ABUSE TRACKER

CHICAGO (IL)
The Tablet (UK)

[the documents via BishopAccountability.org]

[the documents via Jeff Anderson & Associates]

22 January 2014 by Carlisle Baker-Jackson

The Archdiocese of Chicago issued a “sincere apology” as it released 6,000 documents yesterday relating to its handling of sexual misconduct by 30 of its priests between 1950 and 1996.

The documents were released as part of a 2008 settlement with victims. They reveal how allegations were kept secret and church leaders, including the late cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin, would approve the moving of accused priests from one parish to another. They also call into question the actions of the archbishop – Cardinal Francis George.

A statement on the archdiocesan website said: “The archdiocese acknowledges that its leaders made some decisions decades ago that are now difficult to justify.

“In the past 40 years, society has evolved in dealing with matters related to abuse … and so has the Archdiocese of Chicago.”

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Sueddeutsche (Deutschland)

Die meisten der Geistlichen, um die es geht, sind offenbar nie bestraft worden. Im Gegenteil: Würdenträger der katholischen Kirche schützten die Täter über Jahrzehnte hinweg. Doch jetzt unternimmt das Erzbistum Chicago einen Schritt zur Aufarbeitung des Missbrauchsskandals.

Es geht um 30 Priester, die sich über Jahrzehnte hinweg des sexuellen Missbrauchs schuldig gemacht haben. Die meisten der Geistlichen, um die es geht, seien nie bestraft worden, schreibt die Chicago Tribune. Im Gegenteil: Würdenträger der katholischen Kirche hätten die Täter gedeckt, “geblendet von dem Glauben an eine zweite Chance und an Vergebung”. Außerdem habe die Führung der Kirche einen Imageschaden befürchtet.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Der Standard (Osterreich)

Mit neuen Erkenntnisse über sexuellen Missbrauch sehen sich etliche Priester der katholischen Kirche in den USA konfrontiert. Tausende im Internet veröffentlichte Unterlagen dokumentieren die Fälle von 30 Priestern der Erzdiözese Chicago. Die Kirche soll demnach versucht haben, die Skandale zu verschleiern, was weitere Kinder gefährdet habe.

Die Fälle reichten teilweise Jahrzehnte zurück und hätten die Erzdiözese in den vergangenen Jahren mehr als 100 Millionen Dollar gekostet, berichtete die “Chicago Tribune” am Dienstag. Der Kirche seien die Kinder unter ihrem Dach “nicht so wichtig wie die Geistlichen” gewesen, kritisierte der Opferanwalt Jeff Anderson. Stattdessen hätte die Kirche an dem Missbrauch teilgenommen, indem sie die Täter in ihren Ämtern belassen habe.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Spirtual Politics

Norbert Maday

Mark Silk | Jan 22, 2014

And so it’s Chicago’s turn to have its documents on sexual abuse put on public display. “We realize the information included in these documents is upsetting,” said the country’s third largest archdiocese in a statement. “It is painful to read. It is not the Church we know or the Church we want to be.”

But of course it is the Church we know — an institution where some adults in positions of authority sexually abused minors in their charge and the higher-ups for years did what they could to shield the abusers. To be sure, abusers can be found in all institutions that work with minors, and it is not uncommon for the superiors to behave similarly, to protect against lawsuits and disrepute.

But the Catholic Church is a special case, even among religious bodies. Consider the following letter that the current archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, wrote in 2002 to the Rev. Norbert Maday, then serving a lengthy prison sentence in Wisconsin for molesting two altar boys.

Dear Norbert,

I thank you for your kind greetings on my birthday. Your thoughtfulness took me by surprise, but I am glad to get a personal note from you. I try to keep up with you through the Vicars for Priests.

We have tried, as you know, a number of avenues to see if your sentenced [sic] can be reduced or might be reduced or parole be given early. So far, we have not had any success, but I personally hope that you will not lose hope.

We’re approaching Lent, and you’ll have a very special place in my prayers as we approach that season of penance. Again, I’m very grateful that you wrote.

Fraternally yours in Christ,

It would it be very strange if the principal of a public high school wrote such a letter to a teacher who had been sent to prison for abusing a student. High school principals have — or should have — nothing like the relationship a bishop has with his priests.

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.

IRELAND
Newstalk

Francesca Comyn
Wednesday 22 January 2014

A number of high-profile criminal appeals may have to be re-heard because High Court judge Mr. Justice Michael Hanna is seriously ill.

Cases affected include convicted killer Brian Rattigan, sex attacker Anthony Lyons and the ‘singing priest’ child sex abuser Tony Walsh.

Chief Justice Susan Denham announced Mr. Justice Hanna’s illness at the Court of Criminal Appeal this morning.

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.

OREGON/CHICAGO (IL)
KGW

by Associated Press
Posted on January 22, 2014

CHICAGO (AP) — Top leaders at the Archdiocese of Chicago helped hide the sexual abuse of children as they struggled to contain a growing crisis, according to thousands of pages of internal documents that also raise new questions about how Cardinal Francis George handled the allegations even after the church adopted reforms.

The documents, released through settlements between attorneys for the archdiocese and victims, describe how priests for decades were moved from parish to parish while the archdiocese hid the clerics’ histories from the public, often with the approval of the late Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin.

George had a relatively short tenure in Portland, appointed archbishop in 1996. He was noted for taking on Lane County prosecutors who wanted to use a jail confession as evidence, winning in federal court at the appellate level.

Although the abuse documented in the files occurred before George became archbishop in 1997, many victims did not come forward until after he was appointed and after U.S. bishops pledged in 2002 to keep all accused priests out of ministry.

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.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Ruth Stark
Guardian Professional, Wednesday 22 January 2014

What do adult survivors of childhood abuse really need when they open up about their experiences and expose themselves to public scrutiny? Justice or acknowledgement of the trauma they have suffered?

Northern Ireland and Scotland have set up initiatives that aim to provide a place for abuse survivors to talk about their experiences. The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry has begun in Northern Ireland, and new legislation in Scotland will establish a National Confidential Forum that will work in partnership with the Mental Welfare Commission.

In England, social workers at a recent workshop on the subject suggested that people who have been abused need to feel believed. But victims of abuse, who have been through public inquiries, say it is justice they seek.

Human rights and social justice are inextricably linked. This is written into the 2004 international definition of social work and is central to the British Association of Social Workers’ code of ethics.

Social work professionals often refer to people achieving validation, increased self-esteem or having their case substantiated when defining positive outcomes.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victims want law enforcement to “step up”
Group urges more action by police & prosecutors
“Use bully pulpit to beg others to come forward,” SNAP says
And victims want a bishop ousted from board of a boys’ home
“Others who concealed abuse must be disciplined too,” they say
That’s never happens & that’s why cover ups continue, SNAP contends

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will urge Chicago law enforcement officials to
–aggressively and publicly beg those with knowledge or suspicions of clergy sex crimes to step forward,
–launch grand jury investigations into the ongoing church abuse & cover up scandal, and
–be more resourceful about bringing ANY kind of charge against complicit officials.
The group will also urge the Chicago Catholic hierarchy to
–remove a “complicit” bishop from the board of a local boys home, and
–prevent future cover ups by punishing other “enablers” – the church staffers who ignored or hid evidence or warnings of clergy sex crimes, especially those clerics whose names appear in the just-released, long-secret church abuse records.

WHEN
TODAY, Wednesday, Jan. 22 at 1:45 p.m.

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

WHO
Five-six 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
Yesterday, long-secret Chicago archdiocesan records about clerics who committed and concealed child sex crimes were disclosed, Now, using that information, SNAP is urging local law enforcement officials to redouble their efforts to vpursue the wrongdoers. Specifically, the group wants secular authorities to launch formal investigations and use their “bully pulpits” to “aggressively beg victims, witnesses, and whistleblowers to come forward, especially current and former Catholic employees.”

According to BishopAccountability.org, there are 121 publicly accused Chicago archdiocesan predator priests. Six thousand pages have just been released about 30 of them. Of those 30, 14 are still alive. And only a handful of Chicago child molesting clerics have been criminally prosecuted, while no one who “ignored or hid” their crimes ever have.

SNAP believes that can, and should, change.

“Archaic laws are don’t help, but we suspect the real reason is a lack of political will by prosecutors,” said SNAP’s David Clohessy. “Often, ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way.’”

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.

VATICAN CITY
The Raw Story

By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, January 21, 2014

A former Vatican accountant already under house arrest and on trial for alleged corruption and attempted money laundering has been notified of fresh charges against him, Italy’s financial police said on Tuesday.

The police said in a statement that they had seized Monsignor Nunzio Scarano’s luxury 17-room apartment and blocked nearly 9.0 million euros ($12 million) on current accounts linked to the senior Italian cleric.

The Vatican in July last year said it had already frozen assets belonging to Scarano and the police on Tuesday said these funds amounted to 2.2 million euros.

“This is very significant,” the police said in a statement, a reference to unprecedented levels of cooperation between Vatican and Italian judicial authorities on a high-profile financial crime case.

Vatican bank spokesman Max Hohenberg told AFP: “All activity on his accounts over the past 10 years has been extracted, analysed and submitted to authorities.

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.

AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 22 January 2014)

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Marist Brothers allowed the sex-abuse criminal Brother Ross Francis Murrin to remain in their Order, thus giving him access to more child victims. In 2014, Australia’s national Royal Commission on Child Sexual Abuse is investigating this pattern of cover-up. See our 2014 update under the final sub-heading: “How the church treated this victim, Mr DK”.

Brother Ross Murrin was jailed in 2008 and 2010 for child-sex crimes, committed during his teaching career in Australian Catholic schools. There is evidence that his Marist superiors were aware many years ago about his criminal behaviour but they negligently allowed him to continue teaching, until some of Murrin’s victims finally spoke to the police in 2007. In 2014,

Murrin worked in eleven Catholic schools in New South Wales and Queensland. Here are three examples:

* Murrin’s first school was the Marist Brothers boys’ primary school in DACEYVILLE (in Sydney’s east) in 1974. On 10 March 2008, Murrin was jailed after pleading guilty to 17 charges of indecently assaulting eight boys in Year 5 and Year 6 at this school.

* Murrin’s third school was St Augustine’s College in CAIRNS, Queensland, in 1979-81. Queensland police have taken sworn statements from former Cairns pupils, alleged that they were molested by Murrin. There is evidence that the school administration knew what Murrin was doing. Yet he was kept in the Marist order and was transferred to more schools.

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.

AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The chief commissioner of the Australian royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, Peter McClellan, and his counsel assisting, Gail “Snow White” Furness, have been very kind to the Catholic Church. They have given it another chance to distort the story about its “Towards Healing” protocol for dealing with its victims.

In a special hearing today, which will continue tomorrow, the person who has been described as the “media relations man” for the Catholic Church’s PR unit, Truth Justice and Healing Council, established to deal with the fall-out from the royal commission (see previous posting), has been given the floor to reject claims made during the main, official, hearings last year.

The YMCA has already been given this opportunity yesterday, with the difference that their submission is not being released for public scrutiny.

Michael Salmon is the New South Wales and ACT Director of the Professional Standards Office within the Catholic Church. He was given free reign, without cross-examination by victims’ lawyers, to claim that one victim gave false evidence. The victim, known as DK, (see previous posting) had claimed that he had not been informed of Mr. Salmon’s position within the church during “pastoral” consultations with the Catholic Church.

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.

FLORIDA
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

The Florida Baptist Convention plans to appeal a jury’s decision to award $12.5 million in damages in a lawsuit claiming Baptist officials didn’t check far enough into the background of a church planter convicted in 2007 of sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy.

A Lake County, Fla., jury agreed unanimously Jan. 18 to grant what is described as one of the largest monetary awards in Florida to a 21-year-old man who was victimized as a child by Douglas Myers, a convicted serial child molester, currently in prison in Maryland after serving a seven-year prison term in Florida.

The judgment, reported by the Orlando Sentinel, followed a six-day trial over the matter of damages. Another jury in May 2012 found the Florida Baptist Convention liable for running criminal, credit and background checks but neglecting to check references before helping Myers plant two now-defunct churches with training, financial aid and what the lawsuit termed implied endorsement by reporting news of his endeavor in the Baptist state newspaper.

At the time a lawyer representing Florida Baptists challenged the ruling, saying it was inconsistent for the jury to agree with the convention’s main argument that Myers was not an employee of the state affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention and yet still hold convention officials accountable for actions of someone they did not hire or supervise, but an appeal could not be filed until after the penalty phase.

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.

TOLEDO (OH)
The Blade

Editorial

A United Nations investigation of the Roman Catholic Church’s clergy sex-abuse scandal should prompt the Vatican to be more transparent and Pope Francis to crack down harder on the abusers’ enablers.

Barbara Blaine, a founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), was abused by a priest in Toledo when she was a little girl. Last week in Geneva, she watched an international human rights panel grill Vatican representatives about the church’s lukewarm response to the child sex-abuse scandal.

Ms. Blaine and other SNAP members argue that the Vatican is not honoring its agreement to abide by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The U.N. committee demanded that the Vatican open its files on sex-abuse cases — which it has not done — and improve the transparency of how it handles such cases.

The U.N. panel and other independent, secular bodies must investigate, publicize, and prosecute not only the abusers, but also those who shielded them. The Ohio General Assembly needs to revisit a law it passed in 2006 that failed to extend a statute of limitations for abuse cases, so that cases that came to light years after the fact can still be prosecuted.

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.

CANADA
The Globe and Mail

GLORIA GALLOWAY
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Jan. 21 2014

The federal Conservative government is taking legal action to force dozens of Catholic organizations that ran aboriginal residential schools to pay their full share of a compensation package promised seven years ago to the schools’ former students.

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt said in a letter this month that the Catholic groups have not fulfilled their part of the Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

“Although the Catholic Entities have already paid a lot of what they owe under the settlement agreement, it is the government of Canada’s position that they continue to have outstanding obligations,” Mr. Valcourt wrote in a letter dated Jan. 15 to Ronald Kidd, a Vancouver man who had expressed concerns. “Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada is pursuing the Catholics in a legal setting to have the balance paid,” Mr. Valcourt wrote.

The settlement was meant to be a resolution to the tragic legacy of the church-run schools, in which tens of thousands of aboriginal children were taken from their families, often to live in situations of deprivation. At least 3,000 died and many more were subjected to emotional and physical abuse.

While the government paid the lion’s share of the compensation, the churches were also required to make reparations.

The Anglican, Presbyterian and United Churches have met their obligations.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

MENSAH M. DEAN, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER DEANM@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-568-8278
POSTED: Wednesday, January 22, 2014

CHAD, A JUNIOR at West Catholic Preparatory High School, is in a predicament similar to that of Monsignor William Lynn, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia official released from prison last month.

Chad was ordered by a Juvenile Court judge to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet as part of his sentence for a December arrest. Lynn, whose child-endangerment conviction was overturned on appeal last month, also was ordered to wear an ankle bracelet as a term of his release from prison.

But the Archdiocese’s responses to both court orders have been as different as night and day.

Lynn, 63, was literally taken in by the church, which paid his bail and is allowing him to live at St. William Parish in the Northeast while the District Attorney’s Office appeals to get his conviction reinstated.

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VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

Philip Pullella
Reuters
3:45 a.m. CST, January 22, 2014

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican bank asked Italy on Wednesday to resume financial relations effectively frozen since 2010, saying it had made great progress with new anti-money laundering measures Rome had demanded.

The request was made in a status report on the “compliance and transparency program”, of the bank, whose official title is the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR).

“The IOR looks forward to a resumption of full interaction with Italian financial institutions pending review by Italian regulatory authorities of the Holy See and Vatican City State’s anti-money laundering provisions,” the report said.

Italian banks stopped dealing with the Vatican bank in 2010 after the Bank of Italy told them they had to enforce strict anti-money laundering criteria.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Rome, January 22 – The Vatican bank said Wednesday that it was ready to resume normal relations with Italy after making progress in measures to prevent money laundering and other financial crimes. The image of the bank, officially called the the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), has been hit by a series of scandals over the years. Italian banks effectively stopped dealing with the IOR in 2010 after the Bank of Italy ordered them to enforce strict anti-money laundering criteria to continue working with it. The Vatican has made several reforms to introduce greater financial transparency and fight money laundering since Francis was elected pope last year.

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.

VATICAN CITY
RTE News

The Vatican bank asked Italy today to resume normal banking relations, which have been effectively frozen since 2010.

It said it had made great progress with new anti-money laundering provisions.

“The bank looks forward to a resumption of full interaction with Italian financial institutions pending review by Italian regulatory authorities of the Holy See and Vatican City State’s anti-money laundering provisions,” a report said.

Italian banks stopped dealing with the Vatican bank in 2010 after the central bank told them they had to enforce strict anti-money laundering criteria if they wanted to continue transacting with it.

A status report on the bank’s reform efforts also said the head of the bank ordered several special investigations in 2013 into suspicious accounts as part of its programme to improve transparency and thwart more attempts to launder money.

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.

SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Wednesday 22 January 2014

Gerry Braiden
Senior reporter

AN OUTSPOKEN priest suspended for alleging a culture of homosexual bullying within the Catholic Church in Scotland is facing legal action to remove him from the parish house.

Father Matthew Despard, who has been suspended since last November, is alleged to be refusing to leave at the presbytery house of St John Ogilvie, High Blantyre, Lanarkshire, having changed the locks.

He continues to live in the property against the will of the interim Bishop Of Motherwell Joseph Toal, leading to the start of court action against him.

Father Despard, who has also faced threats of civil action by fellow priests who believe they have been defamed in his book, Priesthood In Crisis, was due to appear at Hamilton Sheriff Court last week as part of the action but the matter did not progress.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic World Report

By Catherine Harmon

Yesterday Reuters reported on an interview given to a German newspaper by Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras in which the influential cardinal criticized the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal-Designate Gerhard Ludwig Müller.

Magadiaga, who is coordinator of the council of cardinals selected by Pope Francis to advise him on curial reform and Church governance, was responding to a question about Müller’s statements on Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. Last fall, the CDF head published a lengthy defense of Church teaching on the subject; he recently reiterated his position in an interview with the Italian Corriere della Sera, stating, “We must try a combination of general principles and particular, personal situations. Finding solutions to individual problems, though always on the foundation of Catholic doctrine…. [M]any think the Pope or a synod can say: of course, receive Communion. But this is not possible.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

[with video]

Mark Holihan

by Robert H. Jordan Jr
Anchor/Reporter

Page after page of documents, released by the Archdiocese of Chicago – some of them heavily redacted – show a pervasive climate of sexual abuse by many priests, many of whom never received a slap on the wrist for egregious behavior involving untold numbers of minors, mostly boys.

Going back at least 40 years and mostly covering the tenures of Cardinals Joseph Bernardin and current head, Francis Cardinal George, the papers indicate an almost inescapable conclusion that both leaders knew abuses were widespread and prevalent.

This 1986 handwritten letter from a concerned parishioner to Cardinal Bernardin warns of instances when altar boys reported to their parents discovering Fr. Mark Holihan fondling other boys. Another document from a retired priest, Leo Kinsella refers to Fr. Holihan by the nickname of, “Happy Hands Holihan.”

Additionally, Fr. Kinsella tells the story of the 77-year old female cook working in the rectory: “Evidently BLANK does the laundry, and thinking that Mark was gone for the, day, went to his room to put the laundry away, and when she opened up the bedroom door, she discovered Mark in bed with a young boy.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The director of the Catholic Church’s professional standards office has told a national abuse inquiry that church-appointed facilitators in abuse cases act in the interests of the victim.

Michael Salmon, who heads the office in NSW and the ACT, has come under intense questioning at a Sydney hearing about the application of the church’s Towards Healing protocol – an internal process that abuse complainants can opt to engage in.

Mr Salmon was the facilitator in two cases that have been considered by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

In a hearing that opened in December, the commission heard that the application of Towards Healing varied widely and some abuse victims found it legalistic and intimidating.

It has also emerged that compensation payouts varied widely and were heavily influenced by Catholic Church insurers.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti

An inquiry into child sexual abuse has been told it is appropriate for authorities within the Catholic Church to play a central role in the healing process for victims.

In December, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse examined the cases of four people who had participated in the Towards Healing process.

Towards Healing was established by the Catholic Church in the mid-1990s to respond to complaints of abuse involving Church personnel.

His long-awaited appearance comes after a victim accused the Catholic Church of deceiving him in the lead-up to his Towards Healing facilitation session.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

January 22, 2014

Annette Blackwell

A cup of tea and a lie-down was once the Catholic Church’s attitude towards rehabilitation of victims of abuse.

But times and the church have changed, the director of the church’s Professional Standards Office for NSW/ACT told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Wednesday.

Michael Salmon defended Towards Healing, the church’s internal process for dealing with abuse complainants.

He has facilitated hundreds of sessions with victims and at Wednesday’s hearing denied he kept the fact he was employed by the church from a victim identified as DK – a now 49-year-old man abused by three different members of the clergy while a student at St Augustine’s College in Cairns in 1976.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

[with video]

Michael Howard Weston

By Rachel Zoll and Tammy Webber, Associated Press
Updated: Wednesday, January 22, 2014

CHICAGO (AP) — Top leaders at the Archdiocese of Chicago helped hide the sexual abuse of children as they struggled to contain a growing crisis, according to thousands of pages of internal documents that raise new questions about how Cardinal Francis George handled the allegations even after the church adopted reforms.

The documents, released through settlements between attorneys for the archdiocese and victims, describe how priests for decades were moved from parish to parish while the archdiocese hid the clerics’ histories from the public, often with the approval of the late Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin.

Although the abuse documented in the files occurred before George became archbishop in 1997, many victims did not come forward until after he was appointed and after U.S. bishops pledged in 2002 to keep all accused priests out of ministry.

Priest Michael Howard Weston, who was among the alleged abusers, was at one time the chaplain for Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo Valley College.

What brought him to West Michigan is one of the major complaints in the Chicago abuse coverup: Even after serious allegations came forward, accused priests were allowed to move away and preach elsewhere.

Weston was a priest in the Chicago area in the 1970s when the allegations were made. At least one victim claimed Weston had sexually assaulted him, saying Weston massaged him and touched him while the two were nude.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Thomas Job

By Russell Lissau

Among the former priests named in the church documents made public Tuesday is Thomas Job, who was assigned to St. Joseph Catholic Church in Libertyville and then St. Bede Catholic Church in Ingleside, both in the 1980s.

Job was named in a 2005 settlement of a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Chicago by 24 adults who claimed they were molested by priests.

According to documents available for public review at abusedinchicago.com, archdiocese officials in 1983 were aware of accusations Job “had engaged in sexual activities” with a teenage boy while a pastor in LaGrange.

According to the memo from the Archdiocese, Job agreed to monthly supervisory sessions with a vicar. Additionally, the pastor of the Libertyville parish was to serve as an on-site supervisor, according to the document.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Raymond Skriba

By Charles Keeshan

It was in 1970 that Archdiocese of Chicago officials first learned that a pair of teenage girls had accused the Rev. Raymond Skriba of touching them inappropriately in the rectory of a Southwest side church.

It wasn’t until more than three decades later — by which time Skriba was the pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Round Lake — that the Archdiocese took action against him.

Archdiocese documents released Tuesday stretching more than three decades detail how Skriba, despite his denials of wrongdoing, was moved away from the parish where the girls had accused him because, as one church official put it, “this is not a good situation,” and how he ultimately ended up in Round Lake where another allegation of abuse arose in 2003. In between, allegations of abuse stemming from his time at a Franklin Park parish in the 1960s surfaced.

In the Round Lake case, documents show that a man told Archdiocese investigators that in 1995, when he was in eighth grader, Skriba fondled him in the church sacristy. Another St. Joseph parishioner complained that in 1992 Skriba asked her 7-year-old daughter inappropriate sexual questions during confession.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Robert Mayer

By Charles Keeshan

Despite numerous complaints of inappropriate conduct toward children by a former priest at an Arlington Heights parish, officials in the Archdiocese of Chicago chose to move him to other suburban parishes — where other abuse claims arose — and keep secret the reasons for his transfer, according to church documents made public today.

Details regarding the allegations against former priest Robert Mayer, the former associate pastor at St. Edna Catholic Church in the 1980s, were among the hundreds of pages of archdiocese documents released Tuesday detailing the investigations into child molestation accusations against more than 30 priests and church officials’ reactions to them.

Cardinal Francis George said in a letter sent to parishes last week that the archdiocese agreed to turn over the records in an attempt to help the victims heal. “I apologize to all those who have been harmed by these crimes and this scandal,” George wrote.

The archdiocese said all of the files released today occurred before 1996, most were in the 1980s and that eventually all 30 of the cases were reported to authorities.

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.

ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Vince McCaffrey

By Jamie Sotonoff

Father Vince McCaffrey had a history of predatory abuse when he arrived at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Wheeling in the 1980s. Catholic church leaders knew it; parishioners did not.

He was assigned to four parishes in the Chicago area over the years, abusing as many as 100 children before being jailed for child pornography possession. While McCaffrey was in Wheeling, the 10-year-old son of Jim and Kathy Laarveld became one of his victims.

“It even happened on his first communion, in my own house, while we were taking family photos and he was sitting on (McCaffrey’s) lap. He was a professional,” Kathy Laarveld said of the priest.

The Laarvelds were among the victims and family members who spoke, sometimes tearfully, during a news conference Tuesday in Chicago, where, as part of a court settlement, the Archdiocese of Chicago released more than 6,000 pages of internal communications about 30 of its 65 priests accused of sexually abusing children.

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.

ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

James Steele

By Charles Keeshan

When a 13-year-old boy went to his associate pastor at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Wheeling 30 years ago, confused over the sexual abuse he said he was suffering at the hands of the parish school’s principal, James Steel didn’t offer the young parishioner comfort.

Instead, according to the findings of a 2006 report made for the Archdiocese of Chicago, there is credible evidence Steel sexually assaulted the teen.

The investigation looked into claims made against Steel, a now former priest who served the Wheeling parish from 1979 to 1984.

“In the (investigator’s) opinion there is reason to believe the accused engaged in inappropriate sexual abuse of (the victim),” the private investigations firm Jack Burke & Associates states in the report. “The detail of (the victim’s) statement, the corroboration of time and place by former school principal Donald Ryniecki and the opinions of law enforcement officers from Wheeling, IL and from Washburn County, WI support this finding.”

A subsequent letter to Cardinal Francis George from Leah McCluskey, the Archdiocese’s professional responsibility administrator, states that “in light of the information presented, there is reasonable cause to suspect that the alleged misconduct occurred.”

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Plain Dealer

[the documents via BishopAccountability.org]

[the documents via Jeff Anderson & Associates]

By Associated Press
on January 21, 2014

CHICAGO — Top leaders at the Archdiocese of Chicago helped hide the sexual abuse of children as they struggled to contain a growing crisis, according to thousands of pages of internal documents that raise new questions about how Cardinal Francis George handled the allegations even after the church adopted reforms.

The documents, released through settlements between attorneys for the archdiocese and victims, describe how priests for decades were moved from parish to parish while the archdiocese hid the clerics’ histories from the public, often with the approval of the late Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin.

Although the abuse documented in the files occurred before George became archbishop in 1997, many victims did not come forward until after he was appointed and after U.S. bishops pledged in 2002 to keep all accused priests out of ministry.

George delayed removing the Rev. Joseph R. Bennett, despite learning that the priest had been accused of sexually abusing girls and boys decades earlier. Even the board the cardinal appointed to help him evaluate abuse claims advised George that Bennett should be removed.

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.

AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

Senior Catholic official admits church’s compensation system for sex-abuse victims is ‘problematic’

PETER BODKIN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JANUARY 22, 2014

A SENIOR Catholic official has admitted the church’s compensation system for sexual-abuse victims under the controversial “Towards Healing” process had been “problematic”.

While one victim received up to $850,000 from the church for the exploitation they suffered at the hands of a priest, another man who was routinely sexually and physically abused over a six-year period from when he was 12 years old was offered just $80,000.

The victim, known as DK, reported being repeatedly abused by three Marist brothers, including one named Ross Francis Murrin, while boarding at St Augustine’s College in Cairns between 1976 and 1981.

In 2010 he attended a Towards Healing session in Brisbane led by Michael Salmon, who DK claimed had been introduced to him as “an independent mediator and lawyer” – only to later discover the man was really the director of the church’s NSW Professional Standards Office.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Christy Gutowski and Manya Brachear Pashman
Tribune reporters
10:17 p.m. CST, January 21, 2014

Joe Iacono wants to read the letters by himself so he can deal with the pain in private.

Jim Laarveld wants to be by his son’s side when Keith Laarveld sees the files for the first time.

But Diana Houston laments that her son John took his life years before Tuesday’s release of records that show how the Archdiocese of Chicago failed to protect him and other children from pedophile priests.

Those records — thousands of documents chronicling the archdiocese’s response to sexual abuse allegations against 30 priests over the past half-century — stirred many emotions, especially for the victims of clergy sexual abuse who waged a nine-year battle to see this day come. For the first time, they could see what the church did and didn’t do when they cried for help.

“It’s just really hard,” said Houston, of southwest suburban Hometown, who puts some blame on the church for her son’s suicide in 2002 when he was 33. “I was brought up Catholic, and priests are supposed to do no wrong. I just think it’s horrible that they kept all this a secret for so long.”

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

Joseph Bennett
Norbert Maday
Daniel McCormack

BY JON SEIDEL Staff Reporter January 21, 2014

The Archdiocese of Chicago swiftly pointed out Tuesday that the vast majority of sexual abuse allegations leveled in newly released records occurred years, even decades ago.

But those records show Cardinal Francis George testified in 2008 about the archdiocese’s handling under his leadership of sexual abuse allegations against the the Reverends Joseph Bennett, Norbert Maday and Daniel McCormack.

“What upsets me is the record of abuse,” George said in a 2008 deposition. “No matter when it happened.”

The records were released by a pair of attorneys whose clients have sued the archdiocese over abuse allegations and won settlements.

The archdiocese said in a written statement that 95 percent of the cases mentioned in the documents occurred before 1988. It said not one priest with a substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor is serving in its ministry today.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Comcast SportsNet

In a historic move Tuesday, the Chicago Archdiocese released its own internal documents on 30 priests accused of sexual abuse. Survivors say this is proof a cover-up at the highest levels took place for decades.

Survivors of priest sex abuse insist the release of 6,000 pages of secret documents from the Chicago Archdiocese prove a cover-up took place for decades.

“These files what they mean to me is truth,” said survivor Joe Iaccono.

The secret files show those in charge — Cardinals Cody, Bernardin and George — were informed of allegations dating back to the 1960s.

One of the 30 priests is Father Robert Mayer. More than 10 years before Mayer ended up in prison for abuse, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was aware a parish youth director compared Mayer to “Charles Manson.”

Politicians are mentioned in the documents as well. Underage drinking parties in Mayer’s room at St Stephens rectory were brought to the attention of the Des Plaines Police Department. Documents show that then Cook County State’s Attorney Rich Daley called the Archdiocese to say the “police captain is not held in high esteem.” No charges were filed.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
The New Age (South Africa)

Victims of sexual abuse by priests in the Chicago area are vowing to keep pushing for information on how the Chicago Archdiocese handled allegations.

They’re encouraging other victims to come forward, and asking that Cardinal Francis George fire those involved in shielding priests.

Documents involving 30 priests were posted online Tuesday by victims’ attorneys. The documents showed how top officials tried to contain the scandal, including by moving accused priests around while hiding histories.

Attorneys say they’ll push for files on another 35 priests.

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CHICAGO (IL)
DFW Catholic

[the documents via BishopAccountability.org]

[the documents via Jeff Anderson & Associates]

Chicago, Ill., Jan 22, 2014 / 12:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Responding to the release of documents about Chicago priests accused of abusing minors over the past 50 years, Cardinal Francis George has apologized to victims and reaffirmed that no accused priests are presently serving in ministry.

“We realize the information included in these documents is upsetting. It is painful to read. It is not the Church we know or the Church we want to be,” Chicago archbishop Cardinal George said Jan. 21. “The archdiocese sincerely apologizes for the hurt and suffering of the victims and their families as a result of this abuse.”

The cardinal said the archdiocese hopes that the documents’ release and the work of its Office for the Protection of Children and Youth can help abuse victims heal.

The documents – which were released as a condition of a 2005 legal settlement – concern 30 Archdiocese of Chicago priests.

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MALTA
Malta Today

Matthew Vella

The Roman Pontiff will not be showing any leniency towards priests guilty of paedophilia, the Maltese bishop Charles Scicluna has told the Reuters news agency.

Scicluna, the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor, said the number of clerics defrocked by the Vatican was likely to have fallen to about 100 in 2013 from about 125 in 2012.

“I have met with Francis and he has expressed great determination to continue on the line of his predecessors,” Scicluna said, having served in the Vatican for 17 years.

“His gospel of mercy is very important but it is not cheap mercy. It has to respect the truth and the demands of justice.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

Editorial

Years ago, some victims of clergy abuse in the Archdiocese of Chicago began an effort to uncover the truth and hold the abusers responsible for their actions.

At the time, it seemed a fool’s errand, doomed to go nowhere in the face of an institution determined to dig in and protect its image.

Nevertheless, that effort broke the silence. Over the years much of the horrifying story has come out, and on Tuesday, as part of a negotiated deal, lawyers for some of the abuse victims released thousands of pages of once-private church documents that cast further light on the full extent to which the archdiocese failed to protect children.

Although redacted, the pages tell the story of an institution that quietly returned known abusers to ministries where they could resume their predatory behavior, hid information about their backgrounds and misled the public about the depth of the problem. Assurances to families that abusers would have no further contact with children proved to be untrue, as the offending priests were reassigned elsewhere. Details of allegations were not immediately reported to law enforcement authorities, although the church said it followed the law as it existed at the time and that all cases eventually were reported.

On Tuesday, the archdiocese admitted it “made some decisions decades ago that are now difficult to justify” and said it’s committed to reaching out to victims and protecting all children. Legal settlements have been reached in some cases.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Wall Street Journal

By MARK PETERS CONNECT
Jan. 21, 2014

CHICAGO—Thousands of pages of internal documents from one of the nation’s largest Catholic archdioceses lay out how the church protected some priests for decades and didn’t remove them even as evidence of sexual abuse grew.

The release Tuesday of memos, letters and reports from the Chicago Archdiocese by lawyers for abuse victims provide new details on the global sex-abuse scandal that has plagued the Roman Catholic Church.

As part of a court mediation process with victims, the archdiocese agreed to turn over documents related to 30 priests who faced substantiated allegations of sexual offenses against children. The archdiocese has said it would make available information on 35 more priests, but hasn’t provided a timeline for the release.

Archdiocese officials said last week the nearly eight-year mediation process has resulted in victims being paid about $100 million in compensation. The archdiocese said in a statement that its leaders made some decisions decades ago that are now difficult to justify. But they added the response followed the law at the time, while highlighting current efforts to protect children and help victims.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

[with video]

by Julie Unruh
Reporter

Thousands of documents detailing Catholic priests in Chicago took advantage of the children were finally released to the public Tuesday.

But what did Cardinal Francis George know? And could he have done more?

Daniel McCormack was once a rising star. With time, however, his luster began to tarnish as his tendency to prey on young men was coming to light. Dozens of victims came forward and some cases are still in court today.

What the cardinal knew about them came up in a previously unpublished 2008 deposition. In it, lawyer Jeff Anderson grills the cardinal saying:

“It was the Review Board that recommended he be removed from ministry October 15th, was it not?”

Cardinal George: ‘They gave me that advice, yes. I wish that I had followed it with all my heart.”

Lawyer: “You didn’t follow it?”

Cardinal George: “I didn’t because I thought that they had not finished the case’s investigation. They hadn’t considered all the evidence.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
The Guardian (UK)

Karen McVeigh in New York
theguardian.com, Tuesday 21 January 2014

Thousands of pages of previously secret documents relating to the abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests in the archdiocese of Chicago was published on Tuesday, detailing the faltering response of senior clerics who routinely swept allegations under the carpet despite clear evidence of wrongdoing.

Some 6,000 documents, released as part of a settlement with victims, shed a light on how allegations against priests were acknowledged within the church leadership, but were kept secret as those accused of abuses were shuttled from one parish to another.

Many of the documents describe how church leaders, including the late cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin , would approve the reassignments.

One document, from the vicar for priests in April 1990, warned a church leader not to mention “rumours that have been circulating for the last 10 years” concerning Mark Holihan, a pastor, and “especially to say nothing at all” about an allegation by a cook at the church that she had witnessed him in bed with a young boy.

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TEXAS
The Monitor

Dan Santella | The Monitor

MISSION — A deacon at San Cristobal de Magallanes parish in Mission who is accused of molesting an altar boy over the course of two years was “immediately” removed as a minister when allegations surfaced in 2012, according to the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville.

Ronaldo Mitchell Chavez, who was arrested Friday and had posted bond by Monday morning, was employed as a principal at South Texas Educational Technologies Inc., whose superintendent said in a statement that Chavez was immediately suspended upon his arrest, according to KRGV-TV.

Brenda Riojas, a spokeswoman for the Brownsville Diocese, said in a statement that Chavez’s “faculties to minister as a deacon in the diocese were removed immediately in October 2012 when an allegation was reported to the parish priest and brought to the attention of the diocese.”

Approximately six alleged incidents of abuse happened at the suspect’s residence in Mission, said Cpl. Manuel Casas, Mission police spokesman.

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CANADA
Sun News

TONY SPEARS | QMI AGENCY

OTTAWA – An Ottawa priest took advantage of his saint-like reputation to perpetrate a five-year, $130,000 fraud on his church, a courtroom heard Tuesday.

Peter Napier believes LeClair — a popular ex-priest who pleaded guilty Monday to fraud and theft charges – deserves 18 months jail for exploiting the church’s lax accounting practices and its trusting congregation between 2006 and 2011.

But Matthew Webber argued LeClair, 56, should be given an 18 to 24-month conditional sentence — essentially house arrest.

“His remorse is complete and across the board,” said Webber, characterizing LeClair’s very public downfall as “ruin and humiliation.”

Webber said LeClair was vulnerable to the seduction of gambling in part because of underlying anxiety and depression problems, for which he took medication.

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MICHIGAN
Detroit Free Press

Timothy Murray of Novi, a non-practicing Catholic priest and onetime pastor of St. Edith parish in Livonia, is to find out Thursday how long he will spend in federal prison for possessing and distributing child pornography.

Murray pleaded guilty to one count of possession and one count of distribution of child pornography in July and has been awaiting sentencing at home on bond.

Murray was removed from his post at St. Edith in 2004, after the Archdiocese of Detroit received an allegation that he had molested a 13-year-old boy in the 1980s. Murray admitted to the molestation, according to court files, but was never prosecuted because of the statute of limitations.

Murray’s sentencing will come days after news that the Vatican laicized — or dismissed from the priesthood — nearly 400 men in two years for sexual abuse accusations.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Post

Church’s Film With Sex Offender a ‘Perfect, Tragic Picture’ of What’s Wrong in Its Response to Sex Abuse, Says Billy Graham’s Grandson

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
January 21, 2014

The grandson of American evangelist Billy Graham and executive director of GRACE, a Christian sex abuse victim ministry, blasted a church video featuring a convicted sex offender apologizing for her crimes.

Boz Tchividjian appeared on Janet Mefford’s radio show last week to speak out against the film, which he alleged paints a “perfect, tragic picture” of what is wrong in the Church’s response to sex abuse.

“Why? Why make a video and post this? My guess would be that the [Deeper Life Fellowship] wants to show ‘Look how Christ can transform somebody else.’ But what ends up coming up after the video is that there are four or five things that I have seen over and over again in responses to offenders by the church,” said Tchividjian.

Tchividjian told The Christian Post on Tuesday that by creating the film, while this might not have been the church’s intention, it was once again bypassing “the incredible needs of victims.”

“Often times [churches] simply ignore them. Or, often times their focus is so fixated on the offender that they lose contact with the one who has been hurt the most in all of this and that’s the child,” he said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

Editorial

“The files speak for themselves. What the documents demonstrate to us is that all the cardinals, including George, were complicit.” — Jeffrey Anderson, attorney for victims of clergy sex abuse.

Those harsh words are backed up by the release of 6,000 pages detailing the actions and inactions of leaders in the Archdiocese of Chicago when confronted with allegations of sexual misconduct by priests.

On Tuesday, in accordance with a court settlement, the archdiocese released its case files on 30 of 65 priests with substantiated allegations of sexual misconduct. The accusations against those priests surfaced under the leadership of Cardinals John Cody, Joseph Bernardin and Francis George.

The priests’ names have been public for years. The depravity and scope of the abuse, in Chicago and elsewhere, is no longer in question.

Yet the files are still shocking, individually and in their totality. In black and white — accessible with the click of a computer mouse — they recount tale after tale of faith betrayed, first by a cleric and then by the church.

Catholics who came forward to report unspeakable abuse at the hands of their parish priests were met with disbelief and denial from church leaders. That resistance continued even as allegations mounted.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Business Insider

[the documents via BishopAccountability.org]

[the documents via Jeff Anderson & Associates]

MARY WISNIEWSKI

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The Chicago Archdiocese had a practice of moving priests accused of sexual abuse to new parishes, where they committed more abuse against children, according to documents released on Tuesday by lawyers representing the victims.

The latest in a series of such abuse disclosures by Midwest church officials, the documents provided to lawyers by the nation’s third-largest Archdiocese concern 30 former priests accused of abusing minors during the last half century.

“These were not mistakes,” said attorney Marc Pearlman, who represents the victims of child sexual abuse by clergy. “These were decisions made at the very highest level.”

Pearlman said the files, which amounted to thousands of pages of documents, showed a pattern of repeated abuse with the Archdiocese working to keep the allegations secret and transfers of abusers to new parishes.

Fourteen of the men are deceased – the rest are out of ministry. Lawyers also released documents on Tuesday regarding two additional priests – one of them, Daniel McCormack, who had been in ministry in Chicago until 2006.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Beaumont Enterprise

CHICAGO (AP) — The stories of two men who allege abuse by Archdiocese of Chicago priests help explain how the clergy preyed on children undetected.

In both cases, the boys had parents who worked for the archdiocese and feared if they told anyone what was going on their parents would lose their jobs.

At a news conference Tuesday, one of those victims stood next to the parents of the other while their attorneys discussed the release of documents showing how the archdiocese handled allegations of abuse.

Angel Santiago believes his dad was fired after Santiago stopped going to see the priest who abused him.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

President Obama will finally meet Pope Francis on March 27, over a year after Francis’ unexpected election. “The president looks forward to discussing with Pope Francis their shared commitment to fighting poverty and growing inequality,” the White House indicated. Surprisingly, Francis has already met with Russia’s leader, with whom Obama currently has tensions over Syria and US wiretapping, among other matters.

As to the overall importance of poverty and inequality, the world’s richest 85 people control the same amount of wealth as half the world’s population, as recently reported by the anti-poverty charity Oxfam. That means the world’s poorest 3.55 billion people must live on what the richest 85 possess.

Given (1) their similar advocacy for the poor, (2) the key role of family planning on alleviating poverty, and (3) their differences on contraception morality matters, Obama and Francis have much to discuss. This is especially the case since they both seemingly have ties to, and influence over, some of the 85 billionaire plutocrats who at times seem to dominate internationally through their targeted contributions both political and religious organizations. First, President Obama and Pope Francis must establish mutual trust, which has apparently been adversely impacted by Vatican political support for US conservatives and by US bishops’ continuing unaccountablity for mismanaging predatory priests, as well as Obama’s disagreements with US bishops on contraception, gay marriage and other matters.

Significantly, since over 100,000 US children, including some from Chicago where in the late ’80′s Obama worked among the “sheep” at eight poorer Catholic parishes, are estimated so far to have been sexually abused by Catholic priests, the subject of curtailing priest abuse will likely be on the agenda. Also included among the 100,000 US abuse survivors are some from the Minneapolis Archdiocese, where Fr. Kevin McDonough had been Vicar General for some years. His brother, Obama’s Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, in 2012 specifically referred to Kevin publicly before a group of US bishops as follows: “… I’m thankful for the counsel and wisdom of my older brothers—Bill, who was a priest, and Kevin, who is a priest.”

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY
Updated 4:23 p.m., Jan. 21

No. Never. Not true. It didn’t happen.

Eric Dejaeger stuck to his guns while on the witness stand Jan. 21, saying over and over, for the benefit of his lawyer, that he did not commit repeated sexual offences against dozens of complainants who have testified against him.

Dejaeger, a former Oblate priest who faced 80 charges during a trial that began in November 2013 — most of them sexual offences against children in Igloolik — has pleaded guilty to eight.

After a five-week break, the judge-only trial before Justice Robert Kilpatrick resumed this week at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit with defence lawyer Malcolm Kempt presenting his case.

Kempt began Jan. 21 by taking evidence from the man at the centre of this emotional trial: Dejaeger.

Wearing a prison-issued blue sweat suit, his large grey beard stretching to his chest, the 66-year-old walked to the stand with ease, put his hand on the Bible, stood upright, stated his name, and when asked to swear to tell the truth, promptly said “I do.”

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WISCONSIN
Fox 6

CHICAGO (WITI) — Thousands of pages of records were released on Tuesday, January 21st — detailing years of sexual abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of Chicago — and four of the priests named in the documents have Wisconsin ties.

Six thousand pages of documents were released on Tuesday naming 30 priests — four with Wisconsin ties.

Records show two of those priests sexually abused minors while staying in Wisconsin.

Another often brought boys to his Wisconsin cottage, and the fourth lived in Twin Lakes as recently as 2005.

“Time and time again, each of the Cardinals and officials made conscious choices to keep that knowledge a secret within the circle of the Cardinal or the officials or the bishops and only there,” Lawyer for the victims, Jeffrey Anderson said during a press conference in Chicago on Tuesday.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jan. 21, 2014

More than 6,000 pages detailing past allegations, reports and procedures related to clergy sexual abuse in the Chicago archdiocese became public Tuesday morning, part of a 2008 settlement between the archdiocese and alleged victims.

The documents pertain to 30 archdiocesan priests credibly accused of sexually abusing children. Of the 30, four have been removed from the priesthood and four have been criminally convicted. Only Joseph L. Fitzharris was both convicted and laicized. Fourteen of the priests are deceased. According to the archdiocese, 95 percent of the cases predate 1988.

“Today no priest with even one substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor serves in ministry in the Archdiocese of Chicago,” the archdiocese said in a statement made ahead of the release.

Describing the documents as “upsetting” and “painful to read,” the archdiocese apologized to victims and said the image the files portray “is not the Church we know or the Church we want to be.” The pages include decisions church officials made decades ago “that are now difficult to justify” but were based upon “the prevailing knowledge at the time,” noting that understanding of sexual abuse has evolved since then.

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WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

via BishopAccountability.org:
Rev. Norbert Maday
Rev. Vincent McCaffrey
Rev. Donald Ulatowski
Rev. Raymond Skriba

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Records released Tuesday that document years of sexual abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of Chicago — and the actions and inactions of church officials over the years — include at least four sex abusers with ties to Wisconsin.

The St. Paul, Minn., law firm of Jeffrey Anderson made public 6,000 pages of documents involving 30 priests after eight years of negotiations with church officials over how they were to be released. They include records on:

■ The Rev. Norbert Maday, 75 and now defrocked, who was sentenced in July 1994 to 20 years in prison on three counts of second-degree sexual assault and one count of victim intimidation related to the assaults of two boys in Oshkosh in 1986. He threatened to kill one of the boy’s older brother if they reported the abuse, and they did not come forward until 1992, according to news accounts.

Maday continued to be held as a sexually violent person under Wisconsin’s so-called Chapter 980 law. He was scheduled for release last August, but it was not immediately clear Tuesday whether that occurred.

Chicago Cardinal Francis George took extraordinary efforts to gain Maday’s release, according to the records, telling him in a letter in 2000, “It would be a great fulfillment of the millennium spirit to see your captive heart set free.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times – Voices

By Sue Ontiveros

I was an infant when baptized a Roman Catholic. Went to Catholic grammar school, was married in the church, sent my only child to Catholic grammar school (and three of his four years of high school), was extremely active in my parish (particularly when it came to fund-raising) and went to mass faithfully almost every week (contributing generously), until the current cardinal got so ugly over gay marriage in Illinois. It was only in late 2012 that I stopped attending mass because I did not want to give any money to that mean-spirited effort.

Why am I telling you all this? So you realize that I am not and never was someone who is out to “get” the church, as critics of the sexual abuse tragedy and what we saw as the mishandling by the Archdiocese of Chicago often have been labeled. I loved the church and participating in it. But I could not be silent on the abuse of children and what I always felt was a massive effort to hide the problem.

And now, after reading through the documents, it makes me sick to see I was right, but I had no idea how widespread the archdiocese’s efforts to hide the problem and protect the abusing priests rather than the children was.

While many Catholics (among them Catholic priests) appreciated that I would write candidly about the situation, others (particularly those within the hierarchy of the archdiocese) took great issue with what I was writing. Why do you have to stir up old wounds, I would hear repeatedly. There was enough of a backlash that I stopped being a lector at my parish, something I found very fulfilling, because I did not want my outspoken columns to cause a problem there.

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CANADA
GlobalPost

The Canadian Press

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A former priest accused of sexually abusing dozens of Inuit children in a remote Arctic community has denied all charges against him.

Eric Dejaeger is testifying in his own defence in a courtroom in Iqaluit, Nunavut.

With the exception of eight counts he pleaded guilty to as the trial began, Dejaeger says he committed none of the horrific assaults he’s accused of from his time in Igloolik.

That’s where he was posted as an Oblate missionary between 1978 and 1982.

Dejaeger is questioning the memories of the long line of Crown witnesses who testified against him.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

Victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests within the Archdiocese of Chicago responded on Tuesday to the release of thousands of documents that show problematic priests were moved to different parishes, and church officials didn’t tell police about the accusations.

Several victims and sexual abuse attorneys Jeff Anderson and Marc Pearlman talked about the documents at a news conference at the Allerton Hotel.

SEE THE ARCHDIOCESE OF CHICAGO DOCUMENTS HERE

They said the release was in the works for nine years, but more still needs to be done.

They said the Archdiocese performed systematic abuses and cover-ups.

“Time and time again, each of the cardinals and top officials made conscience choices to keep that knowledge secret within the circle of the cardinal or bishops or the officials and only there. And as a result of that, hundreds and hundreds of children and families were in peril by those conscience choices,” said Anderson.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

[Robert Mayer via BishopAccountabilty.org]

By Charles Keeshan

Despite numerous complaints of inappropriate conduct toward children by a former priest at an Arlington Heights parish, officials in the Archdiocese of Chicago chose to move him to other suburban parishes — where other abuse claims arose — and keep secret the reasons for his transfer, according to church documents made public today.

Details regarding the allegations against former priest Robert Mayer, the former associate pastor at St. Edna Catholic Church in the 1980s, were among the hundreds of pages of archdiocese documents released Tuesday detailing the investigations into child molestation accusations against more than 30 priests and church officials’ reactions to them.

Cardinal Francis George said in a letter sent to parishes last week that the archdiocese agreed to turn over the records in an attempt to help the victims heal. “I apologize to all those who have been harmed by these crimes and this scandal,” George wrote.

The archdiocese said all of the files released today occurred before 1996, most were in the 1980s and that eventually all 30 of the cases were reported to authorities.

Among the most troubling cases is that of Mayer who, according to the documents, was assigned to St. Edna in June 1981 after previously serving at the Church of St. Mary Lake Forest parish where, according to later reports, he molested several boys, some of them on dozens of occasions.

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WISCONSIN
Fox 11

[Robert Maday via BishopAccountabilty.org]

The case of a former Chicago priest convicted of sexual assault in Winnebago County is one of 30 covered in documents released Tuesday related to abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Norbert Maday was convicted in 1994 for assaulting boys at a retreat center. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and served 13 years before being paroled.

Among the documents release was a 2002 letter from Chicago’s Cardinal George, saying that the church was trying “A number of avenues to see if your sentence might be reduced or parole be given early. So far, we have not had any success, but we’ll keep trying and I personally hope that you will not lose hope.”

Wisconsin prosecutors eventually got Maday committed as a sexual violent person. He was released from state custody in August. Maday continues to appeal the case.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

Lawyer: George, other cardinals ‘complicit’ in deceiving public about priest sex abuse

By Manya Brachear Pashman, Christy Gutowski and Todd Lighty
Tribune reporters
January 21, 2014

A lawyer for victims of priest sex abuse charged Tuesday that Cardinal Francis George and his predecessors were “complicit” in deceiving the public, parishioners and law enforcement about child-molesting priests in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Jeffrey Anderson, a nationally known victims-rights lawyer, said conscious choices were made by the archdiocese’s top leadership to protect priests.

Anderson’s comments came at an emotional news conference attended by two victims of Chicago archdiocesan priests during which the attorney formally released more than 6,000 pages of church documents detailing child abuse accusations against some 30 priests. He represented the victims in cases against the 30 priests, and the documents were released as part of a court settlement.

The documents show that abusive priests were quietly transferred from parish to parish and that church leaders failed to alert police about allegations of child molestation.

The files, Anderson said, show the archdiocese’s actions were not mistakes but something more sinister.

“The files speak for themselves,” he said. “What the documents demonstrate to us is that all the cardinals, including George, were complicit.”

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CANADA
CBC News

Former Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger spoke in his own defence January 21 at his trial in Iqaluit.

His appearance marked the first time he has addressed the court.

Dejaeger faces dozens of charges related to the alleged sexual abuse of Inuit children.

He has pleaded guilty to eight of the charges.

Dejaeger told the court he wanted “to take responsibility for his actions,” relating to those eight charges.

Defence lawyer Malcolm Kempt lead the former oblate priest to discuss his eight guilty pleas, one by one.

According to Dejaeger, the eight incidents of sexual abuse took place in his bedroom at the mission and involved only young boys.

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CHICAGO (IL)
USA Today

John Bacon, USA TODAY 2:43 p.m. EST January 21, 2014

A paper trail of sexual misconduct involving 30 priests and the Archdiocese of Chicago’s slow and clumsy handling of the cases is revealed in thousands of pages of documents released online Tuesday.

Most of the misconduct took place decades ago — and most of the Roman Catholic priests involved were never criminally prosecuted. Victims’ lawyers, who released the documents, had pressed for public access to the records to show that the archdiocese concealed abuse for decades, including moving priests to new parishes where they molested again.

Lawyer Chris Hurley, whose firm represents more than a dozen people pressing abuse suits against the archdiocese, said accusations against the priests were well known before the documents’ release.

“What the archdiocese had not let us know about is how much they knew all along,” Hurley said.

Meeting schedules, accusatory letters from parishioners and discussions of their claims are included in the release. The documents describe how past archbishops, including Cardinal John Cody and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, often approved the reassignments.

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WALTHAM (MA)
BishopAccountability.org

Easy-to-download files.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas C. Fox | Jan. 21, 2014 NCR Today

For the first time in the decades-long church sex abuse scandal, senior Vatican officials last week appeared before an independent outside body charged with holding it responsible for protecting children.

They took a grilling in Geneva by the U.N.’s Committee on the Rights of the Child for the Vatican’s alleged failure to abide by terms of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Vatican has long insisted it isn’t responsible for abusive priests because they aren’t employees of the Vatican, and they repeated the excuse last Thursday.

“Priests are not functionaries of the Vatican,” Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, told the committee. “Priests are citizens of their own states, and they fall under the jurisdiction of their own country.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
The New York Times

By MICHAEL PAULSON
JAN. 21, 2014

Thousands of documents detailing the Archdiocese of Chicago’s often halting response to sexual abuse allegations against 30 priests were posted online Tuesday after eight years of negotiations between victim advocates and Roman Catholic Church officials.

Most of the abuse was alleged to have taken place years ago, about half of the accused priests are dead and many of the victims have already been given financial settlements from the archdiocese. But the victims have pressed for publication of the files, arguing that the documents will provide an important form of reckoning, chronicling what church officials did, and did not do, when they learned of accusations that priests had molested minors.

“There can’t be safety in the future unless practices that were so dangerous in the past are fully known,” said Jeff Anderson, a lawyer representing many of the victims. “It really is a painful and sorrowful and frankly ugly portrait of what has been, but from that, there is hope that it will not be repeated, and to that end it brings comfort to survivors.”

The documents are certain to place an uncomfortable spotlight on Cardinal Francis E. George, the archbishop of Chicago, who is one of the leading intellectuals in the American church hierarchy and who was president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2007 to 2010, when many dioceses were grappling with the abuse crisis. Although the abuse took place before Cardinal George became archbishop, many of the victims first came forward after his arrival; some of the files concern cases in which Cardinal George’s response has been questioned, including that of the Rev. Joseph R. Bennett, whose disciplinary proceeding the cardinal briefly delayed, and the Rev. Norbert J. Maday, whose prison sentence the cardinal sought to reduce.

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

[with video]

By Mary Ann Ahern | Tuesday, Jan 21, 2014

Thousands of previously-secret documents released Tuesday by the Archdiocese of Chicago reveal in graphic detail how priests accused of sexual abuse were transferred from parish to parish and how concern for the priests’ reputations took precedence over their victims.

The more than 6,000 pages of letters and internal memos from the 1980s and 1990s also detail the reluctance of church leadership and law enforcement officials to investigate the allegations.

The released documents are part of an eight-year-long negotiated settlement between attorney Jeffrey Anderson and the Archdiocese. The files concern 30 Chicago Archdiocesan priests with the abuse dating back more than 20 years ago. Of the 30 priests, fourteen are dead.

While the abuse crisis has long been reported, the files give the first ever look behind the scenes at how the Archdiocese handled the crisis. There are letters from both Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and Cardinal Francis George to the accused priests, memos on internal church meetings, legal documents, letters from the priests themselves, as well as information as to exactly when church leaders learned of the first allegations.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WREX

CHICAGO (AP) – A man who says he was abused by a Catholic priest as a young teen says he hopes that the Archdiocese of Chicago’s release of documents detailing more claims will help others.

Angel Santiago spoke Tuesday at a news conference. Victims’ attorneys posted documents online Tuesday, about a week after receiving them from the archdiocese as part of legal settlements.

Santiago says he was abused in the early 1980s by a priest at a Chicago parish. He says he never told anyone because his father was a church custodian and thought his dad would lose his job.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Johannes Gutenberg Universitat

[Summary: Professor Matthias Pulte is working with the German bishops on a new study of causes of sexual abuse of children by clergy.]

In diesem Jahr startet ein Forschungsprojekt, das den Missbrauchsskandal in der katholischen Kirche aufarbeiten soll. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Matthias Pulte von der Katholisch-Theologischen Fakultät der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (JGU) gehört zu dem Beraterkreis, der sich mit der Auswahl der beteiligten Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler befasst. Dabei ist dem Kirchenrechtler vor allem eines wichtig: “Wir müssen Strukturen schaffen, die verhindern, dass so etwas jemals wieder vorkommt.”

Sein Büro ist eher unscheinbar, die Einrichtung beinahe schon karg. Abgesehen von den Gesetzestexten in den Regalen ist auf den ersten Blick nicht viel zu entdecken. Eine Kerze schmückt den kleinen Besprechungstisch. (Foto: Stefan F. Sämmer)”Soll ich sie anzünden?”, fragt Univ.-Prof. Matthias Pulte. Das Streichholz hat er schnell zur Hand, der Docht des Teelichts fängt Feuer, ein Hauch Wärme breitet sich aus.

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KANADA
BRF

[Summary: Missionary priest Eric Dejaeger, was defrocked in 2011.]

Der flämische Missionar Eric Dejaeger, der in Kanada wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs von Minderjährigen vor Gericht steht, ist kein Priester mehr. Der Papst hat bereits 2011 die Laisierung verfügt, nachdem der Vatikan die Akte erhalten hatte.

Der flämische Missionar Eric Dejaeger, der in Kanada wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs von Minderjährigen vor Gericht steht, ist kein Priester mehr. Papst Benedikt XVI. hat ihm bereits 2011 den Priesterstand aberkannt, nachdem der Vatikan die Akte über Dejaeger erhalten hatte.

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CHICAGO (IL)
The Worthy Adversry

Posted by Joelle Casteix on January 21, 2014

I have spent all morning going through the documents recently released by the Archdiocese of Chicago (before you applaud any proposed Archdiocese “transparency,” remember that the documents were only released because the court ordered Cardinal George to turn them over).

Cardinal George has spent a lot of time during the past week trying to minimize the documents’ importance and impact. It is now painfully apparent why: George personally covered up for abusive priests.

Case in point: Joseph Bennett

From the summary timeline:
The Cardinal’s deposition and the file also suggest that the Archdiocese:
May have withheld evidence from the Review Board;
Had more concerns about Bennett’s canonical rights than child safety;
Gave misleading information to other bishops about Bennett;
Claimed that a victim’s accurate memory of freckles and other markings on Bennett’s body were not enough evidence to remove Bennett from ministry;
Told parishioners to “question accusers;”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago

January 21, 2014

The documents made public by Jeffrey Anderson relate to 30 Archdiocesan priests accused of abusing minors at various times during the last half century. All of the documents relate to cases that date back many years, in some cases, decades. Ninety-five percent of these cases occurred prior to 1988. Today no priest with even one substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor serves in ministry in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

The Archdiocese acknowledges that its leaders made some decisions decades ago that are now difficult to justify. They made those decisions in accordance with the prevailing knowledge at the time. In the past 40 years, society has evolved in dealing with matters related to abuse. Our understanding of and response to domestic violence, sexual harassment, date rape, and clerical sexual abuse have undergone significant change and so has the Archdiocese of Chicago. While we complied with the reporting laws in place at the time, the Church and its leaders have acknowledged repeatedly that they wished they had done more and done it sooner, but now are working hard to regain trust, to reach out to victims and their families, and to make certain that all children and youth are protected.

We realize the information included in these documents is upsetting. It is painful to read. It is not the Church we know or the Church we want to be. The Archdiocese sincerely apologizes for the hurt and suffering of the victims and their families as a result of this abuse. Our hope is through this release of documents and the work we are doing through our Office for the Protection of Children and Youth we can help further promote healing among all those affected by these crimes.

The Archdiocese of Chicago is in full compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, adopted by the U.S. Bishops in Dallas in June 2002. We refer all reports of sexual abuse immediately to civil authorities. The Archdiocese’s independent Review Board examines the findings of all investigations and makes recommendations to the archbishop regarding fitness for ministry and safety of children.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WLS

January 21, 2014 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — Priest sex abuse files – thousands of pages of information collected by the Archdiocese of Chicago on 30 Chicago priests – are now public.

Key documents | Priest Documents

The documents provide the broadest look yet into the details of what the archdiocese knew and did – or didn’t do – about the scandal. More than 6,000 pages of documents were released to the attorneys last week, and they made the documents public on Tuesday.

Victim attorneys say the documents show that the archdiocese concealed the abuse for decades and operated “in denial.”

“A portrait of misplaced priorities. A portrait of misplaced loyalty,” attorney Jeff Anderson said. “The documents tell a tale that has been longstanding, going back from the 50s and demonstrating through at least 2006 conscious choices. Those choices were made by the top official.”

The Chicago Archdiocese released a statement that read, in part: “The Archdiocese acknowledges that its leaders made some decisions decades ago that are now difficult to justify. They made those decisions in accordance with the prevailing knowledge at the time . . . While we complied with the reporting laws in place at the time, the Church and its leaders have acknowledged repeatedly that they wished they had done more and done it sooner, but now are working hard to regain trust, to reach out to victims and their families, and to make certain that all children and youth are protected.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
WBUR

The Chicago Archdiocese has turned over 6,000 pages of church documents to the lawyers of victims of clergy sex abuse. The victims’ attorneys have released the documents online, including complaints and personnel files on 30 priests, 14 of whom are now dead.

Rev. Thomas Doyle is a canon lawyer who has been an expert witness on behalf of clergy sex abuse victims. He joins Here & Now’s Robin Young to discuss the contents of the documents.

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CHICAGO (IL)
San Antonio Express-News

CHICAGO (AP) — Attorneys for victims alleging sex abuse by priests say documents released by the Archdiocese of Chicago are a step forward but fall short of what attorneys wanted.

Jeff Anderson is an attorney representing victims. At a news conference Tuesday, he said documents detailing abuse allegations show church officials hid abuse. Anderson says the documents reflect “misplaced priorities” on the part of the nation’s third-largest archdiocese.

Attorneys posted documents online Tuesday, about a week after receiving them from the archdiocese as part of legal settlements. The documents are for 30 of 65 priests for whom the archdiocese says it has credible allegations.

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CHICAGO (IL)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 21, 2014

CHICAGO — A mother who says her son was abused by a suburban Chicago Catholic priest says the release of documents detailing abuse claims will help old wounds heal.

Kathy Laarveld (LAR’-veld) said at a Tuesday news conference that it’s been a struggle for years. She says her son has to open an “extremely painful scar” but it’s going to heal more quickly with the information going public.

Victim attorney Marc Pearlman says the documents show a systematic coverage of abuse.

Attorneys posted documents online Tuesday, about a week after receiving them from the archdiocese as part of legal settlements. The documents are for 30 of 65 priests for whom the archdiocese says it has credible allegations.

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CANADA
CBC News

A man accused of sex crimes against Inuit children is speaking today in Nunavut’s court.

Eric Dejaeger is a former Roman Catholic priest.

His appearance marks the first time he speaks in his own defence.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

[Rev. Norbert Maday]
[timeline]

BY ART GOLAB Staff Reporter January 21, 2014

In 1994, the Rev. Norbert Maday a former associate pastor at Our Lady of the Ridge Parish in Chicago Ridge, was sentenced 20 years in prison for molesting two teenage boys in separate 1986 parish outings to Oshkosh, Wis.

Maday claimed he was innocent at the trial. Since his conviction, other victims have come forward with allegations dating to the 1970s, and documents show that archdiocese officials often visited Maday, telephoned him or mailed details of the new allegations to him. In response, Maday denied some incidents, disputed various details or said he didn’t know the accusers according to church memos.

In one handwritten letter headed “Greetings all Good in the Name of Jesus,” Maday stated “Regarding the cases you presented, I have a clear conscience since I did nothing immoral nor illegal with regard to those whose names you brought up.”

However in a telephone interview, Maday once “generally admitted to ‘tummy rubbing,’ giving back rubs and ‘grabbing a leg,’ all activities he stated he performed on minor youths at St. Bede,” a church memo recorded.

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CHICAGO (IL)
RT

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has released thousands of documents related to its handling of sex abuse scandals that involved 30 priests and dated back decades.

Although the data covers only about half of the 65 priests with credible allegations against them, more than 6,000 documents were posted online Tuesday as part of a settlement with abuse victims who’ve filed lawsuits against the church.

Church officials stated that most of the abuse described by the documents occurred before 1988, and none after 1996, when Cardinal Francis George became head of the archdiocese. The files depict the behavior under George’s predecessors, however, who often sheltered accused priests from the public, reassigned them to other parishes when new allegations surfaced, and only removed priests from their posts decades after knowing they molested children.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian

Lizzy Davies in Rome
The Guardian, Tuesday 21 January 2014

A Vatican prelate already on trial for an alleged plot to smuggle €20m (£16.5m) into Italy on board a plane faces fresh accusations that he used his accounts at the Vatican bank to launder money.

Prosecutors in the southern Italian city of Salerno said on Tuesday that Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, a 61-year-old former accountant in the Vatican’s asset management division, had been served with an arrest warrant on suspicion of using offshore accounts to funnel millions of euros in fake donations through his accounts at the institution.

Scarano, already under house arrest following his high-profile detention last June, was accused alongside another priest and a notary. Police said on Tuesday they had made seizures of assets and property worth millions of euros. Fifty-two others were reportedly being investigated.

The investigation into money-laundering allegations was already under way when Scarano was arrested last year. At that time, he denied the accusations through his lawyer, Silverio Sica, and, on Tuesday, Sica said his client had merely taken donations from people he thought were wanting to fund a home for the terminally ill.

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

The Archdiocese of Chicago on Tuesday released the following statement in response to the release of previously secret documents detailing sexual abuse by priests.

The documents made public by Jeffrey Anderson relate to 30 Archdiocesan priests accused of abusing minors at various times during the last half century. All of the documents relate to cases that date back many years, in some cases, decades. Ninety-five percent of these cases occurred prior to 1988. Today no priest with even one substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor serves in ministry in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

The Archdiocese acknowledges that its leaders made some decisions decades ago that are now difficult to justify. They made those decisions in accordance with the prevailing knowledge at the time. In the past 40 years, society has evolved in dealing with matters related to abuse. Our understanding of and response to domestic violence, sexual harassment, date rape, and clerical sexual abuse have undergone significant change and so has the Archdiocese of Chicago. While we complied with the reporting laws in place at the time, the Church and its leaders have acknowledged repeatedly that they wished they had done more and done it sooner, but now are working hard to regain trust, to reach out to victims and their families, and to make certain that all children and youth are protected.

We realize the information included in these documents is upsetting. It is painful to read. It is not the Church we know or the Church we want to be. The Archdiocese sincerely apologizes for the hurt and suffering of the victims and their families as a result of this abuse. Our hope is through this release of documents and the work we are doing through our Office for the Protection of Children and Youth we can help further promote healing among all those affected by these crimes.

The Archdiocese of Chicago is in full compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, adopted by the U.S. Bishops in Dallas in June 2002. We refer all reports of sexual abuse immediately to civil authorities. The Archdiocese’s independent Review Board examines the findings of all investigations and makes recommendations to the archbishop regarding fitness for ministry and safety of children.

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CHICAGO (IL)
KERA

By MARK MEMMOTT
Originally published on Tue January 21, 2014

Thousands of pages of what were once secret church documents related to the way the Archdiocese of Chicago dealt with 30 priests who it believes abused children in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s are now online.

They give “an unprecedented and gut-wrenching look at how the Archdiocese of Chicago for years failed to protect children from abusive priests,” writes the Chicago Tribune.

They also “provide new details and insights into how the nation’s third-largest archdiocese quietly shuttled accused priests from parish to parish and failed to notify police of child abuse allegations,” the Tribune adds.

The papers “cover only 30 of the at least 65 clergy for whom the archdiocese says it has substantiated claims of child abuse,” The Associated Press says.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

[Daniel Mark Holihan]
[timeline]

BY KIM JANSSEN Staff Reporter January 21, 2014

Daniel Mark Holihan, 83, was one of 14 priests named in lawsuits the archdiocese settled in 2005 for an undisclosed amount.

Known to students at Our Lady of the Snows as “Happy Hands” Holihan — because of his habit of being suspiciously grabby during horseplay with children — he allegedly started abusing boys in 1968. Though restrictions were placed on him after he was accused of abuse in 1986, Holihan wasn’t removed from public ministry until 2002.

Records released this week show some church officials were conflicted about how to handle his case.

A parent who wrote to Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in 1986 alleged the parish had known of Holihan’s problems for some time by then. The mom said she had previously dismissed the allegations as “idle gossip” but had since heard from friends she trusted whose children she believed were sexually abused.

“I have no hardcore evidence against our pastor,” she wrote the cardinal. “Please get him some help, or get him away from children.”

The rumors included the suggestion that Holihan was taking boys to his cottage, but Holihan denied them and there is no record of police being called.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

[Rev. Robert Mayer]
[timeline]

BY ART GOLAB Staff Reporter January 21, 2014

In 1982, the pastor at St. Edna Church in Arlington Heights complained to the archdiocese that his associate pastor, the Rev. Robert Mayer, gave teenage boys alcohol; that young men were seen in his rectory “at all hours of the day and night;” that Mayer showed pornographic videos and that an incident occurred “concerning the measuring of genitals with a group of teens.”

Nine years later, Mayer was charged with fondling a 14-year-old girl in a church rectory at St. Odilo Parish in Berwyn. He was found guilty and sentenced to three years.

But during that nine-year interval, allegations of inappropriate behavior during a previous assignment in Lake Forest came to light, as well multiple allegations from a later assignment in Des Plaines, yet Mayer continued to be transferred to other churches and was ultimately promoted to pastor.

These facts were generally known, but the documents released Wednesday shed light on how it happened.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

[Vince McCaffrey]
[timeline]

BY KIM JANSSEN Staff Reporter January 21, 2014

Former priest Vince McCaffrey has been a notorious figure since 2002, when hundreds of photos showing boys as young as 6 being beaten, gagged and locked in cages were found hidden under his mattress.

Currently serving a 20-year sentence in Massachusetts for child porn that’s believed to be the longest of its kind ever handed to a priest, the 61-year-old has admitted molesting between 12 and 14 victims between 1976 and 1990, but he is accused of molesting as many as 50 in at least four parishes in Chicago and the suburbs: Our Lady Help of Christians on the West Side, Our Lady of Loretto in Hometown, St. Victor’s in Calumet City and St. Joseph the Worker in Wheeling.

The archdiocese paid out $4 million to settle a suit brought by four of his victims in 2003.

Records released Tuesday show how McCaffrey’s fellow priests and archdiocese officials helped cover up his serial sex abuse for more than a decade, allowing him to keep abusing children for years after they’d first been alerted to his wrongdoing.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

BY FRANCINE KNOWLES Religion Reporter January 21, 2014

On Oct. 23, 1967, then Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal John Cody inquired in a brief memo to a Monsignor Byrne: “What are you planning to do about this Father Kelly?”

Nowhere near enough was done, contends 62-year-old Joseph Iocono, who said he was sexually abused in his preteens by the late Archdiocese of Chicago priest Thomas F. Kelly.

According to documents from the archdiocese, more than a dozen allegations of sexual abuse against minors were made to the church against Kelly. The abuse was alleged to have occurred while he served at three different parishes between 1967 and 1973, including St. John Vianney, St. Catherine of Genoa and St. Therese of the Infant Jesus (Little Flower).

The documents show Kelly was accused of plying minors with alcohol, fondling them, performing oral sex on them and showing them pornography.

“I think that it’s important to see how the church mishandled these situations,” said Iocono, who welcomes the release of the documents and says he was abused in the rectory at St. John Vianney in Northlake. “The priest that abused me was moved … to different parishes and he abused at other parishes.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

Links to documents:
abusedinchicago.com
Archdiocese documents: andersonadvocates.com

BY FRANCINE KNOWLES, KIM JANSSEN aND ART GOLAB Staff Reporters January 21, 2014

The Archdiocese of Chicago took steps to conceal sexual abuse by serial abusers, promoted and moved priests with multiple accusations against them and had victims making the allegations investigated, archdiocese documents released Tuesday reveal.

The documents cover abuse allegations against 30 priests that surfaced under the leadership of Cardinals John Cody, Joseph Bernardin and Francis George.

Conspicuously absent in many of the more than 6,000 pages of documents were any signs that many of the allegations were ever immediately reported to law enforcement authorities for their investigation.

Among the revelations in the documents:

◆ Vincent McCaffrey, who was ultimately sentenced to 20 years for child pornography, had been allowed by Bernardin and Cody to remain in ministry and relocate to other parishes after allegations of abuse. McCaffrey ultimately admitted to molesting more than a dozen victims between 1976 and 1990. He wasn’t defrocked until 2010.

◆ Bernardin agreed to appoint Robert Mayer as pastor of a Berwyn church after multiple allegations of sexual abuse were levied against him. The promotion was supported by the church’s board of vicars. After more allegations surfaced, Bernardin forced him to resign.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

Joseph R. Bennett:
Deceased. Affiliated with Holy Ghost Catholic Church in South Holland; St. John de la Salle, Our Lady of Fatima, St. Christina and St. Agnes in Chicago; and Our Lady of the Ridge in Chicago Ridge. Removed him from Holy Ghost in January 2006.

Robert C. Becker:
Deceased. Was among 11 priests named in a $12.6 million settlement with sexual abuse victims announced by the archdiocese in August 2008.

Coverage: Oct. 3, 2003

Kenneth Brigham:
No information available.

William J. Cloutier:
Affiliated with St. Damien Church in Oak Forest and St. Peter Church in Skokie. Placed on administrative leave in September 1991 while at St. Peter. Was among the current or former priests named in an $8 million settlement with sexual abuse victims announced by the archdiocese in October 2003.

Oct. 3, 2003

Robert Craig:
Of Lake Villa. Was named in a series of settlements with the archdiocese and a dozen current and former priests, reached since March 2006 and totaling more than $6.65 million.

May 30, 2007

John W. Curran:
Deceased. Affiliated with St. Christina’s Church in Chicago, St. Bede the Venerable in Chicago, Quigley Preparatory in Chicago, St. Catherine of Siena Oak Park, St. Albert the Great in Burbank and St. Joseph’s in Homewood.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

Chicago clergymen named in new archdiocese documents

2006 list of Chicago archdiocese priests accused of sexual misconduct

video

By Manya Brachear Pashman, Christy Gutowski and Todd Lighty
Tribune reporters
January 21, 2014

Thousands of pages of secret church documents released Tuesday as part of a court settlement provide an unprecedented and gut-wrenching look at how the Archdiocese of Chicago for years failed to protect children from abusive priests.

The documents provide new details and insights into how the nation’s third-largest archdiocese quietly shuttled accused priests from parish to parish and failed to notify police of child abuse allegations. The paper trail, going back decades, also portrays painfully slow progress toward reform, accountability and openness.

Most of the 30 clergymen tied to the documents were not prosecuted. They were shielded by Roman Catholic Church officials who thought the men could be cured with counseling or bishops blinded by a belief in second chances and forgiveness.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Jeff Anderson & Associates

{Go directly to the Anderson site to click on to the files.]

Cardinal George’s Knowledge of Abusive Priests:

Brigham, Kenneth
Maday, Norbet
J. Curran, John
Holihan, Daniel M.

Priests Placed Back in Ministry Despite Danger to Minors:

Brigham, Kenneth
O’Brien, William
J. Skriba
Raymond Mayer
Robert E. Curran
John Cloutier
William J. Hagan
James C. Fitzharris
Joseph L. Becker
Robert C. Snieg
Marion J. Holihan
Daniel M. Job
Thomas J. McCormack
Swider, Henry P.

Priests Criminally Convicted for Abuse of Minors:

Maday, Norbet J.
Fitzharris, Joseph L.
McCaffrey, Vincent E.
Mayer, Robert E.

Reasons for Removal of or Restrictions on Predator Priests Other than Abuse of Minors:

Skriba, Raymond
Swade, Thomas J.

Laicized Priests:

Job, Thomas J.
Fitzharris, Joseph L.
Hagan, James C.
Steel, James R.

Abusive Priests whom Cardinal George or Cardinal Bernardin Chose Not to Laicize:

Bennett, Joseph R.
Curran, John
Maday, Norbet J.
O’Brien, William J.
Ruge, Kenneth C.

PRIEST FILES
• Becker, Robert C. Timeline
• Bennett, Joseph R. Timeline
• Brigham, Kenneth. Timeline
• Cloutier, William J. Timeline
• Craig, Robert D. Timeline
• Curran, John Timeline
• Fitzharris, Joseph L. Timeline
• Hagan, James C. Timeline
• Holihan, Daniel M. Timeline
• Job, Thomas J. Timeline
• Kelly, Thomas F. Timeline
• Kissane, Joseph P. Timeline
• Maday, Norbet J. Timeline
• Mayer, Robert E. Timeline
• McCaffrey, Vincent E. Timeline
• O’Brien, William J. Timeline
• Owens, Joseph Timeline
• Pallakunnen, Emmanuel Timeline
• Romano, Russell L. Timeline
• Ruge, Kenneth C. Timeline
• Skriba, Raymond Timeline
• Snieg, Marion J. Timeline
• Steel, James R. Timeline
• Stewart, Victor Timeline
• Strand, Ralph S. Timeline
• Swade, Thomas J. Timeline
• Swider, Henry P. Timeline
• Turlo, Walter J. Timeline
• Ulatowski, Donald F. Timeline
• Weston, Michael Timeline

SELECTED DOCUMENTS OBTAINED THROUGH OTHER MEANS

• Przybylo, Chester J. Timeline
• McCormack, Daniel J. Timeline

DEPOSITIONS
Francis Cardinal George Deposition Bishop Raymond E. Goerdert Deposition

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

[with video]

Today, attorneys publicly released the files on 30 Archdiocese of Chicago priests accused of sexually abusing children.

SEE THE ARCHDIOCESE OF CHICAGO DOCUMENTS HERE

Last week, the Archdiocese handed over nearly 6,000 pages of documents to victims’ attorneys.

Chicago Archdiocese releases documents related to sex abuse scandalChurch officials say they are concerned for those who suffered, and regret the mistakes made by the Archdiocese.

At a news conference today, sexual abuse survivors and their attorneys will share and discuss the documents.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Sun Herald

The Associated Press
January 21, 2014

For decades, the Archdiocese of Chicago struggled to prevent a sexual abuse scandal from going public. It tried to monitor and manage priests accused of abusing children, forced them to get psychological counseling and moved them from parish to parish.

Lawyers for some of the victims planned Tuesday to release some 6,000 pages of documents detailing the cases of 30 accused priests as part of a legal settlement with the church.

—

Here is a timeline of key events in the decades-long scandal:

— April 25, 1982: Archbishop John Cody dies. He is succeeded by Joseph Bernadin.

— Nov. 15, 1985: The Rev. Robert Friese becomes the first priest from the archdiocese to be convicted of a sex crime in a criminal prosecution. He’s sentenced to four years of probation for molesting a teenage boy.

— Oct. 25, 1991: Cardinal Bernadin sets up the Cardinal’s Commission on Clerical Misconduct to investigate abuse allegations and review existing policies after a succession of public allegations and the indictment of a priest, the Rev. Robert Mayer.

— Dec. 11, 1992: Mayer is convicted of abusing a teenage girl in a church rectory in Berwyn. In February 1993 he becomes the first priest from the archdiocese to be sentenced to prison, receiving a three-year term.

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CHICAGO (IL)
York Daily Record

The Associated Press
UPDATED: 01/21/2014

CHICAGO—The release of 6,000 pages of documents from the Archdiocese of Chicago casts new light on how the church dealt with a mounting sex abuse scandal involving priests. The records were made public Tuesday by lawyers for some victims after a legal settlement. Below are excerpts from the documents regarding some of the archdiocese’s more well-known accused priests:
Rev. Robert E. Mayer

Robert E. Mayer was accused in a 1983 lawsuit of exposing himself to several altar boys from St. Edna’s in Arlington Heights during a lake outing and trying to fondle two boys.

While that litigation was pending, another priest at the church, Rev. John J. Hurley, wrote to the archdiocese to say the mother of one alleged victim felt “the law firm of the Archdiocese is steamrolling over her and her husband.” The mother, he continued, suspected the church’s strategy was to draw out the litigation until the financial strain became too much for the family.

“She feels powerless,” the letter said. “She feels hurt and sad and rejected.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 21, 2014

CHICAGO — Archdiocese of Chicago officials say the nation’s third-largest archdiocese made some decisions decades ago that are “now difficult to justify.”

The comments came Tuesday as documents were released to the public outlining claims of child abuse against clergy members.

Archdiocese officials say they complied with reporting laws at the time, but that church and its leaders have acknowledged repeatedly that they wished they’d done more sooner.

Church officials say they are working to regain trust and reach out to victims and their families.

The documents were turned over to victims’ attorneys and posted online Tuesday. They cover 30 of the at least 65 clergy for whom the archdiocese says it has substantiated claims of child abuse.

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Girls’ Globe

by Marcia Banasko

Last week on January 16th in Geneva, Switzerland, a historic milestone took place as the Holy See went before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The committee was seeking detailed information on the sexual violence against children by Catholic clergy around the world, its cover up within the church and the denial of justice and compensation for victims.

A day earlier I went to a special screening of Silence in the House of God, a HBO documentary which details the first known protests against clergy sexual abuse in the USA. The documentary also exposures other cases of sexual abuse committed by Catholic clergy around the world. After the documentary, the Center for Constitutional Rights hosted a panel discussion with survivors of clergy sexual abuse. It was emotional to hear their stories and inspiring to witness their unbroken spirits and determination to secure justice.

The realities of clergy sexual abuse of women and minors both boys and girls is now more widely known. However, it is still a taboo subject for many and some victims feel as though they have nowhere to turn with little support from their communities due to the status of clergy persons.

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FLORIDA
Orlando Sentinel

By Susan Jacobson, Orlando Sentinel
January 21, 2014

A jury in Lake County has awarded $12.5 million to a man who, as a child, was sexually abused by a Baptist minister, his attorney announced Monday.

“It’s one of the biggest [monetary awards] in Florida — maybe the most for a single victim,” said the man’s attorney, Ron Weil of Weil Quaranta McGovern of Miami.

The jury agreed unanimously on the award Saturday morning after a six-day trial on the issue of damages. A separate jury in May 2012 held the Florida Baptist Convention liable in the case, saying the organization didn’t adequately investigate Douglas W. Myers, 64, who previously had been accused of inappropriate conduct with children.

“This was a long journey for this child who needlessly suffered because the institutions he trusted failed to protect him,” Weil said in a statement. “In light of the evidence presented, the jury surely understood the devastating impact on this young man.”

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VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg Businessweek

By Andrew Frye and Alessandra Migliaccio January 21, 2014

Italy’s finance police advanced their investigation into alleged money laundering at the Vatican, saying “fake donations” were used to move funds from offshore companies through the Holy See’s bank.

The cash was allegedly deposited into accounts used by Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, a priest and former accountant at the Vatican, who was arrested in June for plotting to cross the Swiss-Italian border with 20 million euros ($27 million), Italian finance police said today. Assets were seized as part of the probe, according to a finance police statement issued in the southern city of Salerno.

The Italian investigation caused a shakeup at the Vatican Bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, and Paolo Cipriani resigned as director in July. Pope Francis, in his first year as pontiff, has sought to tighten oversight of the bank.

“The Vatican has been collaborating with Italian authorities from the very beginning of this investigation and continues to do so,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said by phone. “The Vatican has responded to all the requests for information received from Italy and is waiting for a response to its own information requests.”

The police didn’t enter the bank, Lombardi said.

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Mail (UK)

‘Monsignor 500 Euros’ on trial for ‘plotting to smuggle 20million euros (£16.5million) into Italy’ re-arrested for ‘using his Vatican bank accounts to launder money’

By HANNAH ROBERTS

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, the Vatican prelate accused of trying to smuggle 20 million euros into Italy on an airforce jet, is facing fresh legal woes after he was issued with another arrest warrant.

The former bishop of Salerno, nicknamed ‘Monsignor 500 Euros’, after his favourite bank note, is now accused of laundering millions of euros through the Vatican bank by disguising it as charitable donations.

Another priest has been put under house arrest as part of the investigation, and a notary has been suspended.

Until his arrest in June last year Scarano was chief accountant for the Vatican’s property portfolio. He denies charges that he conspired with a former Italian secret service agent and a financial broker in a failed bid to bring the cash from Switzerland to Italy in a military plane, avoiding customs.

Investigators yesterday ordered the seizure of assets, and froze bank accounts with a combined value of six million euros.

Financial police in the southern city of Salerno said that Scarano’s Vatican bank accounts had been used to transfer millions of euros in fictitious donations from offshore companies.

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VATICAN CITY
adnkronos

Vatican City, 21 January (AKI) – A senior Vatican cleric who is on trial for plotting to smuggle 20 million euros from Switzerland to Italy has been re-arrested on fresh money-laundering allegations.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, nicknamed ‘Monsignor 500’ for his habit of flashing large banknotes around was put under house arrest on suspicion of using his Vatican bank accounts to launder money.

Scarano’s Vatican bank accounts had been used to transfer millions of euros in bogus donations from offshore companies, finance police in the southern city of Salerno said in a statement on Tuesday.

Police were reported to be impounding real estate and financial assets worth millions of euros as part of a judicial probe of the money-laundering case.

Another priest and a notary who was suspended from his profession were also placed under house arrest in relation to the new case.

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VATICAN CITY
NEWS.com.au

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano accused of using Vatican bank accounts to launder millions of dollars

A VATICAN monsignor already on trial for allegedly plotting to smuggle 20 million euros ($30.8 million) from Switzerland to Italy has been arrested in a separate case for allegedly using his Vatican bank accounts to launder money.

Financial police in the southern Italian city of Salerno said Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, dubbed “Monsignor 500” for his purported favored banknotes, had transferred millions of euros in fictitious donations from offshore companies through his accounts at the Vatican’s Institute for Religious Works.

Police said they seized 6.5 million euros in real estate and bank accounts on Tuesday, including Msgr Scarano’s luxurious Salerno apartment, filled with gilt-framed oil paintings, ceramic vases and other fancy antiques.

A local priest was also placed under house arrest and a notary public was suspended for alleged involvement in the money-laundering plot. Police said in all, 52 people were under investigation.

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VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

Philip Pullella
Reuters

January 21, 2014

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – A former Vatican prelate on trial for an alleged plot to smuggle 20 million euros into Italy was further charged on Tuesday with laundering millions through the Vatican bank, police and his lawyer said.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano and two other people served with arrest warrants were suspected of laundering and making false statements, police said. The others were Father Luigi Noli, a friend of Scarano suspended from his Vatican job last year, and a notary.

Fifty-two other people were being investigated on suspicion of abetting money laundering, police said.

Scarano, 61, is under house arrest in his native Salerno, near Naples, and charged with conspiring to smuggle some 20 million euros from Switzerland with a financier and a former secret services officer for rich shipbuilder friends in Salerno. The money smuggling trial began on December 3 in Rome.

The new charge, which came after a separate, year-long investigation, concerns suspected money laundering through his accounts at the Vatican bank, police said.

A police statement said millions of euros in “false donations” from offshore companies moved through Scarano’s accounts at the Vatican bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR).

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