ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (posted 20 January 2014)

Broken Rites can cite a recent Australian case to demonstrate how the Vatican takes a lenient attitude towards the church’s sexual abuse of children. In 2006 the Vatican “punished” one Australian priest by ordering him “to live a life of prayer and penance and to offer Mass every Friday for his victims”.

This was despite him admitting to numerous “crimes”, Australia’s national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse has been told.

At a public hearing in Sydney on 19 December 2013, the royal commission was told that this person is still listed as a priest of the diocese of Lismore in northern New South Wales.

These revelations came during evidence by the Bishop of Lismore, Geoffrey Jarrett. The bishop was being questioned by the senior barrister assisting the royal commission, Ms Gail Furness.

The priest’s name was suppressed during the royal commission hearing and it has been deleted from the published transcript (on pages 3390 to 3394, dated 19 December 2013, available on the commission’s website).

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The next hearings of the Australian royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, focusing on four Salvation Army Boys’ Homes (Riverview, Bexley, Box Hill and Alkira), is due to start in a week. In fact there are only 3 more working days left, due to the Australia Day holiday (Australia’s National Day) long week-end. Two of those days will be taken up anyway.

The Wednesday hearing is being held to give the YMCA another chance to argue against the royal commission’s recommendation that it consider firing its CEO, and referring another employee for prosecution for giving misleading evidence to the commission.

The Thursday hearing will revisit the previous “Towards Healing” session on the Catholic Church’s handling of victims complaints. The Catholic Church gets another bite at the cherry on the findings relating to it.

For the past four hearings, or “case studies” as the royal commission calls them, there has been about two weeks given for people to scrutinize the formal submissions to it from the relevant organizations, and interested parties.

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CHICAGO (IL)
The New York Times

By MICHAEL PAULSON
JAN. 21, 2014

Thousands of documents detailing sexual abuse allegations against 30 Chicago-area priests are to be released to the public on Tuesday, after eight years of negotiations between victim advocates and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.

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.

“Publishing for all to read the actual records of these crimes raises transparency to a new level,” Cardinal Francis E. George said in a letter distributed to parishes this month. “It will be helpful, we pray, for some, but painful for many.”

The archdiocese turned the estimated 6,000 pages of documents over to lawyers for abuse victims last Wednesday; the lawyers said they planned to publish the documents online on Tuesday. An archdiocesan lawyer told reporters last week that 95 percent of the allegations in the files concerned conduct before 1988, and none after 1996; 14 of the 30 accused priests are dead, and none is still serving in ministry. Cardinal George, who has been the archbishop of Chicago since 1997, has said he never met many of the accused priests.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Ulster Herald

UPWARDS on 100 people from the Omagh and Strabane areas are said to have submitted evidence to the most wide-ranging investigation of allegations of institutional child abuse in the UK to date.

This will be the second week of hearings as part of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, which is estimated to cost £19million. Margaret McGuckin from Survivors NI (SAIVA), which is assisting survivors and victims of abuse to tell their story, said that the group has been contacted by dozens of victims from West Tyrone.

Ms McGuckin is campaigning for victims after suffering abuse at a Sisters of Nazareth orphanage in Belfast from the age of three.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Fox News

CHICAGO – Thousands of pages of documents showing how the Archdiocese of Chicago handled the sexual abuse of children by priests will be made public Tuesday, providing the broadest look yet into the details of what the church knew and did — or didn’t do — about the scandal.

The archdiocese, one of the largest and most influential in the U.S., handed over last week more than 6,000 pages of documents to victims’ attorneys, who said they will show the archdiocese concealed abuse for decades, including moving priests to new parishes where they molested again.

The disclosures involving 30 priests were made as part of legal settlements with abuse victims, and are similar to disclosures made in other dioceses in the U.S. in recent years that showed how the Roman Catholic Church shielded priests and failed for many years to report child sex abuse to authorities.

Chicago officials said most of the abuse occurred before 1988 and none after 1996.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Univision

[con video]

La arquidiócesis católica de Chicago revelará este martes uno de sus secretos mejor guardados, la identidad de al menos 30 sacerdotes a quienes se les ha comprobado haber abusado de menores de edad.

No es la primera vez que la arquidiócesis de Chicago se encuentra en el ojo del huracán, aunque en esta ocasión, la organización mundial SNAP, que aboga por las víctimas de abuso sexual a manos de clérigos afirma que no basta con que revelen 30 nombres de curas acusados de este delito sino que debe informar cuál ha sido el paradero de estos curas, reportó Viviana Ávila a Univision.
Opina sobre esta nota en nuestros foros

“Le pedimos especialmente a los católicos que nos ayuden a rastrear a estos sacerdotes, no solamente a los 30 sino a las docenas y docenas que hay aquí y que aunque ya no están en la iglesia, están viviendo y trabajando dentro de la comunidad, poniendo en riesgo a los menores”, afirmó David Clohessy, director de SNAP.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

Two Video Discussions of Pope Benedict’s Defrocking of 400 Priests Who Had Abused Minors: “They’ve Been Kicked into Society with No Repercussions Whatsoever”

Two video interviews discussing the AP report that, in 2011 and 2012 Pope Benedict defrocked some 400 priests who has abused children: in the first, Judy Block-Jones, Midwest Director of SNAP, speaks to Al Jazeera, and in the second, Father Thomas Reese and Joelle Casteix (also of SNAP) speak to Milissa Rehberger of MSNBC:

In the video at the top of the posting, Judy Block-Jones asks, “Where are these [defrocked] priests? . . . If the child predators are still out there roaming the streets, kids are not safe”:

And here’s Joelle Casteix: “Yes, these men were defrocked, but as we just heard, they are out there. We don’t know who these men are, we don’t know what kinds of crimes they committed, we don’t know what countries they’re in, we don’t know anything about them. They’ve been kicked into society with no repercussions whatsoever”:

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

On Tuesday, attorneys will publicly release the files on 30 Archdiocese of Chicago priests accused of sexually abusing children.

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

Church officials say they are concerned for those who suffered, and regret the mistakes made by the Archdiocese.

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

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

BY TOM HENEGHAN, RELIGION EDITOR
PARIS Mon Jan 20, 2014

(Reuters) – An influential aide to Pope Francis criticized the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog on Monday and urged the conservative prelate to be more flexible about reforms being discussed in the Roman Catholic Church.

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, the head of a “kitchen cabinet” the pope created to draw up reform proposals, said that Archbishop Gerhard Mueller – who has opposed any loosening of Church rules on divorce – was a classic German theology professor who thought too much in rigid black-and-white terms.

“The world isn’t like that, my brother,” Rodriguez said in a German newspaper interview, rhetorically addressing Mueller in a rare public criticism among senior Church figures.

“You should be a bit flexible when you hear other voices, so you don’t just listen and say, ‘here is the wall’,” Rodriguez said in an interview with the daily Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger.

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IRELAND
RH Reality Check

by Karen Smith Rotabi, United Arab Emirates University
January 20, 2014

Philomena, starring Judi Dench and directed by Stephen Frears, received four Oscar nominations last week. The film is based on a true story chronicled in Martin Sixsmith’s 2009 book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search. Captured is a little known piece of adoption history—the forcible removal of Irish children from their unwed mothers and then adoption by U.S. families. This extraordinary story illustrates the grave injustices of the Magdalene Laundries that were operated under the authority of the Catholic Church. Irish girls and women were forced into slave labor, working long hours cleaning in the laundries. The labor took place in hot, crowded, and generally miserable conditions.

The slavery that took place resulted in a recent legal agreement: The Irish government will now pay €58 million (nearly $79 million) to hundreds of the Magdalene Laundry survivors. Many of the survivors were adolescent girls who were sent to work while pregnant—sent to the Catholic sisters for repentance and remediation. The atrocities were such that Ireland’s prime minister, Enda Kenny, made an emotional apology. “Choking back tears,” he said, “This is a national shame, for which I again say, I am deeply sorry and offer my full and heartfelt apologies.” To date, no such apology or financial settlement has yet to be made by the Catholic Church.

As the film adaptation of Philomena documents, the forced labor in the laundries was deemed necessary to pay for room and board as well as other expenses, such as the medical costs of childbirth. Because the documentation was poor and much of it was intentionally destroyed by the guilty nuns—who set fire to some of the records—various facts have been conveniently lost. As a result, the absolute numbers of children sent into illegal adoptions within and from Ireland to the United States and elsewhere is unknown today. However, the evidence is damning, as Magdalene survivors seek justice and document their histories, including their humiliating living conditions. Part of that evidence is being preserved historically while grave markers document the young women who did not survive the harsh treatment of slavery, poor medical care, and heartbreak of forced child removal and adoptions.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Raw Story

By Scott Kaufman
Monday, January 20, 2014

A priest in Lansdale, Pennsylvania was arrested on Friday and charged with indecent assault for allegedly grabbing a man’s genitals at YMCA last December.

According to police, John J. Roebuck, a vicar at Saint Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church, had a short discussion with the victim in the sauna of the North Penn YMCA.

The victim said that after they exited the sauna, the two men both went into the locker room. As he was using a sink, the victim said, he noticed Roebuck standing behind him. As he tried to walk away, Roebuck extended his hand as if to say goodbye.

While they were doing so, the victim alleges he felt Roebuck’s other hand groping his genitals.

The victim immediately contacted YMCA staff to report the encounter, and a staff member located Roebuck, who had not yet left the building. He was allowed to leave, but at that point police were brought in to investigation the allegations.

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ROME
ANSA

(ANSA) – Rome, January 20 – A centre-right gay advocacy group on Monday said the alleged existence of a gay lobby in the Vatican is less a threat to the church than hypocrisy.

“I would call the lobby of cardinals preaching against gays and their rights and then hitting on Swiss guards a lobby of hypocrites,” said Enrico Oliari, the founder of GayLib, a self-styled LGBT, liberal-democratic and centre-right association dating back to 1997.

This follows an interview that appeared in a Swiss magazine on Sunday in which a former Swiss Guard commander alleged that a gay lobby he says is operating within the Vatican constitutes a security risk to Pope Francis. “I know from personal experience the gay lobby exists,” Elmar Maeder told Swiss weekly Schweiz am Sonntag. “It is made up of people so loyal to one another they’re practically a secret society. When loyalty is in question, it becomes a security risk”.

Maeder, 51, led what is the world’s oldest and smallest army from 2002-2008.

A former Swiss guard told the same magazine he was propositioned by a cardinal and by another high Vatican official while on his tour of duty in the Vatican.

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CANADA
De Morgen (Belgie)

[Summary: Former priest Eric Dejaeger, who is on trial in Canada for 80 acts of pedophilia, has been defrocked. The action by the Vatican was taken as early as 2011 but became known only now.]

Voormalig priester Eric Dejaeger, die in Canada terechtstaat voor 80 feiten van pedofilie, is het priesterschap ontnomen. “Rome heeft hem afgezet als sanctie voor de misdadige feiten die hij gepleegd heeft”, zegt Georges Vervust, overste van de paters Oblaten uit Blanden, de orde waartoe Dejaeger behoort.

De afzetting gebeurde al in 2011, maar raakte pas nu bekend. Dejaeger blijft wel lid van de orde. “Maar slechts als broeder. Rome heeft ons die oplossing voorgesteld en wij hebben dat aanvaard. Wij zijn christenen. Wij laten zelfs zo iemand niet vallen”, klinkt het. Vandaag wordt het monsterproces in Canada hervat.

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CANADA
De Morgen

[Summary: Legal process of Eric Dejaeger was resumed this morning in Iqaluit, Canada. The 66-year-old priest, who was born in Belgium, has to answer to charges of sexual abuse against dozens of Inuit children.]

Het proces van Eric Dejaeger is vanmorgen in het Canadese Iqaluit hervat. De 66-jarige pater, die in België geboren is, moet zich verantwoorden voor tientallen aanklachten wegens seksueel misbruik tegen Inuit-kinderen. Vandaag werden er al enkele aanklachten tegen hem ingetrokken.

Tijdens de eerste vier weken van het proces werden er 41 getuigen van het openbaar ministerie aan het woord gelaten. Maar nu was het de beurt aan de advocaat van de verdediging, Malcolm Kempt, om zijn visie op de feiten te geven.

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ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic

By Michael Clancy
The Republic | azcentral.com

Mon Jan 20, 2014

A Vatican court has recommended that a Phoenix cleric be removed from the priesthood.

The Rev. John Spaulding, a priest in the Diocese of Phoenix for 40 years, has been accused by four people of sexually abusing them decades ago when they were minors.

The judgment was reached by a special tribunal, an independent panel of three priests from across the U.S. who have doctorates in canon law. The panel was convened at the direction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican agency.

The special tribunal found Spaulding guilty of sins against the Sixth Commandment with a minor and recommended that he be dismissed from the clerical state, a process commonly known as “laicization” or defrocking. The commandment, commonly recounted as “You shall not commit adultery,” refers to all sexual sins, according to the Catholic Church.

Spaulding could not be reached by The Arizona Republic for comment.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Times Colonist (Canada)

Tammy Webber / The Associated Press
January 20, 2014

CHICAGO – Thousands of pages of documents showing how the Archdiocese of Chicago handled the sexual abuse of children by priests will be made public Tuesday, providing the broadest look yet into the details of what the church knew and did — or didn’t do — about the scandal.

The archdiocese, one of the largest and most influential in the U.S., handed over last week more than 6,000 pages of documents to victims’ attorneys, who said they will show the archdiocese concealed abuse for decades, including moving priests to new parishes where they molested again.

The disclosures involving 30 priests were made as part of legal settlements with abuse victims, and are similar to disclosures made in other dioceses in the U.S. in recent years that showed how the Roman Catholic Church shielded priests and failed for many years to report child sex abuse to authorities.

Chicago officials said most of the abuse occurred before 1988 and none after 1996.

Debra Brian, a 24-year-old Catholic from Chicago, had not yet seen or heard what was included in the documents, but said Sunday that the church is doing the right thing by acknowledging what occurred.

“Hopefully it will help people come forward,” said Brian.

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OHIO/PHILIPPINES
Beacon Journal

By Colette M. Jenkins
Beacon Journal religion writer

HUDSON: Concern for the Rev. Tom Randall, a Christ Community Chapel pastor who is jailed in the Philippines on charges of child abuse and human trafficking, has shifted from his safety to his health.

“Prison anywhere can be a hostile environment, but the conditions are extremely difficult. He’s locked in a cell with 48 inmates. There’s one toilet and one water spigot. Anything he needs, including food, has to be brought in from the outside,” said the Rev. Joe Coffey, lead pastor at the Hudson-based megachurch. “I found some relief when he texted that God has given him favor with the guards and inmates. Our worry right now is his health. He has some health issues that are being exacerbated in prison and could become life-threatening.”

Coffey said he has spoken to several U.S. government officials and diplomats to petition for Randall’s transfer from jail to a hospital. Randall and Filipino nationals were arrested Jan. 12 in Manila while doing typhoon relief work and missionary work at an orphanage established by World Harvest Ministries. The mission ministry, which was founded in 1990 by Randall and his wife, Karen, is responsible for planting churches and providing a million meals as emergency relief after the typhoon.

A hearing scheduled Friday to determine whether charges would be dropped against Randall was postponed.

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PHILIPPINES
Christian Post

BY NICOLA MENZIE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
January 20, 2014

American pastor and missionary Thomas (Tom) Randall has been imprisoned in Manila, Philippines on allegations that an orphanage he and his wife founded in the country has been operating as a front for human trafficking and that dozens of poor children living at the facility had been suffering sexual abuse for years.

Randall was on a mission trip in the country when state and social welfare authorities apprehended him and two workers on Jan. 12 at the Sankey Samaritan Orphanage in Lucena City, Philippines, reportedly on allegations that he had been negligent regarding alleged abuse and sex trafficking at the facility.

Filipino media reports that Randall was charged with obstruction of justice, while orphanage manager Perfecto “Toto” Luchavez and his son, Mark “Jake” Luchavez, were charged with violating the country’s anti-human trafficking laws. Another worker, who reportedly remains at large, Melvin Garcia, was charged with rape, along with Mark Luchavez. The men also allegedly allowed friends to abuse female victims.

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AUSTRALIA
Christian Today

Royal Commission announces details of public hearing into allegations of sexual abuse at Toowoomba Primary School in 2007

By: Truth Justice and Healing Council
Tuesday, 21 January 2014

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has announced it will examine allegations of child sexual abuse in 2007 at St Saviour’s Primary School in Toowoomba, Queensland.

The public hearing will take place in Brisbane and is scheduled to run for two weeks from 17 February.

The hearing will look into the response by the Catholic Education Office of the Diocese of Toowoomba in Queensland, to the allegations made against a teacher at the primary school in September 2007.

The teacher was sentenced to 10 years jail in 2010 for the rape and molestation of 13 students aged between nine and 10-years-old.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Press TV (Iran)

Thousands of pages of documents showing sexual abuse of children by Chicago priests are set to go public on Tuesday, a report says.

The Archdiocese of Chicago handed over last week more than 6,000 pages of documents to victims’ attorneys, who said they will show the archdiocese concealed abuse for decades.

The attorneys said some priests were even moved to new parishes where they molested again.

The Washington Post reports that the new disclosure will involve 30 priests of the archdiocese, one of the largest and most influential in the US.

The Roman Catholic Church has been under harsh criticism in recent years for its failure to report child sex abuse, which mostly occurred before 1988 and 1996, to authorities.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Online

[with video]

The world is learning that the Catholic Church has not been as immobile against child sexual abuse by priests as previously thought. Last week, the Vatican provided details that Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests over just two years. All signs indicate more will be defrocked until the Church is cleansed of the threat.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – According to the AP, documents reveal that Pope Benedict defrocked nearly 400 priests in just two years for child molestation. To be defrocked is essentially to be fired, and left to the civil authorities for justice. The Church is unable to actually incarcerate abusers, but can -and does hand them over to civil authorities for trial and justice.

The document came from a file delivered to the U.N., which formed a committee to study the worldwide concern this week in Geneva. Last week, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the U.N. Ambassador to Geneva, took eight hours of questions and criticism from the committee.

The data is public record, but is not widely publicized. The Church typically keeps its internal affairs discreet. However, in cases of child abuse, the Church has recognized an urgent need to develop its practices further and has moved over the past decade or more to aggressively protect children from priests who would molest them.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler January 20, 2014

Some thoughts on the story that AP broke late Friday afternoon, reporting that Pope Benedict had approved the laicization of nearly 400 priests during the last 2 years of his pontificate:

1. This is only the tip of the iceberg—but not in the way you might think. The AP story covers just 2002 and 2003. But Pope Benedict had been working steadily to purge predators from the ranks of the Catholic clergy. We don’t know the total number of priests defrocked during his pontificate, but it’s probably fair to assume that it is in the thousands, not hundreds. As John Allen observed, the world’s mass-media outlets are belatedly realizing that Benedict XVI was a champion of reform, not of the cover-up, on abuse cases. It will be increasingly difficult to continue serving up the accepted narrative, which suggests that the abuse scandal erupted under Benedict, and he tried to keep the lid on. It didn’t, and he didn’t. Insofar as Pope Francis is a reformer in his field, it’s because he’s continued what Benedict started.

2. Allen also argues persuasively that in this case, an embarrassing U-turn by the Vatican press office was probably an innocent mistake. Questioned by reporters about the AP story, Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the press office, first issued a stout denial, and then, an hour later, confirmed that it was true. Working under pressure, Father Lombardi apparently confused two sets of statistics, Allen explains, and he corrected his mistake quickly. Still the fact remains that the Vatican’s chief spokesman was not thoroughly briefed on the issue, which was sure to draw intense media coverage. The McKinsey consultants who are studying the Vatican’s media strategy have plenty of work still to do.

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CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

[with video]

Jay Levine

(CBS) – Attorneys for sexual assault victims of 30 Chicago priests say documents they’ll release Tuesday show a tangled web of deceit by the Archdiocese.

Six thousand pages of investigative reports will be made public as part of an agreement between victims’ attorneys and the Archdiocese.

CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine says while the two sides agreed to release the documents, they don’t agree on what they say.

What is the source of the disconnect? Intent.

A mistake is not a cover-up, Cardinal George has said. The victims’ attorneys say there was no mistake, but a conscious effort to protect the archdiocese and its priests.

Outside Holy Name Cathedral Monday, a group representing victims gathered to distribute leaflets urging Catholics to pay attention to the information released on Tuesday.

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VATIKAN
Radio Vatikan

[Summary: The former commander of the Pontifical Swiss Guard, Elmar Mader, believes in existence of a “gay network” in the Vatican.]

Der ehemalige Kommandant der Päpstlichen Schweizergarde, Elmar Mäder, glaubt an die Existenz eines „Homosexuellen-Netzwerks“ im Vatikan. Das sagte er in der „Schweiz am Sonntag“. Seine Erfahrungen sprächen dafür, so Mäder. Ein Umfeld, in dem mehrheitlich unverheiratete Männer arbeiten, sei „per se ein Anziehungspunkt für Homosexuelle“. Zu Angaben von Ex-Gardisten, sie seien im Vatikan sexuell belästigt worden, sagte Mäder, es würden teilweise „Räubergeschichten“ erzählt, die „offensichtlich jeder tatsächlichen Grundlage entbehren“. Ein namentlich nicht genannter Schweizergardist, der unter Papst Johannes Paul II. mehrere Jahre im Vatikan gedient hatte, hatte in der gleichen Zeitung Mitte Januar erklärt, er sei Objekt der Begierde einer ganzen Reihe von Geistlichen und Würdenträgern geworden.

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VATIKAN
Schweiz am Sonntag

Von Henry Habegger und Beat Kraushaar
Samstag, 18. Januar 2014

Elmar Mäder sieht Sicherheitsproblem im Vatikan.

Er kennt den Vatikan und seine Geheimnisse aus langjähriger eigener Erfahrung: Der 50-jährige Elmar Mäder war zehn Jahre bei der Schweizer Garde tätig. 1998 ernannte ihn Papst Johannes Paul II. zum Vizekommandanten der Päpstlichen Schweizer Garde, der er dann von 2002 bis 2008 als deren Kommandant vorstand.

Der St. Galler war mit seinen über 100 Gardisten für die Sicherheit des Heiligen Vaters zuständig. Damit erhielt er tiefe Einblicke in das Innenleben der römischen Kurie. Zu Aussagen von Ex-Gardisten, sie hätten von Geistlichen sexuelle Avancen erhalten, gibt Mäder gegenüber der «Schweiz am Sonntag» seine Sicht dazu wieder. Seiner Meinung nach würden teilweise «Räubergeschichten» erzählt, die «offensichtlich jeder tatsächlichen Grundlage entbehren».

Aber die Existenz der viel zitierten Schwulen-Lobby im Vatikan dementiert der Ex-Kommandant der Garde nicht, im Gegenteil: «Die Behauptung, es gäbe ein Homosexuellen-Netzwerk, kann ich nicht widerlegen», hält Mäder fest. «Meine Erfahrungen sprechen für die Existenz eines solchen.»

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VATIKAN
Schweiz am Sonntag

Schweizergardist packt aus: «Habe von Kardinälen Sex-Angebote erhalten»

Von Henry Habegger und Beat Kraushaar
Samstag, 11. Januar 2014

Die Vorwürfe rund um das sogenannte Homosexuellen-Netzwerk und die Schweizergarde weiten sich aus. Die sexuellen Belästigungen scheinen grössere Ausmasse zu haben als bisher bekannt.

Medienleute aus aller Welt möchten mit ihm sprechen. Fernsehstationen aus Deutschland und Italien möchten ihn interviewen. Aber der ehemalige Gardist G.* zögert, seine Identität öffentlich zu machen. «Ich muss mir das genau überlegen», sagt der Schweizer. «Ich mache mir Sorgen um meine Familie. Mit dem Vatikan ist nicht zu spassen.» Der Kirchenstaat sei «eine Macht». Und vor dieser Macht fürchtet sich der gläubige Katholik. Auch die Furcht, etwa von Ex-Gardisten als Verräter abgestempelt zu werden, hält ihn davon zurück, öffentlich aufzutreten.

In der «Schweiz am Sonntag» hatte G. erzählt, wie er im Vatikan mit eindeutigen Angeboten belästigt worden war. 15 bis 20 Geistliche bis hinauf zum Bischof und Kardinal hätten ihm sexuell motivierte Avancen gemacht, so der ehemalige Gardist. Mit Alkohol, Einladungen und sexuellen Angeboten sollen sich die Diener Gottes ihm genähert haben. Vorgesetzte, die er informierte, nahmen ihn nicht ernst. Die Doppelmoral, auf die er während seiner Gardezeit stiess, erschütterte und desillusionierte den jungen Mann. Er kehrte dem Vatikan zuletzt enttäuscht den Rücken.

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 Lizzy Davies, The Guardian
Monday, January 20, 2014

A former commander of the Swiss Guard, the small force of men whose job it is to protect the pope, has said there is “a network of homosexuals” within the Vatican, the latest in a series of claims about gay priests working at the heart of the Roman Catholic church.

Elmar Mäder, who was commandant of the Guard from 2002 until 2008, said that his time at the heart of the Vatican had given him an insight into certain aspects of life there. “I cannot refute the claim that there is a network of homosexuals. My experiences would indicate the existence of such a thing,” he told the Swiss newspaper Schweiz am Sonntag.

Famed for their striking uniforms of blue, red and orange, recruits to the Guard swear to protect the pope and his successors with their lives.

Mäder, 50, from the canton of St Gallen, refused to comment on speculation that he had warned guardsmen about the behaviour of certain priests.

Earlier this month, the same newspaper reported the claims of a former, unnamed member of the Guard that he had been the target of more than 20 “unambiguous sexual requests” from clergy while serving in the force.

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.

SOUTH CAROLINA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victims beg others to “step forward”
Pedophile priest case heads toward trial
Support group seeks other’s who’ve been hurt
SNAP: “If you saw, suspected or suffered crimes, speak up!”
Group also wants bishop to post predators’ names on church websites
It’s the most important step bishops can take to protect kids now,” SNAP says
Thirty US dioceses have done this; in SC, at least 13 priests are publicly accused

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, child sex abuse victims will
–praise the South Carolina Supreme Court for letting a clergy sex abuse and cover up lawsuit move ahead,
–-urge anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes by South Carolina clerics to “come forward, get help, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing” but “report to independent sources of help – like secular authorities – not church officials, and
–prod Charleston’s Catholic bishop to post on his website the names, photos, work histories and current whereabouts of all proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics who live or work (or have lived or worked) in the state.

WHEN
Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 11 a.m.

WHERE
Outside the Charleston Catholic diocese headquarters, 119 Broad St (corner of Broad St and Orange St), in Charleston, SC

WHO
Two victims of sexual assault as children by clerics who belong to an independent international self-help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including a Missouri woman who is the organization’s long time outreach director. (NOTE – the organization helps ANYONE who was violated in ANY institutional setting, not just churches.)

WHY
Earlier this month, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that a child sex abuse and cover up lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese could move ahead toward trial. In that case, a mother charges that Fr. James W. McCarthy molested all of three of her children (a boy and three girls) between 1965-1971 at St. William’s parish in Ward SC. The suit alleges that church officials were reckless and fraudulently concealed Fr. McCarthy’s crimes.

Catholic officials, according to the suit, engaged in “secretive and disingenuous conduct “that is “immoral, unethical and oppressive,” having launched “a public relations exercise . . to procure positive publicity without having to compensate all of its abuse victims.” and a “calculated business strategy to protect the (church) from all but minimal accountability for its pedophiles.”

The suit also accuses Catholic officials of unfair and deceptive trade practices. It seeks unspecified and punitive damages, including the providing of minimal therapy in order to “control” victims and get information from them.

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
Edmonton Journal

BY GORDON KENT, EDMONTON JOURNAL JANUARY 20, 2014

EDMONTON – Edmonton will host the final national event in March for the truth and reconciliation commission dealing with Canada’s residential schools legacy.

The March 27-30 event, open to the public at the Shaw Conference Centre, is expected to attract up to 4,000 people a day to learn about the history of the schools, talk about their experiences and take part in cultural displays.

“It’s almost the start of reconciliation … It’s not the end of it,” commissioner Willie Littlechild told the city’s community services committee Monday.

Alberta had about 25 residential schools, more than any other province. They operated in Canada from the 1870s to 1996, Littlechild said.

There are about 12,000 survivors living in the province, the largest proportion of them in Edmonton, he said.

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
Ottawa Citizen

BY ANDREW DUFFY, OTTAWA CITIZEN JANUARY 20, 2014

OTTAWA — The Archdiocese of Ottawa has opened the door to Father Joe LeClair’s eventual return to the pulpit.

The charismatic priest, universally known as Father Joe, pleaded guilty in an Ottawa courtroom Monday to fraud and theft charges: he admitted pocketing money from the collection plate and taking other church revenues to feed a runaway gambling addiction.

Archbishop Terrence Prendergast issued a statement after LeClair entered his plea, making it clear the Catholic Church will welcome him back as an active priest once his criminal sentence is served.

A sentencing hearing is to continue Tuesday to determine LeClair’s penalty.

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
Nunatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY

At the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit on the afternoon of Jan. 20, Crown prosecutors opposed defence lawyer Malcolm Kempt’s motions for dismissal on seven of the dozens of charges against former priest Eric Dejaeger.

Kempt made 10 “non-suit applications” on the morning of Jan. 20, seeking dismissal of the charges because of a lack of evidence.

Justice Robert Kilpatrick quickly dismissed three of the 80 charges that Dejaeger faced prior to that morning because the witness who made the allegations did not appear in court to testify when the Crown was presenting its case.

Crown prosecutor Doug Curliss told Kilpatrick that for charges to be dismissed, there must be no evidence the alleged crimes could have happened, based on witness testimony.

To that end, in the context of the seven charges, Curliss, after reviewing transcripts of the witness testimony, argued that they still ring true

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

NEW MEXICO
KOAT

A former New Mexico Priest and convicted sex offender is back in New Mexico.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Telegraph (UK)

Disgraced Polish Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski was removed from an official photograph after being put under investigation for alleged child abuse in the Dominican Republic

By Nick Squires 4:18PM GMT 20 Jan 2014

It is the sort of practice normally expected of paranoid regimes such as North Korea, Mao’s China or the former Soviet Union, but a disgraced Polish archbishop who is being investigated for child sex abuse has been subjected to a Trotsky-style rubbing out in an official Catholic Church photo.

Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski served as a papal envoy in the Dominican Republic but was recalled to Rome last year amid claims that he sexually abused a number of children in the slums of Santo Domingo, the capital.

He appears to have been “purged” from a photograph of members of the bishops’ conference of the Caribbean country.

In the original picture, he appears smiling in the second row, wearing a dog collar, black vestments and a heavy crucifix.

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)
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Chicago News Conference Tuesday, January 21

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

What: At a news conference tomorrow, January 21, 2014 in Chicago, sexual abuse attorneys Jeff Anderson and Marc Pearlman will:

· Publicly release the files of 30 priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors in the Archdiocese of Chicago.
· Discuss the patterns and practices revealed by these documents and the officials who made the choices to keep the offenders in ministry.
· Introduce several sexual abuse survivors who will respond to the release of the files and share their experiences in fighting to make these files public.

WHEN: Tuesday, January 21, 2014 at 11:00 AM CST

WHERE: The Allerton Hotel – 23rd Floor, Tip Top Tap
701 N. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60611

WHO: Attorneys Jeff Anderson and Marc Pearlman, lawyers and advocates for the dozens of survivors who demanded and negotiated this release. Patrick J. Wall, former priest now expert and advocate for sexual abuse survivors at Jeff Anderson & Associates. Numerous survivors who have been an integral part of the documents released and who will be available for interviews after press conference.

Notes:

· All documents will be available with summaries, timelines and highlights, online tomorrow morning at 9:30 AM at www.andersonadvocates.com and www.abusedinchicago.com. They will also be available at www.bishopaccountability.org on their homepage.

· Press packets, including photographs and sample documents, will be available at the press conference tomorrow.

Contact Jeff Anderson: Office: 651.227.9990 Mobile: 612.817.8665
Contact Marc Pearlman: Office: 312.261.4550 Mobile: 773.368.0142
Contact Patrick Wall: Office: 651.227.9990 Mobile: 949.307.3935

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INDIANA
KPC News

Mon Jan 20, 2014.
By BOB BRALEY
bbraley@kpcmedia.com

WALKERTON — The date of an alleged incident of sexual abuse of a minor by a former area Catholic priest does not correspond to when he served churches in Noble County.

The Rev. James F. Seculoff, 77, resigned earlier this month following after an investigation found sufficient evidence that the allegation against him was credible, according to information released by the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.

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 STATES
Religion Dispatches

By ANGELA BONAVOGLIA

In addition to calling Archbishop Silvano Tomasi and Bishop Charles J. Scicluna to account for a decades-long, worldwide epidemic of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, in violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Committee conducting this historic proceeding in Geneva last week also demanded responses to questions concerning the church’s trampling on girls’ reproductive health and rights.

Chairwoman Kirsten Sandberg and others wanted to know what the church was doing about uncovering the whereabouts of the children born to young, unmarried women who were essentially enslaved in Ireland’s Magdalene Asylums or Laundries and forced to relinquish their babies to adoption, a situation brilliantly dramatized in the film Philomena, with Oscar-nominated Judi Dench playing the real Philomena Lee.

“The position of the Holy See,” pronounced Tomasi, the Vatican’s Geneva representative to the UN, “is that the state has already taken its responsibility and is proceeding…through the courts….It is the responsibility of local institutions.” In other words, it’s not our job— the same position the Vatican officials took, repeatedly and disingenuously, on their refusal to act on local clergy sex abuse crimes.

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.

ESPANA
Diario Sur

La portavoz socialista en el Ayuntamiento de Málaga, María Gámez, ha condenado este domingo las declaraciones realizadas por el nuevo cardenal Fernando Sebastián Aguilar al diario SUR en las que afirma que la “homosexualidad es una deficiente sexualidad que se puede normalizar con tratamiento” y exige su rectificación.

“No son los vientos de cambio que soplan, en apariencia, desde el Vaticano”, ha manifestado Gámez, quien recuerda que el nuevo purpurado ha sido una elección personal del papa Francisco, amigo personal del obispo emérito residente en el Seminario de Málaga.

“No son asuntos de la fe éstos sobre los que habla el cardenal”, dice Gámez, quien ha cuestionado al papa Francisco vía Twitter sobre estas declaraciones. “El cardenal se convierte en intérprete del propio Papa, que parecía alejado de estas tesis retrógradas, insultantes, anticonstitucionales”, ha agregado. “El papa Francisco debería plantearse si un cardenal así ayuda a la regeneración que defiende”, ha dicho.

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SPAIN
Express (UK)

Spaniard Fernando Sebastian Aguilar was dubbed a dinosaur after likening homosexuality to his high blood pressure.

He claimed in an interview with Malaga-based newspaper Diario Sur: “Homosexuality is a deficient way of manifesting sexuality, because sexuality has a structure and an objective which is procreation.

“Homosexuality, which cannot achieve this objective, is failing.

“This is not an insult for anyone. In our body we have many deficiencies.”

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Recent events make clear Catholics cannot realistically expect Pope Francis to curtail sufficiently any time soon, if ever, priest sexual abuse of children. Catholics must therefore press their democratically accountable governments to compel an unaccountable and out of control Vatican to protect their children better. Recent UN hearings on Vatican child abuse cover-ups, a disturbing AP report indicating the Vatican is quietly discharging some predator priests into an unsuspecting society and continuing confusion on the Vatican attitude towards gay persons indicate clearly Pope Francis has no mystical solutions.

These discouraging disclosures make it clear that the Vatican will most likely continue under Pope Francis to try to operate as a law unto itself and above the law that applies to everyone else, unless compelled by outside governments to act according to international legal rules that protect children.The UN hearings make increasingly clear Francis is continuing the stonewalling cover-up and won’t stop unless pressed by government leaders, including by President Obama. Many have already asked the President to act on priest child abuse by signing the active online petition available here, see:

[Change.org]

Many in the media appear content to report crowd pleasing stories about the sale of Francis’ Harley motorcycle and his permitting mothers to breast feed in the Sistine Chapel. Thankfully, some journalists are still awake professionally. The rants of a new Cardinal from Spain and reports on the Swiss Guards’ take on the Vatican “gay lobby” are still being noted. These, and other reports discussed below, indicate the Vatican has a long way to go to fix itself and even to provide a consistent message from week to week.

For the Cardinal’s troubling remarks on gay persons, see:

[Express]

For the Swiss Guards’ reports on the gay lobby, see:

[Gazetta del Sud]

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CANADA
News 1130

The Canadian Press January 20, 2014

IQALUIT, Nunavut – The lawyer for a former Arctic priest facing dozens of sex abuse charges against Inuit children is asking for 10 counts to be dropped.

The Crown has agreed to drop three of the charges against Eric Dejaeger, mainly because the alleged victims wouldn’t testify.

Judge Robert Kilpatrick is to hear arguments on the remaining seven charges later today.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY OREN YANIV / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

SUNDAY, JANUARY 19, 2014

A controversial extortion case will be reviewed by a new prosecutor, the Daily News has learned.

During his election campaign last year, Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson had rallied behind Samuel Kellner.

The Hasidic man had spoken out against sex abuse within his Orthodox community, then found himself charged with extorting an alleged abuser and bribing witnesses in the man’s case.

Thompson, who had slammed the troubled case as “botched” during his campaign, has appointed sex crimes prosecutor Kevin O’Donnell to take a new look at the three-year-old case, sources said.

The decision could affect the case of the man Kellner is accused of trying to extort — Baruch Lebovits, 62, a cantor who’s awaiting a retrial on charges of abusing a boy. Lebovits has a court date scheduled for Thursday.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

The ever imploding case against accused extortionist Samuel Kellner got a new prosecutor today, the Daily News reported.

Kellner was a child sex abuse whistleblower in the Brooklyn hasidic community when he was suddenly charged with extortion by former District Attorney Charles J. Hynes based on evidence that has since proved to be false or tainted, causing many legal observers to believe that Kellner was set up by the family of accused pedophile Rabbi Baruch Lebovits in conjunction with senior prosecutors in Hynes’ office.

Kellner had brought several alleged victims of Lebovits to the D.A.’s Sex Crimes Unit, facilitating their prosecution of Lebovits.

Two prosecutors assigned to the case tried to drop the case against Kellner about three months ago and were summarily transferred and demoted by Hynes and his now Rackets Bureau chief Michael Vecchione.

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
Ottawa Citizen

BY MEGHAN HURLEY, OTTAWA CITIZEN JANUARY 20, 2014

OTTAWA — Rev. Joseph Leclair, the former Blessed Sacrament church priest, pleaded guilty Monday morning to fraud and theft after admitting he wrote parish cheques to himself and deposited collection money into his own account.

An agreed statement of facts said an investigation by Deloitte and Touche revealed $1.16 million was deposited into Leclair’s account over a five-year period.

An analysis of deposits showed $769,000 was his salary, legitimate stipends, gifts from parishioners or casino winnings.

Roughly $400,000 deposited into Leclair’s personal account could not be explained. Leclair was charged with fraud, theft, money laundering and breach of trust in July 2012 after an 11-month police investigation.

On Monday, Archbishop Terrence Prendergast said the Archdiocese of Ottawa will help LeClair eventually return to his priestly 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.

CANADA
Canoe

TONY SPEARS, QMI AGENCY
Jan 20, 2014

OTTAWA — A priest with a pathological gambling problem pleaded guilty Monday to fraud and theft charges after taking his church for $130,000.

Joseph Leclair, former priest of Blessed Sacrament Church, exploited lax bookkeeping to pilfer church funds and pay his gambling debts, according to an agreed statement of facts read in court.

The deception lasted from 2006 to May 2011. Marriage preparation course money — payable in cash at $100 a course — vanished into his accounts. He routinely rounded up expenses and pocketed the difference.

He would also deposit into his account wads of $5 and $10 bills that he stole from the collection plate.

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
Irish Examiner

By Michael Clifford

He wrote to Supt Gerry O’Brien of Bailiboro in Sept 2010, requesting that a hard drive seized from the parish house in Kill, Co Cavan, be returned to the diocese. The computer had been taken in the course of an investigation into a priest suspected of child abuse.

The priest, Michael Molloy, was subsequently convicted of child abuse and child pornography, and sentenced to five years in prison. Now, Bishop Leo O’Reilly was requesting a return of the hard drive as, he said, he suspected there might be some evidence of fraud contained in it.

“Computer? What computer?” was the initial reaction in the gardaí. A cursory examination soon established there was no such computer in possession of the force. This was a serious matter. A computer which had been seized from a by-now notorious abuser and child pornographer had gone missing in Garda custody.

Somebody had to be held accountable. And before long, the whole focus bore down on one individual, a turbulent cop who had been making uncomfortable waves, a whistleblower who had broken ranks within the force to report on alleged wrongs.

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
Irish Independent

TIM HEALY – 20 JANUARY 2014

A PRIEST who was cleared of allegations he had engaged in sexually inappropriate behaviour with a student in a school where he is a teacher has been granted an injunction preventing his replacement as school chaplain.

The High Court heard today the priest fears moves are afoot by the secondary school’s board of management to replace him as chaplain despite the fact that an investigation exonerated him.

Counsel for the priest said he was put on administrative leave in October 2012 from his teaching/chaplaincy position in the school following the allegation.

Following a disciplinary investigation, he was cleared. The school board then sought that he undergo a risk assessment conducted by a social worker.

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.

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For more information: David Clohessy, 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com. SNAP, P.O. Box 6416, Chicago, IL 60680-6416

Trial set for predator priest
He was convicted before in 1980s
Now, he’s accused of molesting again
Cleric was in three mid-Missouri counties
After leaving his Catholic post, he was a counselor

A June 26 trial date has been set for a criminal child sex abuse case against a former Catholic priest who lived and worked in Cooper, Boone and Callaway counties.

The accused is Gerald (“Jerry”) Howard who worked at a Boonville Catholic church. In the 1980s, he was a priest in New Jersey and was convicted of molesting a boy in the Jersey City area.

His Catholic supervisors then let him change his name – from Carmine Sita to Jerry Howard – and sent him to the Jefferson City diocese, where he sexually assaulted several boys.

“We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered Howard’s crimes will find the strength to speak up now,” said David Clohessy of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “If you have any knowledge of or suspicions about Howard – or other child molesting clerics – now is the time to step forward.”

After leaving Boonville, Howard worked as a counselor in Boone and in Callaway counties., including a stint at the now-shuttered Charter Hospital in Columbia.

The prosecutor is Doug Abele of Cooper County ( ccpa@c-magic.com, 660-882-7577 ). Howard is represented by attorney Jim Rutter of Columbia ( 573 303 3909, info@criminallawattorneycolumbiamo.com ). In civil suits, Howard’s victims have been represented by attorney Bryan Bacon of Columbia ( 573 874 7777, Ken Chackes of St. Louis ( 314 369 3902 ) and Greg Gianforcaro of New Jersey.

A photo of Fr. Howard, and other information, is available at BishopAccountability.org.

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TEXAS
Valley Central

A Rio Grande Valley Catholic deacon who is also a school principal was arrested after allegedly sexually abusing an altar boy, according to police.

Ronaldo Mitchell Chavez was arrested Friday by the Mission Police Department on a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child.

The alleged sexual abuse of a child started when the boy was 15-years-old, police said.

The now 17-year-old first spoke to an investigator in December where he allegedly provided a statement about the sexual abuse, according to the Mission Police Department.

Police told Action 4 News the deacon would drop the other children off at their home, but take the then 15-year-old boy to his house where the alleged sexual encounter 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.

CANADA
CBC News

[timeline]

Eric Dejaeger, the former Roman Catholic priest facing dozens of charges for the sexual abuse of children in Nunavut decades ago, is no longer a priest.

“The Holy See in Rome decided to remove his priest status because he is accused of sexual abuse against children,” said Georges Vervust, the provincial superior of the Oblates in Belgium, in French.

Vervust confirmed that Dejaeger was defrocked in 2011. However, he remains a member of the congregation.

Vervust says the Oblates are devastated about the abuse and feel for the victims.

The trial of Dejaeger, 66, got underway in Iqaluit in November with a judge, but no jury.

The trial resumes today, with the defence set to begin its case this week.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano
Mon., Jan. 20 2014

I know little about Stockton. I know that the University of the Pacific is there. I know that the city filed for bankruptcy. And I also know it’s been a pedophile priest haven for decades with a local connection: the longtime bishop for the Diocese of Stockton, John Steinbock, got his pedo-protecting chops down here in Orange County.

And now, there’s another local connection: John Manly, the priest whose law firm and merry band of misfits over the years have antagonized pedophiles and their protectors in the Diocese of Orange and beyond, is raising holy hell in Stockton.

Last week, the Stockton diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, claiming it doesn’t have enough money anymore after years of having to pay victims of its priests. It’s a ruse that has been used again and again across the United States–and Manly isn’t buying it.

He told the Stockton Record that the diocese filed bankruptcy to prevent him from taking the deposition of the current bishop. See, Stephen Blaire is pals with an admitted pedo-priest that fled the country ahead of law enforcement officials–and Manly wants to know what His Excellency and others knows about the kiddie fiddler.

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CANADA
CBC News

A popular former Catholic priest in Ottawa who stepped down amid allegations he misappropriated church funds is set to appear in court today on those allegations.

In July 2012, Ottawa police charged Joseph LeClair with one count each of fraud over $5,000 and theft over $5,000, as well as criminal breach of trust and laundering proceeds of crime.

LeClair’s preliminary hearing is expected to begin Monday morning on each of those charges.

LeClair, who originally hails from Prince Edward Island, had attracted a following in his 13 years at the Blessed Sacrament Church in Ottawa’s Glebe neighbourhood and had a reputation as a charismatic speaker and community leader.

But the Catholic Archdiocese of Ottawa launched an audit of the church, following a report that LeClair had racked up large credit card bills, as well as a discovery the church had few financial controls.

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Voice of Russia

[with audio]

The United Nations has criticised the Vatican for failing to protect children from paedophile priests as investigators in Geneva probe the global scandal that rocked the Catholic Church to its foundations. The hearing in Geneva was the first time that the Vatican has been confronted publicly over the sexual abuse of children by clergy. VoR’s Brendan Cole hosts a discussion on the subject.

Pope Francis has set up a Vatican committee to fight sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church and offer help to victims.

Campaigners say the inquiry investigating institutional child abuse by members of the clergy in Northern Ireland needs to be extended to England and Wales.

Stop Church Child Abuse welcomed the opening of the investigation into 13 orphanages and children’s homes but said it was now time for the government to roll the inquiry out across Britain.

Pope Francis has said dealing with sex abuse is vital for the Church’s credibility but how effectively is he and the church dealing with it?

To discuss this VoR’s Brendan Cole was joined by:

Peter D Williams from the group Catholic Voices
Fr Paul Keane
Peter Saunders (on the line) from the group National Association for People Abused in Childhood or NAPAC
David Greenwood from the Stop Church Child Abuse campaign

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

January 20, 2014

By Max Mitchell / The Legal Intelligencer

A recent ruling in the state Superior Court could narrow the chances of conviction for three former Penn State administrators accused of covering up sexual abuse perpetrated by Jerry Sandusky, according to several attorneys.

On Dec. 26, the Superior Court tossed out the conviction of Monsignor William J. Lynn, who was the first Catholic Church administrative official convicted of endangering the welfare of children abused by other priests.

But the intermediate court found that Monsignor Lynn should not have been charged as a principal under the pre-2007 child endangerment statute because he was not the direct supervisor of any of the alleged victims.

In 2007, the state Legislature expanded the endangerment statute so that it can be applied to include not only a parent, guardian or “other person” supervising a child, but also to someone who employs or supervises such a person.

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Bolpress

[Summary: In recent years hundreds of religious have been accused of transvestism, voyeurism and unnatural sexual tendencies but many complaints were dismissed because they did not quality as crime. Among others, the group leader of the ultraconservative Legion of Christ – Marcial Maciel – was accused of abusing the children of his two wives in addition to being addicted to morphine.]

El papa Benedicto XVI expulsó a por lo menos 400 sacerdotes acusados de pederastia y su sucesor, el papa Francisco I, conformó una comisión especial para investigar “horribles y vergonzosos” casos que permanecen ocultos, algunos de ellos protagonizados por jerarcas de la Iglesia Católica.

En los últimos años centenares de religiosos han sido acusados de travestismo, voyeurismo y tendencias sexuales antinaturales, pero muchas denuncias fueron desechadas porque no clasifican como delitos. Entre otros casos, el líder de la agrupación ultraconservadora Legionarios de Cristo Marcial Maciel fue acusado de abusar a los hijos de sus dos esposas, además de ser adicto a la morfina.

El 24 de enero de 2013 el cura católico Kevin Wallin de Connecticut, en Estados Unidos, fue acusado de mantener relaciones sexuales impropias y vender drogas. Se sospecha que el clérigo de 61 años y cuatro cómplices conformaron una red de narcotráfico que transportaba metanfetamina desde California hasta el noreste del país, e incluso hacia Londres.

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MEXICO
Zocalo Saltillo

[Summary: Two cases of child sexual abuse by priests have been reported in Saltillo and are being investigated, according to Bishop Raul Vera Lopez. In the 14 years he has headed the Saltillo diocese the bishop said two priests have been relieved of duties because they sexually abused minors.]

Por Elisa Hernández
20/01/2014

Saltillo, Coah.- Dos casos de abuso sexual infantil por parte de sacerdotes se han registrado en Saltillo y ya son investigados, informó el obispo Raúl Vera López.

Explicó que en los 14 años que lleva al frente de la Diócesis de Saltillo, dos presbíteros han sido cesados de sus funciones por haber cometido abuso sexual en contra de menores.

“Uno estaba en otra Diócesis y me lo regresaron por crímenes de este tipo, yo tuve que hacer el proceso, pero él estaba funcionando en otra diócesis. Uno de los casos aún no está resuelto, pero el sacerdote está suspendido, lo mismo en el otro caso, antes de que se diera el veredicto, fue cesado”.

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TEXAS
The Monitor

Dan Santella | The Monitor

MISSION — A church deacon is accused of sexually abusing an altar boy at the man’s home over the course of two years.

Rolando Mitchell Chavez, 40, of Mission — a principal of an unspecified school and a deacon in a Granjeno Catholic church — was arrested Friday and charged Saturday with continuous sexual abuse of a young child, said Cpl. Manuel Casas, Mission police spokesman.

The alleged molestations began June 1, 2010, and lasted until Aug. 30, 2012, Casas said. The victim was an altar boy at the Granjeno church when the alleged molestations began.

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UNITED STATES
Irish Central

Sean Dunne @SeanDunneNYC January 19,2014

The shift within the Catholic Church recently to sideline conservative priests and cardinals has seen Cardinal Sean O’Malley rise through the ranks. Observers say that O’Malley is now seen as the key ally in America to Pope Francis.

The move appears to sideline Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York who was not chosen as one of the top eight cardinals to advise the pope. Francis instead picked O’Malley from North America.

Given that New York has always held the most important position in the American church this moves seems a major blow to Dolan’s prestige.

Now dubbed as the ‘prince’ of the U.S. Roman Catholic Church, O’Malley is one of eight cardinals and the only North American representative on the pope’s committee to reform the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

by brian slodysko Staff Reporter January 19, 2014

Cardinal Francis George on Sunday pushed back against claims made by advocates for Catholic sex abuse victims, who say George has tried to escape responsibility for the handling of ex-priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormack by blaming his late predecessor.

The letter “wasn’t critical of Cardinal [Joseph] Bernardin at all,” George said of his deceased predecessor, following a pro-life rally Sunday in the Loop. “I don’t see how that can be said.”

In a letter to the faithful, distributed at Masses across the city Jan. 12th, George announced the impending release of thousands of pages of documents, the result of a court settlement with victims, that detail the Church’s handling of sex abuse allegations against priests between 1950 and 1996.

But George also addressed the handling of McCormack, whose alleged abuse of children occurred on George’s watch, between 2001 and 2006, while McCormack was stationed at St. Agatha Parish on Chicago’s West Side.

In the letter, he also addressed the church’s response to McCormack, who was convicted of abuse allegations while he was a parish priest at St. Agatha.

In the missive, George points to Bernardin’s role in promoting the now-defrocked priest, noting that Bernardin ordained McCormack and later elevated him to a “position of trust.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The handling of sexual assault cases at a Catholic primary school on Queensland’s Darling Downs will be publicly examined in Brisbane next month.

The allegations at St Saviour’s School in Toowoomba will be a case study for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

A teacher from the school was sentenced to 10 years jail in 2010 for the rape and molestation of 13 students.

The children were aged between nine and 10-years-old.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

The royal commission into child sexual abuse will hear further evidence this week on the YMCA in NSW and the Catholic Church’s handling of complaints.

Source AAP

The national child sex abuse inquiry will sit this week to hear further evidence on two case studies – the YMCA NSW and the Catholic Church’s abuse complaints procedure.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse ended 2013 with a report criticising YMCA NSW senior management over systemic failures, which led to pedophile Jonathan Lord working at child-care centres in south Sydney for two years.

Lord was jailed in January 2013 for six years over 13 offences he committed against children while with the YMCA.

When the hearing resumes on Tuesday, the commission will hear from YMCA NSW, which has asked the commission to reject findings in the report presented by commission senior counsel Gail Furness.

Then on Wednesday the commission will continue a hearing into Towards Healing, the Catholic Church process for abuse complainants.

In December this fourth case study, and the first involving the Catholic Church, was adjourned.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

Skvere Rebbe Allegedly Covered Up Latest Case Of New Square Child Sex Abuse, Allowed Alleged Molester To Continue To Teach In Square Schools

Shmarya Rosenberg • Failedmessiah.com

The alleged victim of Moshe Menachem Taubenfeld reported Taubenfeld’s alleged sexual abuse to the Skvere Rebbe Rabbi David Twersky and other New Square leaders in late 2006 when the victim was 13- or 14-years old, the Journal News reported.

The victim, identified only as Laiby, said that when he and his family reported the abuse – which allegedly began in September 2001 after the young victim told Taubendeld how traumatized he was by the September 11 terror attacks – to Twersky, Twersky forbade them from reporting Taubenfeld, a teacher in Skvere schools, to police.

“My mother, my brother and I told him [Twersky] what was happening to me. He let him [Taubenfeld] walk free.…The community protected him. Since New Square did not want to deal with this, I went to police [in July 2013]. I need to feel a closure,” Laiby, who is now 20-years-old, reportedly said.

This mirrors the stories of other New Square child sex abuse victims who say they also went to Twersky to report child sex abuse and were ordered by him not to report the crimes to police and to not talk about them within the community or with reporters.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

Written by
STEVE LIEBERMAN AND SHAWN COHEN

RAMAPO — The 55-year-old brother of a convicted sex offender from New Square was arrested Friday on accusations he molested a young boy repeatedly over five years, police said.

Moshe Menachem Taubenfeld, 55, an educator like his younger brother Herschel, and the father of 20 children, was charged with a felony for alleged sexual abuse starting Sept. 11, 2001, when the preteen boy came to him seeking comfort after the terrorist attacks.

“I went to his house and he told me ‘I’ll give you love, I care about you,’ ” the alleged victim, Laiby, recalled Friday to The Journal News. He said Taubenfeld, a family friend, molested him that day and dozens of other times until he turned 13 in 2006. “I was scared and I trusted him completely, unfortunately. I was a naive child and didn’t know what he was doing was wrong.”

Laiby said he and his family reported the alleged abuse about six years ago to New Square’s Grand Rabbi David Twersky and other community leaders, who discouraged him from going to police.

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ROM
Die Presse

Die Zahl der wegen sexueller Übergriffe entlassenen Priester hat sich in vier Jahren auf mehr als 384 verdoppelt. Papst übt Kritik wegen Missbrauchsfällen in der Kirche.

19.01.2014 | 18:13 | von unserem Korrespondenten PAUL KREINER (Rom) (Die Presse)

Rund 400 katholische Priester sind 2011 und 2012 aus dem Klerikerstand entlassen worden, weil sie sich des sexuellen Missbrauchs Minderjähriger schuldig gemacht haben: Diese von der Nachrichtenagentur AP am Samstag genannte Zahl – genau: 384 – hat der Vatikan am Wochenende erst als „irrige Interpretation statistischer Daten“ bezeichnet, später aber bestätigt. Damit ist auch klar, dass sich die Zahl der Entlassungen mehr als verdoppelt hat; 2008/09 bekamen weltweit 171Priester die kirchenrechtliche Höchststrafe für Pädophiliedelikte.

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GENF
Die Welt

[Summary:Representatives of the Vatican were asked this past week by the UN Committee on Rights of the child what countermeasures they had taken and why were there attempts to cover-up abuse.]

Die Entlassung von 384 Priestern wegen Kindesmissbrauchs soll die harte Linie des Vatikans beweisen. Doch erst am Fall eines ranghohen Täters wird sich entscheiden, wie ernst es der Kirche damit ist.

Von Tobias Bayer, Mailand

“Welche Gegenmaßnahmen habt ihr getroffen?” und “Warum gab es Vertuschungsversuche?”: Das sind zwei der vielen kritischen Fragen, die der UN-Ausschuss für die Rechte des Kindes dem Vatikan stellt. Eine sechsköpfige Delegation des Heiligen Stuhls reiste vergangene Woche nach Genf und gab Auskunft über eines der delikatesten Themen der Katholischen Kirche: der Missbrauch an Kindern durch Geistliche.

Bereits 1990 unterschrieb der Vatikan die Kinderschutzkonvention der Vereinten Nationen. 2001 unterzeichnete er die Zusatzprotokolle gegen Prostitution und Pornografie sowie gegen den Einsatz von Kindersoldaten. Doch trotzdem haperte es lange Zeit mit der Auskunftsfreudigkeit und der Entschlossenheit des Heiligen Stuhles. Geantwortet und gehandelt wurde, wenn überhaupt, zaghaft. Selbst noch im Dezember 2013 weigerte sich der Vatikan, den umfassenden Fragebogen des UN-Ausschusses auszufüllen. Zu Einzelfällen äußerte er sich gar nicht.

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

Benedikt versetzte 400 Priester wegen Missbrauchs – Opfer werden ausgegrenzt, verschwiegen, verleugnet und vertuscht

[Summary: Former Pope Benedict XVI reduced hundreds of priests accused of pedophilia reduced to the lay state in 2011 and 2012. The victims are still marginalized, concealed and covered up.]

Der frühere Papst Benedikt XVI. hatte 2011 und 2012 Hunderte Priester wegen Pädophilie-Vorwürfen in den Laienstand versetzt. Die Opfer werden nach wie vor ausgegrenzt, verschwiegen, verleugnet und vertuscht.

Dass eine Täterorganisation ihre eigenen Verbrechen aufarbeiten könnte, ist ein Irrglaube, was das nachfolgende Beispiel beweist:

Serientäter Pfarrer Alfons Kamphusmann

Lebenslauf und Tatorte

geb. am 10.10.1924 in Wanne-Eickel
Priesterweihe am 29.03.1952 in Paderborn
Tatort Bistum Magdeburg:

1950 Gerbstedt (zwischen Eisleben und Hettstedt)
danach in Hettstedt
1952 Vikar und Kurator Propstei zu Halle (Elisabeth-Krankenhaus)
1952 Vikar Droyßig
1959 Vikar Delitzsch

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

A chart containing the number of “cases” handled by the Vatican 2006 to 2012.

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VATIKAN
BR (Deutschland)

Die katholische Kirche wurde seit 2001 weltweit mit tausenden Vorwürfen des Kindesmissbrauchs konfrontiert. Eine Statistik zeigt jetzt, dass die Kirche in den Jahren 2011 und 2012 fast 400 Priester ihres Amtes enthoben hat.

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CHILE
Puranoticia

[Summary: Convicted priest Osvaldo Audin Araya Aarcon has been imprisoned for two years due to two offtenses of sexual abuse but the penalty was served while he was in custody.]

Nacional
A la pena única de dos años de presidio menor en su grado medio fue condenado el sacerdote Audín Osvaldo Araya Alarcón como autor de dos delitos consumados de abuso sexual. No obstante, la pena fue dada por cumplida debido al tiempo que estuvo privado de libertad.

El Tribunal Oral en lo Penal de Concepción, debido al mayor tiempo que el condenado se mantuvo privado de libertad con la medida de prisión preventiva (del 13 al 23 de mayo de 2011), como también con restricción de su libertad con arresto domiciliario total (desde el 24 de mayo de 2011 hasta el domingo 19 de enero de 2014), “contabilizándose un total de 982 días, los cuales superan la pena privativa de libertad impuesta, por lo que se da por cumplida”, según el fallo.

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UNITED STATES
Aljazeera via YouTube

Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, responds to questions regarding the Vatican’s announcement of 400 defrocked priests during 2011-2012 and the Vatican’s appearance before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Interview was with Al Jazeera Network on January 18, 2014.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Following the recent grilling of Vatican officials by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Nicole Winfield and John Heilprin of AP published a report stating that, in his last two years of papal ministry, Pope Benedict defrocked 400 priests who had abused minors. After the release of this report, a comedy of errors ensued; it’s documented by postings of John Allen at the National Catholic Reporter website:

1. The Vatican media spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, denied the AP report.

2 The Vatican then quickly retracted its denial.

3. And John Allen published a post mortem of the denial-retraction, noting that AP reporters had winkled the data about priests defrocked by Benedict out of a spreadsheet prepared by Bishop Charles Scicluna for the UN hearing, and “apparently obtained by the AP” after the UN hearing.

I am strongly inclined to agree with the responses to the AP report by Barbara Dorris and David Clohessy of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. Barbara writes,

Numbers don’t protect kids. Decisive action protects kids. Parents, police, prosecutors and parishioners need the names and whereabouts of every child molesting Catholic cleric. That’s the information that the Vatican should be making public.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Australian Salvation Army officials (Eastern Territory – Queensland and New South Wales States and the Australian Capital Territory) are due to appear before the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. The focus will be on four Boys’ Homes – Bexley, Box Hill, Riverview and Alkira. [The author was in Alkira.]

The Salvation Army claims it believes in restorative justice for its many victims. Time will tell if this is just more spin.

Under the signature of the Territorial head of the organisation, “major” Pete Condom, people are asked to: “Please join with me in prayer that those who testify will find some healing through this experience,” and finishes with “Please pray as we approach the hearing.” For what? That their reputation survives?

Condon also states that: “A working group led by Major Peter Farthing, Royal Commission Response Coordinator, and including Luke Geary of Salvos Legal, members of the Professional Standards office team, and Major Bruce Harmer, meet regularly to develop our best response. The Communications and Public Relations Team is also developing careful plans for media work.”

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MALTA
Telegraph (Australia)

AAP

THE “most terrible” cases of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy have come to light, but the Church should not lower its guard, says the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor.

Malta Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna told the Sunday Times of Malta that he expected the number of priests banned from the clergy on pedophile charges to stabilise at around 100 per year, after a peak of 384 cases in 2011-12.

“It’s not the time for complacency, but time to be aware and proactive. The innocence of children is non-negotiable,” said Scicluna, who until 2012 worked at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s disciplinary watchdog.

He said the spike in defrocking cases recorded in 2011-12 was due to a backlog of cases.

The figures were publicised after Thursday’s hearing of the Holy See before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, in which Scicluna and another Vatican envoy were grilled about the long-running worldwide scandal of pedophile priests.

Scicluna said facing eight hours of questioning “was tough”.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix

Statement of the Diocese of Phoenix; Re: Judgment Reached in Ecclesiastical Trial

The Diocese of Phoenix has been notified that a judgment has been made in the canonical penal trial involving Rev. John D. Spaulding. The judgment was reached by a Special Tribunal, an independent panel of three judges from around the country who are priests with doctorates in canon law. The panel was convened at the direction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome and tasked with the responsibility of investigating abuse allegations against Rev. Spaulding.

The Special Tribunal found Rev. Spaulding guilty of sins against the Sixth Commandment with a minor, and recommended that he be dismissed from the clerical state, a process commonly known as “laicization.” As a result of this judgment and penalty, he would no longer be permitted to function in any way as a priest of the Church and could not identify himself as a Catholic priest. The penalty would become effective upon finalization of the case by the CDF, following the completion of any appeal made by Rev. Spaulding and confirmation by the Holy See.

In June 2011, the faculties of Rev. Spaulding, then pastor of St. Timothy Parish in Mesa, were suspended and he was placed on administrative leave following an investigation and determination that an allegation against Rev. Spaulding of sexual misconduct with a minor was credible. The accusation dated back over 25 years. In the following months, three new claims were made, alleging that Rev. Spaulding engaged in sexual misconduct with three other individuals when they were minors in the 1970s and 1980s.

In accordance with its normal practice, and in compliance with the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” and the “Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests, Deacons, or Other Church Personnel,” the Diocese of Phoenix conducted an independent investigation into each allegation. The Diocesan Review Board found that each allegation was credible. As mandated by canon law, all four cases were referred to the CDF for further proceedings.

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PENNSYLVANIA
NBC 10

By David Chang | Sunday, Jan 19, 2014

A Pennsylvania priest was arrested on Friday after he allegedly groped a man inside a YMCA locker room.

Police say Father John Roebuck, 64, of Lansdale, was at the North Penn YMCA back on December 15 around 7 p.m.

Roebuck approached another man inside the sauna and the two talked briefly, according to investigators. Police say Roebuck then followed the man into the locker room a short time later. As the man began to leave, police say Roebuck extended his hand to say goodbye. Roebuck then allegedly grabbed the man’s genitals with his other hand.

Police say the alleged victim reported the incident to the YMCA staff. An employee confronted Roebuck and questioned him but Roebuck denied the accusations against him, according to investigators.

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ALABAMA
Dothan Eagle

Matt Elofson

A former Enterprise youth pastor received an eight-year split sentence with three years to serve in jail after he pleaded guilty to the rape of a teenage girl.

Assistant Coffee County District Attorney Chris Kamanski said Timothy Thomas, 26, pleaded guilty to a felony second-degree rape charge. Kamanski said Thomas received an eight-year split with three years to serve in the Coffee County Jail. Kamanski said Thomas has already served about 280 days in jail waiting for trial.

“He’ll serve what he doesn’t have credit for day for day at the county jail,” Kamanski said. “He was the youth pastor at St. Luke United Methodist Church, and of course he’s no longer employed there.”

Enterprise police arrested Thomas in March of 2013 on the second-degree rape charge. Enterprise police said the rape occurred between Feb. 28 and March 18, 2013.

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ALABAMA
Moulton Advertiser

Associated Press

A former youth pastor for an Enterprise church has been sentenced to serve three years in jail after he pleaded guilty to raping a teenage girl

The Dothan Eagle reports ( http://bit.ly/1hBuHUs) 26-year-old Timothy Thomas pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree rape after being arrested last March.

Thomas was fired after his arrest from his job as a youth pastor at St. Luke United Methodist Church.

Police say the rape took place sometime between February and March last year and that Thomas sent sexually explicit text messages to the girl he was charged with raping.

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VATICAN
Liberation (France)

[Summary: The Vatican said Saturday that some 400 priests have been defrocked during the pontificate of Benedict XVI as a result of the proliferation of accusations of child sexual abuse by clergy. In 2012 there were about 100 and about 300 in 2011, according to Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said this is not satisfactory disciplinary action and the pope must also begin to defrock those who cover-up sexual crimes and not just those who commit these crimes.]

Le Vatican a révélé samedi que quelque 400 prêtres ont été défroqués au cours du pontificat de Benoît XVI, à la suite de la multiplication des dénonciations d’abus sexuels d’enfants par des membres du clergé.

«En 2012 ils étaient environ 100, et environ 300 en 2011», a déclaré le porte-parole du Vatican Federico Lombardi. Mais le Réseau des survivants des personnes victimes de violence par des prêtres (SNAP) juge ces mesures disciplinaires insuffisantes.

«Le Pape doit commencer à défroquer également les prêtres qui couvrent les crimes sexuels, et pas seulement ceux qui les commettent», a déclaré le SNAP dans un communiqué.

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VATICAN
TVA Nouvelles

Agence France-Presse

Le Vatican a révélé samedi que quelque 400 prêtres ont été défroqués au cours du pontificat de Benoît XVI, à la suite de la multiplication des dénonciations d’abus sexuels d’enfants par des membres du clergé.

«En 2012 ils étaient environ 100, et environ 300 en 2011», a déclaré le porte-parole du Vatican Federico Lombardi.

Mais le Réseau des survivants des personnes victimes de violence par des prêtres (SNAP) juge ces mesures disciplinaires insuffisantes.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald

By:
Erin Smith

Pope Francis will likely continue — if not ramp up — the church’s tough stance in recent years on clergy sex abuse, theologians and Vatican watchers say.

Catholic blogger Brandon Vogt said the pope appears to be continuing his predecessor’s zero tolerance policy on clergy sex abuse and seems to be following the lead of Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

“I think he’s trusting bishops more and letting them know they shouldn’t just wait for the Vatican to act and that bishops are responsible for their priests and that they’re responsible for their own dioceses,” Vogt said. “This is certainly how Cardinal O’Malley has approached this in Boston. He’s looking to that as a model for the rest of the world.”

A new Vatican document shows Pope Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, defrocked nearly 400 priests from 2011-12 for sexually assaulting children — more than double the number of priests removed in 2008 and 2009.

The Rev. James Bretzke, a professor of moral theology at Boston College, said the large number of clergy removals in the past two years are the result of completed reviews in a backlog of cases.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

At this time of year we proudly, rightly, celebrate Australia and its achievements. But we acknowledge that success has not come without cost, and that we are not always – and in many aspects – as we would wish to be.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse is laying bare a side of society that many would prefer not to know about. In some of the institutions entrusted to protect them, our children have suffered prolonged sexual abuse. A hideous secret has been covered up.

The commission has marked its first birthday with what is becoming a characteristic blizzard of numbers. Thousands of phone calls and letters from victims, hundreds of meetings held around the country, hundreds of submissions received, hundreds of notices served on institutions to produce documents.

Its schedule of activity for this year is no less exhausting. This week it concludes hearings into the Catholic Church’s Towards Healing protocol for handling sex abuse complaints. Next week it starts hearings to investigate how the Salvation Army responded to abuse claims in four of its homes: Bexley and Goulburn in NSW and Indooroopilly and Riverview in Queensland.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Reporter

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: January 18, 2014

EBENSBURG, Pennsylvania — A county prosecutor says the state attorney general’s office is taking over the investigation of sex abuse allegations against a Franciscan friar who helped as an athletic trainer at a Roman Catholic high school in Johnstown from 1992 to 2001.

The (Johnstown) Tribune-Democrat (http://bit.ly/1eIO4rL ) reports Cambria County District Attorney Kelly Callihan received a letter Friday from Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

Several former students at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown are suing school officials and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, which formerly ran the school, for the alleged actions of Brother Stephen Baker.

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MALTA
The Sunday Times of Malta

Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna believes the “most terrible” cases of sexual abuse by the clergy have come to light, but the Church can never lower its guard.

“This is a work in progress. It’s not the time for complacency, but time to be aware and proactive. The innocence of children is non-negotiable,” he told The Sunday Times of Malta.

In a telephone interview on his return from Geneva, the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor said the eight-hour grilling before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on Thursday was a tough but positive experience.

During the live webcast hearing, UN child protection experts pushed the Holy See delegates to reveal the extent of the decades-long sexual abuse of minors by priests.

Mgr Scicluna said this meeting gave the Vatican the chance to respond to the committee’s concerns and reaffirm its commitment to protect children throughout the Catholic Church and its institutions.

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MALTA
Voice of Russia

The “most terrible” cases of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy have come to light, but the Church should not lower its guard, said the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor in comments published Sunday.

Malta Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna told the Sunday Times of Malta that he expected the number of priests banned from the clergy on paedophile charges to stabilize at around 100 per year, after a peak of 384 cases in 2011-12.

“It’s not the time for complacency, but time to be aware and proactive. The innocence of children is non-negotiable,” said Scicluna, who until 2012 worked at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s disciplinary watchdog.

He said the spike in defrocking cases recorded in 2011-12 was due to a backlog of cases.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: TONY KENNEDY , Star Tribune Updated: January 19, 2014

Documents show the Rev. Michael Keating’s career was advancing as investigators gathered information about alleged improprieties.

Students wept in the Department of Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas when the Rev. Michael Keating took a leave of absence last fall over a child sexual abuse lawsuit filed against him in St. Paul.

Few could reconcile the allegations in the suit — that Keating had abused a 13-year-old girl while studying to be a priest — with the charismatic 57-year-old professor known for his spellbinding lectures and aggressive defense of traditional Catholic values.

When the suit was filed, former Archbishop Harry Flynn and his top aide, who had known about the allegations, abruptly resigned from the St. Thomas board of trustees. The university launched its own investigation of Keating, including why university officials were not told about the alleged abuse, about a church investigation that raised some questions about Keating’s behavior with other women, or a set of recommendations that Keating’s contact with adolescents and young women be restricted.

“That was certainly not on my radar,” said Marisa Kelly, a former dean at St. Thomas who had responsibility over Catholic Studies from 2006 to 2011, a period when Keating was building his reputation in the department even as he was being investigated.

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UNITED STATES
MSNBC

Father Thomas Reese, a senior analyst for the National Catholic Church Reporter, and Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests’ Joelle Casteix, speak with Milissa Rehberger about the Vatican and Pope Benedict’s decision to defrock nearly 400 priests.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

“The Holy See gets it,” Bishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former sex-crimes prosecutor, this week told the UN child protection committee in Geneva. Under an intense grilling, he hesitatingly added ”Let’s not say ‘too late’ or not. But there are certain things that need to be done differently.”

But will things be done differently by the Vatican? There is little evidence of positive changes underway. The Vatican continues to deny responsiblity for many of the abuse cases and to try to handle many of the remaining cases secretly in Vatican courts that impose minor penalties. Less than two years ago, Scicluna at a large public symposium criticized the Vatican’s approach to priest child sexual abuse as being characterized by “omerta”, the Italian word for the Mafia’s code of silence. For that surprising candor, Scicluna apparently was “promoted out” to become a bishop in Malta. Omerta seems alive and well at the Vatican.

What is much clearer after the UN hearings, as indicated below, is that the Vatican will most likely continue to try to operate above the law that applies to everyone else, unless compelled by outside governments to act according to international legal rules that protect children.

A potentially last hope for protecting children from this clique of self interested celibates, who are a law unto themselves, appears now to be President Obama, who as discussed below appears to be on a collision course with Pope Francis on several fronts. Many have already asked the President to act on priest child abuse by signing the active online petition available here, see:

[Change.org]

The UN, the International Criminal Court, Ireland and other European governments to date have been thwarted in protecting children adequately from predatory priests by a really ruthless, fully funded and well connected Vatican hierarchy of childless men. Even the highly regarded and well funded Australian Royal Commission now investigating institutional child sexual abuse is apparently beginning to show signs of bending to new political and media pressure.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com

EBENSBURG — State Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s office will investigate sexual abuse allegations involving Brother Stephen Baker while he was on staff at Bishop McCort High School.

Cambria County District Attorney Kelly Callihan received a letter from Kane’s office Friday in response to A request Callihan made last month asking for an agency with greater resources to take over the investigation.

Word that Kane’s office will investigate the Baker case was met with elation by some victims’ organizations, while there was little response from some others.

“My clients hope that the attorney general will find answers as to why Brother Stephen Baker was allowed to sexually abuse several hundred innocent children,” said attorney Mitchell Garabedian.

The Boston attorney, who is believed to be representing several dozen mostly men who claim they were abused by Baker while he taught at Bishop McCort between 1992 and 2001, said the big question the state’s top prosecutor needs to look at is who were the supervisors.

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Dennis Lynch
on January 18 2014

Yesterday the Associated Press reported the Vatican defrocked a total of 384 priests in 2011-12 for sexual abuse of children. That’s more than twice as many as the Vatican defrocked between 2008 and 2009. Here are some of the facts related to the recent revelations about the Church.

1. “Defrocking” is a common term used to describe the dismissal or loss of the clerical state of a priest. A loss of the clerical state means the offender is forbidden from exercising any powers or rights granted via ordination. Priests can be defrocked for a number of reasons, but the punishment is considered the harshest penalty within the Church.

One such offense is the violation of the sixth commandment, ‘thou shall not commit adultery’. A priest can be defrocked for child abuse via Can. 1295.2 of the Code of Canon Law, which specifically mentions abuse of minors under 16. Can. 1295.2 does not require a cleric to be defrocked however, only that the offender be “punished with just penalties.”

2. 2011 and 2012 were the last two years Benedict XVI served as pope. The 384 cases of defrock and came after reports of abuse exploded in 2010. That year they doubled the statute of limitations on abuse within the church, allowing victims to report abuse up to 20 years after said abuse.

3. The Vatican has been handling sex abuses cases for over 10 years however, starting in 2001 when Benedict, who was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger decided to have all abuse cases to be sent to his office at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. 3,000 reports were accusations of abuse were made between 2001 and 2009, said the Washington Post back in 2010.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes&Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Updated January 18, 2014

Pope hypocrisy, Vatican insanity: Francis preaches on the “shame of the church” but glorifies shameful Cardinal Mahony. Benedict XVI defrocked 400 priests?

Pope Francis’s hypocrisy with Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles

The Vatican’s Opus Dei PR stunt army are doing an excellent Luciferian job in bamboozling robot Catholics into cheering chameleon Jesuit Pope Francis who preaches one thing and completely does the opposite. Best example of papal hypocrisy? Last Thursday at the Vatican, to coincide with the Vatican well-staged rebuff at the UN, Pope Francis was preaching about the “shame of the church” concerning pedophile priests — but at the same time he was glorifying (worst criminal) Cardinal Mahony right by his side at a public papal Mass.

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VATICAN CITY
Inquisitr

Are the slew of defrocked priests just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the latest Vatican sex abuse scandal?

In a related report from The Inquisitr, a recent report revealed that 400 priests had been defrocked by Pope Benedict. This comes right on top of the Vatican banking scandal.

The hits just keep on coming for the Catholic church, and the report of the defrocked priests was confirmed by Vatican reps. While it’s good that Pope Benedict put some energy towards cracking down on sex abuse within the Catholic church before he resigned from the Papacy, the documentation seemed to show an inexplicable explosion of sex abuse cases in 2011, possibly related to increased reporting from 2010.

The Vatican’s ambassador to the UN, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, was likely sweating bullets under the pointed scrutiny of the Geneva committee this week. The annual reports from the Church revealed the 384 priests had left, voluntarily or otherwise, in 2011 and 2012. The information came from the “Activity of the Holy See,” what is essentially a Vatican yearbook, showing 125 priests were defrocked for sexual abused allegations from children in 2011 and 135 were “dispensed,” meaning they voluntarily resigned. Basically,t they got off scot-free for sexual abuse of children. In 2012, 57 priests were removed and 67 resigned from the priesthood.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patch

Posted by Tony Di Domizio (Editor) , January 18, 2014

Former St. Stanislaus parochial vicar Father John Roebuck has been arrested Friday and charged with indecent assault without consent and harassment after allegedly grabbing a man’s genitals in the locker room at North Penn YMCA, after they both had just used the sauna on the evening of Dec. 15, police said.

Roebuck, 64, of Lansdale, has been placed on administrative leave and relieved of his duties at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church, per the Archdiocese.

The Archdiocese called Roebuck’s alleged actions “deeply troubling.”

The investigation began Dec. 16, 2013, when the alleged victim, an adult man, reported to police that he was in the locker room of the YMCA around 7 p.m., when he met Roebuck in the sauna, police said. The two had a brief conversation, police said.

A short time later, the alleged victim was using the sink in the locker room. Suddenly, Roebuck was standing behind him, police said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Reporter

By MICHAEL GOLDBERG , mgoldberg@thereporteronline.com
POSTED: 01/18/14

LANSDALE — A Lansdale priest arrested Friday and charged with indecent assault is accused of grabbing a man’s genitals in the locker room of the North Penn YMCA in December, Lansdale police said Saturday afternoon.

Police said that an investigation into John H. Roebuck, 64 — a parochial vicar at Saint Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church since last July — began on Dec. 16 after the alleged victim in the case, an adult male, reported to police a locker room incident that purportedly took place around 7 p.m. on Dec. 15.

The victim said that he met an older male, later identified as Roebuck, in the YMCA sauna, where the pair engaged in a brief conversation, according to police.

Shortly after that, police said, the victim was using a sink in the locker room when he saw Roebuck standing behind him, and as he began to walk away from the sink, Roebuck extended his hand to say goodbye. As they were shaking hands, the man said he felt Roebuck’s other hands grabbing his genitals, police said.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
Telemundo

[con video]

CIUDAD DEL VATICANO – Un documento obtenido por The Associated Press el viernes reveló que el papa Benedicto XVI destituyó a casi 400 sacerdotes en dos años por abusar sexualmente de niños.

Estas estadísticas corresponden a los años 2011 y 2012 y son mucho más que los 170 sacerdotes destituidos entre 2008 y 2009, cuando el Vaticano reveló por primera vez detalles sobre el número de sacerdotes despedidos.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

By Kevin Amerman, Of The Morning Call
12:52 p.m. EST, January 18, 2014

A Montgomery County Roman Catholic priest was arrested Friday and charged with indecent assault without consent and harassment, but police have not released details of his alleged crime.

The Rev. John Roebuck, 64, a priest at St. Stanislaus in Lansdale, is free on $50,000 unsecured bail, according to online court records.

The records say the alleged offense occurred Dec. 15.

Lansdale police did not immediately provide information on the case Saturday.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (UK)

Reuters
theguardian.com, Saturday 18 January 2014

Pope Francis will not show leniency towards paedophile priests as truth and justice are more important than protecting the church, the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor has pledged.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the most authoritative Catholic official on the church’s abuse crisis, said on Saturday that the number of clerics defrocked by the Vatican was likely to have fallen to about 100 in 2013 from about 125 in 2012 and a peak of 260 in 2011.

Scicluna said Francis would, despite his merciful nature, be very tough on paedophile priests after an abuse crisis that the pope on Thursday called “the shame of the church”.

“I have met with Francis and he has expressed great determination to continue on the line of his predecessors,” said Scicluna, who served in the Vatican for 17 years before he was named an auxiliary bishop in his native Malta in 2012.

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

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UNITED KINGDOM
Lancaster Guardian

A former Lancaster Cathedral canon who was jailed for sexually abusing a young man who had hopes of joining the priesthood will not have his sentence reviewed.

The Attorney General’s Office – the Government’s legal department – received a complaint that the one-year prison term given to Stephen Shield on December 13 was “unduly lenient”.

The 55-year-old was found guilty of three counts of indecent assault after a trial at Preston Crown Court.

But a spokeswoman for the department this week confirmed that the sentence would not be reviewed.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Newsworks

Roman Catholic church officials say a priest in suburban Philadelphia has been arrested and charged with harassment and indecent assault.

The alleged conduct by the Rev. John Roebuck did not involve a minor, according to a statement from the Philadelphia archdiocese issued Friday.

A message left at Roebuck’s parish office was not immediately returned. It’s not clear if he has a lawyer.

Court records indicate the alleged incident took place Dec. 15. No other details were available.

Church officials call the charges “deeply troubling.” The 64-year-old priest is on administrative leave from his job as parochial vicar at St. Stanislaus in Lansdale.

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GINEVRA
L’Espresso

[Summary: The meeting in Geneva of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has put pressure on the delegation of the Holy See regarding the minefield of abuse of minors committed by members of the clergy.]

La sessione in corso a Ginevra del comitato dell’ONU per i diritti del fanciullo ha messo sotto torchio la delegazione della Santa Sede, sul terreno minato degli abusi sessuali su minori compiuti da esponenti del clero. La delegazione era composta dagli arcivescovi Silvano M. Tomasi e Charles J. Scicluna, quest’ultimo fino a un anno fa promotore di giustizia della congregazione vaticana per la dottrina della fede.

In particolare, il comitato ha voluto che la Santa Sede rispondesse a una serie di domande sulla sua condotta riguardo agli abusi, molte delle quali formulate come se i vescovi e i superiori religiosi di tutto il mondo agiscano alle dirette dipendenze del papa.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Main Line

By Michael Goldberg,
Mgoldberg@21st-Centurymedia.com

LANSDALE — A priest at Saint Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church was arrested Friday and charged with misdemeanor indecent assault without consent and summary harassment in connection with an incident that occurred on Dec. 15, 2013, court records show.

Father John H. Roebuck, 64, a parochial vicar at the church, was arraigned Friday afternoon before District Judge Albert Augustine of Skippack, who set bail at $50,000 unsecured.

Details of the criminal complaint were not immediately available. Lansdale police could not be reached for comment Friday evening.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia issued a statement Friday that read, in part, “The alleged conduct leading to his arrest did not involve a minor,” adding that the allegations are “deeply troubling.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The Vatican confirms that 260 priests were defrocked by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 and another 124 in 2012, but the actual number of priests dismissed from the ministry could be higher

GERARD O’CONNELL
ROME

Pope Benedict defrocked 384 priests in the two year period, 2011 and 2012, for the sexual abuse of minors.

The Vatican confirmed the story, first broken by the Associated Press news (AP) news agency on January 17, after earlier denying it.

It confirmed that 260 priests were defrocked or removed from the ministry in 2011 and another 124 priests in the year 2012.

The data is contained in the relevant Yearbook of the Holy See’s Activities for the years in question. The Holy See presented this and other raw data to the UN Committee for the Rights of the Child earlier in the week.

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