
WBUR – Here and Now

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.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Final Call

BY ASHAHED M. MUHAMMAD -ASSISTANT EDITOR- | LAST UPDATED: FEB 5, 2014

CHICAGO (FinalCall.com) – Files released by the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese show decades of systematic secrecy and protection of pedophile priests, however, for some victims of abuse, the nightmare continues and justice remains elusive.

David Nolan is 46-years-old. His harrowing tales of abuse began at 13 years of age as Father Victor Stewart, now deceased, used his authority and power to have sex with dozens of young boys at will, and seemingly without any fear of being punished.

The Nolan tragedy provides almost a case study into how pedophile priests victimized the Black community.

In files released as part of a settlement in a sexual abuse case, the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese was clearly aware of many allegations of sexual abuse involving Fr. Stewart. Documents show victims reported Fr. Stewart and other priests were “part of a club that participated in pedophilia.”

Mr. Nolan said the church shuffled priests from parish to parish to protect its image, not children and families in the church. Church leaders knew all along abuse charges were true, he said. “I’ve continued to be abused over the years not only by the Chicago Archdiocese, but by our legal system. It destroyed my marriage because I didn’t have no recourse, I didn’t know how to deal with it, it destroyed my relationships with family, so now to hear that these documents are being released I’m saddened.

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VATICAN CITY
Los Angeles Times

By Tom Kington
February 5, 2014

ROME — The Roman Catholic Church has “systematically” protected predator priests, allowing “tens of thousands” of children to be abused, a United Nations committee said Wednesday in a scathing report that cast the first shadow over Pope Francis’ honeymoon period as pontiff.

The panel called on the Vatican to remove all suspects from their posts immediately and to open up its confidential archives in order “to hold abusers accountable.”

“The committee 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,” the report said.

DOCUMENT: UN rights committee report on Vatican’s policies toward sex abuse

The Vatican, which signed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, has “consistently placed the preservation of the reputation of the Church and the protection of the perpetrators above children’s best interests,” said the report, accusing the Vatican of transferring abusive priests to new parishes where many have continued to abuse children, and of “humiliating” the families of victims into silence.

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VATICAN CITY
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 05, 2014

Because the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has no police power, it relies on moral pressure to get states to adopt its child protection recommendations. That’s obviously what it hoped to accomplish with a Feb. 5 report on the Vatican and the child abuse scandals that have rocked Catholicism over the last decade, issuing a stinging indictment of what it called a culture of “impunity” for perpetrators.

There’s a strong possibility the fusillade from the UN panel may backfire, however, by blurring the cause of child protection with the culture wars over sexual mores.

In several sections of its report, the committee joins its critique on abuse with blunt advice to Rome to jettison Church teaching on matters such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception. At one stage the panel even recommends repealing a codicil of Church law that imposes automatic excommunication for participating in an abortion.

Not only are those bits of advice deeply unlikely to be adopted, they may actually strengthen the hand of those still in denial in the Church on the abuse scandals by allowing them to style the UN report as all-too-familiar secular criticism driven by politics.

That could overshadow the fact that there are, in truth, many child protection recommendations in the report that the Church’s own reform wing has long championed.

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