ABUSE TRACKER

ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

By Manya A. Brachear, Chicago Tribune reporter

March 18, 2012
The issue of religious freedom, raised by all four Republican candidates but identified most strongly with Rick Santorum, finds an interested audience as the contest reaches Illinois. …

And Santorum’s conservative Catholic positions have not sat well with Catholics who are less traditional. Studies show that the vast majority of Catholic women have used birth control, and Santorum’s stance against contraceptives has alienated some Catholic women.

He also faced criticism in 2003 when he delivered the keynote address at a Youth and Family Encounter in Chicago sponsored by Legions of Christ, a conservative Catholic order of priests. The group was founded by the Rev. Marcial Maciel, who at the time of the Chicago rally faced sexual abuse allegations. Maciel died in 2008.

“Santorum is a Catholic who is very aligned with church teachings and positions on issues. Unfortunately, I’m not sure the average Catholic is these days or they’re indifferent about a lot of things” said Jim Fair, a spokesman for the Legion of Christ who helped organize the rally that year.

As a religious organization, Legionnaires don’t endorse candidates. But Fair is not surprised that many Catholic voters don’t support the Catholic candidate.

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BOULDER HILL (IL)
Patch

By Andre Salles

A Boulder Hill man faces more charges of criminal sexual abuse and sexual assault after a second teenage victim was identified, according to Kendall County State’s Attorney Eric Weis.

Kevin Freeman, 27, of the 0-99 block of Shermead Road in Boulder Hill, was charged Friday with two counts of criminal sexual assault and six counts of criminal sexual abuse, Kendall County Sheriff’s deputies said. These charges stem from multiple incidents that occurred over a three-month period while Freeman was serving as a youth leader at a local church, Weis said.

Weis confirmed that the new charges concern a different victim than the first charge of aggravated criminal sexual abuse Oswego police brought against Freeman late last month. The second victim, like the first, is between 13 and 17 years old, Weis said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia on Friday suspended its top lawyer, less than two weeks before a trial that could shine a spotlight on the role he and other church lawyers played in the handling of decades of child-sex-abuse allegations.

In an e-mail to employees and pastors, archdiocesan officials said general counsel Timothy R. Coyne was placed on administrative leave but did not say why.

Coyne could not be reached late Friday. Representatives for Archbishop Charles J. Chaput declined to comment.

“This is a personnel issue, and we won’t be discussing it publicly,” spokesman Kenneth Gavin said.

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NETHERLANDS
Radio Netherlands

Underage sexual abuse victims were castrated in Dutch Roman Catholic psychiatric wards in the 1950s, according to the Rotterdam-based newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

Castration was performed on young men who were thought to be homosexual, but also as a means of punishing those who blew the whistle on abusers, the paper quotes sources as saying.

NRC discovered proof of the forced castration of one young man and strong evidence that at least ten other abuse victims were subjected to the removal of their testicles. The proof includes court documents, medical records, letters from lawyers and private correspondence.

According to the paper, the practice was reported in 2010 to the Deetman Commission which completed its investigation of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church last December. The commission, led by former cabinet minister Wim Deetman of the Christian Democrat party (CDA), made no mention of the castration of abuse victims in its final report.

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UNITED STATES/UGANDA
San Luis Obispo Tribune

By The Associated Press

In a March 14 story about a lawsuit alleging a pastor incited persecution of gay people in Uganda, The Associated Press erroneously reported the name of the group that filed the lawsuit. The organization is called Sexual Minorities Uganda, not Sexual Ministries Uganda.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

A Milwaukee-area priest who was restricted from ministry for sexually abusing a child in the 1960s has died, and victim advocates are objecting to his being buried in his priestly vestments.

“This is absolutely outrageous,” Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said of the funeral Thursday for Jerome E. Lanser, 79.

“Here’s a man who violated everything the priesthood stands for,” and he is being buried “in full uniform,” he said.

SNAP on Friday delivered a letter to Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki asking him to cease allowing sexual abusers to be buried with full priestly honors.

“To do so dishonors all priests who have served the church with selfless and upright conduct,” it says.

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FLORIDA
News-Press

Sin just isn’t the same anymore for many Catholics. The threat of damnation doesn’t seem to pack the same punch it used to.

The Catholic faithful have been deserting the confessional in droves. The most recent statistics show that, during the past few decades, the practice of confessing your sins to a priest has plunged to the point where 75 percent of Catholics say they never go to confession, or do so fewer than once a year.

The Diocese of Venice is pushing to remedy that. It has launched the “Light is On” campaign to bring members back to the confession booth during Lent, the 40 days of spiritual reflection and repentance before the celebration of the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday. …

Venuti’s practice of going to Mass but not confession would appear to dispute that theory. Venuti said he also has another reason for bypassing confession: reports of sexual abuse by priests.

“I don’t need to go to some guy who may be a bigger sinner than I,“ Venuti said. “I will not go to confession, especially in light of all the immorality that has taken place and making headlines and everything else.”

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UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

By Kathryn Joyce

In October, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the oldest, largest and most visible peer counseling group for victims of clergy sex abuse in any denomination, received a subpoena from a Kansas City, Missouri, priest being prosecuted for sexually abusing an older male victim SNAP has never met. The subpoena demanded a sweeping range of documents and correspondence concerning thousands of the estimated 100,000-plus people SNAP has counseled over two decades.

In December, the group received a second subpoena from the other side of the state, from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, facing its own charges concerning the alleged abuse of a 19-year-old woman. SNAP has fought the requests, citing Missouri laws protecting the privacy of rape survivors, and describing the records-request as a coordinated Church effort to bully sex abuse victims into silence and harass a long-time opponent into bankruptcy.

While the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has denied that there is a national strategy for the Church to fight sex abuse cases more aggressively, even the Church’s staunchest defenders see the pattern. As William Donohue, the pugilistic president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, told the New York Times this week, bishops are going after SNAP because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.”

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NEDERLAND
Arena

Tijdens muzieklessen OBK Ravenstein en St. Hubertus Herpen 1958-1970

RAVENSTEIN/HERPEN – Een speciale commissie onder leiding van oud-minister Wim Deetman concludeerde drie maanden geleden dat in de periode 1945-1981 – met medeweten van de bisdommen – tussen de 10.000 en 20.000 kinderen slachtoffer zijn geworden van seksueel misbruik binnen de katholieke kerk. Ook in Ravenstein en Herpen heeft het misbruikschandaal diepe sporen achtergelaten, zo blijkt uit een oproep die een oud-inwoner van Ravenstein vorige week liet plaatsen op de website van de stichting KLOKK (Koepel Landelijk Overleg Kerkelijk Kindermisbruik). De 62-jarige man zegt tussen 1960 en 1965 in Ravenstein en Herpen ‘zeer zwaar seksueel misbruikt’ te zijn door rector Adrianus Verhoof. Samen met de slachtofferorganisatie is hij nu op zoek naar lotgenoten. Arena ging bij hem thuis langs en tekende zijn aangrijpende verhaal op.

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NEDERLAND
RTV Rijnmond

Er komt geen strafrechtelijk onderzoek naar het bisdom Rotterdam. Dat heeft het Openbaar Ministerie besloten.

Advocaat Jan Boone deed in december 2011 aangifte. Volgens de advocaat is het bisdom een criminele organisatie die als oogmerk had het plegen van seksueel misbruik. Boone deed ook aangifte tegen voormalig bisschop Bär. Die had in de jaren tachtig de leiding over het bisdom. De advocaat baseerde zijn aangifte op het rapport van de commissie Deetman die onderzoek deed naar seksueel misbruik binnen de katholieke kerk.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By Maggie Avants

Just before he was due for a hearing to determine whether he should go to trial, the former lead pastor of an Oceanside church admitted having a sexual relationship with a young girl.

Matthias Anderson, 41, of Hemet, was immediately sentenced to nine years and four months in prison on four felony counts.

The relationship between Anderson and the girl began in February 2008, according to Deputy District Attorney Julie Baldwin.

Anderson, a decorated retired Marine sergeant, was the founder of New Wine Ministries in Oceanside.

The girl—identified as Jane Doe—attended the congregation with her parents. There was some inappropriate touching that took place when the girl was under 14, Baldwin told Riverside County Superior Court Judge Angel Bermudez.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
National Catholic Reporter

Mar. 16, 2012
By Jerry Filteau

BALTIMORE — At the Seventh National Symposium on Catholicism and Homosexuality, retired Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson called Friday for “a new study of everything to do with sexuality” — a kind of study that he predicted “would have a profound influence on church teaching concerning all sexual relationships, both heterosexual and homosexual.”

“If [church] teaching on homosexual acts is ever to change, the basic teaching governing all sexual acts must change,” he said.

Robinson, a priest since 1960 and auxiliary bishop of Sydney from 1984 until his retirement for health reasons in 2004, told the Baltimore symposium, sponsored by New Ways Ministry, that “because sex is so vital a way of expressing love, sex is always serious.”

That view, espoused by the church, stands in contrast to the general perception of modern society, which “appears to be saying more and more that sex is not in itself serious,” he said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Eastbourne Herald

Published on Friday 16 March 2012

CONCERNS have been raised as to how a priest arrested on historic sex abuse charges was allowed to remain as the chair of governors at an Eastbourne school.

Canon Gordon Rideout was allowed to continue as a governor and chair of governors at Bishop Bell School despite it being known that he had a blemished disclosure on a police CRB check.

This related to allegations made against him in 1972 and again in 2001 when he was arrested but no criminal charges were brought.

Mr Rideout was only removed from the post when the Independent Safeguarding Authority stepped in.

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

March 16, 2012

TO: Jerome Listecki, Archbishop of Milwaukee
FROM: Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
RE: Full priestly burial tribute to Jerome Lanser, who sexually assaulted children

We are writing on behalf of victim/survivors of rape, child sexual assault and abuse by Roman Catholic clergy who have worked or who are living in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

Yesterday, much to our sadness and dismay, we learned that Jerome Lanser, a priest who was known and publically confirmed by the archdiocese to have committed child sex crimes, was granted a rare and privileged ceremony given to very few baptized Catholics: full, ceremonial burial honors as a Roman Catholic priest in good standing.

Among those honors was the distinction, similarly given to soldiers who have served their nation or police officers who have served their community, of being buried in full dress uniform, in Lanser’s case, sacred clerical attire and priestly liturgical vestments. Before his funeral service, it is reported that Lanser’s casket was open, with his vestments, for viewing.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The enquiry that should have uncovered those responsible for the leaks never began. Now there is the possibility that Bertone might be joined by a Pro-Secretary

Marco Tosatti
Vatican City

The Vatican internal enquiry on the mole or moles who in the past weeks have leaked various letters and documents, causing a scandal of unprecedented proportions in the history of the Vatican, has not began and at this point it probably never will. Let us draw a brief summary of the situation to nudge the memory of our readers.

The first leak was a letter that had been written by the current Nuncio in Washington, then Secretary of the Vatican City Governatorate (the institution that oversees of the practical work of the State, including the Museums). The letter was meant for pope Benedict XVI and a copy was also sent to the Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, it deplored presumed internal scandals (which an enquiry has scaled down and in part denied). Following the leak of this document a large media campaign began and the Pope’s “right hand man” became the primary target.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

In an interview with the director of Vatican daily broadsheet “L’Osservatore Romano”, the deputy Secretary of State stated that an inquiry into the leaks of top-level confidential documents alleging corruption and mismanagement, has begun in the Holy See

Vatican Insider staff
Rome

The Secretary of State has called for an in-depth inquiry into all Holy See entities, with no exception. The criminal investigation is to be carried out by the Promoter of Justice of the Vatican Tribunal, while a separate administrative investigation will be carried out by the Secretariat of State itself. The Pope put an ad hoc commission in charge of shedding light on the affair. This was announced by the deputy Secretary of State, Mgr. Angelo Becciu, in an interview with Giovanni Maria Vian, director of the Vatican daily broadsheet L’Osservatore Romano.

The archbishop condemned the “disloyalty” and “cowardice” of those who leaked the documents and took advantage of their “privileged position” to publish documents “whose privacy they had an obligation to respect.”

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY | Fri Mar 16, 2012

(Reuters) – The Vatican has opened an extremely rare criminal investigation into embarrassing leaks of top-level sensitive documents alleging corruption and mismanagement in several of its departments.

The investigation, announced in the Vatican newspaper on Friday, will be carried out by an internal tribunal in a bid to find out who leaked the material.

A separate, administrative investigation will be conducted by the Secretariat of State, which manages Vatican bureaucracy. Pope Benedict had also ordered a “high-level commission” to shed light on the affair, the newspaper said.

The scandal, which has come to be known as “Vatileaks,” involves the leaking of a string of sensitive documents to Italian media in January and February, including personal letters to the pope.

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UNITED STATES
The Republic of Gilead

On March 12th, the New York Times reported that lawyers for the Catholic church and priests accused in two Missouri sexual abuse cases — John Doe BP v. Fr. Michael Tierney and the Kansas City diocese and Jane Doe v. Fr. Joseph D. Ross and the St. Louis archdiocese — are trying to compel the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) to disclose over twenty years of e-mails. SNAP is a clergy abuse victims’ advocacy group founded in 1988, which drew international attention last year for filing a complaint against the Vatican in the International Criminal Court.

The article states that those e-mails could include correspondence with clergy abuse victims, witnesses, journalists, and stakeholders. A Kansas City judge ruled that SNAP must comply because it likely has information of relevance to the abuse cases. SNAP has been subpoenaed five times in St. Louis and Kansas City over the past few months, and national director David Clohessy has been extensively questioned by lawyers.

The SNAP website hit back, decrying the legal pressure as an “attack” from Catholic officials and an affront to the confidentiality of their allies.

“Abuse victims and SNAP are being attacked by lawyers for KC Bishop Robert Finn and pedophile priests. We’re fighting hard to protect the confidentiality of victims, witnesses, whistleblowers, police, prosecutors, journalists and others who come to us for help.”

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 16, 2012

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, one of the main organizations for whom I volunteer my advocacy efforts (and to whom I donate), has recently been under siege in Missouri.

Catholic bishops there (under the direction of the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue and a coalition of high-ranking U.S. Bishops, we have learned), have drawn SNAP into two lawsuits, asking for 20+ years of confidential correspondence with survivors and the press, and deposing executive director David Clohessy.

From the New York Times:

Donohue said leading bishops he knew had resolved to fight back more aggressively against the group: “The bishops have come together collectively. I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.”

SNAP is NOT a plaintiff in either lawsuit, and has had no contact whatsoever with the alleged victim in the case where Clohessy was deposed. (Note, this is the same Diocese under indictment for child endangerment)

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DEUTSCHLAND
SWR

Im Bistum Trier ist am Freitag ein möglicher weiterer Fall von sexuellem Missbrauch durch einen Priester bekannt geworden. Nach Angaben des Bistums soll ein Priester im Ruhestand aus dem Saarland in den frühen 70er Jahren Kinder und Jugendliche sexuell missbraucht haben.

Das Bistum hat nach Angaben eines Sprechers eine kirchliche Untersuchung gegen den Mann eingeleitet und die Staatsanwaltschaft informiert. Warum das Bistum erst jetzt in dem Fall aktiv wird, teilte der Sprecher nicht mit. Die Staatsanwaltschaft Trier hat inzwischen bestätigt, dass der Fall angezeigt wurde. Nach erster Durchsicht der Akten gehe man aber davon aus, dass alle Taten verjährt sind und deshalb das Verfahren eingestellt werde.

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OSTERREICH
Nachrichten

KREMSMÜNSTER. Pater A. geht. Er will dem Kloster „keinen Schaden“ zufügen. Für Donnerstagnachmittag hatte Pater A. (77) bei Abt Ambros Ebhart eine Audienz erbeten. Dabei legte der des sexuellen Missbrauchs an Stiftszöglingen Verdächtige dem Abt ein Austrittsgesuch aus dem Benediktinerstift auf den Schreibtisch.

Pater A. verlässt also auf eigenen Wunsch das Kloster, um – so seine Begründung – „wegen der öffentlichen Meinung in seinem Fall dem Kloster keinen Schaden zuzufügen“, sagt Abt Ambros. Der Leiter des Stifts nahm den Wunsch des umstrittenen Paters an.

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UNITED STATES
Minnesota SNAP

By Vinnie Nauheimer

It is obvious to the most casual observer that jurist prudence was snapped by the decision to allow lawyers for the Catholic Church carte blanche to pilfer, pour over and ponder twenty three years of personal files in the hands of the survivor’s group known as SNAP. One has to ask just how blind justice is when an organization steeped the sexual abuse of children, the Roman Catholic Church, is allowed to compel the leading advocate group for survivors of clergy abuse to turn over confidential records unrelated to the case in question.

The Roman Catholic Church is an internationally recognized promoter of child abuse having multiple documented allegations of sexual abuse in over thirty countries around the world including its home base, Italy and its home city, Rome. The Roman Catholic Church was been found guilty of acts of genocide against Native American Children in Canada by an International Tribunal in 1998.1 In Ireland, they enslaved and abused children for years in workhouses.2 The European commission has accused the Vatican of money laundering.3 The NY Times recently reported that priests and nuns in Spain and Argentina were guilty of trafficking in babies and selling them for profit.4 That report generated a similar complaint out of Australia.5 Every grand jury convened in the United States to investigate clergy abuse and their equivalent in Ireland roundly criticized the church for their always abominable and in some cases, criminal behavior. In Germany, the largest Catholic publishing company, Weltbild, with 1.7 billion Euros in sales has been publishing pornographic novels for years. The biggest source of revenue is from what the owners of the publishing house, the bishops, call Erotic novels; others have called titles such as Sluts Boarding School and Lawyer’s Whore, porn.6

Based on the truths above, giving the lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church unfettered access to Snap files is the moral equivalent of giving the Mafia unlimited access to FBI files. It is simply unconscionable! Did the church take advantage of the hole created by an imprudent jurist? You bet they did. They opened a six-lane highway and lined it with dumpsters prepared to take away everything they could get away with. The proof is in the transcripts from Mr. Clohessy’s deposition. The church went back twenty-three years though the incident in question only happened recently. In six hours of deposition given by Mr. Clohessy, most of the questions had nothing to do with the case of Rev. Michael Tierney who is accused by four people of sexual abuse. The NY Times tells us, “most of the questions were not about the case but about the network — its budget, board of directors, staff members, donors and operating procedures.” Surely the jurist could have limited the scope of the deposition as has been done so many times to so many victims trying to depose church leaders.

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POLAND
The News

A controversial priest and Solidarity veteran has claimed that the Church in Poland is compromised by a “gay mafia” which “can destroy anyone” in its path.

“The gay lobby in the Church can destroy anyone who gets in its way,” claims Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski in his latest book, ‘I am only interested in the truth’ (Chodzi mi tylko o prawde).

The priest is not new to controversy, having caused a storm in 2006 by publishing research which alleged collaboration of priests with the communist-era security services.

In his latest volume, which takes the form of an interview with the editor of the conservative, right wing journal Fronda, the priest claims that Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, Archbishop of Krakow, had specifically requested him to avoid homosexual references in the earlier book about communist collaboration.

When asked in the current publication whether “homosexuality is a problem in the clergy”, the priest replied that “the higher up you go, the worse it gets.”

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UNITED STATES
City of Angels

Kay Ebeling

Wow those files, any PI worth pennies could get into them. I wish SNAP would just X out all the names and publish their files. Imagine what we’d find out about the Church if SNAP made all the stories it’s heard public. Think about it. How many victims contacted SNAP expecting their stories to remain secret? I’d think the opposite was true, we called SNAP in an attempt to tell it to the world. SNAP should have been sharing all that information with the public from the start. Why keep it secret? Let’s hear all the stories of all the victims who’ve called SNAP last 20 years. You can change names of things to protect privacy but let’s get this whole story out about what the priests did. What better way than for SNAP to publish its files in a looong website so we all can hear the details of what happened in state after state and all across the country. Why Secret Files? Who does that? Were people contacting Clohessy thinking he’s a father confessor, or because he kept holding press conferences publicing the serial sex crimes of Catholic priests?

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
ANTOINETTE KELLY,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Friday, March 16, 2012, 8:33 AM

Observers say that due to the Catholic Church’s mishandling of the abuse crisis in Ireland it is now inconceivable for Pope Benedict XVI to visit Ireland this summer, despite having received an official invitation to attend the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in June.

The Pontiff is not expected to travel to Dublin for the major international gathering of Catholics. It is understood that Pope Benedict met with Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, the most outspoken critic of the Vatican’s handling of the crisis in Rome this week.

Archbishop Martin can not have left the Pontiff in no doubt about the inadvisability of an Irish papal visit at their time and so instead the 84-year-old Pope has made plans to present a live televised address to an anticipated crowd of more than 80,000 participants, due to attend an open-air Mass in Croke Park entitled Statio Orbis on June 17.

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FORT WAYNE (IN)
NECN

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — Nearly every day, they’ve been writing – sometimes a few words, sometimes a sentence or two, often whole paragraphs packed with emotion.

“Words can’t express the sorrow I have for (you), Father Thom,” one wrote. “I can’t imagine your pain, and I look forward to the day that we can welcome you back home with open arms at St. Joseph’s.”

“Still thinking of you and praying you remain strong and sustained . I miss you and I know that God the Father has you in His mighty hand,” another penned.

Those who know the Rev. Thomas C. Lombardi have been voicing their support online for the Fort Wayne-South Bend Roman Catholic Diocese priest accused of sexual misconduct with a teenage boy more than 10 years ago.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Colin A. Young, Globe Correspondent

The Boston Globe’s Brian McGrory has won a 2011 Scripps Howard Award for his Metro section columns, the Scripps Howard Foundation announced today.

The national awards are presented annually to recognize the “best work in the communications industry and journalism education.”

McGrory, a former Globe metro editor, took the top prize for commentary for “helping a priest clear his name, cutting to the core of Mitt Romney, and an array of other thought provoking columns about big events and small moments,” the foundation said in a statement.

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MINNESOTA
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: March 16, 2012

WINONA, Minn. — A former priest accused in several lawsuits of sexually abusing boys has been barred from parishes and schools in the Diocese of Winona.

The diocese said it recently learned Thomas Adamson had moved to Rochester. It sent a letter and photo of Adamson to all Rochester schools and parishes alerting them to his presence. The diocese says it has also communicated directly to the 78-year-old Adamson that he isn’t welcome on diocese property.

Adamson was named in three lawsuits settled out of court. A fourth lawsuit was decided in favor of the complainant.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Patch

John Hoffmann

During the rehearsal for my wife’s wedding back in 1981 (I learned early on it was her wedding, I was just an attendee) the priest shook his head and walked over to my best man (a county judge with an Irish last name) and then me.

The priest informed us quietly, in his Irish brogue, that we were what he called Roaming Catholics. It’s that we had roamed so far from the church that we no longer even knew when to kneel or stand during mass.

He had a point. Before and after my marriage, about the only time I attended Mass was for a wedding or a funeral, both usually involving cops.

Then in late 2005, just before we moved back to St. Louis from the Washington, D.C. area, I read and followed with interest the story of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

WHAT
Victim/survivors of clergy sexual abuse, holding childhood photos and signs, will attempt to hand deliver a letter to Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki strongly condemning him for officially commissioning a honorary priestly service, burial, and tribute for Jerome Lanser, a pedophile priest who died this week.

Lanser, who was ordained a priest in 1958, was placed on leave in 1993 for reports of sexually assaulting a child for several years and is believed to have assaulted other children in various assignments. Lanser remained in ministry, however, until 2004, when he was officially placed on restrictions, put on the archdiocesan list of child abusing priests, and forbidden to wear any clerical attire or present himself as a priest. Nevertheless, Lanser, according to reports, continued to wear his collar after restrictions, and apparently received a full pension and health care benefits. …

WHERE
Outside of the Cousin’s Center, headquarters of the Milwaukee Archdiocese, 3501 S. Lake Drive, St. Francis

WHEN
Friday, March 16th, 1:30 p.m.

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NAPLES (FL)
Naples Daily News

By VICTORIA MACCHI

Posted March 15, 2012

The struggle between questioning the Catholic Church and still practicing his religion is daily for Jason Berry.

Since the 1980s, he has researched Church scandals both financial and lascivious, as a living. Perhaps more accurately, a calling.

On Thursday night, Berry took to the lectern at a North Naples church to advocate before an audience of around 120 people for hefty reforms, from Vatican City to local parishes.

Bishops and cardinals that should be removed. The creation of a justice system within the Church. Fiscal transparency from the top down. The problems are real and they are deep, he said. And because of them, he said the Church is “eroding.”

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UNITED STATES
Reuters

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON | Thu Mar 15, 2012

(Reuters) – When he visited the United States four years ago, Pope Benedict XVI blessed a box of silver ribbon-shaped pins for breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure and sent them to its founder, Nancy Brinker.

Brinker was touched by the gesture and thanked the pontiff in person on the day of his departure.

“He took my hands and blessed me for my work. I couldn’t help myself. I burst into tears,” she recalls in her memoir, “Promise Me: How a Sister’s Love Launched the Global Movement to End Breast Cancer.”

Pope Benedict’s blessings marked a high point in the Komen charity’s relationship with the Catholic church. But even before the papal jetliner touched down at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington in 2008, American church leaders had already begun to emerge as critics of Komen’s longstanding ties to Planned Parenthood, the women’s health organization whose services include birth control and abortion.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Kos

Bishops ‘helped sway’ Komen to anti-Planned Parenthood policy

Oh for the love of Voldemort. Reuters:

Internal Komen documents reviewed by Reuters reveal the complicated relationship between the Komen Foundation and the Catholic church, which simultaneously contributes to the breast cancer charity and receives grants from it. In recent years, Komen has allocated at least $17.6 million of the donations it receives to U.S. Catholic universities, hospitals and charities.

Church opposition reached dramatic new proportions in 2011, when the 11 bishops who represent Ohio’s 2.6 million Catholics announced a statewide policy banning church and parochial school donations to Komen.

Such pressure helped sway Komen’s leadership to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to current and former Komen officials.

Stop it. Just be quiet already. Is there no eff-up that the bishops of my previous church aren’t intimately involved with? Any single one? If a memo comes out that has one of these American bishops suggesting to Rush Limbaugh that he start calling people “sluts,” I may have to reserve a flight to that moon colony Newt Gingrich is going to build.

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CALIFORNIA
Gay Christian Movement Watch

**an exclusive report**

Report COGIC Abuse has obtained a copy of the civil lawsuits filed by two California women against a former Administrative Assistant to Bishop George McKinney, Southern California 2nd Jurisdiction.

The twin 28 page lawsuits names COGIC, Inc., Donald K. Barrett, his wife Ruth Barrett, So California 2nd Jurisdiction, Greater Gospel Center COGIC, New Directions COGIC and DOES 1-50 as defendants. Among the charges cited in the 1st suit are Assault and Battery, Intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud and constructive fraud. The 2nd suit alleges assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, physical abuse of a dependent adult and financial abuse of a dependent adult.

Sadly, the Barrett case represents yet another unseemly blight on the reputation of the nation’s largest black pentecostal denomination. In 2009, COGIC presiding Bishop Charles Blake admitted to the church’s General Assembly that on average COGIC annually pays out almost 1 million dollars to settle sex abuse cases [source]. At the crux of the problem are male leaders who use their authority, influence, talents and at times brute force to rape, molest, and sexually devastate men, women and children of both genders. The problem is fairly expansive involving every level of leadership the church has in place. Additionally, COGIC clergy sexual abuse cases have been cited in 29 different states. See more here and here. Denominational leaders have not been aggressive in dealing with sexual crimes committed by clergy and in many cases have turned a blind eye. Recent developments still show an unwillingness to tender justice to victims via a more comprehensive victims advocacy policy. Instead, the church has an ineffective institutional policy advising churches on how to protect themselves.

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
Modesto Bee

By Cathy Locke
clocke@sacbee.com

A civil lawsuit has been filed in Sacramento County Superior Court against a former Christian Brothers High School volleyball coach, the school and the Christian Brothers religious order, which operates the school.

The suit stems from allegations that Minh Anh Nguyen, a volleyball coach and history teacher at Christian Brothers, sexually assaulted a 17-year-old female student in December 2009 while the team was attending a volleyball tournament in Orange County. The suit, filed Wednesday, alleges that the Catholic Church and school officials could and should have prevented the incident.

Lorcan Barnes, president of Christian Brothers High School, said today that he had not seen the lawsuit but was aware that it had been filed. Barnes said Nguyen’s employment was terminated in December 2009, the day after allegations of the assault were brought to the attention of school officials. Nguyen had taught and coached at the school for five years.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

VATICAN CITY, March 16, 2012 – A bit of buzz has been generated around two articles that appeared recently in Italy, advancing the hypothesis that Benedict XVI might resign, in part for the sake of influencing the choice of his successor.

The authors of these articles are Giuliano Ferrara, in the newspaper that he directs, “Il Foglio,” on March 10:

> Le dimissioni del papa

and Antonio Socci in the newspaper “Libero,” on March 11:

> Le (im)possibili dimissioni del papa

Ferrara is not a believer, Socci is a militant Catholic. Both are known for their sincere admiration of pope Joseph Ratzinger.

But beyond the good intentions of both, the hypothesis that they foreshadow does not appear to have any foundation.

For one thing, because anyone who has had an opportunity to meet with Benedict XVI, including after the publication of the two articles, has not at all gotten the impression of being in the presence of a pope who is thinking about resigning. Far from it. Both because of his ability to grasp the necessary connections for every act of governance, and because of the temporally unrestricted scope with which, always “God willing,” he proceeds in the leadership of the universal Church.

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CANADA
YouTube

DUNCAN – The stories are horrifying , but a generation of residential school survivors are ready to speak out.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has continued its tour of Vancouver Island offering a safe place to speak out in the Cowichan Valley. Today hundreds packed a First Nations Long House to support a group of former students who underwent extreme physical, mental, and sexual abuse inside BC residential schools.

One mans story brought the entire audience to tears when he spoke of repeated sexual assault inside a Vancouver Island residential school. The former students testimonial took an even more grim turn when he spoke of how the teacher also targeted his little brother. ” My bother didn’t cooperate” the now senior citizen told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission officials, ” so he ran towards the bedroom window and jumped out of it.”

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CANADA
Times Colonist

By Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist March 16, 2012

The anger was palpable Thursday as 64-year-old Louis Moses Lucas sat between supporters and disclosed his abuse by priests and nuns.

“Residential schools were nothing but the rape of our people.

They were sexual terrorists,” Lucas told commissioner Marie Wilson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at hearings.

“It was never a school to me. It was a jail,” said Lucas, blaming the Catholic Church and federal government for not helping the 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children in Canada who were taken from their families and placed in residential schools.

“This is my statement to Canada. Saying they didn’t know is a bunch of bull-. It was nothing but jail. Genocide of our people,” he said.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
newsnet5

[with video]

• By: Deb Lee, newsnet5.com

CLEVELAND – Three of the 13 Catholic churches whose closings were overruled by the Vatican are asking Bishop Richard Lennon for a swift resolution.

In a letter to the Bishop, St. Patrick, St. James, and St. Casimir Churches asked that as soon as possible:

“That all of the property and the use of all of the assets of the parish belonging to it prior to March, 2009, be given back;

That in accordance with canon 535 the records and the parochial seals be transferred to the parish seat;

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CLEVELAND (OH)
The Plain Dealer

By Pat Galbincea, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A day after Bishop Richard Lennon officially received orders from Rome to reopen 13 area Catholic churches, members from a trio of the closed parishes urged him Thursday night to comply with the Vatican decree.

Representatives from St. Patrick Church in Cleveland’s West Park neighborhood, St. James Church in Lakewood and St. Casimir Church in Cleveland each read their letters to the bishop of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese during a news conference at Brennan’s Party Center in Cleveland.

About 100 people politely clapped as high points from each of the letters, which were basically worded the same, were read.

The three parishes urged Bishop Lennon to:

• Restore all property and use of all assets to the churches.
• Name new pastors.

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OHIO
WTAM

(Cleveland) Bishop Richard Lennon received a decree from the Vatican on Wednesday ordering the reopening of 13 churches the Bishop closed in 2009 due to dwindling parishioners and a shortage of priests.

On Thursday night, members of three of those parishes gathered at Brennan’s Party Center urging the Bishop to comply with that decree.

Members of St. Casimer’s in Cleveland, St. Pat’s in West Park and St. James in Lakewood want all the property and assets of the churches restored.

They want new pastors assigned and restorations of the parish councils.

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LORAIN (OH)
Morning Journal

By RON VIDIKA rvidika@MorningJournal.com
Twitter: @Ron_Vidika

LORAIN — The Vatican has overruled Cleveland Catholic Diocese Bishop Richard Lennon’s 2009 edict that ordered Lorain churches, the former Holy Trinity Church and the former St. Mary Church, to merge into a new parish, Mary, Mother of God. The ruling means the parish will again be called St. Mary, but it doesn’t mean Holy Trinity will reopen.

The Vatican ruling came in the form of a letter Wednesday to Lennon, communications director for the diocese Robert Tayek said, .

The result of Lennon’s March 2009 edict was the closing of Holy Trinity, 2428 Elyria Ave., whose buildings are now up for sale.

The merged parish, Mary, Mother of God, meets in the former St. Mary Church, 309 Seventh St.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Somerset County Gazette

A CHURCH organist accused of sexually abusing two girls over an 11-year period has been cleared of the most serious offences.

Nigel Parkin, 56, of North Street, Wiveliscombe, was cleared of ten of 17 sexual abuse charges by a jury at Taunton Crown Court yesterday (March 15).

Mr Parkin, who was also a community radio presenter on 10Radio in Wiveliscombe, was found not guilty on two counts of indecent assault on one girl, and eight counts of rape against another.

The jury was discharged after deliberating for almost 11 hours after it could not reach a majority verdict on the remaining seven charges.

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MONTANA
Beartooth NBC

By Kristin Price

Lawyers representing both sides in a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse involving the Diocese of Montana and Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province met in Judge Jeffrey Sherlock’s chambers Thursday for a scheduling conference.

The Diocese legal representation says they’ve agreed to hold mediation to resolve the lawsuit and do not anticipate the court will be actively involved. They say they’ll begin meeting with a mediator in April and give Judge Sherlock status reports on June 20th and September 20th. Judge Sherlock agreed to the terms of mediation.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Lodi News-Sentinel

Posted: Friday, March 16, 2012

By Katie Nelson/News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Cross examination of the plaintiff in the Father Michael Kelly sexual assault civil trial continued today, accompanied by frequent verbal jousting between lawyers.

The majority of the day was spent as defense lawyer Thomas Beatty read or presented videotape of the plaintiff speaking with Beatty or with Stockton diocese lawyer James Goodman about the plaintiff’s alleged sexual encounters with Kelly.

Beatty would then question the plaintiff on what he said in the past during interviews regarding the case.

But Beatty’s line of questioning, which ranged from the plaintiff’s relationship with his father to the plaintiff’s memories of door locations at a rectory, were often objected to by the plaintiff’s attorney, John Manly.

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UNITED STATES
Lez Get Real

Posted by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on March 15, 2012.

The Roman Catholic Church has decided that they want to go after the leading advocacy group for those victimized by pedophile priests. Lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse in two Missouri cases have sued the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests or SNAP to try and compel the group to release two decades of emails detailing correspondences with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.

The move is an attempt to cut SNAP off from those they help and bully those who might seek their help into not going to the group where the dealings are assumed to have a certain amount of confidentiality.

According to the New York Times:

The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the litigation. But the group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months in Kansas City and St. Louis, and its national director, David Clohessy, was questioned by a battery of lawyers for more than six hours this year. A judge in Kansas City ruled that the network must comply because it “almost certainly” had information relevant to the case.

Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University, stated “If there is one group that the higher-ups, the bishops, would like to see silenced it definitely would be SNAP. And that’s what they’re going after. They’re trying to find a way to silence SNAP.”

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MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

By Jerome Christenson | jchristenson@winonadailynews.com | Posted: Friday, March 16, 2012

Thomas Adamson, a former priest of the Diocese of Winona named in several lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of young boys, has been barred from all diocese parishes and schools.

In a statement released this week, the diocese said it had “communicated directly to Mr. Adamson that he is not welcome or permitted to enter onto the premises of any parishes or schools within the Diocese of Winona.”

The action came in response to Adamson’s relocation to Rochester earlier this year. According to a spokesman, the diocese learned of Adamson’s move in early February, and on Feb. 8 sent a letter and current photograph of Adamson to all Rochester schools and parishes alerting them to his presence in the community.

Adamson, 78, a native of Byron, Minn., was ordained a priest in 1958. His first assignment was in Winona as a full-time teacher at Cotter High School with residence and pastoral duties at St. Casimir’s Parish. He was assigned assistant principal of St. Adrian’s High School, Adrian, Minn., in May 1961. Allegations of Adamson’s sexual involvement with young boys date from the early 1960s. In 1975, Adamson was transferred to the Archdiocese of St. Paul after a number of abuse complaints had been brought to the attention of church officials in the Winona diocese.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Modesto Bee

Bee News Services

STOCKTON — The second-highest ranking official in the Diocese of Stockton took the stand Thursday in the civil trial of the Rev. Michael Kelly of Lockeford’s St. Joachim Catholic Church.

Kelly is accused of child sex abuse in the mid-1980s.

Monsignor Richard Ryan told the jury that he was the official who was notified that Kelly was being accused of sexual abuse by a 37-year-old man.

Kelly’s accuser is a former altar boy who claims to have repressed memories of abuse he suffered at Annunciation School.

Ryan took the stand for roughly two hours Thursday, taking questions from the plaintiff’s attorney.

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CANADA
Vancouver Sun

By JUDITH LAVOIE, timescolonist.com March 16, 2012

DUNCAN — The anger was palpable Thursday as 64-year-old Louis Moses Lucas sat between supporters and disclosed his abuse by priests and nuns.

“Residential schools were nothing but the rape of our people. They were sexual terrorists,” Lucas told commissioner Marie Wilson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at hearings.

“It was never a school to me. It was a jail,” said Lucas, blaming the Catholic Church and federal government for not helping the 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children in Canada who were taken from their families and placed in residential schools.

“This is my statement to Canada. Saying they didn’t know is a bunch of bull—. It was nothing but jail. Genocide of our people,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Dennis Coday on Mar. 15, 2012 NCR Today

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP, is in dire straits, basically broke, still dogged by lawyers who want to pry deeply into that organization’s files.

The national media has finally caught up with that story. Defenders are coming forward. Even unlikely ones.

Dominican Fr. Tom Doyle argues on our website that SNAP needs protection from the bishops’ laywers because SNAP meets the definition of being “The People of God.”

When news of the subpoenas broke late last year, NCR defended SNAP’s right to confidentiality. We said in a Jan. 20-Feb. 2 editorial: “This certainly looks like a fishing expedition aimed at dismantling the organization, and lawyers keep climbing on board.” The subpoenas, we argued, were too sweeping and put at risk that very fragile confidence SNAP has with victims of clergy sex abuse.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

March 15, 2012

A Milwaukee area priest who was restricted from ministry for sexually abusing a child in the 1960 has died, and victim advocates are objecting to his being buried in his priestly robes.

“This is absolutely outrageous,” Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said of the burial plans for Jerome E. Lanser, 88. “Here’s a man who violated everything the priesthood stands for,” and he is being buried “in full uniform,” he said.

Julie Wolf, spokeswoman for the Milwaukee Archdiocese said Lanser would have a closed casket out of respect for victims, but that he was entitled to be buried in his vestments because he remained a priest until death. A private viewing will be held for family, but she did not know whether the casket would be open or closed for that.

Isely said he learned about Lanser’s death from victims who were upset that he could be buried in his robes. There appears to have been no obituary published, although the archdiocese updated its online list of priests with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse against them, changing his status from “fully restricted” to “deceased.”

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CLEVELAND (OH)
The Plain Dealer

By Ken Prendergast, Sun News

CLEVELAND Because nothing official has been received from the Vatican to overrule Bishop Richard Lennon’s decision to close 13 churches, St. Patrick Church in the West Park neighborhood will not be reopened Saturday.

But that won’t stop the church’s former parishioners from holding a prayer service at 9:30 a.m. Saturday on the front steps of the church at Rocky River Drive and Puritas Avenue.

The parishioners requested that the Cleveland Catholic Diocese reopen the church for one day for a Mass inside and to celebrate the 164th anniversary of the parish’s founding. Saturday is St. Patrick’s Day. A group of former parishioners will march in the big St. Patrick’s Day parade downtown.

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MARYLAND
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler | March 15, 2012

In an earlier column on all the things we don’t know about the case of Father Marcel Guarnizo, I failed—as many critical readers pointed out—to take account of the apology issued by the Washington archdiocese soon after the fateful incident in which Father Guarnizo refused to administer Communion to the lesbian activist Barbara Johnson.

At the time there were many important things we did not know—we know much more now, since Father Guarnizo has issued a statement in his own defense—but that first public statement from the archdiocese gave readers good reason to fear that the archdiocese was ready to sacrifice the reputation of a priest (and, not just by the way, the integrity of the Eucharist) in order to deflect political criticism. I am sorry that I did not make this point in my original piece on the matter; let me undo the damage at least partially by elaborating on the point now.

After Barbara Johnson angrily protested the denial of Communion, Bishop Barry Knestout, the vicar general of the Washington archdiocese, issued a public apology. Apparently without having consulted the priest involved, to learn details about the incident, he wrote to Johnson: “I am sorry that what should have been a celebration of your mother’s life, in light of her faith in Jesus Christ, was overshadowed by a lack of pastoral sensitivity.”

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MARYLAND
Washington Post

By Michelle Boorstein

A Gaithersburg priest who was put on administrative leave from his parish after a controversial funeral Mass at which he denied Communion to a lesbian said in a statement Wednesday that he “did the only thing a faithful Catholic priest could do” and suggested that archdiocesan leaders and the woman were lying.

The Rev. Marcel Guarnizo had declined to comment publicly since the Feb. 25 Mass at St. John Neumann Catholic Church, where Barbara Johnson was mourning her mother. Having learned just before the Mass that Johnson, a 51-year-old D.C. artist, was a lesbian living with her partner, Guarnizo refused to let her receive Communion. The story exploded on the Internet, triggering an emotional debate among Catholics and others about the church’s views on homosexuality and the priest’s role in determining who is fit to partake of the sacrament.

Guarnizo’s statement, distributed on the conservative news site CNSnews.com, contradicts the account given by Johnson and her family about how the tensions that day unfolded.

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MARYLAND
National Catholic Reporter

by Michael Sean Winters on Mar. 15, 2012 Distinctly Catholic

This morning’s Washington Post contains quotes from Rev. Marcel Guarnizo, the priest who made headlines for denying communion to a woman at her mother’s funeral because she was a lesbian. Late last week, he was stripped of his faculties by Cardinal Wuerl because of what the archdiocese termed “credible allegations” of “intimidating behavior” towards parishioners since the event.

Guarnizo not only challenges the woman’s accounts of the underlying event. He challenges the archdiocese, arguing that no subsequent activity of his warranted his being stripped of his faculties and that this is all really about his initial decision not to give communion to Barbara Johnson. So, he is calling everyone, except of course himself, a liar. Nice.

Guarnizo goes on to mention that he was soliciting affidavits from people. Hmmmm. I understand he has a right to defend himself, but if there is to be an investigation of the allegations against him, he doesn’t have the right to be his own D.A. He also says that the meetings in question did not involve intimidation, that they were civil. Of course, this is the same man who did not see a problem in denying communion to a grieving fellow Catholic, so I am not sure I would take his word as the characterization of human behavior.

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AUSTRIA
Austrian Independent

An end to the feud between the Austrian Church’s leaders and a “disobedient” group of preachers seems out of reach.

Graz Diocese Bishop Egon Kapellari warned from a splitting of the country’s Catholic Church if the Preachers’ Initiative failed to stop its activities. Kapellari appealed on the association of parish priests – which was established by former Caritas Austria head Helmut Schüller last year – to “slow down.”

Schüller’s movement wants the Vatican to scrap the celibate too help stop the decline of the number of young men interested in becoming priests. The Preachers Initiative also said priests should be allowed to give Holy Communion to people who married a second time at registry offices after getting divorced following church weddings. The group, which officially declared itself disobedient, furthermore called on the Conference of Austrian Bishops to act more independently from the Vatican. It said there should be no barriers to women interested in holding sermons.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Review

Submitted on March 15, 2012

By Joseph Kenny | jkenny@archstl.org

A court decision on the status of St. Stanislaus Church is a disappointment for Polish American Catholics who wish to see it returned to communion with the Roman Catholic Church and will be appealed, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson said in a statement March 15.

Judge Bryan Hettenbach ruled that morning against the Archdiocese of St. Louis and former St. Stanislaus parishioners who had asked the court to declare the St. Stanislaus Parish Corporation’s amended bylaws void and restore the original bylaws, a move that the archdiocese believed would have returned St. Stanislaus to full communion with the Church.

The ruling “brings great sadness to all in the Archdiocese of St. Louis who had hoped for reconciliation and healing in this matter,” Archbishop Carlson noted in a statement he read at a press conference.

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
Fox 40

Sam Cohen

FOX40 News

9:45 a.m. PDT, March 15, 2012
A support group for victims of Priest abuse announced a new lawsuit against a former teacher and coach at a Sacramento Catholic high school Thursday.

A female student says she was sexually assaulted by a Christian Brothers High School coach while at a volleyball tournament in 2009.

According to SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the coach, Minh Anh Nguyen, went into the girl’s hotel room at the tournament in Orange County and gave her a massage to calm her down before a game.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
Washington Post

By Michael O’malley| Religion News Service

CLEVELAND — Bishop Richard Lennon on Wednesday (March 14) received the official Vatican decrees that overturn his closings of 13 Catholic parishes, the diocese said, kicking off a 60-day period for him to decide whether to appeal.

“The process to review these rulings will now be undertaken with my advisers,” the bishop wrote in a three-sentence statement posted on the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland’s website.

The 13 churches — out of 50 closed between 2009 and 2010 in a diocesewide downsizing — had appealed to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy, arguing they were self-sustaining communities that shouldn’t be closed.

On March 7, word got out that the Vatican ruled in favor of all 13 parishes, saying Lennon did not follow church law and procedures when he shuttered them.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A retired Anglican priest remained a school governor for more than a year after claims of child sex abuse against him came to light, the BBC has found.

Canon Gordon Rideout, 73, was held last Tuesday on suspicion of child sex abuse between 1965 and 1972 and later bailed.

The BBC has found he remained as a school governor in Eastbourne after the church suspended him following a Criminal Records Bureau check.

The school and education authority would not comment during the inquiry.

But head teacher of Bishop Bell school, Terry Boatwright, said he wanted to reassure parents the allegations were historical and not connected with the school.

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IRELAND
Patrick J. Wall

John Gerard Smyth joined the Norbertine Fathers in Northern Ireland in 1945 where he was given the religious name of Brendan to symbolize his total conversion to Christ. The hundreds of children Brendan raped and sodomized would likely have a different name for him: The Celtic Diablo.

The Celtic Diablo sexually abused children in county Cavan, Belfast, Dublin, Scotland, Wales, Providence Rhode Island, Langdon North Dakota and anywhere he heard confessions – his primary access point to abuse children.

But there was a whistleblower. Father Bruno Mulvihill O.Prae.–beginning when he was a novice at Kilnacrott Abbey–told his Norbertine superiors in 1964 that Brendan Smyth was abusing altar boys. Norbertine officials disregarded that warning and instead sent Brendan to Providence, RI, where he went on to hear more confessions and abuse more children.

Solicitation in the confessional (crimens sollicitationis) is one of the most ancient, consistent and unabated crimes particular to Roman Catholicism. But little has changed: Even with all the documented history of children being abused in the confessional, last week Benedict XVI reaffirmed the need for Catholics to go to private confession, where the priest represents Christ and has the divine power to forgive sins. No where else but the confessional can a child perpetrator find a forum where the power differential is so great and the policy of secrecy pervades.

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NEDERLAND
RKnieuws

GRONINGEN (RKnieuws.net) – Bijzonder hoogleraar Religie en Recht Fokko Oldenhuis van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen heeft hard uitgehaald naar de Rooms-Katholieke kerk.Volgens Oldenhuis draait de kerk slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik een rad voor de ogen.

Kardinaal en oud-bisschop Eijk van Groningen heeft beloofd geen beroep te doen op verjaring van seksuele delicten. Nu blijkt dit alleen te gelden voor slachtoffers die een claim hebben ingediend bij de kerk.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Rhein Zeitung

Rheinböllen – In dem Fall des wegen des Verdachts auf sexuellen Missbrauchs an Messdienern beurlaubten Priesters, der seit November im Puricelli-Stift Rheinböllen die heilige Messe zelebrierte, erheben Seelsorgeteam und Gremien der Pfarreiengemeinschaft Rheinböllen Vorwürfe gegen die Bistumsleitung.

„Wir fühlten und fühlen uns seitens der verantwortlichen Stellen nicht ausreichend informiert und fordern als Vertreter der Pfarreiengemeinschaft, die die Verantwortung vor Ort tragen müssen, zukünftig bei solchen Konflikten im Vorfeld informiert und eingebunden zu werden, um entsprechend reagieren zu können“, sagt der Pfarreienratsvorsitzende Christian Klein gegenüber unserer Zeitung.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Miss BiT

Warum verschleiert der „Trierische Volksfreund“ abermals die erwiesene Faktenlage und enthält sich einer kritischen Kommentierung? Dabei hätte eine simple Zusammenfassung der dargestellten Problemlage genügend Anlass für grundsätzliche Überlegungen gegeben.

Der sogenannte „Ex-Täter“ – allein dieses erste Wort in der Überschrift beschämt Leser mit eigenen Missbrauchserfahrungen durch den unangebrachten Analogismus, als ob Missbrauchstäter mit geschiedenen Ehemännern vergleichbar wären! –, dieser sogenannte „Ex-Täter“ also missbrauchte in Ausübung seines pastoralen Amtes als „Seelsorger“ der katholischen Kirche mindestens 23 Kinder. Er betätigt sich auch nach seiner Verurteilung und Haftstrafe weiterhin ausgerechnet in dem Beruf, der ihm diese schrecklichen Verbrechenstaten ermöglichte! Er hat also weiterhin Kontakt zu minderjährigen Schutzbefohlenen!

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

Darf ein ehemals vom Trierer Landgericht wegen Missbrauchs zu einer Bewährungsstrafe verurteilter Geistlicher noch Gottesdienste feiern und die Sakramente spenden? Nein, sagen Opferverbände und die katholische Jugendorganisation KSJ. Beim Bistum Trier sieht man dies offenbar anders: Der jetzt im Saarland tätige Pfarrer sei mit Einschränkungen einsetzbar, sagt ein Bischofssprecher.

Trier/Saarbrücken. “Zu seinen Aufgaben als Kooperator gehören Messfeiern, Taufen, Hochzeiten, Beerdigungen, die Mitarbeit in der Krankenhausseelsorge und in der Erwachsenenbildung.” So schrieb die Saarbrücker Zeitung vor genau zwei Jahren über den Geistlichen, als er in einer saarländischen Pfarrei offiziell vorgestellt wurde.

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DEUTSCHLAND
SR Online

Ein wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs rechtskräftig verurteilter katholischer Priester wird im Saarland als Aushilfspfarrer eingesetzt. Im Gespräch mit SR-online rechtfertigt Bistumssprecher Kronenburg das Vorgehen. Man richte sich nach dem forensischen Gutachten.

(15.03.2012) Er darf im Saarland Messen zelebrieren und Sakramente spenden: Ein Priester, der bereits 1995 vom Landgericht Trier wegen sexuellem Missbrauchs in 23 Fällen zu einer Bewährungsstrafe von zwei Jahren verurteilt worden ist. Den Namen des Priesters will das Bistum als Arbeitgeber aus datenschutz-rechtlichen Gründen nicht nennen.

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POLENS
kipa apic

Warschau, 15.3.12 (Kipa) Polens katholische Bischöfe wollen kirchliche Fälle von sexuellem Missbrauch nachdrücklicher als bisher bei staatlichen Behörden anzeigen. Die Leitlinien der Bischofskonferenz zum Umgang mit Missbrauchfällen von 2009 seien entsprechend geändert worden, sagte der Konferenzvorsitzende Erzbischof Jozef Michalik am Mittwochabend in Warschau zum Abschluss der Bischofsvollversammlung.

Zugleich sollten Kinder künftig besser gegen Übergriffe geschützt und Opfern besser geholfen werden. Missbrauchsfälle dürften nicht verheimlicht werden, so Michalik. Zu Schadenersatzzahlungen an die Opfer äusserte er sich skeptisch. Es bestehe die Gefahr, dass die Verantwortung einer einzelnen Person auf die Institution übertragen werde. Die vatikanische Glaubenskongregation hatte die Bischofskonferenzen weltweit verpflichtet, bis Mai Leitlinien zum Umgang mit Missbrauchsfällen vorzulegen.

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NEW YORK
Village Voice

By Victoria Bekiempis
Thu., Mar. 15 2012

​Since it’s officially Timothy Cardinal Dolan week, why not keep the celebration going with a little more info on the Catholic leader’s legislative positions?

Yesterday, Runnin’ Scared wrote about Dolan’s opposition to the Reproductive Health Act, which would codify abortion rights in the state, and de-criminalize late-term terminations.

Today, we bring you deets about the Child Victims Act, a pending policy which, if passed, would extend the statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse.

Dolan has publicly opposed the law, sponsored by Rep. Margaret M. Markey (pictured here).

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UGANDA/UNITED STATES
allAfrica

By Charundi Panagoda and Jim Lobe, 14 March 2012

Washington — A major U.S. civil rights group filed a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts Wednesday on behalf of a Ugandan gay rights organisation, the Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG), against a right-wing evangelist leader for inciting hatred against homosexuals that has led to increased violence against LGBT persons in the East African country.

The lawsuit was filed by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in the home state of Scott Lively, the defendant, who heads the Abiding Truth Ministries, a fundamentalist Christian group.

He is also the author of “The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party”, a 1995 book that claimed Nazism was created and propagated by homosexuals, and a second book, “Seven Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”, a how-to guide for parents to “prevent” their children from becoming homosexual.

“Lively has been the man with the plan in this enterprise,” said Pam Spees, a senior CCR staff attorney.

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UGANDA/MASSACHUSETTS
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: March 14, 2012

A Ugandan gay rights group filed suit against an American evangelist, Scott Lively, in federal court in Massachusetts on Wednesday, accusing him of violating international law by inciting the persecution of gay men and lesbians in Uganda.

The lawsuit maintains that beginning in 2002, Mr. Lively conspired with religious and political leaders in Uganda to whip up anti-gay hysteria with warnings that gay people would sodomize African children and corrupt their culture.

The Ugandan legislature considered a bill in 2009, proposed by one of Mr. Lively’s Ugandan contacts, that would have imposed the death sentence for the “offense of homosexuality.” That bill languished after an outcry from the United States and European nations that are among major aid donors to Uganda, but was reintroduced last month.

Mr. Lively is being sued by the organization Sexual Minorities Uganda under the alien tort statute, which allows foreigners to sue in American courts in situations asserting the violation of international law. The suit says that Mr. Lively’s actions resulted in the persecution, arrest, torture and murder of gay men and lesbians in Uganda.

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UGANDA
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

David Smith in Johannesburg
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 March 2012

A Ugandan gay rights group is suing an American Christian evangelist it accuses of waging a campaign of homophobia in the east African country.

Sexual Minorities Uganda filed the lawsuit against minister Scott Lively on Wednesday in Springfield, Massachusetts, under a statute that the group says allows non-citizens to launch US court actions for violations of international law.

Frank Mugisha, who heads the pressure group, said it was targeting Lively for “helping spread propaganda and violence” against gay people in Uganda. …

The complaint claims Lively issued a call in Uganda to fight against a “genocidal” and “paedophilic” gay movement which he “likened to the Nazis and Rwandan murderers”. It seeks a judgment that Lively’s actions violate international law and human rights.

Lively, of Abiding Truth Ministries, is one of three American pastors who visited Uganda in 2009 and whom gay activists accuse of helping draft the original version of its anti-homosexuality bill. Lively denies this.

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UNITED STATES
Open Salon

Steve Klingaman

March is Rick Santorum’s moment to strut the stage like a minor Shakespearean buffoon, who mortifies but entertains the crowd before he is yanked behind the curtain. Much of his message is old news, but he also represents a movement to insert the most conservative brand of Catholic theology into secular political discourse. But Catholic voters reject this guy. Why? Despite the church’s rightward drift under Pope Benedict, the church has had an at times uneasy relationship with Opus Dei and Regnum Christi, two branches of Catholic lay practice that Santorum endorses and that have been highly suspect to many within the church.

Of the two groups, Regnum Christi is the more virulent. It is the lay branch of the Legion of Christ order founded by child rapist and bigamist Father Marcial Maciel. According to the New York Times, Santorum has long been a supporter of the group and in 2003 was the keynote speaker at a Regnum Christi event in Chicago. Though this occurred a decade ago, Maciel, who had been under investigation since the 70s, was already well on his way to repudiation by the church.

According to a 1997 Hartford Courant article, Maciel was accused of serial sexual abuse including young children. Maciel’s accusers included “a priest, a guidance counselor, a professor, an engineer, a lawyer, and a former priest who became a university professor,” according to a Wikipedia summary of the article. Maciel was investigated by no less that by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVIl, who presumably spurred Maciel’s removal from his leadership position of the Legion. By 2010, the church referred to Maciel thusly:

•an “immoral” double life “devoid of scruples and authentic religious sentiment.”
•“the very serious and objectively immoral acts”
•”true crimes and manifest a life without scruples or authentic religious sentiment”

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 15, 2012

Every once in a while, the stars align.

Last year, I was contacted by family members of a child sex abuse victim. They asked me if I had any information about a priest named Gerald Funcheon who worked at Damien Memorial High School in Honolulu. I had never heard of Funcheon, but a quick search showed that he had a nasty past.

Not only was the Crosier priest banned from the Diocese of Indianapolis, but there were numerous sex abuse lawsuits against him from his time in the midwest. And then Funcheon vanishes: he disappeared from the Official Catholic Directory in the early 1980s. There is really only one reason why a living priest would vanish from the Official Directory. He was probably in hiding.

I told the family that I couldn’t find any information about Funcheon in Hawaii, but to keep in touch.

A few months later, the Irish Christian Brothers based out of New York declared bankruptcy because of more than 50 allegations of abuse at one of their Seattle schools and more than 250 allegations of abuse at Mt. Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. They are the 10th Catholic diocese or religious order to seek bankruptcy protection due to sex abuse claims.

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MASSACHUSETTS
New York Daily News

By Larry Mcshane / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, March 15, 2012

A Massachusetts evangelist was sued by an East African gay advocacy group that accuses him of helping draft a Ugandan bill to impose the death penalty on homosexuals.

Scott Lively, of Abiding Truth Ministries, was slapped with a federal lawsuit asking for a judgment that his actions violated international law — and seeking cash damages.

“We hope that he will be held accountable for what he did in Uganda,” said human rights activist Frank Mugisha of Sexual Ministries Uganda. “We want to send out a clear message to him and others.”

Mugisha, the 2011 winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, blamed Lively for “helping spread propaganda and violence” against gays in Uganda.

Lively, whose parish is based in Springfield, Mass., was among a group of U.S. clergy which visited Uganda in 2009 — just before debate began on the bill.

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SPRINGFIELD (MA)
USA Today

BOSTON (AP) – An East African gay advocacy group filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against a Massachusetts evangelist, alleging he has waged a decade-long campaign to persecute gays in Uganda.

The suit was filed in federal court in Springfield against minister Scott Lively under a statute that Sexual Ministries Uganda says allows non-citizens to file U.S. court actions for violations of international law.

Frank Mugisha, who heads the advocacy group, said it was singling out Lively for “helping spread propaganda and violence” against Uganda’s gay people.

“We hope that he will be held accountable for what he did in Uganda,” said Mugisha, who won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award last year. “We want to send out a clear message to him and to others.”

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CLEVELAND (OH)
Cleveland Scene

Posted by Erich Burnett on Thu, Mar 15, 2012

It’s been a week since the Vatican rocked local Catholics with news that it had overturned the closing of 13 churches across Northeast Ohio, a response to Bishop Richard Lennon’s recent “Slim Down for the Rapture!” initiative.

But in keeping with its centuries-old tradition of taking forever to do virtually nothing, the Church has yet to get the paperwork into the hands of Lennon, the diocese confirmed Tuesday. Despite widespread celebrations among parishioners from the shuttered parishes, they too are in the dark over their future.

Meanwhile, one closed parish that had already moved on without the bishop’s approval isn’t waiting by the mailbox.

“As we told our community [Sunday], we can’t comment until we see documentation,” says Robert Marrone, pastor of the Community of St. Peter. Since his sanctuary was closed by Lennon in 2010, Marrone has led St. Peter’s congregation — now numbering some 450 — in a building at East 71st and Euclid. These days, he’s calling for cautious jubilance, or maybe none at all.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
National Catholic Reporter

Mar. 15, 2012
By Brian Roewe

A week after news broke about their content, the decrees from the Vatican’s Congregation of the Clergy regarding appeals by 13 shuttered Cleveland parishes have arrived at the diocese and Bishop Richard G. Lennon has received them.

In a brief statement released Wednesday through the diocesan website, Lennon acknowledged receiving the decrees from the congregation and said he will now begin reviewing their rulings with his advisers.

Lennon has 60 days to determine if he wishes to appeal the congregation’s decision to overrule his closing of 13 churches and suppressing their parishes. The appeal process would go through the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s Supreme Court.

Regardless of what Lennon decides to do, those sided with the parishes want Lennon to reopen their churches immediately, in accordance with the decrees.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
The Plain Dealer

By Ken Prendergast, Sun News

CLEVELAND Because nothing official has been received from the Vatican to overrule Bishop Richard Lennon’s decision to close 13 churches, St. Patrick Church in the West Park neighborhood will not be reopened Saturday.

But that won’t stop the church’s former parishioners from holding a prayer service at 9:30 a.m. Saturday on the front steps of the church at Rocky River Drive and Puritas Avenue.

The parishioners requested that the Cleveland Catholic Diocese reopen the church for one day for a Mass inside and to celebrate the 164th anniversary of the parish’s founding. Saturday is St. Patrick’s Day. A group of former parishioners will march in the big St. Patrick’s Day parade downtown.

Diocese spokesman Bob Tayek said Lennon received the request to reopen the church from the parishioners several weeks ago. Instead, a Mass was scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at Blessed Trinity Church, 14040 Puritas Ave.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
Columbus Dispatch

Associated Press
Thursday March 15, 2012

CLEVELAND — The Diocese of Cleveland says it has received official decrees reversing the closure of 13 Roman Catholic churches.

In a statement, Bishop Richard Lennon says that the decrees were received yesterday from the Vatican and that he is reviewing the rulings with advisers.

Lennon has 60 days to must decide whether he will appeal the decisions.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy ruled the bishop failed to follow church law and procedure in the closings three years ago.

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UNITED STATES
Hunter at Random

That’s where you’ll find the Catholic hierarchy. If you ever had any doubt that the institutional Church was about anything but money and power, this should answer that question for you.

Turning the tables on an advocacy group that has long supported victims of pedophile priests, lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse in two Missouri cases have gone to court to compel the group to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.

The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the litigation. But the group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months in Kansas City and St. Louis, and its national director, David Clohessy, was questioned by a battery of lawyers for more than six hours this year. A judge in Kansas City ruled that the network must comply because it “almost certainly” had information relevant to the case.

Of course, Bill Donohue has to stick his two cents in:

But William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a church advocacy group in New York, said targeting the network was justified because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.”

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on March 15, 2012

A new civil lawsuit charges that a teacher and coach at Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento sexually assaulted a female student in December 2009 and that Catholic church and school officials could and should have prevented the crimes.

The complaint is filed against Minh Anh Nguyen, the school and a Washington, D.C.-based religious order called the Lasallian Christian Brothers, which operates the school. Nguyen was a teacher and coach at the high school.

The student, JANE DOE 40, says the crimes happened while she was at a volleyball tournament in Orange County on or around December 4, 2009 while Nguyen was in her hotel room after curfew. Allegedly Nguyen gave her a massage so she would not be tense for the game the next day, During the massage, Nguyen lifted the teen’s bra and pushed down her sweatpants.

Nguyen assured the student and her parents that he had expertise in athletic massage and that he had provided massage therapy to other student at the school.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

From the Crimes against Humanity of Benedict XVI at The Hague, to Amnesty International listing the Vatican for its violation against human rights, to Ireland shutting down its Vatican Embassy in Rome, now it is the United States of America listing the Vatican as a ‘potential money-laundering center’ because of “the large volumes of international currency that goes through the Holy See” — all these prove that the Vatican Titanic Ship is sinking in moral bankruptcy with its Opus Dei Golden Cows Blessed John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger as its Masters of Deception at the helm, read our related articles below.

Behind the cross there stands the dollar. Behind the prelate there stands the plutocrat.

For centuries there has prevailed a strong link between the secular and religious moneyed interests. Today major ministries hold billion-dollar investments in armaments, oil, banking, and just about every other large corporate enterprise…

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CANADA
Times Colonist

Alberni Valley TimesMarch 15, 2012

Sometimes the truth hurts. But often it heals. On Monday and Tuesday, a lot of tears were shed as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard from survivors of the Alberni Residential School.

The stories were both unbelievable and shocking, making the whole experience one that was difficult to witness.

But that is exactly why it is essential that these stories be told. It is only by talking about it that the victims can heal and move on. They will never forget. No one ever could. But the hearing offered hope that nothing like this will ever happen in Canada again.

The Alberni Residential School was in operation from 1929 to 1973. It was known to be one of the worst in Canada. The atrocities that took place there have marked families for generations. In some cases, children were believed to be raped and murdered, and the stories told at Maht Mahs Gym on Monday and Tuesday revealed there was a lot of truth to these frightening stories.

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CANADA
Canada.com

By Julia Caranci, Alberni Valley Times
March 15, 2012

While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard many heartbreaking histories over the last two days, people also shared their tales of hope and healing.

In addition, the commission learned how important gaining back their culture is to Aboriginal People here.

The TRC wrapped up two days of hearings in Port Alberni on Tuesday.

The commission will visit more communities, both large and small, across the country in the coming months. The goal is to create a lasting record of survivors’ experiences while attending residential schools, which were run by various churches under contract to the government.

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UNITED STATES
Triablogue

Or, “this is your infallible Magisterium in action”. But it’s ok, you Roman Catholics. They can be reprehensible, as a group, in real life, and still, God has committed to this reprehensible group, the charism of infallibility when speaking about doctrines and morals. Rest assured that, even when your doctrines rely on mistranslations or just completely changing the meaning of Scriptures, they are completely correct, and everything else is wrong. Never mind that Jesus said, “by their fruit you will recognize them”. Never mind that Paul explicitly stated, “the overseer is to be above reproach” … and reminds Timothy, “If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?”

National Catholic Reporter

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, came into existence in 1989, just five years after national attention was first focused on sexual molestation of minors by Catholic clergy. The founder, Barbara Blaine, is a survivor of abuse. The national director, David Clohessy, is also a survivor. SNAP came into existence because the institutional church, i.e., the bishops, could not and would not do anything to help the victims of the priests they were supposed to supervise.

Realizing that they would have to help themselves, Barbara and the original members started what has become the oldest and most effective advocacy and help group for the countless victims of clergy abuse throughout the United States and Europe as well.

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IRELAND
Wexford People

Wednesday March 14 2012

THE TRAGIC death on Tuesday of Wexford priest Fr. John Sweetman has shocked parishioners throughout the Diocese of Ferns.

Fr. Sweetman, who stepped down as parish priest in Riverchapel last year following an allegation of sexual abuse, died yesterday morning.

Medical assistance was summoned to Ballyvaloo Retreat Centre in Blackwater, where he was staying for a few days.

He was brought by ambulance to Wexford General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 15 March 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father appointed Cardinal Edwin Frederick O’Brien, pro-grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, as grand master of that Order.

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UNITED STATES
Googling God

Common Sense Should Be Applied in Supervision on Sex Abuser Claims

Mike Hayes

As a Catholic, I’m appalled by this defense tactic used by some in the Church to skirt their responsibility for supervising those who ended up abusing children.

From the NY Times:

However, courts in Missouri, Wisconsin and Utah have twisted the First Amendment into a shield for organizational liability for pedophile clergy. In an outrageous case, a Missouri appellate court summarily dismissed a negligence case brought against the Archdiocese of St. Louis by an individual who said he had been abused by a priest. His suit charged the archdiocese with negligent failure to supervise the priest, who had a past record of child sexual abuse. The court threw out the complaint, saying that Missouri law does not allow it because judging the supervision of the priest would require inquiry into religious doctrine, which it contends would violate the First Amendment.

This bizarre conclusion would grant churches a special exemption from neutral, generally applicable laws designed to protect children. The United States Supreme Court now has an opportunity to reverse this erroneous interpretation of the Constitution. The justices should grant the plaintiff’s petition for review, which they are scheduled to consider on Friday.

And consider it they should. Supervision does not have anything to do with religious practice in these instances. If it did, no non-Catholics could work for the church by definition.

It’s also a ridiculous claim. We can’t investigate into whether this person who works for us abused a child because the state can’t determine whether someone actually did that. Um, pardon me, but isn’t this obvious? Either the person did this or didn’t do this and unless they say that God told them to do it—which would be a horrifying thing to say—then their religious perspective is both flawed and irrelevant.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE GOVERNMENT WAS called on today to address the subject of reparation for survivors of the Magdalene laundries.

Ireland’s human rights record is being examined at the United Nations in Geneva today as the country bids to become a member of the UN Human Rights Council. The Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) made a statement to the UN Human Rights Council calling on the government to address the issue of reparation.

The IHRC was joined by the Women’s Human Rights Alliance (WHRA), led by the National Women’s Council of Ireland, when they made a statement to the UNHRC.

The WHRA urged the government to comply with the recommendations of the UN Committee against Torture and the IHRC to institute a statutory inquiry into Magdalene Laundries abuse and a compensation scheme for survivors.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Kos

Kaili Joy Gray

This story is just gonna break your heart:

Cardinal [Timothy M.] Dolan criticized a legislative proposal that would, for a year, drop the statute of limitations for filing civil claims for sexual offenses, allowing for lawsuits by people who say they were abused long ago. The cardinal said he was concerned that a flood of lawsuits over abuse by priests could drain the church of money it is using for charitable purposes.

“I think we bishops have been very contrite in admitting that the church did not handle this well at all in the past,” he said. “But we bristle sometimes in that the church doesn’t get the credit, now being in the vanguard of reform. It does bother us that the church continues to be a whipping boy.”

Aw. Poor bishops. They are just so sick and tired of being blamed for that whole covering-up-the-widespread-rape-and-molestation-of-children thing. Don’t you secular ingrates understand that they can’t do really important stuff—like spend $26.7 million a year lobbying politicians to pass Church-approved laws against gays and vaginas—if they have to keep paying settlements to all those molested kids?

And once you take into account all the money the Church has to spend trying to shut down Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) because, according to William Donohue, head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the bishops believe “they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough” because they “don’t need altar boys,” why, that hardly leaves any money at all to care for the homeless pull funding from services for the homeless because its director supports marriage equality.

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UNITED STATES
Care2

by Paul Canning

Back in January, Catholic League President and frequent Fox News contributor Bill Donohue called victims of priest abuse and their advocates and supporters a “pitiful bunch of malcontents” and “professional victims.”

Now Donahue is calling for victims to be ‘fought one-by-one’ so the church can save money.

He claims that Catholic bishops are reaching the conclusion that “they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough.” “We don’t need altar boys,” he told the New York Times.

He says he’s backing an effort by lawyers for two Missouri priests accused of abuse to subpoena email from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

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.

JEFFERSON CITY (MO)
KOMU

by Emily Allen

JEFFERSON CITY – Father Brendan Doyle will no longer be able to participate in public ministries in Jefferson City or elsewhere. A seven-person review board for the Jefferson City Diocese recommended Doyle be suspended indefinitely.

The Diocese’s Deacon Dan Joyce said the review board decided this after reviewing evidence from the investigation put on by the US Attorney’s office. Bishop Gaydos accepted the recommendation from the review board and Doyle was suspended.

The investigation started in November when a Helias High School computer technician discovered pornographic web images on Doyle’s computer.

The details of these images were not released. However, the review board said the images violated the charter protecting children and young people.

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.

UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Aaron Falk
The Salt Lake Tribune

A Mormon bishop accused of failing to report the alleged abuse of a child in his congregation has taken a plea deal that could end with the misdemeanor’s dismissal.

Amado Gress Rojas, 62, entered into a “diversion agreement” Monday in Provo Justice Court. The deal with prosecutors means Rojas can ask the court to dismiss the single class B misdemeanor count if he has no criminal violations over the next six months.

According to defense attorney Mike Esplin, who spoke to The Salt Lake Tribune last month about the charges, the alleged victim and three other girls spoke to Rojas during a meeting in September. The girl reported she had been “touched over the clothing” during a church activity.

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.

PHILIPPINES
Bulatlat

By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
Bulatlat.com

The children’s welfare advocacy and party-list group Akap-Bata recently called on the Benigno Aquino III administration to enforce Republic Act 9775 or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009. It also aired its dismay over what it said was the Inter-Agency Council against Child Pornography’s (IACCP) “poor performance” since the law was passed in November 2009.

“No culprit of child pornography has been convicted in the almost 30 months since the law’s passage. We want to know if the agency has made any headway in implementing its mandate. We want violators of children’s rights to be punished and for this to serve as a strong warning to the masterminds of child pornography in the country,” said Akap Bata Party-List secretary-general Arlene Brosas.

Brosas said the Aquino government and the IACCP should “do their homework” so they can implement the provisions of the anti-child pornography law. She said the agency should put together a child pornography database to monitor all incidents of child porn in the country. This, she said, can be the starting point for the agency’s strategic plan of action. …

Late in November last year, reports came out that a Massachusetts , United States-based Filipino priest who was caught with child pornography in his computer disappeared before he could go on trial. The priest, Rev. Lowe B. Dongor, is suspected to be hiding in the Philippines.

Based on reports, Dongor was arraigned in Fitchburg District Court on September 12, 2011 on charges of possessing child pornography. The newspaper Telegram said images of child pornography were found in the priest’s laptop. The independent computer service company, which flagged the pornographic material, informed the local police. The report noted that court documents reveal that the images found in the priest’s computer depicted prepubescent girls in various states of undress.

“If this priest is in hiding in the Philippines, what has the IACCP done to find him? It should coordinate with the police authorities and other agencies to find him,” Brosas said.

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 Media Report

Dave Pierre

The New York Times is again shilling for the Catholic-hating SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) with more false attacks against the Catholic Church.

Yesterday (Tue., 3/13/12), the Times plastered a sympatheic, front-page portrait of the anti-Catholic advocacy group in an apparent attempt to intimidate the Church from defending itself through the legal process. We have already exposed the dishonest nature of the article (which was written by religion editor Laurie Goodstein).

Then today (Wed., 3/14/12), the Times continued its attack with a misleading and error-laced editorial.

First, the editorial claims that the Catholic Church is “threatening to expose private files” of victims in Missouri. This is patently and demonstrably untrue. If there is one issue that SNAP and the Church agree on, it is that victims’ files must be kept private.

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.

CLEVELAND (OH)
WTAM

(Cleveland)- Bishop Richard Lennon of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese has received the official word from the Vatican regarding his orders closing 13 Northeast Ohio churches.

Lennon says the Vatican Congregation for Clergy decrees arrived on Wednesday and the process to review these rulings will now be undertaken with his advisors.

Last week the Vatican overturned Lennon’s ruling to close 13 churches.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
The Plain Dealer

By Michael O’Malley, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The official decrees reversing Bishop Richard Lennon’s closings of 13 Catholic parishes finally reached his desk today, the bishop acknowledged in a statement.

That means the clock began ticking today on a 60-day period for him to decide whether to appeal.

“The process to review these rulings will now be undertaken with my advisors,” the bishop wrote in a three-sentence statement posted on the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland’s web site.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
WKYC

CLEVELAND — Bishop Richard Lennon announced Wednesday that he is now in receipt of decrees issued by the Vatican Congregation for Clergy regarding 13 closed churches within the Cleveland Diocese.

The bishop says he will begin to review the decrees with his advisors.

Critics of the church closings want Bishop Lennon to implement the ruling from the Vatican and quickly reopen the impacted parishes.

The Congregation of Clergy ruled that the bishop failed to follow church law and procedure in making the closings.

The 13 churches were among 50 closed by the Diocese due to declining finances and attendance.

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.

STOCKTON (CA)
Lodi News-Sentinel

By Ross Farrow/News-Sentinel Staff Writer

STOCKTON — The plaintiff in the Michael Kelly civil trial, who said in previous testimony that he was sexually assaulted and fondled while he was in fifth grade in the 1980s, testified on Wednesday that he wasn’t sure what grade he was in when some of the alleged incidents took place.

The former Stockton altar boy also refuted statements by clinical psychologist Amy Charney, who testified he told her that Kelly sexually assaulted her in fourth grade.

During cross examination, Stockton Diocese attorney Jim Goodman showed videotapes of two depositions the plaintiff gave in 2009 in an effort to show inconsistencies between what the plaintiff said during the depositions and what he said on the witness stand Wednesday and last Friday.

Not every incident may have happened in fifth grade, the plaintiff said Wednesday. Some of the incidents may have taken place as late as seventh or eighth grade.

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 New York Times

Editorial

Published: March 14, 2012

Religious institutions have constitutional protections, but they are not above the law. Unfortunately, that has not stopped the Roman Catholic Church and other religious groups from arguing that the First Amendment shields them from civil lawsuits for negligent supervision and retention of employees who sexually abuse children.

Most state courts that have considered the issue have rejected this claim by churches, recognizing that holding religious employers liable for failure to monitor employees in sex-abuse cases does not interfere with constitutionally protected religious freedoms.

However, courts in Missouri, Wisconsin and Utah have twisted the First Amendment into a shield for organizational liability for pedophile clergy. In an outrageous case, a Missouri appellate court summarily dismissed a negligence case brought against the Archdiocese of St. Louis by an individual who said he had been abused by a priest. His suit charged the archdiocese with negligent failure to supervise the priest, who had a past record of child sexual abuse. The court threw out the complaint, saying that Missouri law does not allow it because judging the supervision of the priest would require inquiry into religious doctrine, which it contends would violate the First Amendment.

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.