ABUSE TRACKER

MEXICO
El Siglo de Torreon

[Summary: A spokesman for the Torreon diocese said in the last 50 years they have not had a reported case of sexual abuse by priests.]

En sus 50 años la Diócesis de Torreón no ha registrado casos de abuso sexual por sacerdotes pertenecientes a su demarcación, aseguró el sacerdote Rafael López.

Ante las declaraciones realizadas por el obispo de la Diócesis de Saltillo, Raúl Vera, y el padre Pedro Pantoja Arreola, en donde se ventilaron cuatro casos de sacerdotes pederastas, Rafael López, director de la Buena Nueva -periódico de la Diócesis- e integrante de Comunicación Social, descartó que los registros sean de Torreón. “No hay ningún caso reportado en la iglesia ni ante las autoridades. La Diócesis tiene muy poco, 50 años, y en este tiempo no se han presentado casos de abuso sexual”.

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America Latina

[Summary: A delegation from the Vatican last week appeared before the UN to give explanations on cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests, nuns and other church officials throughout the world. Pope Francis and former Pope Benedict XVI have public acknowledged abuse but this was the first that that a commission of the Holy See was called to Geneva to recognize crimes that they tried to conceal within their religious organization.]

Francesca Emanuele

La semana pasada, una delegación del Vaticano compareció ante la ONU para dar explicaciones sobre los casos de abuso sexual a menores perpetrados por sacerdotes, monjas y demás funcionarios de la Iglesia alrededor del mundo. En ocasiones previas, el papa Francisco y el ex pontífice Benedicto XVI, reconocieron públicamente los casos de abusos. Sin embargo, era la primera vez que una comisión de la Santa Sede se presentaba en Ginebra ante las Naciones Unidas para reconocer los delitos de pederastia que históricamente ha intentado ocultar su organización religiosa.

Si bien este es un hecho sin precedentes para la Iglesia, no es ni mínimamente suficiente para las cientos de miles de víctimas efectivas (y posibles) alrededor del planeta. En Ginebra, la comisión del Vaticano continuó manteniendo ocultos los nombres de los miles de sacerdotes que están envueltos en estos delitos, aún teniendo registros internos de los mismos. Además, se negó a proporcionar documentación referida al “protocolo de actuación” que ejerce la Iglesia Católica en estos supuestos.

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CANADA
Global News

WINNIPEG – An Orthodox archbishop has been found guilty of sexually assaulting one of two brothers in Winnipeg almost 30 years ago.

The judge said in his ruling that Seraphim Kenneth Storheim was evasive and untrustworthy in his denials on the witness stand.

The Court of Queen’s Bench justice also said one brother was clear in his testimony, while the other had memory and mental illness problems.

The brothers, who are now in their 30s, testified they lived with Storheim briefly, on separate occasions, when they worked as altar boys in 1985.

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CANADA
CBC News

A Winnipeg archbishop accused of sexual assault against two boys has been found guilty in one case but not the other.

Seraphim Storheim, 67, will be sentenced later in the year. In the meantime, he will be free on bail.

Storeheim had been accused of sexually assaulting two pre-teen brothers in 1985. He was facing two counts — one for each boy.

In reading the verdict on Friday, the judge said he was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt about the assault against one boy but the burden of proof was not met for the second.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Christopher Mainella said in his ruling that Storheim was evasive and untrustworthy in his denials on the witness stand.

The judge also said one brother was clear in his testimony, while the other had memory and mental illness problems.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Sun

Former archbishop Kenneth (Seraphim) Storheim was found guilty of one count of sexually molesting a young boy — and cleared of a charge he molested the boy’s twin — in incidents nearly 30 years ago.

Storheim, who went on to become Canadian Archbishop of the Orthodox Church in America, was accused of molesting two pre-teen twin brothers in the mid-1980s when he was the rector at Holy Trinity Sobor in Winnipeg.

But on Friday, a court found him guilty of molesting only one of the boys.

Storheim previously admitted hugging the brothers and engaging one of the boys in a conversation about puberty — ”One of the stupider things I have done,” he said — but denied accusations he engaged in physically inappropriate behaviour.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: Mike McIntyre

A high-ranking Orthodox archbishop has been convicted of sexually assaulting a young altar boy while working in a Winnipeg church nearly 30 years ago.

Seraphim Storheim, 67, showed little visible reaction today as he learned his fate. He will be sentenced later this spring and remains free on bail.

Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Mainella blasted Storheim in his two-hour decision, saying his claims of innocence rang hollow.

“He loves to parse words and concepts,” Mainella said in finding Storheim’s testimony lacked credibility. “Other times he would provide nonsensical answers. I reject his evidence entirely.”

Storheim did win a partial victory, as Mainella convicted him of molesting just one of two brothers who claimed they were attacked. Mainella cited issues with the other alleged victim, including mental illness, which impacted the quality of evidence he was able to provide.

Storheim had taken the witness stand in his own defence, claiming the only thing he was guilty of was caring too much for a troubled family he took under his wing.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Eckiger Tisch

… was machen heute eigentlich die Täter von damals?

WOLFGANG STATT
(früher: „Pater Wolfgang Statt SJ“, auch bekannt als: „Padre Volfi“ oder „Joaquin Statt“)

WAS IM JANUAR 2010 BEKANNT WURDE
Wolfgang Statt hat seit den 1960er Jahren mehr als dreißig Jahre lang in Deutschland, Spanien und Chile nach eigenen Angaben „mehrere hundert“ Kinder und Jugendliche missbraucht.

Im Februar 2010 hatte sich Statt zunächst in der deutschen Presse mit Interviews und Statements in eigener Sache zu Wort gemeldet und seinen Umzug nach Deutschland angekündigt. Am 9. Februar 2010 dementierte der Sprecher des deutschen Jesuitenordens in Chile (aber nicht in Deutschland) mit einer Pressemitteilung in spanischer Sprache, dass es in Deutschland Vorwürfe des sexuellen Missbrauchs gegen Statt gebe. Statt nahm dann von seiner geplanten Übersiedlung nach Deutschland Abstand und hat sich seitdem nicht mehr öffentlich geäußert.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Jan. 24, 2014 Faith and Justice

In advancing four members of the Roman Curia to the cardinalate, Pope Francis has made his first major mistake, which may ultimately undermine his attempts at reforming the Vatican.

There is not anything particularly wrong with the men being made cardinals. Three of them are clearly Francis men who were put into their positions by the pope: Pietro Parolin, secretary of state; Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops; and Beniamino Stella, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy.

The fourth Curia man Francis promoted was originally appointed by Pope Benedict XVI: Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He is not popular in the United States because he led the Vatican investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Progressive Catholics would love to see him replaced by someone more open to discussion and debate in the church.

After the Second Vatican Council, there were numerous attempts to reform the Vatican, none of which succeeded. Under Paul VI, national bishops’ conferences were given more power, for example, in adapting the liturgy to local pastoral needs. But under John Paul II, the decentralization was reversed and power reverted to the Vatican. That is why we have the terrible English translation used in parishes today.

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Huffington Post

[Submission to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child – BishopAccountability.org]

Aaron Vallely
Irish writer and essayist

There is a first time for everything, and last Thursday the Vatican was pushed to admit in public that it still does not force priests to report child sex crimes to authorities. Not only is this shameful, it is unacceptable. A UN panel held The Holy See accountable in a public interrogation regarding child abuse, and scrutinized the Vatican’s disgraceful and contemptuous record on dealing with child sexual abuse and torture. Although most people focused on the UN commission’s interrogation in Geneva that day, some spotted a curious observation in Rome. Time magazine’s Person of the Year, Pope Francis, or Jorge Mario Bergoglio, announced that these “scandals are the shame of the Church,” while a man whom accompanied him was Los Angeles Archbishop Emeritus, Cardinal Roger Mahony, a repugnant man who supervised more than 200 known pedophile priests with 500 known victims to whom he paid $720 million. It makes one think: What has this new Pope done about the sex abuse crisis?

The day following, the Associated Press reported that 400 priests were defrocked in the years 2011 and 2012. According to AP, a document was specifically prepared from data the Vatican collected to defend itself before the UN committee. And what of these criminal defrocked individuals, you might ask? Well, we don’t know. They remain free and at liberty to abuse again. Their identities are unknown, as are their whereabouts, and the nature of their crimes. Of them we know not much. Pope Francis has done nothing to help arm authorities with information they would need to apprehend these criminals.

A 2004 John Jay study identified 10,667 victim allegations made in the period from 1950-2002, which number increased to 15,235 through 2009. Many victims of sexual assault never report their victimization, and observers have estimated that there may be as many as 100,000 total victims in the United States alone.

On 1 July, the United Nation’s Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) sent a request to the pope for “detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy, brothers, or nunnery” from the past fifteen years, and set 1 November as a deadline for a reply. Missing the deadline, on 4 December, Pope Francis responded saying it was not the way his government practiced to “disclose information on specific cases unless requested to do so by another country as part of legal proceedings” and “that the Vatican can provide information only about known and alleged child sex crimes that have happened on Vatican property.”

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

“The truth will set you free,” is a phrase you must know very well. Pope Benedict XVI used it frequently, even in the heat of the 2010 sexual abuse crisis.

In your diocese many people have been suffering, for many long years, from the consequences of the sexual and physical abuse by your brothers in the residential schools, and in the parishes of different communities.

But do you know what is even more painful? Not knowing the truth about what happened with the priest or brother or sister who abused. Not receiving honest answers when you ask questions on how these things were allowed to happen. Not being able to obtain justice for what happened to you.

No one of your church was in the courtroom in Iqaluit during those first weeks of the trial of Mr. Dejaeger. No one to listen to the brave victims testifying about the horrors. No one to see how relieved they were after having testified and to hear them say “an enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders.”

If you had been there, you would have realized that obtaining justice is essential for their healing, for their families and for the whole community.

Mgr. Scicluna confirmed to Reuters last week that “Pope Francis will not show leniency towards pedophile priests because truth and justice are more important than protecting the Church.”

As newly appointed bishop, we encourage you to act upon the words of your pope and release your documents on all abuse cases in your diocese.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 24, 2014

ROME Pope Francis has expressed an intention to visit the United States in September 2015, according to Vatican sources who spoke to NCR on background this week, who stressed that nothing is official and the date is too far into the future to be certain.

The primary motive for the trip would be the eighth edition of the World Meeting of Families, an event held every three years that was launched under Pope John Paul II in 1994 and is held in various parts of the world. The Vatican announced in February 2013, shortly before the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, that the next edition will be Sept. 22-27, 2015, in Philadelphia.

The family has been a major preoccupation both for the church generally and for Francis personally. Among other things, the pope has dedicated the next meeting of the Synod of Bishops, scheduled for October, to the theme of the family.

Because the General Assembly of the United Nations generally meets in September, there is also speculation that Francis might combine the Philadelphia outing with a stop in New York to address the U.N.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

Six former residents of children’s homes run by the Sisters of Nazareth in Derry will next week give evidence to the biggest child abuse public inquiry ever held in the UK.

The six witnesses were resident in either St Joseph’s Boys’ Home, Termonbacca, or Nazareth House Children’s Home, at Bishop Street.

They are scheduled to give oral testimony to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

It’s understood members and former members of the Sisters of Nazareth, as well as other persons associated with the two homes in Derry, will also take the witness stand in the coming weeks. Other former residents are also scheduled to give evidence.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) is examining allegations of child abuse in children’s homes and other residential institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, Jan. 20, 2014

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

ALBUQUERQUE – Another bankruptcy attorney will soon be billing the Diocese of Gallup for legal services, but this attorney will be advocating on behalf of clergy sex abuse survivors.

California attorney James I. Stang was selected by the Unsecured Creditors Committee to be its proposed legal counsel. The committee, which was appointed by the Office of the U.S. Trustee in December, is made up of seven clergy abuse survivors from the Gallup Diocese. The committee’s responsibility is to represent the interests of abuse survivors in the diocese’s Chapter 11 reorganization.

Stang, a bankruptcy attorney with the Los Angeles firm of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones, has extensive experience with clergy sex abuse litigation and Roman Catholic Church bankruptcy cases.

His firm has represented Creditors Committees in cases involving nine church entities: the Diocese of Spokane, the Diocese of Davenport, the Diocese of San Diego, the Diocese of Fairbanks, the Diocese of Wilmington, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, the Christian Brothers’ Institute, the Christian Brothers of Ireland, Inc., and the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province. Once Stang’s appointment is approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma, the Creditors Committee for the Diocese of Gallup will make case number ten.

Stang’s law firm is also currently “consulting with counsel for sexual abuse survivors with claims against another Catholic diocese and the survivors are negotiating a settlement with the diocese,” Stang wrote in his declaration to the court. “Given the confidentiality of the negotiations,” he said, “I am not allowed to identify the name of the diocese.”

In addition, Stang said, his law firm also “periodically donates funds to organizations that advocate on behalf of sexual abuse victims” and other victims of crime.

Prior to his selection, Stang stated he had consulted with attorneys who represent Gallup clergy sex abuse claimants and met with representatives of the Diocese of Gallup beginning in 2012. Since the diocese filed its Chapter 11 petition on Nov. 12, 2013, Stang has appeared at two bankruptcy hearings and the first meeting of creditors.

“Neither I nor the Firm has received or requested any compensation for any of the consultations, appearances or conversations,” Stang wrote in his declaration.

With Stang’s selection, however, the Diocese of Gallup will responsible for payment of Stang’s legal services to the Unsecured Creditors Committee. Like the diocese’s own battery of bankruptcy attorneys, Stang’s hourly rates are steep. Stang proposed an interim compensation of a $500 hourly rate, and a final compensation of a $650 hourly rate subject to the committee’s approval. Proposed hourly rates for his firm’s paralegals run $175 to $255.

The first Unsecured Creditors Committee meeting was held Dec. 19, 2013. It featured sworn testimony by Bishop James S. Wall and Christopher G. Linscott, the diocese’s recently hired financial consultant, about the Diocese of Gallup’s finances. The meeting is slated to reconvene at 10 a.m., Thursday, in Judge David T. Thuma’s courtroom, located in Albuquerque’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court, 500 Gold Ave. S.W.

The meeting is open to the public, but visitors are not allowed to bring phones, cameras or any kind of recording devices into the courtroom.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, Jan. 22, 2014

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

ALBUQUERQUE – The Diocese of Gallup’s Chapter 11 Unsecured Creditors Committee meeting that was scheduled for Thursday morning in U.S. Bankruptcy Court has been canceled.

Attorney James I. Stang, the committee’s newly selected legal counsel, said he and the committee members did not feel further testimony was needed. Bishop James S. Wall and Christopher G. Linscott, the diocese’s financial consultant, had testified about the Gallup Diocese’s finances in December. That first creditors committee meeting was scheduled to reconvene Thursday.

The committee is made up of seven clergy sex abuse survivors, five men and two women, from across the diocese. Stang said they received a report about Wall and Linscott’s testimony from attorneys Robert E. Pastor, of Phoenix, and Richard T. Fass, of Houston, who represent more than 30 abuse survivors who are claimants in the bankruptcy case, as well as a report from Stang.

“We just felt from a utility standpoint we had gotten what we needed,” Stang said of the testimony.

He said the committee will begin obtaining more information about the Gallup Diocese’s finances through requests for specific documents.

Stang said he expected the next major development in the Chapter 11 case will be the filing of a motion to set a claim deadline. Anyone who has a possible claim against the Diocese of Gallup will be required to file their claim by that date.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Jan. 242014

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )

The Vatican has made another depressing appointment by promoting Lexington Bishop Ronald Gainer to head the Harrisburg diocese. In fact, this may be Pope Francis’ most distressing promotion yet.

Gainer has done a very poor job protecting kids and healing victims in Lexington.

1) Just last year, we begged Gainer to oust – and warn his flock about – a four-time accused predator priest who works, basically unsupervised, in the Lexington diocese. He is Fr. Carroll Howlin, who lives unmonitored and “ministers” in eastern Kentucky in apparent violation of a Vatican order and the church’s national abuse policy.

Late year, the Chicago Tribune reported that Fr. Howlin, suspended for sexually abusing Illinois boys, still lives and works – unsupervised – in McCreary County. The cleric has reportedly also molested two Kentucky boys, one of whom committed suicide.

[Chicago Tribune]

Fr. Howlin, according to the Chicago Tribune, allegedly used money to garner sexual favors from impoverished boys.

In 2002, Fr. Howlin, then 67, pastored Good Shepherd Chapel in Whitley City. He was reportedly put on administrative leave when abuse reports against him surfaced that year, according to Lexington diocesan officials.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 24, 2014 All Things Catholic

Trying to impose order on chaos, I’d like to suggest that recent developments on the Vatican beat are noteworthy not just on their own merits, but because they illustrate a couple of truisms about Catholic life that anyone who wants to “get it” vis-à-vis the church probably should master.

Those truisms are:

Sometimes in the church, restraint is as powerful a tool of reform as action.
There’s a constant back-and-forth in Catholicism between doctrinal clarity and pastoral flexibility, and focusing on one in isolation from the other distorts reality.
Now for developments that put meat on the bone of these maxims.

Restraint as reform

Italians love nothing as much as a good giallo, meaning a mystery story or a scandal, and at the moment, a couple of especially juicy ones with Vatican overtones are coursing through the Italian bloodstream.

One pivots on a shady Italian financier with links to the country’s intelligence services named Paolo Oliverio, who’s currently facing a criminal probe for various forms of financial fraud. Among the claims made by prosecutors is that Oliverio helped engineer a phony police interrogation of two members of the Camillian religious order back in May so they’d miss an election for a new superior, thereby allowing the incumbent, Fr. Renato Salvatore, to stay in office.

Salvatore has also been arrested as an Oliverio crony, among other things allegedly turning a blind eye while he bilked a Camillian hospital in southern Italy out of more than $13 million. (The Camillians, named for St. Camillus de Lellis, were founded in the 16th century with the mission of ministering to the sick and running hospitals.)

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY Jan. 24, 2014

THE Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse will investigate the adequacy of sentences for child sex offenders after a damning assessment of the case of Scout leader and Hunter Aboriginal Children’s Services chief Steven Larkins.

The commission will consider whether good behaviour bonds are ‘‘an appropriate punishment for the sexual assault of a child’’, counsel assisting Gail Furness, SC, said in written submissions on the Larkins case.

In 2012 Larkins was sentenced to a minimum 12 months’ jail for fraud and possessing child pornography, but received a good behaviour bond for indecently assaulting two Scouts in the 1990s.

Ms Furness said the Royal Commission will be examining the criminal justice system’s handling of child sex abuse in institutions because of material examined during the Larkins case and other material before it.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Judge gives green light to Legion inheritance lawsuit
Ex-Legionary: Curial overseer neglects investigation of inner culture

NCR Editorial Staff | Jan. 24, 2014

EDITORIAL

The Legion of Christ has been an agency of almost unimaginable fraud, and that reality alone should be reason for civil authorities to pursue a criminal investigation of its U.S. activities and for the church to proceed with extreme caution in considering allowing the group to continue.

The Legion, which was of many things but certainly not of Christ, was built on the life of a man, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, who trafficked in deception, lies and crimes against children. The nature and extent of his fraud was only beginning to be acknowledged by way of Vatican investigation in the last years of his life.

As Jason Berry reports, the Legion has been the target of two Rhode Island lawsuits alleging the order defrauded elderly donors who died without knowing what those seeking their fortunes knew only too well — that the man they characterized as a saint had been accused multiple times of sexually abusing seminarians and ultimately was disciplined by the pope.

The first suit was dismissed on a technicality, but the judge did not pass up the opportunity to deliver a scathing judgment of the Legion and its tactics — and to release thousands of pages of testimony and evidence in that case, which had been restricted from the public by a protective order the Legion had requested.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Republican-Herald

Pope Francis has appointed a former priest of the Diocese of Allentown as the next Bishop of Harrisburg. He is Bishop Ronald W. Gainer, for the last 11 years the Bishop of Lexington, Kentucky.

Bishop Gainer, 66, was born and raised in Pottsville. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Allentown in 1973. During his 30 years as a priest of this diocese, he was an assistant pastor at the former St. Bernard Church in Easton and St. Catharine of Siena Church in Reading and a campus minister at Lafayette College, Easton, and at Kutztown University and Albright College, Reading. He was the Judicial Vicar of the Diocese, pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Whitehall and the first Secretary of Catholic Life and Evangelization in the diocese.

Diocese of Allentown Bishop John Barres issued the following statement: “On behalf of the priests and people of the Diocese of Allentown, I welcome Bishop Gainer back to his home state. This native son of Pottsville is a fine bishop, canonist and a very pastoral man with deep experience in evangelization. I look forward to working with Bishop Gainer and extend to him the best wishes and prayerful support of the faithful of the Diocese of Allentown where his vocation was nurtured and first bore fruit.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 24 January 2014 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father:

– appointed Bishop Ronald William Gainer, bishop of Lexington, U.S.A., as bishop of Harrisburg (area 19,839, population 2,224,542, Catholics 249,238, priests 169, permanent deacons 69, religious 369), U.S.A.

– appointed Rev. Herwig Gossl as auxiliary of the archdiocese of Bamberg (area 10,290, population 2,163,801, Catholics 713,781, priests 475, permanent deacons 49, religious 778), Germany. The bishop-elect was born in Munich, Germany in 1967 and was ordained a priest in 1993. He studied philosophy and theology at the universities of Bamberg and Innsbruck, and has served in a number of pastoral roles in various parishes in Bayreuth, Hannberg and Weisendorf. In 2006 he was appointed as priest of the parish group of Erlangen North-West. In 2007 he was appointed vice-rector of the major seminary of Bamberg and member of the diocesan liturgical commission, and in 2008 was appointed vice-rector of the seminary of Wurzburg and head of vocational pastoral care.

– appointed Msgr. Myron Joseph Cotta of the clergy of Fresno, U.S.A., as auxiliary of the archdiocese of Sacramento (area 110,325, population 3,589,000, Catholics 997,000, priests 291, permanent deacons 143, religious 316), U.S.A. The bishop-elect was born in Dos Palos, U.S.A. in 1953, and was ordained a priest in 1987. He has served in a number of roles, including vicar of the Saint Anthony parish in Adwater, administrator of the Our Lady of Fatima shrine in Laton, priest of the Our Lady of Miracles parish in Gustine, parish administrator of the Holy Rosary parish in Hilmar, director of the office for the permanent formation of the clergy, director of Pastoral Support of Priests, director of the Sensitive Claim Board, member of the diocesan finance council, diocesan administrator, member of the diocesan personnel board, diocesan consultor, vicar general and moderator of the Curia. In 2002 he was appointed Chaplain of His Holiness and, in 2008, Prelate of Honour.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg

The Very Reverend Robert M. Gillelan, Jr., Diocesan Administrator, has announced that Pope Francis has named Most Reverend Ronald W. Gainer, 66, as the eleventh bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

He succeeds Bishop Joseph P. McFadden, who died, May 2, 2013.

Bishop Gainer will be introduced at a news conference at the Cardinal Keeler Center, 4800 Union Deposit Road, Harrisburg, PA 17111 at 10:00 a.m. today.

Bishop Gainer was born August 24, 1947, in Pottsville, PA. After studies for the priesthood he was ordained a Priest for the diocese of Allentown on May 19, 1973. He was consecrated and installed as Bishop of Lexington, KY on February 22, 2003.

He will be installed as Bishop of Harrisburg on Wednesday, March 19.

Bishop Gainer completed studies at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia in 1973, earning a Master of Divinity degree, summa cum laude and has earned a licentiate degree in Canon Law and a diploma in Latin Letter from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1986.

For much of his Priesthood Bishop Gainer served in parish, campus ministry, marriages and family, and tribunal positions. As Secretary of Catholic Life and Evangelization for the Diocese of Allentown he supervised 14 diocesan offices and the promotion of the works of spiritual renewal and evangelization.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (updated 24 January 2014)

A member of the Catholic religious order of Marist Brothers in New South Wales — Brother Francis William Cable, known as Brother “Romuald” — was ordered on 23 January 2014 to stand trial on more than 50 charges of sexual offences allegedly committed against 21 boys. The charges include buggery, plus multiple counts of indecent assault.

This order was made by a magistrate after a committal hearing was completed in the Newcastle Local Court. The case will now go to a judge in the District Court of New South Wales.

The offences are alleged to have occurred in the 1960s and 1970s.

Brother Cable has not yet entered pleas to the charges.

How the case began

In December 2012, Strike Force Georgiana detectives investigating historical child sex allegations arrested Brother “Romuald” Cable (date of birth 3 May 1932) in a Canberra suburb (where he was living) after information from two former Marist school students in the Newcastle region. The detectives charged Brother Romuald with three indecent assault offences against the two students.

On 29 January 2013 Brother Romuald Cable appeared in Newcastle Local court, where the charges were officially recorded. The detectives increased the number of indecent assault charges to 23, and added two buggery charges. The number of alleged victims increased from two to six. After this court appearance, more former students contacted Strike Force Georgiana detectives.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

By FRANCIS PHILLIPS on Friday, 24 January 2014

Vatican Insider reported last week that during the pontificate of Pope Benedict, he defrocked 260 priests in 2011 and another 124 in 2012 (i.e. 384 priests in a two-year period) for the sexual abuse of minors.

This is good news and terrible news at the same time. It is good news in that it lays to rest all the slurs against the Pope Emeritus, that he was more concerned with sacred liturgy or wearing elaborate papal vestments than he was about dealing with this enormous scandal and wound in the Church. It is also appalling news when you consider that each case of priestly abuse is not simply a criminal offence in secular as well as canon law, but that it is also a tragedy for the victim and the perpetrator. Whenever I hear of particular cases of abuse, I pray for all concerned, including the shamed priest and his family. What sorrow and shame this son or brother has brought on their shoulders. I recall the words of strong-minded Margaret Bosco to her son, later to become St John Bosco, when he first put on his priestly cassock: that she would rather he never became a priest than degrade this sacred office.

People outside the Church who want to attack her do not have to look far for ammunition when they read of these cases. Pointing out the statistics to them, and arguing that the number of priest-abusers is a tiny proportion of the priesthood worldwide, might be true – but I lack the heart to engage in it. They don’t see the Mystical Body of Christ and are rightly scandalised by its fallen human face. Perhaps there should be a ritual of public penance by Catholics for the failings of the Church and our own failings within it?

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MASSACHUSETTS
NECN

[Submission to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child – BishopAccountability.org]

[with video]

(NECN) – The workings of the Vatican are a mystery to most outsiders. But last week there was a breakthrough on two fronts.

First, the Associated Press obtained documents showing that Pope Benedict defrocked nearly 400 priests over just two years — 2011 and 2012 — for sexually molesting children.

The document was prepared from data the Vatican had been compiling to help officials defend the church before a U.N. committee.

The U.N. panel is the other piece of this story.

In Geneva, Switzerland, a U.N. panel grilled Vatican officials about allegations stating it protected pedophile priests at the expense of victims.

The panel questioned whether the Vatican failed to abide by the terms of the U.N. convention on the rights of the child.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of bishopaccountability.org, has been keeping tabs on these events. She joined Jim Braude to offer her insight and opinion on the happenings.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Puget Sound Business Journal

Marc Stiles
Staff Writer-
Puget Sound Business Journal

A $2.2 million building sale in Seattle last week had people wondering if the buyer, Seattle University, was helping the seller, a group of priests, pay damages to hundreds of sexual-abuse victims.

The answer is no, a spokesman for the Oregon province of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits as they are more commonly known, said Tuesday.

The province declared bankruptcy nearly three years ago, around the time that the group agreed to pay $166.1 million to about 500 people abused by Jesuit priests at schools in the Pacific Northwest. It was one of the Catholic Church’s biggest sex-abuse settlements.

At the time, the National Catholic Reporter reported that the province would pay $48.1 million and that the order’s insurer would pay the rest.

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DEUTSCHLAND
taz

[Summary: Canisius College has learned much about detecting possible abuse since a major scandal erupted there four years ago.]

taz: Pater Zimmermann, gerade hat das Kirchengericht des Erzbistums Berlin einen heute 73-Jährigen wegen sexueller Gewalt an Kindern an Ihrer Schule, dem Canisius-Kolleg, verurteilt – zu lebenslangem Ausschluss vom Priesteramt und 4.000 Euro Strafe, die er dem Missbrauchsfonds spenden soll. Das Urteil wird den Mann kaum treffen.

Tobias Zimmermann: Inwieweit der Mann persönlich davon betroffen ist, kann ich nicht beurteilen. Ich kenne ihn nicht. Das Urteil zeigt aber, dass es für ein solches Vergehen eine Strafe gibt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

[Summary: The balance sheet regarding sexual abuse in the Trier diocese. 107 abuse victims have reported abuse to the diocese in the last four years. A total of 68 requests for financial compensation have been approved. More than 60 priests have been accused of abuse since 2010. Two priests have been defrocked.]

* 107 Missbrauchsopfer haben sich in den vergangenen vier Jahren beim Bistum gemeldet.
* 68 Anträge auf finanzielle Entschädigung sind bewilligt worden
* seit 2010 wurden mehr als 60 Priester des Missbrauchs beschuldigt
* ein großer Teil ist bereits verstorben
* gegen 26 Geistliche sind vom Bistum kircheninterne Ermittlungen aufgenommen worden
* Fünf dieser Verfahren sind abgeschlossen
* Zwei Priester wurden aus dem Klerikerstand entlassen
* einer beantragte, selbst entlassen zu werden
* Zwei Geistlichen wurde verboten, öffentlich Messen zu halten
* Das Bistum ermittelt kirchenintern gegen 21 Priester
* 350.000,- Euro zahlte das Bistum an “Entschädigung”

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CHICAGO (IL)
kathweb

Washington, 23.01.2014 (KAP) Nach der Veröffentlichung von Missbrauchsakten durch die Erzdiözese Chicago hat der Opferanwalt Jeff Anderson ein kirchliches Disziplinarverfahren gegen Kardinal Francis George verlangt. “Papst Franziskus, der einen Neuaufbruch versprochen hat, muss Kardinal George für seine Rolle abstrafen”, sagte Anderson, einer der prominentesten Anwälte für Pädophilie-Prozesse gegen die katholische Kirche, dem Chicagoer Lokalsender WGN Television (Mittwochabend Ortszeit). Auch andere Kirchenverantwortliche müsse der Papst maßregeln. “Er hat die Macht und die Verpflichtung, jetzt, da die Wahrheit bekannt ist”, sagte Anderson.

Die Erzdiözese Chicago hatte am Dienstag Akten von 30 ehemaligen Priestern veröffentlichen lassen, die des sexuellen Missbrauchs beschuldigt werden. Die rund 6.000 Dokumentenseiten wurden von der Kanzlei des Opferanwalts Jeff Anderson am Dienstag ins Internet gestellt.

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Daniel Tepfer
Updated 12:31 am, Friday, January 24, 2014

STRATFORD — Bishop Frank Caggiano huddled privately with parishioners of Our Lady of Grace parish Thursday to apologize for not discussing past allegations of abuse and sexual harassment against their new pastor.

The prior accusations against Monsignor Martin Ryan — and the potential for scandal — are shaping up as one of the new bishop’s first major dilemmas.

The bishop assured parishioners that Ryan’s case had been thoroughly vetted more than a decade ago by the same review board that had recommended the removal of priests during the height of the Bridgeport diocese sex abuse crisis, said Brian Wallace, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese.

The review board had decided that the monsignor should not be removed, Wallace said.

But Ryan, who had been pastor of St. Edward the Confessor Church in New Fairfield since 1992, was removed from that church in June 2011 by diocesan officials after he acknowledged he had sent “inappropriate” emails to a female parish employee. At the time, Wallace said there was no allegation or evidence of any sexual conduct.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

Accusations are swirling about a secret gay cabal inside the Vatican’s pope-protecting forces and how much it knew about the departure of Pope Benedict.

For more than a year now, there has been ample talk around Rome about a powerful gay lobby at work inside the Vatican. When Pope Benedict XVI resigned in February 2013, rumors were rampant that the alleged gay lobby was part of the reason he left the papacy. Apparently the gay lobby was so powerful it was given ample ink in a still-secret red-covered dossier presented to Benedict as part of a Vatileaks internal investigation after his butler was convicted of stealing his private papers.

The new Pope Francis even referred to the gay lobby at a June 6 meeting with Latin American prelates. “In the Curia there are holy people, truly holy people,” Francis reportedly told the Latin American delegation. “But there is also a current of corruption, also there is, it is true … They speak of a ‘gay lobby,’ and that is true, it is there.”

Fresh allegations now point to the lobby extending deep into the Swiss Guard, the pope’s elite protective security force, who are known for their striped yellow, red, orange and blue Renaissance uniforms. The elite troops are specially trained Swiss soldiers between the age of 19 and 30. The job pays around $1,000 a month and includes room and board. In 1998, an unknown guard apparently murdered a commander and the man’s wife in what many inside the Vatican suspected was a gay love triangle. The case remains a mystery and was the biggest scandal to rock the Swiss Guard. Until now.

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AUSTRALIA
Weekly Times

BY ANNETTE BLACKWELL AAP JANUARY 24, 2014

A SENIOR church official has revised his evidence to the Royal Commission on Child Sex Abuse following a flurry of late night emails with a law firm representing the Catholic Church.

Michael Salmon, director of the Catholic Church’s NSW/ACT Professional Standards Office, said on Friday he wanted to submit a supplementary statement to assist the commission.

He was contacted on Thursday evening by law firm Gilbert + Tobin and asked to clarify statements he made about a mediation session with an abuse victim who had concerns the Marist Brothers knew of and did nothing about abuse at a Cairns college.

A string of emails between the law firm and Mr Salmon, which culminated in him agreeing to a revised statement at about 9pm (AEDT) on Thursday night, were examined by the commission on Friday.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti

An inquiry into child sexual abuse has heard that nothing has been done to remove a Marist Brother from the Catholic order, despite the fact he is behind bars.

The Marist Brothers have been at the centre of a public inquiry as part of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Marist Brother Ross Murrin is in a Sydney jail after pleading guilty to child sex offences in 2008 and 2010.

A man known only as DK has told the inquiry he was abused by Murrin in 1981 at a college at Cairns in Far North Queensland.

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VATICAN CITY
All Voices

Pope Francis has captured the world’s attention with his new—or as some might call it, radical—style of leadership.

Yes, it is a refreshing change to see the head of the Roman Catholic Church speak on issues and do things never done before. The pontiff has been so radical that some religious conservatives have taken offense to some of his teachings—especially his scathing criticism of poverty, inequality and capitalism.

But the biggest albatross around the church’s neck is still a pressing issue that needs massive overhauling and an aggressive plan of action.

Reports credit the prior pope, Benedict XVI, for defrocking 400 priests over a two-year period between 2011 and 2012 for child sex abuse allegations, and though this is a marked improvement compared to previous inaction, the church does not go nearly far enough.

Where are those priests now—are they living as your neighbor?

For quietly banishing sex offenders by removing their “holy robes” is equivalent to kicking the bucket down the road. The sickness was removed from the church but these men are still out there where they can still hurt children.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

From laicising priests to stringent child safeguarding, the Vatican acts on the problem

The depth of the Vatican’s commitment to end the scourge of clerical abuse has been revealed this week after it emerged Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had laicised almost 400 priests in his last two years as Pontiff for such crimes; and Pope Francis said people who abused children could have ‘no living relationship with God.’

Documents prepared by the Vatican ahead of testimonies given to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child last week reveal that in 2011-2012 Pope Benedict defrocked close to 400 priests for abusing children, a substantial increase on previous years. The statistics were compiled from the Vatican’s own annual reports about the activities of its various offices, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles such cases.

In a clear indication he will continue the vigorous measures of his predecessor, Pope Francis last Thursday spoke about the shame of the ‘many scandals’ perpetrated by members of the Church. Those who abuse and exploit others, he added, may wear a Holy medal or a Cross, but they have no ‘living relationship with God or with His Word.’

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HAWAII
Fox 13

WAILUKU, MAUI – Attorneys for two Utah men filed a complaint in a Hawaii court that alleges the men were sexually abused in their youth while attending a pineapple camp run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc.

The suit alleges that the two men were abused by Brian Pickett, a man who worked in positions of authority at the camps, and the suit also names Youth Development Enterprises.

The complaint is available as a PDF: Filed complaint

According to a press release, attorneys said the LDS Church and ML&P recruited boys from Mormon communities in Utah and Idaho to pick pineapples in Maui, which is where the plaintiffs were allegedly sexually molested. Pickett was first a camp coordinator and then a vice president of operations overseeing two camps between 1986 and 1988, according to the release.

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HAWAII
Reporter

By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER Associated Press
First Posted: January 23, 2014

HONOLULU — A lawsuit claims a Mormon church camp coordinator molested two boys who were sent to Maui to pick pineapples decades ago.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday on Maui says the church recruited hundreds of teen boys from Utah and southeastern Idaho to live and work in Maui pineapple fields in the 1970s and 1980s.

Jacob Huggard, 41, and Kyle Spray, 42, both of Pleasant Grove, Utah, claim in the lawsuit that they were sexually abused by a coordinator who oversaw hundreds of boys at a camp from 1986 to 1988.

The Associated Press does not normally name people in sex abuse cases, but Huggard and Spray said they wanted to be identified.

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HAWAII
Huffington Post

Two Utah men are suing the Mormon church, alleging that, decades ago, they were sexually molested by a church camp coordinator when they worked on a Maui pineapple farm.

The lawsuit was filed in the 2nd Circuit Court in Hawaii on Wednesday. It claims that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and Maui Land & Pineapple Company recruited boys in the 1970s and 80s from Mormon communities to work in the camps, where the plaintiffs, now in their 40s, were molested.

The Maui camps paid boys to pick and grow pineapples and were supervised by LDS men in their twenties who had completed their two-year missions and could help train the boys for missionary life. The defendant, an Idaho man, was a camp coordinator and, in addition to being the boys’ boss, served as their spiritual leader.

The lawsuit claims that the defendant molested the two boys from 1986 until 1988, and that the church knew of the camp coordinator’s “pedophilic sexual violence.”

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ALABAMA
Christian Post

Ala. Pastor Responds to Critics Who Say He Was Wrong for Posting Video on YouTube of Teacher’s Apology for Sex Abuse of Student

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER

One week before she was set to report to prison as a convicted sex offender, Alicia Gray, a former school teacher, shared on-camera how her faith had helped her since she was arrested on sex abuse charges last year.

“I had pain in my own heart and a void that I thought I needed to fill through attention and all kinds of other things, and that void was just needing Jesus,” Gray said in the Jan. 10 video.

Alabama pastor Mark Wyatt filmed and uploaded the footage of Gray, who attends his church, reading her court statement to YouTube.

“The purpose of the video was simply to say to everybody, there is hope for you. If you have failed, if you have failed God, if you have fallen further than you ever thought you could, the love, grace and healing of God will be able to forgive you,” Wyatt, who leads Deeper Life Fellowship in Mobile, Ala., told The Christian Post on Wednesday. …

Last week, on Janet Mefferd’s radio show, Boz Tchividjian, the executive director GRACE, a Christian organization that assists sex abuse victims, called the video a “tragic picture” of what is wrong with the Church’s response to sex abuse.

Tchividjian went on to slam Wyatt’s use of the word “relationship” when describing the connection between Gray and the victim, and the fact that neither he nor the former high school teacher called her actions a “crime.”

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Register

BY ALYSSA DURANTY / STAFF WRITER
Published: Jan. 23, 2014

FULLERTON – A former Fullerton pastor was sentenced to four months in jail and three years’ probation Thursday after a jury found him guilty of sexually abusing an 18-year-old woman who was a member of his church.

Joseph Angel Olvera, 55, of Fullerton was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of touching an intimate part of another person.

Olvera formerly worked as a pastor at Lifeline Ministries, 552 E. Patterson Way, officials said.

Prosecutors said that about 9 a.m. Aug. 22, 2012, Olvera approached the bed of the woman, who was living in the church, to wake her up for work.

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ILLINOIS
OakPark.com

James Craig Hagan
Robert E. Mayer
John W. Curran

By Timothy Inklebarger
Staff Reporter

New light was shed this week on 30 Chicago-area priests accused, and in some cases convicted, of the sexual abuse of minors. Three of them served at St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Oak Park during the 1960s and ’70s.

Documents released by victims’ lawyers reveal that the Archdiocese of Chicago knew of sexual abuse perpetrated by Rev. James Craig Hagan, Robert E. Mayer and John W. Curran, who served at St. Catherine.

According to documents released by the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, known abuse by Mayer and Hagan took place after they served as associate pastors at St. Catherine in 1964 and 1974, respectively. A timeline released by the law firm, however, shows four incidents of abuse by Curran between June 1966 and April 1970 at Quigley Preparatory Seminary South in Chicago and St. Albert the Great in Burbank, while he served as assistant pastor at St. Catherine.

Mayer was convicted of felony child sex abuse in 1992 and sentenced to three years in prison, but both Hagan and Curran escaped prosecution.

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MICHIGAN
Patch

Posted by Aysha Jamali (Editor) , January 23, 2014

Timothy Murray, 63, of Novi, who pleaded guilty to one count of distributing child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography in July was sentenced Thursday to 188 months in federal prison, United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade announced.

According to court records, Murray used peer-to-peer software to trade child pornography with others, including an undercover DHS Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent. A search warrant executed at Murray’s home recovered at least seven different computer devices containing videos and images of child pornography. His collection included over 650 movies and over 450 images of child pornography.

Murray had previously served as a Catholic priest within the Archdiocese of Detroit before being removed from public ministry when substantiated allegations of Murray’s prior sexual abuse of a young boy came to light.

“The hands-on sexual abuse that led to his removal from public ministry by the Catholic church had long-lasting effects on the defendant’s prior victim. Similarly, the victims depicted in his extensive collection of child pornography suffered greatly not only at the hands of their abusers, but by those, like the defendant, who collect and continue to view the permanent depictions of their abuse,” McQuade said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

[with video]

By MaryAnn Ahern | Thursday, Jan 23, 2014

Three people filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago Thursday alleging sexual abuse by one of the former priests named in documents released by the organization this week.

The plaintiff’s, who were children in the 1960s and ’70s, claim they were molested by Norbert J. Maday in places ranging from cars to motel swimming pools.

Thomas Hacker, a substitute teacher and Boy Scout leader, is also named in the suit. Hacker is serving two concurrent 50-year prison terms on a 1989 conviction for molesting three boys.

“I’ve struggled with alcohol, I’ve struggled with drugs. When I had my children, it changed my life,” said one of the plaintiffs, who’s referred to as John Doe. “He (Maday) would jump in the pool, feel us up. He would take off our swimming trunks and make us run naked to go pick them up again.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Lancaster Online

Thu Jan 23, 2014.

ELIZABETH EISENSTADT-EVANS Correspondent

A few weeks ago, while contemplating the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s judgment that led to the release, on bail, of Philadelphia archdiocesan official Monsignor William Lynn, I wrote about the often painful difference between secular law and biblical standards of justice.

Given the steady stream of stories still making headlines here and abroad, it sometimes seems as though the Roman Catholic Church continues to confront significant problems addressing sexual abuse by clergy.

Earlier this month, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and its archbishop, Charles Chaput, faced criticism for helping Lynn post his $250,000 bail.

In a public grilling, a U.N. human rights panel criticized the Vatican for not providing information on child welfare to the body for almost two decades, and asked for information about the committee recently set up by Pope Francis to come up with better methods of protecting children from sexual abuse.

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CHICAGO (IL)
State Journal-Register

Norbert Maday

By Michael Tarm
The Associated Press
Posted Jan. 23, 2014

CHICAGO — A new lawsuit filed Thursday alleging sexual abuse of children in the 1960s and ’70s focuses on a now-defrocked priest referred to at length in documents released this week by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.

Norbert J. Maday molested boys — sometimes in cars or motel swimming pools — when a priest at Chicago’s St. Leo Catholic Church and later at St. Louis de Montfort Catholic Church in Oak Lawn, according to the lawsuit.

The document, filed in Cook County Court on behalf of three plaintiffs, names Maday, the archdiocese and another man, Thomas Hacker, who is serving two concurrent 50-year prison terms on a 1989 conviction for molesting three boys.

The suit says the archdiocese should have known kids were at risk, and it seeks more than $50,000 on each of multiple civil counts. The diocese hadn’t seen the suit, so couldn’t comment, spokeswoman Susan Burritt said.

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ARIZONA
Tucson News Now

By Sonu Wasu

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) –
Six thousand pages of court documents outlining how the Archdiocese of Chicago handled the sexual abuse of children by priests were made public on Tuesday.

The documents name several Catholic leaders who were aware of the allegations against accused priests, and chose to not report it to authorities.

Among many others, Tucson Diocese Bishop Gerald Kicanas was one of the leaders in the Chicago Diocese at the time of these allegations.

The new information comes to light after the archdiocese handed the documents over to victims’ attorneys, who said they wanted to show how the archdiocese concealed abuse for decades, including moving priests to new parishes where they molested again.

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ARIZONA
Arizona Daily Star

Russell Romano

By Patty Machelor

Newly released court documents about a former Chicago priest sexually abusing students indicate Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas knew of the concerns a year before authorities were notified.

But Kicanas said Thursday that former priest Russell Romano’s deviance was not known until nearly a year later, in 1986, when several victims came forward and allegations became explicit.

It was in 1985 that Rector John Klein of Chicago’s now-defunct Quigley Preparatory Seminary South contacted Kicanas, a former teacher and rector at Quigley, and asked Kicanas’ advice about Romano.

According to Klein’s written memory of the conversation — it is unclear when Klein wrote his recollections – Kicanas told Klein to try a two-part approach: “First, express concern for Russ and his personal problems, and second, to make it clear that the drinking, movies, hugs and kisses with our students must stop immediately.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court seeking to recover more than $2.6 million in legal fees from the firm now known as OneBeacon Insurance Co.

On the same day, OneBeacon asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley to lift the automatic stay imposed by the bankruptcy on all litigation involving the archdiocese so the Wisconsin Supreme Court can decide once and for all whether the insurer is liable for the church’s actions related to the sexual abuse of children.

Archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said it would oppose OneBeacon’s motion, saying “it distracts from the real issues needing resolution…to move the case forward,” including the payment of legal fees.

“OneBeacon has an obligation to pay for these costs under the insurance policies and…the archdiocese is committed to pursuing the monies it has coming to help pay the cost of the bankruptcy proceeding,” Topczewski said in an email.

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Daniel Tepfer
Updated 11:23 pm, Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Two and a half years after he was removed as pastor of a New Fairfield church for allegedly sexually harassing a female church employee, Monsignor Martin Ryan was appointed pastor of a Stratford Roman Catholic church.

Ryan’s appointment Saturday at Our Lady of Grace Church prompted numerous calls from parishioners who said they were shocked to learn that their new spiritual leader was a priest who not only had been removed from a prior job, but had previously been accused of molesting a teenage girl in Trumbull in the 1970s.

In that case, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport agreed to pay a settlement to the complainant, even though Ryan denied the allegations.

Diocese spokesman Brian Wallace said Ryan has been working as an administrator at the Stratford church for more than two years and replaces the church’s former pastor, who died.

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Daniel Tepfer
Updated 7:06 pm, Thursday, January 23, 2014

STRATFORD — Bishop Frank Caggiano plans to meet privately next week with parishioners to discuss a Hearst Connecticut Newspapers story detailing past allegations of sexual abuse and harassment against newly installed pastor Monsignor Martin Ryan.

Brian Wallace, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese, said they have received emails regarding the appointment of Ryan to head up the 60-year-old Our Lady of Grace parish.

“There hasn’t been much, but the bishop wants to hear from the people of the parish,” Wallace said. “The bishop is committed to working with the parish.”

In the meantime, Wallace said Ryan continues to serve as leader of the Second Hill Lane church.

But a church board member, who didn’t want his name used, said he was shocked at the published revelations. He said he was most disturbed that board members were not told of Ryan’s past before he was made pastor there.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Sean Dunne @SeanDunneNYC January 23,2014

Plans to reopen the Irish embassy to the Holy See have been on the table for months and have now been given the green light.

The November 2011 decision to close the embassy was largely seen as a snub to the Catholic Church in the wake of a series of damning reports into the church’s mishandling of clerical abuse.

The ever increasing popularity of Pope Francis is thought to have triggered the sudden change of mind. The Holy See in Rome is one of five new embassies to be set up. The other new embassies will be in Bangkok (Thailand), Jakarta (Indonesia), Zagreb (Croatia) and Nairobi (Kenya).

The renewed presence in the Vatican has been described by Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs as “scaled-back.” The office will be a one-person embassy focused on international development.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Australian royal commission into institutional response to child sexual abuse gave a second day to the Catholic Church to present more propaganda about how wonderful its “Towards Healing” process ( supposedly to help victims) really is.

It was such a disgusting event that it is not worthy of reporting upon. Indeed, even the mainstream media gave it a miss. So, instead, the story of the Salvation Army, in the lead-up to next Tuesday’s hearing on them will be covered instead. With only one working day left before those hearings, the commission has yet to issue a witness list, or the list of submissions, for that hearing. It is going to be a bit like not knowing the team members of a sporting match until the game commences. This is an alarming new development, even for the commission.

The official person for the Salvation Army’s response to the royal commission is Peter Farthing (see previous postings), who is also the producer of a movie on the founders of the Salvation Army’s, William and Catherine Booth. As Peter notes, he likes telling a story. Look for a scripted “story” from the Salvation Army at the commission hearings.

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.

MINNESOTA
KSTP

[with video]

By: Leslie Dyste

A new priest abuse disclosure list is due out next month, but it may not be complete. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is scheduled to disclose names of accused priests Feb. 5.

But attorneys tell KSTP priests and others affiliated with Catholic churches in the state are asking attorneys about a legal maneuver that would allow them to stay anonymous.

Attorney Marshall Tanick says he has been contacted by clergy interested in remaining anonymous.

Tanick says if a lawsuit is started people who have an interest in the case can bring what’s known as an intervention action before the court. In other words, a person may anonymously ask the court that their identity be excluded from the record.

Critics say priests interested in doing this may be creating a negative perception among some.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

by Madeleine Davies

Posted: 24 Jan 2014

BISHOPS will have the power to demand that a priest undergoes a safeguarding risk-assessment under legislative changes proposed by the Archbishops’ Council last week. Priests who fail to comply “without good cause” will be guilty of misconduct under the Clergy Discipline Measure.

The proposal is one of 12, published on Monday of last week, which will be debated by the General Synod next month. They have been produced in response to the report of the Archbishop’s Chichester Visitation, which called for an “urgent” review of the Church’s safeguarding legislation.

The report that lists the proposal states that commissioning risk-assessments would be “the exception, rather than the norm”, and that bishops would need to give reasons to justify the direction. Priests would have the right to seek a review by the President of Tribunals of the diocesan bishop’s direction.

Another proposal is that the Clergy Discipline Measure be amended so that complaints about sexual misconduct against children or vulnerable adults can be made at any time. Currently, a 12- month limitation period is in place, although the President of Tribunals can grant permission to make a complaint outside this period.

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.

MICHIGAN
MLive

By Khalil AlHajal | kalhajal@mlive.com
on January 23, 2014

DETROIT, MI — A former priest who pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography last year was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison Thursday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Timothy Murray, 63, of Novi, was accused of using peer-to-peer software to trade child pornography.

Prosecutors say home was searched after he traded images with an undercover federal agent and over 650 movies and over 450 photos of child pornography were found.

He pleaded guilty in July 2013 to one count of distributing child pornography and one count of possession child pornography. U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts sentenced him Thursday to 188 months in federal prison.

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.

ILLINOIS
Chicago Sun-Times

BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter January 23, 2014

It was a treat no 8-year-old boy could refuse: The chance to be behind the wheel of a car, sitting on the lap of a priest to be trusted just like “Dad.”

“I made a wrong turn, he stuck his hand down my pants and he grabbed my penis,” the now 52-year-old man from the southwest suburbs recalled Thursday.

The suburbanite is a big man, with hands that look as if they could wield a sledgehammer for wages. But he wouldn’t say what he does for work, or give his name or exactly where he lives — so ashamed is he of the abuse he says he endured from two of the Chicago area’s most notorious child molesters in the early 1970s at St. Louis de Montfort Catholic School in Oak Lawn.

On Thursday, the suburban man’s lawyer filed a suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County alleging, among other things, that neither priest Norbert Maday nor his friend, Thomas E. Hacker, should have been allowed anywhere near children at the Oak Lawn school. The suit alleges that the Archdiocese of Chicago didn’t do nearly enough to protect the suburban man — and another unnamed victim — from Maday and Hacker. In the early 1970s, Maday was the supervisor of youth sports at the school. Hacker was a substitute teacher and athletic director there.

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.

MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Secret accounts paid for clergy misconduct but left church open to financial abuse

[Rev. Kevin McDonough’s memo to Archbishop Flynn et al regarding Rev. Kozlak’s retirement]
[Rev. Kevin McDonough’s memo to Archbishop Flynn: Rev. Skluzacek comments on Rev. Kozlak]

By Tom Scheck, Minnesota Public Radio
Jan. 23, 2014

The Rev. Stanley Kozlak served nearly three decades in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. But then he fathered a child and the archdiocese needed him gone.

Removing Kozlak quietly wouldn’t be cheap, but church leaders knew how to move money discreetly. The archdiocese held two secret accounts, controlled by the archbishop, designed to make problems like Kozlak disappear.

To get him out of active ministry, Archbishop Harry Flynn agreed in 2002 to pay the fallen priest $1,900 a month “disability” for life, plus $800 a month in rent for life, and $980 a month “to replace the social security payment until Father Kozlak reaches age 67 when he would receive his full social security.”

Kozlak’s package was part of a secret financial system that let archdiocese leaders divert millions of dollars away from traditional church work to deal with clergy misconduct.

Kozlak retirement agreement

From internal church files: In addition to monthly payments, Kozlak’s retirement agreement stipulated that he would receive money for rent and utilities, he would remain a Catholic priest, Archbishop Flynn would sign a letter stating Kozlak is not a pedophile and Kozlak’s attorney would negotiate a settlement to provide for his child. | Read the full document.

Internal financial reports show the archdiocese used the stealth accounts repeatedly, paying nearly $11 million from 2002 to 2011 — about 3 percent of overall archdiocese revenues in those years — for costs tied to clergy misconduct under Flynn and his successor, Archbishop John Nienstedt.

The system allowed archdiocese leaders to remove priests who had committed child abuse or other infractions without attracting attention. Lax accounting controls let church leaders cut checks to make problems go away.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

[with video]

by Randi Belisomo
Reporter

A new lawsuit is filed Thursday against the Chicago Archdiocese, on behalf of three people who say they were sexually abused as children by a now-defrocked priest.

The lawsuit comes in the wake of this week’s release of documents involving 30 accused priests.

One of the alleged victims say this week’s events made him angry and compelled him to talk after suffering for 40 years, abusing drugs, alcohol and depression.

He hasn’t been back in a Catholic church since he was 11-years-old.

The lawsuit is being filed by three plaintiffs who say they were sexually abused as children by now-defrocked priest Norbert Maday.

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

CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY

The trial of Eric Dejaeger has been adjourned until March 17 so Crown prosecutors can make a legal case for introducing the accused’s criminal record as evidence.

If the court deems that Dejaeger has put his character in jeopardy, then the Crown can further explore impeaching the character of the accused based on details of those previous convictions.

Because such evidence can be highly prejudicial to an accused person, Crown lawyers can’t introduce it until after they first persuade a judge that the value of such evidence outweighs its prejudicial effects.

To do that, Crown attorney Doug Curliss must review the transcript of Dejaeger’s testimony — and that takes time.

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.

MINNESOTA
MinnPost

Oh, good lord … Tom Scheck and a team of reporters at MPR reveal: “The Rev. Stanley Kozlak served nearly three decades in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. But then he fathered a child and the archdiocese needed him gone. Removing Kozlak quietly wouldn’t be cheap, but church leaders knew how to move money discreetly. … Kozlak’s package was part of a secret financial system that let archdiocese leaders divert millions of dollars away from traditional church work to deal with clergy misconduct.” So in other words, being a problem priest for the archdiocese was a ticket to retirement security.

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.

MICHIGAN
CBS Detroit

DETROIT (WWJ) – A Catholic priest has been sentenced to nearly 16 years in federal prison after he was caught with child porn, a decade after he was removed from his Livonia church for molesting an altar boy.

U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said the public needs to be protected from 63-year-old Timothy Murray, although the punishment was below the 22-year sentence sought by federal prosecutors.

The “crimes are stomach-churning … It’s difficult for me to believe you didn’t know what you were doing was criminal,” the judge said.

Murray pleaded guilty to the charges after the images were discovered on multiple computers in his Novi home.

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.

MICHIGAN
Observer & Eccentric

Catholic priest Timothy Murray was never prosecuted for sexually molesting a 13-year-old boy in the mid-1980s. But as the onetime Catholic parish pastor awaited sentencing today on child pornography charges, a federal prosecutor argued that it was finally time for Murray to pay for his assault on childhood innocence.

U.S. Assistant Attorney Kevin Mulcahy described Murray’s assault on the teenager and gestured toward a grown man in the courtroom, whom Mulcahy acknowledged was Murray’s long-ago victim. The man, who was not identified, had also written to U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts about the assault, which Murray has admitted. Mulcahy asked the judge to consider that when sentencing Murray for possessing and sharing nearly 700 child porn videos on his home computers.

“The character of a man who could sit and watch children suffer” in child pornography, said Mulcahy, “is disgusting.”

The priest went “largely unscathed” from his behavior, said Mulcahy, “and deserves no further break.”

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

CANADA
Brandon Sun

By: Kent Driscoll, APTN, The Canadian Press
Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

IQALUIT, Nunavut – Witnesses have finished their testimony in the trial of a former priest accused of sex assaults against dozens of Inuit children in a remote Arctic community.

The case of Eric Dejaeger is to wrap up the week of March 17, when lawyers are to argue final legal motions and make closing statements.

Dejaeger, who is 66, pleaded guilty to eight counts at the beginning of his trial in November.

He denied the remaining 68 sex assault charges against him when he took the stand in his own defence this week in an Iqaluit, Nunavut courtroom.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) – It didn’t take long for the Chicago Archdiocese’s release of confidential files on pedophile priests to lead to a new lawsuit, this one accusing a former priest and a former boy scout leader of molesting boys at the same church in the 1970s.

WBBM Newsradio’s Regine Schlesinger reports, two days after thousands of pages of church documents were released, revealing decades of efforts to hide priest sex abuse cases, attorney Chris Hurley filed a lawsuit on behalf of three men, against former priest Norbert Maday.

Maday was convicted in 1994 of molesting two altar boys while on a church outing in Wisconsin. He has since been released from prison, but is a registered sex offender, living in Wisconsin, according to the National Sex Offender registry.

Hurley also represents two of those plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America, for alleged sex abuse at the hand of convicted former scout leader Thomas Hacker in the 1970s.

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CALIFORNIA
Huffington Post

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A man who went from teenage millionaire to convicted con artist to professional fraud fighter and pastor was convicted Wednesday of cheating his San Diego church congregation out of some $3 million.

Barry Minkow pleaded guilty to embezzling funds from the San Diego Community Bible Church, a U.S. attorney’s statement said. He was already serving a five-year sentence for a securities fraud conviction in Florida and could get five additional years when he is sentenced for the new conviction April 7.

Under the plea, Minkow admitted that he opened unauthorized church bank accounts, forged signatures on checks and used member donations for personal benefit.

“Barry Minkow is again convicted of fraud, this time for stealing money from the parishioners of San Diego Community Bible Church,” U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said. “We stand vigilant against those who cheat and steal without regard to the consequences wrought on their victims and their communities.”

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Jan. 23 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

We are grateful that this criminal priest will be kept away from kids for a long time. But there’s more work for church officials – Lutheran and Catholic – to do.

[Detroit Free Press]

It’s very likely that Fr. Timothy Murray hurt other kids, perhaps in both denominations. So church officials must use their considerable influence and vast resources to seek out others who are suffering in silence, shame and self blame.

It’s also possible that other current or former church staff ignored or hid Fr. Murray’s crimes. So church officials must aggressively seek out others who may have seen or suspected cover ups.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Jan. 23 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

We commend the courageous victim of an abusive priest and Scout leader who is seeking justice. Kids being abused by more than one predator is more common than many would ever expect.

[Chicago Tribune]

In St. Louis, for example, Fr. Norman Christian molested multiple kids, including Tim Fisher who was also being sexually abused by Scout leader Robert E. Oberle.

In Kansas City, Msgr. Thomas O’Brien and Fr. Thomas M. Reardon molested dozens of the same kids.

[BishopAccountability.org]

Child molesters are extraordinary skilled at singling out kids who already have been abused and won’t speak or be believed if they report abuse.

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FLORIDA
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

The head of a group that fought for changes in the Catholic Church in light of the pedophile priest scandal termed a $12.5 million judgment against the Florida Baptist Convention historic.

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said despite “widespread” child sex crimes by Baptist ministers, relatively few civil lawsuits have been filed against Baptist churches.

That is beginning to change, he said, thanks in part to “brave individuals” like the unidentified man in his 20s who claimed a church planter recruited and resourced by the state convention sexually abused him when he was 13.

In 2012 a Florida jury found the state convention liable for not properly screening church planter Douglas Myers, now in prison in Maryland after serving seven years in Florida. While a criminal background check on Myers showed no prior convictions, members of his previous two churches said he left under suspicion and if asked they would have recommended against hiring him.

On Jan. 18 a second jury ordered the Florida Baptist Convention to pay the victim $12.5 million in damages, one of the largest judgments in Florida and thought to be the first ever against a statewide affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention.

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MINNESOTA
Reporter

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: January 23, 2014

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis paid millions of dollars in costs associated with clergy misconduct in the last decade, according to internal church documents.

An investigation by Minnesota Public Radio News (http://bit.ly/1aMnkYs ) found that from 2002 to 2011 the archdiocese used two secret accounts that were controlled by the archbishop to pay nearly $11 million in costs related to allegations against priests.

The figure represents about 3 percent of overall archdiocese revenues in those years.

MPR reported Thursday that the money was used for persuading priests to leave active ministry, for legal settlements, for therapy for victims and priests, and other costs. The documents also show the archdiocese paid a private investigator $112,000 over 10 years.

The system allowed archdiocese leaders to remove priests accused of child abuse or other misconduct without attracting attention. But the secrecy also left the archdiocese vulnerable to embezzlement.

The archdiocese did not immediately return messages left Thursday by The Associated Press. In a statement issued to MPR, it said a new chief financial officer hired in December 2012 has started implementing procedures for greater transparency.

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MINNESOTA
Bring Me The News

January 23, 2014 By Tim Lammers

A new Minnesota Public Radio News investigation has revealed a “stealth financial system” in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis that allowed for payments for numerous infractions – including the removal of priests who committed child sex abuse – without attracting attention.

MPR says it analyzed thousands of private internal archdiocese documents, and found internal financial reports that showed the archdiocese used the stealth accounts to pay out nearly $11 million from 2002 to 2011 – which equated to about 3 percent of the archdiocese’s overall revenues during that time period.

The costs were tied to suspected priest misconduct under former Archbishop Harry Flynn and his successor, Archbishop John Nienstedt, MPR reports.

According to MPR, the secret account also provided financial support for children fathered by priests and other legal settlements. The secrecy, however, also left the archdiocese vulnerable to embezzlement.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent

Pope Francis has his feet on the ground but he may be too late to save the Church from the damage of sex abuse scandals

Peter Popham

Pope Francis continues to hit the nail on the head. “I ask you,” he told Davos this week, in a message read out at the opening ceremony, “to ensure that humanity is served by wealth and not ruled by it … The growth of equality means something more than economic growth.”

That sums up his gift in a nutshell. He doesn’t hector these billionaires, doesn’t tell them to put on sackcloth and ashes. He acknowledges their power. He accentuates the positive, while leaving no one in doubt about the negative. And he does all that in simple words, in the right forum, at the right moment.

It is a gift he has, one which his predecessor so plainly lacked. We have seen it over and over again in the past year.

In the Sistine Chapel, at a mass baptism, he said: “If [your babies] are hungry, mothers, feed them, without thinking twice, because they are the most important people here.” Bared breasts? Beneath Michelangelo’s mighty ceiling? Babies the most important people, in the presence of the Pope? Yes, yes, and again, yes; this is a Pope with his feet on the ground, who sees the vanity of the high prelates he represents and does everything to debunk it.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

Norbert Maday

By Christy Gutowski
Tribune reporter
January 23, 2014

Just 48 hours after a trove of confidential church documents were released detailing decades of cleric sex abuse, one of the 30 disgraced former priests named in the files is facing a new lawsuit.

The suit, filed this morning in Cook County, accuses Norbert J. Maday of being part of a “tag team” with a Boy Scout troop leader as they molested boys in the early 1970s.

The three men filing the suit, identified as John Doe 1, 2, and 3, also accuse the Archdiocese of Chicago of failing to protect them. There was no immediate comment from the archdiocese.

The men, now in their 50s, say their memories were repressed until news accounts surfaced in the summer of 2013 chronicling the archdiocese’s troubled history responding to pedophile priests.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

“Right wing” worshippers bullied a priest out of his parish after he objected to their after-church drinking binges.

Father Simon Tibbs was targeted by the mob, furious that he was unhappy about their boozy culture.

The vicar quit his role at St Faith’s in Crosby, Merseyside, last September following the tense stand-off.

A damning report presented to the Parochial Church Council (PCC) this week described the behaviour of some in the flock as “not befitting of a Christian community.”

An investigation into the bust-up was carried out by a senior bishop who discovered a campaign of “organised bullying” which had forced Father Tibbs to the exit door.

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MICHIGAN
The Times-Herald

Written by
Ed White
Associated Press

DETROIT — An inactive Roman Catholic priest in the Detroit area has been sentenced to nearly 16 years in prison for possessing and distributing child pornography.

Federal Judge Victoria Roberts says the public needs to be protected from Timothy Murray, although the punishment Thursday was below the 22-year sentence sought by prosecutors.

Agents in 2012 found child pornography on seven computers at Murray’s Novi home.

He was removed from a Livonia parish in 2004 after authorities learned that he had molested an altar boy in the 1980s. Murray was never charged because the statute of limitations had expired.

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.

MICHIGAN
Detroit Free Press

By Patricia Montemurri
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Nonpracticing Catholic priest Timothy Murray, 63, of Novi was sentenced today to 15 years and 8 months in federal prison for possessing and distributing child pornography.

“You should not be in contact with minors,” U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said at Murray’s sentencing. “The sentence that this court will impose will make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“This will make you close to 80 years old” when the sentence is up, said Roberts and “remove you from society.”

In 2004, the Archdiocese of Detroit removed Murray as pastor of St. Edith parish in Livonia when it was learned that he had molested a 13-year-old boy at another parish in the mid-1980s. But Murray, who has admitted he molested the boy, could not be prosecuted at the time because of the statute of limitations.

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ILLINOIS
The Doings

Thomas Job

By: Jane Michaels | jmichaels@pioneerlocal.com | @janemichaels22

Parishioners new in the last 30 years may have been shocked to learn one of the worst offenders in the priest sex abuse scandal once served at St. Cletus Church in La Grange.

The Archdiocese of Chicago released thousands of documents in a settlement this week with victims of sexual abuse by clergy. The effort was aimed at ending secrecy, protecting children, holding officials accountable and encouraging other victims to come forward.

The documents showed a long list of allegations against Thomas Job before, during and after the time he was assigned as an associate pastor at St. Cletus from 1976 to 1982.

While in La Grange, Job is accused of teaching boys, who were in seventh grade through their early years of high school, how to masturbate and abusing them in his quarters at the rectory and a home he owned near Great America.

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.

ILLINOIS
Patch

Posted by Korrina Grom (Editor) , January 23, 2014

Information about a former Libertyville priest was included among the documents released this week that detail how the Archdiocese of Chicago handled sexual abuse cases involving clergy.

The Libertyville priest was Thomas Job, who served as an associate pastor at St. Joseph Church in the 1980s, according to the documents at http://www.abusedinchicago.com/.

The documents offer a detailed timeline of Job’s service with the Archdiocese of Chicago, from his pre-ordination days at Santa Maria del Popolo in Mundelein, to the years he spent at parishes like St. Bede’s in Ingleside, St. John Vianney in Northlake and St. Cletus in La Grange.

An Archdiocese of Chicago memo from the vicar for priests from November 1983, itemized as AOC 003208, states, for example, that a 17-year-old boy told a member of the clergy “that he had engaged in sexual activities with Fr. Job while he was associate pastor at St. Cletus, La Grange.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Nicole Sotelo | Jan. 23, 2014 Young Voices

I have always been impressed by the Knights of Columbus’ dedication to charity. But over a period of four years, the Knights have donated more than $1.4 million of their “charitable contributions” not to the poor, but to sponsor Catholic bishops to attend medical ethics workshops that increasingly carry a political agenda.

The Knights’ sponsorship of these political workshops is listed in their annual reports as charity alongside their Coats for Kids and Food for Families programs. Charity and bishops are both seven-letter words, but I have never confused the two. Unfortunately, it seems the Knights of Columbus have.

Since the 1980s, the Knights of Columbus have sponsored biennial “workshops for bishops” under the auspices of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia to train the Catholic hierarchy in medical ethics. Workshop topics have ranged from euthanasia to hospital ethics committees. In recent years, however, the curriculum for these workshops has increasingly focused on anti-gay politics.

For example, last year’s workshop featured the conservative psychologist and activist Thomas Finn, who presented on “Same-Sex Parenting Studies.” He is known for disputing mainstream research, telling lawmakers, and now bishops, that children who grow up with same-gender parents are “vulnerable to risks such as increased presence of sexually transmitted disease, violence, substance abuse, mental health problems, etcetera.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
National Catholic Reporter

Norberg Maday
Daniel J. McCormack
Joseph Fitzharris

Brian Roewe | Jan. 23, 2014

When Cardinal Francis George wrote to Chicago Catholics Jan. 12 ahead of the public release of more than 6,000 pages of documents detailing abuse allegations against and procedures related to 30 priests, he warned them to brace themselves.

“The response [by the Chicago archdiocese to abuse allegations], in retrospect, was not always adequate to all the facts,” George wrote. “But a mistake is not a cover up.”

More than a decade earlier, the cardinal had penned another letter addressing what he perceived to be a mistake at the time: the lengthy prison sentence of Fr. Norbert Maday.

George wrote Jan. 12, 2000, to Maday, who was entering the sixth year of his 20-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting minors. “The very calling to mind of Isaiah’s words on the Year of Jubilee echo my prayer for ‘the release of prisoners.’ As you know, Father Dan Coughlin and the lawyers have something under way. I pray these efforts will bear fruit.”

The letter represents one of the 6,000-plus pages of priest files made public Jan. 21, part of a 2008 settlement with alleged abuse victims. The documents open the personnel files on 30 priests with credible accusations of sexually abusing children; the archdiocese lists on its website another 35 priests whose files remain sealed. Fourteen of the 30 have died.

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CANADA
CBC News

The trial of Eric Dejaeger has been adjourned until March 17.

The 66-year-old former Oblate missionary is facing dozens of charges relating to the sexual abuse of
Dejaeger took the stand in Iqaluit this week in his own defence, repetitively denying most of the allegations against him.

Crown prosecutors have yet to conclude their cross-examination of him. However, they plan to make an application to explore details of Dejaeger’s criminal record, to determine whether character is an issue.

Then they plan to call reply evidence to the testimony of one of the complainants.

Dejaeger: ‘It just happened’

In court yesterday, the Crown spent much of the time asking Eric Dejaeger about the eight charges to which he has already pleaded guilty, all of which are for indecent assault against young boys.

Crown prosecutor Doug Curliss asked Dejaeger if he knew at the time that what he did was wrong.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

By Justin Moyer, Published: January 22

If nothing else, Dennis Sobin is not your typical ex-con.

At first glance, he looks like the model returning citizen: After serving more than a decade in prison, Sobin, 70, returned to the District, started a gallery for prison art and ran for mayor.

His nonprofit organizations have received grants from George Soros’s Open Society Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts and, in 2010, he appeared on the cover of the Washington City Paper .

But Sobin is also sex offender. A former pornographer who’s appeared on “The Sally Jesse Raphael Show” and “Geraldo,” Sobin was convicted of sexual performance using a minor in 1992 in Florida.

So, every 90 days, Sobin must report to D.C.’s Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA), and his photo appears on D.C.’s public registry.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Jan. 23

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

A convicted sex offender, Dennis Sobin of Washington DC, is putting the names and photos of children’s advocates and legislators on a website, attacking them for backing sex offender registries.

Our hearts ache for those who are being harassed by Sobin. We are not surprised that Sobin is being sued. We hope Stephanie Gray prevails in her effort to protect herself from a convicted criminal.

[Washington Post]

Sobin thinks it’s “unfair” that he is listed on the registry. It’s obviously unfair what he did to the child he hurt, to say the very least.

There’s a reason virtually every state has a sex offender registry. Child sex crimes are particularly heinous and hurtful. They tend to be repeated. They are hard to prevent and detect. And parents have the right to know if someone living nearby was once capable and therefore might still be capable of engaging in immoral and illegal sexual acts with their kids.

This is yet another example of just how shrewd and charismatic predators are —many of them are creative, bright and surprisingly able to twist situations so that their needs are met and so that they are viewed as “victims.”

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FLORIDA
Stop Baptist Predators

Christa Brown

Last Saturday in Florida, a unanimous jury awarded $12.5 million to a man who, as a child, was sexually abused by a Southern Baptist minister. Significantly, this verdict was assessed, not only against the local church, but against the Florida Baptist Convention.

To my best knowledge, this is the first time in history that a verdict has been handed down against a Baptist statewide denominational entity in a clergy sex abuse case. Attorney Ron Weil of Miami is the person who brought this “game-changer” of a lawsuit to fruition.

I’d like to imagine that Baptists will view this as a wake-up call to begin implementing the sorts of systematic safeguards that other major faith groups have. But Southern Baptists have shown themselves to be recalcitrant in this arena, and so I expect it will likely take still more lawsuits – and still more needlessly wounded kids – before that happens. For now, the Florida Baptist Convention is simply saying that it plans to appeal.

For twenty-five years, I practiced law as an appellate attorney in Texas. So I know a thing or two about what can happen in the appellate process and what the possibilities are. But whatever may happen next, this case has already brought a seismic shift in the terrain of Baptist clergy abuse litigation.

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FLORIDA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Thursday January 23, 2014

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com)

A Florida jury has awarded $12.5 million to a man who, as a child, was sexually abused by a Baptist minister. Earlier, another Florida jury found the Florida Baptist Convention liable for the crimes because it refused to take minimal prevention steps.

[Orlando Sentinel]

Despite widespread child sex crimes by Baptist ministers, relatively few civil lawsuit have been filed against Baptist churches. Ever-so-slowly, that’s beginning to change, thanks in part to brave individuals like this victim who found the strength to step forward and seek justice. We applaud him for his courage.

Just like Catholic bishops, Baptist officials have erected strong walls of secrecy, deceit, denial and legal defense to protect their jobs and reputations in clergy sex abuse cases. And just like Catholic bishops, Baptist officials are slowly but surely seeing those walls being demolished by brave victims, smart lawyers, determined prosecutors and compassionate juries. The self-serving claim by Baptists that every church is independent so no one can be held responsible for ignoring or concealing child sex crimes is on its way out.

We believe others who have been sexually assaulted as children by Baptist ministers and rebuffed as adults by Baptist officials will be inspired by this victim’s courage and this jury’s compassion to come forward, get help, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 22, 2014 NCR Today

ROME As the Legionaries of Christ ponder new leadership and a new constitution amid what is arguably among the deepest crises any Catholic religious order has ever faced, priests taking part in a keenly anticipated general chapter meeting in Rome have a two-pronged message for those skeptical that change is possible.

First, they say, there are no guarantees; and second, give us a chance.

As if one were needed, participants in the general chapter got a reminder Wednesday of just how hard it may be to regain trust after more than a decade of denying charges of sexual abuse and misconduct against their founder, the late Mexican Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, only to have to acknowledge them in 2009.

In a piece published Wednesday by the National Catholic Reporter, Juan Vaca, one of Maciel’s original accusers who says his abuse began at age 12, dismissed the general chapter as “a damage control operation.”

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PORTUGAL
DN

[Summary: The defense of the priest and former vice rector of the Fundao seminary has appealed the priest’s sentence saying that defendant should be acquitted based on unconstitutionality and nullity. The priest was convicted of sexually abusing minors.]

A defesa do padre e ex-vice-reitor do Seminário do Fundão, que foi condenado por crimes de abuso sexual de menores, pede, no recurso interposto para a Relação de Coimbra, que o arguido seja absolvido, com base em nulidades e inconstitucionalidades.

“(…) Deverão as nulidades e inconstitucionalidades suscitadas serem julgadas procedentes com as consequências legais e ser absolvido o arguido ou anulado o julgamento”, lê-se no final do documento, consultado pela Lusa.

O pedido também solicita que, em caso de manutenção da condenação, se proceda à redução da pena (10 de cadeia, na primeira instância) e à suspensão da mesma.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Dorset Echo

By Rene Gerryts

AT a time when the spotlight is focused on historical abuse, west Dorset students have been highlighting the old scandal of the Magdalen laundries.

Fresh from a triumph of staging their drama teacher’s play the Magdalen Whitewash in Buxton last yea,r students at Beaminster School put on a performance at the Lyric Theatre in Bridport and helped raise more than £100 for the charity Women’s Aid.

Year 12 student Daisy Curtiss, editor of Sixth Sense, said: “Not only was the play successful in terms of being highly emotive and shining light on harrowing events at a time when they are in the news with the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA), but also for raising more than £100 for the charity Women’s Aid.

“The Magdalen Whitewash is an emotive ensemble piece and it is difficult to single out individuals when the whole cast produced such thought provoking performances by conveying events and desolation felt by those who were institutionalised.

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FLORIDA
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

The attorney for a man awarded $12.5 million by a Florida jury for childhood sexual abuse suffered at the hands of a Baptist minister says the verdict could be a game-changer for how Southern Baptists handle credible accusations of clergy misconduct.

“I think it’s a good thing for the Florida Baptist Convention to clean up their act,” attorney Ronald Weil of the Miami-based law firm Weil, Quaranta, McGovern said Jan. 22 of last week’s judgment by a Lake County, Fla., jury against the 3,000-church statewide affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Hopefully, this is a wake-up call for them to do that.”

The jury handed down a unanimous verdict on Saturday, Jan. 18, awarding damages to a victim now in his 20s who claimed he was molested as a child by a church planter trained and supposedly vetted by the Baptist state convention. A previous jury found the convention responsible for the minister’s actions in 2012.

Weil, a 30-year civil trial lawyer who specializes in sexual abuse and victims’ rights litigation, said to his knowledge it is the first time for a state Southern Baptist convention to suffer a verdict in a case involving child sexual abuse.

A 2008 article in the Nashville Scene quoted Southern Baptist Convention General Counsel Jim Guenther saying the convention has never lost a lawsuit of any kind in the 50 years he has represented the denomination.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald

By JONATHAN LUXMOORE on Thursday, 23 January 2014

The cardinal who heads Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals said the Catholic Church is entering a “new era” and accused critics of the Pope’s statements on economic injustice of failing to “understand reality.”

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa in an interview with Germany’s Cologne-based Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger said:”I’m firmly convinced we are at the dawn of a new era in the church, just as when Pope John XXIII opened its windows 50 years and made it let in fresh air.

“Francis wants to lead the church in the same direction that he himself is moved by the Holy Spirit. This means closer to the people, not enthroned above them, but alive in them,” said the cardinal, who leads the council appointed by Pope Francis to work on reform in the Roman Curia and advise him on church governance.

In addition, Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga said, the Pope favored “above all, a simpler life and leadership” from priests and bishops in line with the “sometimes forgotten message of Jesus,” and believed they should go out to people, rather than “sitting in our administrative offices and waiting for people to come.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Psychologie-Aktuell

Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs in der Kirche bleiben ihren Glaubensvorstellungen verhaftet und ihren realen Empfindungen fremd

Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs in der Kirche sind oft religiös geprägt. Glaubensvorstellungen und Rituale formen das Erleben, Deuten und alltagspraktische Handeln. Auch wenn sich Betroffene nach der sexuellen Traumatisierung von der Kirche distanzieren, bleiben sie in der Verarbeitung der Geschehnisse religiösen Deutungsmustern verhaftet. Sandra Fernau stellt in einer qualitativen Studie beispielhafte Opfer vor. Die Arbeit erschien in “Psychoanalyse – Texte zur Sozialforschung”.

Ein Mann, als 14jähriger in einem Internat missbraucht, hält seine Geschichte ein halbes Jahrhundert geheim und sucht erst dann das Gespräch mit der Wissenschaftlerin. Er fürchtet, durch die Aufdeckung stigmatisiert und in der dörflich-katholischen Gemeinschaft isoliert zu werden. “Die Angst vor negativen Fremdzuschreibungen wird durch Selbstvorwürfe mitbedingt und zugleich verschärft.” Der Mann spricht von einem “Kainsmal” und leidet unter der Vorstellung, “durch den erlebten sexuellen Missbrauch eine Schuld vor Gott auf sich geladen zu haben.” Hier zeigt sich, “dass der Betroffene noch Jahrzehnte nach den Übergriffen der Suggestion von Freiwilligkeit und Komplizenschaft unterliegt. Das Opfer weist sich im Rahmen einer katholischen Semantik selbst die Schuld für sexuelle Gewalterfahrungen zu.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Tageblatt

[Summary: The Trier diocese paidout 350,000 to victims of sexual abuse through the end of 2013.]

Das Bistum Trier hat bislang 350 000 Euro an Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs gezahlt. Bis Ende 2013 seien 68 Anträge auf finanzielle Entschädigung bewilligt worden, sagte eine Sprecherin am Donnerstag und bestätigte einen Bericht der Zeitung “Trierischer Volksfreund”. Insgesamt gingen 72 Anträge ein, vier seien noch in Bearbeitung. Bislang seien noch keine Anträge “endgültig ablehnend beschieden worden”, hieß es.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

[Summary: The diocese of Trier up until the end of 2013 had received 72 compensation applications from men and women who said they were abused and 68 of those claimed have been paid.]

Bistum entschädigt 68 Missbrauchsopfer – Ein Antragsteller wartet seit eineinhalb Jahren

Erstmalig seit Februar 2013 legt das Bistum Trier aktuelle Zahlen vor, wie viele Anträge von Opfern sexueller Übergriffe gestellt und bewilligt wurden: Bis zum 31. Dezember 2013 hatten 72 Männer und Frauen beim Bistum Trier einen Antrag auf Entschädigung gestellt. Das gab Bistumssprecher André Uzulis auf TV-Anfrage bekannt. Insgesamt seien bis zum 2. Januar dieses Jahres 68 Anträge im Bistum des Missbrauchsbeauftragten der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz bewilligt worden, sagte Uzulis. Demnach werden vier der 72 gestellten Anträge noch bearbeitet. Darunter ist der Antrag eines 44-jährigen Saarländers, der seit eineinhalb Jahren auf eine Entscheidung wartet.

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ARIZONA
KVOA

[with video]

Russell Romano

Robert Becker

TUCSON- Newly released documents allege the Bishop of Tucson may be connected to a massive cover up related to priest sex abuse cases in Chicago.

Bishop Gerald Kicanas was born in Chicago and lived there until he became Bishop of Tucson in 2003. For more than 25 years he served as Rector, Principal, and Dean of Formation at the former Quigley Seminary South and Rector of Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake.

On Tuesday in Chicago, lawyers from Jeff Anderson & Associates released 6,000 pages of investigative reports that they say prove how the Archdiocese of Chicago for years failed to protect children from abusive priests. The lawyers represent the victims who say they were abused by a total of 30 Chicago priests.

Bishop Kicanas’ name is mentioned in the reports of two of those priests, both who served at the Quigley Seminary South.

In the first case, the lawyers say Bishop Kicanas learned of the abuse when the dean of the seminary contacted him, after he left Quigley. “What Father Klein reported to him was that Father Romano was taking boys to his rectory room, supplying them with alcohol, kissing them, hugging them,” says Patrick Wall of Jeff Anderson & Associates.

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AUSTRALIA
Western Advocate

A FORMER Catholic priest who worked at a Bathurst high school has been arrested and charged with the alleged historical sexual assault of a student.

The 71-year-old man was arrested by Strike Force Belle investigators at a residence in Newington and taken to Auburn Police Station today, where he was charged with ten counts of aggravated indecent assault on male.

The charges relate to the alleged sexual assault of a student between 1974 and 1977, when the man was a Catholic priest.

He was conditionally bailed to appear at the Burwood Local Court in on Tuesday 18 March 2014.

Detectives are continuing their inquiries and urge anyone with information relating to other incidents to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS NEWS LIMITED JANUARY 23, 2014

POLICE investigating a paedophile ring at two boarding schools in Bathurst have today arrested and charged a former Catholic priest.

At least 11 men, most of them Catholic priests, have already been charged with child sex offences against students at St Stanislaus’ College and All Saints College dating back to the 1960s as part of investigations by Strike Force Belle.

The 71-year-old man was arrested by strike force investigators today at a residence in Newington and taken to Auburn Police Station. He was charged with ten counts of aggravated indecent assault on males which relate to the alleged sexual assault of a student between 1974 and 1977.

He was conditionally bailed to appear at the Burwood Local Court in on Tuesday 18 March 2014.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A former catholic priest who sexually abused at least two boys for three years while they attended a Bathurst high school has been charged.

The 71-year-old was on Thursday arrested at a western Sydney home and charged with ten counts of aggravated indecent assault on a male for allegedly sexually abusing two boys, both under 16, from 1974 to 1977, police said.

The abuse took place at a Bathurst high school.

Conditional bail was granted to the former priest, who’s due before Burwood Local Court on March 18.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Crosby Herald

Jan 23 2014 by Jamie Bowman, Crosby Herald

A DAMNING report has revealed a “culture of bullying” at a Crosby church after a priest was forced out of his job.

A six-month episcopal visitation carried out by Bishop Stephen Lowe, in the wake of reports of difficulties at St Faith’s Church, on Crosby Road North, found “serious failings” among some churchgoers whose behaviour towards Father Simon Tibbs was described by Bishop Stephen as “not befitting of a Christian community”.

Bishop Stephen’s report, which was presented to the Parochial Church Council (PCC) on Monday, highlighted a number of issues at the church, which is described on its website as an “outward-looking inclusive community formed in the liberal Catholic tradition of the Church of England”.

Most serious of these is the revelation of “a culture among a very small number of members of St Faith’s that bullying and the undermining of Simon Tibbs are acceptable as a means to an end – his removal.”

The report describes how problems appeared at St Faith’s soon after Rev Tibbs’ arrival in January last year.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

[with video]

By: Nick Winkler

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is scheduled to release another list of accused priests in early February.

Attorney Marshall Tanick says he has been contacted by clergy interested in remaining anonymous.

Tanick says if a lawsuit is started people who have an interest in the case can bring what’s known as an intervention action before the court. In other words, a person may anonymously ask the court that their identity be excluded from the record.

Critics say priests interested in doing this may be creating a negative perception among some.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Catholic Online

[with video]

CHICAGO, IL (Catholic Online) – Lawyers for the sex abuse victims of 30 Chicago-area priests have released a cache of documents detailing the abuses of children and the efforts of diocesan officials to cover up the scandals. Documents in the cache include letters from Cardinals Joseph Bernardin and Francis George.

There are 6,000 documents in the dump, and would-be readers are advised to think before reading them because of some of the graphic details within them.

May St. Michael destroy the evil within our communities, let us daily pray!

It is clear today that the American Catholic Church has erred in how some diocese handled allegations of abuse by priests in decades past. An untold number of children likely faced abuse and some clergy may have gone unpunished.

Both Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have cracked down very hard on the issue and made clear to Church officials that local law, and not just Church law, applies to all allegations. Church officials are now required, on the basis of any credible accusation, to notify local law enforcement officials and to refer cases directly to the Vatican. Those accused are not to be allowed contact with children and may be immediately suspended from duties while investigations proceed.

Thorough background checks and greater transparency are also required.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Southtown Star

By Phil Kadner pkadner@southtownstar.com January 21, 2014

I may be one of the few who was never surprised that the Chicago Archdiocese tried to bury allegations of sexual abuse by priests.

The archdiocese is a bureaucracy. Such organizations always try to avoid scandals.

There’s a belief that clergymen ought to be better than the rest of us. I can appreciate why people are disappointed, even angry, when that faith is destroyed.

But the clergy are subject to normal human frailties. That includes committing sex crimes and covering up such crimes.

At this point, there should be very little shock at revelations that sex crimes against children are often hidden, frequently mishandled and repeatedly result in cover-ups.

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RHODE ISLAND
Inquisitr

A Legion of Christ lawsuit will move forward, with a judge ruling that the family of a late Yale University professor may sue the religious order for $1 million.

The family of the late mechanical engineering professor, James Boa-Teh Chu, claims that the Legion of Christ coerced and defrauded the man into leaving his assets to the Legion. This week a federal magistrate judge in Rhode Island gave the go-ahead for the lawsuit to proceed.

The family claims that members of the order convinced their devout father that the founder of the Legion of Christ, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, was a saint. In reality, the church was investigating allegations of sexual abuse against Maciel and within a few years the Vatican would seize control of the order.

“After Dr. Chu’s death, Paul found documents evidencing that the Legion was fostering this image of Father Maciel in Dr. Chu’s mind at the same time that it was aware of the facts being uncovered by the Vatican’s investigation,” wrote U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan in her decision.

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