ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
ABC Perth

[with audio]

The Royal Commission into child abuse in Australian institutions will come to Perth on July 30 and WA people who wish to give evidence or tell their story are being encouraged to register their interest.

Geoff Hutchison spoke to the CEO of the Commission, Janette Dines, to get some insight into what to expect if you are interested in telling your experience.

You can telephone 1800 099 340

Or write to GPO Box 5283, Sydney, NSW, 2001

Or email registerinterest@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

July 9, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

From the twitterati to lonely late-night-radio listeners, reaching the vast and diverse number of Australians affected by child sexual abuse is the biggest challenge facing the royal commission in its early stages, according to its chief executive Janette Dines.

She said the commissioners were acutely aware that in hearing victims’ stories they were ”bearing witness on behalf of the nation”.

The biggest obstacle to fulfilling this duty was that such different sections of the community had to be engaged – from those late-night-radio listeners who could not be contacted any other way, to disabled people, remote indigenous communities and young Twitter followers, Ms Dines said.

”We are going to have to hire someone who works 24/7 on social media. I don’t think a lot of royal commission CEOs go on late-night radio or television or hold meet and greet sessions in regional centres with local groups who can amplify the message and plug the gaps.”

Considerable care was being taken to protect the mental health of commissioners, staff and witnesses. She said vicarious trauma was relatively little understood, and had been listed this year for the first time in the manual of psychological disorders.

Counsellors were proactively preparing commissioners and staff, debriefing them after sessions, and organising regular checks from mental health professionals.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Gerald Kleba | Jul. 8, 2013

VIEWPOINT

I was wearing walking shorts and a sports shirt, so when the hospice nurse arrived at the house, I had to introduce myself: “I’m Gerry Kleba, the family priest.” I’m not much into clericalism, so I don’t use the title “Father.” Within minutes, the mother of the family slipped away peacefully, as her children and I prayed, cried, talked, even laughed. I’d known the family for 40 years. The older children — in their teens then — had typed the parish bulletin on stencils, mimeographed and folded them on Saturday mornings at the rectory.

I had barely left the house, started my Prius and driven to the corner when I started to feel not only very sad, but very, very angry.

I turned off the radio to examine my emotions as I drove through the old neighborhood that had been my parish for 10 years. Everything we had talked about this afternoon, happily recalling my private Saturdays with these teens, could never happen today. The clergy abuse, the scandal of the cover-ups, and the subsequent “Protecting God’s Children” program, which decrees that a priest can never be alone with young people, had made that impossible. No young priest today has a chance for the quality intimacy that makes celibacy worthwhile and compelling, because his life will have to be spent at arm’s length from the very youngsters who are the most in need. The implication is: “Child, you’re not safe with me. You can’t trust me.”

When trust is lost, no one knows how to restore it. And no institution has betrayed trust so blatantly as the Catholic church, where the lies and cover-ups are traceable to the highest echelons of the hierarchy, including the Vatican. Now that we have seen American cardinals among those assembled in Rome for the election of a pope, I am angrier than ever. Some of these men are directly responsible for the crisis that has resulted in keeping me and other priests from having warm, healthy relationships with young people.

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UNITED STATES
The Star-Ledger

[Cemetery Trust Transfer – All Documents – All Documents – Jeff Anderson & Associates]

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on July 08, 2013

When New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan was in charge of the Catholic Church’s Milwaukee operations, he moved an enormous pot of the church’s cash — $57 million — into a trust fund for cemetery maintenance. Though the archdiocese was in the middle of a gigantic lawsuit over its priests’ sexual abuse of children, Dolan called it routine bookkeeping.

Now the New York Times reports the discovery of a smoking gun: documents including a letter from then-Archbishop Dolan to the Vatican, explaining how the transfer protected the church’s millions in the event it lost in court.

Damning evidence, in 14 words: “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.”

Few believed Dolan then, when he insisted the money was meant to care for Catholic cemeteries. Doubt only grew when the archdiocese declared bankruptcy to shield its riches from the plaintiffs — who as children were raped and molested by priests.

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JAPAN
Tokyo Reporter

At around 5:45 p.m. on June 8, a security guard at a video rental shop in Fujimino, Saitama Prefecture peered around a shelf of titles to find a man with his pants down and masturbating in front of a female customer.

The exhibitionist, Shuko Araizumi, a 39-year-old assistant priest from the Tofuku-ji temple, located in Tokorozawa, was booked the next day by the Saitama Prefectural Police on public indecency charges.

Araizumi is the son of the chief priest of Tofuku-ji, a branch temple from within the Japanese Shingon Buddhist sect. With this not being his first lewd incident, Shukan Jitsuwa (July 11) reports that the patience of the local citizenry is wearing thin.

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UNITED STATES
Renew America

By Matt C. Abbott

On July 9, Catholic author, speaker and blogger Dawn Eden will be giving her testimony to the women-graduates of the Project Dawn treatment court in Philadelphia. (Click here to read about Project Dawn.)

The following is the text of her testimony, which had to be approved in advance by the court’s administrators.

———————————-

It is a joy and an honor for me to be here with you today as the City of Philadelphia honors your great achievement. I have attended several graduation ceremonies in my life, but I don’t believe I have ever been present at one where the graduates worked so hard, gave so much, sacrificed so much to see their graduation day.

As the author of a book on spiritual healing, I’ve been asked to give you a few words to help put your journey in perspective. Because graduation is not really an ending. Every graduation is a new beginning. And today you can now face the future with confidence and hope. Your achievements in this court show that you have within you the God-given power to face whatever challenges may come, with the strength that comes from within.

I can speak confidently about the power that we have from God to overcome personal challenges, because I have experienced that power in my own life. I was born into a Jewish family, my parents split up when I was five, and my sister and I were raised by my mother. It was during that time, when my father was no longer present to protect me, that I began to suffer sexual abuse. My first abuse was committed outside the home – by a janitor at the temple my family attended. When I told my mother what had happened, she said, “You let him do that to you.” I was five years old.

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WISCONSIN
Journal Times

LUKE FEUERHERM luke.feuerherm@journaltimes.com

CALEDONIA — An upbeat Sunday Mass at St. Louis Catholic Church in Caledonia came to a somber conclusion as the Rev. Mark Danczyk addressed clergy sex abuse claims contained in documents released last week.

Speaking to his congregation, Danczyk explained the current status of the lawsuit involving his parish, offered spiritual and professional counseling to parishioners and decried acts of sexual abuse against children.

“I firmly believe in my heart that there is a special place in hell for anyone who abuses a child,” Danczyk told his congregation Sunday.

Last Monday, an attorney released thousands of documents that detail allegations of child sex abuse made against 42 Milwaukee Archdiocese priests, including five local priests accused of abusing children in Racine County.

Among those accused priests with ties to the county was former St. Louis Catholic Church pastor Daniel Budzynski, who has admitted to more than 30 instances of abuse, and is accused of about 20 more, according to the records.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

The Church of England has been warned it cannot carry out a risk assessment of suspected paedophile priests in case it breaches their human rights, it emerged yesterday.

By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
08 Jul 2013

The warning came as members of the General Synod voted to issue an “unreserved” expression of regret for the Anglican authorities’ failure to prevent sexual abuse in the past or even to listen to the victims.

Members of the Synod also backed a string of proposals designed to tighten up child protection arrangements.

In a joint statement, supported unanimously, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York said: “The sexual and physical abuse that has been inflicted by these people on children, young people and adults is and will remain a deep source of grief and shame for years to come.”

But the Church’s legal officials admitted that privacy rules, enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, could make it difficult to force “credibly suspected” paedophile priests to go for a professional risk assessment.

An earlier report, conducted in the wake of the child abuse scandals in the diocese of Chichester, recommended sending anyone reasonably suspected of abuse to see professionals. But a briefing paper prepared by the legal office warns that this would involve “intrusive inquiries” and could run into problems with Article Eight of the European Convention – the right to private and family life.

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SINGAPORE
Malaysia Chronicle

A woman has written a book in which she makes an explosive claim – she was sexually abused by two Catholic priests when she was a teenager growing up in Singapore.

And when she told her mother about the first incident, she was chided for tempting the priest.
She was then sent for counselling with another priest, who also sexually abused her.

The author is Ms Jane Leigh, a 36-year-old single mother of two teenagers. She now lives in Melbourne, where she runs her own practice as a clinical psychotherapist.

Her book, My Nine Lives, which carries the subhead “A psychotherapist’s journey from victim to survivor”, was published last year.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

The Church of England’s ruling General Synod has given its backing for a programme of changes designed to tighten up child protection procedures and prevent further scandals.

It comes after a formal apology for past child abuse.

They include:

* Removing the 12-month limit for bringing complaints under the Clergy Discipline Measure for complaints alleging sexual abuse.

* Clergy who have been defrocked or suspended, or who have no licence or permission to officiate, would also be prevented from robing or wearing clerical vestments in church under the proposals.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Huffington Post

Press Association

A bishop has said the Church of England “failed big time” over child protection as the General Synod formally apologised for clerical sex abuse.

The Rt Rev Paul Butler, Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, said for “far too long” the Church of England, notably those in senior positions, had either disbelieved the stories of victims, believed them but tried to hide the truth away or hoped that by removing an offender the problem would go away.

“We can make all the excuses that we like about society being different in previous decades – or our understanding of abuse being so much better,” he said.

“We can note that our policies were different then and we followed those policies. But these take nothing away from the fact that we failed to listen properly, we did not acknowledge the wrong done, and we protected the institution at the expense of the person abused.”

He added: “We failed big time, we can do nothing other than confess our sin, repent and commit ourselves to being different in the years ahead.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
AFP

LONDON — The Church of England has formally apologised for child abuse by Anglican priests and for its own failure to prevent it.

The church’s governing body, the General Synod, voted unanimously to make the apology at a meeting in the northern English city of York and said it would now tighten its procedures.

“We failed big time,” Paul Butler, the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, said as he opened the meeting on Sunday.

“We cannot do anything other than own up to our failures. We were wrong. Our failures were sin just as much as the perpetrators sinned,” Butler added.

The synod also observed a 30-second silence following a statement from support groups for survivors of abuse, an issue which has already rocked the Catholic Church in a number of countries.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church of England

Speech to General Synod July 2013 from the Rt Revd Paul Butler, Bishop of Southwell and Notts, Chair of the Churches National Safeguarding Committee.

“The Commissaries Reports will I suggest be seen as landmarks in the Church of England’s responding to abuse committed by its clergy and other leaders. This can be the pivotal point when we turn from having a default position that is to defend the institution, even at the cost of failing to respond appropriately to those who have been abused, to one where we will listen to the survivor and begin from there.

“The Commissaries exposed serious failures in the Diocese of Chichester but in doing so exposed much wider institutional failings which affect every Diocese. For far too long the institution, and notably those in most senior positions, either disbelieved the stories that survivors told us or believed them but tried to hide the truth away or remove the offender elsewhere vaguely hoping that ‘the problem’ would go away. We can make all the excuses that we like about society being different in previous decades; or our understanding of abuse being so much better. We can note that our policies were different then and we followed those policies. But these take nothing away from the fact that we failed to listen properly; we did not acknowledge the wrong done; and we protected the institution at the expense of the person abused. We cannot do anything other than own up to our failures. We were wrong. Our failures were sin just as much as the perpetrators sinned. By failing to listen or act appropriately we condemned survivors to live with the harm when we should have been assisting them into whatever measure of healing might be possible.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church of England

07 July 2013

General Synod voted today to acknowledge and apologise for past safeguarding wrongs. It also voted to endorse work on legislative and non-legislative changes to tighten procedures which have been identified following the Chichester Commissaries interim and final safeguarding reports.

Opening the debate, the Rt Revd Paul Butler, Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, Chair of the Churches National Safeguarding Committee, said: “We cannot do anything other than own up to our failures. We were wrong. Our failures were sin just as much as the perpetrators sinned. By failing to listen or act appropriately we condemned survivors to live with the harm when we should have been assisting them into whatever measure of healing might be possible.”

The motion – that Synod accordingly acknowledges and apologises for past wrongs and seeks endorsement from the Synod for legislative and non-legislative progress to be made during the period of this Quinquennium – was debated.

An amendment moved by the Revd Preb Stephen Lynas was carried.

Following a division of the Synod, the motion, as amended, was overwhelmingly carried (360 for, 0 against, 0 abstentions).

It had been brought to Synod following consideration by both the House of Bishops and Archbishops’ Council so it could approve the next steps. (The proposed changes – including a consultation on certain legislative areas are outlined in Notes below).

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UNITED KINGDOM
Archbishop of Canterbury

Sunday 7th July 2013

General Synod members today voted overwhelmingly to acknowledge and apologise for past safeguarding failures. In the debate, Archbishop Justin called for a culture “that looks first to justice for survivors” and to clarity, transparency and admission of failures. He added this must be done “with survivors, not to them.” Read his full statement below

The statement we heard at the beginning of this debate was, I know, to all of us – as has been said – absolutely agonising. And what it says above all is that, for us, what we’re looking at today is far from enough. We are opening a process, continuing a process in many ways, that will go far further than we can imagine. The reality is that there will always be people who are dangerous who are part of the life of the church. They may be members of the congregation; we hope and pray that they will not be in positions of responsibility, but the odds are from time to time people will somehow conceal sufficiently well. And many here, as the Bishop of Herefordshire said, have been deeply affected, as well as the survivors who have so rightly brought us to this place. Many other people here have been deeply affected and badly treated. So we face a continual challenge and reality. This is not an issue we can deal with; it is something we will live with, and must live in the reality of – day in day out, for as long as the church exists – and seek to get it right.

And so the actions that we are developing must be ones that are persistent. It has been said they must be persistent by bishops. We wholeheartedly agree with that, all of us. We cannot, in twenty years, be finding ourselves having this same debate and saying ‘Well we didn’t quite understand then.’ There has to be a complete change of culture and behavior.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

By Christy Gutowski, Tribune reporter
7:18 p.m. CDT, July 7, 2013

A Diocese of Joliet priest who served time in prison for molesting an 8-year-old boy is not expected to fight federal immigration efforts to deport him to his native Bolivia.

Authorities said Alejandro Flores does not plan to appeal his deportation.

Flores was due to be paroled June 6 after serving part of a four-year prison sentence on criminal sexual assault charges. But immigration officials confirmed they took him into immediate custody. He remains at an undisclosed federal facility.

“We have zero say over (his deportation), and certainly wouldn’t help (him),” said Edward Flavin, a diocese spokesman. “We’re totally against him. He is restricted from any sort of public ministry.”

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MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

July 7

BY JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star

A civil trial begins Monday in a wrongful-death lawsuit alleging that a boy took his life 30 years ago because of repeated sexual abuse by a Kansas City priest.

The trial, in Jackson County Circuit Court in Independence, could be notable for the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, some say.

“This is an especially significant case,” said Timothy Lytton, a legal scholar at the Albany School of Law and author of “Holding Bishops Accountable: How Lawsuits Helped the Catholic Church Confront Clergy Sexual Abuse.”

“One reason is that it’s rare for any of these cases to go to a jury; most of them are settled. The other reason is that it’s possibly the first high-profile case on the watch of the new pope.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

[with video]

July 7, 2013, by Derica Williams

MILWAUKEE (WITI) — Milwaukee-area Catholics on Sunday, July 7th celebrated Mass for the first time since thousands of pages of documentation was released early last week, detailing the Milwaukee Archdiocese’ clergy sex abuse scandal.

“I’m feeling kind of sad about it, naturally. We hate to have people defect, you know, of course. Maybe we didn`t pray enough for them. Maybe they were in the wrong place — somebody made a poor choice,” parishioner Eileen Goff said.

Last Monday, thousands of pages of secret court documents were released, revealing sexual abuse involving 41 priests.

The court documents show some of the accused molesters were then shuffled around from church-to-church.

“That came as a terrible surprise to us. We could not believe that this would happen, but it did so we have to live with it. It doesn`t affect my faith. I expect people to be less than perfect,” Goff said.
While some parishioners hold true to forgiveness and not judging, others near Cathedral Square told FOX6 News they are feeling somewhat conflicted.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[the documents – Jeff Anderson & Associates]

[the documents – Milwaukee archdiocese]

Tragic as the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has been, it is shocking to discover that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, while archbishop of Milwaukee, moved $57 million off the archdiocesan books into a cemetery trust fund six years ago in order to protect the money from damage suits by victims of abuse by priests.

Dolan, now the archbishop of New York, has denied shielding the funds as an “old and discredited” allegation and “malarkey.” But newly released court documents make it clear that he sought and received fast approval from the Vatican to transfer the money just as the Wisconsin Supreme Court was about to open the door to damage suits by victims raped and abused as children by Roman Catholic clergy.

“I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability,” Dolan wrote rather cynically in his 2007 letter to the Vatican. The letter was released by the Milwaukee Archdiocese as part of a bankruptcy court fight with lawyers in 575 cases of damages claims. The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection in 2011. The law bars a debtor from transferring funds in a way that protects one class of creditors over another.

The release of about 6,000 pages of documents provided a grim backstage look at the scandal, graphically detailing the patterns of serial abuse by dozens of priests who were systematically rotated to new assignments as church officials kept criminal behavior secret from civil authority.

It is disturbing that the current Milwaukee leader, Archbishop Jerome Listecki, said last week that the church underwent an “arc of understanding” across time to come to grips with the scandal – as if the statutory rapes of children were not always a glaring crime in the eyes of society as well as the church itself.

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NEW YORK
Jewish Journal

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

Between September 1977 and June 1981 I attended Yeshiva University High School, commonly known as MTA. During that time Rabbi George Finkelstein was the principal, and Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm – a once and forever hero of American Orthodoxy – was the President of the University.. I of course knew during those years, that there were certain students whom Rabbi Finkelstein aggressively invited into his office to “wrestle” with him. I “of course” knew, because everybody knew. Everybody already knew about it in the years before I got to MTA, and everybody continued to know about it in the years following.

For 30 years after graduating MTA I never thought about any of this, until this past December when the stories of what we now call sexual abuse – committed by Rabbi Finkelstein and one other faculty member – were detailed in the Daily Forward. Also detailed by the Forward was Rabbi Lamm’s eventual decision to quietly dismiss the abusers, without either reporting anything to the police, or telling their subsequent employers about what he knew. The months that followed the Forward’s revelations brought only half-apologies and mumbled rationalizations from YU. But this past Monday, Rabbi Dr. Lamm, now 85 and in failing health, resigned as university chancellor, and spoke at length about the scandal in his resignation remarks. A few representative sentences:

“At the time that inappropriate actions by individuals at Yeshiva were brought to my attention, I acted in a way that I thought was correct, but which now seems ill conceived. [I submitted to] momentary compassion in according individuals the benefit of the doubt by not fully recognizing what was before [me]. And when this happens—one must do teshuvah. So, I too must do teshuvah. True character requires of me the courage to admit that, despite my best intentions then, I now recognize that I was wrong.”

I am writing about this today neither to applaud Rabbi Lamm for his honesty and courage, – although such applause is appropriate – nor to point out what was missing from his statement – which spokespeople for the victims have already quite correctly done. I am writing rather, in order to open the question as to how it hapenned that an entire generation of MTA students – including me – failed to speak up about what we knew was happening (even if we didn’t yet have the vocabulary to describe it)? And even more to the point, how is it that faculty members – our teachers! – as well as members of the administration remained silent, never raising their voices? Why did we remain silent, and what responsibility do we have now?

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sky News

A bishop has said the Church of England “failed big time” over child protection as the General Synod formally apologises for clerical sex abuse.

The Rt Rev Paul Butler, Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, said for “far too long” the Church of England had either disbelieved the stories of victims, believed them but tried to hide the truth away or hoped that by removing an offender the problem would go away.

“We can make all the excuses that we like about society being different in previous decades – or our understanding of abuse being so much better,” he said.

“We can note that our policies were different then and we followed those policies. But these take nothing away from the fact that we failed to listen properly, we did not acknowledge the wrong done, and we protected the institution at the expense of the person abused.”

He added: “We failed big time, we can do nothing other than confess our sin, repent and commit ourselves to being different in the years ahead.”

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

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sam Jones
The Guardian, Sunday 7 July 2013

Victims of sexual abuse by Church of England clergy have rejected an apology from the general synod and called for an independent public inquiry to ensure abusers are held to account and better safeguards put in place.

In York on Sunday evening, the general synod voted unanimously to endorse the apology already made by the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to victims of abuse, and to back moves intended to tighten its safeguarding procedures.

The synod was told the church had failed victims of abuse “big time” by refusing to listen to their stories and by moving offenders to different areas in the hope that the problem would go away.

Paul Butler, the bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, said the church had sinned through its failure to act just as much as the abusers had sinned through their actions.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Hartlepool Mail

A bishop has said the Church of England “failed big time” over child protection as the General Synod formally apologised for clerical sex abuse.

The Rt Rev Paul Butler, Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, said for “far too long” the Church of England, notably those in senior positions, had either disbelieved the stories of victims, believed them but tried to hide the truth away or hoped that by removing an offender the problem would go away.

“We can make all the excuses that we like about society being different in previous decades – or our understanding of abuse being so much better,” he said. “We can note that our policies were different then and we followed those policies. But these take nothing away from the fact that we failed to listen properly, we did not acknowledge the wrong done, and we protected the institution at the expense of the person abused.”

He added: “We failed big time, we can do nothing other than confess our sin, repent and commit ourselves to being different in the years ahead.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

by Mark Gough – last updated Sun 7 Jul 2013

Sue Cox was abused by a Catholic priest when she was ten – at a religious retreat in Matlock in Derbyshire.

Three years later, she was raped by him.

She now campaigns around the world in support of people who have been abused by clergy from all faiths.

Today the General Synod – the law-making body – of the Church of England is meeting to discuss the question of clerical abuse.

It is expected to agree to apologise for abuse carried out by members of the church.

Sue Cox was at the synod today as an observer – representing her organisation which helps victims throughout Europe.

She believes more should be done – more than an apology.

She said:

Our opinion is that the only answer they can come up with is to support an independent public inquiry because in that way we will know exactly what we are dealing with and we will tell them that the only way to get us on board really is to stand and be counted and to publicly support the idea of a public inquiry.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The Church of England has formally apologised for past child abuse by Anglican priests and its own “serious failure” to prevent it.

The ruling General Synod, meeting in York, debated a report about abuse in the Chichester Diocese.

Members unanimously backed an earlier apology issued by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.

Meanwhile, a man was arrested after two stewards were allegedly attacked at a Synod service in York Minster.

A Church of England spokesman said a man entered the minster as the service was starting and attacked the stewards when they asked him to stop.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

[Stop Church Child Abuse]

The Church of England General Synod met in York today to discuss whether to offer an apology to survivors of clergy sex abuse.

The group ‘Stop Church Child Abuse Campaign’ said an apology is inappropriate until the church reveals the extent of abuse by clergy. It said:

The survivors of abuse should be central to this process. Instead we are being denied the opportunity to speak personally at the Synod. Our voices should be heard at this and every other debate on responding to survivors.

We still do not know how many victims of abuse are known to the church. The church has not identified who the victims are. Only a commitment from the church to call on the Government for a public inquiry to find the facts and then apologise directly to the victims of abuse would be an acceptable response at this stage. Recompense and support will also be essential.

A woman from the Midlands, who was sexually assaulted by a priest when she was a young girl, attended the talks today.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 11

MILWAUKEE (AP) – – As the national clergy sex abuse scandal mounted following revelations in Boston in 2002, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan faced increasing pressure as the archbishop in Milwaukee to cut costs by defrocking problem priests and pushback from his staff when he hesitated, according to newly released records.

Clergy sex abuse victims have harshly criticized Dolan for payments made to at least seven abusive priests who were forced out of the church; they view the money as bonuses given to criminals. The archdiocese has said it long provided money to priests leaving the priesthood as a means of helping them transition into new lives; most were not accused of wrongdoing.

While victims have faulted Dolan for the payments, documents released July 1 show that others in the archdiocese also were pushing to get rid of the priests as a way to ensure that money was focused on caring for victims and church operations. Dolan and others likely saw the payments as a cost-effective way to speed up the priests’ departure.

The documents were made public as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court between the archdiocese and victims suing it for fraud.

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet (UK)

Robert Mickens – 6 July 2013

First an inquiry announced, then an arrest, followed by major resignations. It has been quite a week at the Vatican Bank, the financial organisation that Pope Francis has in his sights. But can he and his allies really get to grips with what has been happening behind its closed doors and ensure transparency?

Baron Ernst von Freyberg insists that the so-called Vatican Bank is a “well-managed and clean financial institution” that merely suffers from a bad reputation linked to old scandals. The German aristocrat and industrialist was hired last February after an extensive search to be the president of the bank – officially named the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR). And he recently began a media campaign to convince people that he and his team were well on the road to bringing greater transparency and propriety to the 71-year-old institution.

But a new and embarrassing scandal has caused a major obstacle to that journey and this past week the president was forced to admit that still more drastic measures were needed to truly clean up the IOR’s bad image and improve efforts undertaken in the past three years to combat money laundering and provide greater transparency.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Why Bishop Brandt?

We are parishioners of the Diocese of Greensburg, and we have many questions to ask our Bishop, Lawrence Brandt in the wake of some questionable decrees from him. Decrees that make no sense to us and appear to be having negative impacts on our Diocese. Since our questions to date have gone unanswered in private letters sent to the Bishop we are now making these questions and concerns public.

Is it true that priests, funds and vocations are shrinking within the Diocese of Greensburg? If these are true then why Bishop Brandt….

1. Do you live like a prince in a mansion on a large expensive compound when Pope Francis has asked the Bishops of the Church to live among and like the people of the Church?

2. Did you spend millions of dollars of Diocesan funds on lavish renovations, including a very expensive chair for yourself, at The Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, while parishes and Catholic Schools were being closed due to lack of funds?

3. If your strategic plan is to save the Diocese of Greensburg due to priest shortages, why would you ever dismiss Benedictine Priests who have faithfully served our Diocese for nearly 100 years?

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ILLINOIS
Pantagraph

July 05, 2013

A life of service: Bloomington’s ‘Father Doug’ retiring after 50 years in the priesthood

BLOOMINGTON — Two things — one involving a title and the other involving action — offer a glimpse into who is the Rev. Doug Hennessy. Read more

Father Doug Hennessy weighs in on some controversial questions involving the Catholic Church:

Q: What has been the impact on the Catholic Church of the (sex-abuse) scandal?

A: It was a serious blow to the church’s moral credibility and authority. It is very sad and tragic. It bankrupted the trust account that priests used to have. Now, we have to nurture and develop that trust. It was handled badly by church leadership. If someone feels they were mistreated, they should come forward to church leadership. The worst thing that can happen is to let that fester without dealing with it. We want to care for victims while respecting the privacy of individuals and recognizing that some priests have been falsely accused.

Q. Is the Catholic Church still experiencing a priest shortage?

A: Many of us who serve as priests would say yes. I think the church has worked hard to encourage vocations. Many of us (priests over 65) are retiring or going to God. The numbers among 45- to 65-year-olds are thin but there are more young priests coming on. Pastoral planning now involves more sharing of resources among parishes (including combining parishes’ programs, classes and support groups). And a great many lay people are volunteering.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Ruth Gledhill Religion Correspondent

A protester this morning disrupted the annual General Synod service at York Minster as members prayed before contentious debates on child abuse and women bishops.

The attack was deflected by stewards shortly before the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, preached at the high-profile service, which came hours after Synod members met in secret in an attempt to resolve their differences over women bishops.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

[Archbishop Justin’s presidential address to General Synod – Archbishop of Canterbury]

Sam Jones
guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 July 2013

The archbishop of Canterbury has used his first General Synod address to warn the Church of England that, whether it likes it or not, “a revolution in the area of sexuality” is underway in society.

In a presidential address containing inescapable echoes of Harold Macmillan’s famous “wind of change” speech – which heralded the advent of African independence – the archbishop told the York synod that the recent debate over same-sex marriage had shown that society’s attitudes to sexuality were changing radically, and that the church risked appearing uncomfortably out-of-step.

“Anyone who listened to much of the Same Sex Marriage bill second reading debate in the House of Lords could not fail to be struck by the overwhelming change of cultural hinterland,” he said. “Predictable attitudes were no longer there. The opposition to the Bill was utterly overwhelmed … [and] there was noticeable hostility to the view of the churches.”

Welby added: “We may or may not like it but we must accept that there is a revolution in the area of sexuality.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

7 July 2013

The Church of England is expected to make a formal apology for past child abuse by Anglican priests, and its own “serious failure” to prevent it.

The ruling General Synod, meeting in York, will debate a report about abuse in the Chichester Diocese.

Members will be asked to back an earlier apology issued by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A man has been arrested after two people were assaulted during a high-profile church service at York Minster.

The Archbishop of York was due to give the key sermon at the service, which forms part of the General Synod meeting, when the attack took place.

A spokesman for the Church of England said a man entered the minster as the service was starting and assaulted two people when he was asked to stop.

One of the Archbishop of York’s staff and a steward suffered minor injuries.

The service was attended by senior members of the Church of England including the Archbishop of Canterbury.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sam Jones
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 July 2013

A man has been arrested after attacking two Church of England staff during a General synod service at York Minster attended by the archbishops of York and Canterbury.

The man, who is understood to be well know to local police, began shouting and swearing as the archbishops’ procession entered the cathedral shortly after 10am on Sunday.

After coming within yards of the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, he was approached by a steward, whom he punched. Dave Smith, a member of the archbishop of York’s staff, then stepped in and was also punched by the man and left with a bloody nose.

Smith sat on the man until the police arrived.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By JONATHAN PETRE

The Church of England will acknowledge its ‘deep grief and shame’ over clerical sex abuse today when it votes to make an historic apology to victims.

The move comes as The Mail on Sunday has learned of proposals being actively considered by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby for the Church to set up its first national commission on abuse.

In a strongly-worded joint statement issued before today’s vote at Church ruling body the General Synod, Archbishop Welby and the Archbishop of York John Sentamu said the suffering inflicted on children, young people and adults ‘is and will remain a deep source of grief and shame for years to come’.

The Synod, meeting in York, is expected to back a motion offering an ‘unreserved’ apology to victims after a series of shocking cases involving senior clergy.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sunday Times

Tony Grew Published: 7 July 2013

THE Church of England will today be urged to apologise to children sexually abused by its clergy.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York will ask the church’s governing body, the General Synod, to back a proposal for a public apology at its meeting in York.

A document drafted by the church’s two most senior clerics calls on the church to “identify with the apology that we wish to offer unreservedly for the failure of the Church of England’s systems to protect children, young people and adults from physical and sexual abuse inflicted by its clergy and others”.

It also apologises for “the failure to listen properly to those so abused”.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

Molestation allegations against Lawrence Sandstrom go back to the 1960s. His file will be among those released this summer by a host of independent Catholic orders.

By Victoria Kim and Harriet Ryan
July 6, 2013

The preschooler’s hair was falling out in clumps. He had stopped playing with other children and barely spoke to his teachers. He woke screaming each night, and during the day clung to his mother.

What’s wrong, she asked again and again. Finally, he told her: His big brother, adopted seven years earlier from the Maryvale Catholic orphanage in Rosemead, was molesting him. Devastated, she rushed the older boy to a therapist’s office, where he offered a harrowing explanation.

“He said that Brother Larry had done it to him at Maryvale — him and other children,” his mother recalled years later.

The man he named was Lawrence Sandstrom, a brother of the Holy Cross religious order and the subject of molestation allegations in Los Angeles stretching back to the 1960s. Over the years, claims against Sandstrom have cost the Catholic Church more than $3 million in civil settlements. But unlike in the L.A. Archdiocese, which released 12,000 pages of internal records on abusive priests in January, there has yet to be a full accounting of the church’s handling of Sandstrom.

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UNTED KINGDOM
Telegraph

The Church of England is expected to vote today on whether to make an historic apology to victims of sexual abuse, as the Archbishop of Canterbury considers setting up the church’s first commission on abuse.

By Claire Carter 07 Jul 2013

Archbishop Justin Welby and the Archbishop of York John Sentamu have issued a joint statement ahead of today’s debate at the General Synod in which they urge church members to support an ‘unreserved apology’ to victims of clerical sexual abuse.

The church is also set to overhaul its procedures in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse.
The vote is due to take place this afternoon. A motion urges the Synod to “endorse the Archbishops’ statement expressing on behalf of the Church of England an unreserved apology for the failure of its systems to protect children, young people and adults from physical and sexual abuse inflicted by its clergy and others, and for the failure to listen properly to those so abused.”

The vote follows convictions of clergy who abused scores of victims and the arrest of former Bishop of Gloucester Peter Ball on suspicion of eight sex offences against eight boys and young men.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

By Finn Scott-Delany, Senior Reporter

Bishops will apologise unreservedly following a damning report into child abuse in Sussex.

The General Synod is expected to endorse the “unreserved apology” to victims today.

The high-level acknowledgement follows an official inquiry set up into abuse within the Diocese of Chichester.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said the report described a painful story of “individual wickedness” and “systematic failings”.

Archbishop Justin Welby wrote: “The sexual and physical abuse that has been inflicted by these people on children, young people and adults is and will remain a deep source of grief and shame for years to come.

“History cannot be rewritten, but those who still suffer now as a result of abuse in the past deserve this at least, that we hear their voices and take action to ensure that today’s safeguarding policies and systems are as robust as they can be.”

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WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

John Pilmaier was 7, a second-grader at St. John Vianney School in 1977, when Father David Hanser walked into his classroom and asked for a volunteer to help him with a project.

Several children raised their hands, Pilmaier says, but he was chosen.

And so they walked, Father Dave and John, to the rectory that the priest called home. Once there, Hanser sexually assaulted the boy, then warned him not to tell anyone, saying his parents would be angry with him.

John Pilmaier is the final entry, just three lines, in the history of the now-defrocked Hanser, which was released Monday with thousands of pages of documents as part of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy proceeding.

Hanser’s file recounts what Pilmaier and his parents had already come to suspect: that their once-trusted parish priest may have sexually assaulted numerous children over the years, dating at least to the 1960s.

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CALIFORNIA
Merced Sun-Star

By Marcos Breton — mbreton@sacbee.com

The nature of faith is to believe in something larger than yourself.

The danger of faith is to believe something that isn’t true – either because you need to believe it or because you can’t face the truth.

That’s when faith becomes delusion and denial.

It happened Friday, when celestial faith was projected onto a mortal, a priest, who pleaded no contest to sexually molesting a 13-year-old girl – even as the priest’s friends watched the proceedings in court.

The Rev. Uriel Ojeda, once the shining star of the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, was handcuffed and taken into custody after accepting a plea for forcing himself on a young girl. It was a cold legal conclusion to a tragedy of faith placed too fervently in one young man.

But his followers saw something else.

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WISCONSIN
Fond du Lac Reporter

Written by
Sharon Roznik
The Reporter Media

The day John Schmitz burned his Roman Catholic collar was a turning point in his life.

Raised in St. Peter and a graduate of St. Lawrence Seminary in Mount Calvary, Schmitz was firmly rooted in the Catholicism that ran through what is known as the Holyland in northeastern Fond du Lac County.

But after almost a decade serving as a priest, including five years at St. Mary’s Church in Fond du Lac, he said he had enough and could no longer stand in front of a congregation and preach something he did not believe.

“I knew then there were pedophiles, priests who were being shuffled from one place to another,” said Schmitz, who has authored a book “A Funny Thing Happened on My Way Out of Church.”

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VATICAN CITY
Minnesota Public Radio

July 6, 2013

By FRANCES D’EMILIO, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis called for structural renewal in the Catholic church to keep up with the times, although advising future priests and nuns Saturday to shun costly trappings like the latest smartphones so they can use more resources to help the poor.

Francis has been waging a campaign to root out corruption and power plays in the Vatican’s bureaucracy and to keep sight of what is essential in the church he was elected in March to lead.

The Argentine-born pontiff offered the encouragement for renewal in a homily during Mass Saturday at the Vatican City hotel where he lives. Francis told Catholics “not to be afraid of renewing some structures” to accord with “the places, the times” and the people, but he didn’t specify what needed to be changed.

He said, “In Christian life, even in the life of the church, there are ancient structures, transient structures: It is necessary to renew them!”

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Towleroad

Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez, a Catholic Cardinal from the Dominican Republic, is facing a great deal of controversy as of late. Cardinal de Jesus has recently come under fire for using a gay slur, “maricón” (which is generally translated to mean “faggot”), to refer to James “Wally” Brewster, Barack Obama’s gay nominee for U.S. ambassador to the Caribbean nation.

Now, the Cardinal could potentially be facing even greater trouble, thanks to accusations of pedophilia taking place in his diocese, as well as evidence of a potential cover up.

Dominican Today has reported that the “Santiago Office of the Prosecutor on Wednesday announced it awaits the Immigration Agency to specify whether Catholic priest native of Poland, Wojciech (Alberto) Gil, accused of pedophilia by several families, left the country with another identity.” Gil managed to flee the country after the accusations began to draw attention to the small village of Janico. Two minors from the village have also left the country, although it has not yet been determined whether they did so in the company of the priest.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
The New York Times

By FRANK BRUNI
Published: July 6, 2013

BOSTON, Philadelphia, Los Angeles. The archdioceses change but the overarching story line doesn’t, and last week Milwaukee had a turn in the spotlight, with the release of roughly 6,000 pages of records detailing decades of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests there, a sweeping, searing encyclopedia of crime and insufficient punishment.

But the words I keep marveling at aren’t from that wretched trove. They’re from an open letter that Jerome Listecki, the archbishop of Milwaukee, wrote to Catholics just before the documents came out.

“Prepare to be shocked,” he said.

What a quaint warning, and what a clueless one.

Quaint because at this grim point in 2013, a quarter-century since child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church first captured serious public attention, few if any Catholics are still surprised by a priest’s predations.

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AUSTRALIA
Border Mail

By Catherine Armitage July 7, 2013

The bishop showed the policeman into his bedroom. It could hardly have been a more genteel setting, a Catholic retirement facility at Lake Macquarie on the NSW central coast. He was cordial and welcoming. He’d laid out church documents on his bed in preparation.

But then the bishop duped the policeman. Ultimately, a paedophile priest got away, according to evidence at the NSW government’s special commission of inquiry into alleged cover-ups of child sexual abuse by two priests in the Hunter region.

The evidence before the inquiry is that senior church figures knew of recurring sex abuse allegations against paedophile priest FatherDenis McAlinden from 1954 but dealt with them by moving him around Australia and removing him from the priesthood instead of going to the police.

Senior clergy identified in church correspondence and witness statements tendered to the inquiry include bishops John Toohey, Leo Clarke and Michael Malone of the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese and Father Brian Lucas, now general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. Clarke involved the pope’s ambassador to Australia, Archbishop Franco Brambilla.

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VATICAN CITY
Time

By Alessandro Speciale / Rome @TIMEWorldJuly 05, 2013

On Friday, Pope Francis fast-tracked approval for the sainthood of two recent pontiffs: Pope John Paul II, who presided over the Church at the end of the Cold War, and Pope John XXIII, who held the liberalizing Second Vatican Council half a century ago. To do so, Pope Francis undercut the Vatican’s traditional bureaucracy and its complex protocols regarding the proof of miracles required to canonize saints. For the Argentine cleric, who assumed the papacy’s top role earlier this year, the move is just the latest sign of his reformist impulses.

Far removed from the realms of saints and miracles, Pope Francis, it seems, has sought to shake up some of the Vatican’s more earthly institutions. The past two weeks have been filled with drama for the Vatican Bank, a tiny organization operating from within the Vatican walls that has been time and again a source of scandal and embarrassment for the Catholic Church. The latest intrigue began with the arrest on June 28 by Italian police of a senior monsignor, Nunzio Scarano, for allegedly planning to smuggle €20 million to Italy in a private jet. Pope Francis then ordered an unprecedented review of the bank by an independent commission. On July 1, came the surprise resignation of the bank’s two top managers. Director General Paolo Cipriani and his deputy, Massimo Tulli, who have led the bank for almost a decade, “have decided that this decision would be in the best interest of the Institute and the Holy See,” said a Vatican statement.

While the Vatican presented their resignation as voluntary, Pope Francis’ move to create a review commission, handpicked by him, with full powers to request documents and question people on the activities of the bank, was clearly seen as a vote of no confidence towards the bank’s management. That is a major step toward establishing better financial transparency for the bank, which is formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) and has long been criticized for its secrecy and lack of accountability. Vatican authorities “have come a long way in a very short period of time” according to Moneyval, a European financial watchdog based in Strasbourg, France. “Catholics around the world have felt Pope Francis’s warmth,” said a Vatican source, referring the simple, heartfelt style of the Argentine pontiff. “But also in the Vatican someone is starting to feel the heat.”

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VATICAN CITY
ABC News

[with video]

By Hans-Jürgen Schlamp in Rome, SPIEGEL
July 6, 2013

It appears Pope Francis truly wants to change the Catholic Church. He’s reforming the Vatican Bank first, but he’s also circumventing the old guard wherever he can. The establishment is up in arms.

A cardinal in Rome earns about ?3,000 [euros] ($3,888) a month, even less than a pastor in Germany. But a cardinal’s life in Rome is a lot more expensive — with visits to restaurants and shopping at boutiques for the upscale clothing men of the church are expected to wear, not to mention their jewelry and the antiques they display in their apartments. So it’s good to have friends who can treat you or otherwise provide support now and then.

Friends are also happy to give a cardinal a hand — and not just out of religious considerations. A cardinal can be helpful in both political and business terms. So it’s not surprising that a symbiotic relationship between parts of the Curia and the upper class around the world has formed — one that brings together the establishment, luxury and power. It’s a nice little tradition that new Pope Francis would like to put an end to. For the Catholic establishment, though, it is nothing less than a catastrophe.

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VATICAN CITY
Calgary Herald

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS JULY 6, 2013

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis says the Catholic church needs to renew structures to accord with “the places, the times.”

Francis has been waging a campaign to root out corruption and power plays in the Vatican’s bureaucracy and to keep sight of what is essential in the church he was elected in March to lead.

The Argentine-born pontiff offered the encouragement for renewal in a homily during Mass Saturday at the Vatican City hotel where he lives. Francis told Catholics “not to be afraid of renewing some structures” to accord with “the places, the times” and the people, but he didn’t specify what needed to be changed.

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VATICAN CITY
Times LIVE (South Africa)

AFP

Pope Francis on Saturday said Catholics should not be afraid of renewing “old and flimsy structures” in the Church, as he plans a major overhaul of the scandal-ridden Vatican bureaucracy and bank.

“In Christian life and in Church life too there are old and flimsy structures. We need to renew them,” the pope said in his homily at a private mass for Swiss Guards, Vatican radio reported on its website.

“We should not be afraid of allowing the flimsy structures that imprison us to fall down,” he said.

“The Church has always allowed itself to be renewed… That is how the Church has developed, leaving it to the Holy Spirit to renew these structures. We should not be afraid of this,” the pope was quoted as saying.

Francis, a moderate conservative elected by a conclave of cardinals in March, has launched an investigation into the Vatican bank and has ordered a group of top cardinals to propose ways of reforming the Vatican administration at a meeting planned for October.

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ROME
Chicago Tribune

Reuters
July 6, 2013

ROME (Reuters) – Italian prosecutors have dropped inquiries into the Vatican bank’s former president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi after concluding a money laundering investigation, judicial sources told Reuters.

Prosecutors accuse the bank’s director general, Paolo Cipriani, and its deputy director Massimo Tulli, who both resigned this week, of “authorizing illegal financial transactions”, said the sources, who asked not to be named.

The Vatican bank was not immediately available for comment on Saturday and in the past a spokesman has declined to comment. Reuters was unable to reach the two men accused in the probe.

A judge will now decide whether to proceed to a trial of Cipriani and Tulli.

The two directors left the bank on Monday after the arrest of a senior cleric who is accused of plotting to smuggle millions of euros into Italy from Switzerland.

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VATICAN CITY
Financial Express

Italian investigators have said that the Vatican bank operated in a way that facilitated money laundering, according to leaked papers quoted by two Italian newspapers today following a three-year inquiry.

The bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR in Italian), did not carry out enough checks on its clients and account holders were allowed to transfer large sums on behalf of others.

“There is a high risk that the way the IOR operates, without specifying its real clients, can be used as a screen to hide illegal operations,” prosecutors wrote in a document that was quoted by Corriere della Sera.

They also faulted Italian banks that accepted transfers from the IOR for failing to probe the origin of the money, which is then moved into other banks.

“The IOR can easily become a channel for the laundering of money with a criminal origin, they said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

[with video]

CHICAGO (CBS) — The Vatican on Friday cleared the late Pope John Paul II for sainthood.

The news was greeted with joy among the Chicago Polish community, who also recalled with fondness the historic trip John Paul took to Chicago more than 30 years ago.

However, the news is not without some controversy, as CBS 2′s Chris Martinez reports.

The Survivors Network Of Those Abused By Priests said John Paul did nothing to stop the abuse crimes at the hands of priests in Chicago and across the United States.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

By Kaitlynn Riely / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

One was pope for only a handful of years, 1958 to 1963, but he opened a council whose effects have lasted much longer. The other led the Roman Catholic Church for nearly three decades, 1978 to 2005, defining the role of pope for a generation.

Popes John XXIII and John Paul II lived in different times and faced different challenges, said Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik, but they shared something.

“They had a charisma that made them the right person at the right time,” he said.

Now, they’ll share something else: At the same time Friday, both men were cleared for sainthood.
The current Pope Francis announced that John Paul II and John XXIII would be canonized. No date has been set for the official ceremonies, but they are expected to occur by the end of the year. …

However, not everyone greeted the news positively.

Barbara Blaine, founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called the canonization “rubbing salt into the wounds” of those affected by the clerical sex-abuse scandal.

“We believe that’s one more sign that church officials are doing one thing and saying the other,” Ms. Blaine said.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Lewis Blayse

The first week of the second session of the NSW government enquiry into clerical child sexual abuse in the Newcastle-Maitland diocese heard further evidence from Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, more local police officials and the current Bishop of Newcastle-Maitland, Bill Wright. Bishop Bill Wright tried to right the wrongs with, what the media described as an “emotional” apology to victims.

It saw an example or two of apparently-skewed reporting in that minor errors by Mr. Fox were prominently reported by some corporate media outlets, while other, more serious, errors were not well-covered. The chief example was that Inspector Fay Dunn contradicted testimony by Chief Inspector Wayne Humphrey that she had authorized a search of Detective Chief Inspector Fox’s office while he was on leave.

Further, Mr. Humphrey withdrew part of his sworn affidavit in which he had accused Mr. Fox of refusing repeated requests to hand over evidence. He said the statements were “unfair to Mr Fox,” and apologized for making “an error on my part.” The original allegation received wide coverage, while the retraction did not.

In 2009, Bishop Malone released some documents to a victim, which were passed on to local journalist, Joanne McCarthy, and then on to police. The documents have been released to the public by the enquiry. They clearly demonstrate cover-ups for two serial offenders, Fr. Fletcher and Fr. McAlinden (see previous postings).

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IRELAND
Journal

MAGDALENE SURVIVORS HAVE been provided with a guide to the redress scheme by a group that advocated for some of the women in their fight for compensation.

JFM (Justice for Magdalenes) Research, the survivor advocacy group, has published the Survivor Guide to Magdalene Restorative Justice Scheme. It said that a number of survivors had expressed difficulty in filling out the application form for the compensation.

Entitlements
JFM Research said the guide aims to assist survivors in understanding their entitlements under the scheme developed by Mr Justice John Quirke and announced by the government on 26 June.

Mr Justice Quirke recommended in a report that the Magdalene survivors should all receive cash payments in the range €11,500 (if their duration of stay was three months or less) to €100,000 (duration of stay of 10 years or more).

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

Galway Bay fm newsroom – A guide for survivors of Magdalene Laundries has been published – to help them understand their entitlements.

Last month – a redress scheme was announced by the government – under which survivors will get payments of up to €100,000 and enhanced State pension entitlements.

It’s in recognition of the time they spent in the laundries, such as the one at Forster Street in the city.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Democrat

By Democrat Staff

A former Woodland priest facing several counts of sexually molesting a 13-year-old girl pleaded no contest Friday in Sacramento County Superior Court.

The Rev. Uriel Ojeda pleaded no contest to one of seven counts against him, and now faces an eight-year prison term when he is sentenced Aug. 2, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Prosecutors said the 33-year-old Catholic priest “entered the victim’s bedroom at night” at her home in Sacramento and touched her in a lewd and lascivious manner. At the time of the offense, between 2007 and 2009, Ojeda was a priest at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Woodland.

By the time of his arrest in late 2011, Ojeda had moved on to become a parochial vicar at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Redding.

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

CALIFORNIA
Merced Sun-Star

Published: July 6, 2013

By Andy Furillo — afurillo@sacbee.com

Grudgingly, one of the nation’s leading critics of the Catholic Church’s handling of sexual abuse by priests credited the Sacramento Diocese with doing some things right in the prosecution of the Rev. Uriel Ojeda.

The 33-year-old priest pleaded no contest Friday to a single count of molesting a 13-year-old girl and admitted to engaging in “substantial sexual conduct” with her, which will likely bring him eight years in state prison.

David Clohessy, the St. Louis-based director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Sacramento church officials did “the bare minimum” to make sure a case was filed against Ojeda after the victim’s father first made accusations against the cleric two years ago.

“Tragically, because for decades bishops refused to do even that, then by comparison, it makes Sacramento church officials look better,” Clohessy said. “On the one hand, I think it’s important to acknowledge progress where progress really happens. But by the same token, it’s hard to define doing the bare minimum in child sex cases as real progress.”

Clohessy said Bishop Jaime Soto also should have cracked down on the dozens of Ojeda supporters who packed courtrooms and danced and chanted outside the jail after the priest’s Nov. 30, 2011, arrest. He said the church should have done more to publicize Ojeda’s misdeed and to shake the trees in the parishes where the reverend worked to find other potential victims.

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CALIFORNIA
Asian Journal

By Prosy Abarquez Delacruz, J.D.
Published: July 6, 2013

TWO weeks ago, I wrote about truth and courage as the natural limits to social harmony, and about how courage manifests in other virtues.

I learned that courage is the foundational virtue. Even if you are living your life righteously each day, the moment you condone injustice, you will be deemed irrelevant.

It is very much like the Roman Catholic Church in Los Angeles — now distrusted, after they mishandled cases of sexual abuses done by priests within their jurisdiction. Their foundational credibility continues to be questioned.

I love being a Roman Catholic. I was baptized and confirmed. I received the Grace of the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord (wonder and awe).

Yet, I have had an ambivalent relationship with the Catholic Church. I applauded the Vatican, when they recently chose Pope Francis (who has inspired folks to become vigorous witnesses to their faith). At the same time, I questioned the practices of the Institutional Catholic Church’s hierarchy.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Lowell Sun

[with video]

By Lyle Moran, lmoran@lowellsun.com
Updated: 07/05/2013

LOWELL — Gary Bergeron publicly spoke about being sexually abused by the Rev. Joseph E. Birmingham, a former priest at St. Michael’s in Lowell, for the first time in 2002.

Since then, Bergeron has continued to be outspoken about the abuse he suffered as a child during a three-year period in the 1970s, and the need for the Catholic church and society to address the issue of clergy sexual abuse.

Bergeron, of Lowell, has written a book about his struggles called “Don’t Call Me a Victim: Faith, Hope & Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church,” in 2005. He has also co-founded a group called Survivors Voice to help adult survivors of child sexual abuse speak out. His latest project is a yet-to-be titled documentary about his life as a clergy sex-abuse survivor that he is working on at Lowell Telecommunications Corp.

The Sun recently caught up with Bergeron, 51, to find out what he hopes comes from his documentary he expects to show first in October, and how he thinks the Catholic Church is doing to address clergy sexual abuse.

Q: Why did you first decide to speak out about being abused by a priest?

A: When I found out my dad had been abused by Joe Birmingham, he told my brother and I that we suffered from the sin of his silence. I immediately thought about my son, who was 3. I decided that night that there was no way this was going to happen to my son. I was going to make sure the cycle in my family was stopped.

Q: How did speaking publicly about your story help you?

A: The value in it was understanding who I was. I was not a guy who needed to be running away all the time. I was not the guy who had to go from one relationship to another relationship. I was a family man. I was somebody who was not afraid to speak truth to power. I started to listen to my inner voice as opposed to everyone else’s voice. If I had not started talking about it, I probably wouldn’t be alive today.

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CALIFORNIA
Sacramento Bee

By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com

The Rev. Uriel Ojeda will be facing a prison term of eight years in state prison when he is sentenced Aug. 2 after admitting today that he molested a 13-year-old girl in the bedroom of her parents home in the middle of the night.

“No contest,” Ojeda said, when asked how he would be pleading to the single count of child molestation, after Deputy District Attorney Allison Dunham read the factual basis for the charge against him.

Dunham told the court that sometime between June 29, 2007, and June 30, 2009, in Sacramento County, Ojeda “entered the victim’s bedroom at night when everyone in the household was asleep.”

“She woke up and the defendant was lying next to her in bed,” Dunham said.

The prosecutor said the defendant then reached underneath the girl’s pajamas and touched her in a manner that “constitutes substantial sexual conduct with a child under the age of 14 years, to wit, 13 years,” for the purpose “of arousing, appealing to and gratifying the lust, passion and sexual desire of said defendant.”

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CALIFORNIA
Record Searchlight

By Jim Schultz
Posted July 5, 2013

A suspended Redding priest today pleaded no contest to molesting a teenage girl.

The Rev. Uriel Ojeda, 33, was taken into custody after accepting a plea bargain, The Sacramento Bee reported.

He had been free on $70,000 bail.

He is to sentenced to eight years in prison under the plea deal, The Bee said. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 2.

Ojeda took the plea bargain after a Superior Court judge ruled earlier this week statements Ojeda made to a Sacramento diocese official and a private investigator could be used against him at trial.

Ojeda, who was arrested Nov. 30, 2011, was charged with lewd and lascivious acts with a teenage girl over a two-year span — starting when she was 14 — in Sacramento and Shasta counties, according to the criminal complaint.

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CALIFORNIA
Fox 40

by Cecilio Padilla
Web Producer

SACRAMENTO—

Rev. Uriel Ojeda has pleaded no contest to charges that he molested a 13-year-old girl.

The plea was announced by District Attorney Jan Scully Friday. In addition to the plea, the DA said that Ojeda has also admitted to molesting the girl.

Ojeda, 33, now faces an 8-year prison sentence, per the plea agreement. He will be sentenced on August 2.

The molestation happened in Sacramento at some point between June 29, 2007 and June 30, 2009, when Ojeda was a priest at the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Woodland, prosecutors said.

With the plea deal, another six charges were dropped. All charges involved the same 13-year-old girl.

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WISCONSIN
Press-Gazette

Written by
Paul Srubas
Press-Gazette Media

A man who voluntarily left the priesthood in 1972 has formally been removed from the clergy over an allegation that he sexually abused a boy in the 1960s, the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay announced Friday.

Jerome Koerner of De Pere was ordained a priest in 1960 and served until he left the ministry as a matter of his own choice on Dec. 1, 1972, the diocese said. Koerner served in Kaukauna and Ashwaubenon.

In May 2012, the diocese received an allegation that he had sexually abused a boy while serving as a priest. Upon receiving the allegation, the diocese began the process of removing him from the priesthood. Koerner denied the allegation but cooperated with the process, which requires assent from church officials at the Vatican. The process was recently completed, and the diocese put out a public statement Friday.

Civil authorities also were notified of the allegation against Koerner, the diocese said.

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CALIFORNIA
News 10

A Northern California priest pleaded no contest Friday to one count of committing lewd acts with a child.

As a result of his plea Rev. Uriel Ojeda will be sentenced to eight years in prison on Aug. 2. He had been charged with seven counts of committing lewd acts with a child; six of the counts were dismissed.

Ojeda is a former parochial vicar at Our Lady of Mercy parish in Redding. The charges stem from an allegation that he molested a 13-year-old in Sacramento County. A press release states from the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office states that Ojeda “admitted the allegation of substantial sexual conduct.”

“The victim and her family can move forward with their lives and be proud that they had the courage to report the abuse to the Sacramento Diocese and law enforcement,” Deputy District Attorney Allison Dunham said in a press release.

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

Vatican defrocks Green Bay priest accused of sexual assault
Diocese of Green Bay received report over one year ago, failed to notify public
Predator priests identities and whereabouts remain unknown

Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director
CONTACT: 414.336.8575

The Diocese of Green Bay announced today that the Holy See has dispensed Fr. Jerome Koerner from the clerical state. Diocesan officials acknowledge that they received a report of child sexual assault against Koerner in May 2012, over one year ago, and are only now notifying the public. The diocese has not provided details about the nature of the sexual assault report, including where it occurred, or which parishes in the Green bay diocese Koerner was assigned to.

The lack of information that is forthcoming from the diocese is deeply troubling and continues a long pattern and practice of concealing child sex crimes, and keeping the names and whereabouts of child predators secret. There are at least 51 clerics, as of 2004, who are acknowledged by the diocese to have confirmed, credible, and substantiated reports of sexual assault against a child or minor. 35 of those priests are diocesan and 16 belong to the Norbertine religious order headquartered in De Pere.

The citizens of Wisconsin have no idea where Jerome Koerner or the other 51 clerics accused of child sexual assault are located.

Why?

Because the Diocese of Green Bay refuses to release the identities and whereabouts of their known child sex offenders leaving the public dangerously at risk.

Why does this matter?

Research shows that most predators will have between 80 and 100 victims over the course of their lifetime. The public safety concern is so great that legislators in Madison reintroduced the Child Victims Act. The proposed bill would help identify these predators by allowing their victims access to the doors of the courthouse, where they had previously been barred, because of outdated statute of limitations laws. When similar legislation was passed in California hundreds unknown predators were identified. It is unfortunate that the Green Bay diocese cannot voluntarily provide this information to parents so that they are able to keep their children safe.

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WISCONSIN
WHBY

The Green Bay Catholic Diocese says a former priest who was accused of sexually abusing a minor in the 1960s is officially no longer a member of the clergy.

Jerome Koerner voluntarily left the priesthood in 1972, and the diocese took the formal step of removing him after the allegation surfaced in May of last year.

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AUSTRALIA
Northern Star

Rodney Stevens 6th Jul 2013

A VICTIM of physical and sexual abuse at Lismore’s Church of England North Coast Children’s Home unloaded decades of emotional distress this week, telling his stories to the Royal Commission into child abuse.

Richard “Tommy” Campion said he lived at the Keen St home from 1948 to 1963, and endured a decade of physical and sexual abuse. His back still bares the scars from the savage beatings he, and about 200 others, suffered.

“It was an abusive home where children endured sexual abuse and regular floggings and beatings. Children were flogged till they were bleeding and others were locked in cupboards and had their heads pushed down toilets,” he said.

Mr Campion said after carrying the emotional burden for more than 50 years, after talking to the “brilliant” members of the Royal Commission at a Brisbane Hotel on Wednesday he felt “wonderfully relieved.”

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CALIFORNIA
KRCR

SACRAMENTO, Calif. –
A former Redding priest pleaded no contest in court Friday to one count of molestation.

The Sacramento Bee reports Rev. Uriel Ojeda, 33, will be sentenced to eight years in prison under the plea bargain.

Ojeda was scheduled to stand trial later this month in Sacramento on seven counts of molesting a teenage girl. The girl was 13 years old at the time of the alleged offenses.

He was taken into custody Friday morning after taking a plea bargain.

A Superior Court judge ruled earlier this week that statements Ojeda made to a Sacramento diocese official and a private investigator could be used against him at trial.

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WISCONSIN
WBAY

The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay announced Friday the Vatican has released a priest from clerical service due to sexual abuse allegations against him.

The diocese says Jerome Koerner was accused in May last year of sexually abusing a minor in the 1960s.

Koerner denied the allegations, but the diocese says it notified authorities and began the process to remove him. It says Koerner voluntarily cooperated with the removal process.
Koerner was ordained in 1960 but hasn’t served ministerly duties since December, 1972.

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CANADA
CBC News

A lawyer says she’s being denied access to documents that would support the abuse claims of former residential school students in northeast Ontario, and she said her clients are losing faith in the justice system.

Faye Brunning represents former students of Ste. Anne’s Residential School in Fort Albany, Ont., and of Bishop Horden Memorial School in Moose Factory, Ont.

She said the government is not playing fair in the latest round of civil claims stemming from the Truth and Reconciliation Commision process.

Brunning said documents from a criminal investigation into residential school abuse from the nineties would corroborate many of her clients’ claims.

But, she said, the federal government refuses to give her access to them.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Lewis Blayse

Malta was a source of “child migrants” to Australia. Most attention has been placed on the child migrants from the U.K., largely because there were 7,000 from the U.K. and about 300 from Malta.

In both cases, children were promised a good life in Catholic Church Children’s Homes in Australia. The reality, of course, was very different, with many suffering all of the known forms of abuse at the hands of their supposed “carers”.

Maltese boys were placed in Castledare Junior Orphanage, Clontarf Boys’ Town, St Joseph’s Trade and Farm School, Bindoon, and in St Mary’s Agricultural School, Tardun. Previous postings have covered some of the abuses at these Christian Brotherhood institutions.

About 50 girls were sent out to Western Australia and were placed in the St. Joseph Girls’ Orphanage, Subiaco and Nazareth House, Geraldton. Nazareth House was run by the Sisters of Nazareth (see previous posting) who were responsible for abuses at other institutions they ran in Australia. It closed in 1977 and is now a residential aged-care facility. St. Joseph’s was founded by the Spanish Benedictine Monks and closed in 1974. It catered for girls from six to sixteen years of age.

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CALIFORNIA
CBS Sacramento

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – Uriel Ojeda, a Roman Catholic priest accused of repeatedly molesting a teenage parishioner under the age of 14, has pled no contest to charges.

Ojeda was arrested by the Sacramento Police Department at 8 p.m. on November 30, 2012 at police headquarters and booked into the Sacramento County Jail on charges of lewd or lascivious act with a child under 14 and lewd acts on a child under 14 in which the victim was at least 10 years younger than the perpetrator.

A spokeswoman with the Sacramento County District Attorney’s office said Ojeda he had admitted to an investigator for the Sacramento Catholic Diocese that he repeatedly molested a parishioner.

Ojeda was assigned to Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Redding and prior to that was a priest at Holy Rosary Parish in Woodland until being transferred in the summer of 2009.

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CALIFORNIA
Merced Sun-Star

By Andy Furillo — afurillo@sacbee.com

The Rev. Uriel Ojeda pleaded no contest today to charges that he molested a girl under 14 years of age while he worked at Catholic parishes in Woodland and Redding.

The plea took place two days after Sacramento Superior Court Judge Eugene L. Balonon denied his motion to exclude the priest’s alleged admissions to the molestation charges to a church official and a private investigator.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Paedophile priest who told boy (7) he could get dead grandfather into heaven is given fourth jail term

05 JULY 2013

Paedophile priest James Donaghy – who told a distraught seven-year-old boy that he could get his dead grandfather into heaven if he performed a sex act on him – has been given another jail sentence.

But although this is the fourth time the 55-year-old sex predator has been found guilty of sex abuse, he wont spend an extra day in prison.

Donaghy is already serving a ten-year term for the sex abuse of three other victims.

Belfast Crown Court Judge Kinney told Donaghy, that had these current offences been dealt with when originally sentenced, they would have been taken into consideration.

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CALIFORNIA
KCRA

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —A priest accused of sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl entered a no-contest plea agreement Friday.

Uriel Ojeda served the Holy Rosary Church in Woodland for two years beginning in 2007 and initially pleaded not guilty to the molestation charges.

Ojeda will enter one count and other counts stemming from the case will be dismissed.

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SPAIN
The Local

A priest in Murcia has been fired after photos and a YouTube video allegedly showing him involved in public acts of gay sex became a social media sensation.

Church bosses in Cartagena have removed Francisco Javier Ruiz, the priest of the Murcian town of Churra, from his position after sex photos set off a social media scandal.

Spanish daily laverdad.es reported that images and videos were released on Twitter, purportedly showing the priest in the so-called Coto Cuadros, an area famous for “cruising” – anonymous, casual public sex.

A person alleged to be the priest can be seen masturbating with another man and practicing oral sex.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Kevin Cullen / Globe Columnist /

In 1994, seven years before the clergy sexual abuse scandal exploded, Robert Costello sent a letter to Pope John Paul II.

“Dear Holy Father,” it began, “When I was a small boy of about 10 years old, I was sexually abused by our parish priest. The abuse lasted for over four years. At the time, what was happening to me was extremely frightening. I was very battered on the inside and very cold on the outside.”

Costello was an altar boy at St. Theresa’s in West Roxbury, and a predator in a Roman collar named John Cotter routinely molested him. Cotter would follow him into the pool and put his hands down his swim trunks.

“On the inside, I was dead,” Costello wrote to the pope.

Costello felt a shame he could share with no one. He started stealing drinks from his grandfather’s liquor cabinet.

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WISCONSIN
Fox 11

Published : Friday, 05 Jul 2013

GREEN BAY – A man who voluntarily left the priesthood more than 40 years ago has been accused of sexually abusing a child in the 1960s while he was a priest, the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay says.

Diocesan officials say they received the allegation against Jerome Koerner in May. Koerner left the priesthood in 1972 and has not performed any priestly duties since, the diocese says.

Koerner denied the allegations to diocesan officials.

The diocese says it dispensed Koerner from the clerical state and notified civil authorities.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho
July 2, 201

Yesterday Milwaukee Catholics were treated to a six-thousand-page document dump revealing more information about the way their bishops handled the sexual-abuse crisis over the past few decades. Much of the news is distressingly familiar. You know the dirge: Abusers were routinely moved from parish to parish, or school to school, without telling local administrators why they were being reassigned. Even when bishops practically begged the Vatican to speedily laicize abusive priests, Rome took its time. (The case of John O’Brien seems particularly egregious. He’d been convicted of sexually assaulting a teenager and had petitioned John Paul II to be returned to the lay state. Then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan had to nag the Vatican to grant the petition twice in 2003. O’Brien wasn’t laicized until 2009.) But the document cache released by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee does hold some surprises.

In early 2011, Cardinal Dolan, now archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, warned readers of his blog that they might come across some “preposterous charges” concerning his tenure as archbishop of Milwaukee. Victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson had been telling anyone within earshot that when Dolan was archbishop of Milwaukee he moved as much as $130 million off the archdiocese’s books in an effort to shield it from victims seeking damages. Not so, said Dolan. He was simply returning money–$70 million of it–to parishes who had it on deposit with the archdiocese. What about the other $60 million? According to Dolan, he was just taking money that had been designated for the care of archdiocesan cemeteries and making sure it was “secure.” The annual operating budget of the archdiocese is about $25 million.

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ITALY
International Business Times

By Vittorio Hernandez | July 5, 2013

A complaint he made in January 2013 about the theft of expensive paintings from his Salerno house could have done Vatican Monsignor Nunzio Scarano more harm than good.

The monsignor was arrested earlier this week for suspicion of smuggling into Italy 20 million euro from Switzerland for his friends in the shipping business. With questions now of his possible involvement in money laundering, the stolen paintings and other expensive items inside his apartment is being seen as an indication of his possibly being engaged in illegal activity.

The value of the stolen paintings was estimated at 6 million euro. Among those filched from his apartment were six masterpieces by Giorgio de Chirico, one by Renato Guttuso, another believed to be by Marc Chagall and other religious art.

The paintings used to line his walls and hallways that were divided by Roman-style columns.

“We asked ourselves how did this monsignor come to own this place and posses these expensive works of art,” Reuters quoted a senior investigator who requested that he not be identified.

The prober said Mr Scarano insisted the art work were all donations. However, he said the priest living in a luxury apartment, fit to be featured in The Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous, led the team to suspect at least some of the monsignor’s work could have come from illegal activities.

The luxury apartment measures 700 square metres and is located along Via Romualdo Guarna. When the investigators followed his paper trail, it led to the Vatican bank where Mr Scarano has connections, and showed a fat bank account, stocks and part ownership in three real estate companies in Salerno.

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ROME
Gazzetta del Sud

Rome, July 5 – A judge in Rome rejected an appeal Friday from Msgr Nunzio Scarano to move him to house arrest after he was jailed on suspicion of planning to elude customs with 20 million euros in cash. The prelate had reportedly said he was not comfortable in Rome’s Regina Coeli prison, and Scarano’s lawyer said he would appeal the judge’s decision. Scarano was arrested last week along with Giovanni Maria Zito, an agent in the AISI intelligence agency, and Rome broker Giovanni Carenzio. Police said Scarano and Zito got a private jet to fly back from Switzerland to Italy 20 million euros in cash for a family who were friends with Scarano. Zito is suspected of getting 400,000 euros for arranging cover for the flight.

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ROME
adnkronos

Rome, 5 July (AKI) – A senior Catholic arrested last week on suspicion of trying to move 20 million euros illegally into Italy must stay in Rome’s Regina Coeli prison, a judge ruled on Friday.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano’s lawyer had asked for his client to be granted house arrest.

Scarono a Vatican accountant, was arrested last Friday together with Italian secret service agent, Giovanni Maria Zito, and a financial broker, Giovanni Carenzio.

All three suspects are accused off attempting to smuggle the cash to Italy from Switzerland on a private jet.

Scarano allegedly paid a 400,000 euro bribe in the cash-smuggling case. His lawyer said he did not dispute the facts of the bribery investigation but claimed he was merely “trying to help out some friends”.
Scarono has also been targeted by a separate probe investigating a series of suspicious transactions involving the recycling of cheques described as church donations through the Vatican Bank – a lender long-tainted by accusations of money-laundering.

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ROME
Reuters

ROME, July 5 | Fri Jul 5, 2013

(Reuters) – A Vatican prelate detained on suspicion of trying to smuggle tens of millions of euros into Italy will remain in jail after an Italian judge on Friday rejected his request to be released into house arrest, judicial sources said.

The judge decided there was still a need to keep Monsignor Nunzio Scarano in prison due to concerns that he could tamper with evidence or try to escape if released, the sources said.

Scarano, who had close connections to the Vatican bank, was arrested last week along with Giovanni Zito, a secret services agent, and financial broker Giovanni Carenzio.

They have been accused of plotting to bring 20 million euros ($26 million) in cash into Italy from Switzerland for Scarano’s rich shipping industry friends in the southern city of Salerno. Scarano is under a separate investigation there on suspicion of money laundering.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

TRANSCRIPTS: Special Commission of Inquiry

By JASON GORDON July 5, 2013

PAEDOPHILE priest Denis McAlinden offered to hand himself into police if senior clergy saw fit, but none of them did.

The chilling offer came in a letter penned by McAlinden to then Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone in 1995.

The letter was tendered to the Special Commission of Inquiry in Newcastle Friday, and later released to the Newcastle Herald.

To read the letter, click here.

It follows the release of numerous other letters which suggest that senior Hunter clergy not only knew of McAlinden’s offending, they failed to alert police.

The December 8 letter was penned by McAlinden in Western Australia as he sought to save himself from church moves to strip him of his priestly duties.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Ulster Star

Published on 05/07/2013

A priest from Lisburn who is serving a ten-year jail sentence for sex crimes against three victims has been sentenced to two years for abusing a boy – however he will not serve any extra time in prison.

James Martin Donaghy, 55, originally from Lady Wallace Drive, admitted four charges of indecently assaulting the boy and one of common assault between January and May 1989.

Donaghy was told during sentencing at Belfast Crown Court on Friday that had these current offences been dealt with when he was originally sentenced, they would have been taken into consideration.

Given the “principle of totality”, Judge Kinney said, his sentence would run concurrently with the previous term.

The fact that the case had not been dealt with sooner was nobody’s fault, the judge said, and in particular there could be no criticism of Donaghy’s victim.

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IRELAND
The Tablet (UK)

Fr Tony Flannery
5 July 2013

There are so many interesting signals coming out of the Vatican since the election Pope Francis that most of us are beginning to hope for a brighter future. The signals have not as yet been followed by real changes in approach or structure, but it is probably too soon to realistically expect that. The latest statement the CDF Prefect that the solution to the ‘problem’ of the priests’ groups is to be found in the declarations of the Second Vatican Council is one such signal. If it is real, and if the bishops mean something the same as we do when they refer to the teachings of the Vatican Council, then it is great news.

Here in Ireland those of us who were part of the founding of the Association of Catholic Priests were inspired by our desire to see the renewal and reforms of the Council implemented in full. Central to this, as we understand it, are the ideas of shared decision-making and dialogue.

In our three years’ existence we have found it very difficult to engage in any real exchange of views with church authorities here in Ireland. The bishops have largely kept us at a distance, even though we have a membership of over 1,000 priests.

As regards the Vatican, we have had no direct communication of any nature, and any indirect messages we have got were not encouraging. We continue to emphasise that we are a group of priests who have given our lives in service of Christ and his Church, and that our concerns have grown out of our love for the Church.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

Former priest James Martin Donaghy, who told a young boy he could get his dead grandfather into heaven as he sexually abused him, has been jailed for a total of two years.

Although this is the fourth time the 55-year-old has been before the courts, he won’t spend an extra day in prison because he is already serving a ten-year term for the sex abuse of three other victims.

Belfast Crown Court Judge Kinney told Donaghy that had these current offences been dealt with when originally sentenced, they would have been taken into consideration.

In the circumstances, given the “principle of totality,” his sentence will run concurrently with the previous term.

Judge Kinney said that no-one was at fault for the case not being dealt with sooner, in particular, there could be no criticism of Donaghy’s victim.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A priest who is serving a ten-year jail sentence for sex crimes against three victims has been sentenced to two years for abusing a boy.

In June, James Martin Donaghy, 55, originally from Lady Wallace Drive, Lisburn, admitted four charges of indecently assaulting the boy and one of common assault.

The offences happened between January and May 1989.

However, Donaghy will not serve any extra time in prison.

At Belfast Crown Court on Friday, Judge Kinney told Donaghy that had these current offences been dealt with when he was originally sentenced, they would have been taken into consideration.

In the circumstances, given the “principle of totality”, he said his sentence would run concurrently with the previous term.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jul. 5, 2013 All Things Catholic

Note: This column was written before today’s release of Lumen fidei (“The Light of Faith”), the first encyclical from Pope Francis, as well as the announcement that Popes John XXIII and John Paul II will be canonized together. Watch NCR Today for analysis. Also watch for reaction to Francis’ visit Monday to the southern Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, a major point of arrival for undocumented immigrants from Africa and the Middle East seeking to reach Europe.

There’s something oddly fitting about the fact that Wimbledon is going on at the same time that each day seems to bring a fresh development on the Vatican bank front because contrasting signs of scandal and reform are rocketing back and forth in Rome like tennis balls during a heated volley.

Consider what June and early July have brought:

* News broke June 14 that Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, an accountant for the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, which handles the Vatican’s property and investments, was under investigation by Italian authorities for alleged money-laundering. The probe reportedly focused on accounts he held at the Institute for the Works of Religion, better known as the Vatican bank. The Vatican quickly said Scarano had been suspended from his position earlier in the month.
* One day later, Pope Francis appointed Msgr. Battista Ricca as the new prelate, or personal delegate of the pope, for the Vatican bank. Ricca had been the director of the Casa Santa Marta, where Francis has chosen to reside, and the appointment was hailed as a sign that the pope had tapped someone of personal trust to keep an eye on things.
* On June 26, the Vatican announced that Francis had set up a five-member commission to investigate the Vatican bank, giving it full authority to interview personnel and collect information. The body includes two Americans: Msgr. Peter Wells of the Secretariat of State and former Ambassador to the Holy See Mary Ann Glendon.

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VATICAN CITY
NBC 12

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis on Friday cleared Pope John Paul II for sainthood, approving a miracle attributed to his intercession and setting up a remarkable dual canonization along with another beloved pope, John XXIII.

In a major demonstration of his papal authority, Francis decided to make John XXIII a saint even though the Vatican hasn’t confirmed a second miracle attributed to his intercession. The Vatican said Francis had the power to “dispense” with the normal saint-making procedures to canonize him on his own merit, without a miracle.

The ceremonies are expected before the end of the year. The date of Dec. 8 has been floated as one possibility, given it’s the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a major feast day for the church. Polish media continued to report that October was likely, to mark the anniversary of John Paul’s election, but Vatican officials have said that’s too soon to organize such a massive event. …

But there remains some concern that the process has been too quick. Some of the Holy See’s deep-seated problems – clerical sex abuse, dysfunctional governance and more recently the financial scandals at the Vatican bank – essentially date from shortcomings of his pontificate.

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UNITED STATES
PolicyMIc

Medha Chandorkar

The role of the Catholic Church is to guide and protect its followers. Except, apparently, when it’s protecting its pedophile priests instead.

According to hundreds of documents that were released this week, the Milwaukee archdiocese has ignored eight decades worth of sex-abuse scandals. Instead of investigating sexual assault claims against its priests, the Milwaukee archdiocese, headed at the time by current New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, either disregarded the claims or simply reassigned priests to unsuspecting parishes. Not surprisingly, this response did not prevent further assaults because it did nothing to address the real problem: pedophile priests.

In fact, the only people that benefited from the arrangement were the sexual assaulters themselves. Records show that one priest molested the same minor close to 40 times in the span of five years, while another assaulted over 200 boys as headmaster at a school for deaf boys. Some were moved over 11 times in 34 years, while others were stayed with the church for close to a decade after the Vatican was notified of their sexual child abuse.

If that’s not disgusting enough for you, consider the fact that Dolan and the Vatican frequently corresponded on the costs of fighting sexual assault claims in court, and when certain sex scandals threatened to surface, Dolan asked permission to move $57 million of the church’s money into a trust fund to protect it from “any legal claim and liability.” In short, prevent it from falling into the hands of those abused and violated by the church’s priests.

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CANADA
Canada.com

COMOX VALLEY ECHO JULY 5, 2013

Join us July 6 at 2 pm when local author Rev. Kevin Annett will read from his provocative book, Unrepentant: Disrobing the Emperor (2011).

Kevin will discuss his 20-year campaign to bring to light the abuses that occurred in Canada’s residential schools.

His campaign began on Vancouver Island in 1994, when Kevin was a minister in Port Alberni.

As one Amazon.ca reader says, “‘Disrobing The Emperor’ is the story of one man’s fight for truth, but in a broader sense,

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CANADA
Medicine Hat News

By Peggy Revell on July 5, 2013.

The public is invited out to an information session concerning Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian residential schools next Tuesday.

Organized by the Blood Tribe Department of Health alongside the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, the information session is taking place this July 9 at St. John’s Presbyterian Church from 6- 8 p.m.

The session is to provide information on what TRC statement gatherings are, explained Whitney Ogle with Miywasin Centre in Medicine Hat, which is partnering to help put the event on.

“What they look like, the changes that have been made for Indian residential schools’ survivors and their families.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Dan Cox

A police whistleblower has told an inquiry into an alleged cover-up of clergy sexual abuse in the New South Wales Hunter Valley he “makes no apologies” for his pursuit of justice.

Senior policeman Peter Fox claims the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese covered-up abuse by Father Denis McAlinden and Father James Fletcher.

Documents tendered this week show church officials, including three former Bishops, knew about the abuse by both men.

Peter Fox has today told the Commission if he had the documents in 2003, when he was investigating the paedophiles, it would have sparked a “major investigation” requiring three or four detectives.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

AP Interview: Vatican’s “007” on fighting money-laundering amid scandal at the Vatican bank

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, July 5

VATICAN CITY — The revelations of wrongdoing currently rocking the Vatican bank couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Swiss-born anti-money laundering expert hired to lead the Holy See’s push for greater financial transparency.

Rene Bruelhart was heading to Sun City, South Africa, for the annual meeting of the Egmont Group, a gathering of financial information agencies from 130 countries, when the Vatican announced that its top two bank managers had resigned amid a blossoming financial scandal. The two executives were responsible for implementing the Vatican bank’s much-touted anti-money laundering efforts. But their resignations indicated — at the very least — that they hadn’t fully embraced the full scope of reform that was needed.

Despite latest news, the Holy See won a coveted membership in the Egmont Group on Wednesday, joining a club that aims to share financial information in the global fight against money laundering and terror financing.

For Bruelhart, dubbed the “James Bond of the financial world” by some media, joining Egmont meant that the Vatican now has more help in combating financial crimes — even if it can’t root them out entirely.

“With this membership, we are a credible player in the international and global fight against money laundering and terror finance,” Bruelhart said in a telephone interview Thursday from Sun City. “They trust us. That is very important.”

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DEDHAM (MA)
Wicked Local Dedham

By Sara Feijo
Wicked Local Dedham
Posted Jul 05, 2013

DEDHAM —
Boston Roman Catholic Archdiocese Cardinal Sean O’Malley banned an Austrian priest from speaking at St. Susanna Parish in Dedham, even though the lecture would address ways to lessen shortage of priests.

Rev. Helmut Schuller, who is the founder of the Austrian Priests’ Initiative (Pfarrer-Initiative), was scheduled to speak at the parish on July 17.

St. Susanna’s Deacon Larry Bloom said that the Archbishop office did not allow Schuller’s lecture because he advocates positions contrary to the Catholic Church’s doctrine.

“I understand that the Archbishop has to do what he has to do,” Bloom said Thursday morning, June 27. “He has a bigger scope of individual responsibilities than a parish has, so I wasn’t upset.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
ABC News

By M.L. JOHNSON Associated Press

MILWAUKEE July 5, 2013 (AP)

Clergy sex abuse victims have long accused the Archdiocese of Milwaukee of spending more money on lawyers to protect itself than to care for those who suffered at the hands of abusive priests. An Associated Press analysis of documents released this week found most of the $30 million the archdiocese paid out through mid-2012 went to victim settlements and therapy, but the bulk of it went to just a few victims — while hundreds of others got no money at all.

The archdiocese released the records as part of a deal with victims suing it for fraud in federal bankruptcy court. The documents cover 88 settlements worth at least $6.6 million and provide the first detailed look at which victims were paid, how much and when. Until this week, the archdiocese had only released annual totals.

The records support victims’ longtime claim that Wisconsin for many years was among the more difficult states for them to get compensation. The main reason was a 1995 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that made it nearly impossible to hold the church responsible for its priests’ actions. The court said the church was protected from negligence lawsuits by the First Amendment. No longer afraid of litigation, the archdiocese established a no-settlement policy that lasted until the national clergy abuse scandal erupted in 2002.

“It was an appalling decision,” said Peter Isely, a longtime activist who now serves as the Midwest director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “Because (Milwaukee victims) were raped and sexually assaulted by a priest, unlike anywhere else in the country, they could not exercise their civil rights and file their case in court.”

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