ABUSE TRACKER

VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post

The Catholic Church was slammed at the U.N. on Thursday about how they have historically handled cases of sex abuse by priests, as a committee investigated their adherence to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires all signatories “to take all appropriate measures to keep children from harm.”

Pope Francis has addressed the sexual abuse issue as part of his Vatican reforms with the creation of a commission on abuse, and on Thursday morning he also denounced the problem in a blistering homily that spoke of the scandal and shame of the church.

Vatican Radio reported that he said:

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!

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GENEVE
KerkNet (Belgie)

GENEVE (KerkNet) – Het Vaticaan heeft donderdag op een hoorzitting van het Comité voor de Rechten van het Kind in Genève verklaard dat het justitie geen stokken in de wielen steekt in gerechtelijke onderzoeken naar seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen.

Mgr. Silvano Tomasi, de permanente vertegenwoordiger van de Heilige Stoel bij de VN, stelde dat de beschuldiging van slachtofferorganisaties dat de Heilige Stoel het onderzoek tegen schuldige priesters probeert te beïnvloeden elke grond mist.”De Heilige Stoel steunt het recht en de plicht van elk land om te oordelen over misdrijven tegen minderjarigen. De kritiek dat wij proberen tussen te komen in deze dossiers klopt niet. Integendeel, wij willen dat er volledige transparantie komt en dat justitie haar werk voortzet”, aldus de prelaat.

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GENEVE
NRC (Nederland)

[The Vatican today called before a session on the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and asked to explain how it has dealt with sexual abuse by priests.]

Een VN-commissie legde het Vaticaan vandaag het vuur aan de schenen over de manier waarop de katholieke kerk is omgegaan met het seksueel misbruik door priesters. Het is de eerste keer dat het Vaticaan door de VN op deze manier ter verantwoording wordt geroepen sinds het Vaticaan het Verdrag voor de Rechten van het Kind ondertekende in 1990.

De leden van de VN-kinderrechtencommissie beschuldigden in een hoorzitting vandaag het Vaticaan van een gebrek aan transparantie en vroegen om meer openheid van zaken, zo schrijft persbureau Reuters. De voorzitter van de achttien koppen tellende commissie, Kirsten Sandberg:

“In onze visie is de beste manier om misbruik te voorkomen, oude affaires openbaar te maken. Openheid in plaats van zaken onder het tapijt schuiven. Het lijkt erop dat uw procedures niet erg transparant zijn.”

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

The United Nation’s Committee on the Convention on the Rights of the Child held a hearing today on the Holy See’s handling of sexual abuse. Commenting on it is Bill Donohue:

The U.N. Committee that was charged with probing the Holy See’s response to the sexual abuse of minors is composed of 18 “independent experts,” from as many nations. Some of the committee members who profess an interest in the rights of the child, such as Hiranthi Wijemanne of Sri Lanka, say that human rights should not extend to nascent human life; a child in the first trimester, she said in an interview, should not be considered a child.

Many of the “experts” on human rights come from nations that are known for oppression, not liberty. Just this week, the Pew Research Center released a report on religious oppression worldwide. Nations with “experts” on the U.N. panel that earned a “High” rating are Bahrain, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and Tunisia. Even worse are those nations that merited a “Very High” rating: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Malaysia.

Freedom House listed Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Ethiopia as among the most oppressive places on earth. Open Doors listed the same nations as the Pew study (save for Russia) in its top 50 nations known for persecuting Christians.

Female genital mutilation has not stopped in Egypt, a nation where more than 90 percent of women have been subjected to it. This same barbaric practice is going on today in Ethiopia. Ghana, which also has an “expert” on the panel, is now witnessing a spike in female cutting, despite a ban on it.

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MALTA
Vassallo Malta

The Maltese bishop, Charles Scicluna, former prosecutor at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of clergy who sexually abused minors, was part of the Holy See delegation that appeared before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva on January 16.

In this interview by telephone from Geneva, he spoke about the day-long session with the UN body that attracted so much interest internationally. He says it gave the Holy See an opportunity to respond to the Committee’s concerns regarding child abuse, to reaffirm its commitment to protect children and minors throughout the Catholic Church and all its institutions, and explain how it is doing so.

Q. Could you sum up how the meeting went?
A. It was a very interesting dialogue and the Committee had the opportunity to express its concerns and they are concerns that we share. And so I think it has been a very positive dialogue because the Holy See, as sovereign of Vatican City State and as central organ of government of the Catholic Church around the world, shares the high values of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Committee is very anxious to promote these values and we are on the same page. We had the opportunity, which was I think very important, to express our commitment with the teachings and the guidance of the recent Holy Fathers on the question of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy. And we are also very grateful for the input of the Committee; that input will also help the setting up the working of the Commission for the Protection of Minors announced by the Holy Father at the beginning of December.

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.

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KENTUCKY
Tristate Homepage

Owensboro police say they will not file charges against Father John Meredith.

Meredith was the pastor at Blessed Mother Catholic Church in Owensboro. Several weeks ago members of the church received a letter from the Bishop saying Meredith had been temporarily suspended for inappropriate conduct with a minor. Police say they have looked into the incident and found the allegations were non-criminal in nature. However, they say the incident may have been a violation of church policy. Investigators also say the minor involved in the case is now an adult and did not wish to be interviewed by police, so the case is closed.

Neither the police nor the Catholic Diocese has said what the incident may have been, when it happened, or who may have been involved.

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KENTUCKY
Messenger-Inquirer

By James Mayse Messenger-Inquirer

The Owensboro Police Department has concluded its investigation of a priest who was suspended for “inappropriate conduct” with a minor, finding that the alleged conduct was not a criminal offense.

The Rev. John Meredith was placed on temporary suspension in December; at the time he was suspended, Meredith was on leave from Blessed Mother Catholic Church.

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GENEVE
De Standaard (Belgie)

Het kinderrechtencomité van de Verenigde Naties heeft vandaag de conclusies gepresenteerd van een onderzoek naar de Rechten van het Kind binnen de kerk. Daarbij zijn vertegenwoordigers van het Vaticaan ook ondervraagd over de manier waarop dossiers van kindermisbruik werden aangepakt. ”Het Vaticaan beseft dat er dingen moeten veranderen.’

Van 13 tot 31 januari is het Comité voor de Rechten van het kind van de Verenigde Naties bijeen in Genève. In het kader daarvan heeft het comité vandaag de conclusies bekendgemaakt van een onderzoek naar de manier waarop de kerk omgaat met die kinderrechten. Een deel van dat onderzoek handelt ook over de verschillende pedofilieschandalen waarmee het Vaticaan in zijn recente verleden te maken kreeg.

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GENEVA
Christian Science Monitor

By Nick Squires, Correspondent / January 16, 2014

ROME
Vatican officials came in for an unprecedented grilling today by a United Nations committee over the Catholic Church’s cover-up of decades of sexual abuse of children by clergy.

But despite familiar defenses from the Holy See concerning its role in child-abuse scandals, victims and their advocates are hopeful that the shame of being questioned in public could propel significant change within the church.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva posed charged, blunt questions to senior Vatican officials today, the first time that they had been called to defend their record on the rape of thousands of children by clergy in front of an international body. The Catholic Church ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 but failed to provide the required progress reports for more than a decade, with victims’ groups accusing the church hierarchy of fostering a culture of secrecy to hide abuse of children by priests, monks, and nuns in countries around the world, from Italy and Ireland to the US and Australia.

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

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GENEVA
The Globe and Mail (Canada)

JOHN HEILPRIN AND NICOLE WINFIELD
Geneva — The Associated Press
Published Thursday, Jan. 16 2014

The dressing down came in the unlikeliest of places, a stuffy United Nations conference room before an obscure human rights committee. After decades of fending off accusations that its policies and culture of secrecy had contributed to the global priest sex abuse scandal, the Vatican was called to account.

UN experts interrogated The Holy See for eight hours on Thursday about the scale of abuse and what it was doing to prevent it, marking the first time the Vatican had been forced to defend its record at length or in public.

It resembled a courtroom cross-examination, only no question was off-limits, dodging the answer wasn’t an option and the proceedings were webcast live.

The Vatican was compelled to appear before the committee as a signatory to the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child, which among other things calls for 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 centres. The Holy See submitted a first implementation report in 1994, but didn’t provide progress reports for nearly two decades until 2012.

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GEVEVA
ABC News (Australia)

By Europe correspondent Mary Gearin, wires

The Vatican has told a United Nations panel assessing the Holy See’s adherence to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that it wants to be an example of global best practice when it comes to eliminating child sexual abuse by clergy or church personnel.

Vatican delegates at a historic hearing in Geneva also denied allegations of a cover-up, saying the church had set clear guidelines to protect children from predator Roman Catholic priests, whom Pope Francis has called “the shame of the church”.

In what is the first time the Vatican has been questioned publicly over the issue of child sex abuse in the church, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said there was never any justification for any form of violence or exploitation of children.

However, he maintained that the Holy See is only legally responsible for abuse inside Vatican City.

And he told the panel at the end of the daylong session that, “we will take your questions seriously but we are not in a position to answer now”.

Some victims’ advocates have been disappointed by the church’s response to questions by UN child protection experts, chiefly its insistence that it only has jurisdiction over the Holy See and is not responsible for crimes committed by priests worldwide.

Barbara Blaine, the president of the US-based Survivors’ Network Of Those Abused By Priests, said: “We know full well that they have jurisdiction over every bishop in the whole world, and what we want to see is the Vatican punish the bishops who cover up the sex crimes. And we want them to turn over the information they have about crimes to police.”

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GENEVA
CNN

[with video]

(CNN) — A senior Vatican official acknowledged Thursday there is “no excuse” for child sex abuse, as he and others were grilled by a U.N. committee about the Catholic Church’s handling of pedophile priests.

It’s the first time the Vatican has been forced to answer allegations so publicly that it enabled the sexual abuse of children by protecting such priests.

The committee questioned a handful of Vatican officials — including Monsignor Silvano Tomasi, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva, and Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former chief sex-crimes prosecutor — for several hours Thursday in Switzerland.

In his opening remarks, Tomasi said, “There is no excuse for any form of sexual violence or exploitation of children. Such crimes can never be justified, whether committed in the home, in schools, in community and sports programs, in religious organizations and structures. This is the longstanding policy of the Holy See.”

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WORCESTER (MA)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester

January 16, 2014, WORCESTER, MA — Following a complete audit of its financial accounting, the Diocese of Worcester has issued an online Financial Report and online and printed editions of the Annual Report on Financial Activities for the fiscal year ending August 31, 2013.

In his letter, the Most Reverend Robert J. McManus, S.T.D., Bishop of Worcester, wrote that “our financial reports demonstrate that we have been good stewards of the donations we have received either directly or through our parishes.” The online Financial Report showed an operating surplus of $122,418 after expenses totaling $24,750,617 for 2013 compared to a surplus of $109,804 the previous year on expenses totaling $26,037,091. Given the reduction of more than $1.28 million in expenses, the bishop’s letter noted that “the various departments in our central administration exercised tight fiscal controls in order to operate within their budgets.”

Bishop McManus wrote that “two significant areas of ongoing concern” are the need to service outstanding debt, which cost Central Administration $994,797, and Priests’ Retirement Care. Even with a subsidy of $865,000 from Partners in Charity, retirement programs for clergy operated at expenses over revenues by $715,325, down from the previous year’s difference of $1,113,125. The total expenses incurred were 2% lower than the previous year.

The Diocesan Expansion Fund, which provides “a safe and secure resource for parish and diocesan savings while meeting borrowing needs with competitive rates,” ended the year on a positive note at $215,700 after allowing for unrealized losses, down from $492,965 the previous year.

Partners in Charity revenue appearing in the report was raised in the 2012 campaign and was disbursed to 30 agencies, ministries, and programs. They included Catholic Charities, Grant-in-Aid for Catholic School Students, Haitian Apostolate Ministry, Seminarian Education, and Religious Education. In his letter Bishop McManus noted that the 2013 appeal raised $33,526 more than the previous year. “I am grateful for the commitment to our mission by over 17,825 households in our diocese, including 1,608 new households who participated through online giving and the 117 members of the St. Paul Society who donated a minimum of $5,000 each.”

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Bronislaus B. Kush TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
bkush@telegram.com

WORCESTER —The Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester yielded an operating surplus of $122,418 during last fiscal year, the chancery reported on Thursday.

Officials said that the financial numbers for the fiscal year that ended Aug. 31 reflect a trend, over the past several years, in which the local church’s overall financial ledger has come close to being balanced.

“In some of those years, we’ve had slight surpluses, in others slight losses,” said Vice Chancellor of Operations Raymond L Delisle.

The nearly balanced budget resulted from about $1.28 million worth of cuts in expenses across all departments and agencies. Chancery officials applauded the “tight financial controls” that managers have been using to keep costs down.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON JANUARY 16, 2014

Father Daniel L. Flaherty, SJ, 10th Provincial (1973-1979)

2014: Chicago Province, Chicago IL

http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Daniel-Flaherty/52745168

Flaherty had access to all of McGuire’s files as provincial (1973-1979). When he became provincial, concerns about McGuire’s activities in Europe had already been reported, and the priest had also been asked to leave Loyola Academy. Despite this, in 1976, McGuire received permission from Flaherty to teach at the University of San Francisco. Flaherty also lived at Canisius House in Chicago with McGuire after the latter’s 1993 evaluation at St. Luke’s Institute in Suitland MD and his 1993-1994 treatment at St. John Vianney Hospital in Downingtown PA. Flaherty was supposed to be a member of his support team at Canisius House. However, Flaherty testified that he wasn’t aware of the nature of the treatment McGuire had received, and knew nothing about any of the restrictions that had been placed on McGuire’s activities.

[BishopAccountability.org]

Father Richard (Rick) McGurn, SJ, Father Richard Baumann’s Socius (2000-2003)

2014: Barrington, IL

http://bellarminehall.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/BH_1.27.121.pdf

According to McGurn’s deposition, when he became Socius in January of 2000, he reviewed McGuire’s file. The psych evaluation in the file related that McGuire had a sexual behavior disorder, frotteurism. (Frotteurism is a paraphilic interest in rubbing, usually one’s pelvis or erect penis, against a non-consenting person for sexual gratification. It may involve touching any part of the body including the genital area.) McGurn testified that he did not have any concerns about McGuire after reading the file. Despite McGurn’s lack of concern, in early 2000 he advised Baumann not to send a “letter of good standing” from the Jesuits to the Las Vegas Diocese and outlined McGuire’s past history for the provincial. However, McGurn did not follow up on a June, 2000, report that McGuire had obtained legal guardianship of a minor and that he and the boy were living and traveling together, until October or November of 2000, when there was a new report about McGuire and another boy. McGurn’s investigation then consisted of asking McGuire about the allegations. Moreover, McGurn did not attempt to verify McGuire’s answers. As a result, the boy was abused for another 3-4 years.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

Papst: Skandale sind „die Schande der Kirche“

(Vatican Radio) Scandals in the Church happen because there is no living relationship with God and His Word. Thus, corrupt priests, instead of giving the Bread of Life, give a poisoned meal to the holy people of God: that’s what Pope Francis affirmed in his homily Thursday morning during the Mass celebrated in the Santa Marta guesthouse.

Listen to Tracey McClure’s report: RealAudioMP3

Commenting on the day ‘s reading and responsorial Psalm which recount the crushing defeat of the Israelites by the Philistines, the Pope notes that the people of God at that time had forsaken the Lord . It was said that the Word of God was “uncommon” at that time . The old priest Eli was “lukewarm” and his sons “corrupt; they frightened the people and beat them with sticks.” In their battle against the Philistines, the Israelites brought with them the Ark of the Covenant, but as something “magical,” “something external .” And they are defeated : the Ark is taken from them by their enemies. There is no true faith in God, in His real presence in life:

“This passage of Scripture,” the Pope says, “makes us think about what sort of relationship we have with God, with the Word of God: is it a formal relationship? Is it a distant relationship? The Word of God enters into our hearts, changes our hearts. Does it have this power or not? Is it a formal relationship? But the heart is closed to that Word! It leads us to think of the so many defeats of the Church, so many defeats of God’s people simply because they do not hear the Lord, do not seek the Lord, do not allow themselves to be sought by the Lord! And then after a tragedy, the prayer, this one: ‘ But, Lord , what happened ? You have made ​​us the scorn of our neighbors. The scorn and derision of those around us. You have made us the laughing stock (it: favola) among nations! All the nations shake their heads about us. ‘”

And of the scandals in the Church, Pope Francis said:

“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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GENEVA/VATICAN CITY
Catholic Free Press

By Cindy Wooden and Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Testifying before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, a Vatican representative acknowledged the horror of clerical sexual abuse and insisted the Vatican was serious about protecting children.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican observer to U.N. agencies in Geneva, said the church recognizes abuse of children as both a crime and sin, and the Vatican has been promoting policies that, “when properly applied, will help eliminate the occurrence of child sexual abuse by clergy and other church personnel.”

The archbishop spoke in Geneva Jan. 16 during the committee’s annual session to review reports from states that signed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Holy See signed the treaty in 1990.

“There is no excuse for any form of violence or exploitation of children,” the archbishop said. “Such crimes can never be justified, whether committed in the home, in schools, in community and sports programs, in religious organizations and structures.”

Pope Francis, in a homily at his early morning Mass the same day, spoke generally about the shame of the “many scandals” perpetrated by members of the church. Those who abuse and exploit others, he said, may wear a holy medal or a cross, but they have no “living relationship with God or with his word.”

Instead of giving others “the bread of life,” he said, they feed them poison.

Archbishop Tomasi told the committee that, in December, Pope Francis approved the establishment of an international commission to promote child protection and prevent abuse. He said Vatican City State recently updated its laws to define and set out penalties for specific crimes against minors, including the sale of children, child prostitution, the military recruitment of children, sexual violence against children and producing or possessing child pornography.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN JANUARY 17, 2014

WHISTLEBLOWER policeman Peter Fox used emails sent in his wife’s name to discuss a confidential criminal investigation with a newspaper reporter after being banned from talking to the journalist himself.

Giving evidence to the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry last month, the Detective Chief Inspector said he knew at the time he would not return to the police force and was instead writing a book about his life.

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VATICAN CITY/GENEVA
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) A Holy See delegation has concluded a hearing at the United Nations on implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child, describing it as an “important and fruitful, interactive dialogue” on dealing with child protection.

Maltese Bishop Charles Scicluna, who has long experience of dealing with abuse cases as the former Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told Vatican Radio the Holy See shares the principles of the Convention and is committed to adequately addressing all issues and concerns regarding cases of abuse within the Catholic Church.

Heading the Vatican delegation on Thursday was Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva.

Philippa Hitchen spoke with Bishop Scicluna to find out more about the day’s events in Geneva:

A: It was grueling, in the sense it was a very long session and it was very engaging ….the rapporteur had important concerns to express and we had a very important and fruitful interactive dialogue….I think that we share the principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and I think that we put out in a very clear, coherent way to the international community that the Holy See “gets it”, that as a sovereign state that the Holy See is implementing the Convention and that the Holy See, as the central organ of the Catholic Church, is promoting the values of the Convention and that canon law, as an expression of the jurisdiction of the Holy See, is also constantly being revised, as was the case in 2010, so that procedures and substantive issues are addressed adequately.

Q: Among the concerns are the accusations that the Vatican has not released information about some of the abuse cases – how have you responded to that?

It was not within the remit of the Committee to ask for individual cases, even if there is one individual case which is within the remit of the Convention and that is the case of a diplomat who is a citizen of Vatican City State and allegations concerning whom are under investigation and that was addressed openly by the head of the delegation, nuncio Archbishop Tomasi. With other cases, the constant response of the Holy See has been that these are dealt with on a local level and they should be addressed at local level

Q: Victims groups, survivors networks, say this however is not responding to their needs for transparency at the highest level. How do you answer their allegations?

A: I think there are two important elements of this which are transparency and accountability. And I think that transparency and accountability have to start on the local level. Concerning procedures on the level of the Holy See, I think that the parties concerned to every single and individual procedure, have every right to have access to all the information necessary for their defense, for their exercise of rights under the system we operate on.

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VATICAN CITY/GENEVA
Kansas City Star

January 16
BY ALBERT OTTI AND ALVISE ARMELLINI
dpa

GENEVA — Pope Francis on Thursday railed against the scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church in recent years, while United Nations experts grilled Vatican envoys about child sexual abuse by clergy.

“There are many scandals that I do not want to mention individually, but we all know about them,” Francis said while celebrating morning mass in the Santa Marta chapel, according to a transcript supplied by Vatican Radio.

Along with the revelations about pedophile priests, the Catholic Church has been rocked in recent years by allegations of infighting, mismanagement, graft and money laundering.

“The church’s shame! But did we feel shame for those scandals, for those setbacks of priests, bishops, lay people?” asked the pontiff.

In Geneva, a Vatican delegation appeared before the Committee on the Rights of the Child, to face the most intense public questioning to date about the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests and alleged coverups.

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GENEVA/VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

United Nations child protection experts pushed Vatican delegates today to reveal the scope of the decades-long sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests that Pope Francis called “the shame of the Church”.

The delegates, answering questions from an international rights panel for the first time since the scandals broke more than two decades ago, denied allegations of a Vatican cover-up and said it had set clear guidelines to protect children from predator priests.

But members of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and abuse victims attending the session in Geneva, demanded far more transparency on crimes that have rocked the Church, from the United States to Europe and Australia.

“The best way to prevent abuses is to reveal old ones – openness instead of sweeping offences under the carpet,” Kirsten Sandberg, chairwoman of the 18-strong UN committee, told the Vatican delegation. “It seems to date your procedures are not very transparent.” …

Victims accuse bishops of covering up crimes and switching priests to other parishes to avoid prosecution. Courts have ordered dioceses to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, bankrupting a string of them in the United States. Pope Francis told worshippers at morning Mass in the Vatican today that abuse scandals had “cost us a lot of money, but (paying damages) is only right.” He said bishops, priests and lay people were responsible for this “shame of the Church”.

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GENEVA
The Tablet (United Kingdom)

16 January 2014 by Abigail Frymann

Today was a first in some ways – but not in as many as some would have hoped. It was the first time the Vatican has publicly had to account for its handling of waves of allegations of abuse by priests. Campaigners such as Barbara Blaine the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests hailed it as a huge milestone.

But as Bishop Charles Scicluna, for ten years the Vatican official in charge of prosecuting abuse cases, and Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s man in Geneva, appeared before the UN committee on Protection on Rights of the Child, some lines were all to familiar.

Archbishop Tomasi said that the Vatican could not be held responsible for the actions of priests in the way that an employer is, because priests aren’t employees as such; thus Vatican City State can’t be held to account for what’s done outside its borders.

There are two problems with this argument – firstly, that the Vatican authorities find it within their powers to discipline priests who question Catholic doctrine on homosexuality or attend the “ordination” services of women. So it then looks baffling that they can’t come down hard on bishops who ignored abuse allegations or covered them up.

Secondly, and most importantly, it suggests that certain men in the Vatican still don’t get it. For many onlookers, especially those who are heartbroken by the abuse crisis, today wasn’t about establishing on whose patch these crimes occurred; it was about searching for evidence of a change of heart, a metanoia: had the church authorities shifted from protecting the institution to protecting their most vulnerable? And had the church authorities finally linked their own inaction, or that of their confreres and predecessors, to the tragedy of the damage suffered by victims?

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GENEVA
Los Angeles Times

By Tom Kington
January 16, 2014

ROME — In their toughest and most public questioning to date about sexual abuse of children by the clergy, senior Vatican officials came under heavy criticism Thursday from a United Nations committee over their handling of such cases and promised that changes were underway.

“The Holy See gets it,” Msgr. Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor, told the Committee on the Rights of the Child at a meeting in Geneva.

But Scicluna and a colleague maintained the Vatican’s position that, while it is responsible for responding to abuses committed within the confines of the Vatican state, it is up to local law enforcers to punish abusive priests around the world.

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

That contention does not satisfy the Vatican’s critics, who accuse senior officials in the Roman Catholic Church of actively trying to cover up cases of abuse.

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GENEVA
Irish Examiner

A top Vatican official has told a UN committee that responsibility for the Magdalene Laundries scandal lies solely with the Irish authorities.

Officials from the Holy See are facing questions in Geneva over incidents and allegations of child abuse in the Catholic Church across the world.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi told the committee the Vatican’s view was that the Irish state had taken full responsbility for the abuse scandal at the Magdalene Landries.

“The state is proceeding through the courts to settle the situation,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON JANUARY 16, 2014

In less than a year Pope Francis has changed the image of the Church by preaching tolerance and wading into crowds to embrace the sick. Few doubt his sincerity. But there’s one area in which the Church hasn’t changed in image or substance: Its stance on child sex abuse by the clergy.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child meets this week in Geneva to, among other things, investigate child sex abuse by Catholic clergy. The Vatican is sending representatives and announced it will put together another panel to look into the issue.

But survivors of sex abuse don’t need another commission or for the Vatican to continue in the same plodding, evasive and in some cases criminal manner. For example, the Vatican recently declined to order the release of the names of bishops who transferred and hid pedophile priests over the years, saying it has no legal authority to do so.

Instead, victims need the fresh approach Pope Francis is bringing to other areas of the Church. They need the Vatican representatives to be open and forthright with the UN committee. They need the immediate release of the names of the clergy and employees who abused hundreds of thousands of children. They need the bishops identified who hid and protected pedophile priests, sometimes for decades, by transferring them from parish to parish.

Victims need clerics to lobby for, not against, local laws protecting children from sexual predators. They need the Church to make public every document or scrap of paper concerning a credible accusation of sexual abuse. They need the Church to be completely open and honest on the issue of clergy abuse. They need the Church to change. No matter how sincere, more expressions of regret in Geneva won’t stop pedophile priests today any more than it undoes the abuse of the past.

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GENEVA
The News (Poland)

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi has told a UN committee that the case against Polish archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who faces child sex abuse charges, is being “given the severity it deserves”

Archbishop Tomasi told the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Thursday, that the Vatican announced last week it would not be extraditing Jozef Wesolowski, a former Vatican representative in the Dominican Republic, back to the Caribbean island, or to Poland, to face the charges against him because he was a citizen of the Vatican and will face charges there following an investigation into the case.

“A citizen of Vatican City State has been placed under investigation for alleged sexual crimes committed against children outside the territory of Vatican City State,” Archbishop Tomasi told the committee, adding that the case would be handled “with the severity it deserves.”

Vatican officials faced a grilling in front of the committee, which was hearing annual reports by nations who had signed the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child, the Catholic News Agency reports,

The Vatican signed the convention in 1990 but from 1994 to 2012 presented no annual progress reports on tackling child abuse to the committee, despite numerous investigations of alleged child abuse by clergy, often dating back decades, in the US, Ireland, Germany and elsewhere.

Last year it emerged that Archbishop Wesolowski, the Vatican’s representative in the Dominican Republic, was being investigated by police after children had come forward alleging they had been abused by the priest.

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GENEVA
9 News (Australia)

The Vatican insists it is committed to stamping out sexual abuse by the clergy, as top Church officials were grilled before the UN’s child rights watchdog.

The hearing came as Pope Francis said all Catholics should feel “shame”, in an apparent reference to the scandals that have rocked the Church for more than a decade.

Under the spotlight at the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva, the Vatican delegation insisted that it understood what it had to do to root out sexual crimes.

“The Holy See gets it, that certain things have to be done differently,” said Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former top prosecutor.

“It’s not words, it has to be commitment on the ground, on the level of the local churches,” he told the committee on Thursday.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach CA, western regional director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 949 322 7434, jcasteix@gmail.com )

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?

Mahony’s years of self-serving secrecy forced Archbishop Jose Gomez to forbid Mahony from doing ‘public ministry’ in the LA archdiocese. How ironic that he’s persona non grata in LA but welcomed in Rome. How ironic that Mahony’s predecessor basically bans him but Catholicism’s head honcho embraces him.

It should go without saying that the pope is the world’s most powerful Catholic. He can meet with anyone he likes. And he can deny anyone the chance to appear with him in public.

Yet he chooses to say mass publicly and meet privately with Mahony.

There are plenty of prelates across the globe who understand immigration issues. Few prelates, however, understand public relations and image-burnishing more than Mahony. And even when he retires, he’s remorseless and fixated on trying to rebuild his well-deserved shattered reputation. It’s sad that Pope Francis is complicit in this selfish and insensitive effort.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicagoist

The Archdiocese of Chicago released over 6,000 pages of documents Wednesday detailing allegations of sexual abuse by priests and publicly showed contrition for their handling of the allegations and concern for the victims and their families.

A statement to the public posted to the Archdiocese’s website regarding the release of the files reads:

The Archdiocese’s concern is for the rights of everyone involved, which both the Archdiocese and claimants acknowledge require careful consideration.

According to the Archdiocese, 95 percent of the abuse allegations occurred before 1998—none after 1996. Thirty priests were named in the documents; all of them are out of the ministry, 14 are deceased.

Notably absent from the documents is Daniel McCormack, who pleaded guilty in 2007 to molesting boys while he was a priest and is the defendant in several ongoing lawsuits. The Archdiocese did report all of the allegations to authorities.

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GENEVA
The Guardian

Lizzy Davies in Rome
theguardian.com, Thursday 16 January 2014

The Vatican has come under intense pressure from a United Nations panel to explain its handling of clerical sex abuse as representatives of the Holy See were questioned on the global scandal for the first time at length and in public.

International experts from the UN’s committee on the rights of the child grilled a delegation from the Holy See, which is regarded as a sovereign state, on Thursday, as victims of sexual abuse by priests flew in to Geneva to watch the highly unusual proceedings.

As the hearing got underway, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s envoy to the UN, made it clear that there was no excuse for violent or exploitative behaviour towards children. “Such crimes can never be justified, whether committed in the home, in schools, in community and sports programs, in religious organisations structures,” he said.

But he kept to the line that the Holy See was distinct from the global Catholic church and had little jurisdiction in countries beyond the Vatican city state. The guidelines already put in place by the Holy See and Catholic churches around the world had, “when properly applied”, presented a way of eliminating the scourge of abuse, he said.

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INDIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014

Statement by: Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, 636-433-2511, SNAPJudy@gmail.com

It takes a lot of courage to come forward and take action about being sexually abused as a child. So we commend the individual who reported his or her suffering caused by the predatory deeds of Fr. James Seculoff.

[WNDU]

Also, it is extremely rare that a child predator has only one victim.

We urge Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades to visit every parish where Fr. Seculoff worked, and reach out to any other person who may have seen,, suspected or suffered crimes by this priest or cover ups by his supervisors.

The bishop should urge them to call the police, no matter how long ago the abuse or wrongdoing may have happened.. Rhoades should also post this important information about Fr. Seculoff in the diocese newspaper, church bulletins, and on the diocese web site.

Silence is not an option anymore, it only hurts, and by speaking up there is a chance for healing, exposing the truth, and therefore protecting others.

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GENEVA
Aljazeera America

The Vatican came under sharp criticism from a United Nations committee in Geneva on Thursday for its handling of the global priest sex-abuse scandal that has tarnished the reputation of the Roman Catholic Church and drawn accusations that it purposefully hid the rapes of thousands of children by protecting pedophile priests.

The Vatican, now facing its most intense public grilling over the allegations, acknowledged at the hearing that it had been slow to act, but insisted that it was now committed to facing the crisis.

“The Holy See gets it,” Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former sex-crimes prosecutor, told the committee. “Let’s not say ‘too late’ or not. But there are certain things that need to be done differently.”

The Holy See is recognized by international law as a sovereign entity headed by the Pope.

Scicluna also encouraged prosecutors to take action against anyone who obstructs justice — a suggestion that bishops, who moved priests from diocese to diocese so that they could avoid prosecution, should be held accountable.

Scicluna’s comments came in response to a grilling by the committee over the Holy See’s failure to abide by terms of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty that calls for signatories to take all appropriate measures to keep children from harm.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article posted 16 January 2014)

Father Glenn Humphreys, 60, a member of the Australia-wide Catholic order of Vincentian Fathers, has been charged with child sexual abuse allegedly committed in Western Australia. Father Humphreys has ministered in several states in Australia. Until 2011, he administered the Townsville Cathedral parish in northern Queensland on behalf of the Bishop of Townsville.

On 16 January 2014, the Humphreys case came up for a brief administrative procedure (a committal mention) in the Perth Magistrates Court.

Father Humphreys, who lives at a Vincentian address in Sydney, was not required to be present when his name was mentioned in court. The administrative procedure was handled by the magistrate in consultation with the prosecutor and a defence lawyer.

West Australian detectives have charged Father Humphreys with four counts of unlawful and indecent assault and one charge each of carnal knowledge and attempted carnal knowledge, allegedly committed against a teenage boy in Western Australia between 1983 and 1986, when the boy was aged 15 to 17.

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

There will be an examination for discovery for the new Father Dan Miller charges tomorrow (Thursday, 15 January 2014). This is not open to the public.

I will find out next week when the next court date is and let you know.

Please keep the complainant in your prayers tomorrow.

*****
So, here goes. I will start to blog the sex abuse trial of Father Rene Labelle. This is the blog I started on route to Kingston today for day three of the trial. I was using my cell and was unable to get it posted 🙁 I must find a new way of getting blogs done when I am back and forth on the road like this. I was so sure I would be able to do it on my phone. Perhaps something else on the never-ending list of things to learn? Anyway, here is the first block of info. and then I’m off to bed:

1. The trial was scheduled for five days . On day one (Monday 13 Jan.) the judge advised that the days would be shortened – start time daily is 10:30 am (vs original 10 am) and proceedings shall wrap up at 3pm. With one hour for lunch and a short morning break that makes for a very short day. There was agreement that the evidence and witnesses could be dealt despite the condensed work day.

2. Yes, for those who recognised the name, that is Justice Timothy Ray on the bench, the same Justice Ray who was on the bench for the Father Dan Miller sentencing in Pembroke, Ontario.

The Crown attorney is Gerard Laarhuis . Father Labelle’s lawyer is John Ecclestone.

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VATICAN CITY
Windsor Star

The Vatican is gearing up for a bruising showdown over the global priest sex abuse scandal, forced for the first time to defend itself at length and in public against allegations it protected pedophile priests and its reputation over victims. (Jan. 15)

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GENEVA
The Star

BY STEPHANIE NEBEHAY

GENEVA (Reuters) – United Nations child protection experts grilled Vatican delegates on Thursday on how Roman Catholic officials handled the decades-long sexual abuse of minors by priests that Pope Francis called “the shame of the Church”.

The officials, called to account for the first time since the Holy See signed the U.N. children’s rights charter in 1990, argued that the Church recognised the problem and had drawn up clear guidelines to protect children from predator priests.

But members of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child and abuse victims attending the session in Geneva demanded far more transparency on a scandal that has hounded the Church for more than two decades in countries from Ireland to Australia.

“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,” Kirsten Sandberg, chairwoman of the 18-strong U.N. committee, told the Vatican delegation.

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

Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which has 15,000 U.S. members and 4,000 foreign members since being launched 25 years ago, said the Vatican response fell far short of what victims wanted.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 16 January 2014 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father received in audience:

– Cardinal Roger Michael Mahony, archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.,

– Cardinal Vinko Puljic, archbishop of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina,

– members of the presidency of the French Episcopal Conference:
Archbishop Georges Pontier of Marseilles, President,
Bishop Pascal Delannoy of Saint-Denis, Vice President,
Archbishop Pierre-Marie Carre of Montpellier, Vice President,
Fr. Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, Secretary General, and

– a group of Argentinian Rabbis.

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VATICAN CITY/GENEVA
Catholic News Service

By Cindy Wooden and Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Testifying before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, a Vatican representative acknowledged the horror of clerical sexual abuse and insisted the Vatican was serious about protecting children.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican observer to U.N. agencies in Geneva, said the church recognizes abuse of children as both a crime and sin, and the Vatican has been promoting policies that, “when properly applied, will help eliminate the occurrence of child sexual abuse by clergy and other church personnel.”

The archbishop spoke in Geneva Jan. 16 during the committee’s annual session to review reports from states that signed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Holy See signed the treaty in 1990.

“There is no excuse for any form of violence or exploitation of children,” the archbishop said. “Such crimes can never be justified, whether committed in the home, in schools, in community and sports programs, in religious organizations and structures.”

Pope Francis, in a homily at his early morning Mass the same day, spoke generally about the shame of the “many scandals” perpetrated by members of the church. Those who abuse and exploit others, he said, may wear a holy medal or a cross, but they have no “living relationship with God or with his word.”

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Boz Tchividjian | Jan 16, 2014

On January 2nd, a priest who was partly responsible for the sexual abuse of a 10 year old child, walked out of prison after his conviction was overturned. Monsignor William J. Lynn, a former official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was convicted in 2012 of Endangering the Welfare of a Child (EWOC). Monsignor Lynn is one of the first members of clergy to face criminal charges for failing to adequately supervise a priest with a known history of child sexual abuse. In addition to the devastation perpetrated upon an innocent child, the great tragedy of this case was best articulated by the appellate judge who wrote,

….the Commonwealth presented more than adequate evidence to sufficiently demonstrate that Appellant [Lynn] prioritized the Archdiocese’s reputation over the safety of potential victims of sexually abusing priests…

In the 1990’s, Monsignor William Lynn was in charge of addressing clergy abuse issues within the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In 1992, Monsignor Lynn allowed a priest with known sexual abuse history to move into a parish rectory. A parish that included a grade school.

In early 1999, Edward Avery repeatedly sexually abused a ten year old boy who attended the parish grade school and had assisted Avery in serving mass.

In 2011, Monsignor William Lynn was charged with and convicted of the felony offense of Endangering the Welfare of a Child (EWOC) stemming from the 1999 offenses. He was sentenced to a prison term of three to six years. He appealed.

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GENEVA
NPR

by SCOTT NEUMAN
January 16, 2014

The Vatican is coming in for tough scrutiny on its handling of the priest sex abuse scandal from a United Nations committee meeting in Geneva on Thursday.

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) took church officials to task during what The Associated Press described as a “grilling” that insisted the Holy See “take all appropriate measures to keep children out of harm.”

The Vatican ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, but as the BBC reports, it failed to submit any progress reports until 2012, well after revelations of child sex abuse in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.

“The Holy See gets it,” Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor, told the committee. “Let’s not say too late or not. But there are certain things that need to be done differently.”

NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome that Scicluna was the Holy See’s chief sex crimes prosecutor for the past decade. He’s credited “with overhauling Vatican procedures to prosecute pedophile priests, but the Vatican has refused to instruct its bishops to report suspected cases of abuse to police whether required to do by local law or not,” she says.

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GENEVA
euronews

In Geneva – and in the glare of the public for the first time – the Vatican is answering questions from the United Nations on child sex abuse by clergy.

The Holy See is a signatory of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. That requires it to answer questions about the scandal.

It was alleged the Church enabled the sexual abuse of thousands of children by protecting pedophile priests at the expense of its victims.

“The Holy See has also committed to listen carefully to victims of abuse and to address the impact such situations have on survivors of abuse and on their families,” Archbishop Silvano Tomasi told the hearing.

There was anger that the Vatican had earlier refused a request for data on abuse. Victims hope the hearing will prompt the Church to end what they see as secrecy.

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GENF
Mittelbayerische

Auch unter Franziskus wage es die katholische Kirche bislang nicht, sexuellen Missbrauch vollständig aufzuklären, kritisiert eine UN-Organisation.

Genf.
Mitglieder eines UN-Komitees haben den Vatikan wegen mangelnder Transparenz im Umgang mit dem sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern durch katholische Geistliche kritisiert. Der Kirchenstaat weigere sich nach wie vor, die von den UN geforderten genauen Angaben zu Umfang des Skandals und zu Tätern zu machen, bemängelten sie am Donnerstag bei der ersten öffentlichen Anhörung zu diesem Thema vor dem UN-Komitee für die Rechte des Kindes in Genf. Papst Franziskus prangerte die Skandale am selben Tag bei seiner Frühmesse im Vatikan als „die Schande der Kirche“ an.

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GENF
Blick

Genf – Deutliche Worte des UNO-Komitees für die Rechte des Kindes: Auch unter Papst Franziskus wage es der Vatikan bislang nicht, sexuellen Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche vollständig und öffentlich aufzuklären. Franziskus äusserte sich gleichentags zu den Skandalen.

Der Kirchenstaat weigere sich nach wie vor, die von der UNO geforderten genauen Angaben zu Umfang des Skandals und zu Tätern zu machen, bemängelten die Teilnehmer am Donnerstag bei der ersten öffentlichen Anhörung zu diesem Thema vor dem UNO-Komitee für die Rechte des Kindes in Genf.

Vor dem Ausschuss in Genf beteuerte der UNO-Gesandte des Heiligen Stuhls, Erzbischof Silvano Tomasi, der Vatikan gehe mit aller Kraft gegen den Missbrauch von Kindern vor. So habe der Papst eigens die Bildung einer Kommission für den Schutz von Minderjährigen veranlasst.

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GENF
Frankfurter Allgemeine

Der UN-Ausschuss für die Rechte des Kindes hat das Verhalten des Vatikans in dem Missbrauchsskandal kritisiert, der seit Jahren die katholische Kirche erschüttert. Die Expertin Sara Oviedo forderte bei einer Anhörung am Donnerstag in Genf, dass der Vatikan mehr Informationen über die getroffenen Maßnahmen zur Prävention von Kindesmissbrauch gibt. „Welche Änderungen beim Verhaltenskodex wurden getroffen, um sexuellen Missbrauch zu verhindern? Welche Strafen wurden gegen Priester verhängt, deren Verhalten unangemessen war?“, fragte Oviedo.

Der Vatikan hatte es im Dezember abgelehnt, dem UN-Ausschuss auf im Juli übermittelte Fragen zu antworten, in welchen Missbrauchsfällen die Glaubenskongregation des Vatikan derzeit ermittelt. Insgesamt wurden von den Diözesen in den vergangenen Jahren rund 4000 Fälle an die Glaubenskongregation weitergeleitet. Kritiker werfen dem Vatikan vor, mit seinem Schweigen die Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen Kirchenmitarbeiter vertuschen zu wollen, doch der Vatikan erklärt, dadurch Zeugen und Opfer schützen zu wollen.

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GENEVA
The Tablet (United Kingdom)

16 January 2014 12:54 by Liz Dodd

Vatican officials are appearing today in front of a United Nations inquiry to answer questions about the Holy See’s record on tackling child sex abuse by clergy.

It is the first time that the Vatican has been confronted publicly about the abuse crisis.

Pope Francis’s delegation of five is led by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s envoy to the UN, and Bishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former chief prosecutor of sexual abuse.

The hearing, which marks the conclusion of the UN’s investigation into the Holy See’s compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which it is a signatory, is taking place in Geneva.

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RHODE ISLAND
TheMediaReport

WJAR, an NBC television affiliate in Providence, recently trumpeted a trove of documents it obtained from Rhode Island’s state police. They contain letters alleging old sex abuse claims against priests which the Diocese of Providence sent to the police over the past several years.

And while WJAR reporter Katie Davis proudly proclaimed the papers as “detailing sexual abuse by Rhode Island Roman Catholic priests,” what is most noteworthy about the documents is the large number of bogus accusations and outright attempts of fraud against the Church, none of which was mentioned by Davis.

Media credence and mental illness

The documents contain a number of claims which are clearly untrue and even preposterous:
an “obviously troubled individual” made “numerous calls” to the diocese claiming that a priest who had never been accused of anything was “a pedophile and had killed a young boy and buried him on the church property” (doc);

a man left a phone message and claimed he had a list of “73 active priests” who may have molested children, but the man never responded to any return phone calls by the diocese seeking additional information (doc);

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VIRGINIA/TEXAS
WRIC

RICHMOND (WRIC)—Geronimo Scott “Pastor G” Aguilar, the ex-founder and former head pastor of the Richmond Outreach Center, commonly known as the ROC, was indicted in a second sexual assault case on Wednesday.

ABC 8 News Anchor Kerri O’Brien broke this story last year, and has been following it closely ever since.

Aguilar, 43, was arrested in May 2013 and charged with sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl and her 13-year-old sister while he was their youth pastor in Fort Worth, Texas in 1996 and 1997. In September, a grand jury indicted him on two counts of aggravated sexual assault in the case involving the younger sister. Wednesday’s indictment pertains to the case involving the then-13-year-old sister, who spoke to ABC 8 News exclusively more than nine months ago.

“I was 13 and it started out the same way, where he was very flirtatious and then it progressed … within a month’s time where we started having sexual intercourse,” she said.

Her younger sister said, “I was about 11 when I had my first encounter with Geronimo that was inappropriate.”

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GENF
euronews

Vertretern des Vatikan werden heute in Genf vor dem UN-Kinderrechtskomitee u.a. zum Kindesmissbrauch in der Katholischen Kirche Stellung nehmen. Die Anhörung ist eine turnusmäßige Prüfung, der sich alle 193 Unterzeichnerstaaten der UN-Kinderrechtskonvention zu unterziehen haben.

Vatikansprecher Pater Federico Lombardi betonte man müsse unterscheiden zwischen der Kirche als Organisation und der Kirche als einer Gemeinschaft von Gläubigen. “Die Gemeinschaft der Gläubigen besteht aus Menschen verschiedener Länder mit verschiedenen Gesetzen. Und wenn sie in ihrem Land gegen Gesetze verstoßen haben, dann müssen sie sich vor den Behörden ihres Landes gemäß den Gesetzen des Landes verantworten”, sagte Pater Lombardi.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Deutschlandfunk

Ein Kirchengericht hat einen früheren Jesuitenpater wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs verurteilt. Der heute 72-Jährige muss eine Geldstrafe an einen Fonds für Missbrauchsopfer zahlen. Er bleibt Priester, darf das Amt aber nicht ausüben.

Das Kirchengericht des Erzbistums Berlin hat einen früheren Jesuitenpater wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs verurteilt. Hierbei handelt es sich um einen der beiden mutmaßlichen Haupttäter am Canisius-Kolleg Berlin, einem Gymnasium des Jesuitenordens. Der damalige Rektor des Canisius-Kollegs Pater Klaus Mertes hatte die Vorfälle Anfang 2010 öffentlich gemacht und damit den Missbrauchsskandal ins Rollen gebracht. Der Sprecher des Erzbistums Berlin Stefan Förner:

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DEUTSCHLAND
RBB

[Summary: A scandal involving sexual abuse at Berlin’s Canisius College became public in 2010. Today a 72-year-old Jesuit priest was convicted in a church court for violations of criminal and civil law. The acts are time-barred in secular law. According to the Berlin archdiocese, the priest accepted the 4,000-euro fine and has paid the first installment. The money to will into a fund for victims.]

2010 erschütterte der Skandal um den sexuellen Missbrauch am Berliner Canisius-Kolleg die Katholische Kirche. Nun wurde ein heute 72-jähriger Jesuitenpater deswegen verurteilt – von einem Kirchengericht, denn straf- und zivilrechtlich sind die Taten verjährt.

Das Kirchengericht des Erzbistums Berlin hat einen der mutmaßlichen Haupttäter bei den langjährigen Fällen von sexuellem Missbrauch am Canisius-Kolleg verurteilt. Der heute 72-jährige Jesuitenpater sei auf Lebenszeit vom Priesterdienst ausgeschlossen und zu einer Geldstrafe verurteilt worden, sagte der Sprecher des Erzbistums Berlin, Stefan Förner, am Mittwoch. Der Geistliche habe das Urteil akzeptiert und bereits eine erste Rate der Strafe in Höhe von 4.000 Euro an einen Fonds für Missbrauchsopfer bezahlt. Straf- und zivilrechtlich sind die Taten verjährt.

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MASSACHUSETTS
WPRI

[with video]

By Nancy Krause
Reporting by Sean Daly

ATTLEBORO, Mass. (WPRI) — The principal of an Attleboro school accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a female student over several years admitted to the allegations, according a police report obtained by Eyewitness News.

The Rev. Jeffrey Nichols, 47, pleaded not guilty to several charges against him, including aggravated indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.

According to the police report, a student told officers Nichols, a principal at Grace Baptist Christian Academy and assistant pastor at Grace Baptist Church, began assaulting her in 2008 – when she was a 13-year-old seventh grader – until June of 2013.

The report stated the student told police Nichols exposed himself to her several times, touched her inappropriately and frequently asked her for sexual favors. She told police she “continually denied his requests for sexual favors.”

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VATICAN CITY
Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs LA

Today, Thursday, January 16, it was a great grace to concelebrate Mass with Pope Francis in the Chapel at Domus Sanctae Martae, and then later in the morning, to have a private Audience with him.

The MASS Each weekday morning Pope Francis celebrates Mass at 7:00 AM in the Chapel of his residence, Domus Sanctae Martae. Today, Cardinal Carlos Amigo Vallejo, OFM, the Archbishop Emeritus of Seville in Spain, also concelebrated, together with a group of Italian priests

It is so evident that Pope Francis is a man of prayer, a holy Successor to St. Peter. It is remarkable how he is able to reflect on the Scriptures of the day without any notes or text–but flowing directly from his prayer life and from his heart. Today’s Gospel was about the leper who begged Jesus to heal him. St. Mark recounts that Jesus reached out and touched the leper in great mercy, and healed him. Pope Francis reminded all of us that as disciples of Jesus we are called to reach to all our brothers and sisters in need.

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GENEVA
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 16 January 2014 (VIS) – Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, C.S., Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva, spoke this morning before the Committee on the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC). He presented the Holy See’s periodic report on this issue.

“The protection of children remains a major concern for contemporary society and for the Holy See,” the prelate said. “… Abusers are found among members of the world’s most respected professions, most regrettably, including members of the clergy and other church personnel. …”

“Confronted with this reality, the Holy See has carefully delineated policies and procedures designed to help eliminate such abuse and to collaborate with respective State authorities to fight against this crime. The Holy See is also committed to listen carefully to victims of abuse and to address the impact such situations have on survivors of abuse and on their families. The vast majority of church personnel and institutions on the local level have provided, and continue to provide, a wide variety of services to children by educating them, and by supporting their families, and by responding to their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Egregious crimes of abuse committed against children have rightly been adjudicated and punished by the competent civil authorities in the respective countries.”

“Therefore, the response of the Holy See to the sad phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors has been articulated in different ambits. On the level of the Holy See, as the Sovereign of Vatican City State, the response to sexual abuse has been in accord with its direct responsibility over the territory of Vatican City State. In this regard, special legislation has been enacted to implement international legal obligations, and covers the State, and its tiny population.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Perth Magistrates Court has been told a Catholic priest intends to plead not guilty to child sex charges dating back to the 1980s.

Father Glen Humphreys was charged last year with abusing a boy, south of Perth, between 1983 and 1986 when he aged between 15 and 17-years-old.

Father Humphreys did not appear in court.

The court heard he has reported to police in New South Wales where he now lives.

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GENF
Sueddeutsche

Der Vatikan stellt sich erstmals einer Befragung des UN-Kinderrechtskomitees in Genf zum Schutz von Minderjährigen. Es wird um Maßnahmen gegen sexuellen Missbrauch und Diskriminierung von Mädchen gehen. Einige Fragen bleiben wohl unbeantwortet.

Der Vatikan stellt sich heute erstmals den Fragen des UN-Kinderrechtskomitees (CRC) in Genf. Dabei soll es vor allem um die unzähligen Missbrauchsskandale in der katholischen Kirche gehen – und welche Maßnahmen getroffen wurden und getroffen werden müssen, um Kinder in Zukunft besser zu schützen. Ein anderes großes Thema soll Kinderpornografie und die Diskrimierung von Mädchen sein. Die 18 unabhängigen Experten des Gremiums stellen ihre Ergebnisse am 5. Februar vor.

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GENEVA
BBC News

The Vatican is being confronted publicly for the first time over the sexual abuse of children by clergy, at a UN hearing in Geneva.

Officials faced a barrage of hard questions such as why would they not release full data and what were they doing to prevent future abuse.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said such crimes could “never be justified” and every child should be “inviolable”.

A fellow official said “things need to be done differently”.

The Vatican earlier refused a request from the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) for data on abuse, and was accused of responding inadequately to abuse allegations.

The Holy See gets it that there are things that need to be done differently”

The Vatican came to Geneva expecting a rough ride and so far it is getting one, the BBC’s Imogen Foulkes reports.

Victims say they hope the hearing, which is being broadcast live, will prompt the Church to end its “secrecy”.

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GENEVA
Vatican Information Service

PRESENTATION OF THE PERIODIC REPORTS OF THE HOLY SEE TO THE COMMITTEE ON THE CONVENTION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD AND THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOLS (JANUARY 16, 2014 PALAIS WILSON, GENEVA), 16.01.2014

Pubblichiamo di seguito l’intervento tenuto questa mattina dal Capo Delegazione della Santa Sede al Comitato che oggi esamina a Ginevra il Rapporto presentato dalla Santa Sede sull’applicazione della Convenzione sui Diritti del Fanciullo:

● S.E.R. MONS. SILVANO TOMASI, HEAD OF HOLY SEE DELEGATION

Madame Chairperson, Members of the Committee,

At the time of the ratification in 1990, the Holy See made the following declaration.

“The Holy See regards the present Convention as a proper and laudable instrument aimed at protecting the rights and interests of children, who are ‘that precious treasure given to each generation as a challenge to its wisdom and humanity.”

“By acceding to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Holy See intends to give renewed expression to its constant concern for the well-being of children and families. In consideration of its singular nature and position, the Holy See, in acceding to this Convention, does not intend to prescind in any way from its specific mission which is of a religious and moral character.”

The protection of children remains a major concern for contemporary society and for the Holy See. The UN report on Violence Against Children, issued in 2006, cited shocking WHO estimates that 150 million girls and 73 million boys under 18 “experienced forced sexual intercourse and other forms of sexual violence involving physical contact”.1 Even if they contain a significant margin of error, these estimates should never be ignored nor overshadowed by other priorities or interests on the part of the international community. Moreover, this estimate does not include projections on the number of victims of child labour and child trafficking, whether for sexual exploitation, forced work, sale of organs, and other shameful reasons. Although little is known about the magnitude of the problem, the International Labor Organization, in 2002, estimated that there were 1.2 million children being trafficked each year2.

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BBC News

The Vatican is facing tough questions from UN investigators in Geneva on the sexual abuse of thousands of children by Roman Catholic clergy.

Pope Francis has said that dealing with abuse is vital for the Church’s credibility, but the Church has been criticised over its inadequate response to some of the allegations.

When did the sex abuse scandals in the Church first come to light?

The sexual abuse of children was rarely discussed in public before the 1970s, and it was not until the 1980s that the first cases of molestation by priests came to light, in the United States and Canada.

In the 1990s, revelations began of widespread abuse in Ireland.

In the new century, more cases of abuse have been revealed in more than a dozen countries around the world.

What are the most salient cases of abuse?

Two major reports into Irish allegations of paedophilia in 2009 revealed the shocking extent of abuse, cover-ups and hierarchical failings involving thousands of victims, and stretching back decades.

In one, four Dublin archbishops were found to have in effect turned a blind eye to cases of abuse from 1975 to 2004.

A fresh scandal erupted in March 2010 when it emerged the head of the Irish Catholic Church, Cardinal Sean Brady, was present at meetings in 1975 where children signed vows of silence over complaints against a paedophile priest, Fr Brendan Smyth. This prompted Pope Benedict XVI to apologise to Irish victims.

In the US, the Boston Archdiocese has been worst hit, with the activities of two of its priests, Paul Shanley and John Geoghan, causing public outrage.

Cardinal Bernard Law resigned over the scandal in 2002.

In Mexico, the founder of the Legion of Christ order, Marcial Maciel, long admired by Pope John Paul II, was disciplined by the Vatican in 2006 over the abuse of boys and young men over a period of 30 years.

The Legion insisted his was an isolated case, but seven more priests of the order have been investigated.

The bishop of the Belgian city of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned in 2010 after admitting that he had sexually abused a boy for years.

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GENEVA
RTE News

The Vatican is being questioned by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) over how it handled allegations of child sexual abuse committed by priests.

The six-hour meeting at the Palais Wilson in Geneva is the first time the Holy See has been publicly questioned by an international panel over the child abuse scandal.

The UN panel will assess the church’s adherence to the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The treaty guarantees a full range of human rights for children and was signed by the Holy See.

Alleged victims of abuse at the hands of Catholic priests are among those in attendance at the event, including representatives from the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

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GENEVA
The Hindu

The Catholic Church must be more transparent in dealing with child sexual abuse by its clergy and mete out fair punishments, a UN human rights panel said on Thursday, as a Vatican envoy said it has taken steps to eliminate such crimes in the future.

The Holy See had issued guidance to national churches, some of which had also drawn up their own guidelines, and Catholic non-governmental groups had set up educational programmes on sexual abuse, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi told the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

“The results of combined efforts taken by local churches and by the Holy See presents a framework that when properly applied will help eliminate the occurrence of child sexual abuse by clergy and other church personnel,” the Vatican’s Geneva envoy said.

More than 4,000 cases of sexual abuse of children had been reported to the Vatican in the past decade, US Cardinal Levada said in early 2012.

The UN committee’s vice-chairwoman, Sara De Jesus Oviedo Fierro, demanded that the Vatican provide more details on abuse cases and on the countermeasures as demanded previously by the UN body.

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GENEVA
Toronto Star

By: John Heilprin The Associated Press, Published on Thu Jan 16 2014

GENEVA—The Vatican came under blistering criticism from a UN committee Thursday for its handling of the global priest sex abuse scandal, facing its most intense public grilling ever over allegations that it protected pedophile priests at the expense of victims.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor, acknowledged that the Holy See had been slow to face the crisis but said that it was now committed to doing so. He encouraged prosecutors to take action against anyone who obstructs justice — a suggestion that bishops who moved priests from diocese to diocese should be held accountable.

He was responding to a grilling by the UN committee over the Holy See’s failure to abide by terms of a treaty that calls for signatories to take all appropriate measures to keep children from harm. Critics allege the church enabled the rape of thousands of children by protecting pedophile priests to defend its reputation.

The committee’s main human rights investigator, Sara Oviedo, was particularly tough, pressing the Vatican on the frequent ways abusive priests were transferred rather than turned in to police. Given the church’s “zero tolerance” policy, she asked, why were there “efforts to cover up and obscure these types of cases.”

Another committee member, Maria Rita Parsi, an Italian psychologist and psychotherapist, pressed further: “If these events continue to be hidden and covered up, to what extent will children be affected?”

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GENEVA
NBC News

By Alexander Smith, NBC News contributor

The Vatican came under blistering criticism from a United Nations committee Thursday over allegations it protected pedophile priests at the expense of victims in what constituted a worldwide sex abuse scandal.

The U.N. committee’s main human rights investigator, Sara Oviedo, led the most intense grilling the Holy See has received on the issue, according to a report by The Associated Press.

Given the “zero tolerance” policy of the Vatican, she asked, why were there “efforts to cover up and obscure these types of cases?”

According to the AP, another committee member, psychologist Maria Rita Parsi, added: “If these events continue to be hidden and covered up, to what extent will children be affected?”

The U.N. committee in Geneva, Switzerland, was pressing the Holy See about its failure to provide reports for almost two decades on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which it ratified in 1990.

The Vatican insists it is not responsible for the actions of priests, who it says are not its employees but citizens of their own countries.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Illegitimacy was historically viewed by some as a moral failure not just on the part of the parents but for the child his or herself, it was claimed in Banbridge yesterday.

Counsel for the inquiry Christine Smith QC yesterday detailed the development of the care system both before and after partition.

In the 1800s a wave of Catholic institutions were built, with French models of care imported. Larger institutions were seen as giving economies of scale.

The intention was to save souls and the Victorian idea of redeeming individuals was also a factor.

From 1859 to 1969, she said that 1,005 children passed through industrial schools on the island.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Had official guidance been followed many cases of abuse would not have arisen, the abuse inquiry heard yesterday.

Christine Smith QC said that a 1952 memo for homes advised that bed wetting could not be attributed to any one cause, citing possible delays in learned bladder control or development.

Other factors could be feelings of not being wanted and related hopelessness in the child, she said.

If cases persisted the child should be seen by medical experts, the memo advised.

However, the inquiry has had reports from former home residents that from 1952 until during the 1970s children were being punished for wetting beds, she said.

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UNITED STATES
City of Angels

Kay Ebeling

(They are on a 15 min break. I typed this real fast while it was taking place. Missed Vatican opening statement as links sent out did not work for me. At bottom is link to hearings that does work, courtesy of a friend in Australia. Here are my notes: )

Moral authority. Responsibility

Article 4 of convention of rights of child establishes legal responsibility of parties to adopt all measures to ensure rights respected.
Committee has tried to shed light on number five re implementation.
Need to review domestic legislation.

Ought to be a revision
Question of terminology used
Legitimate and illegitimate children and how viewed in canon law.
Information and training to what extent provided in Catholic schools?
(Shoot, they are not talking about pedophile priests at all.)
Child as a rights holder

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DEUTSCHLAND
Westfalen Post

[A 72-year-old priest has been condemned by a Berlin church court for sexual abuse at Canisius College. He is not allowed to be an active priest and has been fined 4,000 euros to go to a fund to pay abuse victims.]

Berlin. Ein 72-jähriger Pater ist von einem Berliner Kirchengericht wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs am Canisius-Kolleg verurteilt worden. Er darf Zeit seines Lebens nicht mehr als Priester tätig werden und muss eine Geldstrafe in Höhe von 4000 Euro an einen Fonds für Missbrauchsopfer bezahlen.

Das Kirchengericht des Erzbistums Berlin hat einen der mutmaßlichen Haupttäter bei den langjährigen Fällen sexuellen Missbrauchs am Canisius-Kolleg verurteilt. Der heute 72-jährige Jesuitenpater sei auf Lebenszeit vom Priesterdienst ausgeschlossen worden, sagte der Sprecher des Erzbistums Berlin, Stefan Förner, am Mittwoch. Er bestätigte damit einen Bericht vom “Deutschlandfunk”. Der Geistliche habe das Urteil akzeptiert und bereits eine erste Rate der Geldstrafe in Höhe von 4000 Euro an einen Fonds für Missbrauchsopfer bezahlt. Straf- und zivilrechtlich sind die Taten verjährt

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DEUTSCHLAND
Berliner Zeitung

[Summary: The Berlin archdiocese in a report to be submitted on sexual abuse said church officials know of a total of 28 clerics, members of religious orders and church employees who have been accused of sexual abuse since 2002.]

BERLIN –
Das Berliner Erzbistum legt einen Bericht zu sexuellem Missbrauch vor. Auch weiterhin sollen Beauftragte sich um Verdachtsfälle kümmern und als Ansprechpartner bereit stehen.

Im Erzbistum Berlin sind seit dem Jahr 2002 insgesamt 28 Kleriker, Ordensangehörige sowie Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter im kirchlichen Dienst des sexuellen Missbrauchs beschuldigt worden. Das geht aus einem Zwischenbericht hervor, den die katholische Kirche jetzt vorlegte.

Seit dem Jahr 2010, als die enorme Anzahl von Missbrauchsfällen am Canisius-Kolleg in Tiergarten bekanntwurde, hat die Kirche in Berlin ein System zur Prävention und Aufarbeitung von Missbrauchsfällen etabliert. Dazu gehört, dass Ansprechpersonen benannt wurden, die sich mit Verdachtsfällen befassen, Anträge auf Entschädigungszahlungen bearbeiten und Auskunft über Vorwürfe und Ergebnisse über entsprechende Untersuchungen geben.

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GENEVA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Jan. 16

Statement by Mary Caplan of Manhattan, national board member of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( Mcaplan682@aol.com )

Two high-ranking Catholic officials today basically told a United Nations panel that the Vatican has little real power to stop bishops from hiding clergy sex crimes. We’re very saddened that such a huge and powerful church bureaucracy continues to pretend it’s powerless over its own officials.

These clerics said some nice things today in Geneva. But unfortunately, the nice public words today by Catholic officials differ radically from the actual and distressing private behavior of Catholic officials. Before the cameras, the church hierarchy often denounces predators and thanks victims. But behind closed doors, the church hierarchy often protects predators and rebuffs victims (despite repeated pledges of reform).

The Catholic officials today repeatedly cited vague, minor, new and unenforced internal church abuse guidelines. But these are meaningless because no one is ever punished for breaking church abuse guidelines.

And many of the guidelines focus on child molesting clerics while ignoring the bigger problem: corrupt church officials who are still endangering kids, moving offenders, stonewalling law enforcement and deceiving parishioners and the public.

Catholic officials couldn’t cite a single case in which the Vatican punished even a single church staff for endangering a single child or helping a single predator. That’s because this almost never happens. And until it does, kids won’t be measurably safer in the church.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Holy See, will discuss Thursday, at the United Nations Office in Geneva, a report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The agreement includes calls for signatories to take all appropriate measures to protect children from harm and to put children’s interests above all else.

The Holy See ratified the convention in 1990

The Vatican will be represented by Monsignor Charles Scicluna who previously served as Promoter of Justice at the Congregation of for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Lydia O’Kane spoke to Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations.

See below the transcript of Vatican Radio’s interview with Archbishop Tomasi

Q. What is happening today in Geneva regarding this subject?
A. today is in session the committee of experts of the convention of the rights of the child. It is the seat of the Human Rights Office of the United Nations. This committee presents its observations, suggestions, advice to every state that has ratified the convention and therefore has an obligation to present a report on how the convention is implemented in the territory of this state. It’s an occasion to start a dialogue between the state involved and the experts in order to facilitate and to improve the protection of children. Today in this current session of the committee will be examined the reports of Russia, Germany, the Holy See, Portugal, Congo, Yemen, and we will very gladly take this occasion as a constructive moment, an important occasion, to reaffirm the value and the procedures of the convention and to accept any good advice that is given for that can be helpful in the protection of children. The Holy See is more than willing to, as it has declared already when it ratified the convention in 1990, to promote and to sustain the good principles and the good values that are contained in this convention. So, today is a normal day of work for the United Nations. The attention that is given to the Holy See is understandable but it is part of a series of other states that are being examined and we are convinced that some very good results are coming out of this dialogue with the experts.

Q. There has however been criticism of the Holy See. What is your response to that?
A. There are several criticisms that are made on the policies or the presumed policies of the Holy See like that they covered up some crimes but I would say that the policy of the Holy See is to recognize that any crime is bad and when children are involved it becomes a crime that needs to be addressed more forcefully. So the obstruction of justice to the detriment of the legitimate jurisdiction of the individual state should be prosecuted by those states in every case. The policy and good sense of the Holy See is to encourage the prosecution of any crime, including crimes, and especially crimes, against children. So my sense is that some of these accusations or criticisms derive from a lack of knowledge of the activity, the measures taken by the Holy See in the last several years and also by the local churches and by the attitude and the directives given by the Holy See that are for transparency and protection in any case of, as a priority of all the children.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Vatican officials are appearing Thursday before the UN committee in Geneva that is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the Holy See is a party. The Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, issued a Note detailing the history of the Holy See’s adherence to the Convention and its response to a series of questions posed by the committee subsequent to the Holy See’s 2nd Report on implementation of the Convention, submitted in 2011.

The three-page Note, written in Italian, stresses that, “The Holy See is deeply saddened by the scourge of sexual abuse of minors, which harms millions of children throughout the world,” and “laments that, sadly, certain members of the clergy have been involved in such abuse.” The Note goes on to say that the dramatic problem of child sex abuse, lived with unspeakable suffering in the community of the Church, has posed a direct challenge to the credibility of the Church’s commitment to the welfare of children – “[A challenge],” writes Fr. Lombardi, “that has led to the development, in the spirit of the Convention [and] under the Holy See’s guidance, of a series of initiatives and directives [that have proven] extremely helpful also outside the Church community.”

The Note also explains the nature of the Holy See as a sovereign subject of international law, and the limits of the Holy See’s rights and responsibilities vis à vis the conduct of clergy and religious throughout the world. “In fact,” explains Fr. Lombardi, “it is not rare to find that the questions posed [by the committee] – above all where they refer to the sexual abuse of minors – seem to presuppose that bishops or religious superiors act as representatives or delegates of the Pope – [though this is] utterly without foundation.” Fr. Lombardi goes on to clarify that civil authorities in countries that are party to the Convention are directly responsible for the Convention’s implementation and for enforcement of laws for the protection of minors.

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NIGERIA
Nigerian Tribune

The Roman Catholic Church is still choosing self-preservation over full disclosure in child sex abuse cases, according to a report mapping the phemonenon of clerical paedophilia.

A 48-page document, published on Wednesday by the UK-based charity Child Rights International Network (CRIN), said there were still no global guidelines to directly deal with the welfare of the victims and that serious cases were not being sent to civil judicial authorities, despite decades of allegations and controversy.

CRIN director Veronica Yates said: “Child sexual abuse in religious institutions is one of the worst crimes ever committed against children.

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GENEVA
CBS News

GENEVA — The Vatican has acknowledged there can be “no excuse” for child abuse, confronted for the first time at length and in public over the global priest sex abuse scandal.

At a U.N. hearing, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s representative in Geneva, said, “Such crimes can never be justified” whether committed at home, school, sports activities or in religious organizations and structures.

Tomasi told a U.N. committee Thursday the Holy See welcomes any suggestions that could help it in promoting and encouraging the respect of the rights of the child.

He spoke at the beginning of a hearing at which the Vatican is being challenged with allegations it enabled the rape of thousands of children by protecting pedophile priests and its own reputation at the expense of victims.

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GENEVA
Time

By Nate Rawlings @naterawlings
Jan. 16, 20141

The Vatican publicly confronted the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church at length Thursday, saying there can be “no excuse” for child abuse.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s representative in Geneva, told a U.N. hearing “such crimes can never be justified.” Tomasi said that the church welcomes suggestions that could help promote respect for the rights of children.

The hearing is part of a U.N. investigation into the Holy See’s compliance with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The church sent a five-person delegation to Geneva for the hearings, including its former chief sex-crimes prosecutor Monsignor Charles Scicluna. Advocacy groups acknowledge a different tone under Pope Francis, but want to see more sweeping changes in how the Vatican deals with sexual molestation by members of the clergy.

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GENEVA
CBC News

The Vatican came under blistering criticism from a UN committee Thursday for its handling of the global priest sex abuse scandal, facing its most intense public grilling ever over allegations that it protected pedophile priests at the expense of victims.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor, acknowledged that the Holy See had been slow to face the crisis but said that it was now committed to doing so. He encouraged prosecutors to take action against anyone who obstructs justice — a suggestion that bishops who moved priests from diocese to diocese should be held accountable.

“The Holy See gets it,” Scicluna told the committee. “Let’s not say too late or not. But there are certain things that need to be done differently.”

He was responding to a grilling by the UN committee over the Holy See’s failure to abide by terms of a treaty that calls for signatories to take all appropriate measures to keep children from harm. Critics allege the church enabled the rape of thousands of children by protecting pedophile priests to defend its reputation.

The committee’s main human rights investigator, Sara Oviedo, was particularly tough, pressing the Vatican on the frequent ways abusive priests were transferred rather than turned in to police. Given the church’s “zero tolerance” policy, she asked, why were there “efforts to cover up and obscure these types of cases.”

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CALIFORNIA
Zeit

[Summary: After decades of child sexual abuse allegations, the Stockton diocese has filed for bankruptcy. The diocese says its resources are depleted.]

Der jahrzehntelange Kindesmissbrauch durch ihre Priester macht die US-Diözese Stockton zu einem Fall für das Insolvenzgericht. Die Mittel des Bistums sind aufgebraucht.

Aufgrund millionenschwerer Entschädigungszahlungen für Missbrauchsopfer ist die römisch-katholische Diözese Stockton in Kalifornien pleite. Sie hat deshalb in Sacramento Insolvenz angemeldet. “Wir sind in dieser Situation aufgrund der vielen Priester, die in unserer Diözese Kinder sexuell missbraucht haben”, heißt es in einer Erklärung des zuständigen Bischofs Stephen E. Blaire. “Wir sollten niemals vergessen, dass diese bösen Handlungen – und nicht die Opfer des Missbrauchs – für unsere finanziellen Schwierigkeiten verantwortlich sind.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A man who alleges he was abused in a County Down children’s home almost 60 years ago has welcomed an apology but said it does not go far enough.

Conor Ryan said he was physically and sexually abused by staff at Rubane House in Kircubbin in the late 1950s.

Mr Ryan said his younger brother was also abused at Rubane House, but did not confide this in him until shortly before his death three years ago.

The home was run by a Catholic Church order – the De La Salle Brothers.

Lifelong scars

Mr Ryan told BBC Good Morning Ulster that at one stage he was hospitalised as a result of the order’s abuse.

“I ended up in hospital in Newtownards, I had my head split open with a hurley stick with metal bands on it.”

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INDIANA
Indiana News Center

By Emily Dwire

Walkerton, IND. (21 Alive) – A Priest with ties to the Fort Wayne area has resigned and retired amid allegations that he sexually abused a minor 44 years ago.

The Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese launched a preliminary investigation once it got word of the allegations, saying it has strong evidence that Father James Seculoff did sexually abuse a minor decades ago.

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NEW JERSEY
NorthJersey.com

MORRISTOWN — A New Jersey man has admitted using a sledgehammer to destroy a monument to victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Morris County authorities say Gordon Ellis pleaded guilty Wednesday to a downgraded charge of criminal mischief as a disorderly person offense. The 39-year-old Mendham man won’t have to serve a jail term but must pay $7,500 in restitution and will be put on probation when he’s sentenced Feb. 7.

Ellis, who authorities say has a history of psychiatric problems, destroyed the 400-pound millstone memorial outside St. Joseph Church in Mendham in November 2011. Authorities say the reasons behind the vandalism will be disclosed at the sentencing hearing.

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NEW JERSEY
Patch

Posted by Jason Koestenblatt (Editor) , January 15, 2014

More than two years after a monument dedicated to victims of clergy sex abuse was destroyed, a Mendham man pleaded guilty to the crime.

Gordon Ellis, 39, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of criminal mischief as a disorderly persons offense on Wednesday in Superior Court in Morristown, according to nj.com.

Third-degree criminal mischief and desecrating religious or sectarian premises were the original charges filed against Ellis, the report said.

Under the plea agreement, in which Ellis admitted taking a sledgehammer to the 400-lb. monument outside St. Joseph Church in Mendham, the man must pay $7,500 in restitution and will be given probation with no jail time, the report said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

When allegations of sexual abuse against young children in the Catholic Church came to light “the Church was found seriously wanting”, the head of a watchdog told Daybreak.

However, the Catholic Church in the UK was in “a much better place” since the initial scandal, the chair of the National Catholic Safeguarding Committee said.

Speaking ahead of a UN committee in Geneva on paedophile priests, David Sullivan said: “I think initially when the abuse scandal broke…it is absolutely valid to say the Church was found wanting.

“There had been cover up, priests that they knew had been abusing church leaders were moving around, victims were not believed or not listened to.”

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GENEVA
CNN

Rome (CNN) — For the first time, the Vatican is being forced to answer allegations it enabled the sexual abuse of children by protecting pedophile priests as a U.N. committee concludes its investigation of the Holy See.

A handful of Vatican officials, including Monsignor Silvano Tomasi, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva, and Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former chief sex-crimes prosecutor, stood ready to answer questions during two Thursday sessions.

“It’s a first step,” said Joelle Casteix, a regional director for SNAP — the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “Five years ago we never thought that something like this would even be possible.”

Since taking the helm of the Roman Catholic Church in March, Pope Francis has told a senior Vatican official to “act decisively” against sexual abuse and carry out “due proceedings against the guilty.”

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GENEVA
The New York Times

By NICK CUMMING-BRUCEJAN. 16, 2014

GENEVA — In an unusual appearance before a United Nations committee, Vatican officials faced questions on Thursday about the Holy See’s handling of sexual abuse of children by the clergy.

The officials, including Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, who served as the Vatican’s chief sex crimes prosecutor for a decade up to 2012, are appearing before the Committee on the Rights of the Child to show how the Vatican is implementing a legally binding convention promoting child rights, which it signed in 1990.

Human rights organizations and groups representing victims of clerical abuse welcomed the hearing as the first occasion the Vatican has had to publicly defend its record.

“It’s a moment that has given hope and encouragement to victims across the globe,” Barbara Blaine, president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in Geneva ahead of the hearing.

Amid the shake-up launched by Pope Francis in the 10 months since he took office, rights groups also saw Thursday’s hearing as an occasion that could shed light on the pontiff’s approach to dealing with the clerical abuse scandal.

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GENEVA
Aljazeera

The Roman Catholic Church has defended its record on tackling clerical sexual abuse, telling a UN committee it was keen to become “an example of best practice” in the field of child protection.

At a hearing in Geneva on Thursday, Monsignor Silvano Tomasi told the committee that the Holy See, which is recognised by international law as a sovereign entity headed by the Pope, had “carefully delineated policies and procedures” to help eliminate priestly paedophilia and to work with state authorities to fight such crime.

He made the remarks at the start of a hearing that will challenge the church over allegations it enabled the abuse of children by protecting paedophile priests and its own reputation at the expense of victims.

But his initial statement made no reference to the controversies that have dogged the church for decades.

Tomasi, who is the Holy See’s representative to the UN, said: “The result of the combined action taken by local churches and by the Holy See presents a framework that, when properly applied, will help eliminate the occurrence of child sexual abuse by clergy and other church personnel.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, January 16 – Scandals that have “shamed” the Catholic Church often occurred when people did not listen to the word of God, Pope Francis said Thursday. Speaking during Mass in St. Martha House, the Vatican guesthouse where the pope lives, Francis said that when a person’s “heart is closed to the word of God,” terrible things can happen. His comments came the same day that the Vatican was being publicly confronted for the first time over allegation of sexual abuse of children by clergy, before a United Nations hearing in Geneva. Pope Francis announced last month that a Vatican committee would be established to deal with sexual abuse of children in the Church and help to victims. During his homily, Francis referred to financial scandals that have involved “a lot of money” as well as misbehavior by priests, bishops and lay members of the Church. “The word of God was rare in those scandals…they did not have a relationship with God,” he said of those who misbehaved.

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TEXAS
WTVR

[with video]

January 15, 2014, by Alix Bryan and Jon Burkett

TARRANT COUNTY, Texas (WTVR) – A Tarrant County grand jury has indicted Geronimo Scott Aguilar in connection with the sexual assault of a second child in the late 1990s in Fort Worth, Texas.

The eight-count indictment was returned on Wednesday and involves a victim who is identified by the pseudonym April More.

The indictment states that the child at the time was younger than 14 years old and is not the spouse of the defendant.

Aguilar, 43, was indicted on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14, a first-degree felony that carries a maximum punishment of life in prison.

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TEXAS
WTOP

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A Virginia pastor has been indicted a second time by a North Texas grand jury for allegedly sexually assaulting a child more than 15 years ago.

The indictment against Geronimo Aguilar (AG’-yih-lar) was returned Wednesday in Tarrant County and includes two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14.

The indictment contends the abuse occurred in 1996 and 1997 in North Texas.

The 43-year-old Aguilar was indicted in September for the sexual assault of another child those same years. He remains free on bond.

He was arrested in May at his Richmond, Va., home based on allegations made by the alleged victims, now grown.

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VIRGINIA/TEXAS
Richmond Times-Dispatch

BY LOUIS LLOVIO
Richmond Times-Dispatch

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday indicted Geronimo Aguilar, the disgraced former senior pastor of the Richmond Outreach Center, in an alleged sexual assault of a second child.

Aguilar, who founded the Midlothian Turnpike megachurch known as the ROC, was indicted Wednesday on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14, three counts of sexual assault of a child under 17 and three counts of indecency with a child.

The two aggravated sexual assault charges are first-degree felonies that carry a maximum term of life in prison. The remaining charges are second-degree felonies with a maximum sentence of 20 years each in prison.

The new charges stem from allegations of abuse beginning in 1996 involving a then-13-year-old girl, the older of two sisters. Aguilar already had been indicted on charges alleging abuse of her younger sister, who was 11 at the time.

Wednesday’s indictment means Aguilar will face two trials.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald

By:
Bob McGovern

Parents and employees at a small Baptist school in Attleboro were “devastated” when they heard the school’s principal had been charged with sexually abusing a student on campus over nearly five years, and the alleged victim said she felt “relieved” after speaking to police.

The Rev. Jeffrey Nichols, 47, principal of Grace Baptist Christian Academy and assistant pastor at an affiliated church, was arrested early Tuesday after an 18-year-old senior reported to Attleboro police that he had “victimized” her from September 2008 to June 2013, according to a police report obtained by the Herald. Nichols was arraigned Tuesday and is being held on $25,000 cash bail.

“I’m just relieved now, and I feel like he deserves everything he’s getting,” Nichols’ accuser told the Herald.

Church pastor and school co-founder the Rev. Jeffrey Bailey, who has been friends with Nichols for 23 years, said the school community is “devastated.”

“I had no inkling that there were any issues here at all. There was nothing in his behavior, nothing that gave us any clue that this was possible,” Bailey said.

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CALIFORNIA
Santa Barbara Independent

Thursday, January 16, 2014
by NICK WELSH (CONTACT)

An activist with SNAP ​— ​the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ​— ​has complained that members of Carpinteria’s St. Joseph’s parish were not notified that sexual abuse allegations had been leveled in the past against their new pastor, Fr. Richard Martini. “The fact that parishioners were not informed is very upsetting,” declared Joelle Casteix, SNAP’s western regional director. “It’s a case of the archdiocese ‘dumping’ troublesome priests in hopes that they will not be discovered.” Martini was transferred to St. Joseph’s in November from a Santa Clarita parish to fill a void because St. Joseph’s pastor had been seriously ill and could not perform his ministerial functions for several months.

Martini had been accused 10 years ago by a former student and water polo player at Our Lady Queen of Angels Seminary in Mission Hills of having molested him in 1990 and 1991. Police investigated the allegation and did not press charges. The archdiocese internal review committee reviewed the allegations and concluded they never happened. The complainant sued the archdiocese nonetheless and was one of 45 with whom the church reached a $60 million settlement. “A false accusation is a false accusation,” Martini stated. “I don’t know what else to say.” Of the settlement, he said, “For the good of real victims, some not-so-real victims have benefited.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Medill Reports

BY RACHEL MENITOFF
JAN 15, 2014

Activists gathered outside the Archdiocese of Chicago Wednesday, demanding Cardinal Francis George be transparent and “come clean.” They say he is deliberately concealing the identities of roughly one-third of all child molesting clerics who work or have worked in his archdiocese.

“We urge Cardinal George to disclose the names, photos, work histories and personnel records of all child molesting Catholic clerics,” said Kate Bochte, spokeswoman for The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP. “Not just those that are sued. Not just those on the archdiocesan payroll. All of them. Anything less is selfish and irresponsible.”

The archdiocese said Wednesday that he would release 6,000 documents explaining what he knows of the decades of clergy sex abuse and how the church handled them as he endeavors to “bring healing to the victims and their families.” The documents are expected to identify 30 former clergy members accused of sex abuse.

“What they are releasing now is nothing more than what they were forced to do,” said David Rudofski, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse and longtime member of SNAP. “This was not of their own accord. These are all from settlements.

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STOCKTON (CA)
The Record

By Kevin Parrish
Record Staff Writer
January 16, 2014

STOCKTON – A Southern California lawyer, after appearing in San Joaquin County Superior Court in the morning, stood in front of the Diocese of Stockton offices Wednesday afternoon to accuse local Catholic officials of deceit and obstruction of justice.

Irvine-based attorney John Manly used his visit to Stockton as an opportunity to tie the ongoing civil case against the Rev. Michael Eugene Kelly to bankruptcy, a process in its infancy.

The diocese’s Chapter 11 protection plan was formally filed at noon in Sacramento following months of communication with Catholic parishioners and consideration by Bishop Stephen Blaire.

“The filing is no coincidence,” Manly said. “There is an automatic stay (suspension) with bankruptcy. You can’t take depositions.”

On Wednesday, the deposition of Douglass Wilhoit, president and CEO of the Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce, was scheduled but never took place.

“I had been subpoenaed, but then I was told ‘not today’ because of the filing,” Wilhoit said. …

Rally today

• What: A rally sponsored by Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
• Where: Outside offices of the Catholic Diocese of Stockton, 212 N. San Joaquin St.
• When: 11 a.m. today.
• Why: To urge Bishop Stephen Blaire to apologize for keeping the Rev. Michael Kelly in ministry “during a civil child-abuse trial” and to turn over additional evidence

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

BY FRANCINE KNOWLES Religion Reporter January 15, 2014

In the past, priests from the Archdiocese of Chicago with substantiated allegations of child sex abuse were sometimes relocated to another parish, but that wasn’t a cover-up, an archdiocese representative said Wednesday — the same day local church officials released documents to attorneys detailing accusations against dozens of priests.

The relocations happened “after” the priests underwent therapy, Bishop Francis Kane, vicar general of the archdiocese, told reporters at the archdiocese’s Near North Side offices. “You wouldn’t do that today. That’s something we learned.

“One of the things that we’ve learned is that we sent people off for evaluation and we got reports back saying. . .it’s safe to put them back in ministry” with monitoring, Kane said. “We found out that isn’t true. That was a mistake. We didn’t realize the depth of this terrible, terrible sin and crime . . . child sex abuse.”

The documents released to attorneys representing those who filed sex abuse lawsuits won’t be made public for at least a week, but Kane told reporters on Wednesday what the public can expect, including details about priest relocations.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

A Catholic priest accused of child sexual abuse thirty years ago has indicated he intends to plead not guilty.

Glenn Humphreys is accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy between 1983 and 1986.

Mr Humphreys was charged last year with four counts of unlawful and indecent assault and one charge each of carnal knowledge and attempted carnal knowledge.

He was not required to attend Perth Magistrate’s Court this morning, with his lawyer Seamus Rafferty saying he was reporting to police in New South Wales where he now lives.

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INDIANA
The News-Sentinel

By Kevin Kilbane of The News-Sentinel
Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The Rev. James F. Seculoff has been removed as pastor of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Walkerton after the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend received what it deemed to be a credible allegation of sexual abuse.

The abuse allegedly took place about 40 years ago involving a person who then was a youth, Sean McBride, diocesan communications director, told The News-Sentinel on Wednesday. McBride declined to say if the alleged victim is male or female, saying, “We really are doing our best to protect that person’s identity.”

The alleged abuse took place within the diocese, but, to help protect the alleged victim, diocesan officials also are not specifying the location, McBride earlier told the South Bend Tribune.

The allegation recently was presented to the diocesan review board, which deemed it credible, McBride said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Renew America

By Matt C. Abbott

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago recently had a detailed letter placed in all archdiocesan parish bulletins regarding “accountability and transparency.” He wrote:

This January, as was announced a month ago in a press conference by a plaintiff’s lawyer, documents relating to the sexual misconduct of 30 priests of the archdiocese will be released as part of settlement agreements over the past years. All these incidents were reported over the years to the civil authorities and claims have been mediated civilly. Almost all of the incidents happened decades ago, perpetrated by priests whom neither I nor many younger clergy have ever met or talked to, because the priests were either dead or out of ministry before I came to Chicago as archbishop.

Nevertheless, the publication puts the actions of these men and the archdiocese itself in the spotlight. Painful though publicly reviewing the past can be, it is part of the accountability and transparency to which the archdiocese is committed. For more than 20 years, the archdiocese has reported all allegations of sexual abuse to the civil authorities and to DCFS. Records of priests have been shared with civil authorities when asked for. Accountability to the civil authorities constitutionally responsible for the protection of children is part of the life of the church here. …

Two individuals for whom I have a great deal of respect have sharply divergent views on this matter (although both are supportive of abuse victims).

Veteran investigator Thomas Hampson, founder of the Truth Alliance Foundation, writes:

Cardinal George’s letter is largely revisionist history… He admits clericalism – that is, the tendency for priests and bishops to see themselves as unaccountable – had infected the church. He claims all that has changed. If that is so, how has the church disciplined members of the hierarchy for their roles in the cover-ups?

I know of cases in this archdiocese and others where priests were taking children to their rooms in the rectory, were later caught, confessed and were removed from ministry. But I also know that the investigations by these dioceses of these priests did not include questioning staff of the rectory, or the other priests, or members of the chancery, about what they observed and what they knew, what they reported and to whom. Certainly no action was taken against anyone for failing to report a concern or problem they knew about. On the other hand, there was action taken against some who came forward and complained. There was, and I believe still is, a culture that is hostile to whistleblowers in the vast majority of the diocese of the church, certainly in Chicago. There is no coming clean about this in his letter.

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GENEVA
National Secular Society (United Kingdom)

The Vatican will today be questioned about its record on child sexual violence by a UN Committee.
The Holy See will face questions over its compliance with the Convention on Rights of the Child, and will be expected to answer allegations that it enabled the sexual abuse of thousands of children by protecting paedophile priests at the expense of victims.

This is the first time the Holy See has been pressed on child sexual abuse by the UN.

In July the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) published a list of detailed questions over clerical child abuse for the Holy See to address before its examination before the Committee.

In its response, the Vatican failed to answer detailed questions insisting that it was “separate and distinct” from the Roman Catholic Church, and that it was not its practice to disclose information about the religious discipline of clergy unless requested by the authorities in the country where they were serving.

Victims’ groups and the National Secular Society have submitted reports to the UNCRC detailing how the Holy See has violated the core principles of Convention.The NSS was invited along with abuse survivors’ groups, on the basis of written submissions, to give oral evidence to the Committee’s private session in June.

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GENEVA
United National Regional Information Center

Today, a UN panel in Geneva has begun hearing a report by Vatican officials on the sexual abuse of thousands of children by Roman Catholic clergy.

The Holy See is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a legally binding instrument which commits it to protecting and nurturing the most vulnerable in society.

The Holy See ratified the convention in 1990 and submitted a first implementation report in 1994. However, it did not provide progress reports for almost ten years, and only submitted one in 2012 after receiving a storm of criticism following the revelations in 2010 of child sex abuse cases in Europe and beyond, the Associated Press has reported.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is expected to ask wide-ranging questions, forcing the Holy See to defend itself in public for the first time. It faces allegations that it enabled the sexual abuse of thousands of children by protecting paedophile priests at the expense of victims.

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INDIANA
The Journal Gazette

Rosa Salter Rodriguez | The Journal Gazette

A priest with a long history in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend parishes and schools has resigned and was removed from ministry after a “credible” allegation of sexual abuse of a minor 44 years ago, diocesan officials said Wednesday.

The Rev. James F. Seculoff, 77, most recently was pastor of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Walkerton – in St. Joseph County, southwest of South Bend – where he had served for about six months, said Sean McBride, diocese spokesman.

Previously, Seculoff, a Fort Wayne native, was pastor at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in New Haven for several years, McBride said.

About the time of the alleged abuse, Seculoff was elevated from principal at the former Huntington Catholic High School to superintendent of diocesan schools. He held that post until 1978.

Before being named principal, he taught at Bishop Dwenger High School in Fort Wayne and St. Joseph High School in South Bend.

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GENEVA
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 16, 2014 NCR Today

Rome

Facing a virtually unprecedented examination of its record on child sexual abuse by a U.N. panel, a senior Vatican official today asserted that the Catholic church wants to be “an example of best practice” in the prevention of abuse.

Italian Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s representative to the United Nations in Geneva, spoke this morning to the Committee on the Convention of the Rights of the Child, a 1989 United Nations treaty which the Vatican ratified in 1990.

Although the U.N. panel has no power to compel the Vatican to do anything, its body of independent experts is expected to make recommendations after the day-long hearing.

The seriousness with which the Vatican is taking the process is reflected in the fact that it dispatched not only Tomasi but also Maltese Bishop Charles Scicluna, who served for ten years as the Vatican’s top sex abuse prosecutor and is widely seen as a leading reformer.

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GENEVA
Artesia News

GENEVA (AP) — The Vatican has acknowledged there can be “no excuse” for child abuse, confronted for the first time at length and in public over the global priest sex abuse scandal.

At a U.N. hearing, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s representative in Geneva, says “such crimes can never be justified” whether committed at home, school, sports activities or in religious organizations and structures.

Tomasi told a U.N. committee Thursday the Holy See welcomes any suggestions that could help it in promoting and encouraging the respect of the rights of the child.

He spoke at the beginning of a hearing at which the Vatican is being challenged with allegations it enabled the rape of thousands of children by protecting pedophile priests and its own reputation at the expense of victims.

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