ABUSE TRACKER

OSTERREICH
VOL

Die “Plattform Betroffener kirchlicher Gewalt” hat die römisch-katholische Kirche mit dem Vorwurf konfrontiert, 40 des Missbrauchs verdächtigte Priester und Mitarbeiter seien nach wie vor im Dienst. In Briefen mit den Namen der beschuldigten forderte die Organisation Konsequenzen von den zuständigen Bischöfen. Man werde die Vorwürfe “ernsthaft prüfen”, so die Bischofskonferenz via “Kathpress”.

Einige Priester seien zwar kurzfristig suspendiert, aber nach Abflauen des öffentlichen Interesses schon bald wieder in der Seelsorge eingesetzt worden, wirft die Plattform den Diözesen vor. “Die Hoffnung, dass seitens der römisch-katholischen Kirche nachhaltige Konsequenzen gezogen wurden, hat sich bis jetzt nicht erfüllt. Diese zögerliche Haltung stellt eine der Ursachen für sexuelle Gewalt in der Kirche dar.” Bis Ende Juli 2012 will die Organisation über die Ergebnisse informiert werden.

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OSTERREICH
OE1@ORF

“Wir werden die Vorwürfe ernsthaft prüfen” – so reagiert die Bischofskonferenz auf die Plattform Betroffener kirchlicher Gewalt, die der katholischen Kirche vorwirft, dass 40 Priester und Mitarbeiter nach wie vor im Dienst sind, obwohl ihnen sexuelle Gewalt vorgeworfen wird.

Massive Vorwürfe

In der katholischen Kirche werde nach wie vor vertuscht, kritisiert Sepp Rothwangl, Obmann der Plattform Betroffener kirchlicher Gewalt, viele Beschuldigte seien einfach nur versetzt worden. Die Betroffenen könnten nicht verstehen, warum die Kirche nicht reagiert und warum Kinder immer noch schutzlos ausgeliefert seien.

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VATIKAN
netzwerkB

Ein Kommentar von Doro

Endlich findet man im Vatikan einmal angemessene Worte: „Unmoralischer Akt von unerhörter Schwere“. Und zwar prompt, praktisch unmittelbar nach Aufdeckung dieser „Unmoralischen Akte unerhörter Schwere“.

Endlich werden einmal die Dinge gerade gerückt, die Verhältnisse geklärt, die Fakten klar beim Namen genannt.

Wie? Nein, es geht nicht um den zehntausendfachen weltweiten sexuellen Missbrauch an Kindern durch katholische Pfarrer.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Rundschau

Von Joachim Frank
Der Trierer Bischof Ackermann weist den Vorwurf gefährlicher Milde gegenüber pädophilen Priestern zurück. Diese dürften in seinem Bistum nur auf Basis eines forensisch-psychiatrischen Gutachtens und „in eingeschränkten Feldern mit Auflagen“ arbeiten.

Köln –

Das sagte Stephan Ackermann, der auch Missbrauchsbeauftragter der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz ist, im Kölner „domradio“. Diese eingeschränkte Arbeitseinstellung auf Basis eines Gutachtens entspreche den neugefassten bischöflichen Leitlinien.

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OSTERREICH
Tiroler Tageszeitung

Von Brigitte Warenski

Innsbruck, Wien – Ein Pater (Namen der Redaktion alle bekannt) soll Schüler sexuell missbraucht haben und ist nun als Pfarrer im Amt. Ein anderer Pater hat sich an Internatsschülern und Ministranten sexuell vergangen, wurde 2011 wegen Nötigung verurteilt und arbeitet weiter als Aushilfspriester. Ein weiterer Pfarrer soll sich ebenfalls des sexuellen Missbrauchs schuldig gemacht haben und wurde in eine andere Pfarre versetzt, wo er zurzeit immer noch tätig ist. Ein Laienmitarbeiter soll Kinder zum Sex gezwungen haben und arbeitet weiterhin in der Diözese Innsbruck.

Dass die katholische Kirche mutmaßliche und verurteilte Täter „nur versetzt hat, und das auch weiter tut, ist ein Skandal“, meint Philipp Schwärzler von der Plattform „Betroffener kirchlicher Gewalt“. In einem Brief, der heute an Bischof Manfred Scheuer geschickt wird, fordert die Plattform das Tiroler Kirchenoberhaupt auf, „endlich ernsthafte Konsequenzen zu ziehen“.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit zu beten

4. Juni 2012

Die Kirche befindet sich wieder einmal unter Zugzwang: Laut der Plattform “Betroffener kirchlicher Gewalt” sind rund 40 beschuldigte Kirchenmitarbeiter, denen sexuelle Gewalt gegen Kinder und Jugendliche vorgeworfen wird, immer noch im Amt. Die Plattform hat außerdem eine Liste der Beschuldigten an neun Bischöfe geschickt und fordert nun Konsequenzen. (Kurier, 04.06.2012, 14:27)

Es folgt eine Pressrundschau, die den Umgang der katholischen Kirche mit des sexuellen Missbrauchs beschuldigten Priestern und Mitarbeitern wiedergeben soll. Für viele der Opfer physischer und sexueller Gewalt wurde zweifelsohne einiges unternommen; ob von den zuständigen Organen im Sinne der Aufarbeitung und Entschädigung gut gehandelt wurde, ist nach wie vor schwer zu beurteilen. Heute geht es aber um eine anderes Thema: Wie verfährt die österreichische katholische Kirche mit den betreffenden Priestern und Mitarbeitern? Angesichts der gesammelten Presseberichte zeigt sich ein trauriges Bild, kurz zusammengefasst in diesen Punkten:
•Eine deutlich zweistellige Zahl von beschuldigten Priestern und Mitarbeitern befindet sich weiterhin im Amt

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UNITED STATES
National Review

By Ann Carey

June 4, 2012

The mainstream media has had a field day with the June 1 press release of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) accusing the Vatican of causing “scandal” and “polarization” by identifying doctrinal problems within the LCWR that need to be corrected. What is really an internal Church matter about the proper role of an organization that has canonical standing in the Catholic Church has become a hot topic in a media that seems to delight in any controversy within the Church, especially one that involves challenges to its authority.

Headlines like “U.S. Nuns crack back at Vatican crackdown” (USA Today, June 1) and “American nuns come out swinging against Vatican” (CNN, June 1) might be funny if they weren’t so very ignorant. In fact, ignorance and bias have marked much of the media’s coverage of the doctrinal assessment of the LCWR by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Or perhaps it’s laziness, for it is clear that many of the people writing about this issue know little about the Catholic Church and even less about the background for this story.

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PHILADLEPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The jury in the Philadelphia clergy abuse case continues its work (see previous story). Today, the panel submitted another series of questions about the law as it applies to the charges against Monsignor William Lynn and Father James Brennan, who are on trial.

The jury sought clarification on the attempted rape charge against Brennan, and the jury had a number of questions related to the conspiracy and child endangerment charges against Lynn.

The issues in some respects are complicated and technical.

In response to two questions, for example, jurors sought clarification on the word “and” specific to legal issues. The attorneys for the defense and prosecution could not agree on a response.

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CANADA
Cape Breton Post

CORNER BROOK, N.L. (CP) — There has been a delay in the court case involving a 74-year-old Roman Catholic priest from western Newfoundland who faces 62-sex-related charges.

The Crown says it is waiting for the outcome of an ongoing investigation in Nova Scotia into further allegations against George Ansel Smith.

As a result, the case has been set over until Sept. 10.

The case was called in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador in Corner Brook on Monday.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has condemned a book published by sister Farley which goes against the Catholic doctrine on divorce and same-sex unions and sexuality

Alessandro Speciale
Vatican City

New tensions between U.S. nuns and the Vatican are looming. Yesterday, the “commissioner” in charge of reforming the biggest organisation of women religious in the U.S., the Archbishop of Seattle, Mgr. Peter Sartain, tried to adopt a conciliatory tone, promising the Leadership Conference of Women Religious dialogue “in a spirit of openness, honesty, integrity and faithfulness to Church doctrine.”

But today the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith expressed new criticisms against Margaret A. Farley’s book “Just Love. A Framework for Christian Sexual Etichs”. Sister Farley is a member of the Sisters of Mercy religious order. The Congregation claimed the book “affirms positions that are in direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality “ and deals with controversial subjects such as “masturbation, homosexual acts, homosexual unions, the indissolubility of marriage and the problem of divorce and remarriage.” According to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Sister Farley “either ignores the constant teaching of the Magisterium or, where it is occasionally mentioned, treats it as one opinion among others.”

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ROME
Vatican Insider

The battle in the Holy See rages on as poison pen letter writer threatens to publish more confidential documents

Andrea Tornielli
Milan

On the very day that the Pope was welcomed with open arms by the one million people that spent the night out in the open or walked from faraway neighbourhoods all the way to Milan’s Bresso park, the poison pen letters writer struck again with another threat.

What with the final mass and the sea of people gathered for the final few hours of the Pope’s visit, Benedict XVI’s retinue did not have much time to think about the latest warning sent by the person responsible for the confidential document leak. The poison pen letter writer sent an ultimatum published in Italian newspaper La Repubblica. It was sent in the form of two letters which contained the letterhead, date and signature of the Pope’s secretary, Fr. Georg Gänswein, but no text. The mole said he/she would publish the content of the letters if Ratzinger did not get rid of his closest collaborators. But despite the evident leap in terms of the management of the Vatileaks operation, – which appears increasingly as if it is being led by experts who are aiming to strike hard at those closest to the Pope – tensions did not affect the final events of the World Meeting of Families in Milan.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin and Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Hours into their first full day of deliberations, jurors in the landmark clergy sex-abuse trial of two Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests asked the judge Monday to clarify the charges and if they need to reach verdicts on both defendants before alerting the court.

Neither Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina nor the lawyers in the case speculated on the meaning of the requests. The judge and lawyers planned to reconvene early Monday afternoon to resolve how to respond to the inquiries.

But the questions suggested the jurors were still weighing the evidence against Msgr. William J. Lynn and the Rev. James J. Brennan.

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Democratic Underground

Sex Crimes and the Vatican

Created in 1962, a now infamous document was issued in secret to bishops. Called Crimen Sollicitationis, it outlined procedures to be followed by bishops when dealing with allegations of child abuse, homosexuality and bestiality by members of the clergy. It swore all parties involved to secrecy on pain of excommunication from the Catholic Church.

This document was reissued in 2001 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and sent to all bishops. Yet rather than ordering more openness and cooperation with the authorities as demanded by both law enforcers and the victims, he reiterated its policies and ensured that the Code of Silence be applied to all cases of child abuse involving a priest. Cardinal Ratzinger also instructed that all cases should now be referred to his office directly and that he would maintain ‘exclusive competence’ over the handling of allegations. This is the Catholic Church’s policy to this day and Cardinal Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI.

The policy laid out in the above document has led to systemic failure by the result that a significant number of priest have, in effect, been allowed to abuse again, and further children have been put at risk.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Washington Post

Philadelphia priest-abuse jury asks questions about conspiracy, attempted rape charges

By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, June 4, 1:12 PM

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia jury weighing a groundbreaking priest-abuse case has divided lawyers with questions on a conspiracy charge.

Monsignor William Lynn is a former official at the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Philadelphia. He is the first U.S. church official charged with conspiracy and child endangerment for allegedly mishandling abuse complaints.

Jurors have asked if Lynn had to conspire with both a convicted priest and other church officials, or just one party, to be convicted of conspiracy.

Defense lawyers say the answer is both. Prosecutors say one finding is enough to convict. The judge is weighing the arguments.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

On Saturday, I said that in the near future I’d write more about the lie that the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan has told re: his knowledge of payoffs made to priests abusing minors in the Milwaukee archdiocese to encourage those priests to disappear quietly. When I planned to take up that topic this morning, I had thought that my comments would be Johnny-come-lately remarks, since Laurie Goodstein reported on this story in the New York Times on 30 May, and it has been in the news for almost a full week now.

But now, after having refused for five days to address the claims that he knew about payoffs to priests abusing minors in Milwaukee and has lied to the public about his knowledge of these payoffs, His Eminence finally broke silence just yesterday. Speaking to reporters after Sunday Mass at St. Patrick’s cathedral (on the eve of a trip to Ireland to attend the International Eucharistic Conference next weekend), His Eminence chose to mount an attack instead of directly addressing the allegation that he has lied to the public.

As Brigid Bergen reports for the WNYC news blog, in his remarks yesterday, His Eminence attacked two bearers of the news that he has long had knowledge of payoffs to pedophile priests in the Milwaukee archdiocese and has lied about that knowledge. His Eminence attacked media reports–specifically, it would appear, Goodstein’s in the Times–as inaccurate and unfair. And he attacked the group Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests, SNAP, as lacking all credibility and peddling “groundless and scurrilous” charges against him to which he refuses to respond.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Jamie L Manson on Jun. 04, 2012

Only weeks after taking a broad swipe at the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has returned to its more typical routine of taking aim at individual theologians.

The latest target is Mercy Sr. Margaret Farley, professor emeritus of Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School, and her 2006 book Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics.

On Monday morning, the CDF published a notification that states Just Love does not reflect the official teaching of the Magisterium and, therefore, “cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counseling or formation, or in ecumenical or interreligious dialogue.”

As Farley herself said in her response to the notification, Just Love “was not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this teaching.” The goal of this book was to engage discussion about issues in sexual ethics, knowing that fruitful discussion becomes possible only if critical questions are pressed.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian and John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writers

Update 10:15 a.m. Tuesday: The jury has resumed deliberations.

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CANADA
The Western Star

With the investigation into further sex offences ongoing, the matter of George Ansel Smith has been set over in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador until September.

The Crown is still waiting the outcome of the ongoing investigation in Nova Scotia into further allegations against Roman Catholic priest George Ansel Smith, who has 62 sex-related charges against him in Newfoundland and Labrador.

It’s much the same position the provincial Crown has been in for the last two months.

The case was called in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador in Corner Brook Monday morning. Crown prosecutor Trina Simms informed Justice Alan Seaborn that she believes the out-of-province investigation should be concluded before the court’s next scheduled arraignment date, which is not until September.

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NEW YORK
NY1

[with video]

[minutes of the Milwaukee archdiocesan financial council]

Cardinal Timothy Dolan is slamming a report suggesting he authorized payments to priests accused of sexual abuse in exchange for them leaving the church.

The New York Times last week cited documents showing that when Dolan was Archbishop of Milwaukee in 2003 he agreed to pay several alleged pedophile priests $20,000 if they left the church.

The Milwaukee Archdiocese also admitted to the payouts after the plan was revealed by the advocacy group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.

While speaking to reporters Sunday, Dolan claimed the payments were “charity.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

BY DELLARAM VREELAND

04 Jun, 2012

CATHOLIC clergy in Australia should be held accountable for any abuse they may have perpetrated towards young people, according to outspoken priest Father Bob Maguire.

Speaking in support of a parliamentary inquiry into clergy and other sexual abuse during a visit to Ballarat yesterday, Fr Bob said the Catholic Church should be ashamed of the scandal which has rocked the organisation.

He said it was imperative that every institution should “be open, transparent and questioned” for acts they may or may not have committed.

“It’s the kind of thing that should be expected by any institution, civil or religious … especially when you can see so much turmoil in a natural resource, and that is the hearts and minds of our children which surely was a reaction of their abuse as children whether sexual or emotional,” Fr Bob said.

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ROME
Spiegel

By Fiona Ehlers in Rome

Though Pope Benedict XVI’s personal butler has been arrested in connection with the “Vatileaks” scandal, new documents released over the weekend indicate he had powerful backers that remain unidentified. The secret documents expose the pontiff’s awkward and helpless leadership in the Church.

Do the two know each other? Is one the other’s source? Could it be that they teamed up to harm the German-born head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI?

Few others in Rome have been the object of such intense speculation recently as these two men. But, as chance would have it, despite their physical proximity, they probably won’t be running into each other any time soon.

One of them is looking out of a 4 meter (13 foot) by 4 meter detention cell in a Vatican police station on the wall surrounding the papal state. He has been sitting there for almost two weeks now, and almost everyone knows his name: Paolo Gabriele, the pope’s 46-year-old personal butler.

Shortly before Pentecost, Benedict’s private secretary, Monsignor Georg Gänswein, reportedly uncovered Gabriele as a spy. Investigators found four boxes with copies of strictly confidential letters to and from Pope Benedict in Gabriele’s apartment.

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CANADA
CBC News

The Archdiocese of Moncton is asking people from Cap-Pelé who were victims of sexual abuse by former priest Camille Léger to contact Michel Bastarache, the retired Supreme Court of Canada justice.

Archbishop André Richard said in a letter the church will continue to offer counselling to Léger’s victims who come forward.

But now the church has obtained the services of Bastarache, who will set up and manage a conciliation process for people with complaints about Léger.

Richard said Bastarache’s sense of justice and understanding of people in the community and the province will allow him to help those who have been wronged.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

June 4, 2012 by Susan Matthews

Pope Benedict announced Sunday that Philadelphia will host the World Family Meeting in 2015. This could be viewed as a positive sign of support to Philadelphia during troubled times. Despite often being characterized as relentlessly optimistic, I’m not ready to call this a positive.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning group Amnesty International cited the Vatican in its 2011 annual report for human rights violations because of the clergy sex abuse crisis in Ireland. Since then, the Vatican has done little to address this incredible failure in any part of the world. Instead, the news from Rome is “the butler did it” and that nuns are spending too much time on the poor.

While the papal visit in 1979 was an incredible spiritual event, this one will ring hollow if the recommendations of the 2011 Grand Jury report are still not met years later in 2015. If our children are still under-protected, there is nothing to celebrate.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Philly Post

Kevin Cirilli

Not even the chosen 12 can question a dead man. For the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, judgment day is under way. A 12-person jury is deciding the fate of Monsignor William Lynn, charged with covering up alleged pedophile priests. But no matter what the jury decides, Philly Catholics won’t ever get the answers from the man who perhaps knew the most: the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

The question for the jury isn’t could Lynn have done more, but rather, does law require him to do so?

For any defendant to testify in a case is risky. And Lynn is the highest-ranking church official to have been charged in the scandal. So when Lynn, 61, took the stand in late May, those who have been following the case couldn’t help but wonder if he could handle it.

But this is a man who has, since 1992 when he first learned of a child molestation case, according to court documents, spent more than a decade covering it up. He is a priest, trained at giving vague answers to some of life’s biggest questions. Could he handle court? He was trained for it. Lynn took the stand sporting his black priest gear to cover up his humanness, as Rolling Stone reported.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian and John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writers

The 11 weeks of speeches, emotional and shocking testimony, and legal fireworks are now memories.

When the landmark conspiracy and sex-abuse trial involving Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests resumes Monday, the action will be behind closed doors: a jury room off the large third-floor courtroom at the city’s Criminal Justice Center.

There, seven women and five men will begin their first full day of trying to decide whether Msgr. William J. Lynn is criminally culpable for how the Philadelphia church handled the crimes of some of its priests.

The Common Pleas Court jurors worked just three hours Friday, but they already appear deep into dissecting the evidence.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
MyFoxPhilly

[with video]

PHILADELPHIA –
Today could be the day we learn if Monsignor William Lynn will be convicted or found not guilty of shuffling pedophile priests around the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Jury deliberations continue Monday in the Philadelphia priest sex abuse trial.

Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged for his handling of the abuse complaints.

His co-defendant, Rev. James Brennan, is accused of molesting a teen in 1996.

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UNITED STATES
SNAP Wisconsin

Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director (Milwaukee)
CONTACT: 414.429.7259

After five days of silence, in remarks to the media this afternoon Cardinal Dolan, instead of explaining his actions of paying off pedophile priests to leave the priesthood while he was Archbishop of Milwaukee and then misleading the public about it in 2006, blasted the New York Times and the victim advocacy group SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

It is not victim/survivors of predator priests in Milwaukee or the New York Times who publically confirmed, based on the official minutes of a meeting Dolan attended while the Archbishop of Milwaukee, that Dolan had authorized payments to child sex offender priests in order to be officially “laicized” and leave the priesthood. It was the Archdiocese of Milwaukee itself, including Dolan’s long time Milwaukee Chief of Staff, Jerry Topczewski. And it was confirmed several times, over several days. Presumably, Dolan does not consider that his former Archdiocese is making “groundless and scurrilous” charges about him? In fact, Dolan’s spokesperson said last week that Dolan “agreed” with the statements being issued by the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

But secretly paying off sex offenders to quietly leave the priesthood is not, as indefensible as that is, what is most damning about Dolan’s conduct. It is, rather, that he appears to have deliberately lied about it: to the public, to Catholics, and most egregiously of all, to victim/survivors of the very same predator priests he was paying off.

In 2006, when Dolan was confronted with evidence that he had implemented such a payout to notorious Milwaukee pedophile priest, Franklyn Becker, he loudly, unambiguously, and self-righteously denied that he had done so. “For anyone to assert” Dolan wrote in a statement at the time “that this money was a ‘payoff’ or occurred in exchange for Becker agreeing to leave the priesthood is completely false, preposterous and unjust.”

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NEW YORK
New York Post

[minutes of the Milwaukee archdiocesan financial council]

By ANTONIO ANTENUCCI and JOSH SAUL

Last Updated: 5:48 AM, June 4, 2012

Timothy Cardinal Dolan yesterday blasted a report that he authorized payments to pedophile priests — and said no such payments are being made to New York clerics.

Dolan, while serving as Milwaukee archbishop in 2003, agreed to pay multiple accused pedophile priests $20,000 in exchange for their agreeing to leave the priesthood, according to documents cited by The New York Times.

Joseph Zwilling, Dolan’s New York Archdiocese spokesman, told The Post last week that there was no “payoff” to pedophile priests — only “charity.”

“The New York Times does not have a reputation for fair and accurate reporting when it comes to this issue,” Dolan said yesterday after Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown. “So, to respond to charges like that — that are groundless and scurrilous — in my book it’s useless and counterproductive.”

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UNITED STATES
Irish Central

[minutes of the Milwaukee archdiocesan finance council]

By
JAMES O’SHEA,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Monday, June 4, 2012

Timothy Cardinal Dolan has blasted The New York Times for claiming that he gave payments to pedophile priests when he was Bishop of Milwaukee.

The Times revealed that documents recently released showed that the diocese agreed to pay accused priests $20,000 each to facilitate them leaving the priesthood.

“The New York Times does not have a reputation for fair and accurate reporting when it comes to this issue,” Dolan said yesterday after Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. “So, to respond to charges like that — that are groundless and scurrilous — in my book it’s useless and counterproductive.”

Joseph Zwilling, New York Archdiocese spokesman,had told The New York Post last week that there was no “payoff” to pedophile priests — only “charity.”

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NEW YORK
WNYC

Sunday, June 03, 2012

By Brigid Bergin : WNYC Producer

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of the Catholic Diocese of New York, said on Sunday that reports he approved payments to priests facing sex abuse charges while he was archbishop of Milwaukee were “groundless and scurrilous.”

Speaking to reporters after mass at St. Patrick’s on Sunday, Dolan blasted the New York Times’ coverage of “this issue” saying it was not fair or accurate. He also took aim at the organization behind the charges – specifically the abuse victims’ advocate group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, which recently made public a document from the archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings that references a proposal to pay up to $20,000 to priests accused of abuse who return to the laity.

“SNAP has no credibility whatsoever,” Dolan said. “To respond to charges like that that are groundless and scurrilous in my book is useless and counterproductive.”

The Times was among numerous media organizations that reported about the document made public by SNAP.

Dolan’s comments Sunday seemed to contradict a statement made to WNYC by a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York last week, which said that the cardinal “has read and supports the statement from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.”

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UNITED STATES
Patrick J. Wall

Has anything in Roman Catholic Church changed when it comes to child protection?

At first blush I deeply want to be believe: yes. The faithful have endured 28 years of civil litigation, several grand jury reports, billions of dollars in settlements, and several high profile criminal trials. However, when I reviewed the most recent proceedings of the Canon Law Society at their 2011 convention in Jacksonville, Florida, my heart dropped.

Diane L. Barr JD, JCD (who is also the chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore) presented a seminar, “Obligation of the Tribunal to Report Child Abuse“. Barr reviewed mandatory criminal child abuse reporting laws versus canonical responsibilities—that it, what “church law” says she should do. She also discussed obligations to privacy, confidentiality and protecting the Diocese. No mention of victims or child protection.

Let’s get something straight: nowhere in the United States does Canon law trump federal, state, or local criminal or civil law. But apparently, Barr does not know that.

Lessons Learned? Eh … not really.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 4 June 2012 (VIS) – The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith today published a “Notification Regarding the Book ‘Just Love. A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics’ by Sister Margaret A. Farley R.S.M”. The document warns the faithful that the work in question “is not in conformity with the teaching of the Church. Consequently it cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counselling and formation, or in ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue”. The English-language Notification is signed by Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and has been approved by the Holy Father.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote to Sr. Farley in 2010 enclosing a preliminary evaluation of her book and indicating the doctrinal problems it contained, however her answer failed to clarify those issues in a satisfactory manner. The Congregation therefore proceeded to examine the volume following the procedure for “examination in cases of urgency”. In June 2011 a commission of experts confirmed that the “book contained erroneous propositions, the dissemination of which risks grave harm to the faithful”. Sr. Farley was sent a list of the erroneous propositions and invited to correct them, but her response “did not adequately clarify the grave problems contained in her book” and the Congregation decided to proceed with the publication of this Notification, extracts of which are given below.

“The author does not present a correct understanding of the role of the Church’s Magisterium as the teaching authority of the bishops united with the Successor of Peter, which guides the Church’s ever deeper understanding of the Word of God as found in Holy Scripture. … In addressing various moral issues, Sr. Farley either ignores the constant teaching of the Magisterium or, where it is occasionally mentioned, treats it as one opinion among others. … Sr. Farley also manifests a defective understanding of the objective nature of the natural moral law”.

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VATIKAN
Welt

Die Enthüllungsaffäre um gestohlene Vatikan-Dokumente schwelt weiter: Einer italienischen Zeitung sind wieder Schreiben aus dem Vatikan zugespielt worden. Der Papst macht derweil weiter wie zuvor.

Der Enthüllungsskandal im Vatikan findet für Papst Benedikt XVI. kein Ende: Anderthalb Wochen nach der Festnahme des päpstlichen Kammerdieners wurden nach einem Zeitungsbericht neue vertrauliche Dokumente aus dem Vatikan publik.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Berliner Zeitung

Berlin –

Mitte der Neunziger wurde ein 16-Jähriger von einem Berliner Kaplan missbraucht. An diesem Wochenende wollte die katholische Kirche den Fall nun mit einer dürren Erklärung vor der St.-Marien-Gemeinde in Reinickendorf abschließen. Doch niemand hatte damit gerechnet, dass das Opfer den Gottesdienst besuchen würde.

Es ist zehn Uhr am Morgen, als Peter Beyer* vor der Kirche in seinen roten Schuhen von einem Bein aufs andere tritt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

Missbrauch: Kirchenjustiz ermittelt gegen 16 Trierer Bistumspriester

Wegen möglichen Missbrauchs Minderjähriger ist in den vergangenen zwei Jahren gegen 16 Trierer Bistumspriester eine kirchenrechtliche Untersuchung eingeleitet worden. Im schlimmsten Fall droht den Klerikern der Rauswurf.

Liegt es an der harten Hand des katholischen Missbrauchsbeauftragten Stephan Ackermann? Oder ist die Zahl der Missbrauchspriester in seinem Heimatbistum höher als in anderen Diözesen? Seit Februar 2010 wurden im Bistum Trier gegen 16 der insgesamt 700 Priester sogenannte kirchenrechtliche Voruntersuchungen eingeleitet. Dabei geht es um eine mögliche Bestrafung der Geistlichen durch die katholische Kirche. Nach Angaben von Bischofssprecher Stephan Kronenburg sind neun Verfahren “seitens des Bistums abgeschlossen”; die Abschlussberichte gingen nun an die Glaubenskongregation in Rom. Dort werde über das weitere Vorgehen entschieden, sagte Kronenburg unserer Zeitung.

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VATICAN CITY
CathNews

BY MICHAEL MULLINS

Sandro Magister writes on the Vatican leaks, bickering among Cardinals Bertone and Nicora on the Vatican Bank, and a bungled attempt by the some cardinals to take over a major hospital in Milan. His conclusion:

“The boundary between illicit acts and those of simple mismanagement has become very slender, almost nonexistent”.

The Tablet’s Robert Mickens blames the troubles on a “lack of transparency in most of the Roman Curia’s operating structures” that is a consequence of “the clericalist ethos that permeates the curia”.

[Clericalism] serves only to shield members of the hierarchy from being judged by (or held accountable to) anyone of lower rank or by the lay faithful – and certainly from anyone outside the Vatican… In the end, the continued confusion and negative press that all of this has generated have cast this pontificate in an extremely negative light.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Monday, June 4, 2012

To hear District Attorney Charles Hynes now tell it, members of Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community have criminally protected child sex abusers by bullying victims and their families into silence.

“I haven’t seen this kind of intimidation in organized-crime cases or police corruption,” Hynes declared in an interview with the Daily News.

So whom among these obstructors of justice did Hynes prosecute? Virtually no one. And who
m among the predators did he send to prison? Far, far fewer than he should have across the first 19 of his more than 22 years in office.

As Hynes stunningly admitted to the Jewish Daily Forward, for almost two decades he was “completely unsuccessful” in prosecuting sex abuse by ultra-Orthodox Brooklynites, a group that was politically important to him and whose leaders discourage, as a matter of religion, involvement with civil authorities.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

Local officials and parishioners hailed the announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that he plans to visit Philadelphia in 2015 when it is the site of the next World Meeting of Families, some adding that it might heal divisions caused by the clergy abuse scandals of recent years.

Benedict announced the venue during a Sunday Mass in Milan celebrating the seventh such gathering of families from around the world. The pope sent his greetings to Archbishop Charles Chaput and the Catholics “of that great city” and said he was looking forward to meeting them in 2015.

Officials said it was too early to confirm the papal calendar. Traditionally papal trips abroad are usually confirmed first by the local diocese hosting the trip once the dates are set, a few months before the journey. And the Vatican releases details of such a pilgrimage only a few weeks before departure. Since becoming pope, Benedict attended a world families meeting in Valencia, Spain, but skipped one in Mexico.

The announcement of the papal visit comes as jurors in Philadelphia are deliberating in the landmark trial of a former Roman Catholic church official charged with conspiring to hide priest-abuse complaints and endangering children by keeping predators in ministry.

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ROME
The Daily Beast

Jun 4, 2012

Barbie Latza Nadeau

Fresh leaks from inside the Vatican suggest that the pope’s attendant was merely the ‘scapegoat’ of a much more powerful culprit. Barbie Latza Nadeau on what the latest twist has exposed.

The VatiLeaks source has struck again! But this time, the butler didn’t do it.

On Sunday, editors at the Italian newspaper La Repubblica published several documents they say were mailed to them after the arrest of Pope Benedict XVI’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, on May 24.

Gabriele is being held in a “secure room” somewhere within the tiny walled borders of Vatican City. He faces 30 years in prison for aggravated theft for allegedly leaking documents to Gianluigi Nuzzi, an Italian journalist who printed many of the confidential papers in the bestselling book His Holiness. Nuzzi will not reveal his sources’ names, ages, or gender, but he told The Daily Beast that they were Vatican employees trying to expose “the truth behind the Vatican’s lies.”

Among the fresh leaks obtained by La Repubblica are supposedly letters from the desk of the pope’s private secretary, featuring the Holy See’s crested letterhead and the signature “don Georg Gaenswein.” The contents are blanked out; the secret sender told the paper that the bodies of the letters were hidden so as not to “offend the Holy Father,” but that he or she was prepared to share them if the Vatican didn’t come clean about the real source of the leaks.

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VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By RACHEL DONADIO

Published: June 3, 2012

VATICAN CITY — In an undisclosed location here, the Vatican authorities are busy questioning Paolo Gabriele, the pope’s butler, and others in a widening leaks scandal that has made the seat of the Roman Catholic Church appear to be a hornet’s nest of back-stabbing and gossip.

Across town, in the lobby of a fancy hotel on the Via Veneto, Gianluigi Nuzzi, the investigative reporter whose new book based on some of the leaks has sent the Vatican into a tailspin, was holding court and looking rather pleased.

“I’m serene, I’m tranquil, convinced that I did my work in a correct way, without raising questions about the Holy Father,” Mr. Nuzzi said in an interview last week, during which he was twice interrupted by fans asking him to sign copies of his book, “Your Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI.”

With its glimpses of behind-the-scenes spats in the Apostolic Palace, where the pope lives, and high-stakes power struggles over the secretive — and lucrative — Vatican bank, the book has set Italy abuzz even during a week dominated by a deadly earthquake, dismal economic forecasts and a soccer match-fixing investigation that has shaken Italians’ faith in an institution almost as beloved as the papacy.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Patriot-News

Catholic officials in Harrisburg say pope’s 2015 visit to Philladelphia might heal divisions caused by clergy abuse scandal

By MARY KLAUS, The Patriot-News

PHILADELPHIA — An announcement Sunday by Pope Benedict XVI that he plans to visit Philadelphia in 2015 when it hosts the World Meeting of Families caused some local officials to say the visit might heal divisions caused by the clergy abuse scandals.

Benedict announced the visit during a Sunday Mass in Milan celebrating the seventh such gathering of families from around the world. The pope sent his greetings to Archbishop Charles Chaput and the Catholics “of that great city.”

The pope’s announcement comes as jurors in Philadelphia deliberate in the landmark trial of a former Roman Catholic church official charged with conspiring to hide priest-abuse complaints and endangering children by keeping predators in ministry.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
Seamus Heaney,”The Cure at Troy”

Kristine Ward

Life is hard here. Here in Northern Ireland. This is the land of Derry and Belfast. These are the cities of the datelines of the decades of the most recent “troubles.”

The peace is still nascent here.

As the Olympic Torch moves through a five (5) day relay across this part of the United Kingdom there is determination that the days will not be marred by violence or incident.

This is country that still lives intimately with heaviness and hardship. It cannot be hidden. It embosses the faces of the local residents even as they play hide and seek with it in the lifting of a Saturday night pint of Guinness to the rhythms of the fiddle.

We take pause in asking more of these people.

But ask we must for the government of Northern Ireland is on the verge of announcing an inquiry into sexual abuse in Northern Ireland.

Inquiry yes.

But not a vapid whitewash.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Whispers in the Loggia

Fresh off the wire from Milan (via 222), Archbishop Charles Chaput OFM Cap. released the following statement on Pope Benedict’s selection of Philadelphia this morning to host the Eighth World Meeting of Families in 2015:

“I am so grateful to the Holy Father that he has chosen Philadelphia and excited that we will host the 2015 World Meeting of Families. It’s fitting that this gathering, which celebrates the cornerstone of society, will take place in America’s cradle of freedom. The Holy Father’s choice is a gift to the local Church in Philadelphia and to the whole nation.

“The family is founded on a deep and loving union between one man and one woman for mutual support and the nurturing of children. This meeting in Philadelphia will be a wonderful opportunity to highlight the family as the basic evangelizing unit of the Church. Every effort to promote marriage and the family serves not only the Church, but also the common good.”

In comments to Catholic News Service, Chaput said that, given the difficult financial situation of the Philadelphia church, he made clear to Vatican officials that the city could only host the event if it were considerably smaller — “60,000 to 80,000” people — than earlier editions of the WMF. (The crowd at today’s closing Mass in Milan, for example, reportedly topped out at a million.)

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

Jason Nark, Regina Medina and John F. Morrison
Philadelphia Daily News

AN ELDERLY woman knelt in the last pew of St. Monica’s Church in South Philly on Sunday, a rosary intertwined in her fingers, while a shaggy-haired teenager in basketball shorts played with his cellphone one pew up —both beneath a pastel-painted ceiling of the afterlife.

Catholics in Philly still struggle with the universal mysteries while grappling with the still-simmering sex-abuse scandal that rocked both the diocese here and the faith around the globe. Adherents expect guidance from Rome in the toughest times — and, so, it’s always a monumental moment when Rome comes to you.

It was announced Sunday that Philadelphia will host Pope Benedict XVI for the 2015 World Meeting of Families, the city’s first papal visit since 1979 when a million people crammed the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to see Pope John Paul II. …

The Pope passed over Philadelphia back in 2008 when he visited Washington D.C., then New York.

“What changed? Two things. The grand-jury report, and the eruption that emerged from it, changed everything,” said Vatican expert Rocco Palmo, who writes the Catholic-themed blog Whispers in the Loggia.

“We’ve been through the toughest period that any American diocese has been through in the last 50 years. It’s the darkest hour the Philadelphia Archdiocese has gone through in 200 years.”

Chaput was handpicked by Pope Benedict XVI to lead Philadelphia through traumatic times, and Palmo said that the papal visit is a “vote of confidence” in the Archbishop’s leadership.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sunday Leader

By Uvindu Kurukulasuriya – reporting from London

Chief Sanghanayaka Thera of Great Britain and Chief Incumbent of the Thames Buddhist Vihara and Parivenadhipathi of the Vidyaravinda Pirivena, Pahalagama, Gampaha and Chief Lekhadhikari of the Sri Kalyani Samagi Dharma Maha Sangha Sabha has been convicted of four counts of indecent assault on an underage person and sentenced to seven years in prison, a judge ruled Friday June 1, 2012. He has also been banned from working with children for life and his name is added to the sex offenders register.

Monk Pahalagama Somaratana, 65, of Dulverton Road, Croydon was initially convicted at Isleworth Crown Court on May 1, 2012 of four counts of indecent assault on a female under 16 years between January 1, 1977 and December 31,1978 at an address in Chiswick.

He was found not guilty of the rape of a female under 16 years between January 1,1977 and December 31,1978 at an address in Chiswick and not guilty of indecent assault on a female under 14 years between January 1,1985 and December 31, 1986 at an address in Croydon.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Updated June 3, 2012

Paris Arrow

The Vatican is now attacking American nuns, the members of the LCWR Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whose median age is 74 – and if the Vatican would declare any group of sisters to be “outside the Catholic Church”, then those sisters might risk losing anything their communities had accrued over the years — housing, savings, medical care.1 The pitiless and heartless Pope Benedict XVI does not care about “housing, savings and medical bills” because he has billions of dollars at his disposal for his own old age as he resides in the lap-of-luxury in the largest church and wealthiest medieval palace on the planet, read about the Vatican billions here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011_03_01_archive.html

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 04, 2012
By Jerry Filteau

The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has sharply criticized Just Love, an award-winning book on sexual ethics by Mercy Sr. Margaret Farley, a prominent Catholic theologian at Yale University.

“Among the many errors and ambiguities in this book are its positions on masturbation, homosexual acts, homosexual unions, the indissolubility of marriage and the problem of divorce and remarriage,” the congregation’s five-page “Notification” said.

In those areas, it said, the author’s position “contradicts” or “is opposed to” or “does not conform to” church teaching.

Made public June 4 but dated March 30, the Notification was approved by Pope Benedict XVI and signed by U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the congregation, and Archbishop Luis F. Ladaria, its secretary.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CNN

By Sarah Hoye, CNN

updated 4:26 AM EDT, Mon June 4, 2012

Philadelphia (CNN) — Deliberations resume Monday in Philadelphia in the landmark trial of Monsignor William Lynn, the highest-ranking cleric charged with endangering children by allegedly helping cover up sexual abuse.

Lynn, a defendant with another Philadelphia priest, is accused of knowingly allowing dangerous priests to continue in the ministry in roles in which they had access to children.

Also on trial is the Rev. James Brennan, who is accused of the attempted rape of a 14-year-old. Both Brennan and Lynn have pleaded not guilty.

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ROME
7 News (Australia)

ROME (AFP) – Just 10 days after the pope’s butler was arrested in an investigation into Holy See leaks, an Italian daily Sunday published fresh whistleblower letters, suggesting the scandal is far from over.

Three new documents filched from the Vatican were sent to La Repubblica by an anonymous source in another blow for the Holy See, which has played down rumours that top clerics may be orchestrating a number of informers.

“The truth can be found at the top of the hierarchy,” the source said in a letter accompanying the documents, apparently accusing one of Pope Benedict XVI’s personal secretaries, Georg Gaenswein, of allowing secrets to slip out.

Gaenswein, who has access to the pope’s personal study, has been passing highly secret documents to the Holy See’s number two, Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone — some of which then ended up splashed in the media — the whistleblower said.

“Kick out of the Vatican those who are really responsible for the scandal: Mr. Gaenswein and Cardinal Bertone,” the source said, adding that the new documents it had revealed referred to “shameful events inside the Vatican.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced today that Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. has approved the recommendations of the Archdiocesan Strategic Planning Committee to merge parishes in Phoenixville. These mergers are the result of ongoing restructuring that will ultimately strengthen parish communities throughout the Archdiocese positioning them for future growth and sustainability. It is hoped that the result will be revitalized parishes throughout the Archdiocese that are better equipped to meet the spiritual and pastoral needs of future generations.

The recommendations and resulting mergers are an outcome of the Archdiocesan-wide Parish Pastoral Planning Area initiative, which began in 2011. Parishioners at all affected parishes learned of the final decisions through letters mailed to all registered parishioners as well as announcements made at all Masses this weekend.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. is in Milan today where Pope Benedict XVI announced during the World Meeting of Families that Philadelphia has been chosen as the site for the 2015 meeting. As part of the Milan event, Archbishop Chaput received the icon of the Holy Family, which is the symbol of The World Meeting of Families.

Archbishop Chaput said, “I am so grateful to the Holy Father that he has chosen Philadelphia and excited that we will host the 2015 World Meeting of Families. It’s fitting that this gathering, which celebrates the cornerstone of society, will take place in America’s cradle of freedom. The Holy Father’s choice is a gift to the local Church in Philadelphia and to the whole nation.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

MILAN (CNS) — When the Archdiocese of Philadelphia hosts the United States’ first World Meeting of Families in 2015, it will need to be a significantly smaller affair than the enormous gatherings seen since its inception in 1994, said the city’s archbishop.

It is only with a reduced number of participants that “we could manage through special gifts and the like that people would be willing to give to support such a gathering,” Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia told Catholic News Service shortly after Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement.

The pope announced the host city of the next world meeting at the Seventh World Meeting of Families’ closing Mass to an estimated 1 million people gathered at Milan’s outdoor Bresso Park June 3.

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ROME
Rome Reports

[with video]

June 3, 2012. (Romereports.com) Before concluding the World Meeting of Families, Benedict XVI recited the Angelus. Instead of his usual spot from the window of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the pope spoke in Milan’s Bresso Park to around one million people.

The Pope thanked the families for attending, saying that their homes were “temples of God”.

He also announced that the next World Meeting of Families will be in the United States in 2015.

BENEDICT XVI
“With joy I announce that the next World Meeting of Families in 2015 will take place in the city of Philadelphia in the United States of America.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

Der Einsatz von Sexualtätern im Priestergewand wird nach wie vor heftig diskutiert. Offenbar ist der Umgang mit Missbrauchstätern trotz Leitlinien von Fall zu Fall und auch von Bistum zu Bistum anders. Das Bistum Münster etwa hat einen Priester, der Messdiener sexuell missbraucht hat, laisieren lassen. Im Bistum Würzburg wurde ein Priester mit Zustimmung des Opfers weiter beschäftigt.

Trier. Das Bistum Münster fackelte offensichtlich nicht lange, als im Jahr 2006 bekannt wurde, dass ein damals 46-jähriger Pfarrer Messdiener sexuell missbraucht hatte. Sofort wurde er vom Dienst freigestellt. Und nachdem der Sexualtäter im Priestergewand einen Strafbefehl akzeptiert und zu einer Haftstrafe von zehn Monaten auf Bewährung verurteilt worden war, stellte das Bistum einen Antrag auf Laisierung – also auf Entlassung aus dem Priesterdienst. Vorangegangen war ein kirchenrechtliches Verfahren. Das Besondere: “Eine pensionierte Kriminalhauptkommissarin hat damals die Vernehmung durchgeführt”, sagt Karl Hagemann, Pressesprecher des Bistum Münsters. Der Priester ist nicht mehr im Dienst des Bistums. In einem zweiten Fall darf ein verurteilter Priester nicht mehr seelsorgerisch tätig sein. Gnädig hingegen hat das gleiche Bistum einen weiteren Priester behandelt, gegen den ein Strafbefehl von 1000 Euro wegen Besitzes kinderpornografischer Bilder erlassen worden war. Er ist weiter im Team einer Pfarrgemeinden tätig, “nicht in der Kinder- und Jugendarbeit.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

By SUSAN MATTHEWS

The Pope has chosen Philadelphia as the site for the World Meeting of Families in 2015. Archbishop Chaput called this “a gift to Philadelphia.” Where’s the receipt? I’d like to exchange it for one that includes enforced policies on clergy child sex abuse.

As a Catholic mother, I know how important moral leadership is to families. Sadly, I can’t look to the vatican for it. The hierarchy has rendered itself irrelevant with misplaced priorities. They lost all credibility on the subject of family when child rape wasn’t appropriately addressed here in Philadelphia and elsewhere around the world.

Is this belated pep rally supposed to appease Philadelphia Catholics? Will the Pope meet with the mother’s of the victims left in the wake of Cardinal Bevilacqua’s cover up. Will he help their families recover?

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Diane Mastrull
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Philadelphia Catholics awoke Sunday to some heartening news from the Vatican: Pope Benedict XVI will visit the city in 2015, having chosen it as the site for the World Meeting of Families.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput is in Milan, Italy, where Benedict made the announcement and presented Chaput with the icon of the Holy Family, the symbol of the gathering.

An exact date for the event in Philadelphia has not been released. It will be the first papal visit to the city since 1979, when Pope John Paul II drew an audience of 1 million to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

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ROME
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

Tom Kington in Rome
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 June 2012

Pope Benedict XVI may have been hoping for some respite from the scandal which has engulfed his papacy, with a visit this weekend to Milan, where he celebrated an outdoor mass for a million faithful and took in a performance of Beethoven’s ninth at La Scala opera house.

For the 85-year-old pontiff, the three-day trip outside the Vatican walls was a break from the Vatileaks scandal, which has seen his butler, Paolo Gabriele, arrested on suspicion of disclosing dozens of embarrassing letters alleging corruption and nepotism at the Holy See.

Gabriele is believed to be one of up to 20 whistleblowers trying to oust Benedict’s powerful prime minister, secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who has been accused of incompetence, covering up graft, and packing key Vatican posts with supporters.

The pope kept Bertone firmly at his side in Milan, sending a clear sign he is standing by his long-term collaborator, but the tension shows no sign of waning. On Sunday, La Repubblica published newly leaked Vatican correspondence with an anonymous covering note stating the whistleblowers still at large will not stop until Bertone – and the pope’s personal secretary Georg Gänswein – are kicked out.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Republic

RON TODT Associated Press
First Posted: June 03, 2012 – 2:28 pm

PHILADELPHIA — Local officials and parishioners hailed the announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that he plans to visit Philadelphia in 2015 when it is the site of the next World Meeting of Families, some adding that it might heal divisions caused by the clergy abuse scandals of recent years.

Benedict announced the venue during a Sunday Mass in Milan celebrating the seventh such gathering of families from around the world. The pope sent his greetings to Archbishop Charles Chaput and the Catholics “of that great city” and said he was looking forward to meeting them in 2015.

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ROME
End the Lie

By Richard Cottrell
Contributing writer for End the Lie

There are many striking similarities between the former Soviet Kremlin and the Vatican (which has been besieged by even more scandals than usual as of late).

Consider, for example, the question of organizational bureaucracy. Commissars equal Cardinals. It is easy to swap democracy and freedom preached in the name of the people for everlasting life equally pledged to the devout and faithful by the Catholic Church.

Possession of a party card could be seen as the equivalent of obedient presence at Sunday Mass.

There are no popular elections in the Roman Church. The Pope is chosen by his own internal clique, just as Soviet leaders clambered over each other to the seat of power.

Joseph Ratzinger, alias Pope Benedict XVI, reminds me strongly of Brezhnev in his final decline. Then the corridors and chambers of the Kremlin hummed with plots, horrific acts of political treachery occurred behind closed doors as the general secretary quietly faded away, like the smile on the face of the Cheshire Cat.

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UNITED STATES
Failed Messiah

Rabbi Osher Schapiro, the Britain-based son of the Naroler Rebbe and Director of Kol Bonaich – Teens at Risk, Kids in Pain, said that activists who tell victims to go to police to report child sex abuse are “mishugoyim,” a slur that means crazy people or wild people. He repeated several times that a rabbi must be asked before reporting abuse, and said that if a rabbi says do not call police, you must listen to him. He also implied that God would deal with the pedophiles who escape because of this system, noting an increase in the number of recent prosecutions. Of course, Schapiro didn’t credit any of the “mishugoyim” with that.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

June 3, 2012
By Marilyn S. D’Angelo

As the congregation of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church leaves today’s service around 12:45 p.m., they will be met by some of the victims of child sex abuse and their supporters.

The group will be handing out fliers to churchgoers at the Center City church located at 242 South 20th Street. The leaflets urge parishioners to help the victims and their supporters to find others who were molested by Msgr. Phillip J. Dowling, a Catholic priest who admits molesting one girl and is accused of molesting three others.

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VATICAN CITY
Sydney Morning Herald

June 3, 2012

DPA

An Italian newspaper has received confidential Vatican documents from a unknown source who in a message claimed that a papal butler arrested last week for allegedly stealing Holy See files was a “scapegoat” in a plot involving top officials.

La Repubblica said the leaking of the documents showed that Paolo Gabriele, who is currently held in the Vatican, “is not the only one” responsible for the so-called “Vatileaks” scandal which has engulfed the Vatican.

La Repubblica published on Sunday part of what it said was an anonymous, computer-typed message carrying the heading: “Chase away from the Vatican, those really responsible (for the scandal).”

The message claims that the Vatican’s second highest official, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and Pope Benedict XVI’s personal secretary Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, are the main culprits in an unspecified plot.

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CITTA DEL VATICANO
La Repubblica

Secondo la nuova indiscrezione, c’è uno scambio di documenti e un patto segreto tra il numero due della Santa Sede e il segretario particolare di Ratzinger. Repubblica è in possesso di tre documenti riservati. Sul quotidiano, il testo integrale di una lettera inviata dal cardinale Burke al segretario di Stato

di MARCO ANSALDO

MILANO – “Cacciate i veri responsabili dal Vaticano. Ancora una volta a pagare è il solito capro espiatorio. Quale migliore vittima del maggiordomo del Santo Padre. La verità va ricercata nel potere centrale”. Il corvo vola ancora in Vaticano. Volteggia, osserva e colpisce, mentre Benedetto XVI si trova in visita ufficiale per tre giorni a Milano cercando qualche momento di serenità dai veleni che lo assediano. Il corvo sforna a sorpresa nuovi documenti. Tre, per la precisione, di cui Repubblica è in possesso e che oggi presenta. Ma, avverte subito la fonte, di carte come queste ne abbiamo “centinaia”. Lo scrive in una lettera – che prelude ai tre documenti – battuta sul computer. Dimostrando, qualora ce ne fosse ancora bisogno, che il maggiordomo del Papa accusato di essere il postino delle missive fuoriuscite in passato dalla Santa Sede, “il capro espiatorio” come lo definisce la lettera, non è per niente il solo. Perché il corvo, in realtà, è ancora attivo. “La verità – denuncia – va ricercata nel potere centrale”. E spiega: “Ovverossia, nell’archivio privato di mons. Georg Gaenswein segretario particolare del Santo Padre, dal quale fuoriescono di continuo innumerevoli documenti riservati a favore del Segretario di Stato Cardinale Tarcisio Bertone”.

Un’accusa forte, che la fonte fa propria, al segretario particolare di Benedetto XVI, uomo in cui il Papa ripone invece la massima fiducia, e che da molti anni rappresenta la persona cui affidarsi

per le questioni non solo di carattere personale, ma anche spirituali e politiche. Negli ultimi anni, infatti, monsignor Gaenswein ha accresciuto notevolmente la sua influenza all’interno dell’Appartamento, maturando un ruolo di certo del tutto informale, eppure tangibile e chiaro a tutti, di consigliere di Joseph Ratzinger, del quale è anche connazionale. Aggiunge il corvo nella sua missiva preliminare alle tre carte: “Non sempre le cose vanno per il verso giusto e tra Mons. Georg ed il Cardinale ci sono passaggi incontrollati di documenti ed atti riservatissimi”. Come a dire: i documenti e gli atti interni che transitano dall’Appartamento papale all’ufficio del Segretario di Stato, e viceversa, talvolta prendono anche altre strade. E il loro controllo si perde.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

Sun Jun 3, 2012

By Philip Pullella

MILAN (Reuters) – Pope Benedict got no rest on Sunday from a leaks scandal when an Italian newspaper published documents showing that his butler was not the only person in possession of confidential correspondence indicating a Vatican in disarray.

Benedict, 85, ended a weekend trip to Italy’s industrial and financial capital Milan with a closing mass for an international gathering in which he praised traditional Catholic family values and re-stated his opposition to gay marriage.

But in its Sunday edition, the Rome newspaper La Repubblica published documents it said it had received anonymously after the arrest of the pope’s butler on May 23.

A note received by the newspaper said there were “hundreds more” documents and that the butler, Paolo Gabriele, was just a scapegoat.

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VATIKAN
Zeit

Tarcisio Bertone kommt im Vatikan gleich nach dem Papst. Sein gewaltiger Einfluss bringt die Kurie gegen ihn auf. Noch stützt der Papst den Staatssekretär.

Gestohlene Briefe, Ächtungen, Machtspiele und sogar Mordkomplotte – die Berichterstattung über die Vatikan-Krise übertrifft fast schon die Fantasien reißerischer Thriller-Autoren. Ein Name taucht in jeder neuen Geschichte auf: Tarcisio Bertone.

Auch der jüngste “Vatikanleaks”-Skandal um das Buch Sua Eminenza des Journalisten Gianluigi Nuzzi ist aus Sicht von Beobachtern nur eine Offensive im langjährigen Kampf zwischen dem vatikanischen Kardinalstaatssekretär und seinen Gegnern. Die Veröffentlichung der privaten Korrespondenz des Papstes – sagen Vatikan-Insider – soll das Ziel haben, die Machtspiele in der Kurie publik zu machen, um Bertone zum Rücktritt zu zwingen. Sicher ist, dass der 78-Jährige immer weniger Freunde in Rom hat.

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DEUTSCHLAND
kath.ch

2011 haben die deutschen Bischöfe angekündigt, dass sie sich von ihrem Medienunternehmen «Weltbild» trennen wollen. Grund: die anhaltende Empörung wegen des Vertriebs von «unmoralischer Literatur». Doch jetzt bietet sich der Kirche ein Mittelweg an. Thomas Münzel

Die katholische Kirche in Deutschland besitzt mit der Weltbild-Verlagsgruppe ein wirtschaftlich erfolgreiches Medienunternehmen. Im Geschäftsjahr 2010/2011 konnte das beste operative Ergebnis seit fünf Jahren präsentiert werden. Der Konzern wies einen Umsatz von 1,65 Milliarden Euro (rund zwei Milliarden Franken) aus. Mit einem Marktanteil von 18 Prozent ist Weltbild Marktführer im deutschen Buchmarkt. 2011 ist das Unternehmen, das zwölf katholischen Diözesen, dem Verband der Diözesen Deutschlan …

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DEUTSCHLAND
Berliner Morgenpost

Nach Aufforderung von Kardinal Rainer Maria Woelki ist ein früherer Pfarrer der Kirchengemeinde Sankt Marien in Berlin-Reinickendorf von seinem Amt zurückgetreten. Anlass ist der Vorwurf sexuellen Missbrauchs an einem damals 16-jährigen Jugendlichen in den 90er Jahren, wie der Generalvikar des Erzbistums Berlin, Tobias Przytarski, am Sonntag der Gemeinde bekannt gab. Der heutige Seelsorger der Gemeinde, Pfarrer Markus Brandenburg, verlas das Schreiben bei einem Gottesdienst. Im Erzbistum laufen nach eigenen Angaben weiterhin sechs Verfahren zu Verdachtsfällen von sexuellem Missbrauch durch Kirchenmitarbeiter.

Der Kirchengemeinde Sankt Marien war der Vorwurf seit März 2011 bekannt. Der damalige Diözesanadministrator, Weihbischof Matthias Heinrich, leitete eine Untersuchung ein. Mit Beginn des Verfahrens wurde dem beschuldigten Pfarrer die Ausübung des priesterlichen Dienstes untersagt. Nach Angaben Przytarski ergab die Untersuchung, dass weder nach weltlichem noch nach kirchlichem Recht eine Straftat vorgelegen habe, jedoch ein schwerer Verstoß gegen den priesterlichen Dienst. Deshalb habe der Erzbischof die disziplinarrechtlichen Maßnahmen angeordnet. Der Generalvikar bedauerte zugleich, dass dem Vorwurf nicht bereits zu einem früheren Zeitpunkt nachgegangen worden sei.

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OSTERREICH
SOS – Osterreich

Mai 31, 2012 von derpatriot

Über die Hintergründe von sexuellem Missbrauch gibt es viele Thesen, welche oberflächlich betrachtet schlüssig und logisch erscheinen, – verstärkt durch tendenziöse Berichterstattung mancher Medien. Wörter wie Vergewaltigung, Nötigung und Missbrauch werden nicht selten für ein und die selbe Sache „missbraucht“. Da etwa die Kirche selbst hohe moralische Ansprüche vertritt, scheint es umso genüßlicher, Verfehlungen einzelner kirchlicher Mitarbeiter als Doppelzüngigkeit anzuprangern und zu generalisieren.

Manche Vorurteile halten sich dabei besonders hartnäckig, doch es stimmt weder das Missbrauchsfälle überwiegend in kirchlichen Einrichtungen, noch die meisten Täter Priester und Ordensleute sind und auch dass die katholische Sexualmoral derartige Fälle begünstigt(e). Für interessierte Leser sei hier besonders auf wissenschaftliche Publikationen und Interviews mit dem Kriminologen Christian Pfeiffer, dem Psychiater Hans-Ludwig Kröber und dem Psychologen Gerard van den Aardweg verwiesen, welche teils auch im Internet veröffentlicht sind.

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OSTERREICH
Heute

Er soll jahrelang Zöglinge missbraucht haben, genoss absolute Macht in den Mauern des Stifts Kremsmünster. Jetzt könnte August Mandorfer, “Pumpgun Pater” Alfons, doch noch vor Gericht landen. Ein psychiatrisches Gutachten attestiert zwei seiner Opfer “Langzeitschäden” – damit wären die Fälle nicht verjährt, berichtet das Nachrichtenmagazin profil.

“Schwere Nötigung, Quälen oder Vernachlässigen unmündiger oder wehrloser Personen, Vergehen nach dem Waffengesetz (Mandorfer besaß illegal eine Pumpgun und soll damit Schüler bedroht haben), Körperverletzung, sexueller Missbrauch von Jugendlichen, sexueller Missbrauch von Unmündigen, schwerer sexueller Missbrauch von Jugendlichen, Vergewaltigung, Missbrauch eines Autoritätsverhältnisses, gefährliche Drohung und Nötigung” – in all diesen diesen Delikten sieht die Staatsanwaltschaft Steyr bei Mandorfer “dringenden Tatverdacht”, wie profil schreibt.

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OSTERREICH
profil

Psychiatrische Gutachten bestätigen psychische Langzeitschäden durch Gewalt und Missbrauch an ehemaligen Zöglingen des Klosters Kremsmünster. Damit sind die Taten nicht verjährt. Jetzt wird mit der Anklage des „Pumpgun-Paters“ gerechnet.

Von Emil Bobi

Die Vergangenheit hat ihn mit voller Wucht eingeholt: Innerhalb der Klostermauern des Benediktinerstifts Kremsmünster war er eine allmächtige Autorität, jetzt hat er Zuflucht in einem verschwiegenen Schwesternorden bei Wels gefunden und hebt nicht einmal mehr sein Telefon ab. August Mandorfer, 78, ehemals „Pater Alfons“, ist nicht einmal mehr Angehöriger des Klerus. Am 27. April hat ihn der Papst persönlich in den Laienstand zurückversetzt, nachdem profil den „Gerichtsakt Kremsmünster“ veröffentlicht hatte, in dem 40 der mutmaßlichen Opfer Mandorfers schockierende Zeugnisse seines „sadistischen Gewaltregimes“ ablegten. Mandorfer tauchte zunächst bei seinem Mitbruder und Freund Abt Christian Haidinger im Stift Altenburg unter, wurde aber von ehemaligen Schülern aufgestöbert und lautstark bloßgestellt. Da bat ihn das Stift, wieder weiterzuziehen.

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VATICAN CITY
Sky News (Australia)

Power-hungry cardinals, spies and a suspicious butler: ‘Vatileaks’ is just the latest scandal to grip an institution dogged down the centuries by damning tales of greed, corruption and betrayal.

From clerical sex abuse scandals to accusations of money-laundering and ties with the mafia over the years, critics do not have to indulge in Dan Brown Da Vinci Code theories to accuse the Church of slipping from its moral code.

While rumours of wild sex parties are today more easily associated with former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, the tiny Vatican state in the heart of Rome was once a hotbed of lust and depravity.

Tenth-century pope John XII, appointed aged just 18, is said to have indulged his teenage sex drive by throwing exotic orgies, sparking outraged religious observers to describe the Lateran palace, the papal home, as a whore house.

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NEW YORK
WPIX

[with video]

By MARY MURPHY
pix11.com | @murphypix

9:25 p.m. EDT, June 1, 2012
BROOKLYN, NY (PIX11)— The family of a Brooklyn man being treated for drug addiction in California traces his problems back to sexual abuse by a yeshiva teacher, when he was just 9 years old. “I do recall the rabbi being over here, trying to hush up my dad,” Yosef Werner–the abuse survivor’s brother–told PIX 11 Friday.

20 years ago, Daniel “Benji” Werner came home from the Yeshiva of Brooklyn one day and started confiding in his mother at their Midwood home. “He told me the rabbi was touching him,” Yehudis Werner told PIX. “And I said, ‘What??!!”

Benji Werner told his mother the teacher would call him up to the front of the class, take the boy behind the desk, place Benji on his lap, and then put his hands in the boy’s pants and molest him.

Mrs. Werner said she called her husband, Aaron, and he started contacting other parents from Benji’s class. She told PIX several parents had heard the same thing from their children. Soon after, she said the family received calls from religious leaders. “They called up my husband and said ‘if you continue to call parents, we’ll make your name mud.'”

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ISRAEL/NEW YORK
New York Post

By ORON DAN in Jerusalem and SUSAN EDELMAN in NY

Here is Avrohom Mondrowitz, New York’s most notorious child molester — living scot-free in Israel.

Called the “Bin Laden of pedophiles” by one victim, the bogus rabbi and self-proclaimed psychologist fled the United States in 1984 just before cops broke into his Borough Park, Brooklyn, home with a search warrant. They found a cache of kiddie porn and lists of hundreds of names of local boys, most referred to Mondrowitz by Jewish families and child-service agencies for counseling and his yeshiva-style program.

“He was known in the insular community as the go-to therapist, child mentor,” said an outspoken victim, Mark Weiss, whose parents sent him to Mondrowitz at age 13. “He had a certain knack with kids.”

Weiss says Mondrowitz treated him to restaurants and amusement parks, then took him into bed during a week’s stay in his home. When Weiss, at age 18, finally told his parents and a rabbi about the sexual abuse, “They let it die. Any such story was quashed and buried.”

But years later the NYPD finally caught up with Mondrowitz after getting anonymous complaints. He was indicted in 1985 on charges of sexual abuse and sodomy against four Italian-American boys, ages 11 to 16, who lived in the Brooklyn neighborhood.

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UNITED STATES
New York Post

Maureen Callahan

As if to further underscore their deep remove from the modern world, Vatican officials, in a clumsy attempt to stanch new and damaging leaks from within, announced that they’ve arrested the person responsible: the pope’s butler.

“It’s like a punchline,” says Matthew Bunson, editor of Catholic Answer magazine. “You wind up with the headline, ‘The Butler Did It.’ ”

Among those who pay close attention to this stuff, none believe that the butler did it.

“The evidence stacked up against him is almost too good,” says Michael James, fellow at the Roche Center for Catholic Education at Boston College. “There’s been [an internal] investigation going on for a year about missing documents. The theory is that he’s being set up.”

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. For many Americans, the question remains: What, exactly, is the butler supposed to have done? And does it really matter?

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

Barely four minutes into his closing argument Thursday, defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom uttered two words that seemed woven into the daily script of the clergy sex-abuse trial:

“The cardinal.”

Bergstrom went on to mention the cardinal – former Philadelphia Archbishop Anthony J. Bevilacqua – at least 18 more times in an hour. Some were passing references, but all were part of a bid to convince jurors that his client, Msgr. William J. Lynn, had the will but not the power to remove abusive priests.

That power, Bergstrom said, rested solely with the cardinal.

Bevilacqua spent his final years in isolation before his death in January. Still, the landmark 11-week trial of Lynn, his former secretary for clergy, and whatever verdict the jury may render, could shape Bevilacqua’s legacy as much as any event in his career as a prelate.

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IRELAND
The Journal

JUSTICE MINISTER ALAN Shatter is to write to one of the advocacy groups for survivors of the Magdalene Laundries after the government was criticised for a lack of response to their concerns.

The Magdalene Survivors Together (MST) group said earlier this week that the Shatter and the Minister of State for Disability, Equality and Health, Kathleen Lynch, had failed to undertake a “restorative and reconciliation process” which was promised to them last September.

“It is quiet clear that Kathleen Lynch and Minister Shatter have completely failed the women on both of these counts. The Restorative and Reconciliation Process has been completely and utterly forgotten about,” the group said this week.

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UNITED STATES
New Yorker

Posted by Amy Davidson

American nuns are sending two leaders of their main organization to Rome—on a mission, not a pilgrimage. Sister Pat Farrell, the president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and Sister Janet Mock, the group’s executive director, want to meet with a cardinal and an archbishop to ask why their group is being disciplined as the result of a harsh “assessment” by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and, more extraordinarily, to object to the Vatican’s findings.

The assessment had talked darkly about “radical feminist” influences and “a distorted ecclesiological vision,” by which the Vatican seemed to mean, mostly, that the nuns were not listening enough to bishops. Strikingly, the problem wasn’t just the things that they were saying, but what they weren’t saying—that they weren’t fervent enough advocates for the bishops’ positions on issues like gay marriage and contraception. (See Margaret Talbot’s Daily Comment for an example.) It was, as I wrote when it was issued a month and a half ago, part of a broader war on nuns on the part of the Church in America, or rather on the part of the Church’s leadership; the women, it turned out, had a great deal of sympathy within local parishes, where people held prayer vigils and told the nuns that they were on their side.

But it was hard to tell what that support was worth: Where are you left when the Church to which you have given your life says that your work isn’t good—that its whole direction is wrong? Their position is a vulnerable one, to say the least. For many of the nuns, the past few weeks seem to have been a hard time, and even a lonely one. When the board of the L.C.W.R. finally met this week in Washington, Sister Pat Farrell said, in an interview today with the National Catholic Reporter, “There was an overall mood of really serious, prayerful reflection, I would say—a gamut of emotions of ups and downs. But I would say that the major thing is that it was a real consolation for all of us to finally be together in one place and to be able to process some of the feelings around this … to finally be able to talk about that face to face.”

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VATICAN CITY
Times of India

Already this year we’ve read about documents warning of a “death threat” against the Pope, widespread nepotism and corruption, exiled whistle-blowers , gay smear campaigns and embarrassing revelations about the Vatican’s tax affairs. Most of the damaging of the ” Vatileaks” were revealed by the reporter Gianluigi Nuzzi in a series of TV programmes and now his new book Sua Santita (Your Holiness).

As ever, lumbering several steps behind , the powers that be at the Holy See last month set out to catch the mole or moles behind the leaks — which they refer to as “criminal acts”. The Pope’s butler has already been nabbed in possession of some of the confidential papers. But few people think he acted alone.

This week, we learnt that an unnamed Italian cardinal is now a suspect. But even if all the leakers are caught, few observers think that there’s an end in sight for the PR disasters that have blighted the reign of 85-year-old Pope Benedict XVI.

For Valerio Gigante, a vaticanologist at the Adista religious news website, the church is suffering a moral crisis. “The contradiction at the heart of the church grows greater all the time. It exists for moral reasons but also generates huge amounts of money and is ever more occupied with political and economic power,” he said.

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VATICAN CITY
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

The murky saga of the leaked Vatican documents has damaged the worldwide image of the Catholic Church, just as it was trying to recover from the paedophile priest scandals, writes Nick Squires.

By Nick Squires, Vatican City
7:00AM BST 03 Jun 2012

Its massive walls, topped by stone eagles and statues of saints, dwarf the crowds of tourists queuing to see the treasures inside its museums.

The Vatican may look like a medieval fortress, but the apparent impregnability of its bastions, buttresses and revetments is illusory.

Not even the Swiss Guards in their flamboyant harlequin uniforms managed to prevent the worst security breach in the Holy See’s recent history – the theft of hundreds of confidential documents, some of them stolen from the desk of Pope Benedict himself.

Smuggled out of the secretive city state, they were handed to an Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, who dropped a metaphorical bomb on the Holy See by publishing them as a book: His Holiness – The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI.

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VATICAN CITY
Europe Online

By our dpa-correspondent and Europe Online

Vatican City (dpa) – A Vatican commission of cardinals has given final approval to last month‘s controversial decision by the board of the Vatican bank to dismiss its president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, reports said Saturday.

The functions of president of the bank – known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) – would be assumed on an iterim basis by deputy-president, Ronaldo Hermann Schmitz, papal spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, was quoted as saying by the ANSA newsagency.

Lombardi also denied Italian newspaper reports of a split between the five cardinals making up the commission over Gotti Tedeschi‘s ousting by the board on May 24.

The reports, some of which claimed that cardinals Attilio Nicora and Jean-Louis Tauran had sided with Gotti Tedeschi, were “absolutely baseless,” Lombardi said.

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MAINE
Kennebec Journal

By Bill Nemitz bnemitz@mainetoday.com
Columnist

The year was 1853. Anti-Catholic violence ran so rampant throughout Maine that the Rev. Henry B. Coskery, vicar general of Baltimore, said thanks but no thanks to his appointment as the first Roman Catholic bishop of Portland.

Two years later, the job finally went to Bishop David Bacon, brave man. But even Bacon made sure to arrive here from Brooklyn, N.Y., in the dead of night to lessen the chance of riots.

Which brings us to last week’s announcement that Bishop Richard Malone soon will leave Maine for Buffalo — only the 11th time in more than 150 years that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland has changed leaders.

And this time — thank God for small blessings — it’s not the flaming torches that Malone’s successor will have to worry about as he moves into the new, 2,918-square-foot bishop’s residence in Falmouth.

It’s the yawns.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

Editorial

Published: June 1, 2012

The nation’s Roman Catholic nuns are pushing back against the Vatican’s unjustified attack on their fidelity. The president and the executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents about 80 percent of the nation’s 57,000 nuns, intend to go to Rome and fully rebut the accusations that the group has “serious doctrinal problems” and a tendency toward “radical feminist themes.”

Catholic laity immediately and rightly decried the attack as an insult to the high professionalism of the sisters and the vital importance of their good works. To many, the Vatican’s decision to appoint three American bishops to oversee and remake the conference seemed to be retaliation for the group’s endorsement of President Obama’s health care reform. The nation’s bishops were opposed.

It’s heartening that after six weeks of official silence and spirited discussion in the ranks of the sisterhood, the leadership conference is finally speaking out in its own defense. On Friday, the national board said the Vatican’s assessment of its works was based on “unsubstantiated accusations” and a “flawed” review process.

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UNITED STATES
Minnesota SNAP

By Vinnie Nauheimer

There once was a bishop named Dolan,
Whose gift of gab kept his train rollin.
Then one day he fell down flat
When we discovered a rat.
Justice for victims, he had stolen.

So let’s sing another verse worse than the other verse
And dazzle me with your collar.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Times Online

As Sandusky sex-abuse trial approaches, a look at a Pittsburgh case shows importance of reporting

By Bill Heltzel and Halle Stockton PublicSource

A ninth-grade boy at Pittsburgh’s Vincentian High School had a secret. He’d changed a grade on his report card, but soon his basketball coach discovered the deceit. For weeks, the coach summoned him from gym class and the cafeteria to his office, where he prodded: What would the boy do for the coach to keep the secret?

Finally, the coach, according to court documents, gave the boy three choices: Masturbate in front of the coach, stand on his head and pee or get paddled with a plank. He chose the beating. The coach stood the boy against a chalkboard, splayed his legs, and hit him with a 2-by-4. The coach then pulled down the boy’s pants to see the welts.

When the boy and his parents told school officials what happened, the principal doubted the story, but offered to change the boy’s schedule to avoid the coach’s English class.

“That’s what her offer was, and I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to do that,’” the boy later told police about the 1995 incident with coach David Scott Zimmerman, then 28. “I’m leaving school. I can’t take this anymore.”

The Vincentian principal dropped her inquiry and Zimmerman continued to coach and teach.

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UNITED STATES
AlterNet

It’s tempting to simply view the church hierarchy as a cult of misogyny. But at its heart, it’s a cult of power; misogyny is but one tool for securing that power.

June 1, 2012

In 1979, Sister Theresa Kane was given a very special task. As president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella group for most orders of U.S. Catholic nuns, Kane was asked to deliver four minutes of welcoming remarks, on behalf of American sisters, to the newly elected Pope John Paul II during his first papal visit to the United States. At a gathering inside the grand church in Washington, D.C., known as the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Kane offered the pope a warm greeting, and then launched into this:

As I share this privileged moment with you, Your Holiness, I urge you to be mindful of the intense suffering and pain which is part of the life of many women in these United States. I call upon you to listen with compassion and to hear the call of women…As women, we have heard the powerful messages of our church addressing the dignity [of] and reverence for all persons. As women, we have pondered these words. Our contemplation leads us to state that the church, in its struggle to be true to its call to reverence and dignity for all persons, must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all ministries of the church.”

All ministries — including, of course, the priesthood. Her meaning was not lost on the pope or, it seems, his henchmen in cassocks.

Chief among the new pope’s enforcers was Joseph Ratzinger, the bishop from Bavaria, whom, three years later, JPII would appoint to the position of prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine the Faith, an entity once known as the Roman Inquisition. As prefect, Ratzinger soon had his Congregation all but living up to its historical inquisitive reputation as he conducted a jihad against liberal bishops, clerics and nuns in the U.S., and around the world. Today, the former prefect is known as Pope Benedict the XVI, still an enforcer, and one with a long memory.

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ITALY
Vatican Insider

The Holy See’s official position given by the spokesman of the Vatican Press Office in Milan during a press conference

Vatican Insider Staff
MIlan

“The statements published by some newspapers about a division among the cardinals of the Supervisory Commission on the IOR are absolutely unfounded,” said Press Office Director Fr Federico Lombardi at a press briefing in Milan.

“There is no division within the Commission of Cardinals,” said Father Lombardi.

The Commission, headed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, “noted the decision of the board and communicated in writing to Mr Gotti Tedeschi that the functions of the president had been assigned ad interim, per statute, to vice president Ronaldo Hermann Schmitz.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
MyNews3

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia jury is homing in on the alleged “smoking gun” in a groundbreaking clergy-abuse case.

Jurors have left for the weekend after starting deliberations in the 10-week trial of a former Roman Catholic church official. They’re restart deliberations Monday.

They’ve already asked for a gray folder found in a locked safe at the Philadelphia archdiocese. The folder contains a 1994 list of 35 suspected predator-priests.

Monsignor William Lynn is charged with endangering children by keeping accused priests in ministry. He says he created the list for Cardinal Bevilacqua. Another secret memo shows Bevilacqua had the list shredded.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
dotCommonweal

June 2, 2012, 1:44 pm

Posted by Paul Moses

In his trial on charges of criminally endangering children, Monsignor William Lynn portrayed himself as a man of conscience who quietly tried to help victims despite the indifference of his superiors.

Maryclaire Dale of The Associated Press summarized his defense this way:

A Roman Catholic church official is being unfairly prosecuted for the sins of the church and the rogue conduct of predator-priests, a defense lawyer said Thursday as he asked jurors in a groundbreaking trial to acquit his client.

“You have witnessed evil in this courtroom. You have seen the dark side of the church. You’ve seen grown men come into this courtroom and weep because they were abused,” said lawyer Thomas Bergstrom. “And now, the sins of all these fathers that he laid bare – that he laid bare – are now laid at his feet.”

Lynn maintained that the prosecutors’ prized exhibit – a secret list of 35 suspected pedophile priests – was actually evidence of his innocence. He said he drew the list up to call attention to the problem; Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua ordered it destroyed. (A copy survived.) No wonder the jurors, who resume deliberation in Philadelphia on Monday, asked for it right away.

Many scoff at this defense. But my experience in covering scores of trials is that, regardless of the verdict, the truth of what happened usually falls someplace between the prosecution and defense versions. And so, what if Monsignor Lynn is right?

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

As I just noted at the end of my posting a moment ago, a reader I value has sent the following announcement about counter rallies that are being organized to occur simultaneously with the nationwide USCCB- sponsored “religious freedom” rallies this coming Friday. In contrast to the USCCB-sponsored rallies, these counter rallies don’t seem to be centrally organized with a website to which I can point readers for more information. But the announcement is informative and clear, and should answer any questions interested readers may have about attending, wearing white, bringing signs to indicate your concerns, and doing local organizing to gather other like-minded Catholics in your area. The proposal to encourage Catholics who want to give a counter-witness to the narrow, politically partisan and lopsided USCCB definition of religious freedom strikes me as very good:

WHAT: Catholic “counter” rallies to show solidarity (A) with women, including American Sisters, disrespected by the hierarchy, (B) with children abused by priests protected by the hierarchy, and (C) with gay Catholics insensitively treated by the hierarchy. The bishops will also be holding at the same time and place a rally to object to the new proposed HHS regulations on health insurance for contraception. The venue will give all Catholics a chance to voice their concerns on other hierarchical concerns the bishops appear uninterested in addressing with Catholics generally.

WHEN: Noon, next Friday, June 8.

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IRELAND
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.
Seamus Heaney, the “Bogland”

Kristine Ward, Chair, National Survivor Advocates Coalition

The National Survivor Advocates Coalition (NSAC) stands on the sod of Ireland to bear witness to the incredible courage of the children raped, sodomized, and demeaned from whom childhood was cruelly and crudely ripped asunder by molesting priests and nuns in Irish parishes, schools and orphanages.

When we lived in the void of unknowing before the survivors’ truth penetrated our consciousness, Seamus Heaney’s portrait of Ireland’s bogs might have simply been stunning poetry.

Not today.

Today they are heavy with Irish melancholy that moans without ceasing for deliverance from the fraud of self-preservation over genuine leadership for justice and the protection of children.

We speak of two prelates – one on each side of the Atlantic, — two Irishmen — the Cardinal Primate of All Ireland, Sean Brady and the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, former Archbishop of Milwaukee, and current president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Timothy Dolan.

Atlantic seepage indeed.

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COLORADO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on June 01, 2012

First, we don’t know Lisa Poulos but we applaud her for her courage and wisdom. According to a newly-released arrest affidavit, she told police her suspicions about Fr. Charles Robert Manning, who faces criminal charges for alleged child sex abuse.

If more adults who saw or suspected child sex crimes were brave and compassionate enough to call law enforcement, far more children would be spared devastating harm. We applaud Ms. Poulos and hope she receives nothing but praise for her responsible, caring action.

Second, if Manning gave the boy “classes” in his church office, gave him marijuana and liquor several times, took partially-clad photos of him, posted those photos on Facebook, and was so aggressive and brazen , over three months, that the boy felt compelled to move out of state to avoid Manning, it’s hard to believe that every single Catholic church employee and member near Manning didn’t see some serious warning signs.

Third, why aren’t Colorado Springs Catholic officials – from lower levels to the very top – doing everything possible to help law enforcement with this case?

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VATICAN CITY
Sunday Times (Sri Lanka)

ROME, June 2, 2012 (AFP) – Cardinals tasked with deciding the fate of the Vatican bank president amid financial scandals and a struggle for power in the Holy See are struggling to come to an agreement, media reports said Saturday.

The commission of cardinals must decide whether or not to uphold the board’s decision to oust Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who was fired for failing to clean up the institution’s image amid accusations of corruption and money-laundering.

But the cardinals are reportedly split, with two of the four siding with Gotti Tedeschi, widening the bitter rift between the financial ethics expert and Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican number two.

It was Bertone who reportedly pushed the bank’s board to fire their president as internal divisions over financial transparency came to a head.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

Inside the mind of a monster: child sex abuse of Franciscan priest revealed in his own sick words

By Daily Mail Reporter

A 27-page ‘sexual history’ written by a defrocked Franciscan cleric provides a shockingly candid and detailed window into the troubled mind of a notorious pedophile priest.

Robert Van Handel is accused of molesting at least 17 boys, including his own 5-year-old nephew, local children in his boys’ choir and students at St. Anthony’s, a prestigious Franciscan boarding school in California where he taught.

The essay, penned for a therapy assignment and kept secret for years, is believed to be the first of its kind to be publicly revealed through civil litigation despite years of lawsuits targeting sexually abusive priests.

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UNITED STATES
Death and Taxes

By Dave Holmes

Yesterday, Laurie Goodstein reported in the New York Times that Cardinal Timothy Dolan authorized payoffs to accused pedophile priests in hopes that they would leave the priesthood more quickly and quietly. (It’s the old Reverse Monopoly: go directly to $20,000, do not collect jail.) We were hoping for a quick, sassy response from the Catholic League, but so far the only rebuttal has come from Jimmy Akin of the National Catholic Register. Why did it take so long? Because contortin’ ain’t easy.

Consider this: Suppose you are walking down the street and a homeless person approaches you and asks you for some money. You give him the money. Would that justify a headline saying that you have been paying the homeless?

Or suppose you were with your teenage son or daughter and they asked if they could give some money to the homeless person as an act of kindness and you said Yes. Would that justify a headling saying that you authorized paying the homeless?

But what if the homeless person is not a stranger but an employee of yours, and his job involved outreach with children, and some of those children accused him of raping them, and you gave him money to shut up and skip town? I will admit that this is an outrageous hypothetical, but I’ve read this article a few times now, and it is not explored. Nor is the real problem (besides the raping and the lying and the abuse of the trust of children and the faithful): why didn’t someone —anyone — call the fucking police? Akin provides no insight there, but does posit a motive for what he calls Goodstein’s hit piece — the Catholic Church’s position on contraception.

It’s breathtaking: Cardinal Dolan didn’t pay off these priests, he just made a lot of money be in their bank accounts all of a sudden. And if you don’t see the difference, then you’re just thinking with your selfish, hungry vagina. Jesus, if you’re reading, hurry back.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Greg Harkin

Saturday June 02 2012

CARDINAL Sean Brady should be arrested and questioned about withholding information, a victim of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth demanded last night.

Brendan Boland told the Irish Independent that a decision by the PSNI not to investigate the contents of a BBC programme in which he appeared last month showed that gardai should hold an inquiry.

Gardai refused to comment on whether or not they would interview Cardinal Brady.

But a statement from the PSNI piled pressure on gardai to hold an investigation after concluding that any “offences” happened south of the Border.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Michelle Boorstein, Published: June 1

Leaders representing most American nuns on Friday issued a surprisingly forceful response to a Vatican report calling for their reform, saying the report had caused “scandal and pain” among Catholics.

Reactions among Catholics to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious’s statement were strong and polarized, typical of a faith community divided between those anxious to see Catholic theology more explicitly outlined — and enforced — and those who want more openness on everything from ideas on human sexuality to how decisions are made at the top of the church. …

Kathleen Sprows Cummings, associate director of the University of Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of American Catholicism, said the statement showed that the women were “unintimidated, committed to dialogue, and above all focused on working toward a more just society.”

But others said it foreshadows continued division in the church.

“What worries me here is the emergence of an adversarial view of membership in the church,” said Michael Sean Winters, a left-leaning Catholic writer.

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PHILIPPINES
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Editorial

It’s been called “a strategy of tension, an orgy of vendettas and preemptive vendettas that has now spun out of the control of those who thought they could orchestrate it.” The tale so far has touched on treachery, betrayal, greed, corruption, ambition, not to mention secret passageways, disappearing papers and tight-lipped suspects.

A government scandal? The latest Dan Brown potboiler? Skullduggery on Wall Street? A daytime soap?

Well, no. It concerns the Vatican—the Holy See, the epicenter of the 1.3-billion-strong Catholic faith and seat of power of its Supreme Pontiff and “Vicar of Christ on earth,” Pope Benedict XVI. In the year of our Lord 2012, the world’s tiniest state is in the throes of a scandal that has the world’s press buzzing.

Reports say that last May 23, one of the Pope’s closest aides, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested after Vatican investigators discovered confidential papal documents in his apartment. Described as a shy, taciturn man unfailingly loyal to the Pope, Gabriele—whose duties included helping dress Benedict in his vestments, serving him his meals and riding with him as a bodyguard in the Popemobile—is perhaps the last person to be suspected of betraying his master. He is said to be one of fewer than 10 people who held the key to secret entrances leading to the Pope’s private apartments. Now an Italian cardinal has called him the most damning name in the Catholic book—Judas, the betrayer of Jesus.

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ROME
BBC News

By David Willey
BBC News, Rome

A book reproducing the private correspondence of Pope Benedict XVI has angered the Vatican and forms part of a series of leaks revealing allegations of corruption and internal conflicts.

Pope Benedict complained bitterly at his latest general audience about the international media. He said they had unfairly latched on to the admittedly very unusual story of the arrest of his butler, to distort the truth about recent goings-on at the Catholic Church’s power centre here in Rome.

Yet he looked saddened and understandably angry about this invasion of his privacy in his own home on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace.

Every day, the Italian media give their latest versions about what they call the “Vatileaks” crisis which has been headline news.

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VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
Reuters

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict is fighting the worst crisis of his papacy, but his problems are only the latest in a long history of controversies and intrigue in the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church.

The “Vatileaks” scandal, in which the pope’s private papers are alleged to have been pilfered by his own butler, pales in comparison to the scandals of centuries past when popes were accused of violence, nepotism and sexual excesses.

Pope Benedict has angrily charged that “totally gratuitous” accounts in the media “offer an image of the Holy See which does not correspond to reality.”

Archbishop Angelo Becciu, the third-ranking official in the world’s smallest state, bemoaned the “distorted image” presented of the Vatican and said the internal debates revealed by the documents were perfectly normal in any organization.

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ROME
NPR

[with audio]

by Sylvia Poggioli

June 2, 2012

The scandal over leaked documents that has been engulfing the Vatican is the biggest breach of confidence and security at the Holy See in recent memory.

Known as Vatileaks, the crisis has shed light on a Vatican gripped by intrigue and power struggles like a Renaissance court.

Vatileaks erupted into a full-blown scandal with the publication two weeks ago of a book of Vatican documents alleging corruption and conspiracies among cardinals.

Within days, the Vatican bank president was abruptly dismissed and the pope’s own butler was arrested on charges of stealing the pope’s correspondence.

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