ABUSE TRACKER

CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

A GUILTY verdict in the Kingston Frontenac court this morning for Father Rene Labelle.

17 January 2014: “Priest found guilty of sexual assault ” & related article

A merciful end to a difficult week for the complainant and his family.

As I have said before, there is no rejoicing on occasions such as this. I can speak for myself here and say that I personally was relieved. Not because I didn’t think he was guilty, but because one truly never knows for certain how a judge will view the evidence. So, relief yes, but, for myself and the others in the small packed courtroom, – no rejoicing. Tears. A smile or two. No jubilation.

I will reiterate again that the Crown did an outstanding job on cross-examination, and again in closing submissions.

And I must right now tell you that Justice Timothy Ray`s rendering of the verdict would truly have warmed the cockles of your heart. My but he spoke with such strength and passion. He essentially determined that nothing Labelle had to say in his denials was credible, and that everything he heard from the victim and the young man`s mother and father was credible.

After the verdict, when it came time sort out what conditions Father Labelle would be under pending sentencing his lawyer Mr. Ecclestone mentioned that Labelle likes to go out for walks and sometimes he might walk through a park and, well, wouldn`t that be alright?

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Ah! If only we here in Australia had the benefit of the members of the United Nations (U.N.) committee who have just given the Vatican officials such a grilling over that “state’s” failures under it obligations under the International Rights of the Child convention.

These few committee members were referred to as members of an “obscure” committee of the U.N., yet they have put the world spotlight on the Vatican’s duplicity in handling its abusive priests. None of them had the grandiose title of something like “Royal Commissioner”. They were not in awe of the Vatican officials, like the Vatican’s “ambassador” to the U.N. Their questions were spot on, to the point and consistent.

Here in Australia we have had a royal commission running for over a year and it has only spent a few days on the Catholic Church. Even with this, it has only investigated the small matter of how victim complaints were dealt with. It did not call up (as it has the power to do), the head of the church in Australia, Cardinal George Pell, to explain himself.

The U.N. committee was composed of “young Turks” who still had a bit of fire in their blood. Here, we have a chief commissioner who is old, establishment and should have retired to one of his vineyards by now.

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VATIKAN
TAZ

Der emeritierte Papst Benedikt XVI. hat 2011 und 2012 rund 400 Priester wegen Kindesmissbrauchs ihres Amtes enthoben. Dies belegt eine interne Statistik des Vatikan.

Als Präfekt der Glaubenskongregation entschied Joseph Ratzinger 2001, dass Bischöfe in vielen Ländern nicht mit dem Kirchenrecht gegen Priester vorgingen, denen sexueller Missbrauch vorgeworfen wurde. Der Vatikan wies die Bischöfe damals an, alle einschlägigen Fälle an die Glaubenskongregation zu übermitteln. Die von Ratzinger eingeleiteten Reformen gaben den Bischöfen in jedem von der Kongregation geprüften Fall vor, wie sie vorzugehen hatten.

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VATIKAN
Zeit

Papst Benedikt hat in den Jahren 2011 und 2012 mehr als 400 Priester wegen Kindesmissbrauchs ihres Amtes enthoben. In den Jahren zuvor waren es deutlich weniger.

Der emeritierte Papst Benedikt XVI. hat 2011 und 2012 mehr als 400 Priester wegen Kindesmissbrauchs ihres Amtes enthoben. Das gehe aus einer Statistik des Vatikans hervor, die der Nachrichtenagentur AP vorliegt. Im Vergleich zu den Vorjahren ist die Zahl deutlich gestiegen: 2008 und 2009 sind nur 170 Priester verstoßen worden, wie aus der Statistik hervorgehe.

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VATIKAN
Tages Anzeiger

In den Jahren 2011 und 2012 hat der emeritierte Papst Benedikt XVI. fast 400 Priester des Amtes enthoben. Laut einem Dokument sollen sie sich an Kinder vergriffen haben.

Anfang des vergangenen Jahrzehnts überrollten Vorwürfe des Kindesmissbrauchs durch ihre Geistlichen die katholische Kirche. Unter Benedikt XVI. stieg die Zahl der Amtsenthebungen von Priestern schliesslich an.

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VATICAN CITY
Deutsche Welle

The Vatican has confirmed reports that former Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests for child sex abuse in the last two years of his pontificate – a dramatic increase over previous years.

The Vatican revealed on Saturday that almost 400 priests had been officially stripped of their privileges and functions by Benedict XVI in the last two years of his pontificate.

“In 2012 there were around 100, while in 2011 there were around 300,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said on Saturday.

Lombardi thus confirmed a report by the Associated Press news agency, which said it had gained access to a document showing that 260 priests were defrocked in 2011 and 124 in 2012, a total of 384. This represents a dramatic increase over the 171 priests defrocked in 2008 and 2009.

The document was a file put together by the Vatican for a hearing before the United Nations on Thursday.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Dr. Jeff Mirus January 17, 2014

On Thursday, Pope Francis preached against scandal and harm caused by corrupt clergy when he concelebrated Mass with two cardinals. One of the cardinals was Roger Mahony, the former archbishop of Los Angeles. A fair evaluation of Mahony’s ecclesiastical career would suggest, among other things, that he showed greater interest in fashionable causes than in the counter-cultural moral demands of the Catholic faith, that he conveyed a noticeably “thin” understanding of the Mass, that he had no qualms about showing ecclesiastical approval of pro-abortion politicians, and that at the very least he handled cases of sexual abuse extraordinarily badly, deliberately protecting abusive priests.

In a move clearly connected to the abuse scandal, Cardinal Mahony was relieved by his successor early last year of all his remaining duties in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Years earlier, his lack of opposition to abortion had angered the American Life League enough to call for his resignation. Similarly, the absence of any clear sense of the Eucharistic Presence of Christ in his worship guidelines so infuriated Mother Angelica of EWTN that she (unwisely) publicly counseled disobedience to his episcopal authority.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald

By:
O’Ryan Johnson

Recent moves inside the Holy See to sideline conservative cardinals have solidified Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s status as a Vatican insider who has the ear of Pope Francis, experts on the Catholic Church say.

“It cements his role as a trusted advisor,” said the Rev. James Bretzke, professor of moral theology at Boston College. “I wouldn’t use the term ‘power broker,’ because I think that’s the wrong nuance. In terms of trying to develop a pastoral vision, as well as a strategic plan, O’Malley is clearly in the inner circle, and the single American cardinal that is in the inner circle.”

Terrance McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, said O’Malley ignores the “culture warrior” rhetoric of past prelates in favor of finding common ground with all believers. That resonates with Francis, who has already benched cardinals who courted controversy in public fights over church doctrine.

“O’Malley is kind of consolidating power within the Francis administration without having any official title,” McKiernan said. “Pope Francis is a shrewd guy. By establishing this side group of cardinals, he side-steps the hierarchy while he’s restructuring it.”

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TEXAS
Click2Houston

[with local video]

January 17, 2014: A document obtained by The Associated Press shows Pope Benedict defrocked nearly 400 priests over just two years — 2011 and 2012 — for sexually molesting children. Amanda Perez reports.

VATICAN CITY –
The document was prepared from data the Vatican had been collecting and was compiled to help officials defend the church before a U.N. committee this week in Geneva. The panel demanded answers about thousands of cases of sexual assault around the world.

The statistics for 2011 and 2012 show a dramatic increase over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009. In 2010, there was an explosion in the number of cases reported in the media in Europe and beyond.

For centuries, the church has had its own in-house procedures to deal with priests who sexually abuse children. Bishops routinely moved problem priests from parish to parish rather than subject them to canonical trials — or turn them into police.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patch

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

A parochial vicar at St. Stanislaus Church in Lansdale has been arrested and charged with misdemeanor indecent assault without consent of another and harassment, according to 6abc.com.

Father John Roebuck, 64, of Lansdale, has been placed on administrative leave and relieved of his duties, per the report.

The Archdiocese is being hush-hush about details, but called Roebuck’s alleged actions “deeply troubling.”

A child was not the alleged victim, per 6abc.

The charges stem from a Dec. 15, 2013 incident, according to court records.

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KYRGYZSTAN
Huffington Post

Harris Zafar

Last week, the Grand Mufti of Kyrgyzstan was forced to resign amidst allegations of adultery with a woman he says is his second wife. He claimed he had the proper Islamic marriage ceremony with her, but since Article 153 of Kyrgyzstan’s criminal code forbids polygamy, this woman could not have legally been a second wife. Thus came allegations of adultery and calls for his resignation.

It is disappointing to see another religious leader embroiled in a sex scandal. People may remember popular evangelical Christian icon Jim Bakker, whose sexual misconduct with a church secretary was revealed in 1987, followed by convictions of fraud and conspiracy that led to imprisonment. World-famous Christian leader Jimmy Swaggart criticized Bakker for his infidelity but later hypocritically availed the services of a prostitute on multiple occasions and even publicly apologized for having sinned. Ted Haggart — president of the National Association of Evangelicals — was forced to resign in 2006 after it was discovered that he paid a male masseur for sex and crystal methamphetamine for three years. The Catholic sexual abuse scandal exposed priests and even archbishops internationally who had sexually abused their congregants. The 2004 John Jay report found that in the U.S. alone 4,392 priests and deacons were accused of sexually abusing 10,667 victims (all under the age of 18) between 1950 and 2002. Also, two rabbis who allegedly sexually abused more than 20 young students of Yeshiva University High School are among a list of Jewish leaders accused of sexual misconduct — including Rabbi Alan J. Shneur Horowitz, Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander and many others.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- Former Vatican envoy to the Dominican Republic, Jozef Wesolowski, charged with sex crimes against several boys will face criminal prosecution by the Vatican Court, said Papacy representative to the UN Monsignor Silvano Tomasi on Thursday.

The investigation, said Tomasi, is underway and the Polish prelate will be tried “with the severity he deserves,” reports Vatican Insider, of the daily La Stampa.

Responding to the UN expert on the issue of non-extradition, Tomasi noted that, in adherence to the new rules approved by Pope Francis, Wesolowski, as a diplomat of the Holy See will be prosecuted in the Vatican, and not extradited.

Wesolowski, who was whisked out of the Dominican Republic August 21, is at the center of two investigations, in the Caribbean nation as well as in his homeland.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

[with video]

Created: 01/17/2014
By: Steph Crock

(ABC 6 News) — A new document reveals former Pope Benedict XVI defrocked hundreds of priests over a span of 2 years. The defrocking involving nearly 400 priests occurred during 2011 and 2012 for sexually molesting children. The information was compiled from data the Vatican was collecting to help defend the church before a U.N. committee this week in Geneva.

There was an explosion in the number of cases reported in the media across the world, country, even in our state. Just recently, 13 priests from the Winona Diocese were accused of sexual abuse. “There is no room in the priesthood for anyone that abuses children,” said Bishop John Quinn with the Winona Diocese.

Those men have either passed or have been removed from priesthood. An action, Bishop John Quinn with the Winona Diocese says, is necessary for this type of behavior. “If we see something that isn’t right, bring it to the supervisor, bring it to someone in charge so that this never happens again,” said Bishop Quinn.

As more cases hit the surface, victims are growing skeptical of the church. “All these years and it’s still going on, not one thing has changed,” said one victim at a press conference overseas. However, a Vatican Correspondent out of Italy, says a lot has changed over the years. “2002 they had the rules in place, 2003 they started to get a large number of reports coming in and every year you got a bigger description of how The Holy See is handling the cases,” said Vatican Correspondent Nicole Winfiel.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – The pope had only the highest words of condemnation in a heated homily. Having addressed the sexual abuse issue as part of his Vatican reforms with the creation of a commission on abuse, the pope on Vatican radio proclaimed, “But are we ashamed? So many scandals that I do not want to mention individually, but all of us know…We know where they are! Scandals, some who charged a lot of money…. The shame of the Church!

“But are we all ashamed of those scandals, of those failings of priests, bishops, laity? Where was the Word of God in those scandals; where was the Word of God in those men and in those women? They did not have a relationship with God! They had a position in the Church, a position of power, even of comfort. But the Word of God, no! ‘But, I wear a medal,’ ‘I carry the Cross’ . Yes, just as those bore the Ark!

“Without the living relationship with God and the Word of God! I am reminded of the words of Jesus about those for whom scandals come … And here the scandal hit: bringing decay (it: decadenza) to the people of God, including (it: fino alla) the weakness and corruption of the priests.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Reporter

By MICHAEL GOLDBERG, mgoldberg@thereporteronline.com
POSTED: 01/17/14

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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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Saturday 18 January 2014

THE newly installed Bishop of Dunkeld has acknowledged “hypocrisy” as the greatest criticism facing the Catholic Church in Scotland as he spoke about the downfall of disgraced cardinal Keith O’Brien.

Bishop Stephen Robson, who was installed at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Dundee last week, said it would be “gravely wrong” not to forgive the cardinal, who resigned as Archbishop of St Andrew’s and Edinburgh last year after ­admitting to inappropriate behaviour.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.– The Holy See told Polish prosecutors that its former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Polish Archbishop Josef Wesolowski, is covered by diplomatic immunity and that the Vatican does not extradite its citizens.

Wesolowski´s case has raised questions about whether the Vatican, in recalling him from Dominican jurisdiction, was shielding him and giving its own investigations priority over those of the Dominican Republic.

The former ambassador is the highest-ranking Vatican official ever to be investigated for alleged sex abuse. Poland also opened an investigation into the archbishop and a fellow Polish priest.

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MEXICO
Criterio

[Summary: The Vatican has finally entered a process of reviewing cases of child sexual abuse by priests, bishops and other clergy, according to former priest Alberto Athie.]

sábado, 18 de enero de 2014
Por: Georgina Montalvo Agencia Reforma

El Vaticano entró finalmente a un proceso de revisión de casos de abuso sexual infantil cometido por sacerdotes, obispos u otros clérigos, consideró el ex sacerdote Alberto Athié.

El especialista consideró que después de la comparecencia de El Vaticano ante el Comité de los Derechos del Niño de la ONU se acumuló información sobre cómo la Iglesia castólica dio un trato privilegiado a los abusadores.

“Yo creo que ahora sí (El Vaticano) va a entrar en un proceso de revisión para ir terminando ya con este modelo institucional que hizo tanto daño a tantas niñas y niños en el mundo.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Herald

By:
Bob McGovern

The nearly 400 Catholic priests a bombshell report yesterday revealed were defrocked over two years for molesting children represent just a small fraction of a huge backlog of accused clergy that have yet to face consequences, according to theologians and victim’s advocacy groups.

“I’ve seen a reliable report that more than 700 cases have been sent over by America alone,” said Nicholas Cafardi, a canon and civil lawyer at the Duquesne Law School in Pittsburgh. “So 400, that’s not surprising.”

A Vatican document obtained by The Associated Press shows Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests from 2011-12 for sexually assaulting children — more than double the priest removals in 2008 and 2009.

The names and whereabouts of priests on the list were not immediately available. However, according to information on the Archdiocese of Boston’s website, eight local priests were defrocked during the 2011-12 timeframe.

Terrence C. Donilon, spokesman for the archdiocese, declined to answer questions about the report, referring reporters to the Vatican.

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ROM
Handelsblatt

Rom
Seit 2001 versucht die katholische Kirche, Tausende von Vorwürfen des Kindesmissbrauchs durch ihre Priester in aller Welt in den Griff zu bekommen. Eine zentrale Rolle dabei nahm der inzwischen emeritierte Papst Benedikt XVI. ein – zunächst als Kardinal und Präfekt der Glaubenskongregation, dann als Kirchenoberhaupt ab 2005. Eine Statistik des Vatikans zeigt nun, wie im Laufe der Zeit das Vorgehen gegen Priester, denen sexueller Missbrauch vorgeworfen wurde, verschärft wurde.

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UNITED STATES
My Fox Houston

By Tom Zizka, Business Reporter

HOUSTON (FOX 26) –
For the first time, the Vatican is publicly answering questions about its troubled history with priests committing sexual abuse and revealing some startling statistics.

A United Nations committee on protecting children called the Vatican to testify.

Documents show Pope Benedict XVI defrocked 400 priests in the year before he stepped down.

The church says there is no excuse for such violation of children, but victims groups say it’s only a first step.

Amy Smith, of the Houston chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, says, “It’s not numbers and statistics that will protect kids: It’s the decisive action that would entail not just releasing statistics but the names and whereabouts of those accused predator priests.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald

Saturday, January 18, 2014

By:
Raymond L. Flynn

Vatican representative Archbishop Silvano Tomasi’s testimony yesterday before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child was painful for all to hear. It is depressing to learn about the sexual abuse of children and there is no explanation that is acceptable.

This is a crime and as many people have said, this is a matter for law enforcement authorities to prosecute, not church officials. The pain that these children and their parents experience defies explanation. The only resolution is full disclosure and transparency. Church leaders owe this to the public and the good name of the overwhelming majority of decent and faithful priests.

Pedophile priests have been a problem for many years and only a fundamental change in church policy can put this problem behind the church. Nobody wants to see swift and decisive action more than faithful Catholics. This is not just a matter of forgiveness, but of justice and the protection of children.

Catholics have always felt that such a serious and sensitive matter as sexual abuse of children could not be effectively dealt with in-house by church personnel. The process must be more open and accountable to the public and press. Until that happens, we will continue to hear about these shocking revelations. A more sexually permissive society is no excuse for even one case of sexual abuse of a child by a priest.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald

By:
Margery Eagan

Here’s the great paradox of Pope Francis. His sincere and humble outreach to the poor and marginalized has inspired millions. Yet his embrace hasn’t extended to the very group his fellow priests, and the church itself, tormented by their crimes and cover-up: survivors of clergy sex abuse.

And the news that the Vatican has defrocked 400 priest abusers over the past two years changed nothing.

It was Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict, who defrocked them. We’re still waiting to see if Francis finally brings to justice the priests and the bishops who covered for them.

Four hundred is but a tiny percentage of the likely thousands of predator priests worldwide. To put it in another perspective, there have been 276 priests accused of sexual abuse in the Boston archdiocese alone, according to BishopAccountability.org, a website that tracks the church’s continued mishandling of the abuse crisis.

Defrocking only means these abusers aren’t priests anymore. They can certainly molest again. We don’t know their names or if they’ve been reported to police. For all we know, one could be living next door.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 18, 2014 NCR Today

Rome
We have a new winner in the sweepstakes for shortest shelf-life of any Vatican denial of a news story ever, with the nearly instantaneous retraction Jan. 17 of a statement disputing an Associated Press report that almost 400 priests had been defrocked in 2011/2012 in cases involving sexual abuse.

The denial was issued by Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, at 9:31 pm Rome time last night and retracted at 10:32 pm, which means that it survived barely an hour.

In retrospect, the breakdown seems a classic illustration of the perils of today’s instant news cycles.

The Associated Press moved the story on Jan. 17, basing it on data prepared for the Vatican delegation at a session of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva the day before devoted to exploring the church’s record on child sexual abuse.
.
That delegation was composed of Italian Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s representative to the U.N. in Geneva, and Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, the Vatican’s former top sex abuse prosecutor. Among other materials, they had a spreadsheet with numbers of abuse cases reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in recent years and the dispensation of those cases, which was apparently obtained by the AP.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis showed much of his hand this week, and his priority is cardinals before children from key indications. It has been almost a year since the ex-pope shocked, if not also frightened, many cardinals by suddenly resigning amidst escalating scandals. This led to the unexpected selection of Pope Francis to save the cardinals, at least by changing the subject from the scandals and gaining time for the Vatican to try to find a path that eluded the ex-pope through the scandals.

The cardinals had been picked by the ex-pope and Pope John Paul II as men who apparently would mostly follow orders unquestionably. In exchange, the popes provided these men with the generally unaccountable power and considerable wealth inherent in most cardinals’ permanent positions.

It appears evident that the trigger for the ex-pope’s abrupt resignation was the esclating priest child sexual abuse scandal that he mismanaged so badly. The financial scandals could likely have been fixed eventually by spending more money, which popes have plenty of access to and which appears to be happening now, as noted here at: [Chiesa] ; but the abuse scandal raises possibilities of the imprisonment of some cardinals and bishops, money notwithstanding. This was quite clear at this week’s disturbing UN hearings in Geneva as shown here at: [The New York Times], and further reported here at: [The Globe and Mail]

It also became clearer this week that Francis, and his Secretary of State Parolin, a former longtime top aide to Cardinal Sodano, are following a geopolitical survival strategy very similar to the one that Sodano and Parolin followed in 2004 to help secure President Bush’s relection as discussed further below. The Vatican’s UN response was also led by another longtime subordinate of Cardinal Sodano, Vatican diplomat, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi.

Relevantly, John Allen, a well informed Vatican reporter and CNN commentator just perceptively noted, as follows: ” … the sex abuse crisis is where two powerful narratives about Catholicism collide. One is that the church is a secretive institution devoted above all to protecting its own interests, so that claims of turning over a new leaf are viewed through a lens of suspicion; the other is that Francis is a reforming pope genuinely committed to the poor and the vulnerable, and people seem hungry to believe that he’ll do the right thing” .

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VATICAN CITY
CBC News

The Associated Press
Posted: Jan 17, 2014

A document obtained by The Associated Press on Friday shows Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests over just two years for sexually molesting children.

The statistics for 2011 and 2012 show a dramatic increase over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first provided details on the number of priests who have been defrocked. Prior to that, it had only publicly revealed the number of alleged cases of sexual abuse it had received and the number of trials it had authorized.

While it’s not clear why the numbers spiked in 2011, it could be because 2010 saw a new explosion in the number of cases reported in the media in Europe and beyond.

The document was prepared from data the Vatican had been collecting and was compiled to help the Holy See defend itself before a United Nations committee this week in Geneva.

Criticism, questions from UN committee

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s UN ambassador in Geneva, referred to just one of the statistics in the course of eight hours of oftentimes pointed criticism and questioning from the UN human rights committee.

The statistics were compiled from the Vatican’s own annual reports about the activities of its various offices, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex abuse cases. Although public, the annual reports are not readily available or sold outside Rome and are usually found in Vatican offices or Catholic university libraries.

An AP review of the reference books shows a remarkable evolution in the Holy See’s in-house procedures to discipline pedophiles since 2001, when the Vatican ordered bishops to send cases of all credibly accused priests to Rome for review.

Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger took action after determining that bishops around the world weren’t following church law to put accused clerics on trial in church tribunals. Bishops routinely moved problem priests from parish to parish rather than subject them to canonical trials — or turn them in to police.

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GENEVA
Boston.com

[with video]

By JOHN HEILPRIN and NICOLE WINFIELD / Associated Press / January 16, 2014

GENEVA (AP) — It resembled a courtroom cross-examination, except no question was off-limits, dodging the answer wasn’t an option and the proceedings were webcast live.

After decades of accusations that its culture of secrecy contributed to priest sex abuse, the Vatican was forced for the first time Thursday to defend its record in public and at length.

In a stuffy U.N. conference room before an obscure human rights committee, the Holy See was interrogated for eight hours about the scale of abuse and what it was doing to prevent it.

The Vatican was compelled to appear before the committee as a signatory to the U.N. Convention for the Rights of the Child, which requires governments to take all adequate measures to protect children from harm and ensure their interests are placed above all else.

The Holy See was one of the first states to ratify the treaty in 1990, eager to contribute the church’s experience in caring for children in Catholic schools, hospitals, orphanages and refugee centers. It submitted a first implementation report in 1994, but didn’t provide progress assessments for nearly two decades, until 2012.

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KENTUCKY
Owensboro-Daviess

OWENSBORO, KY (WFIE)- Father James Meredith will keep his position as a priest; but according to the assistant to the Bishop, no date has been set for him to return from his suspension.

No word yet on whether he will return to Blessed Mother Church.

On Thursday we told you that Father Meredith would not be facing criminal charges after allegations of inappropriate conduct with a minor.

Owensboro police tell us the minor, now an adult, declined to be interviewed and they determined the alleged conduct was not criminal.

Since the inquiry was unfounded, police closed their investigation.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

Close to 400 priests were defrocked in only two years by the former Pope Benedict XVI over claims of child abuse, the Vatican has confirmed.

The statistics for 2011 and 2012 show a dramatic increase compared to previous years, according to a document obtained by the Associated Press (AP).

The file was part of Vatican data collected for a UN hearing on Thursday.

It was the first time the Holy See was publicly confronted over the sexual abuse of children by clergy.

Church officials at the hearing in Geneva faced a barrage of hard questions covering why they were withholding data and what they were doing to prevent future abuse.

Victims’ advocates complained there was still too little transparency.

‘Shame of the Church’

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi initially said the AP report had been based on a mistaken reading of data.

But he later retracted his statement, confirming to the BBC that the story was correct. …

Catholic Church abuse scandals

Germany – A priest, named only as Andreas L, admitted in 2012 to 280 counts of sexual abuse involving three boys over a decade

United States – Revelations about abuses in the 1990s by two Boston priests, Paul Shanley and John Geoghan, caused public outrage

Belgium – The bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned in April 2010 after admitting that he had sexually abused a boy for years

Italy – The Catholic Church in Italy admitted in 2010 that about 100 cases of paedophile priests had been reported over 10 years

Ireland – A report in 2009 found that sexual and psychological abuse was “endemic” in Catholic-run industrial schools and orphanages for most of the 20th century

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Albany Times Union

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — 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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NEW JERSEY
Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on January 17, 2014

After years of high-level obstruction and denial, there’s an air of justification in watching Vatican envoys squirm as a United Nations panel grilled them on the church’s worldwide clergy abuse epidemic. The Holy See’s represenative finds himself in the uncomfortable crosshairs of a high-profile interrogation – a long-anticipated moment for victims of the priests’ abuse.

The U.N. investigation drives home the point – particularly for U.S. Catholics – that priest abuse isn’t a Boston issue, nor an exclusively American problem, but rather a global crisis.

The official Vatican response to U.N. questioning falls short of accepting full responsibility for decades of child sexual abuse by its clerics. But the answers include refreshing pledges, finally, that Rome “gets it.”

In concert with the U.N. probe, Pope Francis delivered powerful remarks about the scandal in his homily during Thursday’s Mass at the Vatican.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Cathy Lynn Grossman | Jan 17, 2014

Newly released documents show Pope Benedict XVI “defrocked” 400 priests in two years.
While he was pope in 2011-12, Benedict XVI laicized (the proper term for de-frocking) about 400 priests who had abused minors, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.

It’s certainly news that the Vatican, however, begrudgingly, has released some statistics in this global scandal. But was it effective in creating a safer world for young people?

Not necessarily.

According story by ABC Radio religion blogger in Australia, the retired bishop of Sydney Geoffrey Robinson, author of the book Confronting sex and power in the Catholic church, explained this it this way,

“Laicisation removes a priest from the clerical state. It removes church obligations for upkeep towards the resulting “non-priest”. But it also severs the ties of mutual responsibility between the ex-priest and the church. The church is no longer canonically responsible for the ex-priest.”

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VATICAN CITY
NPR

by BILL CHAPPELL
January 17, 2014

In a period of just over two years, Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests for molesting children, according to the AP, which says it obtained a document representing a rare collection of such data.

As of Friday afternoon, NPR hasn’t independently confirmed the AP’s information, not having seen the document. Here’s a bit of context from NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli in Rome:

“If confirmed, the number of nearly 400 marks a sharp increase over the 170 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first provided details on the number of defrocked priests.

“Before that, the Vatican only revealed the number of alleged cases of sexual abuse it had received.”

The reported defrockings span a period from 2011-2012, meaning they would have taken place well before the election of Pope Francis in March of 2013. The document that allegedly lists the incidents is part of the Catholic Church’s ongoing effort to cope with a legacy of child sex abuse.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

A Roman Catholic priest was arrested today and charged with harassment and indecent assault, according to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Father John Roebuck, who in July had been appointed the Parochial Vicar of Saint Stanislaus Church in Lansdale, was placed on administrative leave. Roebuck formerly served at Saint Thomas the Apostle, in Glen Mills. He has also taught at Lansdale Catholic High School

“This information is deeply troubling,” an archdiocese spokesman said in a statement, adding that the alleged misconduct did not involve a minor.

Roebuck, who was placed on administrative leave, has been relieved of all of his duties within the Archdiocese.

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VATICAN CITY
Christian Post

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
January 17, 2014

Documents released by the Associated Press suggest that from 2011 to 2012 Pope Benedict worked to defrock nearly 400 priests on claims that the men molested children – news that comes in the aftermath of the U.N.’s harsh critique of the Catholic Church’s handling of the global sex abuse scandal on Thursday.

The reports also demonstrate a shift in the Church’s approach towards handling sex abuse cases, which historically were dealt with by switching the parish where the priest served, rather than involving local law enforcement or Vatican tribunals.

But in 2001, former Pope Benedict, then a cardinal, mandated that accused priests be put on trial in church tribunals, with a maximum penalty of being defrocked.

In 2005, the Vatican began reporting numbers of defrocked priests and authorized Church trials against 21 accused clerics. Since 2005, the numbers began to increase to between 300-400 cases a year in 2007 and 2008.

In 2010, following a wave of media coverage of sex abuse scandals in Europe, 527 cases were reported, though the Vatican did not report how many priests had been defrocked. In 2011 and 2012, however, 260 and 124 priests were defrocked respectively.

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Mail (UK)

Revealed: Pope Benedict XVI defrocked 400 priests for sexually molesting children in just two years

By WILLS ROBINSON
PUBLISHED: 18:07 EST, 17 January 2014

Pope Benedict XVI removed nearly 400 priests in two years for molesting children, it has been revealed.

The shocking statistics for 2011-12 represent the first time the Vatican has revealed how many priests who have been defrocked.

Prior to that, the Catholic Church only revealed the number of alleged sexual abuse cases it had received.

The revelations come after centuries of tradition which saw the Vatican dealing with cases internally, without the involvement of police.

The document was prepared from data the Vatican had been collecting to help the Holy See defend itself before a UN committee in Geneva, Switzerland, this week.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s UN ambassador in Geneva, referred to just one of the damning statistics during eight hours of criticism and questioning from the UN human rights committee.

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VATICAN CITY
Digital Journal

By Andrew Dyer
Jan 17, 2014

A newly revealed report revealed that Pope Benedict XVI defrocked 400 priests for molestation in two years of of his Papacy.

Statistics show that the number of priests defrocked in 2011 and 2012 spiked from the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009. According to CBC News, numbers of defrocked priests before 2008 are unavailable as the Vatican only made public the number of alleged reports of sexual abuse it had received and the number of trials it had authorized to move forward. The report was composed of data the Vatican had been collecting intended to help the Catholic Church to defend itself before a United Nations committee.

In 2008, the report stated that 68 priests were defrocked with 191 abuse cases reported. The number of defrocked priests rose in 2009 to 103 out of 223 cases reported. 2010 saw 527 abuse cases reported however no numbers of defrocked priests have been made available to the public. 260 priests were removed from their positions in 2011 with 404 cases reported to the Vatican and 419 priests had lesser penalties passed down to them for crimes involving abuse. 2012 saw 124 priests defrocked and 418 cases reported.

Pope Benedict’s actions are far removed from the Vatican’s tendency to move priests accused of sexual abuse from parish to parish rather than see them brought to trial. This has often led to victims accusing the Catholic Church of being autonomous and putting their procedures ahead of law enforcement.

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VATICAN CITY
The Stir

by Maressa Brown

Documents uncovered this week by the Associated Press are shedding light on just how many priests were defrocked by Pope Benedict XVI over the past two years for sexually molesting children. And the number is horrifyingly high. Back in 2008 and 2009 — when the Vatican first offered specifics on this — 171 priests were removed, but in 2011 and 2012, the stats show a scary spike to 400 priests defrocked.

While it isn’t exactly clear why the numbers went up so much over the last two years, it’s possible that more cases were being reported as the unnerving phenomenon became more widely covered in the news media. In other words, a lot more priests were probably guilty of these unthinkable acts before 2011, but they’ve only recently been reported and punished. Crazy.

Doesn’t sound like there should be any question about how legit these stats are. The AP explains that the numbers were compiled from the Vatican’s own annual reports about the activities of its various offices, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex abuse cases. The reason: To help the Holy See defend itself in front of a U.N. committee this week in Geneva.

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GENEVA
RH Reality Check

by Erin Matson, Editor at Large, RH Reality Check
January 17, 2014

Thursday, representatives from the Vatican went before a United Nations panel to discuss the way the Catholic Church has handled, and covered up, numerous instances of sexual abuse by priests worldwide.

The public record from this hearing, the first time representatives from the Holy See had been subjected to public questioning of this nature, offers little consolation to those who had been waiting for Pope Francis to offer meaningful reforms that might help him live up to his “Person of the Year” designation. Instead, we were given additional reasons to believe that the all-male hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church must not be entrusted to come up with a program that will resolve and redress sexual crimes within its flock. Further, we were given additional reasons to question the Vatican’s role in the international law community.

First, the hearing came a bit overdue. The Vatican ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990. After an initial report in 1994, the Holy See did not submit a progress report to the international body until 2012. It’s shocking that those reports and Thursday’s hearing took so long; those 18 years were filled with revelations of sex abuse by priests, associated cover-ups by Vatican officials, and international cries for accountability.

To those who think Pope Francis, the alleged reformer, has it covered, a closer examination of the facts suggests otherwise: It wasn’t until last year that the criminal code was updated to specify sexual violence against children as a crime. Further, a new commission established by the pope to address the crisis of child molestation by priests lacks judicial authority and instead focuses on providing care to victims of abuse—quite a sick idea, given that internal supervision mechanisms from the Vatican have no track record of providing appropriate care, much less justice, for the victims of abuse by Catholic priests.

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VATICAN CITY
MSNBC

By Trymaine Lee

As the Vatican was being blistered by a U.N. committee this week for its decades-long mishandling and cover up of a global sex abuse scandal involving priests and children, new disclosures show the extraordinary steps that Pope Benedict XVI took to get rid of problem priests.

In just two years, Benedict defrocked nearly 400 priests, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press, which first reported the story on Friday. The number of priests defrocked by Benedict in 2011 and 2012 reflected a dramatic spike over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, according to the AP.

The newly uncovered statistics come from data from annual reports compiled by the Vatican to help the Holy See defend itself before a U.N. committee this week in Geneva.

While Benedict has been seen as remote, dogmatic, and lacking the charisma of both his predecessor, John Paul II, and his successor, Pope Francis, he was aggressive in pushing the Holy See to address the scourge of child molestation within the Church.

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NEW YORK/VERMONT
Albany Times Union

By Brendan J. Lyons

The Albany Roman Catholic Diocese, which was ordered by a Vermont judge to turn over nearly 40 years worth of sexual abuse records to a victim who filed a lawsuit, has filed an unusual petition asking a federal appeals court to strike down the ruling and dismiss the case.

The diocese argues that U.S. District Court Judge William K. Sessions III made errors and ignored U.S. Supreme Court decisions when he ruled last year that the Albany diocese can be sued in Vermont by a New York man who was taken across state lines and raped by Gary Mercure, a priest serving up to 20 years in prison for raping Albany-area altar boys.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an order this week that will put the Vermont case on hold while the panel considers the diocese’s petition, which is known as a writ of mandamus. The petition seeks appellate intervention and challenges whether Sessions improperly ruled that the diocese’s limited business ties to Vermont were enough to establish jurisdiction in a state. The diocese said the lawsuit was filed in that state because the statute of limitations time-barred any claim being filed in New York.

In the petition, the diocese notes that Sessions “has ordered the production of thousands of documents spanning decades—most notably, all allegations of sexual abuse of minors, and the details of all investigations resulting from such allegations, dating back to 1975. This will require the collection and review of files on thousands of employees maintained in hundreds of locations, at great effort and expense, and calls for the disclosure of highly sensitive private information relating to employees who are not parties to this lawsuit.”

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VATIKAAN
NCR (Nederland)

[Summary: Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 and 2012 defrocked nearly 400 priests because they had molested children, according to a document obtained by the Associated Press.]

Paus Benedictus XVI heeft in 2011 en 2012 bijna vierhonderd priesters uit hun ambt gezet, omdat ze zich hadden vergrepen aan kinderen. Dat blijkt uit een document dat in handen is gekomen van AP.
Het is voor het eerst dat details bekend zijn gemaakt over het aantal priesters dat door het Vaticaan is ontslagen. Voorheen liet de Heilige Stoel alleen weten over hoeveel gevallen van seksueel misbruik zij was ingelicht.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 17, 2014 NCR Today

In spite of an earlier Vatican statement denying an Associated Press story that almost 400 priests had been defrocked for the sexual abuse of minors during 2011/2012, a bishop with knowledge of the statistics says the AP story was correct.

The Vatican spokesman also confirmed the AP story in response to an NCR inquiry.

Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, who served for 10 years as the Vatican’s top sex abuse prosecutor and who represented the Vatican during a Jan. 16 hearing of the U.N.’s Committee of the Rights of the Child, told NCR that in 2011 and 2012, 384 priests were either voluntarily dismissed from the clerical state or had laicization imposed as a penalty in cases related to sexual abuse.

Scicluna spoke to NCR Jan. 17 by phone.

Based on information provided in the published volume “Activity of the Holy See,” according to Scicluna, there were 135 priests in 2011 who voluntarily requested dismissal from the clerical state and 125 for whom laicization was imposed as a penalty.

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VATICAN CITY
CNN

(CNN) The Vatican acknowledged on Friday that close to 400 priests left the priesthood in 2011 and 2012 because of accusations that they had sexually abused children.

That acknowledgment followed a report by the Associated Press that nearly 400 priests had been defrocked during those two years. The Vatican initially disputed that report.

Bishop Charles Scicluna, formerly the Vatican’s top prosecutor of sexually abusive clergy, said 384 priests left the priesthood – either voluntarily or not – in 2011 and 2012, the last two years of Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy.

In 2011, 125 priests were dismissed from ministry by the Vatican because of accusations they had sexually abused children, Scicluna told CNN on Friday, citing the “Activity of the Holy See,” a kind of Vatican yearbook. The same year, 135 priests were “dispensed,” meaning they voluntarily resigned, Scicluna said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Chicago News Conference Tuesday, January 21

Documents to be Released Tuesday on 30 Archdiocese of Chicago
Priests Accused of Sexually Abusing Children

Sexual abuse survivors and their attorneys will share and discuss the documents
turned over January 15, 2014 by the Archdiocese as part of a 2006 mediation agreement

What: At a news conference on Tuesday, 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.
• Reveal secret Archdiocesan communications detailing the Archdiocese’s efforts to conceal abuse and protect itself at the expense of innocent children.
• 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 specializing in sexual abuse litigation who work together on behalf of sexual abuse survivors in Illinois helping them achieve justice and healing. Patrick J. Wall, former priest and monk who is now a consultant and advocate for sexual abuse survivors.

Notes:
• All documents will be available online Tuesday morning prior to the press event at www.abusedinchicago.com and www.andersonadvocates.com.
• Press packets will be available at the press conference Tuesday.

Contact Jeff Anderson: Office: 651.927.7872 Mobile: 612.817.8665
Contact Marc Pearlman: Office: 312.261.4550 Mobile: 773.368.0142

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SCOTLAND
The Tablet (UK)

17 January 2014 14:51 by Brian Morton

The new Bishop of Dunkeld says that not to forgive Cardinal Keith O’Brien would be “gravely wrong” but that the disgraced archbishop needs to make reparation for the harm he has done.

Speaking after his installation at St Andrew’s Cathedral, Dundee, last week, Bishop Stephen Robson acknowledged that “hypocrisy” was the greatest criticism facing the Church in Scotland.

Cardinal O’Brien, who resigned following allegations of sexual misconduct made by priests, had been an outspoken opponent of gay marriage.

Bishop Robson worked with Cardinal O’Brien for 35 years.

“Never once in all that time did I experience anything of the behaviour he was accused of. That is why his downfall came as such a shock to me and to so many. The Cardinal was much loved in the archdiocese. I was a bishop only a few months when this sad narrative began to unravel. The cardinal admitted behaviour unbecoming in a man of God and I do not believe forgiveness of him is at question.”

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

BishopAccountability.org submitted this letter and report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to assist in the CRC’s historic review of the Holy See’s compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In our submissions, we discuss the Holy See’s knowledge and management of cases of clergy sexual abuse worldwide, its continued refusal to require reporting to civil authorities, and Pope Francis’s problematic choice to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

On January 16, 2014, in Geneva, Switzerland, Committee members closely questioned Bishop Charles Scicluna, formerly of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the UN. The Committee focused on the Holy See’s replies to the CRC’s July 2013 List of Issues.

See PDFs of our letter and report, or see our web versions below. See also the response to the Holy See Replies filed December 2013 by the Center for Constitutional Rights and SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests); the Holy See’s 2011 report to the CRC; and CCR/SNAP’s February 2013 alternative report. Click here to see all related documents on file with the CRC.

Letter to the CRC from BishopAccountability.org
• Detailed information on abuse cases brought to the attention of the Holy See
• Command and control structures
• Current leadership of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
• The record of Pope Francis in Buenos Aires and in Rome

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Jan. 17, 2014

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

This is a decades-late drop in bucket. Defrocking predator priests is less about safeguarding kids. It’s more about church damage control.

[New York Daily News]

Yesterday in Geneva, Catholic officials claimed to be essentially powerless over pedophile priests. Today, Catholic officials are saying how many they’ve defrocked.

Here’s the number Catholics should remember: zero. That’s how many Catholic supervisors have been punished, worldwide, for enabling and hiding horrific clergy sex crimes. The Pope must start defrocking clerics who cover up sex crimes, not just clerics who commit them. Until that happens, little will change.

So why the alleged increase in defrocked pedophile priests? It’s likely because more victims across the globe are gaining the strength and courage to come forward and are reporting to (and pressuring) church officials because archaic, predator-friendly secular laws prevent most victims from seeking justice in court. And it’s likely because more bishops are convincing Vatican officials that defrocking predators is a smart public relations and legal defense strategy. Cutting all ties with the most egregious serial sex offender clerics helps convince Catholics that progress is being made.

But it’s irresponsible for Catholic officials to recruit, educate, ordain, train, transfer and protect predator priests, then defrock them when they’re caught and the heat gets too intense. Catholic officials should help make sure child molesting clerics are criminally prosecuted. If that can’t happen, then Catholic officials should house them in remote, secure treatment centers. And Catholic officials should lobby for, not against, reforming outdated, secular laws that enable many who commit and conceal child sex crimes to escape punishment.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

By Barbara Blaine, President of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP)

Since 1988, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has been working to help survivors of clergy sex abuse heal one another and to protect children and vulnerable adults from continuing sexual violence. We have formed a vast network of mutual support among survivors, exposed this global crisis to the public, and repeatedly confronted perpetrators and their protectors, demanding that the Catholic church stop enabling – and start helping to end – this widespread and systemic violence. When we realized we needed to take our work global, we reached out to human rights attorneys at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)–a partnership that has brought us all the way to the United Nations in Geneva yesterday to witness the Vatican being called to account for the crisis by an international body for the first time.

In 2011, CCR and SNAP joined together to file a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC), requesting that the ICC prosecutor investigate the Vatican for crimes against humanity and hold accountable high-level Vatican officials, including Pope Benedict, in their supervisory and direct roles. Along with the complaint, we submitted more than 20,000 pages of supporting materials, including reports, policy papers, and evidence of the crimes. In addition to the obvious impact that an ICC investigation would have on efforts to obtain justice and accountability, by framing the sexual violence scandal as an international human rights issue and taking it directly to the tribunal that has handled some of the most horrific human rights abuses in recent history, we made an important statement about the extent of the clergy sex abuse crisis, the gravity of the harm of rape and sexual violence, the depth of the wounds it has left, and where responsibility lies. This is not a problem of a few bad priests, it is not a problem of the past, and it is not a problem confined to the United States. It is a global culture of violence that is concealed and enabled by those at the highest levels of an entity that purports to be a sovereign state.

In the wake of worldwide media coverage of the filing, SNAP heard from thousands of survivors in more than 70 countries, and, in April, we held our first international conference, in Dublin, which drew survivors from twelve countries and five continents. Shortly after our ICC filing, Amnesty International released a report affirming that physical and sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Ireland included “acts that amounted to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment.” Though the ICC prosecutor has indicated that the office will not pursue an investigation at this time while leaving open the possibility of doing so in the future, the filing has sparked a worldwide movement urging international human rights bodies to provide accountability–which ultimately led us to the United Nations.

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GENEVA
WBUR

[with audio]

By Deborah Becker January 17, 2014

BOSTON — Vatican officials faced intense questioning Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland, when a United Nations committee demanded answers about the church’s handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, representing the Vatican, said the church is committed to protecting children.

“The Holy See and local church structures in all parts of the world are committed to holding inviolable the dignity and entire person of every child: body, mind and spirit,” Tomasi said.

Helen McGonigle, a Connecticut attorney and clergy abuse survivor, joined WBUR’s Morning Edition to talk about her experience in Geneva, where she says she wanted to witness the first public questioning of Vatican officials about clergy abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

[Update: In spite of an earlier Vatican statement denying an Associated Press story that almost 400 priests had been defrocked for the sexual abuse of minors during 2011/2012, a bishop with knowledge of the statistics says the AP story was correct.]

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 17, 2014 NCR Today

In response to a story by The Associated Press asserting that Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests during 2011-2012 for the sexual abuse of minors, the Vatican released a statement Friday saying that the number in the AP story refers to the number of new cases opened during that span rather than the outcome of those cases.

The following is the full text of the statement from Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, in an NCR translation from Italian.

“Information diffused this evening by the Associated Press appears to be based on an incorrect reading of data published in the volume ‘Activity of the Holy See 2011,’ where there’s a reference to the activity of the disciplinary office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (p.466).”

“That volume speaks about the 612 new cases opened in 2012, which come from the entire world, including 418 cases involving abuse of minors.”

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VATICAN CITY
Telegraph (UK)

Nearly 400 priests were defrocked by the Vatican over just two years for molesting children, according to a leaked document.

The statistics for 2011-12 show a dramatic increase over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first provided details on the number of priests who have been defrocked. Prior to that, it had only publicly revealed the number of alleged cases of sexual abuse it had received.

The document was obtained by The Associated Press and was prepared from data the Vatican had been collecting to help the Holy See defend itself before a U.N. committee this week in Geneva.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, referred to just one of the statistics in the course of eight hours of oftentimes pointed criticism and questioning from the U.N. human rights committee.

The statistics were compiled from the Vatican’s own annual reports about the activities of its various offices, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex abuse cases.

Although public, the annual reports are not readily available or sold outside Rome and are usually found in Vatican offices or Catholic university libraries.

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY

With their case completed, Crown prosecutors expect that Father Eric Dejaeger will take the stand in his own defence when his trial at the Nunavut Court of Justice building in Iqaluit resumes Monday, Jan. 20.

The Catholic priest is accused of sex crimes against Inuit children alleged to have occurred through the late 1970s and early 1980s in Igloolik.

“I’m only guessing what they’ll do. But as far as I know, they’re going to start calling evidence,” said Crown prosecutor Doug Curliss, adding he had been informed by defence lawyer Malcolm Kempt that Dejaeger would appear as a witness.

“The defence lawyer has told us he will. But that was what he told us back in December,” Curliss said.

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VATICAN CITY
WCF Courier

By NICOLE WINFIELD and JOHN HEILPRIN

A document obtained by The Associated Press on Friday shows Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests over just two years for sexually molesting children.

The statistics for 2011 and 2012 show a dramatic increase over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first provided details on the number of priests who have been defrocked. Prior to that, it had only publicly revealed the number of alleged cases of sexual abuse it had received and the number of trials it had authorized.

While it’s not clear why the numbers spiked in 2011, it could be because 2010 saw a new explosion in the number of cases reported in the media in Europe and beyond.

The document was prepared from data the Vatican had been collecting and was compiled to help the Holy See defend itself before a U.N. committee this week in Geneva.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, referred to just one of the statistics in the course of eight hours of oftentimes pointed criticism and questioning from the U.N. human rights committee.

The statistics were compiled from the Vatican’s own annual reports about the activities of its various offices, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex abuse cases. Although public, the annual reports are not readily available or sold outside Rome and are usually found in Vatican offices or Catholic university libraries.

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MISSOURI
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A priest of the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus ordained in 1974, Lehmkuhl worked as a high school teacher before earning a law degree in 1983 and establishing a legal aid center at St. Louis University. In 1995 he was caught ordering a child pornography video; investigators found him to be in posession of seven other such videos. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in May 1996 to one year in prison. Lehmkuhl returned to the Jesuit Community at St. Louis University, working as a hospital chaplain and eventually resuming his legal aid work. He died in March 9, 2012.

Ordained: 1974
Died:March 2012

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CALIFORNIA
National Catholic Reporter

Catholic News Service | Jan. 17, 2014

STOCKTON, CALIF. The decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection was difficult for the diocese of Stockton but will allow it to “compensate as fairly as possible” victims of abuse, “including those who have not yet come forward or had their day in court,” said Bishop Stephen Blaire.

Bankruptcy protection, filed Wednesday, also will “provide a way for us to continue the ministry and support we provide to the parishes, the poor and the communities located within our diocese,” he said in a statement Monday.

“After months of careful consideration and prayer,” Blaire said, it became clear to him it was the right course of action. “This decision was reached through consultation with experts in finance and law, as well as with priests, parishioners and many others in the community our diocese serves,” he added.

In the past 20 years, the Stockton diocese has paid more than $14 million in legal settlements for victims of clergy sexual abuse and the total amount of payments, including funds from insurers and others, amounts to $32 million.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

Updated: Friday, January 17 2014
By: WJAC Web Staff

EBENSBURG, Pa. — The Cambria County District Attorney announced Friday that the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office would be taking over the investigation into the alleged sexual abuse of students at a Cambria County high school.

District Attorney Kelly Callihan said the Attorney General’s Office, headed by Attorney General Kathleen Kane, accepted jurisdiction of the investigation of sex assault cases involving Brother Stephen Baker at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown.

Baker worked in several capacities, including with injured athletes, at Bishop McCort from 1992-2001. More than 80 former students, mostly men, have come forward accusing Baker of sexual abuse.

Baker committed suicide at a monastery in Blair County almost a year ago at age 62. He was a Franciscan friar of the Third Order Regular.

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CANADA
Ottawa Sun

KINGSTON – A local priest was convicted Friday of sexual assault involving a teenage boy 10 years ago.

Before a packed courtroom, Superior Court Justice Timothy Ray ruled Rene Paul Emile Labelle, 64, guilty of sexual assault, sexual exploitation and invitation to sexual exploitation, following four days of testimony.

Labelle had pleaded not guilty on all counts and, testified in his own defence on Wednesday, denying the allegations.

Labelle, who is now retired, surrendered his parish in the Brewers Mills area just prior to his arrest in January 2012, withdrawing as well from service as a priest-chaplain at Holy Cross Catholic Secondary School under the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board system.

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ILLINOIS
SW News Herald

By DERMOT CONNOLLY • Friday, January 17, 2014

A two-page letter from Cardinal Francis George entitled “Accountability and Transparency” regarding the archdiocese’s policy regarding priests accused or convicted of child sexual abuse in recent decades was included in Sunday bulletins at parishes across the archdiocese last weekend.

Representatives of groups such as SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) who saw the letter maintain that the cardinal is still withholding information, but according to many local pastors, the letter elicited little reaction from parishioners.

“I haven’t gotten any feedback. People have talked about it, but not in a negative way,” said the Rev. John Noga, pastor of St. Daniel the Prophet Church, 5330 S. Nashville Ave., Chicago.

“I guess people see it as somewhat old news. People are aware that the archdiocese has put in place safeguards to prevent abuse from happening in the future,” said Noga.

“Quite honestly, more people seem to be concerned with the announcement (made last week) that six Catholic elementary schools will have to close this year,” said the Rev. Michael J. Furlan, pastor of St. Germaine Church, 9735 S. Kolin Ave., Oak Lawn.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

There’s a wealth of outstanding commentary yesterday and today about the Vatican’s grilling by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. One way that you can keep abreast of the commentary is by visiting Kathy Shaw’s marvelous Abuse Tracker site sponsored by Bishop Accountability. Among the good articles I’ve read up to now:

Kris Ward, National Survivor Advocates Coalition, who responds to the claim of Bishop Charles Scicluna that the Vatican is “getting it” about child abuse:

Not only is “getting it” not an accomplishment, it’s not an “ah hah” moment, it’s not even Christianity.
Getting the rape and sodomy of children is basic humanity.
Raping and sodomizing children is criminal.
Luring children into situations where you can rape and sodomized them is criminal.
This is not a complex theological argument.

Barbara Dorris, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, asks what on earth Pope Francis imagined he was communicating when he chose to concelebrate Mass with Cardinal Roger Mahony on the very day of the UN hearing:

Pope Francis just rubbed salt into the wounds of LA clergy sex abuse victims and Catholics.
Maybe more than any of his predecessors, Pope Francis is keenly aware that images and gestures matter. So why did he concelebrate mass and privately meet with America’s least deserving and most polarizing retired Catholic official – Cardinal Roger Mahony, on whose watch hundreds of children were raped, sodomized, fondled and assaulted by hundreds of priests, nuns, brothers, seminarians and other Catholic employees, many of whom were deliberately and repeatedly moved and protected by Mahony and his top aides?

Anthea Butler, Religion Dispatches: after noting that Pope Francis may have made a “misstep” in concelebrating Mass with Mahony, Anthea notes, as I did yesterday, the weakness of the Vatican argument that it has no control over the actions of bishops and dioceses around the world:

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CANADA
Sun News

12:16 pm, January 17th, 2014

QMI AGENCY

KINGSTON, Ont. — A local priest was convicted Friday of sexual assault involving a teenage boy 10 years ago.

Before a packed courtroom, Superior Court Justice Timothy Ray ruled Rene Paul Emile Labelle, 64, guilty of sexual assault, sexual exploitation and invitation to sexual touching, following four days of testimony.

Labelle had pleaded not guilty on all counts and testified in his own defence on Wednesday, denying the allegations.

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RUSSIA/ISRAEL
Interfax

Moscow, January 17, Interfax – St. Petersburg priest Gleb Grozovsky, who has been accused of pedophilia and who is currently in Israel, could be deported to Russia, sources familiar with the situation told Interfax.

“Israel has said unofficially it was ready to deport the fugitive priest without resorting to the extradition procedure,” a source told.

According to the source, the reason for Grozovsky’s deportation will most likely be lack of legal grounds for his further stay in Israel.

The Orthodox priest accused of sexually assaulting minors is counting on getting Israeli citizenship in order to avoid being extradited to Russia, another source said.

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GENEVA
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 17, 2014 All Things Catholic

Geneva was the setting for a riveting bit of theater Thursday as two Vatican heavyweights sat before a panel of independent experts who compose the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child to field tough questions about the sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic church for more than a decade.

The U.N.’s Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted in 1989, and the committee has held regular hearings since 1991 to monitor implementation in the 193 counties that have ratified it. In that sense, there was nothing exceptional about Thursday’s session, since the Holy See is just one more signatory nation. Yet the fact that this was the first time senior Vatican personnel have appeared in full public view (the session was webcast around the world) to talk about the abuse scandals in a venue where they couldn’t set the tone or control the conversation made it undeniably fascinating.

Heading into the event, anyone familiar with the Vatican’s history of occasionally tone-deaf commentary on the abuse crisis had to be holding their breath. If nothing else, Thursday seemed to demonstrate that they’ve learned something.

Rome dispatched two figures well suited to engage criticism: Italian Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, a career diplomat who represents the Vatican to the U.N. in Geneva, and Maltese Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former top prosecutor on abuse cases who is widely seen as a leading voice for reform. (It was Scicluna who provided the day’s sound bite by insisting that the Vatican now “gets it.”)

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GENF
News@ORF

Mitglieder des UNO-Kinderrechtskomitees (CRC) haben den Vatikan wegen mangelnder Transparenz im Umgang mit dem sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern durch katholische Geistliche scharf kritisiert. Am Donnerstag stellte sich der Vatikan erstmals den Fragen des CRC in Genf. Dabei ging es u. a. um die unzähligen Missbrauchsskandale in der Kirche und Maßnahmen, um Kinder besser zu schützen.

Der Kirchenstaat weigere sich nach wie vor, die von der UNO geforderten genauen Angaben zum Umfang des Skandals und zu den Tätern zu machen, bemängelte das CRC. Die Expertin Sara de Jesus Oviedo Fierro verlangte, dass der Vatikan mehr Informationen über die getroffenen Maßnahmen zur Prävention von Kindesmissbrauch herausgebe. „Welche Änderungen beim Verhaltenskodex wurden getroffen, um sexuellen Missbrauch zu verhindern? Welche Strafen wurden gegen Priester verhängt, deren Verhalten unangemessen war?“, fragte Oviedo Fierro.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Augsburger Allgemeine

[Summary: Actor Michael Lerchenberg has spoken out for the first time about how he was sexually abused while a student at a Catholic boarding school in Augsburg.]

Der Schauspieler Michael Lerchenberg spricht zu ersten Mal öffentlich darüber, dass er als Schüler in einem katholischen Augsburger Internat sexuellen Übergriffen ausgesetzt war. Von Rüdiger Heinze

Michael Lerchenberg, der bayerische Schauspieler, Regisseur und Intendant, hat gegenüber unserer Zeitung erstmals öffentlich seine Erlebnisse im ehemaligen Internat des Augsburger Gymnasiums St. Stephan geschildert – und damit jene Vorwürfe und Anklagen erweitert, die vor einem dreiviertel Jahr der Komponist Wilfried Hiller in unserer Zeitung erstmals geäußert hatte: sexuelle Übergriffe, psychische Erniedrigungen sowie schwere Züchtigungen….

Michael Lerchenberg klagt an: Sexuelle Übergriffe im Internat – weiter lesen auf Augsburger-Allgemeine: http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/bayern/Michael-Lerchenberg-klagt-an-Sexuelle-Uebergriffe-im-Internat-id28460082.html

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DEUTCHLAND
Augsburger Allgemeine

[Summary: Wilfried Hiller, Munich-based composer, has said that he was sexually abused by two Benedictine fathers from St. Stephen boarding school in the mid-1950s.]

In einem Interview unserer Zeitung spricht Wilfried Hiller erstmals öffentlich von mehrfachem sexuellen Missbrauch sowie von schwerer körperlicher Züchtigung Mitte der fünfziger Jahre, als er Schüler der Institution war. Erst heute, nahezu 60 Jahre nach den Vorfällen, könne er offen darüber sprechen, weil er sie – auch künstlerisch – verarbeitet habe. Die Namen der beiden bereits verstorbenen Beschuldigten sind unserer Redaktion bekannt.

Mit den Vorwürfen Hillers konfrontiert, erklärte der Abt von St. Stephan, Theodor Hausmann: „Wir werden uns dem stellen. Das sind wir Wilfried Hiller, dem Gymnasium und dem Kloster schuldig.“ Im Falle des von Hiller wegen schwerer körperlicher Züchtigung beschuldigten ehemaligen Seminardirektors habe er, Abt Theodor, bereits in der Vergangenheit zweimal Vorwürfe der schweren Züchtigung sowie körperlicher Grenzüberschreitung entgegennehmen müssen. In einem Fall sei aufgrund der Glaubwürdigkeit der Darstellung sowie als Zeichen des Respekts vor dem Opfer eine freiwillige Entschädigungssumme von 5000 Euro nach den Richtlinien der Bischofskonferenz geflossen. Eine Wiedergutmachung könne dies freilich nicht darstellen.
…
Komponist: Ich wurde im Internat St. Stephan missbraucht – weiter lesen auf Augsburger-Allgemeine: http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/augsburg/Komponist-Ich-wurde-im-Internat-St-Stephan-missbraucht-id24740526.html

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Jan 17, 2014

“The Holy See gets it,” said Msgr. Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor, in testimony yesterday before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva. I’m not so sure.

In the Middle Ages, it would have been a big step forward for church officials to allow that clergy are subject to the criminal laws of the countries in which they reside. By the standards of today, it was an evasion for Scicluna to testify that civil courts are responsible for handling crimes by priests. When a priest is shown to be an abuser of children, the Church assumes the responsibility of taking him out of circulation, and if defrocking is required, that’s in the Vatican’s own hands. These ecclesiastical processes are themselves critical to protecting children.

So also is disciplining bishops who cover up abuse cases. And that’s what the Vatican has never yet admitted by word or deed.

After his testimony, Scicluna was questioned on that score by Vatican Insider’s Gerard O’Connell:

Q. The Committee raised many tough questions in today’s session. You were asked: given the ‘zero tolerance’ policy why were there efforts to ‘cover up’ and obscure cases of the abuse of minors by clergy?

A. I think that ‘cover-up’, meaning the obstruction of justice, has to be addressed by the domestic laws of the countries where it happens. It is not the policy of the Holy See. And to the extent that it is a crime in the sovereign territories of the different countries it should be prosecuted, irrespective of whoever is guilty of the crime of the obstruction of justice.

…
Q. What about the accountability of bishops? I mean what happens to bishops who fail to protect children, or cover up? Failure here has been one of the problems highlighted by many victims and their organizations.

A. Bishops are accountable to God and to their local churches, and I think it has to be very clear under this policy of the Holy See that child protection is an integral part of pastoral stewardship.

And bishops aren’t also accountable to Rome? Given the Vatican’s readiness to punish them for doctrinal, fiscal, and indeed personal sexual misbehavior, the answer is obvious.

Meanwhile, in Vatican City Pope Francis was celebrating Mass with retired Los Angeles archbishop Cardinal Roger Mahony, second to non, not even Bernard Law, in the covering up of abuse scandals. Yes, the pope did use his homily to address the issue of the day: “But are we ashamed? So many scandals that I do not want to mention them individually, but we all know about them…But are we really all ashamed of those scandals, of those defeats of priests, bishops, laity?”

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

McKinsey, Promontory, Ernst & Young, KPMG. From the Vatican the race is on to sign up the most prestigious and expensive consulting companies in the world. At what price is not known

by Sandro Magister

ROME, January 17, 2014 – It may be “poor and for the poor,” the Church dreamed of by Pope Francis. Meanwhile, however, the Vatican is becoming the cash cow of the most exclusive and expensive firms in the world of management and financial systems.

The latest one signed up is the legendary McKinsey & Company, with the task of coming up with “an integrated plan for making the organization of the Holy See’s means of communication more functional, effective, and modern.” Enough to sow panic in the ranks, which at the Vatican recently have not diminished but expanded, in a crescendo of confusion.

To Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the press office and the official spokesman, has been added a “senior communications adviser” in the person of the American journalist Greg Burke, a member of Opus Dei, with an office in the secretariat of state.

Not to mention the two press agents that the president of the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), Ernst von Freyberg, brought to Rome last spring from his native Germany, Max Hohenberg and Markus Wieser, both of Communications & Network Consulting.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Eckiger Tisch

[Summary: The church court verdict against Peter Riedel, a former Jesuit and youth work director at Canisius College, was not for the 100 cases of sexual abuse attributed to him but because of one single cases during his time as a parish priest in the Hildesheim diocese.]

Gegen Peter Riedel, den ehemaligen Jesuiten und Leiter der Jugend­arbeit am Canisius-Kolleg von 1971 bis 1982 wurde nach Presseberichten durch das sog. „Kirchengericht“ des Erzbistums Berlin ein Urteil gefällt – aber nicht wegen des vielfachen Missbrauch von Jungen in dieser Zeit – Schätzungen gehen von über 100 Fällen aus, gemeldet haben sich ab 2010 etwa 60 Betroffene – sondern wegen eines einzelnen Falles aus seiner Zeit als Gemeindepfarrer im Bistum Hildesheim. Dorthin wurde Riedel 1982 „entsorgt“, nachdem Jugend­liche in einem Brief an den Orden auf ihre Not aufmerksam gemacht hatten.

Im Bistum Hildesheim betreute Riedel nacheinander Gemeinden in Göttingen, Hildesheim und Hannover. Nach erneuten Missbrauchs­vorwürfen auch dort verließ er den Jesitenorden und wurde schließlich 2004 in Ehren pensioniert.

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GENF
DRadio Wissen

Der Vatikan weigert sich immer noch, der UNO genaue Angaben zu Kindesmissbrauchsfällen zu machen.

Das hat das Komitee für die Rechte des Kindes bei einer ersten öffentlichen Anhörung zu dem Thema erklärt. Dabei warfen UNO-Mitglieder dem Vatikan vor, er wage es immer noch nicht, sexuellen Missbrauch durch Geistliche der katholischen Kirche vollständig und öffentlich aufzuklären.

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OSTERREICH
Steirmark.ORF

[Summary: A dispute between Admont Abbey, two priests and a former pupil goes on. The pupil wanted to sue for damages from abuse but had failed in court but his appeal has been upheld.]

Der Rechtsstreit zwischen dem Stift Admont, zwei Patres und einem ehemaligen Zögling geht weiter. Der Zögling wollte wegen Missbrauchs auf Schadenersatz klagen, war jedoch damit gescheitert. Jetzt wurde seiner Berufung stattgegeben.

Der bisherige Hauptstreitpunkt drehte sich darum, dass die Beteiligten unterschiedlicher Meinung darüber sind, wer für den Missbrauch des Mannes in den 1960er Jahren zur Verantwortung zu ziehen ist. Denn dass der heute 59-Jährige tatsächlich gewalttätig behandelt worden war, anerkannte die Klasnic-Kommission bereits im Jänner 2013 und sprach dem Opfer 25.000 Euro und 100 Therapiestunden zu.

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SCHWEIZ
Kipa

[Summary: The state must compel actions by the church to help victims of sexual abuse, according to Jacque Nuoffer, a psychologist who heads a new victim support group.]

Von Josef Bossart / Kipa

Zürich, 16.1.14 (Kipa) Damit die Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Kirchenleute endlich zu ihrem Recht kommen, muss der Staat die Kirche zum Handeln zwingen. Dies betont im Kipa-Interview Jacques Nuoffer, Psychologe und Präsident des Westschweizer Vereins Sapec, der Missbrauchsopfer unterstützt. – Nuoffer, in jungen Jahren selber Missbrauchsopfer, ist von der Schweizer Bischofskonferenz (SBK) im Dezember zum Mitglied des SBK-Fachgremiums «Sexuelle Übergriffe in der Pastoral» ernannt worden.

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NEW ZEALAND
3 News

By Thomas Mead
Online Reporter

A decision over whether former Catholic Brother Bernard McGrath will be extradited to Australia to face historical sex abuse charges has been delayed yet again.

McGrath, 65, is wanted in Australia on 252 charges against boys and young adults. It is alleged he raped, abused and molested his victims over several decades while working for the church in New South Whales.

In the Christchurch District Court this morning, Judge Jane Farish ruled the decision should be considered by the Minister of Justice.

Judge Farish had ruled in favour of extradition in June last year, but a High Court appeal went in McGrath’s favour and she was ordered to reconsider.

McGrath has been released on bail while the Minister considers the case.

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NEW ZEALAND
ABC News (Australia)

New Zealand’s justice minister will decide whether former Catholic brother Bernard Kevin McGrath will be extradited to Australia to face 252 charges of child sexual abuse.

In the Christchurch District Court today, Judge Jane Farish said she would refer the matter to Judith Collins because of “compelling and extraordinary circumstances”.

The full reasons for her decision will be made available on Monday.

In April last year, Judge Farish ruled McGrath, 66, could be extradited, but on appeal, the High Court ruled the judge should further consider whether to refer the case to the justice minister.

New South Wales police allege McGrath abused 35 boys during the late 1970s and mid-80s.

Further details about McGrath’s alleged offending and his image remain suppressed.

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NEW ZEALAND
NEWS.com.au

NEW Zealand Justice Minister Judith Collins will decide if a former Catholic brother will be sent to Australia to face hundreds of child sex charges.

Bernard Kevin McGrath, 65, faces 252 child sex charges in Australia, and the Australian government is seeking to extradite him.

Judge Jane Farish had agreed to his extradition, but after an appeal to the High Court she was ordered to consider whether the case should be reviewed by Ms Collins.

In her reserved decision on Friday she said the extradition request would go to the minister for consideration.

McGrath is on bail.

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NEW ZELAND
TVNZ

A former Catholic brother facing child more than 250 sex charges will have his case heard by the Justice Minister to decide whether he will be extradited to Australia.

The Australian government is seeking to extradite Bernard Kevin McGrath, 66, to face 252 child sex charges.

Judge Jane Farish said in the Christchurch District Court today that the matter was to be referred to Judith Collins due to “compelling and extraordinary circumstances”.

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NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

By Brendan Manning
Friday Jan 17, 2014

A decision whether to extradite a former Catholic brother facing sex charges in Australia has been referred to the Minister of Justice.

Australia has been trying to extradite Bernard Kevin McGrath, 66, from New Zealand to face 252 child sex abuse charges.

Early last year Christchurch District Court Judge Jane Farish ruled McGrath should stand trial across the Tasman.

However, her decision was appealed to the High Court at Christchurch, which then referred the case back to Judge Farish, ruling that she needed to again look at whether the case should be referred to the Minister of Justice for a final decision on McGrath’s extradition.

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NEW ZEALAND
Radio Australia

NZ justice minister to rule on extradition of Bernard Kevin McGrath to face child sex abuse charges

New Zealand’s justice minister will decide whether former Catholic brother Bernard Kevin McGrath will be extradited to Australia to face 252 charges of child sexual abuse.

In the Christchurch District Court today, Judge Jane Farish said she would refer the matter to Judith Collins because of “compelling and extraordinary circumstances”.

The full reasons for her decision will be made available on Monday.

In April last year, Judge Farish ruled McGrath, 66, could be extradited, but on appeal, the High Court ruled the judge should further consider whether to refer the case to the justice minister.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

EDITORIAL

“The Holy See gets it,” Msgr. Charles Scicluna, declared before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child at a meeting in Geneva, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Link to the full news story:

[Los Angeles Times]

“Getting it” is not an accomplishment.

Getting rid of it is.

Not only is “getting it” not an accomplishment, it’s not an “ah hah” moment, it’s not even Christianity.

Getting the rape and sodomy of children is basic humanity.

Raping and sodomizing children is criminal.

Luring children into situations where you can rape and sodomized them is criminal.

This is not a complex theological argument.

Getting it is when Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, MO packs a moving van after being removed from his office.

Getting it is extraditing a Polish archbishop to Poland to answer Polish authorities’ questions about being a sexually abusive priest/archbishop — one who is being investigated in the Dominican Republic and Poland. Getting it is not saying you will deal with the matter with your own courts.

Getting it is releasing the documents. They are the place where the truth lives.

Removing Finn, extraditing Weslowski, releasing the truth doesn’t take commissions, papal or otherwise.

They take a Pope.

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CALIFORNIA
The Record

By The Record
January 16, 2014

STOCKTON — Tim Lennon, regional director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, came Thursday to Stockton with a three-pronged message.

He used the bankruptcy filing of the Catholic Diocese of Stockton to deliver it. Standing in front of the diocese office, he said:

“I will do anything to bring awareness to the issues of child sexual abuse. Victims ought to step forward. They need to know they are not alone.”

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GENEVA
International Business Times

By LYDIA SMITH | January 17, 2014

The Vatican has been heavily criticised at a UN hearing in Geneva for covering up sexual abuse against children and failing to protect them from paedophile priests.

It was denounced for its handling of the worldwide priest sex abuse scandal, which the UN said “was not very transparent”.

Kirsten Sandberg, the chairwoman of the committee, said: “The view of committee is that the best way to prevent abuses is to reveal old ones – openness instead of sweeping offences under the carpet.

“It seems to date your procedures are not very transparent.”

Since headlines emerged exposing the alleged sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, the Vatican has insisted it is not responsible. It claimed the abusers were not employees of the Vatican, but members of the broader Catholic Church over which it has limited control.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

JAMIE WALKER THE AUSTRALIAN JANUARY 18, 2014

“LEGALISTIC and cumbersome” processes in the Anglican Church allow pedophile priests to escape punishment if they retire or hand in their licence to practice, the national child sex abuse inquiry is set to report. The royal commission’s counsel assisting, Simeon Beckett, has served notice of explosive findings that the NSW Anglican diocese of Grafton’s handling of compensation claims by abused residents of a children’s home compounded their hurt rather than eased it.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

ANNETTE BLACKWELL AAP JANUARY 17, 2014

THE questioning of the Catholic Church by the UN child rights watchdog has been hailed as historic by an Australian abuse victims’ support organisation.

Nicky Davis, the spokeswoman for the Australian branch of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s spotlight on the Vatican could be seen as vindication for those who had suffered abuse.

“Survivors should feel vindicated that for once their experience has not been ignored, for once they have not been abandoned, and finally this abusive institution has been revealed, without all the usual smoke and mirrors, in its true colours,” Ms Davis said.

On Thursday in Geneva the UN committee grilled a delegation from the Holy See for six hours on the Church’s lack of transparency and its failures to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Ipswich Advertiser

A TOOWOOMBA school will be the focus of the first public meeting held outside of Sydney by the Royal Commission Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The purpose of the hearing will be to inquire into the response by the Catholic Education Office, of the Diocese of Toowoomba in Queensland, to allegations of child sexual abuse at St Saviour’s Primary School.

Held from February 17, the public hearing – the sixth since the Royal Commission was established – is scheduled to run for two weeks.

Royal Commission CEO, Ms Janette Dines, says the scope and purpose of the public hearing is to inquire into:

The response by the principal and other members of staff at St Saviour’s Primary School in Toowoomba, Queensland, to allegations of child sexual abuse made against a teacher at the primary school in September 2007.

The response by officers of the Catholic Education Office, Diocese of Toowoomba, to information supplied by the primary school Principal at St Saviour’s Primary School regarding the allegations of child sexual abuse received in September 2007.

The adequacy and implementation of systems, policies and procedures of the Catholic Education Office, Diocese of Toowoomba, and St Saviour’s Primary School for the prevention, detection, investigation and reporting of allegations of child sexual abuse since 2007.

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GENEVA
New York Times – The Lede

By JENNIFER PRESTON

The Vatican’s former top sex crimes prosecutor told a United Nations committee on Thursday that “the Holy See gets it” when he was sharply questioned about the Roman Catholic Church’s slow response to handling cases involving clergy members’ sexual abuse of children.

In the toughest public questioning of Vatican officials on the abuse scandal to date, members of the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child, meeting in Geneva, grilled top Vatican officials about why priests with a history of abuse were moved around to different parishes, and in one case to the Vatican, instead of being aggressively investigated.

The United Nations meeting came a day after the Archdiocese of Chicago turned over thousands of pages of documents to lawyers for sexual abuse victims, as part of a legal settlement. The documents, including personnel files, are expected to identify 30 former clergy members accused of abusing children, and the church officials who helped protect the accused priests. Those people are expected to be publicly identified next week.

“I want to offer apologies to all victims affected by these sins and crimes,” Bishop Francis Kane said during a news conference as described in this video report from Chicago’s WGN.

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GENEVA
Irish Independent

MICHAEL DAY – 17 JANUARY 2014

The United Nations has lambasted the Vatican for failing to protect children from paedophile priests.

As the Holy See basks in the favourable PR provided by Pope Francis, yesterday’s inquisition by investigators in Geneva reminded the world of the global scandal that rocked the Catholic Church, and the questions it has yet to answer.

The UN committee’s main human rights investigator, Sara Oviedo, pressed the Vatican on the frequency with which abusive priests have been moved to different areas rather than turned over to police. Given the church’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy, she asked, why were there “efforts to cover up and obscure these types of cases”?

Panel member Hiranthi Wijemanne asked Vatican representatives: “Why is there no mandatory reporting to a country’s judicial authorities when crimes occur? Taking actions against perpetrators is part of justice.”

COVER-UPS

Monsignor Charles Scicluna the Vatican’s former chief sex crimes prosecutor, denied the Holy See encouraged cover-ups: “Our guideline has always been that domestic law of the countries where the churches operate needs to be followed.”

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GENEVA
Key 103 (UK)

The Vatican has been quizzed for the first time over its handling of the global priest sex abuse scandal.

At a UN hearing in Geneva, officials were asked a series of questions about why they would not release data and how they planned to prevent future abuse.

Kirsten Sandberg, chairwoman of the 18-strong committee, told the Vatican delegation: “The view of committee is that the best way to prevent abuses is to reveal old ones – openness instead of sweeping offences under the carpet.

“It seems to date your procedures are not very transparent.”

The Vatican has long insisted it is not responsible for abusive priests, claiming they are not employees of the Vatican but members of the broader Catholic Church which it exercises limited control over. …

A member of the committee asked about the Church’s practice of moving priests suspected of abuse.

The Archbishop replied: “It is a no-go simply to move people from one diocese to another.”

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GENEVA
Wall Street Journal

U.N. Panel Grills Vatican on Sex-Abuse Cases

By LIAM MOLONEY
Jan. 16, 2014

ROME—Vatican officials told a United Nations panel Thursday that Roman Catholic Church leaders need to do more to grapple with cases of sex abuse by clergy but reiterated that the church has limited jurisdiction in tackling the problem.

In one of the church’s most public grillings for its handling of sex- abuse scandals around the world, Vatican officials faced hours of tough questions in Geneva from a committee on its implementation of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which calls for signatories to take measures to protect children. The Holy See signed on to the convention in 1990.

“The Holy See gets it—I don’t want to say, finally—that certain things have to be done differently,” said Bishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s sexual-crime prosecutor for 10 years until 2012. “It isn’t the policy of the Holy See to cover up.”

Still, Vatican officials added that the church has little legal basis to punish clergy and other church members for sexual abuse. “[Priests] are citizens of their own states and fall under the jurisdiction of their own country,” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi at the session that was broadcast live on the Internet.

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GINEBRA
El National

[The Vatican at the UN today dodged providing detailed information on issues relating to sexual abuse of minors by clergy in a rhetorical exercise in which it attempts to demonstrate determination to prevent new offenses.]

El Vaticano esquivó hoy en la ONU ofrecer información detallada sobre aspectos relacionados con los casos de abuso sexual de menores por parte de miembros del clero, en un ejercicio retórico mediante el cual intentó demostrar su determinación de prevenir nuevos delitos de este tipo.

“Todo este problema de abusos contra menores es una herida que daña a la Iglesia y a la comunidad de la fe”, reconoció monseñor Silvano Tomasi, representante de la Santa Sede ante Naciones Unidas en Ginebra, en la primera comparecencia internacional de altos miembros de la jerarquía católica sobre casos de pederastia.

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GINEBRA
El Pais (Espana)

[“The Vatican still does not take responsibility for sexual abuse”]

El sabor que deja la comparecencia de la Santa Sede ante Naciones Unidas es agridulce para las víctimas de abusos sexuales por parte de religiosos. Los afectados celebran el carácter histórico de la cita, en la que por primera vez el Vaticano fue cuestionado por un organismo internacional sobre los casos de pederastia en el seno de la Iglesia, pero critican las respuestas “ambiguas y evasivas” del representante de Roma en Ginebra, monseñor Silvano Tomasi. El Vaticano ha reconocido este jueves que “hay abusadores entre los miembros del clero”, pero “sigue sin asumir su responsabilidad como institución, que es la gran cuenta pendiente con las víctimas”, dice al teléfono el exsacerdote mexicano Alberto Athié una vez terminada la comparecencia.

Desde primera hora de la mañana, miembros de organizaciones de víctimas de abusos de todo el mundo trataron de caldear el ambiente con una protesta a las puertas de la sede del Comité de los Derechos del Niño de la ONU en Ginebra, pero la policía impidió cualquier tipo de manifestación. “Sacamos pancartas con algunas fotos de víctimas, pero la protesta no duró más de cinco minutos. Solo pedimos justicia y que se detenga el encubrimiento de los casos de pederastia”, explica Fátima Moneta, miembro de la organización mexicana Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir.

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GINEBRA
Pagina 12 (Argentina)

El representante del Vaticano ante las Naciones Unidas se presentó en el comité de la ONU sobre los Derechos del Niño y admitió que “no hay justificación” por los casos de abusos sexuales contra niños y adolescentes. Las autoridades de la comisión exigieron que la iglesia católica sea más transparente respecto a los casos que involucran a sus clérigos y que se impongan castigos justos.

“Se encuentran abusadores entre los miembros de las profesiones más respetadas del mundo y, más lamentablemente, incluso entre miembros del clero y otro personal de la iglesia”, dijo monseñor Silvano Tomasi en Ginebra. El representante vaticano en la ONU expuso ante el comité de la ONU sobre los Derechos del Niño, constituyendo la primera vez que la jerarquía de la iglesia católica participa en un debate público referido a los abusos sexuales contra menores cometidos por sacerdotes en todo el mundo.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

************** “Oh what a tangled web we weave, **************
*************** When first we practise to deceive!” *************

Sir Walter Scott’s apt words clearly applied today. The Vatican vainly sought, seemingly inconsistently in Geneva and Rome, to preserve Pope Francis’ fragile credibility on curtailing priest child abuse. As a religious emperor primarily, and not some mere “pastoral parish priest creation” of his PR handlers, Francis’ credibility here is critical. It is an essential prerequisite for Francis’ establishing credibility on all other key Vatican challenges.

To date, a surprisingly docile media have often been slow to realize that Pope Francis’ tunes on critical issues like child abuse, women’s equality, contraception, divorced Catholics and gay marriage remain quite similar to his failed predecessors’, even if the new pope’s public relations’ tone differs.

As the Francis’ honeymoon period winds down, the fundamental question for Catholics arises ever sharply— how “good” can the new pope really be, if he would shelter child predators and their complicit bishops much like his shameful predecessors did? How Good is a Shepherd who does not effectively protect the youngest lambs among the sheep, especially when Jesus clearly mandated the need to ptotect children?

Francis’ subordinates in Geneva today often desperately evaded UN representatives’ questions, even trying to divert some blame to the Irish government and to downplay the current Vatican protection being afforded to an alleged child abusing Polish Archbishop who, under Pope Francis, fled prosecutors’ clutches in the Dominican Republic last August.

At the same time, Francis met today in Rome with Los Angeles’ Cardinal Mahony, the USA’s most unaccountable hierarch for priest abuse cover-ups. According to Mahony’s own blog, Francis’ principal concern today was not the abuse scandal. Rather, Francis’ main focus apparently was on US Latinos, a group that had long viewed Mahony as “the Man”. Meanwhile, Mahony’s former Diocese of Stockton yesterday filed for bankruptcy, after paying $3.75 million less than a year ago to a single abuse survivor, seemingly to avoid Mahony’s having to testify.

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MEXICO
Solar News (Philippines)

Mexico City, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican Catholics welcomed questioning of the Vatican by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on Thursday, Jan. 16 (Friday, Jan. 17, in the Philippines), hoping it will spur greater accountability and prosecutions of priests found to have committed acts of abuse.

Representatives from the Holy See are being publicly questioned for the first time by an international panel at the Palais Wilson in Geneva over the child abuse scandal which severely damaged the standing of the Roman Catholic Church around the world. The UN panel will assess the Church’s adherence to the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty guaranteeing a full range of human rights for children, which the Holy See has signed.

The local “Catholics for the Right to Decide” organization in Mexico City, a group of faithful who are pushing for justice within the church, said the questioning is a historic moment for the Vatican.

“In my opinion, today’s hearing is very important in the history of the Catholic Church. It’s about the accountability of the Vatican regarding the crimes of pedophilia. In this respect, we also hope that it will be important the report on the rights of the child because they seem to have been very thorough in their questioning. However, we regret that the Holy See continues to have ambiguous answers,” said organization official, Aide Garcia.

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UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

Post by ANTHEA BUTLER

In his ongoing PR mission to rehabilitate the Catholic Church’s image, Pope Francis may have taken a misstep. Today the Pope concelebrated mass with Cardinal Roger Mahony (who cheerfully blogged about it here) on the same day that the United Nations Committee on Convention of the Rights of the Child heard over eight hours of testimony from the Vatican on the ongoing sexual abuse scandal.

Interestingly enough, in the homily from that concelebrated mass, Pope Francis commented, “Scandals in the Church happen because there is no living relationship between God and His word. Thus, corrupt priests, instead of giving the bread of life, give a poisoned meal to the people of god.” No kidding.

For years the Cardinal’s malfeasance handed the people in my former parish of St. Agatha’s in West Los Angeles a poisoned meal, when young girls were molested there during the 1970s. Mahony, who swept much of the Los Angeles abuse scandal under the rug for his own agenda, is exactly the kind of cleric Pope Francis berated in his homily today.

And yet, as Cardinal Mahony reported in his blog, when he talked privately with the pontiff after the Mass, the topic of scandal did not come up—even though Mahony presided over the largest payout to abuse survivors in the Unites States, (660 million, plus a 10 million dollar civil suit). “Most of our conversation focused on the plight of migrants, immigrants, and refugees around the world,” Mahony says.

The same morning of the mass, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi and Vatican representatives were being grilled in Geneva on releasing records relating to sexual abuse around the world. Specific instances on which the commission repeatedly hammered the Vatican representatives included children missing from the Magdalene laundry scandal in Ireland, the issue of corporal punishment of children, and the excommunication of a nine-year-old girl for having an abortion because she was pregnant by her stepfather.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes&Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Updated January 16, 2014

Today, the Vatican slyly spat at the UN’s face as the well-staged Vatican delegation led by Italian Archbishop Tomasi preached deceitfully “on the Holy See’s commitment to protecting children” when the historical facts are already established that John Paul II for 27 years did nothing to protect children, Cardinal RATzinger and Cardinal Bernard Law and Cardinal Mahony, name it, the whole Vatican princely Merlin hooligans did nothing to protect children from bestial JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army in the latter half of the 20th century,

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GENEVA
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew

The Holy See appeared to emerge with a clean bill of health from a hearing of the UN Committee for the Rights of the Child in Geneva yesterday.

The 5½-hour session ended with a deal of mutual back slapping as one UN delegate expressed satisfaction about a “positive dialogue”, while another said that the Vatican’s presentation indicated that “new steps” were being taken, steps which represented a “new era, a new dawn for the Holy See”.

The Holy See was not on trial yesterday. Rather the Vatican, like all other countries which have signed up to the 1989 Convention for the Rights of the Child, had been asked to report on just how it implements that Convention.

Obviously, in the case of the Vatican, this meant turning a potentially uncomfortable spotlight on the Catholic Church’s clerical sex abuse crisis.

High moral character

That the spotlight never actually became uncomfortable was a tribute both to the skill of the Vatican delegation and to the UN Committee’s modus operandi.

For example, the 18 independent experts – “persons of high moral character” – who make up the Committee were much too busy asking, not always relevant, questions to ever get answers.

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GENEVA
Kansas City Star

January 16
BY JOHN ZAROCOSTAS
McClatchy Foreign Staff

GENEVA — Senior Vatican officials came under a barrage of critical questions by an independent United Nations panel Thursday over the Roman Catholic Church’s response to allegations of child sexual abuse by members of the clergy in many countries.

It was the first time representatives of the Holy See had been asked in an international forum to provide testimony about the hundreds of cases that have been documented globally, including in the United States, Ireland, Australia, Mexico, and Spain.

The U.N. had jurisdiction to compel the Vatican to respond because the Vatican is one of 193 countries that have signed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Holy See, which became a signatory in 1990, submitted an implementation report in 1994, but did not submit a progress report until 2012 — following mounting pressure from advocacy groups in the face of sexual abuse cases.

Monsignor Silvano Tomasi, who headed the Vatican delegation, argued that the church isn’t alone in harboring child abusers. “Abusers are found among members of the world’s most respected professions, most regrettably, including members of the clergy and other church personnel,” he said. But he also acknoweldged that abuse by priests was “particularly serious, since these persons are in positions of great trust.”

“Such crimes can never be justified, ” he said

But Tomasi provided no figures on how many cases of sexual abuse the church was aware of and how many times it had referred clergy to national authorities for prosecution — two key questions that members of the Committee on the Rights of the Child posed.

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GENEVA
Deutsche Welle

The Vatican on Thursday faced a grilling by a UN panel over its failure to implement a UN child protection convention and its handling of sex abuse scandals. DW spoke to John Allen from the National Catholic Reporter.

Envoys of the Holy See appeared for the first time before a UN committee to answer questions about child sex abuse cases in the Catholic Church on Thursday (16.01.2014). The hearing took place as part of a broader UN probe on the implementation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, which the Holy See ratified in 1990. But it has refused to provide regular progress reports.

But the Vatican’s representatives made it clear that the Vatican is taking the handling of the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church seriously. However, they reiterated that the Vatican’s options are limited, as it only has jurisdiction in Vatican City State.

DW: The Vatican still insists that its limited jurisdiction means it cannot sanction pedophile priests and bishops around the world. How does that chime in with its recent efforts to reform?

John Allen: It’s a double-edged sword for the Vatican. On the one hand, they want to argue that they’ve adopted tough new policies and are trying to promote reforms, which certainly sounds like the have responsibility for what happens in the Church around the world, on the other hand they want to, both for theological reasons and for practical legal reasons, keep themselves at arm’s length from taking direct responsibility for the conduct of priests on the ground.

In a sense, you could say they want it both ways: they want to take credit for tough new policies, but they don’t want to take responsibility for when those policies break down.

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IRELAND
PRI

[with audio]

“There is no excuse for any form of violence or exploitation of children,” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi.

He’s the Vatican observer to UN and in an historic move, he testified on Thursday on behalf of the Vatican before the UN’s Committee of the Right of the Child in Geneva.

“Such crimes can never be justified, whether committed in the home, in schools, in community and sports programs, in religious organizations and structures,” said the archbishop.

Colm O’Gorman has been waiting more than 20-years to hear those words. He’s a survivor of childhood sex abuse by his local parish priest.

“It’s another moment hopefully towards the eventual ending of the Vatican’s impunity, for not just its failure to address the crimes of its priests, but the creation of a system to cover up those crimes,” said O’Gorman.

Still after these past 20 years of fighting and advocating for survivors of sexual abuse, this is only the beginning he says.

Colm O’Gorman grew up in Adamstown, a small town in Ireland. He was 14 when he first met Father Sean Fortune, who went on to sexually abuse him for years.

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KNTUCKY
14 News

Posted by Audra Levy

OWENSBORO, KY (WFIE) –
The Owensboro Police Department has wrapped up its investigation of possible inappropriate conduct between a priest and a minor.

OPD says the allegations against Father John Meredith were non-criminal in nature.

While there was possibly a violation of church policy, based upon the information provided; police say no law was violated.

They say the minor involved is now an adult and did not want to be interviewed by police.

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