ABUSE TRACKER

COLORADO
Colorado Connection

[with video]

by Abbie Burke

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. — Court documents were released Friday detailing the sexual encounter between a Colorado Springs priest and a teenage boy.

WARNING: Some of the details are graphic.

Charles Manning, 77, turned himself into police May 22 after they issued a warrant for his arrest.

Manning was charged with sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, a class 4 felony, and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, also a class 4 felony.

Police began the investigation last year after the victim’s sister called them because she thought it wasn’t “natural” for a 76-year-old and a 15-year-old to be spending so much time together, especially alone.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

A defense lawyer quoted Shakespeare and Twelve Angry Men as he talked to the jury about reasonable doubt. A prosecutor read a pornographic love note that a priest had written to a seventh-grader, and then he showed jurors a smiling, baby-faced photo of a 10-year-old altar boy before he was raped.

It was time for closing arguments Thursday in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse case, with lawyers from both sides looking to score last-minute points as they closed out 10 weeks of testimony. Judge M. Teresa Sarmina is expected to charge the jury Friday morning, and then it will be time for deliberations.

Thomas Bergstrom, a defense lawyer for Msgr. William J. Lynn, was the leadoff speaker. He’s a former judge advocate officer for the U.S. Marines who looks like a graying version of Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird, as played by Gregory Peck.

The concept of reasonable doubt “is an enormous safeguard in our system of justice,” Bergstrom told the jury. He defined reasonable doubt as “that kind of doubt that causes you to hesitate. If you hesitate, then you have a reasonable doubt.” Bergstrom was hoping for lots of hesitation from the non-Catholic, largely minority jury of seven men and five women who will decide the fate of Msgr. Lynn, and his co-defendant, Father James J. Brennan.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

Fr Michael Maher

43 YEARS A MARIST PRIEST

It was after the death of my grandfather Thomas Ashe, when I was 19 years of age, that I first remember thinking, Yes, this present life will come to an end. This, I presume, led me to ask the ultimate question: What is it all about?

I always had a great love for and devotion to the mother of God, and this brought me to suss out and see if there was such a religious order called Marist, when I felt I might have a call to the priesthood. Community life is important to me. That mysterious inner voice seemed to enlighten me to be a Marist priest.

Later on, I discovered their charism is to live in the spirit of Mary. Marists bear the name of Mary; they desire to be like her and follow Jesus as she did. They see Mary as the founder and perpetual superior of the Marist Society. They try constantly to imitate her delicate responsiveness to the promptings of the holy spirit and to the needs of God’s people.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

BY ALISON HEALY

How many Catholics?

2011 84.2% Proportion of the population – or 3,861,300 people – who said they were Catholic in the 2011 census

1930s 93.5% Proportion of the population – or 2,773,920 people – who said they were Catholic in the 1936 census

1920s 92.6% Proportion of the population – or 2,751,269 people – who said they were Catholic in the 1926 census

LOUGH DERG: 1952 was the most successful year, with 34,645 pilgrims. A one-day retreat that Lough Derg introduced in 1992 may account for some of the reduction in numbers. About 4,000 people went that year. After reaching 12,645 in 2000, numbers have dropped; last year 8,321 people went on the one-day retreat

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

KATHY SHERIDAN

When did Irish Catholics finally stop fearing the belt of the crozier? Was it in 1992, when they were forced to confront the tragedy of the raped and pregnant 14-year-old girl in the X case? Or after the 2009 Murphy report, when Mary O’Rourke spoke scathingly of the nuncio “parading around Ireland in his wonderful glitzy clothes but not replying to letters”? Or was it the spectacle of a fearful, perspiring Cardinal Seán Brady being torn apart in interviews after revelations about his role in the interrogation of a boy who had been abused by a priest?

The whiplash speed of bishops’ fall is awesome. Now the Catholic Church no longer acts as a “sacred canopy” for social, political and economic life, says Prof Tom Inglis of the school of social science at University College Dublin.

“The main change now is in fear,” says Inglis. “There was a sense in which the church was an authority to be obeyed, and there was a fear of not being obedient. Then you moved into a phase where it wasn’t obeyed and it was respected. And now it has moved into a phase where the institutional church is not respected.”

In an academic paper in 2007, Inglis asked: “Are Irish Catholics becoming more like their fellow European Catholics and Protestants . . . ‘believing without belonging’?”

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

The 1932 Eucharistic Congress – an organisational triumph that saw an estimated million people assemble for Mass – was a demonstration that the Free State had become a Catholic state for a Catholic people, writes DIARMAID FERRITER .

LESS THAN 10 YEARS after the end of the Civil War, the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in June 1932 provided an opportunity for both church and State to emphasise what united the citizens of the Free State rather than their deep political divisions.

Seán Clancy, a Free State Army captain, was a member of the officer guard of honour for the open-air pontifical High Mass in the Phoenix Park during the congress. He recalled that after the ceremonies, the guard of honour attended a dinner with the new Fianna Fáil government, which had defeated Cumann na nGaedheal in the general election in February. The two groups, who had fought on opposite sides during the Civil War a decade earlier, felt uneasy in each other’s company until Éamon de Valera broke the tension by inviting the officer in charge to sit at his side during the meal.

One of the reasons the leader of the previous government, William T Cosgrave, had dissolved the Dáil at the end of January was to ensure there would be stability rather than uncertainty during the congress. For the new government, it provided an opportunity to emphasise its impeccable Catholic credentials and win over its critics in that regard. The strategy worked.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

A new ‘Irish Times’ series begins today. Next week, Ireland hosts the 50th Eucharistic Congress of the Catholic Church. More than 80 per cent of Irish people still call themselves Catholic, but the church is out of touch and divided. Can it be repaired?

THE IRISH CATHOLIC Church is a house divided, and the events of just the past few months have demonstrated the depth of those divisions. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin has acknowledged it, speaking of “unhealthy divisions within the church”. On May 6th at St Francis Xavier Church on Gardiner Street in Dublin, the archbishop said he was “saddened by some of the polemics taking place in the church today”.

He was saddened too “by some comments made in the public arena about Pope Benedict, as if all he did as pope was somehow suppressing the truth”. What was needed in the church was “not discontent but hope”, he said.

He was at the Mass to launch “a simple prayer book to help prepare for the forthcoming 50th International Eucharistic Congress”, which begins in Dublin next weekend.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA

Reporting Andy Sheehan

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Sources close to the investigation tell the KD Investigators that Father Daniel Valentine’s Facebook posts involved an invitation to a minor to drink alcohol and that they have found pornography on his computer.

Bishop David Zubik says while he is not aware of these specific allegations, the prospect of another priest under suspicion is more than disheartening.

“Obviously, all of us are saddened by it,” he said. “I would be less than honest with you to tell you I lose a lot of sleep over this stuff.”

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By Shannon Burkey

A shocking 27-page narrative written by a Boulder Creek resident who is a defrocked Franciscan priest and a convicted child molester detailing his abuse was released last week.

Robert Van Handel, 65, is accused of molesting at least 17 boys, including his 5-year-old nephew, according to the Associated Press, who obtained more than 4,000 pages, including Van Handel’s 27-page narrative, from a plaintiff’s attorney last week.

The documents are the first of their kind to be released to the public and graphically detail Van Handel’s history of abuse with young boys during his time teaching at a seminary high school in Santa Barbara and running a boy’s choir in the mid-1980s to mid-1990s.

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ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires Herald

A court ruled that priest Julio César Grassi should not remain under house arrest and ordered his release, thus annulling a previous ruling by another court.

Grassi was sentenced in 2010 to 15 years in prison after a court found him guilty of charges including aggravated sexual abuse.

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CALIFORNIA
ABC News

[Read Robert Van Handel’s Sexual History]

By COLLEEN CURRY

In the essay, Van Handel, now 65 and a registered sex offender in Santa Cruz County, describes wrestling, tickling, and fondling young boys whom he invited to attend one-on-one choir practices, admits to molesting high school boys at a seminary where he taught, and says he took pictures of young boys wearing few clothes or showering.

“It was clearly my choir and the fulfillment of my fondest dreams,” he wrote. “Now I understand that it was also a constant supply of attractive little boys.”

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UNITED STATES
IrishCentral

Cardinal Dolan really has some nerve lecturing Obama on morals — His actions in Milwaukee, paying off pedophile priests, were dreadful

Patrick Roberts

Cardinal Timothy Dolan has spent the last few months lecturing President Obama on morals and the need for Catholic organizations to have freedom of choice over birth control provisions in their health insurance.

Ignore for a moment the fact that 95 per cent of Catholic women use birth control anyway and consider instead the story yesterday from Milwaukee.

There, a long-lost diocesan document has turned up making it clear that then Bishop Dolan paid $20,000 on at least two occasions to pedophile priests in order to spur their departure from the priesthood.

These two pedos were not handed over to the police. They received a $20,000 reward and walked away Scot-free as far as Bishop Dolan was concerned.

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VATICAN CITY
CBC News

By Mark Quinlan, CBC News

Posted: Jun 1, 2012

The Vatican has been under intense scrutiny for almost six months now, the result of leaked correspondence — the so-called Vatileaks — that alleges financial corruption and intrigue within the internal government of the Holy See.

The subject of the leaks has sparked a media frenzy in Rome and even among some of the world’s financial press, but it is no surprise to church historians who have seen all this before.

“The Vatican is in a sense almost perpetually enmeshed in scandals, because it continues to act like a kingdom,” says John Stackhouse, professor of theology and culture at the University of British Columbia’s Regent College.

“It might have made sense at one point in history for the pope to also be a prince, but whenever you’re involved in politics or business, things get messy.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Washington Examiner

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia jury wasted no time Friday in homing in on the alleged “smoking gun” as it started deliberations in a groundbreaking clergy-abuse case.

Jurors broke for the weekend after deliberating in the afternoon in the trial of a former Roman Catholic church official. Monsignor William Lynn is charged with conspiracy and child endangerment for allegedly keeping predator-priests in ministry.

Jurors quickly asked for a half-dozen exhibits, including a gray folder found in a locked safe at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The folder contains a list of 35 suspected predator-priests — and was compiled by Lynn in 1994. At least one priest on the list was a parish pastor until this year.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 01, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

Franciscan Sr. Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, told NCR Friday the group is still discerning whether it can abide “with integrity” a Vatican-ordered revision of the organization’s charter, and plans to raise serious questions with church officials during planned meetings later this month in Rome.

In an exclusive interview, Farrell said a special meeting of the group’s national board of directors this week found it facing “a gamut of emotions of ups and downs” as it attempted prayerfully to decide the future course for the organization.

Farrell’s comments come just hours after LCWR, which represents some 80 percent of U.S. women religious, issued its first official statement in reply to a highly critical doctrinal assessment of the group issued April 18 by the Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

The LCWR reply said the Vatican assessment followed a flawed process and charged that it has caused “scandal and pain throughout the church.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit

Für Abweichler war das Leben in der Katholischen Kirche nie ein Zuckerschlecken. Früher, als die Zeiten noch rauer und die Strafen drakonischer waren, wurden sie mit Schimpf und Schande verbannt oder gar verbrannt. Heute, da die Kirche milder geworden ist, tut’s die Exkommunikation. Allerdings wurde die Spezies der Abweichler immer eindeutig und von höchster Stelle definiert: Wer nicht mitzog, der war draußen; wer die Lehrmeinung nicht vertrat, der gehörte nicht dazu. Soweit so klar. Dachte man.

Aber nachdem jetzt das Unerhörte geschehen ist und ein päpstlicher Kammerherr vatikanische Geheimnisse ausplauderte, verschieben sich die Fronten. Es scheint kein römisches, sondern ein europäisches Phänomen zu sein. Neulich auf dem Katholikentag in Mannheim gab es eine ganz andere, geradezu inverse Spezies von Abweichlern zu entdecken: Nämlich die, die die Lehrmeinung der Katholischen Kirche voll vertrat – und gerade deswegen ausgebootet wurde. Eine Spezies, die nicht gegen die Amtskirche ankämpfte, sondern gegen die Hardcore-Toleranten. Denn diese hielten das Mantra der Toleranz derart hoch, dass sie abweichende Meinungen nicht tolerieren konnten.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sexueller Missbrauch – Forschungsergebnisse

5. Forschungsergebnisse und Psychogramm der beteiligten Personen

31. Mai 2012

5.1 Ausmaß und Dunkelziffer

Das wahre Ausmaß von sexuellem Missbrauch lässt sich aufgrund der sehr hohen Dunkelziffer schlecht erkennen. Die Dunkelziffer liegt bei den an Kindern begangenen Missbrauchshandlungen besonders hoch. Man schätzt, dass noch etwa acht ­ zehnmal mehr Kinder betroffen sind, als bekannt wird. Die Gründe dafür sind vielseitig: Häufig ist ein Kleinkind, zu Aussagen noch nicht fähig, Opfer der Tat. Das größere Kind scheut sich, Angaben zu machen, vor allem dann, wenn der Vater als Täter in Frage kommt. Das Kind läuft sogar Gefahr, für den Zerfall der Familie und für die nach der Verurteilung des Vaters aufkommende Not verantwortlich gemacht zu werden. Das Kind wird als der schuldige Teil angesehen und manchmal sogar als kleine Hure oder phantasievolle Lügnerin bezeichnet.

Die Opfer werden selten oder überhaupt nicht dem Arzt in seiner Praxis vorgestellt, schon aus der Sorge heraus, es könnten Anzeigen erfolgen. Nachfolgende Untersuchungen, Begutachtungen und Vernehmungen im Ermittlungsverfahren gegen den Täter werden für die ganze Familie als peinlich und unangenehm angesehen und sollen deshalb vermieden werden. Diese Tatsachen sprechen deutlich dafür, dass die tatsächliche Zahl von sexuellem Kindesmissbrauch weit über der Zahl der bekannt gewordenen Fälle liegt. Aus diesem Grund wird allgemein davon ausgegangen, dass in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland jährlich ca. 300.000 Kinder sexuell missbraucht werden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Diesseits

Der Giordano Bruno Stiftung (gbs) liegt einer Mitteilung zufolge ein Brief der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz (DBK) vor, dem zu entnehmen ist, dass die Kirche künftig nicht darauf verzichten will, sich bei sexuellen Gewalttaten an Kindern und Jugendlichen durch Kirchenbedienstete auf die Verjährung zu berufen. Der Opferanwalt Christian Sailer hatte dies zuvor in einem offenen Brief gefordert, um die von kirchlicher Seite immer wieder versprochene „restlose Aufklärung und Entschädigung aller Missbrauchsfälle” zu ermöglichen. Das Schreiben des „Büros für Fragen des sexuellen Missbrauchs im kirchlichen Bereich” vom 15. März ist mit der Bemerkung „persönlich/vertraulich” versehen. Rechtsanwalt Sailer veröffentlichte es dennoch.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Die Zeit

In den USA werden straffällig gewordene Priester entlassen. Nun gibt es erste Stimmen, die diesen harten Kurs auch in Deutschland einschlagen wollen. Doch damit würde sich die katholische Kirche der Verantwortung für die Täter entledigen

Wollen die katholischen Bischöfe ihren Kurs im Missbrauchsskandal ändern? Der neue Kölner Generalvikar Stefan Heße verriet dem „Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger“, dass es darüber Diskussionen gibt. Manche Oberhirten liebäugeln damit, die zehn Jahre alte strikte Politik ihrer amerikanischen Kollegen zu übernehmen: Ist Missbrauch erwiesen, wird der Täter für immer von pastoraler Arbeit ausgeschlossen. Ihm droht Entlassung. Offenbar suchen die Bischöfe die Vorwärtsverteidigung. Ihr Chefaufklärer Stephan Ackermann geriet im März ins Zwielicht. Opfer warfen ihm, dem Trierer Bischof, vor, dass er überführte Täter weiterbeschäftige. Einer von ihnen berichtete sogar, er sei in eine Auslandsgemeinde in der Ukraine versetzt worden und habe auch dort Kinder missbraucht.

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The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) has defined the Vatican’s accusations of their doctrinal infidelity as “unsubstantiated”. On 12 June the congregation is to meet Cardinal Levada in Rome

Fabrizio Mastrofini
Rome

It took them more than a month but in the end, U.S. nuns have rejected the Vatican’s accusations. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) finally reached a decision at a meeting which took place on 30 and 31 May. The accusations made against them by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were defined as “unsubstantiated” “and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency.”

The sanctions imposed – they added – are “disproportionate” and could compromise their board members’ ability to fulfil their mission. It was over a month ago that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had asked for a deep reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the organisation which represents the majority of orders of women religious in the United States. The investigation concluded that the “the current doctrinal and pastoral situation of the LCWR is grave and a matter of serious concern.” The Archbishop of Seattle, Peter Sartain, was nominated as Vatican delegate for the supervision of the reform work, the revision of the organisation’s statutes, programme planning and the revision of liturgical texts.

Over the past month and a half, the number of demonstrations in favour of the nuns has risen in the U.S., with marches, debates and telegrams expressing solidarity. Three days ago, a group of nuns, and lay people marched before the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington. To everyone’s surprise, the city’s Nuncio, Mgr. Carlo Maria Viganò, went out to speak to the demonstrators, asking two of them to enter his office for a more in depth face to face dialogue. This gesture received a great deal of attention in the progressivist Catholic press and was seen as a sign of sensitivity at the very least.

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ITALY/UNITED STATES
Vatican Insider

Alessandro Speciale
Rome

The issue of the unreported sex abuse cases in still alive in the Church’s internal debate and “paedophilia has contributed to the Church’s loss of credibility.” Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley stated this, in a speech this morning at the VII World Family Meeting in Milan.

The Cardinal said we must express our pain to the people who were hurt and assure them that in the future acts of abuse of this kind are not repeated. We must preach what we practice, he said, proclaiming the Gospel and acting as true disciples of Christ.

The Archbishop of Boston went on to remind his audience that in the countries where this problem was identified standards have been adopted.

Just as he is he is engaged in a fight to the last breath with President Barack Obama – which coincides with the campaign for next November’s presidential elections – the Archbishop of New York, and President of U.S. Bishops Cardinal Dolan, finds himself caught up in a scandal that could tarnish his image.

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COLORADO
The Gazette

June 01, 2012 12:38 PM

MATT STEINER
THE GAZETTE

A Colorado Springs Catholic priest allegedly had sexual contact with a 16-year-old, provided the teenage boy with alcohol and marijuana and posted shirtless photos of the boy on Facebook, according to an arrest affidavit released Thursday.

Colorado Springs police officer Terry Thrumston described in the affidavit instances where Manning allegedly kissed the boy on the lips and performed other sexual acts before apologizing, saying “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want to do that.”

Thrumston had been contacted Oct. 21, 2011 by Lisa Poulos, who had received information about Manning, who recently retired from St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church in Colorado Springs, from the 16-year-old’s sister, the court document said.

According to the affidavit, the boy told a detective that all sexual contact between him and Manning happened “within in the last three months he lived in Colorado, starting in June or July 2011.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Steve Tawa and Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — After all-day closing arguments on Thursday, the judge in the landmark clergy child sex abuse case charged the jury this morning, and deliberations followed.

The lead defendant, Monsignor William Lynn, is the first US Roman Catholic church official to be charged criminally with child endangerment.

This morning, the jury was instructed on familiar and not-so-familiar legal concepts of law, including the presumption of innocence, reasonable doubt, consciousness of guilt, and accomplice liability.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

By Jessica Lussenhop
Fri., Jun. 1 2012

A priest who served in four different Missouri parishes has just been formally charged with sexual abuse of a minor in a Colorado courtroom.

The details of Charles Robert Manning’s alleged crimes are under seal, but an investigation began after one 15-year-old boy complained that Manning was behaving like a “jealous lover” toward him.

While Manning awaits his next court date, new details of his alleged crimes are beginning to trickle out, and victims’ advocates want to know why Manning has been allowed to come back to St. Louis.

According to Bishop Accountability, Manning served in Glencoe, Bridgeton, St. Louis, and Imperial, starting in the late ’90s. For reasons that remain unclear, he was reassigned to St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church in Colorado Springs in 2007.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 01, 2012
By Dan Morris-Young

To varying degrees, U.S. priests continue to harbor discontent with church leaders and at times feel like they are walking on “eggshells” as a result of the clergy sex abuse crisis, reports a recently released study.

Carried out by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, “Same Call, Different Men: The Evolution of the Priesthood since Vatican II” also says the scandal:

•Caught many priests off guard, that they had been “unaware of the full scope of the problem”;
•Was “almost never” linked by study participants to homosexuality or clerical celibacy as underlying causes;
•Should include the question: “Is there a dark side to priestly fraternity?”

Based at Georgetown University, the CARA researchers used a sample of 2,400 diocesan and 800 religious priests. It employed surveys, focus groups and individual interviews.

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UNITED STATES
Irish Independent

By Daniel Trotta in New York

Friday June 01 2012

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan authorised $20,000 (€16,000) payments to a handful of sexually abusive priests so they would immediately leave the Milwaukee archdiocese when Cardinal Dolan was archbishop there nearly a decade ago, the church has confirmed

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) first announced the payments on Wednesday upon discovering minutes of a March 2003 meeting of the Milwaukee archdiocese finance council meeting. SNAP is demanding full disclosure of all such payments.

Offenders

Church officials confirmed the payments as approved in the minutes but archdiocese spokeswoman Julie Wolf said she had yet to determine how many priests received them, estimating the number at “a handful, a couple”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Democrat Herald

Jury deliberations have begun in the Philadelphia trial of a Roman Catholic church official charged with endangering children by keeping predator-priests in ministry.

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

Jurors have heard from more than dozen alleged victims. They include a nun, a former priest and young adults with drug and alcohol problems.

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UNITED STATES
National Review

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

June 1, 2012 .

Timothy Cardinal Dolan, who of course is both the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and cardinal archbishop of New York, was the subject of a New York Times piece Thursday, and of much hysterical commentary in its wake. The short version of the story is that, as archbishop of Milwaukee, he approved the quickest and most effective way to get priests accused of misconduct to leave the priesthood.

Support was offered to priests who voluntarily relinquished their priestly ministry — laicized — as an incentive for them to do so. This was the most efficient way to get them out of ministry. The alternative would have been lengthly canonical trials — which would have taken more of a toll on the victims, as they would have been examined by canon lawyers over the course of the proceedings, the costs much higher than the price tag of expeditious removal.

There is no news here. In fact, the Laurie Goodstein piece even betrays that early on: Then-bishop Dolan commented on this in 2006, reacting to the insinuation that he was rewarding priests who had been accused of misconduct. Critics are now calling him a “liar” for saying that the charge that he had given “payoffs” to accused priests was false. Most reasonable readers understand that he was reacting to a pejorative characterization of what he deemed to be a responsible stewardship decision.

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ITALY
Reuters

By Silvia Aloisi

MILAN | Fri Jun 1, 2012

(Reuters) – Some 15,000 policemen deployed in Milan on Friday to keep protesters at bay during a visit by Pope Benedict which is unlikely to provide much respite from the worst crisis of his papacy.

The pope, who has expressed sadness and pain over a scandal which exploded last week when his butler was arrested for stealing his private documents, will begin a three-day visit to Italy’s financial capital on Friday evening.

Before his arrival, heavy security was in place with snipers on rooftops along his route from Linate airport to Milan’s majestic central square in front of its huge gothic cathedral, where the pontiff will greet pilgrims.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

For Immediate Release – June 1, 2012

Nothing less than a full, independent investigation should be demanded by the Catholics of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee into golden parachute payments for perpetrator priests to voluntarily seek laicization.

For this outrageous raid on their given in good faith money, NSAC calls upon the Catholics of Milwaukee to take a stand, speak up and do what’s right. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

Priest perpetrators in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee during Archbishop Dolan’s tenure were staked with a golden carrot of at least $10,000 and a possible $20,000 to get out and get lost.

All they had to do was start the paperwork to pick up $10,000, wait for the papers to come through and their bank balances climbed by another $10,000. All this for abusing children.

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UNITED STATES
Medicine Hat News

Friday, 01 June 2012 07:48 Rachel Zoll, The Associated Press

NEW YORK, N.Y. – The largest umbrella group for U.S. nuns said Friday that the Vatican-ordered overhaul of their organization is based on unsubstantiated claims from a flawed investigation that has caused “scandal and pain” for Roman Catholics.

A Vatican agency in April said the group has “serious doctrinal problems,” including taking positions that undermined Catholic teaching on the all-male priesthood, marriage and homosexuality. The Vatican reprimand prompted an outpouring of support for nuns by Catholics and non-Catholics.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents about 57,000 nuns, said they will bring their concerns to the Vatican orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a meeting scheduled for June 12 in Rome.

The national board of the nuns’ group issued the statement, its first since the Holy See ordered the overhaul, after a three-day private meeting.

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UNITED STATES
CNN

By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor

(CNN) – The leadership representing most of America’s nuns came out swinging Friday against the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, in the face of charges from the Vatican that the nuns are espousing “radical feminism” and straying from church teaching.

The Vatican’s criticism of the American nuns has “caused scandal and pain throughout the church community, and created greater polarization,” the Leadership Conference of Women Religious – which represents about 80% of American nuns – said in a statement Friday.

The board of the group had convened in Washington this week for three days of special meetings, provoked by an April assessment from the Vatican that said America’s nuns had largely gone rogue and warned that they could be a negative global influence on the church.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 01, 2012 All Things Catholic

While the arrest of the pope’s butler has triggered feverish speculation about the “who” of the Vatican leaks scandal, there’s been less attention so far to the “what” of the revelations contained in the sensational new book His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI, published by journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi.

In part, that’s because the scores of documents in the 326-page book are complex and highly diverse, often composed in dense ecclesiastical Italian; in part, that’s because a Vatican whodunit is tough to resist.

Yet the substance of the leaks obviously merits consideration, so below, I present a sampling of the highlights, including material likely to interest English-speaking readers. Later, I’ll roll out more. …

2. The Legionaries of Christ

Critics have long asserted that the Vatican had all the information it needed to act against Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, well before it sentenced him to a life of “prayer and penance” in 2006. Charges of sexual and financial misconduct by Maciel became public in the 1990s, though Vatican officials have insisted those reports were not confirmed until later.

Nuzzi’s book adds another detail, producing the brief notes taken by a papal secretary on Oct. 19, 2011, after a half-hour meeting with Fr. Rafael Moreno, a Mexican priest who served as Maciel’s private assistant for 18 years.

The full text of the unsigned note reproduced by Nuzzi, written on letterhead of the “Particular Secretary of His Holiness,” is as follows:
19 October 2011
Meeting 9:00-9:30 am
By me
Meeting with Fr. Rafael Moreno, priv.sec. of M.M. •Was for 18 years private secretary of M.M.; from this was … [word is illegible]
•Destroyed proof against him (incriminating material)
•Wanted to inform P.P. II in 2003, but he didn’t want to hear them, didn’t believe
•Wanted to inform Card. Sodano, but he didn’t concede an audience to them
•Card. De Paolis had too little time

Nuzzi writes that in all probability, “P.P. II” refers to John Paul II. Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, meanwhile, is the Vatican official Benedict XVI has tapped to oversee a reform of the Legionaries. …

Perhaps most explosively, Calcagno’s report advises against giving in to demands for large-scale financial compensation for Maciel’s victims.

Calcagno says reconciliation with some victims “has not been difficult,” but it’s more complicated with regard to “those who demand, in the name of justice, enormous sums that the Legion absolutely cannot afford, and which in fact cannot be based on claims of justice.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KMOX

Fred Bodimer

June 1, 2012

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – A local clergy abuse survivor is sounding off on published reports that St. Louis native — Cardinal Timothy Dolan — paid suspected pedophile priests $20,000 to leave the ministry while serving as Archbishop of Milwaukee.

“In what other line of work does a man molest children, then get paid a bonus to leave?” says David Clohessy.

He’s the head of the St. Louis based Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests or SNAP.

“If Dolan wants to protect kids, he knows that the way to do that is to help police and prosecutors lock-up child molesting clerics, not simply strip them of their collars and send them on their way,” says Clohessy.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • A former Roman Catholic seminarian at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary pleaded guilty Thursday to attempting to receive child pornography through the mail in a deal that will net him five years in federal prison.

Nickolas Eugene Pinkston, 41, of Warrensburg, was dismissed from seminary Jan. 10, 2010, when church officials learned he was involved in a relationship with an adult woman. He had been sponsored by the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

In March, he caught the attention of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service because of a mailing he’d received from an Ohio-based website that had both adult and child pornography, prosecutors said.

In a sting, postal inspectors then sent Pinkston an ad for a catalog that billed itself as the “”underground leader in TABOO and FORBIDDEN XXX videos!!” Pinkston ordered a catalog featuring young teen girls and pre-teen girls, prosecutors said, then ordered a DVD entitled “Children’s sex orgy.”

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UNITED STATES
RH Reality Check

by Lon Newman, Family Planning Health Services

June 1, 2012

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who has problems of his own in Milwaukee, is leading a procession of lawsuits opposing a national requirement of health insurance companies to cover contraceptives. The cardinal called it a “totalitarian incursion against religious liberty.” His principle argument, is that religious institutions should not “… be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization,” because it “… violates their religious beliefs.”

On that principle, legislators across the country are working to deny state and federal funding to organizations that provide contraceptive services. These lawmakers and their political allies echo the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) reasoning that it is unjust to force taxpayers, employers, or members of the Church to support institutions or their affiliates which are committing acts they decry as “intrinsically evil.”

The morality of contraception has been debated for generations, but what if we apply Cardinal Dolan’s reasoning where the question of morality and legality is indisputable?

Recent polling shows that 80 percent of American Catholics find contraception morally acceptable and almost all Catholic women who have had sex have used a method forbidden by the Church.

On the other hand, protecting sexual predators is neither moral nor legal. At the same time the anti-contraception lawsuits were filed, a Wisconsin court ruled that the Green Bay Archdiocese illegally concealed sexual assaults of children and put other children at risk. If it is the bishops’ principle to stop federal and state funding for institutions and affiliates that have acted immorally, we can begin where there is no question of legality or morality. Let us deny funding to institutions, like the Green Bay Archdiocese, that have been convicted of conspiring to protect child sexual predators.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Journal

THE PSNI HAS concluded its investigation into allegations made in a BBC programme broadcast last month, and said that the abuse alleged in the programme did not take place in Northern Ireland.

The BBC This World programme alleged that the primate of All-Ireland failed to protect children from the abuse of paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth.

It said that Brady had been given the names and addresses of boys being abused, but that he did not ensure their safety after acting as a notary during a 1975 inquiry carried out by the Catholic Church. Brady has since made a public apology to the victims.

The BBC reports today that the PSNI’s investigation has found that the sex abuse referred to in the programme did not take place in Northern Ireland. The PSNI has said that it continues to investigate 251 separate complaints which have been made to police, ranging from 40 years ago to five years ago.

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UNITED STATES
Predator-Proof Your Family

I’m sitting here reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about the controversy surrounding the decision of a church in Milwaukee to pay suspected pedophiles priests to leave the ministry. It turns out that any priest suspected of pedophilia was given $20,000 to get out of the ministry and return to civilian life.

All the predictable points are raised about the pros and cons of the payments.

Naturally, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) protested the payments as payoffs and bonuses to priests for molesting children, saying “You don’t give a bonus to a man who rapes children,” and, “If they paid them anything, it should have been for therapy and counseling.”

Of course the archdiocese defended the payments, saying they’re just an incentive to get rid of the priests without getting into a lengthy, bureaucratic process of removal and the payments were to help the men transition to lay life without completely losing access to needs such as health care.

Whoooooah just a minute. Hang on a minute. I feel like somebody has a great big whitewash brush they’re trying to slap over my sensibilities. I have two problems.

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UNITED STATES
America Magazine

The Vatican’s assessment of the L.C.W.R. offers an opportunity for discernment and collaboration.

Peter Sartain | JUNE 18, 2012

The city of Memphis was ravaged by a series of yellow fever epidemics in 1873, 1878 and 1879, the aftermath of which touches the city even today. Growing up there, I often rode the public bus, and I became aware at an early age that sisters, brothers and priests were allowed to ride at no cost. During those dreadful epidemics, as thousands of citizens died or fled to healthier climes, Catholic religious stayed put. More than 50 sisters and 25 priests died of yellow fever while caring for victims of the disease, and in gratitude the city offered free bus rides to religious for many years thereafter. Such heroism inspired me as a boy growing up in a city whose population was less than 3 percent Catholic.

The history of the Catholic Church in Washington State, my new home, is likewise filled with similarly inspiring chapters, chief among them the pioneer courage and faith of consecrated women. Their story was repeated again and again across the United States, and perhaps nowhere else in the world have women religious had the impact they have had in this country.

Catholic explorers, immigrants, settlers, Native Americans, converts, sisters, brothers and priests faced daunting challenges in the early days: few resources, primitive transportation, disease, extreme weather, racism and language barriers. I am moved every time I read about the establishment of hospitals, schools, orphanages and monasteries in the Pacific Northwest. For the most part, these institutions were the inspiration and work of religious women, who responded to God’s call to serve his beloved people, no matter their religion, culture, language or way of life.

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UNITED STATES
America Magazine

Posted at: Thursday, May 31, 2012
Author: Tim Reidy

Today we posted two Web-only articles commenting on the “doctrinal assessment” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The first article is from Most Rev. Peter Sartain, the archbishop of Seattle and the CDF-appointed delegate charged with overseeing the evaluation of the LCWR. Archbishop Sartain begins with praise for the legacy of women religious in the United States:

Catholic explorers, immigrants, settlers, Native Americans, converts, sisters, brothers and priests faced daunting challenges in the early days: few resources, primitive transportation, disease, extreme weather, racism and language barriers. I am moved every time I read about the establishment of hospitals, schools, orphanages and monasteries in the Pacific Northwest. For the most part, these institutions were the inspiration and work of religious women, who responded to God’s call to serve his beloved people, no matter their religion, culture, language or way of life.

Quite simply, these religious women evangelized. They lived the life of Jesus Christ; they introduced others to him; they taught the truth; they loved; they healed; they cared for the outcast; and most importantly, they prayed. The histories of our early years chronicle the sacrifice offered by religious women to build the foundation of the church in this part of the world, and embedded in each story is a life of prayer. Prayer makes witness to Christ possible and credible.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Nuns push back on Vatican report, calling it unsubstantiated and scandal-causing

By Michelle Boorstein

Leaders representing most American nuns pushed back on Friday against a stinging Vatican report that was issued in April and called for their “reform.”

After a special meeting this week in Washington, the 21-member board of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious issued a statement calling the Vatican report “unsubstantiated “ and saying it has “caused scandal and pain” and exacerbated polarization throughout the Catholic church community.

The board of the conference, whose members represent the vast majority of the 57,000 nuns in the United States, met for three days to consider how to respond to the Vatican report accusing the group of “radical feminism” and of publicly undermining the leadership of the bishops.

The full 1,500-member conference will meet in August to determine more specifically how to react, but Friday’s statement was an unusually bold reaction to the Vatican’s doctrine-enforcing arm and seemed to imply the women may choose to rebel.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Service

By Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The national board of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious said June 1 the assessment that led to a Vatican order to reform the organization “was based on unsubstantiated accusations and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency.”

“Moreover, the sanctions imposed were disproportionate to the concerns raised and could compromise their (board members’) ability to fulfill their mission,” the board said in a statement. “The report has furthermore caused scandal and pain throughout the church community and created greater polarization.”

The board released the statement the morning after it concluded a special meeting in Washington May 29-31 held to review and plan a response to the report issued to LCWR by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

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UNITED STATES
Worcester Telegram & Gazette

The Associated Press

NEW YORK — The umbrella group for U.S. Roman Catholic nuns says the Vatican crackdown on their organization is based on unfounded claims and has hurt the church.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious says they are sending their top administrators to Rome in two weeks to meet with the Vatican officials in charge of their case.

The sisters made the statement Friday after a three-day board meeting.

The Vatican’s orthodoxy watchdog in April accused the group of serious doctrinal problems. The Vatican said the organization took positions that undermined Catholic teaching on the priesthood, marriage and homosexuality. The Holy See ordered a complete overhaul of the group.

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UNITED STATES
Reuters

Fri Jun 1, 2012

By Stephanie Simon

(Reuters) – The largest organization of U.S. Catholic nuns on Friday rejected a Vatican assessment that they had fallen under the sway of radical feminism and needed to hand control of their group over to a trio of bishops.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whose members represent about 80 percent of nuns in the United States, issued a sharp statement calling the Vatican’s rebuke “unsubstantiated” and “the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency.”

The nuns said the Vatican’s report has “caused scandal and pain throughout the church community and created greater polarization.”

Tensions between U.S. nuns and church authorities, both in Rome and in the United States, have been simmering for decades as nuns have taken an increasingly independent and outspoken role in politics and social outreach.

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UNITED STATES
New Jersey Jewish Standard

Dr. Yoel Finkelman • World
Published: 01 June 2012

First, the bad news: Sexual, physical, and emotional abuse occurs in Orthodox Jewish communities.

Next, the worse news: Although there is no evidence that such abuse occurs more frequently among the various Orthodox segments of society than in other populations, two recent front-page New York Times stories are just the latest piece of evidence that Orthodox communities are often in denial and worse.

Rabbis and communal leaders often seek to save the community from embarrassment and, in so doing, protect the perpetrators. If children complain of being abused, their parents may silence them, or, if their parents complain too, their neighbors harass them to prevent their going to the police, claiming a religious prohibition on giving Jews up to secular authorities. Indeed, the official policy of the charedi organization Agudath Israel of America is that school teachers or administrators who suspect abuse must ask a rabbi before going to secular authorities, New York State laws notwithstanding.

There is also good news: Even as denial and stonewalling continue, the Orthodox conversation about abuse is gradually changing; and so is people’s behavior. Mental health professionals say that Orthodox parents, who in the past would have tried to deny abuse or keep it hush-hush, are now defending victimized children more actively. True, some school principals and community leaders continue to put pressure on parents to keep silent; but many Orthodox communities have sprouted activists who serve as “go-to” people in cases of abuse, while such organizations as JSafe provide additional resources for concerned communities and individuals concerned. The Bais Yaakov girls’ high school in Baltimore has even published a child safety protocol for both school staff and parents.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Fingal Independent

Friday June 01 2012

Police in Northern Ireland are investigating more than 250 complaints of clerical and institutional abuse.

Some of the allegations go back 40 years, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

With retired High Court judge Mr Justice Anthony Hart set to head up an official inquiry into the abuse of children living in residential care, police said the vast majority of the 251 complaints under their investigation – Operation Charwell – relate to incidents at least 20 years ago. But the overall time range was five years to 40 years.

Assistant Chief Constable George Hamilton, the officer in charge, has deployed special resources from public protection units and the rape crime unit, according to the police.

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UNITED STATES
Leadership Conference of Women Religious

[Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious – Congregation for the Doctine of the Faith]

June 1, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

[Washington, DC] The national board of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) held a special meeting in Washington, DC from May 29-31 to review, and plan a response to, the report issued to LCWR by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The board members raised concerns about both the content of the doctrinal assessment and the process by which it was prepared. Board members concluded that the assessment was based on unsubstantiated accusations and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency. Moreover, the sanctions imposed were disproportionate to the concerns raised and could compromise their ability to fulfill their mission. The report has furthermore caused scandal and pain throughout the church community, and created greater polarization.

The board determined that the conference will take the following steps:

•On June 12 the LCWR president and executive director will return to Rome to meet with CDF prefect Cardinal William Levada and the apostolic delegate Archbishop Peter Sartain to raise and discuss the board’s concerns.
•Following the discussions in Rome, the conference will gather its members both in regional meetings and in its August assembly to determine its response to the CDF report.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

By Joshua J. McElwee

A harsh Vatican critique of the organization representing most U.S. women religious was based on unsubstantiated accusations, comes from a flawed process and has caused “scandal and pain throughout the church,” the sisters’ group said in a statement this morning.

The statement, issued Friday by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), came after three days of meetings among the group’s national board and is the first official public response to the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith’s April 18 assessment of the organization, which represents some 80 percent of U.S. Catholic sisters.

That stinging Vatican assessment ordered LCWR to revise its statutes, programs and affiliations and place itself under the authority of Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain.

Friday’s statement said that during their meetings this week LCWR national board members raised concerns about “both the content of the doctrinal assessment and the process by which it was prepared” and that the group’s president and executive director will soon travel to Rome to “raise and discuss” their concerns with Vatican officials.

“Board members concluded that the assessment was based on unsubstantiated accusations and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency,” the statement continues.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

Posted: Fri, 01 Jun 2012

By Terry Sanderson

It’s always a pleasure to read that the Pope is upset. Nobody deserves to be upset more than His Holiness.

This time Mr Ratzinger is wailing about the publication of a book, His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI, by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi. It is based on documents leaked from the Vatican by un-named sources. The documents reveal a web of corruption and cronyism within the walls of Vatican City that would put a Dan Brown novel to shame.

You can read some of the details in this article.

The Vatican launched an investigation into who could have passed the documents on to the journalist and eventually pinpointed the Pope’s valet, Paolo Gabriele. Yes, the butler did it!

Or that’s according to the Vatican who are now suspected of making this poor man — presently under arrest by the Vatican police — a fall guy.

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COLORADO
The Gazette

LANCE BENZEL
THE GAZETTE

A retired Catholic priest who was suspended from a Colorado Springs church in January amid a police investigation was charged in court Thursday with several counts alleging he sexually assaulted a child.

Charles Robert Manning, 77, attended a hearing in Colorado Springs with a walker and an oxygen tank – his first public appearance here since Colorado Springs police announced his May 22 arrest.

Details of his alleged crimes weren’t released, however, and an arrest affidavit describing the case has been sealed by court order.

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COLORADO
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Associated Press | Posted: Thursday, May 31, 2012

A retired Roman Catholic priest has been formally charged with sexually assaulting a child.

The Gazette reports ( http://bit.ly/L1cPPn) Charles Robert Manning appeared in court in Colorado Springs on Thursday. He is charged with three counts of sex assault on a child by one in a position of trust, two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and two counts of sexual exploitation of children.

Details of the allegations haven’t been disclosed. Lawyers for both sides declined to comment outside the courtroom.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By GRETCHEN EHLKE • Associated Press | Posted: Friday, June 1, 2012

MILWAUKEE • The Archdiocese of Milwaukee and a former priest who received money to leave the ministry after allegations of sexual abuse say that payment and others were a form of charity meant to help men transition to a new life.

The archdiocese acknowledged paying suspected pedophile clergy after an abuse victims’ group produced a court document on Wednesday that mentioned a 2003 proposal to pay $20,000 to “unassignable priests” who agree to leave the ministry. The document from the archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings includes minutes from a 2003 meeting of its Finance Council, which included then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, a St. Louis native who is now a cardinal and head of the New York archdiocese.

Council members discussed how the church should handle sexual abuse complaints, a potential budget deficit and how to cut costs. The $20,000 payments were among the options mentioned.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests characterizes the payments as a payoff to priests who molested children.

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UNITED STATES
The Windsor Star

Postmedia News Services
June 1, 2012

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan authorized $20,000 payments to a handful of sexually abusive priests so they would immediately leave the Milwaukee archdiocese when Dolan was archbishop there nearly a decade ago, a church spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests first announced the payments on Wednesday upon discovering minutes of a March 2003 meeting of the Milwaukee archdiocese finance council meeting. SNAP is demanding full disclosure of all such payments.

Church officials confirmed the payments as approved in the minutes, but archdiocese spokeswoman Julie Wolf said she had yet to determine how many priests got them, estimating the number at “a handful.”

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UNITED STATES
New York Post

[Minutes of the Archdiocesan Finance Council]

By DAN MANGAN

Last Updated: 5:36 AM, June 1, 2012

An advocacy group for clerical-sex-abuse victims yesterday charged that New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan, while heading the Milwaukee archdiocese six years ago, “lied” when he denied any “payoff” to encourage a pedophile priest to leave the priesthood.

“The disturbing new revelations about Cardinal Dolan raise a troubling question: What other secret deals and ‘incentives’ did and does he offer to pedophile priests?” asked David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Dolan’s New York Archdiocese spokesman, Joseph Zwilling, yesterday refused to directly respond to Clohessy’s claims. Zwilling instead said only that the cardinal supported the Milwaukee Archdiocese’s claim that there was no “payoff” to pedophile priests, only “charity.”

Clohessy’s allegation came after disclosures this week that while serving as Milwaukee archbishop in 2003, Dolan agreed to pay accused pedophile priests $20,000 in exchange for their agreeing to leave the priesthood.

In 2006, Dolan had strongly denied a victims-advocate’s claim that pedophile priest Franklyn Becker was paid $10,000 in exchange for his voluntary laicization, telling the Milwaukee Sentinel:

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CLEVELAND (OH)
The Columbus Dispatch

By Michael O’Malley
THE PLAIN DEALER

Friday June 1, 2012

Bishop Richard Lennon of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland said in a letter yesterday that he has not suspended the Rev. Robert Marrone from his ministry, despite what Marrone told his breakaway congregation this week.

Lennon, writing to priests and deacons, said that on May 22, he met with Marrone to encourage him to remove himself as pastor of the Community of St. Peter and to reconcile with the Catholic Church. The bishop said he gave Marrone seven days to respond.

Although Marrone responded that he would not leave his congregation, Lennon said in his letter that he has not suspended the priest. Instead, the bishop wrote, he has “begun an investigation to determine whether a canonical penalty is to be imposed.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Steve Tawa

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — After all-day closing arguments on Thursday, the judge in the landmark clergy child sex abuse case was expected to charge the jury on Friday morning, followed by deliberations.

The lead defendant, Monsignor William Lynn, is the first U-S Roman Catholic church official to be charged criminally with child endangerment.

Defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom told jurors like the play and movie ’12 Angry Men,’ this case was about ‘reasonable doubt,’ and it’s an enormous safeguard in the justice system.

He told jurors if they ‘hesitate’ after listening to the judge’s charge on that point, Monsignor Lynn should be acquitted on two counts of child endangerment and conspiracy. Bergstrom argued prosecutors were seeking to convict Lynn for ‘documenting the evil that other men did.’

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VATICAN CITY
Firstpost

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – They are the pope’s shadow, his bodyguards both within the borders of the Vatican and during trips abroad. They are the police of the world’s smallest state.

But while the Vatican’s gendarmes are trained to protect Benedict XVI from external threats, this time they are hunting people who may be hiding within his inner circle.

Together with other arcane institutions of the ancient Vatican state, they are trying to track down who is behind a leak of the pope’s secret papers in a scandal that has shaken the papacy after the arrest of his butler.

The prosecution will be led by the “Promotor of Justice,” Nicola Picardi, who like other top officials in the Vatican’s judiciary is named by the pope and exercises his powers on the pontiff’s behalf.

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VATICAN CITY
Swissinfo

By Silvia Aloisi

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican’s justice system harks back to medieval times and is unlikely to provide the pope’s butler with fair treatment after his arrest for leaking confidential documents, according to a French lawyer involved in a previous case in the Holy See.

Luc Brossollet is not involved in the so-called “Vatileaks” case shaking the papacy but he said his personal experience suggested the Vatican’s judiciary is under the thumb of the Holy See and allows scant regard for the rights of defendants.

Brossollet was lawyer for the mother of Cedric Tornay, a young soldier in the Swiss Guard, the Pope’s personal protection unit, who was found dead in May 1998 in a Vatican apartment alongside the bodies of the corp’s commander and his wife.

“The Vatican does not have a modern, democratic judicial system that guarantees the defendant’s rights. We are back to the Middle Ages. Even the Inquisition had some rules, but they don’t have any. They just do as they wish,” Brossollet told Reuters by telephone from Paris.

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

UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on May 31, 2012

Documents recently exposed in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee showed that NY Cardinal Timothy Dolan paid predator priests $20,000 to quietly leave the priesthood. Yeah, really.

The response from Dolan? Cue the crickets. But that doesn’t mean that Dolan’s apologists have also clammed up. In fact, they have been very loud in defending Dolan, saying, “Well, at least he got rid of these bad apples.” If you want to read those articles, you can look them up. I really don’t want to drive traffic to them via my links.

I am not going to rehash the same news you can find on a million other websites. I am also not going to restate the 9,000 fine points of the public safety hazard Dolan caused. Every point is painfully obvious to anyone with a soul. Instead, this post is about why the apologists are dead wrong.

1) This ain’t the Wizard of Oz, sister. So quit trying to divert my attention.

The Catholic League, Archbishop Charles Chaput and others always like to say, “There’s nothing to see here. Abuse is way worse in public schools. It’s a liberal conspiracy.” Here are my responses: Yes there is; Maybe; and Hell, no.

Lady Justice carries a sword and scales. Do you know why? So that she may not remove the blindfold from her eyes. Justice must remain blind, whether you wear the clerical collar or are a federal politician. What murderer could stand before the court and say, “Gee, maybe I killed one person, but look at Hitler. He killed millions.” It’s a ridiculous argument and should be viewed as such.

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CANADA
APTN

By Jorge Barrera
APTN National News
The identities and bodies of many First Nations children who died in Indian residential schools may be lost forever, says the Ontario Coroner’s Office which has been working with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to sift through one of the darkest periods in Canadian history to find the dead.

“Hundreds, if not thousands” of Indigenous children who went to residential schools died while in the care of the churches and Canadian government, according to Murray Sinclair, the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Many of their parents were never told of the deaths and the bodies buried in unmarked graves across the country.

The Ontario Coroner’s Office has been working with the TRC since January to uncover any archival records that could be use to trace children who never made it home. The TRC has taken on the task of identifying and finding the graves of the children who disappeared.

The search for records initially screened about 250,000 files which were narrowed down to 5,000 that were individually examined. The results produced 120 cases that could lead to the identification of children who died in residential schools.

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

CANADA
Kingston This Week

By Katrina Geenevasen/Kingston This Week

A local author has written a book about the tragedy of Indian Residential Schools, which saw more than 150,000 First Nations children taken from their families between 1883 and 1996.

“I think that I was fated to the task from early childhood,” said Bob Wells, author of Wawahte. “I grew up in remote Northwestern Ontario, at the time in our history when many people lived as ‘we’ and ‘them.’ As a child, it did not seem fair to me that my friends were being treated differently than I was.”

The book is written in two parts. The first part tells readers about the experiences of three children who attended residential schools. Through the eyes of Esther Faries, Bunny Galvin and Stanley Stephens, readers travel back to a time of forced assimilation.

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VATICAN CITY
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

The ‘Vatileaks’ scandal has lifted the lid on a world of Catholic clerical intrigue and rivalry in the Holy See.

By Peter Stanford

7:56PM BST 31 May 2012

A British diplomat, sent as Her Majesty’s representative to the Holy See, once characterised the Vatican as being like a palace, floating adrift from the rest of the world. It is an image that has surfaced again this week with the extraordinary spectacle of the “Vatileaks” scandal, in which Pope Benedict XVI’s butler has been accused of passing stolen documents to the Italian press at the behest of senior clerics who want to discredit their rivals at the papal court.

Paolo Gabriele, a 46-year-old valet who has worked for Benedict since 2006, is being held in custody in “secure rooms” within the Vatican, the world’s smallest sovereign state at just 108 acres. As a Vatican citizen, one of only 600, he faces being dealt with by its own justice system rather than the courts in Rome, which surrounds this enclave.

Not that the international boundary that cuts across Saint Peter’s Square has deterred the Italian press from working itself up into a frenzy. Among the revelations in the private documents are details of church tax problems, its handling of child sex abuse cases, and the on-going negotiations between Benedict and ultra traditionalist “Lefebvrists”, currently excommunicated from the Church, but whom the Pope wants to readmit to his flock, apparently at any price.

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SPOKANE (WA)
Catholic Culture

A pact mediated by a federal judge has prevented the foreclosure of 22 parishes in the Diocese of Spokane, which had filed for bankruptcy in 2004.

A 2007 bankruptcy settlement plan “provided for the possibility of claims to be made after the bar date of March 2007, for a period of nine years, or until 2016,” Bishop Blase Cupich explained. “At that time, one million dollars were set aside to cover these ‘future claims.’ 22 parishes in Spokane County stepped forward on behalf of all the parishes in the diocese to offer their parish properties as collateral to assure that awards exceeding this one million dollar amount would be paid.”

“The trustee appointed to oversee the bankruptcy plan informed me that the one million dollar fund would soon be exhausted with the payment of several future claims awards and that we would need to recapitalize the future claims fund immediately or face foreclosure on parish and school properties to satisfy this obligation,” he added in a letter to parishioners.

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MISSISSIPPI
Hattiesburg American

JACKSON — The state Court of Appeals has upheld an award of $500,000 to a teenager who was sexually abused by workers at facilities operated by the Mississippi Department of Human Services in Starkville and Ackerman.

In 2007, the Appeals Court upheld a Hinds County judge’s ruling that MDHS was liable for failing to protect the minor from sexual abuse by workers at the two facilities and to monitor his treatment. The court record shows the teen was in MDHS custody and assigned to the facilities.

The case was returned to Hinds County for determination of damages. The two sides allowed the judge to determine damages. Circuit Judge Winston Kidd in 2010 awarded the teenager $500,000.

On Tuesday, the Appeals Court, in a 5-5 decision, upheld the damage award.

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SPOKANE (WA)
Catholic News Agency

Spokane, Wash., Jun 1, 2012 / 02:04 am (CNA).- The Diocese of Spokane, Wash. has reached a mediation agreement in a sex abuse suit that will save parishes from foreclosure, reduce the diocese’s legal fees and compensate victims, Bishop Blase J. Cupich announced.

“This is an important and significant turning point in a very sad chapter of our diocesan history,” Bishop Cupich said in a May 27 letter to the diocese’s parishioners.

“We can never forget the harm done to children, who deserved better from the Church and her ministers. Once again, I apologize to the survivors of sexual abuse by clergy and to the families of survivors.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The New York Times

By ERIK ECKHOLM

Published: May 31, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — In an emotional summary after more than two months of testimony, the prosecution in a landmark sexual-abuse trial said here on Thursday that overwhelming evidence showed that a Roman Catholic Church official had shielded predatory priests, lied to parishioners and victims, and exposed innocent children to abuse.

But a defense lawyer for the official, Msgr. William J. Lynn, told the jury that Monsignor Lynn had done all he could to protect children within his limited powers and that he deserved praise rather than condemnation.

Monsignor Lynn, 61, as secretary of the clergy for the Philadelphia Archdiocese from 1992 to 2004, was responsible for priests’ assignments and for investigating abuse allegations. He is on trial for endangering minors and conspiracy to keep an accused priest in active ministry, charges that could carry a sentence of 10 ½ to 21 years.

He is the first Catholic Church official in the country to face criminal charges not for committing abuses himself, but for enabling abuses by playing down credible accusations and reassigning suspect priests to new parishes.

The two sides both made their closing arguments on Thursday before Judge M. Teresa Sarmina of Common Pleas Court. The judge is expected to explain the charges to the jury on Friday morning, and then deliberations will begin.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

[Minutes of the Archdiocesan Finance Council]

by Jimmy Akin Thursday, May 31, 2012

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times has (yet another) deceptively crafted hit piece on the Catholic Church.

Surprise!

You can read it here.

The piece is headlined:

In Milwaukee Post, Cardinal Authorized Paying Abusers

Not the best headline I’ve ever read. It left me scratching my head, wondering whether a Cardinal had authorized paying abusers in a newspaper called the Milwaukee Post.

Apparently this isn’t even the only headline the article has had, because at the bottom of the column, in tiny, hard-to-read grey print, it says:

A version of this article appeared in print on May 31, 2012, on page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Cardinal Authorized Payments To Abusers.

That would have been even more misleading–implying that the Cardinal (who we soon learn is Cardinal Dolan of New York) was authorizing payments to abusers in New York.

But regardless of where the alleged paying of abusers took place, there is still a further misleading aspect to the headline–and to the article itself. It is the word “paying.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CNN

From Sarah Hoye, CNN

updated 5:28 AM EDT, Fri June 1, 2012

Philadelphia (CNN) — Jury deliberations could start Friday 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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LOS ANGELES (CA)
San Antonio Express-News

[Archive of Franciscan Sex Abuse in the Province of St. Barbara – BishopAccountability.org]

GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press

Updated 04:27 a.m., Friday, June 1, 2012

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The priest always started his favorite “game” by having the young boy remove his underwear and put on loose-fitting shorts so he could fondle him more easily. Then, the Rev. Robert Van Handel would run his hands up and down the child’s body as he stretched across his lap, Walkman headphones on his ears, pretending to be asleep.

The recollection appears in a 27-page “sexual history” written by Van Handel, a defrocked Franciscan cleric who is accused of molesting at least 17 boys, including his own 5-year-old nephew, local children in his boys’ choir and students at the seminary boarding school where he taught.

The essay, penned for a therapy assignment and kept secret for years, provides a shockingly candid and detailed window into the troubled mind of a notorious pedophile priest. The narrative is believed to be the first of its kind to be publicly revealed through civil litigation despite years of lawsuits targeting sexually abusive priests.

Most confidential files unearthed in court cases only hint at the existence of sexual histories, which are a common part of therapy meant to be seen only by the priest and his psychologist, said attorney Jeffrey Anderson, who has handled more than 2,000 church abuse cases.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk|May 31, 2012|

The Media Report.com, which takes up cudgels against what it considers media attacks on the Catholic Church, today assailed the NYT’s Laurie Goodstein for a story criticizing the country’s leading hierarch for, as they see it, just doing his darnedest to remove sex offenders from the priesthood asap.

In her latest Catholic Church-obsessed piece, Goodstein takes issue with the fact that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, when he was the Archbishop of Milwaukee a while back, approved a number of $20,000 settlements to rid the Church of abusive priests in a more time-efficient and expeditious manner – without long, drawn-out canonical or civil proceedings.

The problem the story poses for Dolan is not that he did such a thing, however, but that he didn’t tell the truth about it back in the day.

The object of the exercise was to induce the sex offenders not to contest being defrocked–“laicized”–and thereby avoid a lengthy legal process in Rome. To that end, according to newly disclosed minutes of a March 2003 meeting of the Milwaukee archdiocese’s finance committee, Dolan and his councilors discussed a proposal to “offer $20,000 for laicization ($10,000 at the start and $10,000 at the completion the process).”

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press

TORONTO – An intensive review of Ontario records has so far turned up more than 100 possible cases of previously unidentified child and youth deaths linked to Indian residential schools, the province’s chief coroner said Thursday.

The information was gleaned from close scrutiny of about 5,000 death records selected from an initial screening of 250,000 records going back to the 19th century.

“It’s staggering to think that families would not have known what happened to a child that was sent off to the residential schools,” Chief Coroner Dr. Andrew McCallum told The Canadian Press.

“There was a huge vacuum of information. What was fed back to the immediate family was highly inconsistent.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director (Milwaukee)
CONTACT: 414.429.7259; 414.336.8575

In an email today to Catholic leaders in the Milwaukee Archdiocese “chief of staff” Jerry Topczewski once again admitted that unrestricted payouts were made to priest sex offenders by the Milwaukee Archdiocese as a “signing bonus” to quietly leave the priesthood. The payments have now, according to Topczewski, been stopped.

Is this not a clear admission that they were wrong in the first place?

And isn’t it time for Cardinal Dolan and his successor Jerome Listecki to acknowledge the deep moral wrong of taking Catholic charitable funds and funneling them to priest child molesters?

Topczewski, contradicting himself, also writes that the archdiocese made these payouts because the archdiocese is “canonically responsible for the financial care of a priest, even one who has committed child sexual assault…like it or not.”

Like it or not? Really?

The money to pay off these child molesters came from the hard earned contributions of loyal, faithful Catholics. It’s doubtful they are going to “like” discovering that their contributions were being deposited into the bank accounts of pedophile priests so that the men who raped and molested their children could disappear, as Topczewski writes, “into a new field of work”. Topczewski says these priest offenders used the money to seek secular employment, medical expenses, or training for new jobs. But these funds were given in lump sums with no restrictions. We do know that some of these priests—like Daniel Massie and Jerome Wagner—have secreted themselves into new “secular” jobs working with children and families.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
AFP

By Daniel Kelley (AFP)

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Jurors in a landmark Catholic Church sex abuse case heard closing arguments Thursday in the trial of Monsignor William Lynn, the highest-ranked US church official to be charged with covering up child molestation.

Those arguments capped more than 10 weeks of dramatic testimony in the case against Lynn, whose job it was to investigate reports of abuse in the archdiocese from 1992 to 2004. Jury deliberations were expected to start Friday.

Starkly conflicting portraits of the senior priest emerged at trial.

Lynn’s lawyer described him as a low level functionary who struggled within a rigid church hierarchy to act against abuse by documenting it and compiling the voluminous records that prosecutors used to build their case.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

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

As the official in charge of investigating clergy sex abuse for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Msgr. William J. Lynn bravely “put a spotlight” on the shame of the Catholic church, his lawyer said Thursday.

A prosecutor called Lynn’s actions something else: just shameful.

“He and everyone else who protected pedophile priests were murdering the souls of children,” Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington said.

The conflicting portraits emerged during a day of closing arguments in the landmark prosecution for Lynn and the Rev. James J. Brennan. The Common Pleas Court jury of six men and six women is scheduled to begin deliberations Friday.

The summations capped an 11-week child endangerment and abuse trial that included more than 60 witnesses — including Lynn and almost two dozen alleged abuse victims. Jurors also saw nearly 2,000 documents, most from secret church archives, that showed accused clerics being shuffled among parishes. Many were records Lynn drafted or reviewed during a 12-year tenure as Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua’s adviser on clergy sex abuse.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

May 31, 2012
By Elizabeth Fiedler

District Attorney Seth Williams sat in a Philadelphia courtroom today to observe the prosecution’s closing arguments in the landmark clergy sexual abuse case.

Williams was surrounded by the media, as well as advocates for survivors of abuse, and the defendants’ supporters.

Monsignor William Lynn is accused of failing to prevent other priests from sexually abusing children.

Lynn is the first U.S. church official to be charged in a child sex abuse case for his administrative actions.

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UNITED STATES
Press TV (Iran)

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee confirmed Wednesday that it had a policy to pay suspected pedophile priests to leave the ministry.

The acknowledgement was prompted by a document made public by abuse victims’ advocates from the archdiocese’s bankruptcy that references a 2003 proposal to pay $20,000 to “unassignable priests” who accepted a return to the laity. The policy was crafted under then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is now a cardinal and head of the archdiocese in New York.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests characterizes the payments as a payoff and bonuses to priests who molested children. The archdiocese disputes that characterization, saying the payments were in part to more quickly move those men out of the priesthood.

The group is calling on the archdiocese to release all records involving the payments and its handling of clergy sex abuse cases.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Helena Independent Record

Associated Press | Posted: Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee and a former priest who received money to leave the ministry following allegations of sexual abuse say that payment and others were a form of charity meant to help men transition to a new life following the priesthood.

The archdiocese acknowledged paying suspected pedophile clergy after an abuse victims’ group produced a court document on Wednesday that mentioned a 2003 proposal to pay $20,000 to “unassignable priests” who agree to leave the ministry. The document from the archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings includes minutes from a 2003 meeting of its Finance Council, which included then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, now a cardinal and head of the New York archdiocese.

Council members discussed how the church should handle sexual abuse complaints, a possible budget deficit and how to cut costs. The $20,000 payments were among the options mentioned.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests characterizes the payments as a payoff to priests who molested children.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WSLS

By: MARYCLAIRE DALE | Associated Press
Published: May 31, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (AP) After a 10-week trial, a jury will soon weigh the actions of a Roman Catholic church official charged with hiding suspected pedophile priests in the Philadelphia archdiocese.

Monsignor William Lynn faces up to 21 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy and child endangerment.

Prosecutors say Lynn helped bury sordid tales of abuse in secret church archives from 1992 to 2004 during the time he served as secretary for clergy, when he could have quit or called police.

Defense lawyers insist Lynn alone tried to address the problem, but say he took orders from the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

Deliberations could begin Friday after jury instructions.

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UNITED STATES
The Village Voice

By Victoria BekiempisThu., May 31 2012

Earlier today, the Voice brought you news that Cardinal Timothy Dolan paid pervert priests up to 20 grand as “incentive” to get them to leave their posts when he ran the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

Here’s the thing: Dolan, according to Catholic law, might not have been doing anything wrong in authorizing this payoff. In fact, the canon might characterize this decision as being “a good Christian.”

This afternoon, we reached out to Msgr. Thomas J. Green, J.C.D., who teaches at Catholic University of America’s School of Canon Law and is an expert in the field.

We wanted to get a better sense of “laicization” — the technical term for when a priest or nun leaves the Church and becomes a layperson.

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UNITED STATES
Jweekly

by joel kamisher

There’s a story about a man who went to his rabbi in an Eastern European shtetl and falsely accused a business partner of wrongdoing. So the wise old rabbi told the man to take a pillowcase full of duck feathers and scatter them in the village square. The man did so, and returned to the rabbi for further instructions.

The rabbi then told the man to go and retrieve the feathers. The man protested that this would be impossible. The rabbi said: That shows how valuable a person’s reputation is, and how once it’s damaged, it can’t be repaired.

When I worked in local radio news in the Bay Area, I was reluctant to name accused rapists and child molesters — or any other suspect — as soon as they were arrested. I was frequently overruled and had to name names in newscasts despite my misgivings. What happened to “innocent until proven guilty?” …

But rabbis in the ultra-Orthodox community should learn from the Catholic Church’s experience with pedophiles: The problem isn’t going to go away by trying to blame, shun or intimidate victims and their families or protecting the accusers from prosecution.

The rabbis should remember the ancient commandment “Justice, justice you shall seek.” They should not leave themselves open to charges of obstructing justice because they order members of their congregations to come to them before reporting incidents to the police.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Kos

President of Catholic Bishops Conference Cardinal Dolan bribed pedophile priests to go away quietly

by Kaili Joy Gray

Say this for Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: He sure is a multi-tasker.

When he’s not threatening to cease “liv[ing] out the imperatives of our faith to serve, teach, heal, feed, and care for others” unless all American women are denied access to contraception, using his blog to smear children raped and molested by priests, coordinating massive lawsuits against the Obama administration because women’s health care makes him sad, appearing on TV to false witness through his teeth, appreciating “the work done” by the hate group Catholic League, or organizing a national “fortnight” of civil disobedience, he’s apparently busy praying that no one will find out about how, before he became the most powerful Catholic figure in America, he secretly bribed pedophile priests to leave the Church quietly.

Bad news for Dolan: His God has forsaken him yet again. The New York Times reports:

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York authorized payments of as much as $20,000 to sexually abusive priests as an incentive for them to agree to dismissal from the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee. […]

A spokesman for the archdiocese confirmed on Wednesday that payments of as much as $20,000 were made to “a handful” of accused priests “as a motivation” not to contest being defrocked. The process, known as “laicization,” is a formal church juridical procedure that requires Vatican approval, and can take far longer if the priest objects

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UNITED STATES
USA Today

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

Ouch. Adding to a run of harsh headlines, there’s now a New York Post story out of Albany citng a new poll that says New York voters think “the Catholic Church is too involved in politics.”

The Quinnipiac University survey found 43% saying Catholic Church leaders are too involved, with only 11% saying they’re not involved enough. Among Catholics, 33 percent say the church is too involved and only 17 percent not involved enough.

Voters also disapprove by 55-38 of Catholic lawsuits against President Obama’s contraceptive insurance coverage mandates — though Catholics narrowly approve, 51-45.

ORIGINAL POST:

Nuns under fire. Charges of payoffs to abusive priests to quit quietly. Vatican leaks.

These are rough news days for Catholic leaders, from the Pope to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of NY and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops..

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CLEVELAND (OH)
WOIO

CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) –
It’s a shocking twist in the Cleveland church closings and reopening.

A priest is now in trouble with the Catholic church.

When the Cleveland Catholic Diocese shut down St. Peter’s Church in 2009, Father Robert Marrone worshipped with his congregation at a non-sanctioned location on Euclid Avenue. At the new location, Father Marrone carried out baptisms, communion services and worships.

Bishop Richard Lennon recently told Father Marrone to come back to the Catholic Diocese or he would be suspended. “The request was simply to reconcile. It was a breakaway church. They decided to leave the Catholic church and to form his own church” says Robert Tayek with Cleveland Catholic Diocese

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Associated Press

By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — 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.”

Prosecutors in Philadelphia are paving new legal ground as they pursue Monsignor William Lynn for his handling of abuse complaints when he served as secretary for clergy at the archdiocese from 1992 to 2004. Lynn, 61, is the first U.S. church official to be charged criminally for his administrative decisions regarding priests accused of sexual abuse. He faces up to 21 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy and felony child endangerment.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington said Lynn stuck to “the game plan” by helping to keep pedophile priests in ministry and the public in the dark. Lynn could have called police or quit his job, but he cared more about keeping his job near the cardinal than protecting children, Blessington told the jury.

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NEW YORK
Gothamist

Despite calling accusations that he paid off pedophile priests as the archbishop of Milwaukee “false, preposterous and unjust,” the Times reports that Cardinal Timothy Dolan in fact made payments of as much as $20,000 to “a handful” of accused priests to encourage them to leave the priesthood sooner. “It was a way to provide an incentive to go the voluntary route and make it happen quickly, and ultimately cost less,” a diocese spokesman said, apparently not accounting for the incalculable costs of human misery associated with bribing pedophiles.

Experts in the Catholic Church’s response to sexual abuse say that payouts to dismissed priests are not uncommon. When a man becomes a priest, the church is expected to care for his needs for a lifetime.

Right, because the Church is here to serve the priests, not the people who pray to the church that their children can worship without being molested.

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NEW YORK
ABC News

By COLLEEN CURRY

May 31, 2012

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the archdiocese of New York is keeping quiet today after his old diocese, the archdiocese of Milwaukee, confirmed that under his leadership the church paid individual sums of $20,000 to priests accused of molesting children.

Dolan, who became a cardinal in February and serves as the head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is recorded discussing the payments in the minutes of financial committee meetings in 2003, documents released as the Milwaukee archdioecese goes through bankruptcy court in Wisconsin.

The archdiocese of Milwaukee confirmed to the Associated Press Wednesday that the church paid the priests money to voluntarily sign papers to leave the priesthood because it was cheaper and faster than removing them by other administrative routes, which would have included going through the Vatican.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on May 31, 2012

The disturbing new revelations about Cardinal Dolan raise a troubling question: What other secret deals and ‘incentives’ did and does he offer to pedophile priests?

Does he promise cash if they plead guilty in court and avoid long, embarrassing trials? Does he pledge to keep paying them if they’ll settle civil lawsuits quickly and quietly, without disclosing how church officials hid their crimes? Does he offer money if foreign-born sex offender priests flee the US and return to their native lands?

This new revelation is disturbing on two levels: process and content.

First, it’s disturbing because Dolan lied. And he’s had years to ‘come clean.’ Six years ago, he emphatically denied paying predators to go away. At any point since then, he could have said “I’m sorry. I must confess. I deceived parishioners and the public when I denied paying child molesting clerics to leave.” But he didn’t.

Second, it’s disturbing because it’s irresponsible for Catholic officials to recruit, educate, ordain, hire, transfer, and shield predators priests, then suddenly and quietly let them loose on an unsuspecting public with no warning or restrictions.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on May 31, 2012

A long time KC diocesan insider, Msgr. Robert Murphy, is going back into parish ministry full time. It’s an irresponsible and hurtful move by Bishop Finn that shows he still cares more about his guilty priests than his innocent flock.

Murphy stands accused of sexually propositioning a young man considering the priesthood. And no one disputes the fact that for at least five months, Murphy refused to call police about hundreds of inappropriate and illegal sexual photos of young Catholic girls taken by Fr. Shawn Ratigan.

We see no evidence that Finn really tried to substantiate Brian Heydon’s abuse report years ago or recently. But it’s not too late to make a real effort. We call on Finn to use his bully pulpit, diocesan website, dozens of parish bulletins, hundreds of parish staff and thousands of church members to ask a simple but crucial question: “Have you ever seen, suffered or suspected sexual misconduct by Msgr. Murphy? If so, you have a civil and Christian duty to speak up now so that others might be protected.”

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By ERIK KRISS, Bureau Chief

ALBANY — Too much church and state.

New York voters say the Catholic Church is too involved in politics, according to a new poll.

The Quinnipiac University survey found 43 percent saying Catholic Church leaders are too involved, with only 11 percent saying they’re not involved enough. Among Catholics, 33 percent say the church is too involved and only 17 percent not involved enough.

Voters also disapprove by 55-38 of Catholic lawsuits against President Obama’s contraceptive insurance coverage mandates — though Catholics narrowly approve, 51-45.

Democrats disapprove of Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s leadership by 33-27 percent, though overall Dolan wins 38-25 approval, fueled by 59-11 percent thumbs up from Republicans.

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UNITED STATES
Truthout

Thursday, 31 May 2012

By Valerie Tarico, Truthout | News Analysis

Timothy Dolan, cardinal of New York and head of the Catholic Conference of Bishops, had his prime-time career launched by the pedophile priest scandal. Now, despite efforts to distance himself, his role in pedophile protection may come back to bite him. Wednesday, the Archdiocese of Minneapolis admitted that, during Dolan’s tenure, pedophiles were paid to simply disappear.

In June of 2002, Dolan was appointed archbishop of Milwaukee after his predecessor, Rembert G. Weakland, admitted a confidential settlement of $450,000 to a man who accused Weakland of sexually assaulting him in 1979. In contrast to Weakland, Dolan was a known theological conservative with the trust of the Vatican and, despite questionable management of sexual abuse scandals in his previous position in Saint Louis, he was tasked with cleaning up the mess.

From the start, Dolan positioned himself as a victim’s advocate: “… [i]t is impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the situation, and the suffering that victims feel, because I’ve spent the last four months being with them, crying with them, having them express their anger to me.” His response to those tears and anger, however, foreshadowed events of this winter, when Dolan had consistently argued that the church is above the law.

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UNITED STATES
CNN

By Richard Allen Greene, CNN

(CNN) — One of the most powerful Catholic Church leaders in America approved payments of $20,000 to get abusive priests to leave the church, abuse victims and the archdiocese in question said Thursday.

Victims feel “considerable dismay” that leaders of the church in Milwaukee “have been apparently engaged in paying off those who betrayed the children of our archdiocese,” they said in an open letter to the current head of the church in Milwaukee, Archbishop Jerome Listecki.

But the case could reverberate far beyond the borders of the Midwestern city.

Timothy Dolan, who was archbishop of Milwaukee at the time, is now archbishop of New York, head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and a cardinal.

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VATICAN CITY
The Kansas City Star

By PETER MAYER
dpa

VATICAN CITY — A Vatican magistrate will next week begin to question Pope Benedict XVI’s butler who is in custody for allegedly stealing papal documents, the pontiff’s spokesman said Thursday.

Paolo Gabriele’s questioning “should take place not before next Monday or even Tuesday,” Father Federico Lombardi said.

Gabriele, 46, a Vatican citizen, was arrested last Friday and has since been charged with theft, following the discovery of the documents in the flat he shares with his wife and three children.

It is believed that among the documents found in the butler’s possession are several that in recent months were leaked to Italian newspapers.

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast – The Dish

Andrew Sullivan

There are all sorts of arguments to be made about how the Catholic hierarchy handles priests accused of sexual abuse of minors. My view – call me crazy – is that people who sexually abuse minors should be reported directly to the police and fired. Canon law should not require paying for the retirement of child rapists, or taking care of them for the rest of their lives. Cardinal Dolan – the man leading the crusade against contraception in universal healthcare and the civil rights of gays and lesbians – disagrees. He provided payments to encourage priests to accept defrocking in order to accelerate the process under canon law. I’m with the victims on this:

“In what other occupation, especially one working with families and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?”

But that’s the morality of current canon law. Cardinal Dolan’s not responsible for existing canon law. But the real issue here is not what Dolan did, but that it now seems clear he lied about it:

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York authorized payments of as much as $20,000 to sexually abusive priests as an incentive for them to agree to dismissal from the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee. Questioned at the time about the news that one particularly notorious pedophile cleric had been given a “payoff” to leave the priesthood, Cardinal Dolan, then the archbishop, responded that such an inference was “false, preposterous and unjust.”

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CLEVELAND (OH)
National Catholic Reporter

May. 31, 2012
By Tom Roberts

Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon this week suspended Fr. Robert Marrone for refusing to step down as pastor of the Community of St. Peter, a congregation that defied the bishop and remained together after its parish, of the same name, was closed in 2010.

Often referred to as a “breakaway” congregation, the community is made up of a majority of the members of St. Peter Parish, one of more than 50 closed by Lennon in a restructuring of the diocese. It also is one of 11 parishes that the Vatican ordered Lennon to reopen, a reversal of his ruling that resulted from legal proceedings at the Congregation for the Clergy.

Marrone said in a letter to his congregation that in a May 22 meeting with Lennon, the bishop expressed his wish that Marrone reconcile with the diocese and then read a statement containing a number of “whereas” clauses ending with the ultimatum that he remove himself from the community within seven days or face suspension from ministry.

In a May 30 interview with NCR, Marrone said he asked Lennon for a copy of the document. The bishop refused, telling him, according to Marrone, “that he didn’t want to see it on the front page of the paper” the following day.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

May 31, 2012, 1:13 pm

Posted by Lisa Fullam

Laurie Goldstein at the New York Times reported yesterday on then-Archbishop of Milwaukee Timothy Dolan approving payments of up to $20,000 to sex-abuser priests as an incentive for them to accept laicization.

When asked about such payments at the time, Dolan flatly denied the charge.

Cardinal Dolan, then the archbishop, responded that such an inference was “false, preposterous and unjust.”

Ahem. Well, in the bankruptcy proceedings, documents show that multiple such payments were made. (Andrew Sullivan’s report is headed: “Cardinal Dolan, Brazen Liar?” But dissembling hierarchs is not my topic here.)

Now it is true that priests don’t draw much of a salary, though it should also be noted that, unlike their lay colleagues in ministry, they also get their education free, housing free, and receive benefits, including retirement. They do not take a vow of poverty (unlike religious,) so can become wealthy if they have a side gig, though most do not. I would be sympathetic to leaving retirement benefits in place, since it’s very hard to establish oneself mid-life (or later,) but this is a substantial cash bonus just for leaving.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox News

Published May 31, 2012

Associated Press

MILWAUKEE – An ex-priest who received $20,000 from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to leave the ministry after he was accused of sexual abuse says he viewed the payment as charity to help him readjust to a new way of life.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, however, considers that payment and others made to other suspected pedophile priests a payoff or bonus. Details of the payments came to light in a bankruptcy document filed by the archdiocese.

Jerome Wagner said Thursday he used the money to go mortuary school after leaving his parish in Fond du Lac in 2002. The archdiocese has acknowledged Wagner was accused of sexual abuse of a minor, but he was not charged criminally.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

One frequent demand from Catholic Church abuse victims is that abusive clerics be laicized or removed from the priesthood as expeditiously and quickly as possible.

So if the Archdiocese of Milwaukee discovered a fast and economical way to make that happen, wouldn’t that be a good thing for both victims and the Church? Not according to the New York Times’ Laurie Goodstein.

In her latest Catholic Church-obsessed piece, Goodstein takes issue with the fact that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, when he was the Archbishop of Milwaukee a while back, approved a number of $20,000 settlements to rid the Church of abusive priests in a more time-efficient and expeditious manner – without long, drawn-out canonical or civil proceedings.

The agenda: Attack the Church

Goodstein characterizes these settlements as “payoffs to sexually abusive priests” in an attempt to somehow besmirch Cardinal Dolan. In fact, these were settlement payments designed to save the Church and everyone involved the legal expenses and distraction of engaging in the protracted proceedings necessary to rid the Church of abusive priests.

This isn’t the first time that Goodstein, the Times’ purported national religion reporter, has shilled for contingency lawyers and loud professional victims’ groups, who wish to plant hit pieces on the Catholic Church in America’s declining newspaper of record.

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NEW YORK
New York Magazine

By Joe Coscarelli

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan approved payments of up to $20,000 for priests accused of sexual abuse to go away quietly while he was the archbishop of Milwaukee, the New York Times reports, despite calling past accusations about payoffs “false, preposterous and unjust.” Paperwork revealed during the Wisconsin church’s bankruptcy filing confirms the payments, which a spokesperson now calls “an incentive to go the voluntary route and make it happen quickly, and ultimately cost less.” In response to the news, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests asks in a letter, “In what other occupation, especially one working with families and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?”

Dolan served as Archbishop in Milwaukee from 2002 until 2009, when he took the same post in New York, “a city closer to Sodom than to Eden,” as New York described it then. Earlier this year, he was made a cardinal amid an ongoing battle with Obama over contraception.

The Milwaukee archdiocese insists the payments under Dolan were to help the “unassignable priests,” a.k.a. sexual abusers, transition out of church life without losing health care. “It’s not new news,” a spokesperson said.

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UNITED STATES
Esquire – The Politics Blog

By Charles P. Pierce

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the leading spokescritter for the Clan of The Red Beanie in its upcoming campaign to protect its delicate consciences against the onslaught of the unauthorized use of ladyparts, was previously posted to Milwaukee, where the archdiocese there is currently going through bankruptcy proceedings due to the amount of money it has had to pay out as a result of the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s failed career as an international conspiracy to obstruct justice. The interesting thing about bankruptcy proceedings is that all kinds of documents get to be made public.

It seems that the Milwaukee archdiocese made a series of under-the-prie-dieu payments to criminal priests in order to get them to leave the church quietly. It also seems that Dolan presided over this program of hush money. It also seems that, yes, Timothy Dolan, with his very evolved conscience and his predilection to lecture presidents on the sanctity of that evolved conscience, lied his pectoral cross off about the whole business….

Questioned at the time about the news that one particularly notorious pedophile cleric had been given a “payoff” to leave the priesthood, Cardinal Dolan, then the archbishop, responded that such an inference was “false, preposterous and unjust.”

Also, apparently, true.

Of course, Dolan was obviously following the advice in the Gospels to make sure that the Mystical Body Of Christ is on the hook for a criminal’s annual checkup….

The first known payment in Milwaukee was to Franklyn Becker, a former priest with many victims. Cardinal Dolan said in response to a reporter’s question at the time that the payment was “an act of charity,” so that Mr. Becker could pay for health insurance. According to church documents, Mr. Becker was accused of abusing at least 10 minors, and given a diagnosis of pedophilia in 1983. The church paid more than $16 million to settle lawsuits involving him and one other priest. …

We’re going to hear more than we need to hear from this Dolan character between now and the election. Any story about him that does not contain the phrase “…who once supervised a program to use the money collected from parishioners to pay accused child molesters to leave the priesthood…” is unworthy of being read.

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UNITED STATES
NBC New York

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee, when it was under the direction of then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, had a policy to pay suspected pedophile priests to leave the ministry, the archdiocese confirmed Wednesday.

The acknowledgement was prompted by a document made public by abuse victims’ advocates from the archdiocese’s bankruptcy that references a 2003 proposal to pay $20,000 to “unassignable priests” who accepted a return to the laity. The policy was crafted under then-Archbishop Dolan, who is now a cardinal and head of the archdiocese in New York.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests characterizes the payments as a payoff and bonuses to priests who molested children. The archdiocese disputes that characterization, saying the payments were in part to more quickly move those men out of the priesthood.

The group is calling on the archdiocese to release all records involving the payments and its handling of clergy sex abuse cases.

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