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SANKT PÖLTEN. Der gebürtige Oberösterreicher war 13 Jahre lang Diözesanbischof von St. Pölten – Seine Amtszeit war von Kontroversen geprägt.

Einer der eindrücklichsten, aber auch umstrittensten Repräsentanten der katholischen Kirche ist tot: Der St. Pöltener Altbischof Kurt Krenn verstarb am Samstag im 78. Lebensjahr nach langer Krankheit.

Der gebürtige Oberösterreicher Krenn war zwischen 1991 und 2004 Diözesanbischof von St. Pölten. Seine Amtszeit war gekennzeichnet von Kontroversen über seine Person, seinen Stil und viele seiner Aussagen. Von den Äbten der niederösterreichischen Klöster wurde Krenn abgelehnt, sein Konflikt mit dem Paudorfer Pfarrer Udo Fischer ging über Jahre.

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OOSTENRIJK
Kerknet

[Summary: Kurt Krenn, emeritus bishops of the Austrian diocese of St. Polten, died Saturday at age 77. Thus the Austrian Catholic Church loses one of its most prominent and controversial figures. He received fierce criticism for his authoritarian and often provocative statements. He stepped down from the job due to health reasons but the resignation was generally associated with revelations about sex scandals in a seminary in his diocese where tens of thousands of pornographic photos were found on computers.]

BRUSSEL (KerkNet/Kathpress) – Mgr. Kurt Krenn, de emeritus bisschop van het Oostenrijkse bisdom St. Pölten, is zaterdag op 77-jarige leeftijd overleden. Daarmee verliest de Oostenrijkse katholieke Kerk een van haar meest geprofileerde en omstreden figuren.

Kurt Krenn (1936-2014) werd in 1987 door paus Joannes Paulus II benoemd tot hulpbisschop van Wenen. In 1991 werd hij bisschop in St. Pölten. Daar kreeg hij felle kritiek wegens zijn autoritair optreden en zijn vaak provocerende uitspraken. In 2004 legde hij zijn taak neer wegens gezondheidsredenen. Dat terugtreden werd algemeen in verband gebracht met onthullingen over seksschandalen op het seminarie in zijn bisdom, waar tienduizenden pornografische afbeeldingen op computers werden aangetroffen. De rector en vice-rector, die affaires met priesterstudenten zouden hebben gehad, traden af.

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UNITED STATES
The Jewish Press

By: Harry Maryles Published: January 26th, 2014

There were new revelations recently about the scourge of sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Chicago. From a segment of the PBS Newshour broadcast on January 21st.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, the country’s third largest, shielded and protected priests who were accused of sexual abuse for decades. Newly released papers document the actions of 30 priests, nearly half of them deceased, the rest now out of ministry. Victims who had long pressed for more information talked about it at a press conference in Chicago today.

I could not help noticing that the reaction of the Church hierarchy in the person of Cardinal George was almost identical to the response of Orthodox Jewish institutional leaders. It goes something like this: These events happened at a time when things like this were handled differently. We understand the problems now and will handle them differently.

What virtually all of the leaders of these institutions are guilty of is not of the abuse itself. But of how badly they reacted to it. The primary concern has always been – and still is to some extent – to protect their institutions. In the past that often meant keeping things quiet (sweeping them under the rug) and discouraging victims from reporting the abuse to the authorities; to quietly dismiss those abusers from their positions and allowing them to find jobs at other locations that involved being around potential victims.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear Pashman
Tribune reporter
8:21 p.m. CST, January 26, 2014

Three deceased Archdiocese of Chicago priests accused of sexually abusing minors were the focus of anti-abuse activists’ scrutiny Sunday that also drew attention to protocols church officials used to withhold their identities until last week.

Abuse victims’ attorneys released thousands of pages of archdiocese files last Tuesday detailing allegations against 30 priests accused of sexually abusing minors. In the files, the archdiocese was for the first time identifying three of them: Kenneth Brigham, Emmanuel Pallikunnen and Thomas Kelly.

The three priests were the only ones in the files without church-substantiated allegations against them but were the subject of settlements paid out by the archdiocese.

Church officials cite a long-standing policy of not identifying priests accused of abuse after their death. Against the archdiocese’s wishes, Kelly’s name was reported in the Tribune in 2005. But the others remained secret. Kelly died in 1990.

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CONNECTICUT
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 26, 2014

STRATFORD, Connecticut — A monsignor has told parishioners he was upset with a news report about accusations of sexual assault and harassment, but did not admit or deny the information.

The Connecticut Post reports (http://bit.ly/L97RIx ) that Monsignor Martin Ryan said at Sunday masses at Our Lady of Grace Parish in Stratford that there is “no question” he will continue as pastor.

Bridgeport Roman Catholic Bishop Frank Caggiano apologized last week to members of the parish for not speaking earlier about the allegations.

Diocesan officials removed Ryan as pastor of St. Edward the Confessor Church in New Fairfield in 2011 after they say he acknowledged sending inappropriate emails to a female parish employee.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Telegram & Gazette

By George Barnes TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
gbarnes@telegram.com

WORCESTER — The pastor of a Lancaster parish for the last 20 years has been placed on leave by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester after a 40-year-old allegation of sexual misconduct was made against him.

Bishop Robert J. McManus announced to parishioners Sunday that the Rev. Edward P. Lettic had been placed on administrative leave because of what the bishop described as a credible allegation of misconduct.

Rev. Lettic has been pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Lancaster since 1993 and has served as a priest in the diocese since he was ordained in 1973. Bishop McManus said it is the first misconduct report made against Rev. Lettic in his 40 years with the diocese.

Before he became pastor at Immaculate Conception Church, he served as an associate pastor at St. Joan of Arc in Worcester, St. Denis in East Douglas and St. Joseph in Auburn. He was also chaplain at Westboro State Hospital.

Bishop McManus said a man recently came forward with the allegation against Rev. Lettic. The allegation is being investigated with oversight by the Diocesan Review Committee

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Daniel Tepfer
Published 6:54 pm, Sunday, January 26, 2014

STRATFORD — With resounding applause from his congregation, Monsignor Martin Ryan apologized Sunday for the recent Connecticut Post story detailing sexual assault and harassment allegations against him.

“I’m very upset with the article and I’m sorry that you had to read it,” Ryan began each Mass from the altar at Our Lady of Grace Church.

While Ryan neither admitted nor denied the allegations, he said he continues to seek counseling and “spiritual direction,” and has the support of the bishop. Ryan was appointed pastor of the 60-year-old church on Second Hill Lane on Jan. 18.

“There is no question I will continue as pastor of the parish,” Ryan added to applause.

Parishioners who were questioned as they left the church overwhelmingly said they support Ryan as their pastor.

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CHICAGO (IL)
YouTube

[documents from the Chicago archdiocese]

Published on Jan 23, 2014

Sexual abuse survivors and their attorneys share and discuss the documents turned over January 15, 2014 by the Archdiocese as part several settlement agreements

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MASSACHUSETTS
CBS Boston

LANCASTER (CBS) — A priest at Immaculate Conception Parish has been placed on administrative leave over a child abuse charge, the Diocese of Worcester announced Sunday.

A prepared statement released by the diocese includes the text of an announcement made at Sunday Masses in the church by Robert McManus, bishop of Worcester.

“I come before you today with a saddened heart to announce that I have placed Father Edward P. Lettic on administrative leave due to a credible allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor which took place forty years ago,” McManus told parishioners. “Recently the victim came forward to the diocese with this allegation, which has been investigated with the oversight of the Diocesan Review Committee. It is the first and only report of an allegation of misconduct which we have received involving Father Lettic. Because of the serious nature of the allegation, and consistent with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, I must relieve Father Lettic of his duties as pastor of the parish and remove his faculties as a priest.”

The identity of the accuser was not released.

Lettic was ordained a priest at the Diocese of Worcester in 1973, according to the diocese. He has served as an associate pastor at St. Joan of Arc, Worcester; St. Denis, East Douglas; and St. Joseph in Auburn, as well as a chaplain at Westborough State Hospital before being named pastor of Immaculate Conception in Lancaster in 1993.

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LEBANON
The Daily Star

January 27, 2014
By Rayane Abou Jaoude
The Daily Star

BEIRUT: After years of silence, reports of sexual abuse at the hands of once-respected Lebanese priests and bishops have recently emerged, leaving a trail of unanswered questions and putting the Maronite and Orthodox churches in the limelight. Fresh reports of yet another scandal involving a bishop accused of sexually molesting a young boy at a Greek Orthodox monastery have raised further questions about how the Lebanese churches have been dealing with cases of sexual harassment in which clergy members are the suspected perpetrators.

Bishop Costantine Kayyal was implicated for allegedly sexually harassing a 10-year-old boy at the Mar Elias Monastery in the Metn town of Dhour Choueir, sources close to the case confirmed to The Daily Star, after local media outlets reported the story last week.

Kayyal’s is the third such case to emerge in Lebanon in a matter of months, but the church has so far been secretive about the case and has not revealed any details to the public.

Elya Haber, a lawyer and a sub-deacon at the Orthodox Church, told The Daily Star that the church adopts measures of “healing” over recrimination to deal with such cases.

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MASSACHUSETTS
WCVB

LANCASTER, Mass. —A longtime Lancaster pastor has been put on administrative leave following accusations of sexual misconduct with a minor 40 years ago, church officials said.

Edward P. Lettic, of the Immaculate Conception Parish, was placed on leave after a victim recently came forward with a “credible allegation,” the Worcester Diocese said in a statement.

It is the “first and only” allegation of misconduct involving Lettic that the diocese has received, according to the statement. Lettic has been a priest since 1973.

“Because of the serious nature of the allegation, and consistent with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, I must relieve Father Lettic of his duties as pastor of the parish and remove his faculties as a priest,” Rev. Robert J. McManus, bishop of Worcester, said at a mass at the parish.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Sentinel & Enterprise

LANCASTER — The pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Lancaster has been removed from his post by the Worcester Diocese because of a “credible allegation” that he engaged in sexual misconduct with a minor 40 years ago, Bishop Robert J. McManus announced at the parish’s Masses this weekend.

The Rev. Edward P. Lettic, who has served as pastor at Immuclate Conception since 1993, was placed on leave after a victim came forward with the allegation, which was investigated by the Diocesan Review Committee.

“It is the first and only report of an allegation of misconduct which we have received involving Father Lettic,” McManus told parishioners. “Because of the serious nature of the allegation, and consistent with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, I must relieve Father Lettic of his duties as pastor of the parish and to remove his faculties as a priest.”

McManus said he will appoint a temporary administrator this week to oversee the parish until a new pastor is named.

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MASSACHUSETTS
My Fox Boston

LANCASTER, Mass. (MyFoxBoston.com) — A Catholic priest has been put on administrative leave after the Bishop of Worcester announced he had been accused of a “credible allegation of sexual misconduct.”

The alleged abuse between a minor and Fr. Edward P. Lettic happened 40 years ago, Most Rev. Robert J. McManus announced on Sunday.

The victim came forward recently, McManus said, and the allegation was investigated by a Worcester diocese review committee.

“It is the first and only report of an allegation of misconduct which we have received involving Fr. Lettic,” McManus announced at Mass on Sunday. Because of the serious nature of the allegation…I must relieve Father Lettic of his duties as pastor of the parish and remove his faculties as a priest.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Ray Delisle, 508-791-5357

January 26, 2014, Worcester, MA – Most Rev. Robert J. McManus, Bishop of Worcester, shared the following announcement at all the Masses this weekend at Immaculate Conception Parish, Lancaster.

“I come before you today with a saddened heart to announce that I have placed Fr. Edward P. Lettic on administrative leave due to a credible allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor which took place forty years ago. Recently the victim came forward to the diocese with this allegation which has been investigated with the oversight of the Diocesan Review Committee. It is the first and only report of an allegation of misconduct which we have received involving Fr. Lettic. Because of the serious nature of the allegation, and consistent with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, I must relieve Father Lettic of his duties as pastor of the parish and remove his faculties as a priest.”

“I truly realize that this news is a shock for you as it has been for me. I ask that you join me in prayer for the parish community, as well as for those who have been hurt in any way by sexual misconduct. I also ask that you keep Fr. Lettic in your prayers.”

“The Catholic Church is often referred to as the family of God. As your bishop, I have a serious pastoral responsibility for the spiritual care and wellbeing of this family. That is why I have come to this parish personally to share this very troubling news. A family rejoices together in good times and also grieves together in times of hurt and sadness. My fervent hope and prayer is that, relying on each other’s support and on God’s grace, we will work together to continue to make Immaculate Conception Parish a strong and vibrant community of faith, hope and love. This week I will appoint a temporary administrator to oversee the pastoral life of the parish until a new pastor is named. After Mass, I will be here to meet with anyone who wishes to gather in the rectory along with Mrs. Frances Nugent, director of the Office of Healing and Prevention. I pray that God’s all powerful grace may bring you comfort and healing in the weeks and months ahead.”

In keeping with the Norms issued by the Holy See following adoption of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, a canonical process has begun including a report of the allegation to the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. The result of that canonical process, if found guilty of the allegation, could include removal from the clerical state or a sanction such as a life of prayer and penance.

Fr. Lettic was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Worcester in 1973. He has served as an associate pastor at St. Joan of Arc, Worcester; St. Denis, East Douglas; and St. Joseph in Auburn, as well as a chaplain at Westborough State Hospital before being named pastor of Immaculate Conception in Lancaster in 1993.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Item

LANCASTER — Father Ed Lettic, longtime priest at the Immaculate Conception Church, was placed on leave after allegations of sexual misconduct were reported.

Rev. Robert J. McManus, bishop of Worcester, was at the church on Sunday to inform the congregation.

In a press release posted on the Diocese website Sunday, it stated that McManus made the following announcement to the congregation:

“I come before you today with a saddened heart to announce that I have placed Fr. Edward P. Lettic on administrative leave due to a credible allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor, which took place 40 years ago. Recently the victim came forward to the diocese with this allegation, which has been investigated with the oversight of the Diocesan Review Committee. It is the first and only report of an allegation of misconduct which we have received involving Fr. Lettic. Because of the serious nature of the allegation, and consistent with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, I must relieve Father Lettic of his duties as pastor of the parish and remove his faculties as a priest.”

“I truly realize that this news is a shock for you as it has been for me. I ask that you join me in prayer for the parish community, as well as for those who have been hurt in any way by sexual misconduct. I also ask that you keep Fr. Lettic in your prayers.”

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JANUARY 27, 2014

THE shocking cover-up by the Salvation Army of the sexual and physical abuse of children at its boys’ homes and orphanages will be investigated by the royal commission into child sex abuse starting tomorrow.

Orphans brought up in four of the organisation’s 35 homes in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s will give evidence of their brutal treatment as officers and staff were moved around between the homes to hide the abuse.

Care Leavers Australia Network’s Leonie Sheedy said yesterday that the organisation’s motto should be “Shame on the Salvos” instead of “Thank God for the Salvos”.

“People will be shocked and they need to be shocked,” Ms Sheedy, executive officer of CLAN, said. “This was an organisation that the government had said was suitable to look after children who had no one else because of war, death, poverty or their parents for other reasons could not look after them.

“But the boys, now adults, talk about them as hell holes.”

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A national inquiry into the Salvation Army’s movement of staff linked to child sex abuse between children’s homes in NSW and Queensland will open this week.

The fifth case study by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will start in Sydney on Tuesday.

The focus of the public hearing will be the response of the Salvation Army (Eastern Territory) to child sexual abuse within four homes: the Alkira Salvation Army Home for Boys, Indooroopilly, Queensland; the Bexley Boys Home, Bexley, NSW; Riverview Training Farm (also known as Endeavour Training Farm), Riverview, Queensland; and the Gill Memorial Boys Home, Goulburn, NSW.

As well as the movement of officers and staff, the Salvation Army’s processes for dealing with allegations of abuse will be examined in the two-week hearing.

At a child abuse inquiry in Victoria last year it was revealed that since 1997 the Salvation Army has received 474 abuse claims, 470 of which arose from its children’s homes, over 30 to 40 years.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victor Stewart
Kenneth Brigham
Emmanuel A. Pallikunnen

Victims focus on 3 predator priests
Two are new, “outed” for 1st time this week
Neither has attracted public attention in Chicago
One eventually went to India, the other to Las Vegas
The 3rd is the most prolific abuser: at least 35 victims
He worked mostly in African American neighborhoods

WHAT
As church-goers enter mass, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will hand out fliers highlighting three predator priests whose records were released this week.
Two of them were “outed” for the first time on Tuesday. The third is perhaps Chicago’s most prolific predator priest (with at least 35 victims).

The leaflets urge Chicago Catholics to
–help them track down where other suspected or defrocked pedophile priests are living or working now, so their unsuspecting neighbors might be warned that dangerous men are nearby,
–ask their loved ones if any of them were hurt by child molesting clerics, and
–insist that archdiocesan officials punish the “enablers” – the church staffers who ignored or hid evidence or warnings of clergy sex crimes, especially those clerics whose names appear in the soon-to-be-released records.

WHEN
Sunday, Jan. 26 at 11:45 a.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside Holy Name Cathedral, North State St at Superior St, Chicago

WHO
Four-five adults who belong to a self-help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org). Some were molested as kids; others are concerned Catholics.

WHY
For weeks, Chicago Catholic officials (including a church attorney) suggested that there would be no new names of predator priests disclosed when 6,000 pages of long-secret archdiocesan clergy sex abuse and cover up files were made public. They were deceptive.

The documents released on Tuesday included records on two now-deceased pedophile priests who had never before been public accused: Fr. Kenneth Brigham and Fr. Emmanuel A. Pallikunnen.

The records also show that Fr. Vincent [Victor] Stewart is perhaps the most prolific Chicago predator priest, having at least 35 victims (nine of whom say another priest (whose name is redacted in the church files) observed, witnessed or knew about Stewart’s crimes. One victim reported to another priest about his abuse by Stewart and that priest told the victim “he would pray about it” but did not report it to police. In 2005, several victims filed a complaint accusing Chicago police of complicity in Stewart’s abuse by silencing some victims when they tried to tell in the 1990s.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

January 26, 2014|By Manya Brachear Pashman, Tribune reporter

At an anti-abortion rally last Sunday, Cardinal Francis George proclaimed to a downtown crowd of thousands that culture and societies can change.

“Because you tell the truth, the pro-life movement can come in from the cold,” said Chicago’s shivering archbishop, who later headed to Washington, D.C., for the 41st annual March for Life.

George was still in the nation’s capital Tuesday when the truth came out in Chicago about how he and his predecessors struggled to manage the clergy sex abuse crisis in the nation’s third-largest Roman Catholic archdiocese. That day, thousands of pages of secret church documents were released as part of a court settlement, showing how leaders of the local church for the past half-century failed to protect children from abusive priests.

As the cardinal left Sunday’s rally, he told the Tribune that the mistakes were in the past. But now George must face a painful present, with his flock stunned by the severity of his missteps and those of his predecessors Joseph Bernardin and John Cody.

“We’re disappointed and saddened,” said Ald. Tim Cullerton, 38th, a parishioner at Our Lady of Victory parish on the North Side.

Before last week’s document release, George admitted mishandling the case of convicted child molester Daniel McCormack, and those files remain sealed. But the newly-released documents chronicle how George and those under his leadership failed to take proper steps in the case of the Rev. Joseph Bennett, a priest accused of molesting two sisters from 1967 to 1973 at St. John de la Salle in Chicago. About a dozen more allegations have surfaced since.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

John Bodette

Good morning, St. Cloud area.

Mark your calendars for 1 p.m. Monday to view the Times Editorial Board’s discussion with St. Cloud Bishop Donald Kettler and St. John’s Abbot John Klassen about the clergy sex abuse scandal and how the Catholic Church can move forward.

Board members spent time Wednesday discussing possible questions to ask two of the leaders of the Catholic Church in Central Minnesota. There are plenty of things the board wants to understand about how the clergy abuse issue was handled and what steps are being taken to prevent future abuse.

You can watch the session live on www.sctimes.com. We also plan to provide a news report of highlights from the session.

Thanks to the readers who answered my suggestion in a previous column and sent along their questions for consideration.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com
on January 24, 2014

It’s not that the young Ronald Gainer was considered most likely to become a bishop in his mid-1960s high school class.

Sure, the young Gainer was noticeably devout and serious about his faith, even for the 1,000-plus students at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary High School in Pottsville, Schuylkill County.

It’s more like this, said Ed Tray, a former classmate and current teacher at the Catholic high school: “I think anybody who went to school with him would know he would be a success in whatever he tried to do.” …

At the height of the church’s sex abuse scandals at the time, Gainer succeeded J. Kendrick Williams, who resigned the previous June after being accused of sexually abusing three boys earlier in his career.

Gainer faces no trauma like that in the new succession; his immediate predecessor in Harrisburg, Bishop Joseph McFadden, died unexpectedly last summer during a Bishop’s meeting in Philadelphia.

His time in Lexington was not without controversy. He consistently took a conservative stance and early in his tenure called for pro-abortion politicians to voluntarily abstain from receiving holy Communion, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — The Pennsylvania Superior Court’s order overturning the conviction of a Philadelphia Catholic Church official could profoundly impact any criminal prosecution of those who knew and failed to report the sexual abuse by Brother Stephen Baker, experts say.

The year 2007 is key, said Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney representing a couple of dozen former students at Bishop McCort Catholic High School who allege Baker sexually molested them while carrying out his duties as part of the athletic department.

Garabedian and Altoona attorney Richard Serbin, along with others, are representing alleged Baker victims in civil lawsuits. The recent appeals court action stems from criminal prosecution of Monsignor William Lynn of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

“It appears it’s going to be difficult for the government to prosecute supervisors prior to 2007 if they didn’t have direct contact with the student,” Garabedian said Friday.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

National Catholic Reporter Calls for Criminal Investigation of Legion of Christ–“An Agency of Almost Unimaginable Fraud”

National Catholic Reporter’s editorial calling for criminal investigation of the Legion of Christ minces no words. An editorial beginning with the following opening sentence is whatever the opposite of word-mincing might be called:

The Legion of Christ has been an agency of almost unimaginable fraud, and that reality alone should be reason for civil authorities to pursue a criminal investigation of its U.S. activities and for the church to proceed with extreme caution in considering allowing the group to continue.

And it only gets better from there. In the very next sentence, the editorial cuts off at the knees the claim of many apologists that the Legion of Christ is, after all, about Christ, no matter how off-course the religious community may have gotten in its development. And it can be rehabilitated, when its tarnished image is buffed up a bit and we see the original charism shining out under the tarnish. NCR’s rejoinder to that apologetic:

The Legion, which was of many things but certainly not of Christ, was built on the life of a man, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, who trafficked in deception, lies and crimes against children.

And then the editorial adds, later,

For millennia, the church has absorbed religious movements and enthusiast groups of every sort. The Legion, however, is of another species entirely. It has no charism save for a fraud of a founder. Its relationship with the wider world and with the church is so tainted by corruption and lies that it is difficult to imagine justification for its continuation.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

[with video]

William D. Lindsey

Joyce Maynard on Relationship with J.D. Salinger: Carryovers for Discussion of Abuse Situation in Catholic Church?

Novelist Joyce Maynard, who says that J.D. Salinger sought her out for an intimate relationship when she was “a very young 18-year-old,” reiterates (in different words) in the video interview above with HuffPost Live points that she also made last year in a New York Times article:

People in positions of power — mentors, priests, employers or simply those assigned an elevated status — use their power to lure much younger people into sexual and (in the case of Salinger) emotional relationships. Most typically, those who do this are men. And when they are done with the person they’ve drawn toward them, it can take that person years or decades to recover.

• People in positions of power
• Use their power to lure much younger people into sexual relationships
• Most typically, those who do this are men
• It can take that person years or decades to recover

And, of course, as I listen to that interview and ready Maynard’s remarks, I cannot avoid thinking of the abuse situation in my Catholic church. What do you think: is Maynard’s commentary on her involvement with J.D. Salinger pertinent in any way to the abuse crisis?

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DEUTSCHLAND
Berliner Morgenpost

[Summary: The world of the Catholic Church was shaken four years ago when the first cases were made public of abuse at Berlin’s Canisius College, a Jesuit high school. Subsequently numerous cases of sexual assault and violent acts by priests and other church employees came to light and the shock waves reach the Vatican. But there are still groups of victims who feel let down by the order. Matthias Katsch, spokesman for the Round Table group said the two main perpetrators at Canisius were hardly held accountable.]

Von Joachim Fahrun
Vier Jahre ist es her, dass die Welt der katholischen Kirche erschüttert wurde. Die Berliner Morgenpost berichtete als erstes Medium über Missbrauchsfälle am Berliner Jesuitengymnasium Canisius-Kolleg. In der Folge kamen zahlreiche weitere sexuelle Übergriffe und Gewalttaten von Priestern und anderen Kirchenmitarbeitern ans Licht. Die Schockwellen erreichten den Vatikan, aber auch viele andere Sektoren der Gesellschaft. Kinderheime, Sportvereine, Reformschulen – überall wurde den vorher allenfalls verschämt geäußerten Schilderungen der Tausenden Opfer mit einem Mal Glauben geschenkt.

Am Canisius-Kolleg waren schon lange vor jenem 28. Januar 2009 ehemalige Schüler in kleinen Gruppen dabei, sich des erlittenen Unrechts klar zu werden und sich darüber auszutauschen, was sie in den 70er- und 80er-Jahren als Schutzbefohlene der Patres Peter Riedel und Wolfgang Statt erlitten hatten. Als sie den Rektor Pater Klaus Mertes mit ihren Erlebnissen konfrontierten, geschah erstmals nicht das, was bisher immer dafür gesorgt hatte, solche Vorgänge aus der Öffentlichkeit zu halten.

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WISCONSIN
Duluth News Tribune

James Steel

The criminal case against a former Chicago-area priest and a Catholic grammar school principal both accused of repeatedly molesting a minor in Northwestern Wisconsin years ago could be reopened after newly unveiled documents were released by the Archdiocese of Chicago last week.

By: Robin Washington, Duluth News Tribune

The criminal case against a former Chicago-area priest and a Catholic grammar school principal both accused of repeatedly molesting a minor in Northwestern Wisconsin years ago could be reopened after newly unveiled documents were released by the Archdiocese of Chicago last week.

The file of former priest James Steel, among records of 30 clergymen released Tuesday by the archdiocese, contains allegations that Steel and Donald Ryniecki sexually abused a boy on trips to Long Lake in Washburn County in 1982 and 1983.

Steel, who was laicized in 2001, was at the time a priest at St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Wheeling, Ill., where Ryniecki was the school principal and where they also are alleged to have abused the boy.

The Archdiocese of Chicago found the allegations credible and paid an undisclosed settlement to accuser Robert Brancato five years ago. Yet while Washburn County and Wheeling law enforcement authorities investigated Steel and Ryniecki after Brancato filed a police report accusing them in late 2004, neither man was criminally charged.

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ARKANSAS
KATI

Posted by Jorge Quiquivix

PARAGOULD, AR (KAIT) – A Region 8 youth minister was acquitted of sexual assault charges after being accused back in 2012.

Corey Ray Weatherford, 27, was originally charged with three counts of first degree sexual assault. On Monday, a jury acquitted him of those charges.

Weatherford was a student minister at Reynolds Baptist Church in Paragould.

He was accused of engaging in sexual activity with two girls at a church camp with the age of 16 and 17.

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ARKANSAS
Paragould Daily Press

A Paragould youth minister was acquitted of charges of sexual assault Friday in Greene County.

Corey Ray Weatherford, former student minister at Reynolds Baptist Church in Paragould, was charged in 2012 with three counts of first-degree sexual assault involving two female minors.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

[link to documents]

By Jamie Sotonoff

For nearly 40 years, Carmen Severino hid the fact that she was sexually abused by her family parish’s priest between fifth grade and her senior year of high school.

Scared to tell her devout family, fearing they’d side with the church over her, Severino suppressed the memories and soldiered on with her life. She got married and had children. Divorced and remarried. Pursued successful careers as an actress and nutritionist.

Everything seemed fine on the outside, but the psychological wounds festered for decades. When she finally opened up about the abuse nine years ago, it took years of therapy to come to terms with her guilt and shame. Even today, at 59, something as simple as the sight of a priest wearing clerical robes can trigger thoughts of her painful past.

For Severino, of Naperville, and many other survivors of clergy sexual abuse, the trauma they suffered decades ago is something they still deal with in their daily lives. Yet most agree that the best thing they did to heal was to talk about it with someone, either a professional, a trusted friend or a fellow survivor.

“When I first came forward, I was the sinner. I was the shame,” she said. “It still is a journey … but the more it comes out, the better it will be for those suffering in silence. You have to shine the light in the corners of the kitchen to have the cockroaches come out.”

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WASHINGTON
Union-Bulletin

WALLA WALLA — The Archdiocese of Spokane is seeking information about a priest who briefly lived in Walla Walla in 1986 and has since been the subject of a substantiated claim of child sexual abuse in Minnesota.

According to the Inland Register, the newspaper for the Spokane archdiocese, the Rev. Clarence Vavra was hired as a chaplain at the Washington State Penitentiary in the fall of 1986, but resigned his position on Dec. 29, 1986, and left the state shortly afterward.

The newspaper reported the Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis has recently published that there is a substantiated claim of child sexual abuse against Vavra.

“Although Vavra’s known abuse did not take place in Washington state, it is the policy of the Diocese of Spokane to inform parishioners when it receives information about known perpetrators who have served within the boundaries of our diocese,” the article said.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Many Catholics for a half century had been required to accept, whether they liked it or not, popes that included an indecisive Italian intellectual who condemned birth control, a self confident Polish actor who protected child abusers, and a firm German disciplinarian who lived in a bubble, all directed by Italian curial practitioners of Machiavellian “realpolitik”. Consequently, many of these Catholics are enjoying immensely so far their friendly pastoral Latino, Pope Francis. He seems to most of them to be trying his best to salvage a sinking Vatican. It remains to be seen if the salvage operation is intended to benefit mainly the world’s cardinals or the world’s Catholics, two groups often with different interests.

If the Vatican had only religious influence, Catholics could wait and give Francis unlimited time to act. But the Vatican, by conscious choice and long tradition. is also a geo-political player. Papal actions, and inaction, including lobbying on key political and social policies that impact adversely children and women especially, require a political response from the USA and other nations. These policies range from child protection and women’s reproductive rights to Middle East peace negotiations, especially regarding Syria. Hopefully, President Obama will give Pope Francis a pointed response on these matters when they meet in two months.

Pope Francis inherited, after ex-Pope Benedict quit, several difficult and pressing challenges, including an ineffective Vatican management, a lack of bishop accountability for failing to protect children, denials of women’s equality and reproductive rights and disrespect for gay persons and their rights, and violent international religious competition, especially in the Middle East.

Francis obviously had limited prior experience in managing an international political organization. Interestingly, even one of his loyal Jesuit confreres. Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J., has noted his recent mistake in appointing more Curial cardinals. Reese has a Ph.D. in Political Science from UC Berkeley and is a leading authority on Vatican management structures. See his:

[National Catholic Reporter]

Hopefully, more Catholic intellectuals will follow Reese’s bold lead and face up to honest and constructive assessments of Francis’ actions and inaction. The moral duties of “fraternal correction” and intellectual integrity require no less. The habits of “safe silence” under the last two pope’s inquisitorial regimes must now be disgarded, while the window for change remains open, however slightly.

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Huffington Post

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush

When Pope Francis posed his now-iconic question, “Who am I to judge?” in reference to gay people in the Catholic Church, he signaled a sea change in a deeply conservative religious institution reeling from decades of scandal and decline in Europe and the Americas.

The pope’s insistence on simple living, his radical statements about economic injustice, and the arresting photos of him embracing others have effectively transcended religion, at once reflecting and furthering what his champions celebrate as progressive social change.

But beneath the Pope’s headline-catching rhetoric, he has delivered key administrative decisions over the past year that indicate serious and substantial reforms are already underway within the Catholic church.

In an unprecedented move soon after his election, Francis appointed eight cardinals from around the globe to sit on a permanent advisory panel. This group, which is about to meet for the third time, aids Francis in his efforts to “shake-up” the bureaucracy in the Vatican. The panel will also be responsible for creating guidelines on how to address the church’s global priest sex abuse scandal, namely how to handle clergy who have been accused of abuse and how to prevent it.

Francis has also replaced the widely criticized Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, whose tenure under Pope Benedict XVI was marked by a “Vatileaks” scandal that exposed alleged corruption, with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin.

Additionally, he has targeted the scandal-prone and notoriously secretive Vatican Bank: He appointed a commission to investigate how it operates, hired secular financial firms to do a third-party investigation of its practices, and recently replaced almost all of the cardinals on its advisory council with a new group to oversee much-needed reforms. …

Church members also say Francis has yet to do enough to address the church’s sex abuse scandals, the greatest strain on the Catholic Church.

During a United Nations committee hearing in Geneva last week, the Vatican was accused of protecting priests and bishops and obstructing local investigations in the wake of sex abuse accusations. It also recently refused an extradition request from Poland for Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who is under investigation for sex abuse that allegedly occurred when he served in The Dominican Republic. The U.S. based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) criticized the pope for appointing Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Mueller as one of its new cardinals, saying he has a “dreadful” record on children’s safety. It also lamented the omission of Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who has been an outspoken critic of the church’s handling of sex abuse scandals around the world.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt | Jan. 25, 2014

VIENNA
Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, coordinator of the Council of Cardinals, has high hopes that the council will bring the central administration of the church up to date.

“There is a lot of hope and high expectations of the commission I was appointed to lead. I am sure that Pope Francis is in favor of making the Curia more agile and easier to work with,” Rodriguez Maradiaga told KNA, the German Catholic news agency, on a visit to Germany in January.

The most important priority is to change the mentality of the Curia, Rodriguez Maradiaga said. The pope is against careerism, he said: Many priests who worked in the Curia had up to now automatically become bishops, archbishops, and even cardinals — “but that no longer corresponds to the mentality of the world church, and bishops from all over the world have voiced their displeasure. Working for the Curia is a service and not a career or a position of power,” the cardinal said.

Rodriguez Maradiaga said further important steps can be taken to make the Curia truly representative of the world church — that is, more international — and to give local bishops’ conferences greater decision-making powers. “There are many questions that do not need to be decided by the Roman Curia,” he said.

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MINNESOTA
Grand Forks Herald

[list of accused priests with biographical information]

By Stephen J. Lee on Jan 24, 2014

Five the priests are dead and their alleged abuse occurred decades ago.

The sixth, the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul, remains awaiting extradition from his home country of India, to face charges in Roseau County he sexually assaulted two girls, 14 and 16, a decade ago while serving as a visiting priest to the diocese for about three years.

The release of the list came after a request from the Herald.

And it doesn’t contain new material, since the names have been available for several years in court documents and have been mentioned in news stories over the years.

It is a significant change in policy for the diocese. As recently as October, an attorney for the Crookston diocese argued against litigation by St. Paul attorney Jeffrey Anderson seeking such a list, that there was no harm in keeping private such a list of priests accused of sexual abuse.

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CHICAGO (IL)
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho January 24, 2014

On Tuesday, the Archdiocese of Chicago released six thousand pages of documents related to the cases of thirty priests credibly accused of sexual abuse. The files, made public as part of a settlement with victims’ attorneys, offer a predictably depressing view of archdiocesan failures over the past several decades. You know the dirge: priests quietly shuttled from parish to parish, civil authorities kept in the dark about some cases (and colluding with church officials to keep others from public scrutiny), laypeople and clergy failing to report allegations, bishops refusing to suspend dangerous priests.

For releasing these documents and for making public the names of known abuser-priests, Cardinal Francis George–archbishop of Chicago since 1997–takes some credit. “Publishing for all to read the actual records of these crimes,” he wrote in a letter warning Chicagoans about the document dump, “raises transparency to a new level.” Perhaps. But he didn’t volunteer these files. They wouldn’t have come out if it hadn’t been for victims who pressed for their release as part of a legal settlement. Still, it’s difficult to take seriously Cardinal George’s brief for transparency when he seems so intent on obfuscating his own role in the scandal.

That letter was repurposed as George’s latest column in the Catholic New World. It’s titled “Accountability and Transparency”–because, the cardinal says, the archdiocese is “committed” to both. “For more than twenty years,” he writes, “the archdiocese has reported all allegations of sexual abuse to civil authorities and to DCFS [Department of Child and Family Services].” He makes it sound like every allegation the archdiocese has received has been promptly reported to civil authorities. That’s not what happened.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

Police investigating historical sexual assaults on students at schools in Bathurst (in central-west New South Wales) arrested a former Catholic priest on 23 January 2014 at his residence in Newington in western Sydney. The man, now aged 71, was taken to Auburn police station, where he was charged with multiple counts of aggravated indecent assault of a male student between 1974 and 1977, when the accused man was a Catholic priest.

The priest was a member of a Catholic religious order which operates at several locations around Australia (that is, he did not belong to a particular local diocese). He eventually left his religious order.

A NSW Police media release on 23 January 2014 said that the man was conditionally bailed to appear at the Burwood Local Court in western Sydney later in 2014.

The arrest was made by detectives from Strike Force Belle, which was formed to investigate allegations of the sexual and indecent assaults of students by various offenders between 1960 and 1993 at two secondary boarding schools in Bathurst – St Stanislaus College (Catholic) and All Saints College (Anglican).

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

You’ve got to hand it to Mr. McClellan (see previous postings) and Gail “Snow White” Furness (see previous postings) of the Australian royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. They certainly give the Catholic Church every opportunity to “clarify” previous evidence.

Originally, they gave them an extra bite at the cherry this Wednesday, to present new arguments on the actual hearings on “Towards Healing” (the process for dealing with victim complaints), held last year. Then they gave them Thursday. Now they have given them Friday, to correct a mistake from Thursday.

Michael Salmon (see previous posting), director of the Catholic Church’s NSW/ACT Professional Standards Office, said he wanted to submit a supplementary statement “to assist the commission”, so they let him do so today.

Mr Salmon facilitated the 2010 “Towards Healing” session with DK, who was sexually molested when he was a student at the St Augustine’s Marist College at Cairns in Queensland State. Evidence from Mr Salmon, on Wednesday and Thursday, suggested that the conversation DK had with former college principal, Brother Gerald Burns and another clergy member covered what they knew of inappropriate behaviour by Ross Murrin in relation to DK and other boys.

In his evidence on Thursday, Br Burns (the former principal of St, Augustine’s college, where DK was abused by a Br. Murrin who is currently in prison) told the commission DK never asked him about offences against other boys, but only about his own situation. Br Burns also said a file note from Mr Salmon written after the mediation session, which suggested otherwise, was inaccurate.

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GENEVA
UN Treaty Body Webcast

[Video – Click onto the site and scroll down to the seventh screen.]

Vatican officials meet with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Diesseits

[Summary: The Vatican for the first time has had to answer questions from the UN Children’s Rights Committee. So far the church has refused to give details about the number and handling of thousands of cases of abuse by priests. Norbert Denef believes an act of reconciliation by the church is an urgent need. He has written a letter to Pope Francis urging him to act against the cover-up of sexual violence.]

Erstmalig mussten sich in der vergangenen Woche Vertreter des Vatikans den Fragen des UN-Kinderrechtskomitees stellen. Denn bislang hat sich die Kirche geweigert, genaue Angaben über die Zahl und den Umgang mit den Tausenden Fällen des Missbrauchs Minderjähriger durch katholische Geistliche zu machen. Kritik übten die Kinderrechtsexperten der Vereinten Nationen unter anderem daran, dass manche Geistliche bis heute nicht aus dem Kirchendienst entfernt worden seien.

Norbert Denef glaubt, dass es einen gemeinsamen Weg für die unzähligen Betroffenen und die katholische Kirche geben kann. In einem Brief an Franziskus hat der 64-Jährige das Kirchenoberhaupt dazu aufgefordert, sich an einer Stiftung gegen die Vertuschung von sexualisierter Gewalt zu beteiligen. „Ein Akt der Versöhnung ist dringend geboten, um über Brücken zu gehen, wo die Wege bisher versperrt sind“, schreibt er in seinem am Donnerstag in der ZEIT veröffentlichten Appell an den Papst.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

MICHAEL BABAD
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jan. 24 2014

The Vatican is moving forcefully to repair its scandal-prone bank.

The Instituto per le Opere di Religione, commonly known as the Vatican bank, this week released a report that highlights a year of reforms, including bolstering measures to fight money laundering.

That came just a week after Pope Francis overhauled the bank’s oversight group, replacing many of its members with new faces, including the respected Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto.

The new pope isn’t making his mark solely on religious, social and economic inequality issues, but also on the Vatican’s wealthy bank, which posted a 2012 profit of almost €87-million and sits on billions in bonds, stocks, cash and equivalents, gold and real estate.

“As an Institute of the Church we have a particular responsibility to live up to the high standards that are rightly expected of us,” Vatican bank president Ernst von Freyberg, who was brought on board in 2013, said in this week’s report.

The bank’s supervisory board, which has been overhauling processes for a year now, said it received a status report on how things have been going, including an update on the reforms to “adopt best practice compliance risk management and to comply with current Vatican anti-money laundering legislation.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

BY JON SEIDEL Staff Reporter January 24, 2014

The retired Catholic bishop said he “took it for granted” that sexual abuse of a child at the hands of an adult was a crime.

And Raymond Goedert testified in his 2007 deposition that he “obviously” knew as much when he became the Archdiocese of Chicago’s vicar for priests in July 1987. He said that role essentially made him “pastor to the priests,” according to a transcript of that interview.

It was also his job, he said, to deal with allegations of sexual misconduct between minors and members of the clergy. Goedert testified that priests confronted at the time with such allegations “frequently, if not almost always, admitted” to it.

But he said he never called police. Goedert contended clergy at the time were not “mandated reporters” — required under Illinois law to report suspected child abuse to the authorities.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests begins new self-help group in Boston area

By Lisa Wangsness | GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 25, 2014

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known widely by the acronym SNAP, is beginning a new confidential self-help group in the Boston area for survivors of sexual abuse. Sessions are scheduled to start Sunday and then convene every fourth Sunday of the month thereafter. This Sunday’s meeting will be from 3 to 5 p.m. at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, 2014 Washington St., Newton, near the Woodland stop on the MBTA’s Green Line (D train). SNAP’s groups are open to any sexual abuse victim who has been abused by an authority figure. Survivors and their supporters are welcome. Contact Dave O’Regan for details at worcestersnap@gmail.com or call 434-446-6769.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

Financial Transparency Emerges as Major Theme in St. Paul-Minneapolis Abuse Story: Outstanding MPR Report (and Nicole Sotelo on Knights of Columbus)

William D. Lindsey

To my mind, one of the strangest claims that apologists for the Catholic hierarchy who want to assist the hierarchy by bashing survivors of clerical sexual abuse make is that the Catholic church is and always has been transparent in its handling of finances. This claim is so obviously counterintuitive that I can’t quite fathom the reasons some apologists try to trot it out as a weapon against survivors and those who stand in solidarity with survivors.

For Minnesota Public Radio, Tom Scheck has just produced a first-rate, must-read article detailing how the archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis has dealt with the donations of lay Catholics and with its other financial assets for some time now. The picture is far from pretty.

Using internal financial reports of the archdiocese detailing large transactions never disclosed to those outside certain secret internal loops, Scheck shows the archdiocese spending “nearly $11 million from 2002 to 2011 — about 3 percent of overall archdiocese revenues in those years — for costs tied to clergy misconduct under Flynn and his successor, Archbishop John Nienstedt.” As Scheck notes, these hidden financial reports “detail a stealth financial system that included payments to persuade priests to leave active ministry, financial support for children fathered by priests and money for legal settlements.”

As an example of how the system worked, Scheck points to the case of Father Stanley Kozlak, whom archdiocesan officials decided to pay off in secret after Kozlak fathered a child in 2000–to pay him off in secret as he was removed from ministry in a way designed to hide the reason for his removal. Scheck reports that

Archbishop Harry Flynn agreed in 2002 to pay the fallen priest $1,900 a month “disability” for life, plus $800 a month in rent for life, and $980 a month “to replace the social security payment until Father Kozlak reaches age 67 when he would receive his full social security.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago said “we’re sorry” one more time this month for decades of covered-up sexual abuse of children by priests.

But those conversant with Catholic theology will recognize the tenor and depth of the apology.

The church identifies two levels of apologies for sin. There’s the much-preferred “perfect act of contrition” in which the penitent is sorry because what was done offended God. That recognition advances the soul’s cleansing.

The second type — “the imperfect act of contrition” — acknowledges sorrow because failing to be sorry risks Hell. In essence, you’re sorry because failing to be sorry involves punishment down the road.

The 6,000 released pages of internal documents identifying the diocese’s role in hiding, moving and nurturing pedophiles constitutes the most “imperfect” apology because they were produced under duress. The diocese hid the documents, and came clean only as part of civil trial settlement that has taken eight years.

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HAWAII
KUTV

[with video]

[the lawsuit via Fox 13]

(KUTV) Two Utah men have filed suit against the LDS church claiming they were abused by one of their leaders.

The alleged sexual abuse happened decades ago on LDS property in Hawaii where young LDS boys were recruited to pick pineapples. The victims now in their 40’s are coming forward with a new statute of limitations in Hawaii that allows them to file suit against their alleged abuser.

Until this recent change the men were left with no way to file because so many years had gone by Jacob Hubbard of Utah County says he was just 15 at the time of the sex abuse. He says, “I kept it to myself and it happened over and over again. I knew it was horrible, but I was so embarrassed about it I felt like I couldn’t tell anybody.”

Hubbard was suffering alone, but was not the only one. Kyle Spray was 16 at the time when he says he was abused. He is now 42 and worries there are a lot more out there. As teens they left their families for an exciting adventure in Hawaii. Their destination was a pineapple farm run by the LDS church. It was a place where young men could earn money and work towards serving LDS missions. It was billed as a great spiritual environment safe for LDS young men. Looking back Spray says, “It was Hawaii who didn’t want to go to Hawaii? We’re talking playing on the beach and having a good time.” But, what they say happened from 1986-1988 was anything but.

A Civil lawsuit was filed January 22nd against Brian R. Picket of Idaho falls, the LDS church, Maui Land and Pineapple, and Youth Development Enterprises. The men are seeking justice for alleged sexual abuse that happened during their time at this LDS work camp.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com
on January 24, 2014

“It’s a painful message. The message is nothing has changed.” – David Clohessy, SNAP

The top official for a national group that advocates on behalf of people who have been abused by Catholic priests on Friday denounced the appointment of the new bishop of the Harrisburg Diocese.

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called the appointment of Bishop Ronald Gainer a disappointing decision that signals the Vatican’s continued willingness to promote and advance clergy, he said, who shield predator priests.

Clohessy said the appointment of Gainer, announced Friday at the Harrisburg Diocese headquarters, may be Pope Francis’ most distressing promotion yet.

“It’s a painful message,” Clohessy said. “The message is nothing has changed. Church officials who continue putting kids in harms way continue getting promotions. It sounds cynical but appointments like this make us question why should we expect bishops to change when they are moved up the ladder despite clear wrongdoing.”

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CANADA
Daily Brew

By Steve Mertl | Daily Brew

The leader of Canada’s Russian Orthodox church got a dressing down from the Manitoba judge as he convicted the cleric of sexually assaulting an alter boy more than 30 years ago.

Archbishop Kenneth (Seraphim) Storheim had been accused of molesting twin 11-year-old boys while he was a parish priest at an Orthodox church in Winnipeg.

By the time charges were laid in 2011, Storheim had risen to become the most senior cleric in the church in Canada, holding the title of archbishop of Ottawa and Canada, the Winnipeg Free Press reported.

Storheim, 67, was convicted Friday by Queens Bench Justice Chris Mainella of sexually assaulting one of the two brothers. Mainella acquitted him of molesting the other brother, saying problems with the second victim, including mental illness, affected the quality of his evidence, the Free Press said.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Friday, January 24, 2014

Statement by Melanie Jula Sakoda of Moraga, CA, Orthodox Director for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 925-708-6175 cell, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com )

We are extremely grateful that Archbishop Seraphim Storheim has been found guilty of child sex abuse today. We also understand how difficult it is to accuse a respected man of the cloth, so we would like to thank the two men who courageously testified about what they had suffered. Without their bravery, this conviction would not have been possible and kids would still be at risk.

Now that Storheim has been found guilty in a court of law, we hope that the Orthodox Church in America will act swiftly to remove him from the ranks of clergy. We also hope that the Archdiocese of Canada will examine its records to insure that the archbishop did not use his position to shield other predators or to discipline whistle blowers.

Finally, we recognize that pedophiles usually have many victims. We beg anyone who suffered, saw, or suspected Storheim’s crimes to report to the professionals in law enforcement and help protect kids.

The archbishop worked in the following locations:

5/30/1980-1/31/1981: Supply priest in Valamo Monastery, Finland

1/1981-10/1982: Missionary priest, Alberta, Canada

10/1982-12/15/1983: Missionary priest, Charlotte, North Carolina, United States of America

12/15/1983-12/1/1984: Missionary priest in London, Ontario, Canada

12/1/1984-6/13/1987: Rector of Holy Trinity Sobor, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

6/13/1987-6/29/1990: Bishop of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

10/28/1990-present: Ruling hierarch of the Archdiocese of Canada with his seat in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by David Clohessy, SNAP Executive Director

Today, a national Catholic newspaper is calling for police and prosecutors to investigate the scandal-ridden Legion of Christ which operates in Connecticut and across the world.

We agree.

[National Catholic Reporter]

There have been multiple and credible reports and allegations of child sex crimes, adult sexual misdeeds, financial corruption, cult-like behavior, extraordinary secrecy and cover ups of all this wrongdoing in this bizarre outfit, whose founder sexually violated boys and young men while fathering at least three children despite his vow of celibacy.

Legion officials claim they’re reforming. But we see no real evidence of that. They’re working harder at public relations, but haven’t voluntarily disclosed, much less disciplined, any of the legion officials who have ignored, hidden or enabled clergy sex crimes or helped Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado l and others hide their lavish lifestyles.

Only independent secular authorities – like prosecutors – can really investigate the Legion and find out whether any of their wrongdoing can be criminally prosecuted. We hope Connecticut’s attorney general will do this soon.

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CHICAGO (IL)
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

The Chicago diocese of the Catholic Church has released a trove of 6,000 documents that show terrible child abuse by priests—and a coordinated effort to shield the predators from victims’ families and the law.

For the victims of predatory priests and their families, there will never be enough transparency to counter the years of perceived lies and secrets at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church. But thanks to a legal settlement between the archdiocese of Chicago and the victims of 30 pedophilic priests, a cache of 6,000 secret documents has just been made public, proving what victims have always believed: that the Catholic Church knowingly covered up years of abuse.

Some of the documents released on Tuesday and published on the website of attorney Jeff Anderson, who brokered the deal in 2008, are deeply disturbing. Many show a terrible level of child abuse, including detailed allegations by young boys of sodomy, forced oral sex and, in one case, a young girl who recounted how a priest masturbated and ejaculated on top of her. One complaint details how a priest threatened his victim at gunpoint not to tell authorities about the ongoing rape. The documents also show how the hierarchy within the Chicago diocese willingly moved priests around and lied to the victims’ families, legal teams and even the local police. At one point, as many as 60 percent of the churches in the Chicago archdiocese had pedophile priests, according to a Voices of the Faithful study conducted in 2010.

Several documents also show that Chicago bishops petitioned the Holy See in Rome and asked for guidance, despite years of denials from Rome that these matters were dealt with on a purely local level. In the case of Father Daniel Mark Holihan—who, according to the documents, was referred to as “Happy Hands Holihan” by his Catechism students—a memorandum was submitted to the Chicago church by a representative from the Archdiocese of Chicago Office for Child Abuse Investigations and Review. “I referred this matter to the Holy See on 15 September 2003, receiving a reply on 16 June 2004 dispensing from canonical prescription and instructing me to conduct an administrative penal process,” the memorandum said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

Mary Ann Ahern, reporter for NBC Chicago, investigated priest sex scandals 20 years ago. These reports recently resurfaced as the files were released. Hear what Ahern believes should be done the information and how she discovered Mayor Richard M. Daley’s name in one file.

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WISCONSIN
The Northwestern

Written by
Michael Tarm
Associated Press

CHICAGO — A new lawsuit filed Thursday alleging sexual abuse of children in the 1960s and ‘70s focuses on Norbert J. Maday, a now-defrocked priest and registered sex offender who lives in Oshkosh and is referred to at length in documents released this week by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.

Maday molested boys — sometimes in cars or motel swimming pools — when a priest at Chicago’s St. Leo Catholic Church and later at St. Louis de Montfort Catholic Church in Oak Lawn, according to the lawsuit.

The document, filed in Cook County Court on behalf of three plaintiffs, names Maday, the archdiocese, and another man, Thomas Hacker, who is serving two concurrent 50-year prison terms on a 1989 conviction for molesting three boys.

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CANADA
Huffington Post

By Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press

WINNIPEG – An Orthodox archbishop was convicted Friday of sexually assaulting an altar boy 29 years ago by a judge who ruled Seraphim Kenneth Storheim’s denials were “nonsensical.”

“I do not believe the testimony of the accused,” Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Christopher Mainella said in an oral decision that lasted for two hours.

“The accused was not credible about his behaviour. He … provided nonsensical answers and was not consistent in his version of events.”

Storheim, who became the top Canadian cleric for the Orthodox Church in America, was accused of sexually assaulting two brothers in the summer of 1985, when he was a priest in Winnipeg. The brothers, whose identities are protected by a publication ban, lived with Storheim for brief periods, on separate occasions, while they worked as altar boys.

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MEXICO
El Siglo de Torreon

[Summary: A spokesman for the Torreon diocese said in the last 50 years they have not had a reported case of sexual abuse by priests.]

En sus 50 años la Diócesis de Torreón no ha registrado casos de abuso sexual por sacerdotes pertenecientes a su demarcación, aseguró el sacerdote Rafael López.

Ante las declaraciones realizadas por el obispo de la Diócesis de Saltillo, Raúl Vera, y el padre Pedro Pantoja Arreola, en donde se ventilaron cuatro casos de sacerdotes pederastas, Rafael López, director de la Buena Nueva -periódico de la Diócesis- e integrante de Comunicación Social, descartó que los registros sean de Torreón. “No hay ningún caso reportado en la iglesia ni ante las autoridades. La Diócesis tiene muy poco, 50 años, y en este tiempo no se han presentado casos de abuso sexual”.

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America Latina

[Summary: A delegation from the Vatican last week appeared before the UN to give explanations on cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests, nuns and other church officials throughout the world. Pope Francis and former Pope Benedict XVI have public acknowledged abuse but this was the first that that a commission of the Holy See was called to Geneva to recognize crimes that they tried to conceal within their religious organization.]

Francesca Emanuele

La semana pasada, una delegación del Vaticano compareció ante la ONU para dar explicaciones sobre los casos de abuso sexual a menores perpetrados por sacerdotes, monjas y demás funcionarios de la Iglesia alrededor del mundo. En ocasiones previas, el papa Francisco y el ex pontífice Benedicto XVI, reconocieron públicamente los casos de abusos. Sin embargo, era la primera vez que una comisión de la Santa Sede se presentaba en Ginebra ante las Naciones Unidas para reconocer los delitos de pederastia que históricamente ha intentado ocultar su organización religiosa.

Si bien este es un hecho sin precedentes para la Iglesia, no es ni mínimamente suficiente para las cientos de miles de víctimas efectivas (y posibles) alrededor del planeta. En Ginebra, la comisión del Vaticano continuó manteniendo ocultos los nombres de los miles de sacerdotes que están envueltos en estos delitos, aún teniendo registros internos de los mismos. Además, se negó a proporcionar documentación referida al “protocolo de actuación” que ejerce la Iglesia Católica en estos supuestos.

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CANADA
Global News

WINNIPEG – An Orthodox archbishop has been found guilty of sexually assaulting one of two brothers in Winnipeg almost 30 years ago.

The judge said in his ruling that Seraphim Kenneth Storheim was evasive and untrustworthy in his denials on the witness stand.

The Court of Queen’s Bench justice also said one brother was clear in his testimony, while the other had memory and mental illness problems.

The brothers, who are now in their 30s, testified they lived with Storheim briefly, on separate occasions, when they worked as altar boys in 1985.

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CANADA
CBC News

A Winnipeg archbishop accused of sexual assault against two boys has been found guilty in one case but not the other.

Seraphim Storheim, 67, will be sentenced later in the year. In the meantime, he will be free on bail.

Storeheim had been accused of sexually assaulting two pre-teen brothers in 1985. He was facing two counts — one for each boy.

In reading the verdict on Friday, the judge said he was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt about the assault against one boy but the burden of proof was not met for the second.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Christopher Mainella said in his ruling that Storheim was evasive and untrustworthy in his denials on the witness stand.

The judge also said one brother was clear in his testimony, while the other had memory and mental illness problems.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Sun

Former archbishop Kenneth (Seraphim) Storheim was found guilty of one count of sexually molesting a young boy — and cleared of a charge he molested the boy’s twin — in incidents nearly 30 years ago.

Storheim, who went on to become Canadian Archbishop of the Orthodox Church in America, was accused of molesting two pre-teen twin brothers in the mid-1980s when he was the rector at Holy Trinity Sobor in Winnipeg.

But on Friday, a court found him guilty of molesting only one of the boys.

Storheim previously admitted hugging the brothers and engaging one of the boys in a conversation about puberty — ”One of the stupider things I have done,” he said — but denied accusations he engaged in physically inappropriate behaviour.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: Mike McIntyre

A high-ranking Orthodox archbishop has been convicted of sexually assaulting a young altar boy while working in a Winnipeg church nearly 30 years ago.

Seraphim Storheim, 67, showed little visible reaction today as he learned his fate. He will be sentenced later this spring and remains free on bail.

Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Mainella blasted Storheim in his two-hour decision, saying his claims of innocence rang hollow.

“He loves to parse words and concepts,” Mainella said in finding Storheim’s testimony lacked credibility. “Other times he would provide nonsensical answers. I reject his evidence entirely.”

Storheim did win a partial victory, as Mainella convicted him of molesting just one of two brothers who claimed they were attacked. Mainella cited issues with the other alleged victim, including mental illness, which impacted the quality of evidence he was able to provide.

Storheim had taken the witness stand in his own defence, claiming the only thing he was guilty of was caring too much for a troubled family he took under his wing.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Eckiger Tisch

… was machen heute eigentlich die Täter von damals?

WOLFGANG STATT
(früher: „Pater Wolfgang Statt SJ“, auch bekannt als: „Padre Volfi“ oder „Joaquin Statt“)

WAS IM JANUAR 2010 BEKANNT WURDE
Wolfgang Statt hat seit den 1960er Jahren mehr als dreißig Jahre lang in Deutschland, Spanien und Chile nach eigenen Angaben „mehrere hundert“ Kinder und Jugendliche missbraucht.

Im Februar 2010 hatte sich Statt zunächst in der deutschen Presse mit Interviews und Statements in eigener Sache zu Wort gemeldet und seinen Umzug nach Deutschland angekündigt. Am 9. Februar 2010 dementierte der Sprecher des deutschen Jesuitenordens in Chile (aber nicht in Deutschland) mit einer Pressemitteilung in spanischer Sprache, dass es in Deutschland Vorwürfe des sexuellen Missbrauchs gegen Statt gebe. Statt nahm dann von seiner geplanten Übersiedlung nach Deutschland Abstand und hat sich seitdem nicht mehr öffentlich geäußert.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Jan. 24, 2014 Faith and Justice

In advancing four members of the Roman Curia to the cardinalate, Pope Francis has made his first major mistake, which may ultimately undermine his attempts at reforming the Vatican.

There is not anything particularly wrong with the men being made cardinals. Three of them are clearly Francis men who were put into their positions by the pope: Pietro Parolin, secretary of state; Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops; and Beniamino Stella, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy.

The fourth Curia man Francis promoted was originally appointed by Pope Benedict XVI: Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He is not popular in the United States because he led the Vatican investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Progressive Catholics would love to see him replaced by someone more open to discussion and debate in the church.

After the Second Vatican Council, there were numerous attempts to reform the Vatican, none of which succeeded. Under Paul VI, national bishops’ conferences were given more power, for example, in adapting the liturgy to local pastoral needs. But under John Paul II, the decentralization was reversed and power reverted to the Vatican. That is why we have the terrible English translation used in parishes today.

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Huffington Post

[Submission to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child – BishopAccountability.org]

Aaron Vallely
Irish writer and essayist

There is a first time for everything, and last Thursday the Vatican was pushed to admit in public that it still does not force priests to report child sex crimes to authorities. Not only is this shameful, it is unacceptable. A UN panel held The Holy See accountable in a public interrogation regarding child abuse, and scrutinized the Vatican’s disgraceful and contemptuous record on dealing with child sexual abuse and torture. Although most people focused on the UN commission’s interrogation in Geneva that day, some spotted a curious observation in Rome. Time magazine’s Person of the Year, Pope Francis, or Jorge Mario Bergoglio, announced that these “scandals are the shame of the Church,” while a man whom accompanied him was Los Angeles Archbishop Emeritus, Cardinal Roger Mahony, a repugnant man who supervised more than 200 known pedophile priests with 500 known victims to whom he paid $720 million. It makes one think: What has this new Pope done about the sex abuse crisis?

The day following, the Associated Press reported that 400 priests were defrocked in the years 2011 and 2012. According to AP, a document was specifically prepared from data the Vatican collected to defend itself before the UN committee. And what of these criminal defrocked individuals, you might ask? Well, we don’t know. They remain free and at liberty to abuse again. Their identities are unknown, as are their whereabouts, and the nature of their crimes. Of them we know not much. Pope Francis has done nothing to help arm authorities with information they would need to apprehend these criminals.

A 2004 John Jay study identified 10,667 victim allegations made in the period from 1950-2002, which number increased to 15,235 through 2009. Many victims of sexual assault never report their victimization, and observers have estimated that there may be as many as 100,000 total victims in the United States alone.

On 1 July, the United Nation’s Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) sent a request to the pope for “detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy, brothers, or nunnery” from the past fifteen years, and set 1 November as a deadline for a reply. Missing the deadline, on 4 December, Pope Francis responded saying it was not the way his government practiced to “disclose information on specific cases unless requested to do so by another country as part of legal proceedings” and “that the Vatican can provide information only about known and alleged child sex crimes that have happened on Vatican property.”

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

“The truth will set you free,” is a phrase you must know very well. Pope Benedict XVI used it frequently, even in the heat of the 2010 sexual abuse crisis.

In your diocese many people have been suffering, for many long years, from the consequences of the sexual and physical abuse by your brothers in the residential schools, and in the parishes of different communities.

But do you know what is even more painful? Not knowing the truth about what happened with the priest or brother or sister who abused. Not receiving honest answers when you ask questions on how these things were allowed to happen. Not being able to obtain justice for what happened to you.

No one of your church was in the courtroom in Iqaluit during those first weeks of the trial of Mr. Dejaeger. No one to listen to the brave victims testifying about the horrors. No one to see how relieved they were after having testified and to hear them say “an enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders.”

If you had been there, you would have realized that obtaining justice is essential for their healing, for their families and for the whole community.

Mgr. Scicluna confirmed to Reuters last week that “Pope Francis will not show leniency towards pedophile priests because truth and justice are more important than protecting the Church.”

As newly appointed bishop, we encourage you to act upon the words of your pope and release your documents on all abuse cases in your diocese.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 24, 2014

ROME Pope Francis has expressed an intention to visit the United States in September 2015, according to Vatican sources who spoke to NCR on background this week, who stressed that nothing is official and the date is too far into the future to be certain.

The primary motive for the trip would be the eighth edition of the World Meeting of Families, an event held every three years that was launched under Pope John Paul II in 1994 and is held in various parts of the world. The Vatican announced in February 2013, shortly before the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, that the next edition will be Sept. 22-27, 2015, in Philadelphia.

The family has been a major preoccupation both for the church generally and for Francis personally. Among other things, the pope has dedicated the next meeting of the Synod of Bishops, scheduled for October, to the theme of the family.

Because the General Assembly of the United Nations generally meets in September, there is also speculation that Francis might combine the Philadelphia outing with a stop in New York to address the U.N.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

Six former residents of children’s homes run by the Sisters of Nazareth in Derry will next week give evidence to the biggest child abuse public inquiry ever held in the UK.

The six witnesses were resident in either St Joseph’s Boys’ Home, Termonbacca, or Nazareth House Children’s Home, at Bishop Street.

They are scheduled to give oral testimony to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

It’s understood members and former members of the Sisters of Nazareth, as well as other persons associated with the two homes in Derry, will also take the witness stand in the coming weeks. Other former residents are also scheduled to give evidence.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) is examining allegations of child abuse in children’s homes and other residential institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, Jan. 20, 2014

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

ALBUQUERQUE – Another bankruptcy attorney will soon be billing the Diocese of Gallup for legal services, but this attorney will be advocating on behalf of clergy sex abuse survivors.

California attorney James I. Stang was selected by the Unsecured Creditors Committee to be its proposed legal counsel. The committee, which was appointed by the Office of the U.S. Trustee in December, is made up of seven clergy abuse survivors from the Gallup Diocese. The committee’s responsibility is to represent the interests of abuse survivors in the diocese’s Chapter 11 reorganization.

Stang, a bankruptcy attorney with the Los Angeles firm of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones, has extensive experience with clergy sex abuse litigation and Roman Catholic Church bankruptcy cases.

His firm has represented Creditors Committees in cases involving nine church entities: the Diocese of Spokane, the Diocese of Davenport, the Diocese of San Diego, the Diocese of Fairbanks, the Diocese of Wilmington, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, the Christian Brothers’ Institute, the Christian Brothers of Ireland, Inc., and the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province. Once Stang’s appointment is approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma, the Creditors Committee for the Diocese of Gallup will make case number ten.

Stang’s law firm is also currently “consulting with counsel for sexual abuse survivors with claims against another Catholic diocese and the survivors are negotiating a settlement with the diocese,” Stang wrote in his declaration to the court. “Given the confidentiality of the negotiations,” he said, “I am not allowed to identify the name of the diocese.”

In addition, Stang said, his law firm also “periodically donates funds to organizations that advocate on behalf of sexual abuse victims” and other victims of crime.

Prior to his selection, Stang stated he had consulted with attorneys who represent Gallup clergy sex abuse claimants and met with representatives of the Diocese of Gallup beginning in 2012. Since the diocese filed its Chapter 11 petition on Nov. 12, 2013, Stang has appeared at two bankruptcy hearings and the first meeting of creditors.

“Neither I nor the Firm has received or requested any compensation for any of the consultations, appearances or conversations,” Stang wrote in his declaration.

With Stang’s selection, however, the Diocese of Gallup will responsible for payment of Stang’s legal services to the Unsecured Creditors Committee. Like the diocese’s own battery of bankruptcy attorneys, Stang’s hourly rates are steep. Stang proposed an interim compensation of a $500 hourly rate, and a final compensation of a $650 hourly rate subject to the committee’s approval. Proposed hourly rates for his firm’s paralegals run $175 to $255.

The first Unsecured Creditors Committee meeting was held Dec. 19, 2013. It featured sworn testimony by Bishop James S. Wall and Christopher G. Linscott, the diocese’s recently hired financial consultant, about the Diocese of Gallup’s finances. The meeting is slated to reconvene at 10 a.m., Thursday, in Judge David T. Thuma’s courtroom, located in Albuquerque’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court, 500 Gold Ave. S.W.

The meeting is open to the public, but visitors are not allowed to bring phones, cameras or any kind of recording devices into the courtroom.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, Jan. 22, 2014

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

ALBUQUERQUE – The Diocese of Gallup’s Chapter 11 Unsecured Creditors Committee meeting that was scheduled for Thursday morning in U.S. Bankruptcy Court has been canceled.

Attorney James I. Stang, the committee’s newly selected legal counsel, said he and the committee members did not feel further testimony was needed. Bishop James S. Wall and Christopher G. Linscott, the diocese’s financial consultant, had testified about the Gallup Diocese’s finances in December. That first creditors committee meeting was scheduled to reconvene Thursday.

The committee is made up of seven clergy sex abuse survivors, five men and two women, from across the diocese. Stang said they received a report about Wall and Linscott’s testimony from attorneys Robert E. Pastor, of Phoenix, and Richard T. Fass, of Houston, who represent more than 30 abuse survivors who are claimants in the bankruptcy case, as well as a report from Stang.

“We just felt from a utility standpoint we had gotten what we needed,” Stang said of the testimony.

He said the committee will begin obtaining more information about the Gallup Diocese’s finances through requests for specific documents.

Stang said he expected the next major development in the Chapter 11 case will be the filing of a motion to set a claim deadline. Anyone who has a possible claim against the Diocese of Gallup will be required to file their claim by that date.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Jan. 242014

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

The Vatican has made another depressing appointment by promoting Lexington Bishop Ronald Gainer to head the Harrisburg diocese. In fact, this may be Pope Francis’ most distressing promotion yet.

Gainer has done a very poor job protecting kids and healing victims in Lexington.

1) Just last year, we begged Gainer to oust – and warn his flock about – a four-time accused predator priest who works, basically unsupervised, in the Lexington diocese. He is Fr. Carroll Howlin, who lives unmonitored and “ministers” in eastern Kentucky in apparent violation of a Vatican order and the church’s national abuse policy.

Late year, the Chicago Tribune reported that Fr. Howlin, suspended for sexually abusing Illinois boys, still lives and works – unsupervised – in McCreary County. The cleric has reportedly also molested two Kentucky boys, one of whom committed suicide.

[Chicago Tribune]

Fr. Howlin, according to the Chicago Tribune, allegedly used money to garner sexual favors from impoverished boys.

In 2002, Fr. Howlin, then 67, pastored Good Shepherd Chapel in Whitley City. He was reportedly put on administrative leave when abuse reports against him surfaced that year, according to Lexington diocesan officials.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 24, 2014 All Things Catholic

Trying to impose order on chaos, I’d like to suggest that recent developments on the Vatican beat are noteworthy not just on their own merits, but because they illustrate a couple of truisms about Catholic life that anyone who wants to “get it” vis-à-vis the church probably should master.

Those truisms are:

Sometimes in the church, restraint is as powerful a tool of reform as action.
There’s a constant back-and-forth in Catholicism between doctrinal clarity and pastoral flexibility, and focusing on one in isolation from the other distorts reality.
Now for developments that put meat on the bone of these maxims.

Restraint as reform

Italians love nothing as much as a good giallo, meaning a mystery story or a scandal, and at the moment, a couple of especially juicy ones with Vatican overtones are coursing through the Italian bloodstream.

One pivots on a shady Italian financier with links to the country’s intelligence services named Paolo Oliverio, who’s currently facing a criminal probe for various forms of financial fraud. Among the claims made by prosecutors is that Oliverio helped engineer a phony police interrogation of two members of the Camillian religious order back in May so they’d miss an election for a new superior, thereby allowing the incumbent, Fr. Renato Salvatore, to stay in office.

Salvatore has also been arrested as an Oliverio crony, among other things allegedly turning a blind eye while he bilked a Camillian hospital in southern Italy out of more than $13 million. (The Camillians, named for St. Camillus de Lellis, were founded in the 16th century with the mission of ministering to the sick and running hospitals.)

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY Jan. 24, 2014

THE Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse will investigate the adequacy of sentences for child sex offenders after a damning assessment of the case of Scout leader and Hunter Aboriginal Children’s Services chief Steven Larkins.

The commission will consider whether good behaviour bonds are ‘‘an appropriate punishment for the sexual assault of a child’’, counsel assisting Gail Furness, SC, said in written submissions on the Larkins case.

In 2012 Larkins was sentenced to a minimum 12 months’ jail for fraud and possessing child pornography, but received a good behaviour bond for indecently assaulting two Scouts in the 1990s.

Ms Furness said the Royal Commission will be examining the criminal justice system’s handling of child sex abuse in institutions because of material examined during the Larkins case and other material before it.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Judge gives green light to Legion inheritance lawsuit
Ex-Legionary: Curial overseer neglects investigation of inner culture

NCR Editorial Staff | Jan. 24, 2014

EDITORIAL

The Legion of Christ has been an agency of almost unimaginable fraud, and that reality alone should be reason for civil authorities to pursue a criminal investigation of its U.S. activities and for the church to proceed with extreme caution in considering allowing the group to continue.

The Legion, which was of many things but certainly not of Christ, was built on the life of a man, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, who trafficked in deception, lies and crimes against children. The nature and extent of his fraud was only beginning to be acknowledged by way of Vatican investigation in the last years of his life.

As Jason Berry reports, the Legion has been the target of two Rhode Island lawsuits alleging the order defrauded elderly donors who died without knowing what those seeking their fortunes knew only too well — that the man they characterized as a saint had been accused multiple times of sexually abusing seminarians and ultimately was disciplined by the pope.

The first suit was dismissed on a technicality, but the judge did not pass up the opportunity to deliver a scathing judgment of the Legion and its tactics — and to release thousands of pages of testimony and evidence in that case, which had been restricted from the public by a protective order the Legion had requested.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Republican-Herald

Pope Francis has appointed a former priest of the Diocese of Allentown as the next Bishop of Harrisburg. He is Bishop Ronald W. Gainer, for the last 11 years the Bishop of Lexington, Kentucky.

Bishop Gainer, 66, was born and raised in Pottsville. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Allentown in 1973. During his 30 years as a priest of this diocese, he was an assistant pastor at the former St. Bernard Church in Easton and St. Catharine of Siena Church in Reading and a campus minister at Lafayette College, Easton, and at Kutztown University and Albright College, Reading. He was the Judicial Vicar of the Diocese, pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Whitehall and the first Secretary of Catholic Life and Evangelization in the diocese.

Diocese of Allentown Bishop John Barres issued the following statement: “On behalf of the priests and people of the Diocese of Allentown, I welcome Bishop Gainer back to his home state. This native son of Pottsville is a fine bishop, canonist and a very pastoral man with deep experience in evangelization. I look forward to working with Bishop Gainer and extend to him the best wishes and prayerful support of the faithful of the Diocese of Allentown where his vocation was nurtured and first bore fruit.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 24 January 2014 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father:

– appointed Bishop Ronald William Gainer, bishop of Lexington, U.S.A., as bishop of Harrisburg (area 19,839, population 2,224,542, Catholics 249,238, priests 169, permanent deacons 69, religious 369), U.S.A.

– appointed Rev. Herwig Gossl as auxiliary of the archdiocese of Bamberg (area 10,290, population 2,163,801, Catholics 713,781, priests 475, permanent deacons 49, religious 778), Germany. The bishop-elect was born in Munich, Germany in 1967 and was ordained a priest in 1993. He studied philosophy and theology at the universities of Bamberg and Innsbruck, and has served in a number of pastoral roles in various parishes in Bayreuth, Hannberg and Weisendorf. In 2006 he was appointed as priest of the parish group of Erlangen North-West. In 2007 he was appointed vice-rector of the major seminary of Bamberg and member of the diocesan liturgical commission, and in 2008 was appointed vice-rector of the seminary of Wurzburg and head of vocational pastoral care.

– appointed Msgr. Myron Joseph Cotta of the clergy of Fresno, U.S.A., as auxiliary of the archdiocese of Sacramento (area 110,325, population 3,589,000, Catholics 997,000, priests 291, permanent deacons 143, religious 316), U.S.A. The bishop-elect was born in Dos Palos, U.S.A. in 1953, and was ordained a priest in 1987. He has served in a number of roles, including vicar of the Saint Anthony parish in Adwater, administrator of the Our Lady of Fatima shrine in Laton, priest of the Our Lady of Miracles parish in Gustine, parish administrator of the Holy Rosary parish in Hilmar, director of the office for the permanent formation of the clergy, director of Pastoral Support of Priests, director of the Sensitive Claim Board, member of the diocesan finance council, diocesan administrator, member of the diocesan personnel board, diocesan consultor, vicar general and moderator of the Curia. In 2002 he was appointed Chaplain of His Holiness and, in 2008, Prelate of Honour.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg

The Very Reverend Robert M. Gillelan, Jr., Diocesan Administrator, has announced that Pope Francis has named Most Reverend Ronald W. Gainer, 66, as the eleventh bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

He succeeds Bishop Joseph P. McFadden, who died, May 2, 2013.

Bishop Gainer will be introduced at a news conference at the Cardinal Keeler Center, 4800 Union Deposit Road, Harrisburg, PA 17111 at 10:00 a.m. today.

Bishop Gainer was born August 24, 1947, in Pottsville, PA. After studies for the priesthood he was ordained a Priest for the diocese of Allentown on May 19, 1973. He was consecrated and installed as Bishop of Lexington, KY on February 22, 2003.

He will be installed as Bishop of Harrisburg on Wednesday, March 19.

Bishop Gainer completed studies at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia in 1973, earning a Master of Divinity degree, summa cum laude and has earned a licentiate degree in Canon Law and a diploma in Latin Letter from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1986.

For much of his Priesthood Bishop Gainer served in parish, campus ministry, marriages and family, and tribunal positions. As Secretary of Catholic Life and Evangelization for the Diocese of Allentown he supervised 14 diocesan offices and the promotion of the works of spiritual renewal and evangelization.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (updated 24 January 2014)

A member of the Catholic religious order of Marist Brothers in New South Wales — Brother Francis William Cable, known as Brother “Romuald” — was ordered on 23 January 2014 to stand trial on more than 50 charges of sexual offences allegedly committed against 21 boys. The charges include buggery, plus multiple counts of indecent assault.

This order was made by a magistrate after a committal hearing was completed in the Newcastle Local Court. The case will now go to a judge in the District Court of New South Wales.

The offences are alleged to have occurred in the 1960s and 1970s.

Brother Cable has not yet entered pleas to the charges.

How the case began

In December 2012, Strike Force Georgiana detectives investigating historical child sex allegations arrested Brother “Romuald” Cable (date of birth 3 May 1932) in a Canberra suburb (where he was living) after information from two former Marist school students in the Newcastle region. The detectives charged Brother Romuald with three indecent assault offences against the two students.

On 29 January 2013 Brother Romuald Cable appeared in Newcastle Local court, where the charges were officially recorded. The detectives increased the number of indecent assault charges to 23, and added two buggery charges. The number of alleged victims increased from two to six. After this court appearance, more former students contacted Strike Force Georgiana detectives.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

By FRANCIS PHILLIPS on Friday, 24 January 2014

Vatican Insider reported last week that during the pontificate of Pope Benedict, he defrocked 260 priests in 2011 and another 124 in 2012 (i.e. 384 priests in a two-year period) for the sexual abuse of minors.

This is good news and terrible news at the same time. It is good news in that it lays to rest all the slurs against the Pope Emeritus, that he was more concerned with sacred liturgy or wearing elaborate papal vestments than he was about dealing with this enormous scandal and wound in the Church. It is also appalling news when you consider that each case of priestly abuse is not simply a criminal offence in secular as well as canon law, but that it is also a tragedy for the victim and the perpetrator. Whenever I hear of particular cases of abuse, I pray for all concerned, including the shamed priest and his family. What sorrow and shame this son or brother has brought on their shoulders. I recall the words of strong-minded Margaret Bosco to her son, later to become St John Bosco, when he first put on his priestly cassock: that she would rather he never became a priest than degrade this sacred office.

People outside the Church who want to attack her do not have to look far for ammunition when they read of these cases. Pointing out the statistics to them, and arguing that the number of priest-abusers is a tiny proportion of the priesthood worldwide, might be true – but I lack the heart to engage in it. They don’t see the Mystical Body of Christ and are rightly scandalised by its fallen human face. Perhaps there should be a ritual of public penance by Catholics for the failings of the Church and our own failings within it?

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MASSACHUSETTS
NECN

[Submission to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child – BishopAccountability.org]

[with video]

(NECN) – The workings of the Vatican are a mystery to most outsiders. But last week there was a breakthrough on two fronts.

First, the Associated Press obtained documents showing that Pope Benedict defrocked nearly 400 priests over just two years — 2011 and 2012 — for sexually molesting children.

The document was prepared from data the Vatican had been compiling to help officials defend the church before a U.N. committee.

The U.N. panel is the other piece of this story.

In Geneva, Switzerland, a U.N. panel grilled Vatican officials about allegations stating it protected pedophile priests at the expense of victims.

The panel questioned whether the Vatican failed to abide by the terms of the U.N. convention on the rights of the child.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of bishopaccountability.org, has been keeping tabs on these events. She joined Jim Braude to offer her insight and opinion on the happenings.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Puget Sound Business Journal

Marc Stiles
Staff Writer-
Puget Sound Business Journal

A $2.2 million building sale in Seattle last week had people wondering if the buyer, Seattle University, was helping the seller, a group of priests, pay damages to hundreds of sexual-abuse victims.

The answer is no, a spokesman for the Oregon province of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits as they are more commonly known, said Tuesday.

The province declared bankruptcy nearly three years ago, around the time that the group agreed to pay $166.1 million to about 500 people abused by Jesuit priests at schools in the Pacific Northwest. It was one of the Catholic Church’s biggest sex-abuse settlements.

At the time, the National Catholic Reporter reported that the province would pay $48.1 million and that the order’s insurer would pay the rest.

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DEUTSCHLAND
taz

[Summary: Canisius College has learned much about detecting possible abuse since a major scandal erupted there four years ago.]

taz: Pater Zimmermann, gerade hat das Kirchengericht des Erzbistums Berlin einen heute 73-Jährigen wegen sexueller Gewalt an Kindern an Ihrer Schule, dem Canisius-Kolleg, verurteilt – zu lebenslangem Ausschluss vom Priesteramt und 4.000 Euro Strafe, die er dem Missbrauchsfonds spenden soll. Das Urteil wird den Mann kaum treffen.

Tobias Zimmermann: Inwieweit der Mann persönlich davon betroffen ist, kann ich nicht beurteilen. Ich kenne ihn nicht. Das Urteil zeigt aber, dass es für ein solches Vergehen eine Strafe gibt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

[Summary: The balance sheet regarding sexual abuse in the Trier diocese. 107 abuse victims have reported abuse to the diocese in the last four years. A total of 68 requests for financial compensation have been approved. More than 60 priests have been accused of abuse since 2010. Two priests have been defrocked.]

* 107 Missbrauchsopfer haben sich in den vergangenen vier Jahren beim Bistum gemeldet.
* 68 Anträge auf finanzielle Entschädigung sind bewilligt worden
* seit 2010 wurden mehr als 60 Priester des Missbrauchs beschuldigt
* ein großer Teil ist bereits verstorben
* gegen 26 Geistliche sind vom Bistum kircheninterne Ermittlungen aufgenommen worden
* Fünf dieser Verfahren sind abgeschlossen
* Zwei Priester wurden aus dem Klerikerstand entlassen
* einer beantragte, selbst entlassen zu werden
* Zwei Geistlichen wurde verboten, öffentlich Messen zu halten
* Das Bistum ermittelt kirchenintern gegen 21 Priester
* 350.000,- Euro zahlte das Bistum an “Entschädigung”

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CHICAGO (IL)
kathweb

Washington, 23.01.2014 (KAP) Nach der Veröffentlichung von Missbrauchsakten durch die Erzdiözese Chicago hat der Opferanwalt Jeff Anderson ein kirchliches Disziplinarverfahren gegen Kardinal Francis George verlangt. “Papst Franziskus, der einen Neuaufbruch versprochen hat, muss Kardinal George für seine Rolle abstrafen”, sagte Anderson, einer der prominentesten Anwälte für Pädophilie-Prozesse gegen die katholische Kirche, dem Chicagoer Lokalsender WGN Television (Mittwochabend Ortszeit). Auch andere Kirchenverantwortliche müsse der Papst maßregeln. “Er hat die Macht und die Verpflichtung, jetzt, da die Wahrheit bekannt ist”, sagte Anderson.

Die Erzdiözese Chicago hatte am Dienstag Akten von 30 ehemaligen Priestern veröffentlichen lassen, die des sexuellen Missbrauchs beschuldigt werden. Die rund 6.000 Dokumentenseiten wurden von der Kanzlei des Opferanwalts Jeff Anderson am Dienstag ins Internet gestellt.

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Daniel Tepfer
Updated 12:31 am, Friday, January 24, 2014

STRATFORD — Bishop Frank Caggiano huddled privately with parishioners of Our Lady of Grace parish Thursday to apologize for not discussing past allegations of abuse and sexual harassment against their new pastor.

The prior accusations against Monsignor Martin Ryan — and the potential for scandal — are shaping up as one of the new bishop’s first major dilemmas.

The bishop assured parishioners that Ryan’s case had been thoroughly vetted more than a decade ago by the same review board that had recommended the removal of priests during the height of the Bridgeport diocese sex abuse crisis, said Brian Wallace, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese.

The review board had decided that the monsignor should not be removed, Wallace said.

But Ryan, who had been pastor of St. Edward the Confessor Church in New Fairfield since 1992, was removed from that church in June 2011 by diocesan officials after he acknowledged he had sent “inappropriate” emails to a female parish employee. At the time, Wallace said there was no allegation or evidence of any sexual conduct.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

Accusations are swirling about a secret gay cabal inside the Vatican’s pope-protecting forces and how much it knew about the departure of Pope Benedict.

For more than a year now, there has been ample talk around Rome about a powerful gay lobby at work inside the Vatican. When Pope Benedict XVI resigned in February 2013, rumors were rampant that the alleged gay lobby was part of the reason he left the papacy. Apparently the gay lobby was so powerful it was given ample ink in a still-secret red-covered dossier presented to Benedict as part of a Vatileaks internal investigation after his butler was convicted of stealing his private papers.

The new Pope Francis even referred to the gay lobby at a June 6 meeting with Latin American prelates. “In the Curia there are holy people, truly holy people,” Francis reportedly told the Latin American delegation. “But there is also a current of corruption, also there is, it is true … They speak of a ‘gay lobby,’ and that is true, it is there.”

Fresh allegations now point to the lobby extending deep into the Swiss Guard, the pope’s elite protective security force, who are known for their striped yellow, red, orange and blue Renaissance uniforms. The elite troops are specially trained Swiss soldiers between the age of 19 and 30. The job pays around $1,000 a month and includes room and board. In 1998, an unknown guard apparently murdered a commander and the man’s wife in what many inside the Vatican suspected was a gay love triangle. The case remains a mystery and was the biggest scandal to rock the Swiss Guard. Until now.

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AUSTRALIA
Weekly Times

BY ANNETTE BLACKWELL AAP JANUARY 24, 2014

A SENIOR church official has revised his evidence to the Royal Commission on Child Sex Abuse following a flurry of late night emails with a law firm representing the Catholic Church.

Michael Salmon, director of the Catholic Church’s NSW/ACT Professional Standards Office, said on Friday he wanted to submit a supplementary statement to assist the commission.

He was contacted on Thursday evening by law firm Gilbert + Tobin and asked to clarify statements he made about a mediation session with an abuse victim who had concerns the Marist Brothers knew of and did nothing about abuse at a Cairns college.

A string of emails between the law firm and Mr Salmon, which culminated in him agreeing to a revised statement at about 9pm (AEDT) on Thursday night, were examined by the commission on Friday.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti

An inquiry into child sexual abuse has heard that nothing has been done to remove a Marist Brother from the Catholic order, despite the fact he is behind bars.

The Marist Brothers have been at the centre of a public inquiry as part of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Marist Brother Ross Murrin is in a Sydney jail after pleading guilty to child sex offences in 2008 and 2010.

A man known only as DK has told the inquiry he was abused by Murrin in 1981 at a college at Cairns in Far North Queensland.

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VATICAN CITY
All Voices

Pope Francis has captured the world’s attention with his new—or as some might call it, radical—style of leadership.

Yes, it is a refreshing change to see the head of the Roman Catholic Church speak on issues and do things never done before. The pontiff has been so radical that some religious conservatives have taken offense to some of his teachings—especially his scathing criticism of poverty, inequality and capitalism.

But the biggest albatross around the church’s neck is still a pressing issue that needs massive overhauling and an aggressive plan of action.

Reports credit the prior pope, Benedict XVI, for defrocking 400 priests over a two-year period between 2011 and 2012 for child sex abuse allegations, and though this is a marked improvement compared to previous inaction, the church does not go nearly far enough.

Where are those priests now—are they living as your neighbor?

For quietly banishing sex offenders by removing their “holy robes” is equivalent to kicking the bucket down the road. The sickness was removed from the church but these men are still out there where they can still hurt children.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

From laicising priests to stringent child safeguarding, the Vatican acts on the problem

The depth of the Vatican’s commitment to end the scourge of clerical abuse has been revealed this week after it emerged Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had laicised almost 400 priests in his last two years as Pontiff for such crimes; and Pope Francis said people who abused children could have ‘no living relationship with God.’

Documents prepared by the Vatican ahead of testimonies given to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child last week reveal that in 2011-2012 Pope Benedict defrocked close to 400 priests for abusing children, a substantial increase on previous years. The statistics were compiled from the Vatican’s own annual reports about the activities of its various offices, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles such cases.

In a clear indication he will continue the vigorous measures of his predecessor, Pope Francis last Thursday spoke about the shame of the ‘many scandals’ perpetrated by members of the Church. Those who abuse and exploit others, he added, may wear a Holy medal or a Cross, but they have no ‘living relationship with God or with His Word.’

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HAWAII
Fox 13

WAILUKU, MAUI – Attorneys for two Utah men filed a complaint in a Hawaii court that alleges the men were sexually abused in their youth while attending a pineapple camp run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc.

The suit alleges that the two men were abused by Brian Pickett, a man who worked in positions of authority at the camps, and the suit also names Youth Development Enterprises.

The complaint is available as a PDF: Filed complaint

According to a press release, attorneys said the LDS Church and ML&P recruited boys from Mormon communities in Utah and Idaho to pick pineapples in Maui, which is where the plaintiffs were allegedly sexually molested. Pickett was first a camp coordinator and then a vice president of operations overseeing two camps between 1986 and 1988, according to the release.

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HAWAII
Reporter

By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER Associated Press
First Posted: January 23, 2014

HONOLULU — A lawsuit claims a Mormon church camp coordinator molested two boys who were sent to Maui to pick pineapples decades ago.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday on Maui says the church recruited hundreds of teen boys from Utah and southeastern Idaho to live and work in Maui pineapple fields in the 1970s and 1980s.

Jacob Huggard, 41, and Kyle Spray, 42, both of Pleasant Grove, Utah, claim in the lawsuit that they were sexually abused by a coordinator who oversaw hundreds of boys at a camp from 1986 to 1988.

The Associated Press does not normally name people in sex abuse cases, but Huggard and Spray said they wanted to be identified.

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HAWAII
Huffington Post

Two Utah men are suing the Mormon church, alleging that, decades ago, they were sexually molested by a church camp coordinator when they worked on a Maui pineapple farm.

The lawsuit was filed in the 2nd Circuit Court in Hawaii on Wednesday. It claims that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and Maui Land & Pineapple Company recruited boys in the 1970s and 80s from Mormon communities to work in the camps, where the plaintiffs, now in their 40s, were molested.

The Maui camps paid boys to pick and grow pineapples and were supervised by LDS men in their twenties who had completed their two-year missions and could help train the boys for missionary life. The defendant, an Idaho man, was a camp coordinator and, in addition to being the boys’ boss, served as their spiritual leader.

The lawsuit claims that the defendant molested the two boys from 1986 until 1988, and that the church knew of the camp coordinator’s “pedophilic sexual violence.”

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ALABAMA
Christian Post

Ala. Pastor Responds to Critics Who Say He Was Wrong for Posting Video on YouTube of Teacher’s Apology for Sex Abuse of Student

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER

One week before she was set to report to prison as a convicted sex offender, Alicia Gray, a former school teacher, shared on-camera how her faith had helped her since she was arrested on sex abuse charges last year.

“I had pain in my own heart and a void that I thought I needed to fill through attention and all kinds of other things, and that void was just needing Jesus,” Gray said in the Jan. 10 video.

Alabama pastor Mark Wyatt filmed and uploaded the footage of Gray, who attends his church, reading her court statement to YouTube.

“The purpose of the video was simply to say to everybody, there is hope for you. If you have failed, if you have failed God, if you have fallen further than you ever thought you could, the love, grace and healing of God will be able to forgive you,” Wyatt, who leads Deeper Life Fellowship in Mobile, Ala., told The Christian Post on Wednesday. …

Last week, on Janet Mefferd’s radio show, Boz Tchividjian, the executive director GRACE, a Christian organization that assists sex abuse victims, called the video a “tragic picture” of what is wrong with the Church’s response to sex abuse.

Tchividjian went on to slam Wyatt’s use of the word “relationship” when describing the connection between Gray and the victim, and the fact that neither he nor the former high school teacher called her actions a “crime.”

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Register

BY ALYSSA DURANTY / STAFF WRITER
Published: Jan. 23, 2014

FULLERTON – A former Fullerton pastor was sentenced to four months in jail and three years’ probation Thursday after a jury found him guilty of sexually abusing an 18-year-old woman who was a member of his church.

Joseph Angel Olvera, 55, of Fullerton was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of touching an intimate part of another person.

Olvera formerly worked as a pastor at Lifeline Ministries, 552 E. Patterson Way, officials said.

Prosecutors said that about 9 a.m. Aug. 22, 2012, Olvera approached the bed of the woman, who was living in the church, to wake her up for work.

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ILLINOIS
OakPark.com

James Craig Hagan
Robert E. Mayer
John W. Curran

By Timothy Inklebarger
Staff Reporter

New light was shed this week on 30 Chicago-area priests accused, and in some cases convicted, of the sexual abuse of minors. Three of them served at St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Oak Park during the 1960s and ’70s.

Documents released by victims’ lawyers reveal that the Archdiocese of Chicago knew of sexual abuse perpetrated by Rev. James Craig Hagan, Robert E. Mayer and John W. Curran, who served at St. Catherine.

According to documents released by the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, known abuse by Mayer and Hagan took place after they served as associate pastors at St. Catherine in 1964 and 1974, respectively. A timeline released by the law firm, however, shows four incidents of abuse by Curran between June 1966 and April 1970 at Quigley Preparatory Seminary South in Chicago and St. Albert the Great in Burbank, while he served as assistant pastor at St. Catherine.

Mayer was convicted of felony child sex abuse in 1992 and sentenced to three years in prison, but both Hagan and Curran escaped prosecution.

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MICHIGAN
Patch

Posted by Aysha Jamali (Editor) , January 23, 2014

Timothy Murray, 63, of Novi, who pleaded guilty to one count of distributing child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography in July was sentenced Thursday to 188 months in federal prison, United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade announced.

According to court records, Murray used peer-to-peer software to trade child pornography with others, including an undercover DHS Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent. A search warrant executed at Murray’s home recovered at least seven different computer devices containing videos and images of child pornography. His collection included over 650 movies and over 450 images of child pornography.

Murray had previously served as a Catholic priest within the Archdiocese of Detroit before being removed from public ministry when substantiated allegations of Murray’s prior sexual abuse of a young boy came to light.

“The hands-on sexual abuse that led to his removal from public ministry by the Catholic church had long-lasting effects on the defendant’s prior victim. Similarly, the victims depicted in his extensive collection of child pornography suffered greatly not only at the hands of their abusers, but by those, like the defendant, who collect and continue to view the permanent depictions of their abuse,” McQuade said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

[with video]

By MaryAnn Ahern | Thursday, Jan 23, 2014

Three people filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago Thursday alleging sexual abuse by one of the former priests named in documents released by the organization this week.

The plaintiff’s, who were children in the 1960s and ’70s, claim they were molested by Norbert J. Maday in places ranging from cars to motel swimming pools.

Thomas Hacker, a substitute teacher and Boy Scout leader, is also named in the suit. Hacker is serving two concurrent 50-year prison terms on a 1989 conviction for molesting three boys.

“I’ve struggled with alcohol, I’ve struggled with drugs. When I had my children, it changed my life,” said one of the plaintiffs, who’s referred to as John Doe. “He (Maday) would jump in the pool, feel us up. He would take off our swimming trunks and make us run naked to go pick them up again.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Lancaster Online

Thu Jan 23, 2014.

ELIZABETH EISENSTADT-EVANS Correspondent

A few weeks ago, while contemplating the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s judgment that led to the release, on bail, of Philadelphia archdiocesan official Monsignor William Lynn, I wrote about the often painful difference between secular law and biblical standards of justice.

Given the steady stream of stories still making headlines here and abroad, it sometimes seems as though the Roman Catholic Church continues to confront significant problems addressing sexual abuse by clergy.

Earlier this month, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and its archbishop, Charles Chaput, faced criticism for helping Lynn post his $250,000 bail.

In a public grilling, a U.N. human rights panel criticized the Vatican for not providing information on child welfare to the body for almost two decades, and asked for information about the committee recently set up by Pope Francis to come up with better methods of protecting children from sexual abuse.

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CHICAGO (IL)
State Journal-Register

Norbert Maday

By Michael Tarm
The Associated Press
Posted Jan. 23, 2014

CHICAGO — A new lawsuit filed Thursday alleging sexual abuse of children in the 1960s and ’70s focuses on a now-defrocked priest referred to at length in documents released this week by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.

Norbert J. Maday molested boys — sometimes in cars or motel swimming pools — when a priest at Chicago’s St. Leo Catholic Church and later at St. Louis de Montfort Catholic Church in Oak Lawn, according to the lawsuit.

The document, filed in Cook County Court on behalf of three plaintiffs, names Maday, the archdiocese and another man, Thomas Hacker, who is serving two concurrent 50-year prison terms on a 1989 conviction for molesting three boys.

The suit says the archdiocese should have known kids were at risk, and it seeks more than $50,000 on each of multiple civil counts. The diocese hadn’t seen the suit, so couldn’t comment, spokeswoman Susan Burritt said.

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ARIZONA
Tucson News Now

By Sonu Wasu

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) –
Six thousand pages of court documents outlining how the Archdiocese of Chicago handled the sexual abuse of children by priests were made public on Tuesday.

The documents name several Catholic leaders who were aware of the allegations against accused priests, and chose to not report it to authorities.

Among many others, Tucson Diocese Bishop Gerald Kicanas was one of the leaders in the Chicago Diocese at the time of these allegations.

The new information comes to light after the archdiocese handed the documents over to victims’ attorneys, who said they wanted to show how the archdiocese concealed abuse for decades, including moving priests to new parishes where they molested again.

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ARIZONA
Arizona Daily Star

Russell Romano

By Patty Machelor

Newly released court documents about a former Chicago priest sexually abusing students indicate Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas knew of the concerns a year before authorities were notified.

But Kicanas said Thursday that former priest Russell Romano’s deviance was not known until nearly a year later, in 1986, when several victims came forward and allegations became explicit.

It was in 1985 that Rector John Klein of Chicago’s now-defunct Quigley Preparatory Seminary South contacted Kicanas, a former teacher and rector at Quigley, and asked Kicanas’ advice about Romano.

According to Klein’s written memory of the conversation — it is unclear when Klein wrote his recollections – Kicanas told Klein to try a two-part approach: “First, express concern for Russ and his personal problems, and second, to make it clear that the drinking, movies, hugs and kisses with our students must stop immediately.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court seeking to recover more than $2.6 million in legal fees from the firm now known as OneBeacon Insurance Co.

On the same day, OneBeacon asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley to lift the automatic stay imposed by the bankruptcy on all litigation involving the archdiocese so the Wisconsin Supreme Court can decide once and for all whether the insurer is liable for the church’s actions related to the sexual abuse of children.

Archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said it would oppose OneBeacon’s motion, saying “it distracts from the real issues needing resolution…to move the case forward,” including the payment of legal fees.

“OneBeacon has an obligation to pay for these costs under the insurance policies and…the archdiocese is committed to pursuing the monies it has coming to help pay the cost of the bankruptcy proceeding,” Topczewski said in an email.

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.