ABUSE TRACKER

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Los Angeles Times

By Matt Pearce
January 28, 2013

Bishop Robert W. Finn wishes the independent National Catholic Reporter weren’t so independent.

Finn is the bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri. The National Catholic Reporter is a 59-year-old not-for-profit newspaper based in Kansas City.

Finn was convicted in September of shielding priests from sexual-abuse allegations — prompting editorials from the newspaper calling for his resignation. Now, Finn, who is on probation, has taken to his own diocese’s journalistic bully pulpit to denounce the paper.

“In the last months I have been deluged with emails and other correspondence from Catholics concerned about the editorial stances of the Reporter: officially condemning church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues,” Finn wrote this weekend in his diocese’s newspaper, the Catholic Key.

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.

FLORIDA
NBC Miami

A South Florida priest accused of molesting several boys was sentenced to 15 years behind bars Monday after pleading no contest to several charges earlier this month.

Neil Doherty, 69, was sentenced to the maximum prison term after pleading no contest to six counts of lewd and lascivious acts upon a child.

The retired priest had been charged with eight counts including sexual battery against the victim, who alleged Doherty drugged and raped him multiple times as a young boy.

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
Nassauische

Die Bistümer Limburg, Fulda und Mainz haben mehr als 300.000 Euro an Entschädigungen für die Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche gezahlt.

Fulda/Limburg/Mainz. Die Bistümer Limburg, Fulda und Mainz haben mehr als 300.000 Euro an Entschädigungen für die Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche gezahlt.

In den drei Kirchenbezirken auf hessischem Gebiet seien bislang 64 Anträge auf Entschädigungen gestellt worden, wie eine Umfrage der Nachrichtenagentur dpa ergab.

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

Die Auseinandersetzung um das vorerst gescheiterte Forschungsprojekt zum Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche nimmt an Schärfe zu.

Der Kriminologe Christian Pfeiffer und die Bischöfe beschuldigen sich gegenseitig, daran schuld zu sein. Dem Würzburger Bischof unterstellte Pfeiffer jetzt in einem Gastbeitrag für diese Zeitung „ein gestörtes Verhältnis zum 8. Gebot“ (Du sollst nicht falsch Zeugnis reden wider deinen Nächsten). Damit reagierte der Forscher auf die Kritik des Bischofs, der Pfeiffer in einem Gastbeitrag heftig attackiert hatte. Darauf antwortete Pressesprecher Bernhard Schweßinger: „Es drängt sich nicht nur im Bistum Würzburg die Frage auf, ob bei Professor Pfeiffer die Grenzen zwischen Dichtung und Wahrheit fließend sind. Das Verhalten zeigt, wie richtig die Feststellung der Bischöfe war, aufgrund des zerstörten Vertrauensverhältnisses die Zusammenarbeit zu beenden.“

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

Christian Pfeiffer, Direktor des Kriminologischen Forschungsinstituts Niedersachsen, wendet sich in einem Gastbeitrag gegen Bischof Friedhelm Hofmann.

Nach dem Lesen des Beitrags von Bischof Hofmann (gemeint ist der Gastbeitrag von Würzburgs Bischof Friedhelm Hofmann am 19. Januar auf der Meinungsseite dieser Zeitung, Anmerkung der Redaktion) habe ich mich gefragt, ob er ein gestörtes Verhältnis zum 8. Gebot hat: „Du sollst nicht falsch Zeugnis reden wider Deinen Nächsten“. So hat er den Vorwurf, ich hätte verbindliche Zusagen nicht eingehalten und wäre nicht in der Lage, zeitnah Informationen zur Vorgehensweise zu liefern, offenkundig frei erfunden. Meine unmittelbaren Kooperationspartner der Bischofskonferenz haben mir das jedenfalls nie vorgehalten und hätten dazu auch keinen Anlass gehabt.

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.

FLORIDA
CBS Miami

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A former South Florida Catholic priest who pled no contest earlier this month to charges that he drugged and sexually assaulted a Margate boy in the 1990s will be sentenced on Monday.

During his time with the Archdiocese of Miami Doherty, 69, had served at several South Florida churches, including St. Vincent’s in Margate, St. Anthony in Fort Lauderdale and St. Phillip in Northwest Miami-Dade.

Doherty has a long list of accusers who say he used his position of power to sexually assault them. In several cases, Doherty is accused of slipping drugs into drinks to make boys sleepy and molesting them while they were unconscious.

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.

AUSTRALIA
Indigenous Times

Descendant of the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia, Professor Helen Milroy has been appointed as one of the Commissioners to the Federal Government’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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.

IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Response on 13 September 2012 to Document received from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

1. Regarding the Church, Fr. Flannery should add to his article that he believes that Christ instituted the Church with a permanent hierarchical structure. Specifically, Fr. Flannery should state that he accepts the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, as found in Lumen Gentium n. 9-22, that the bishops are the divinely established successors of the apostles who were appointed by Christ; that, aided by the Holy Spirit, they exercise legitimate power to sanctify, teach and govern the People of God; that they constitute one Episcopal college together with the Roman Pontiff; and that in virtue of his office, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church, which he is always free to exercise.

I acknowledge and accept the teaching of the second Vatican Council. I have studied Lumen Gentium and it is clear from the teaching of the Council that the Lord Jesus set the church on its course by preaching the Good News. The Council also accepts the teachings of the First Vatican Council which declares that Jesus Christ, the eternal shepherd, established His holy Church, having sent forth the apostles as he himself had been sent by the Father; and he willed that their successors, namely the bishops, should be shepherds in His Church even to the consummation of the world. The Council also teaches that Jesus placed Peter over the other apostles, and instituted in him a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and communion. Vatican 2 states that “all this teaching about the institution, the perpetuity, the meaning and reason for the sacred primacy of the Roman Pontiff and of his infallible Magisterium, this Sacred Council again proposes to be firmly believed by all the faithful.” I submit to this teaching in faith.

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

UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic

By Bryan Cones

The New York Times’ Frank Bruni turns the sharp edge of his pen against the Roman Catholic priesthood in today’s column, invoking Garry Wills, whose next book, Why Priests? A Failed Tradition, will no doubt expose, as Wills’ often does, the problematic underbelly of this quintessentially Catholic institution (shared also with the Orthodox and Anglicanism). Bruni doesn’t tackle the theological dimension of priesthood–one assumes that Wills most likely does–but its insularity. Exhibit A: Cardinal Roger Mahony.

The LA archdiocese this week released the personnel files of priests accused of abuse, which time after time shows Mahony’s abject failure to protect innocents or turn over offenders. It wasn’t until 2006 that Mahony started meeting with victims, some 20 years after he started first dealing with cases–and a full four years after the Boston scandal broke. Before those meetings, Mahony claims in a statement released by the archdiocese, he “remained naive myself about the full and lasting impact of these horrible acts”–a statement to which we must add “willfully,” just before naive.

Whether “Catholicism’s Curse”–as Bruni titles his column–is indeed priesthood itself is a question worthy of debate, but the insular system by which priests are made–residential seminaries more or less totally remote from Catholic parishes, families, and their children–is certainly a part of the problem that must be eliminated. Indeed, while I don’t see a direct connection between celibacy and child sexual abuse, I do see a connection between celibacy and the inability to identify and empathize with children and families, and I wonder how different the church’s response to the sex abuse crisis would have been if the priests and bishops responding were themselves fathers of children. For some reason I don’t think it would have taken 20 years for Mahony to grasp the impact of sexual abuse on children if he had a child of his own.

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.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
RealClearReligion

By George Neumayr

“I have a 3 x 5 card for every victim I met with on the altar of my small chapel. I pray for them every single day,” retired Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony said after the court-ordered release of personnel files detailing his elaborate efforts to hide abusers from the police. How comforted the victims must feel knowing their names appear on his 3 x 5 cards. How big of him to entrust the victims of his pedophile-shuffling to the efficacy of his prayers.

Such acts of chutzpah come naturally to the cardinal. At the height of the abuse scandal, even as he retained an army of lawyers and publicists to conceal his own complicity in it, he had the gall to join the media in calling for Boston Cardinal Bernard Law’s resignation. Referring to Law, Cardinal Mahony piously told the press that “he would find it difficult to walk down an aisle in church if he had been guilty of gross negligence.”

Meanwhile, Cardinal Mahony was unleashing his attack dogs on anyone who probed his staggering negligence. Until the media furor of 2001, he had been planning on making a pedophile long known to him and residing in his living quarters, Father Carl Sutphin (with whom he had gone to seminary), associate pastor of the archdiocesan cathedral. “I can’t believe a cardinal keeps a pedophile on staff,” said one of Sutphin’s victims.

Long before Leon Panetta joined the Obama administration as CIA director, he had scented out Cardinal Mahony’s misdeeds. He “has done tremendous damage to his reputation and the archdiocese,” said Panetta after his spell as a member of the National Review Board, a watchdog group formed in the wake of the scandal. Panetta recalled a meeting at which Cardinal Mahony turned up with “more lawyers in the room than I’ve ever seen.”

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

UNITED STATES
In the Light of the Law

Edward Peters

Bp. Robert Finn (KC, MO) has a very good column on a local bishop’s responsibility over local media in regard to the promotion and protection of the Catholic Faith. Most folks, however, will likely skim the first part of the essay, and go right for Finn’s critique of the National Catholic Reporter in the second.

In my opinion, Finn was too kind to them.

NCRep has carried on a steady tirade against ecclesiastical authority in general, and against numerous Church teachings in particular, for several decades, but the last few years have seen a shrillness that should discomfort even its dwindling number of friends. Besides my own efforts to reply to them (e.g., July 2010, October 2009, March 2009) Fr. Z’s blog has long served as a clearing house for reasonable, Catholic responses to the NCRep (what a thankless task that is).

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

by Thomas C. Fox | Jan. 27, 2013

Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn wrote Friday the National Catholic Reporter is undermining church teachings. He cited coverage of women’s ordination, artificial contraception, sexual morality in general, and the “lionizing” of dissident theologies.

His remarks appeared in a column entitled “The Bishop’s Role In Fostering The Mission Of The Catholic Media.” It was posted in the online edition of the official diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Key.

The bishop praised the work of the Key and went on to write:

In a different way, I am sorry to say, my attention has been drawn once again to the National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper with headquarters in this Diocese. I have received letters and other complaints about NCR from the beginning of my time here. In the last months I have been deluged with emails and other correspondence from Catholics concerned about the editorial stances of the Reporter: officially condemning Church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of Church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established Magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues.

My predecessor bishops have taken different approaches to the challenge. Bishop Charles Helmsing in October of 1968 issued a condemnation of the National Catholic Reporter and asked the publishers to remove the name “Catholic” from their title – to no avail. From my perspective, NCR’s positions against authentic Church teaching and leadership have not changed trajectory in the intervening decades. …

Finn seems to imply NCR has had bad relations with its local bishops since 1968. This has not been the case. Bishop Helmsing’s successors – Bishop John Sullivan and Bishop Raymond Boland – had cordial relations with NCR. Once Boland came to our Kansas City office and blessed our building as we consulted with him about use of new emerging media technologies. Later Boland spoke at NCR’s 40th anniversary ceremony in Washington, D.C.

In an email former NCR Publisher Sister of Saint Anne Rita Larivee, who was publisher at the time of Finn’s early years as diocesan bishop, remembers having respectful meetings with Finn. She wrote:

I personally visited with him in is office to welcome him to the diocese. We had a fine conversation. But during his first year, he made many significant changes within the diocese that caused many concerns for various groups. Because of these shifts in previous policies, NCR wrote a story about this period of transition – Dennis Cody (now NCR Editor) wrote the story. Again, I visited with Bishop Finn in his office to assure him that this was a story about the changes that had taken place, as NCR does with other diocese, but that it was not an article about him personally. …

After a local judge found Finn guilty last year of failing to report suspected child abuse involving a local priest NCR published an editorial calling on Finn to either resign or be removed from his position. NCR and other local news outlets, including the Kansas City Star provided ongoing coverage of the incident.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
GoErie

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHILADELPHIA — The civil case alleging that a Franciscan friar sexually abused students at a western Pennsylvania high school will go on despite the friar’s suicide over the weekend, attorneys representing some of the accusers said Sunday.

Brother Stephen Baker, 62, was found dead of a self-inflicted knife wound at the St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday, according to Blair Township police.

He had been named in recent legal settlements involving sexual abuse allegations at a Catholic high school in northeastern Ohio three decades ago, and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese said it had received allegations of abuse at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

When Baker was the school’s athletic trainer, 20 former students allege that he assaulted or molested students under the guise of providing therapeutic treatment or medical care for treatment of sports injuries, said attorney Michael Parrish, of Johnstown, who represents the accusers.

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

CALIFORNIA
Contra Costa Times

Monica Rodriguez, Staff Writer
sbsun.com
Posted: 01/27/2013

Join Los Angeles News Group City Editor Harrison Sheppard and reporters Susan Abram and Tracy Manzer in a live chat Monday at 11 a.m. to discuss this report.

Amid scrutiny of its neighboring diocese’s response to the sexual abuse of children, the Diocese of San Bernardino has been swift to notify authorities of such allegations, a diocese spokesman said.

Others don’t see it that way.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, says the leadership of the diocese is still slow to move when it is notified of sexual abuse allegations.

“We have not seen any real strides,” said Joelle Casteix, the regional director for SNAP.

Since 2002, the diocese has been following the directions spelled out in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued that year, said John Andrews, a spokesman for the diocese.

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

CALIFORNIA
Press-Telegram

Special Report

Thousands of pages of court documents show how the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for decades knowingly shielded more than a dozen priests suspected of child sex abuse.

A Los Angeles News Group special report offers an in-depth look into how and when the church knew about the abuse and chose instead to move accused priests from parish to parish, even allowing the most abusive to move out of the country.

Church officials in some cases tried to get priests into therapy, but at the same time took steps to keep the horrific accusations from ever surfacing or being reported to authorities. Victims and their families pleaded for justice, only to fall on deaf ears. This report details the depth of secrecy and covert actions taken by top church officials to keep the accusations in the shadows.

In the decades since, archdioceses everywhere have taken steps to recognize and stop such abuse from happening again.

In the meantime, victims feel the weight and still live in the shadow of abuse.

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.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
The New York Times

[Archive of Los Angeles Archdiocesan Documents – BishopAccountability.org]

Editorial

No member of the Roman Catholic hierarchy fought longer and more energetically than Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles to conceal the decades-long scandal involving the rape and intimidation of children by rogue priests. For years, the cardinal withheld seamy church records from parents, victims and the public, brandishing endless litigation and fatuous claims of confidentiality.

The breadth of Cardinal Mahony’s cover-up became shockingly clear last week with the release in court of archdiocese records detailing how he and a top aide concocted cynical strategies to keep police authorities in the dark and habitual offenders beyond the reach of criminal prosecution.

“Sounds good — please proceed!” the cardinal, now retired, instructed in 1987 after the aide, Msgr. Thomas Curry, cautioned against therapy for one confessed predator — lest the therapist feel obliged to tell authorities and scandalize the archdiocese. The two discussed another priest, Msgr. Peter Garcia, who admitted specializing in the rape of Latino immigrant children and threatened at least one boy with deportation if he complained. Cardinal Mahony ordered that he stay out of California after his release from a New Mexico treatment center out of fear that “we might very well have some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors.” Monsignor Curry worried that there might be 20 young people able to identify the priest in “first-degree felony” cases.

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

CALIFORNIA
Press-Telegram

By Susan Abram, Brian Day, Andrew Edwards and Phillip Zonkel, Staff Writers
dailynews.com
Posted: 01/27/2013

Join Los Angeles News Group City Editor Harrison Sheppard and reporters Susan Abram and Tracy Manzer in a live chat Monday at 11 a.m. to discuss this report.

On the first Sunday after a flood of newly released documents showed how Catholic leaders shielded priests accused of child sex abuse, parishioners at churches across Los Angeles and beyond said they were troubled by the revelations but remained strong in their faith.

At the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles, Archbishop Jose Gomez had been quiet about the issue all week, but spoke out briefly about it during his morning sermon.

“This has been a challenging week for all of us in Los Angeles because of the abuse of many by priests,” Gomez said somberly to the hundreds of parishioners who had filled the sanctuary.

“Today we want to especially pray for anyone who has been hurt by the church. We also want to renew and strengthen our policies on the protection of children within the diocese.”

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

[The Bishop’s Role in Fostering the Mission of the Catholic Media – The Catholic Key]

By ALAN BAVLEY
The Kansas City Star

The bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph is expressing public frustration with the editorial stances of the National Catholic Reporter, a Kansas City-based independent newspaper that has called for the bishop to resign over his handling of sex scandals in the church.

In a column posted Friday in the online edition of the official diocesan newspaper, Bishop Robert Finn said the National Catholic Reporter was “undermining” church teaching on contraception and the ordination of women, while praising “dissident theologies.” Finn also raised questions about whether the newspaper should call itself “Catholic.”

“I have a responsibility as the local bishop to instruct the Faithful about the problematic nature of this media source which bears the name ‘Catholic,’ ” Finn wrote.

“Bishop Finn clearly feels our voice is not a Catholic voice,” said National Catholic Reporter publisher and former editor Tom Fox. “We are a Catholic publication, but independent of the church structure. That’s one of the keys to our credibility.”

Fox said the National Catholic Reporter is a member of the Catholic Press Association, which is sanctioned by U.S. bishops. The newspaper has consistently won awards for general excellence and investigative reporting.

Its investigative reporting has included coverage of allegations of sex abuse by members of the clergy, an issue the newspaper had been addressing since 1985, Fox said. The issue took on a high profile in the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese in recent years, leading to further coverage.

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

UNITED STATES
Current

[with video]

David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, joins John Fugelsang on “Viewpoint” to assess the ongoing sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, including news that the retired archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, hid evidence that clergymen were molesting children.

“This is a monarchy, and as much as this scandal has tarnished the Catholic hierarchy, the men at the top of the pyramid still have faced little, if any, consequences for their dreadful wrongdoing,” Clohessy says. “For that reason, their power remains intact, and for that reason, I think, we’ve seen so little change on their part.”

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
dotCommonweal

January 27, 2013

Posted by Paul Moses

Bishop Robert W. Finn has used the occasion of the Feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists, to upbraid Kansas City-based National Catholic Reporter, which is located in his diocese. The critique he published in his diocesan newspaper says not a word about the important service to the church that NCR offered through courageous coverage over nearly three decades of the existence and cover-up of clergy sexual abuse.

This comes as no surprise from Finn, who continues to remain as bishop even after his conviction in September, as NCR put it, of “criminally shielding a priest who was a threat to children.” Bishop Finn is in no position to level accusations against NCR. It’s not surprising that many have called for his resignation; his conviction makes it impossible for him to do his job credibly.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

More than 150 people picketed the residence of the Papal Nuncio in Dublin this afternoon in protest at the Catholic Church’s treatment of well-known Irish missionary Fr Tony Flannery.

Last week Fr Flannery said he had been censored by the Vatican for his views on homosexuality and women priests, and called the Vatican’s systems “unfair and unjust”.

The 800-strong Association of Catholic Priests previously warned that forcing Father Tony Flannery to stop writing for a Redemptorist Order magazine would fuel belief of a disconnect between Irish Catholics and Rome.

Fr Flannery, a founder of the association, had his monthly column with the religious publication ‘Reality’ discontinued on orders from Rome.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA/OHIO
WKBN

At least two attorneys, representing victims, are planning legal action against the Youngstown and Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese, Bishop McCort High School and others who were in charge of supervising Brother Stephen Baker while he was working with students.

On Sunday afternoon, Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, offered this statement:

“Well, unfortunately Brother Baker passed away but I will be pursuing cases on behalf of my clients against the supervisors of Brother Baker while he was sexually molesting children. Brother Baker’s death does sadden many of my clients. It’s a very emotional complicated situation that has now become more emotionally complicated.”

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
WKBN

Civil cases will proceed despite Brother Stephen Baker’s suicide.

Attorney Michael Parrish Junior of Johnstown, representing some of the former students alleging abuse by Baker, said the cases will move forward.

Baker was found dead at the St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday. He had been named in legal settlements involving abuse allegations at JFK High School in Warren and allegations have also surfaced of abuse at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Houston Chronicle

By RON TODT, Associated Press | January 27, 2013

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The civil case alleging that a Franciscan friar sexually abused students at a western Pennsylvania high school will go on despite the friar’s suicide over the weekend, attorneys representing some of the accusers said Sunday.

Brother Stephen Baker, 62, was found dead of a self-inflicted knife wound at the St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday, according to Blair Township police. He had been named in recent legal settlements involving sexual abuse allegations at a Catholic high school in northeast Ohio three decades ago, and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese said it had received allegations of abuse at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

When Baker was the school’s athletic trainer, 20 former students allege that he assaulted or molested students under the guise of providing therapeutic treatment or medical care for treatment of sports injuries, said Attorney Michael Parrish of Johnstown, who represents the accusers.

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.

IRELAND
The Journal

ABOUT 120 PEOPLE have attended a protest outside the residence of the Papal Nuncio to Ireland, in Cabra in Dublin, over the treatment of Fr Tony Flannery.

The liberal Redemptorist priest, who founded the Association of Catholic Priests, has been taken out of ministry while the Vatican investigates his involvement with the group.

The body has been outspoken in its calls for an end to clerical celibacy and the right of priests to marry – as well as seeking an overhaul to church teachings on sexuality and on the method of selection for bishops.

The 66-year-old has been ordered to sign a document confirming his adherence to Church teachings before he will be put back into active ministry – but he has refused to do so, saying this week he would be unable to look at himself in the mirror if he did.

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.

IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

The Association of Catholics in Ireland [ACI] expressed concerns in relation to the Fr. Tony Flannery case via a letter to the Irish Times on Wednesday 23 January. Unfortunately the letter has not been published to date – see text below.

In light of comments from Fr. Tony during the week which clarified the chronology of events and the role of the CDF in the controversy in recent months the ACI deemed it appropriate to address an ‘open letter’ to the Papal Nuncio which is also published below.

Letter to the Irish Times

Dear Sir,

We, the members of the Steering Group of the ‘fledgeling’ Association of Catholics in Ireland [ACI], view with great sadness the impasse which has developed between Fr. Tony Flannery and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF]. In this week of prayer for Christian Unity, when Catholics are encouraged to enter into dialogue with members of other churches, it seems extraordinary that the CDF has refused dialogue with one of our own priests. We have sympathy too for the leaders of the Redemptorists in Ireland and abroad in the dilemma in which they have been placed.

The position of the Irish bishops is not known. Since they have insisted on the right of politicians to follow their consciences in a free vote on the abortion legislation issue, surely consistency and coherence must demand that they champion the right of a priest to follow his conscience? As the present Pope, then Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote: “Over the Pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed over all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.” (Commentary on Section 16 of Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.)

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

MENSAH M. DEAN, Daily News Staff Writer deanm@phillynews.com, 215-568-8278

Posted: Sunday, January 27, 2013

JURY DELIBERATIONS began Friday afternoon in the trial of a Catholic priest and a former Catholic-schoolteacher who are accused of sexually assaulting the same altar boy in the late 1990s.

The Common Pleas jury got the case after hearing closing arguments from Assistant District Attorney Mark Cipolletti and defense attorney Michael J. McGovern, who represents the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, 66.

Defense attorney Burton Rose, who represents Bernard Shero, 50, gave his closing argument Thursday.

Cipolletti said there was no doubt about the defendants’ guilt and asked the jury to give their accuser justice by convicting them.

The accuser, now 24, testified that beginning at age 10, when he was an altar boy at St. Jerome’s Church in the Northeast, he was sexually assaulted by the two defendants and by defrocked priest Edward Avery, 70, who pleaded guilty last year and is serving 2 1/2 to 5 years in state 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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted: Sunday, January 27, 2013

After 81/2 days of testimony and closing arguments that brought the alleged victim to tears, a Philadelphia jury has begun working toward a verdict in the child-rape trial of a Philadelphia Catholic priest and ex-parochial-school teacher.

The Common Pleas Court jury of eight men and four women met for two hours Friday before breaking until Monday.

The Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero are charged in one of the most salacious episodes in the 2011 county investigating grand jury report on child sex-abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia: the serial rape of a 10-year-old Northeast boy.

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.

IRELAND
Galway News

January 27, 2013

The residence of the Papal Nuncio in Dublin is to be picketed today, in protest against the Catholic Church’s treatment of well-known Athenry-based Fr. Tony Flannery.

Last week Fr. Flannery revealed on Galway bay Fm how he had been censored by the Vatican for his views on homosexuality and women priests, and called the Vatican’s systems “unfair and unjust.”

The protest has been organised by the group ‘We Are Church Ireland’.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Tony Flannery is an unlikely heretic. An Irish Redemptorist priest, he is now being threatened with excommunication from his own church.

So who cares? According to some media reports last week, a new survey of Irish public opinion ranks religion last among 119 priorities. But the survey and the reports about it were misleading.

Rome has let Flannery know that his opinions on the priesthood, and on the role of the laity, “are clearly contrary to the defined teaching of the Church” (as Rome sees it). He was stripped of his column in the Redemptorists’ Reality magazine, forbidden to administer the sacraments and now has one last chance to recant before being excluded from the institution to which he has given his life.

Some have linked his predicament to Enda Kenny’s criticism of the Vatican. Flannery’s brother Frank has long been a leading light in Fine Gael. Rome was not happy with the Taoiseach’s criticisms, and it was whispered by some that Fr Flannery had a hand in Kenny’s controversial speech of 2011. When Fr Flannery first heard that whisper, he thought it was a joke. He says: “I had absolutely nothing to do with the speech. I keep well away from politics in my profession.”

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Gerard O’Regan

Saturday January 26 2013

THIS past Christmas Eve, as befits some people who come under the banner of that cringe-inducing phrase ‘a la carte Catholics’, I attended a Gospel Mass in St Francis Xavier’s Church in Dublin’s Gardiner Street.

I had never been there before. But a friend spoke fervently about its gospel choir. “We always go there at Christmas. For some reason the church can be very atmospheric and spiritual at that time of year. But you have to arrive early so as to get a seat. It’s normally packed on Christmas Eve,” he warned.

And so, we arrived in plenty of time, and got a spot near the choir in one of the front pews, when the building was still quite empty. Then slowly and steadily came the soft footfall of people arriving out of the December night. Sure enough, almost without warning, the church was indeed “packed”.

As I looked around at this varied mix of humanity – the young, the old, the married, the single, the healthy, the infirm, the happy, the depressed, the believers and the non-believers – I could not but contemplate the embrace 2,000 years of Roman Catholicism has had on the very soul of Ireland.

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.

AUSTRALIA
Macedon Ranges Weekly

By DAN MOSS STATE PARLIAMENT EDITOR
Jan. 28, 2013, midnight

A VAST majority of Catholics were “horrified” and “overwhelmed” by reports of child sexual abuse and “want something done”, former Gladstone Park priest Philip O’Donnell has said.

Mr O’Donnell, who also served in Sunbury, told a Victorian Senate inquiry into how the churches handle child sex abuse that “countless thousands” of victims in Victoria had not yet come forward and reported abuse at the hands of church representatives.

A former priest who served from 1969-99, Mr O’Donnell said he “knew” sexual abuse of children occurred, and he reported it. But he faced years of the claims being deferred and “swept under the carpet”.

The ‘Melbourne Response’, a protocol that the Catholic church used to deal with reports of sexual abuse against priests and other church staff, should be disbanded, he said.

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

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Eilis O’Hanlon

Sunday January 27 2013

Since it was first published, Why Men Don’t Listen And Women Can’t Read Maps has arguably saved more marriages than Relationships Ireland.

The format has been flogged to death at this stage, with more sequels than Police Academy, but its central thesis – that men and women are just different and we should learn to live with it – remains as relevant now as ever.

What’s odd is that, considering how awful they are at responding to other people’s emotional needs, men were the ones who got to be priests.

Women are much better at empathising, listening, communicating. They really should’ve been doing the job all along. The Pope, in turn, would surely contend that, had Christ wanted women priests, then he would have invited them to sit around the table at the Last Supper rather than doing the waitressing – and it is for challenging this view of the priesthood that Redemptorist Fr Tony Flannery has now been threatened with excommunication.

The precise sequence of events remains muddled, despite a slew of media interviews; the details are still being haggled over by supporters and detractors alike. Some of the headlines about priests being silenced by a latter-day version of the Spanish Inquisition were mischievous, to say the least.

But it does now seem incontestable that, having originally irked the church by saying that Jesus did not “ordain” the Apostles as such, the priesthood merely developing over time in response to historical circumstances, he has now been asked not only to state that Christ laid down a particular hierarchical template for the church, but that it can never include women. Something he can’t do, because he doesn’t believe it. The question then is whether the church’s response to that challenge is a wise or appropriate one.

Conservative Catholics argue that Fr Flannery joined a club and should either abide by its rules or get out. …

Priests have raped children and not been excommunicated. Bishops have covered up the rape of children and been promoted. It’s still not a heresy to believe that unbaptised children may burn in Hell; the church would rather priests didn’t believe it, but they won’t stop you if you do.

That may be a crude caricature of the church’s attitude to cherishing children, but it’s a real and powerful one. To counter it, the church needs to establish a narrative which is equally as compelling. Instead, it seems to have become increasingly insular, talking to themselves rather than to the world. Ultimately, that can only damage the church.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

January 27, 2013

By Ann Rodgers / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Brother Stephen Baker, a Franciscan friar accused of sexually abusing dozens of teens in at least three states, has committed suicide in his monastery in Newry, Blair County.

The accusers include more than 25 students at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White said an autopsy by the Blair County coroner found that 62-year-old Brother Stephen Baker killed himself with a knife Saturday morning. Chief White declined to say whether he left a note.

Brother Baker lived at St. Bernardine Monastery. Another resident of the monastery discovered Brother Baker in his room not breathing and called Blair County 911 at 7:35 a.m. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The autopsy by county Coroner Patricia Ross found he died shortly before his body was discovered.

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

UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By EMILY BAZELON

Published: January 24, 2013

The detective spread out the photographs on the kitchen table, in front of Nicole, on a December morning in 2006. She was 17, but in the pictures, she saw the face of her 10-year-old self, a half-grown girl wearing make-up. The bodies in the images were broken up by pixelation, but Nicole could see the outline of her father, forcing himself on her. Her mother, sitting next to her, burst into sobs.

The detective spoke gently, but he had brutal news: the pictures had been downloaded onto thousands of computers via file-sharing services around the world. They were among the most widely circulated child pornography on the Internet. Also online were video clips, similarly notorious, in which Nicole spoke words her father had scripted for her, sometimes at the behest of other men. For years, investigators in the United States, Canada and Europe had been trying to identify the girl in the images.

Nicole’s parents split up when she was a toddler, and she grew up living with her mother and stepfather and visiting her father, a former policeman, every other weekend at his apartment in a suburban town in the Pacific Northwest. He started showing her child pornography when she was about 9, telling her that it was normal for fathers and daughters to “play games” like in the pictures. Soon after, he started forcing her to perform oral sex and raping her, dressing her in tight clothes and sometimes binding her with ropes. When she turned 12, she told him to stop, but he used threats and intimidation to continue the abuse for about a year. He said that if she told anyone what he’d done, everyone would hate her for letting him. He said that her mother would no longer love her.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Robert Hoatson spent Saturday afternoon and evening dealing with alleged victims of Brother Paul Stephen Baker, the Franciscan friar who committed suicide earlier in the day.

“At this point, they’re numb. They’re trying to figure out how they feel,” said Hoatson, a victim advocate who is founder and president of Road to Recovery of Livingston, N.J.

“They called him ‘Bro.’ There is shock and numbness.”

Baker, 62, had resided in Blair County since his early 2000s departure from Bishop McCort Catholic High School, where he worked on behalf of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johns­town as a religion instructor and in the athletic department.

Baker died early Saturday of a self-inflicted stab wound.

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

CALIFORNIA
Ventura County Star

Church personnel records made public last week reveal how badly some officials with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles bungled the response to priests accused of molestation.

And the decades-old records, totaling about 3,000 pages, are just the tip of the iceberg. Roughly 30,000 pages of documents are expected to be released in the near future as part of the Los Angeles archdiocese’s $660 million settlement in 2007 with clergy-abuse victims.

The newly released documents show church officials expressed great concern about keeping alleged molesters from facing criminal and civil charges. Deliberate steps were taken to keep them beyond the reach of prosecutors.

But, with only a few exceptions, the records contain scant evidence of official concern about the victims of abuse or taking steps to help them deal with the psychological and emotional scars from abuse.

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.

WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

CONTACT:
Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director, 414.429.7259/John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director, 414.336.8575

It has been learned that last week Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki quietly returned to ministry a twice reported, twice removed and now twice reinstated Roman Catholic priest after separate reports of sexually assaulting teenagers. An announcement was made to parishioners on January 17th at St. John Neumann parish in Waukesha that their pastor Fr. John Schreiter had been officially reinstated. According to the announcement Schreiter has left for Arizona and is expected to return in the spring.

In 2004, Schreiter was removed from his previous position as pastor of St. Bruno Church in Dousman following a first report that he had sexually assaulted a teenager. The Saux County District Attorney’s Office was unable to consider the case because it fell under the old statute of limitations. Cardinal Dolan, then archbishop of Milwaukee, returned Schreiter to ministry, stating that his handpicked review board had found the sexual assault report to be somehow “unsubstantiated”.

Then, in June of 2012 a new report from a second alleged victim of Schreiter’s was received through the Milwaukee Archdiocese bankruptcy filing. Schreiter was removed as a pastor, this time from St. John Neumann’s. Now Listecki and his handpicked review board has returned him to ministry again. The review board appears to have never directly heard from either of the victims.

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

UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

David Sessions

A pastor whose family was murdered in New Mexico belonged to a large association of evangelical churches that, critics allege, stands behind misbehaving pastors and looks away when they are accused of sexual abuse and other misdeeds.

Greg Griego, who was slaughtered along with his wife and children, allegedly by his 15-year-old son, Nehemiah last week near Albuquerque, was a beloved minister. A born-again gang member, he seemed to serve anywhere he would be had: as a minister in Albuquerque’s fire department, at a detention center, and in the prison ministry at Calvary Albuquerque, a megachurch affiliated with the Calvary Chapel network of over a thousand similar churches. After allegedly committing the horrific crimes, Nehemiah reportedly spent hours hanging around Calvary Albuquerque, telling church members his family died in a car accident.

The Albuquerque massacre wasn’t the first time lately that a Calvary Chapel-affiliated church found itself part of a grim news cycle. Calvary is one of several large evangelical denominations beginning to draw national attention as lawsuits pile up over abuses allegedly covered up by pastors and church leaders. Over the past decades, Calvary has been plagued with accusations ranging from unaccountable leadership to covered-up sexual abuse, raising questions similar to those faced by Roman Catholic hierarchy about what kind of role the church’s top leaders were playing behind the scenes.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribue-Democrat

Kathy Mellott kmellott@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — A Franciscan Friar who worked for a decade at Bishop McCort Catholic High School committed suicide on Saturday.

But stories that emerged about alleged sexual abuse by Brother Paul Stephen Baker have caused others abused by the clergy to relive the incidents that altered their lives and brought back pain they sought to forget.

John Nesbella, 50, formerly of Lilly and now living in Nanty Glo, was a student at Bishop Carroll High School in the 1970s when he repeatedly was abused by a Catholic priest.

As a child, Brian Gergely, 43, of Ebensburg, was an altar boy who was repeatedly abused by a Catholic priest in 1981-82.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Altoona Mirror

January 27, 2013

By Russ O’Reilly (roreilly@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

HOLLIDAYSBURG – The Franciscan friar accused last week of sexually abusing dozens of Bishop McCort High School students during in the 1990s died from a self-inflicted stab wound to the heart Saturday morning, Blair County Coroner Patty Ross said.

He left a note, Ross said, but it is totally confidential.”

Baker was found in his room Saturday morning at St. Bernardine Monastery by another friar, Blair Township Police Chief Roger White stated in a press release. He was 62.

White, state police and the county coroner were dispatched at 7:35 a.m. to St. Bernardine Monastery at 768 Monastery Road, where they investigated until a medical van carried away Bakers covered body minutes before a distant noon church bell rang.

Baker allegedly abused dozens of young boys, according to allegations that began surfacing recently in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He spent the mid-1980s teaching and coaching in Ohio, then at McCort from 1993 to 2000.

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

CALIFORNIA
Daily Bulletin

By Tracy Manzer, Staff Writers
gvtribune.com
Posted: 01/26/2013

It’s been more than 10 years since the Catholic Church faced the pinnacle of its sex abuse scandal, one which many refer to as the church’s greatest crisis since the Reformation.

In this last decade, church leaders and members say, they have had to come to terms with feelings of anger, confusion and shame over the dark history of child molestation and the cover-up.

But they take comfort, they say, in the knowledge their church is not the same organization it once was. There has been not only a change in policy, but a change in culture.

“When you look at our past and compare where we are today you see a progression, you see a different response to these issues, and you see, I think, a completely different church,” said Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

One outgrowth of that change is an overhaul of how Los Angeles churches treat reports of abuse, including new extensive education for clergy, parishioners and children. There are also background checks and training for those connected with a church who may come into regular contact with children.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Tallmadge Express

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A western Pennsylvania police chief says the death of a Franciscan friar named in Ohio sex abuse settlements and under investigation in Pennsylvania abuse allegations was a suicide.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White told the Associated Press on Saturday that an autopsy by the Blair County coroner had confirmed that 62-year-old Brother Stephen Baker died of self-inflicted wounds.

White said officers were called at about 7:35 a.m. Saturday to St. Bernardine Monastery, where another resident had found Baker not breathing. He declined to say how Baker died or whether he left a note.

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.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Hector Becerra, Ashley Powers and Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times
January 26, 2013

On a Sunday night at Dodger Stadium in 1986, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony celebrated Mass in flawless Spanish. In an era when immigrants in Los Angeles were routinely derided as parasites and criminals, the archbishop told the crowd of 55,000 that whether they were born in Puebla, San Salvador or Managua, they were part of his flock.

“The Catholic Church is your home and I am your pastor,” Mahony said.

But even as cheers of “Rogelio! Rogelio!” rained down from the upper decks, Mahony was covering up the sexual abuse of some of the most vulnerable in the church, including in his beloved Latino community, church records show.

Over the last four decades, hundreds of people have come forward to say they were abused by priests in the archdiocese. Children were victimized at parishes across the L.A. area, in poor neighborhoods as well as wealthy ones. But internal church documents released last week shined a spotlight on Mahony’s mishandling of two pedophile priests who abused the undocumented — a group the prelate often described as society’s most in need of protection. Mahony worked to make sure the priests got therapy, found new jobs and stayed out of prison. For the child victims, little was done.

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

CALIFORNIA
Pasadena Star-News

[Archive of Los Angeles Archdiocesan Documents – BishopAccountability.org]

By Barbara Jones and Tracy Manzer, Staff Writerss
gvtribune.com
Posted: 01/26/2013

When the Most Rev. Roger Michael Mahony was tapped by Pope John Paul II to be the shepherd of Los Angeles’ 3 million Roman Catholics, a local priest called the choice “a breath of fresh air for the archdiocese.”

Within months of his installation as archbishop on Sept. 5, 1985, the North Hollywood native had advocated for immigration reform, encouraged interfaith communication and launched plans to expand spiritual and social programs for the region’s Hispanic Catholics. Mahony quickly became a fixture in Los Angeles as he ministered to the region’s disenfranchised residents and rubbed elbows with its civic leaders.

“We must realize that Christ came as the son of God not only to spend his time in the synagogue, but also to involve himself in the daily life of the people,” he said in an interview at the time.

“We as his disciples must realize the Gospel must speak to actual, current situations.”

For Mahony, those situations would include complaints that scores of his priests were abusing children — altar boys, students in parochial schools, sons and daughters of their parishioners.

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

CALIFORNIA
The Record

By The Record

January 27, 2013

Retired Cardinal Roger Mahony said again this week how sorry he is.

In a slightly different way, the word sorry can also be used to describe Mahony as a person and as a one-time leader of the nation’s largest Catholic enclave, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Confidential files just made public clearly show that Mahony, for five years bishop of the Stockton diocese before moving to his Los Angeles post in 1985, shielded numerous molester priests.

Much of this has been suspected if not conclusively known for years, but memos written in 1986 and 1987 by Mahony and Monsignor Thomas J. Curry, then the archdiocese’s chief adviser on sex abuse cases, offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation’s largest Catholic diocese to shield abusers from police.

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

UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Opus Dei Bishop Finn is a convicted criminal and he should be excommunicated immediately. Bishop Finn is the shame and scandal of the Vatican Catholic Church in the USA and he is the evil Achilles Heel of Benedict XVI, his fellow criminal whose crimes against humanity are pending at The Hague.

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.

OHIO/PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune Chronicle

January 26, 2013

Tribune Chronicle | TribToday.com

Police say a Franciscan friar accused of sexual abusing students at schools in two states killed himself at a western Pennsylvania monastery.

Blair Township police Chief Roger White tells the Associated Press an autopsy by the county coroner confirmed that 62-year-old Brother Stephen Baker died of self-inflicted wounds. He declined to specify the type of wounds or say whether a note was found. …

Dr. Robert Hoatson, who leads the New Jersey-based Road to Recovery, Inc. said in a release that Baker’s death is “unfortunate.”

“Victim/survivors have stepped forward in significant numbers to bravely report that they were harmed as children and would like to heal,” the release states. “That healing will continue despite the news that has come out of Pennsylvania today.”

Hoatson goes on to say that Baker’s death is “in no way the fault of any of the courageous men and women who have contacted advocacy agencies, attorneys, or law enforcement agencies.”

He also extends condolences to the family and community members of Baker.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

By WJAC Web Staff

Police said the Franciscan brother accused of sexually abusing several former Bishop McCort High School students in the ‘90s is dead.

Blair Township police told 6 News Brother Stephen Baker who lived at a monastery near Hollidaysburg died this morning. They said they were called at 7:35 Saturday morning and he was dead upon their arrival.

Police said the cause of death is under investigation and an autopsy will be conducted Saturday afternoon.

It’s now been a week since allegations surfaced against Baker in Cambria County.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
CBS Pittsburgh

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (KDKA/AP) — Police say a Franciscan friar accused in the alleged sexual abuse of students at schools in two states took his own life at a western Pennsylvania monastery.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White tells the Associated Press an autopsy by the county coroner confirmed that 62-year-old Brother Stephen Baker died of self-inflicted wounds.

According to the Associated Press, White said officers were called to St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday morning after another resident had found Baker not breathing.

Baker was named last week in legal settlements with 11 men who alleged he sexually abused them at a northeast Ohio school three decades ago. A Pennsylvania school said it has also received molestation allegations involving Baker.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

BY PATRICK BUCHNOWSKI PBUCHNOWSKI@TRIBDEM.COM

The Franciscan friar at the heart of a high school sex scandal in Johnstown is dead.

Brother Stephen P. Baker, who had been accused of sexually abusing boys when he taught at Bishop McCort Catholic High School, died today.

A spokesman for St. Bernardine Monastery of the Franciscan Friars Third Order Reagular near Hollidaysburg issued a statement confirming the death.

“We regret to announce that Brother Stephen Baker died this morning,” said Father Patrick Quinn, TOR, minister provincial.

“The matter is under investigation by the authorities.”

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Franciscan friar from Cambria County accused of sexually abusing dozens of teens in at least three states — including more than 25 at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s — has committed suicide.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White said that an autopsy by the Blair County coroner found that 62-year-old Brother Stephen Baker killed himself with a knife. Chief White declined to say whether he left a note.

Another resident of the monastery discovered Brother Baker in his room not breathing and called Blair County 911 at 7:35 a.m. He was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy directed by Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross found he died shortly before his body was discovered.

The Diocese of Youngstown, which was among three parties that reached a settlement with 11 victims earlier this month, released a statement on its website earlier today about his death.

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.

YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Youngstown

STATEMENT OF BISHOP GEORGE V. MURRY, S.J., BISHOP OF YOUNGSTOWN, ON THE DEATH OF BROTHER STEPHEN BAKER, T.O.R

JANUARY 26, 2013

The Provincial of the Third Order Regular Franciscans, Father Patrick Quinn, announced this morning that Brother Stephen Baker had died. At this time, the circumstances of his death are under investigation.

Let us continue to pray for all victims of abuse, for Brother Baker’s family and the repose of his soul.

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.

OHIO
Youngstown Vindicator

Associated Press

HOLIDAYSBURG, Pa.

Mike Munno said he knew there would be some strange days ahead when he and a fellow Warren John F. Kennedy High School graduate discussed the sex crimes they say Franciscan brother Stephen Baker committed against them in high school, but Brother Baker’s death isn’t the outcome he wanted or expected.

“I don’t think it’s the closure we expected. I would have not thought it would have gone to this extreme,” Munno of Cortland said Saturday after police in Hollidaysburg, Pa., found Baker dead in his room at St. Bernadine Monastery in Newry, Pa., about 90 minutes east of Pittsburgh.

“No matter what it is, you don’t wish death on anybody,” Munno said.

Baker’s body was found at about 7:30 a.m., and an autopsy was scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Officials from the Youngstown Catholic Diocese and Brother Baker’s Franciscan order said the circumstances of his death are under investigation.

“Let us continue to pray for all victims of abuse, for Brother Baker’s family and the repose of his soul,” Bishop George V. Murry of the Youngstown Diocese said in a statement.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Altoona Mirror

January 26, 2013

By Russ O’Reilly
roreilly@altoonamirror.com

HOLLIDAYSBURG – Franciscan friar Stephen Baker, who faced brewing litigation for alleged abuse, died Saturday at St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg. His death was ruled a suicide by Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White said the cause of death was a self-inflicted knife wound. He said the investigation into Baker’s death was closed.

An autopsy was conducted Saturday afternoon at Nason Hospital in Roaring Spring.

Baker was pronounced dead at the monastery by Blair County Deputy Coroner Brian Reidy.

At 7:35 a.m. today, the Blair Township Police Department, Hollidaysburg EMS and the Pennsylvania State Police were dispatched to the monastery located at 768 Monastery Road, Hollidaysburg.

Baker was discovered in his room by another resident of St. Bernardine’s, who then made the initial call for assistance to emergency services.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
LALATE

ST LOUIS (LALATE) – Brother Stephen Baker, an accused Franciscan friar, has committed suicide, officials tell news. Brother Stephen Baker was found dead Saturday January 28, 2013 days after he reached a settlement for alleged conduct against former male students.

Local police confirm that Brother Baker was found dead of a purported suicide. Officials indicated to news that Baker suffered a self inflicted wounds earlier Saturday morning. Blair Township Police Chief Roger White confirmed that Baker was found inside St. Bernardine Monastery earlier today. White would not confirm if Baker had shot himself.

Later today, Youngstown Bishop George Murray issued a new statement about the suicide. “Let us continue to pray for all victims of abuse, for Brother Baker’s family and the repose of his soul.”

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.

PENNSYLVANIA/OHIO
Fox Youngstown

The Catholic Franciscan friar accused of sexually molesting students at Warren’s John F. Kennedy High School and Johnstown, Pa.’s Bishop McCort High School committed suicide with a knife early Saturday morning, police officials in Blair Township said.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White said the results of an autopsy conducted at 2 p.m. Saturday by the Blair County Coroner’s office at Nason Hospital in Roaring Spring, Pa. showed Brother Stephen P. Baker, also known as Paul Stephen Baker, committed suicide by way of a self-inflicted knife wound. He was 62.

White said in a statement that Blair Township police, state police and Holidaysburg emergency personnel were called at about 7:30 a.m. Saturday to St. Bernadine’s Monastary in Hollidaysburg, where Baker had been staying under strict supervision since 2000, when Franciscan officials first learned Baker was accused of sexually abusing students.

A resident at the monastery found Baker not breathing and called 911. He was pronounced dead at the scene by deputy coroner Brian Reidy. The autopsy found Baker’s death was just prior to the 911 call.

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.

OHIO
Youngstown Vindicator

YOUNGSTOWN — Franciscan Brother Stephen P. Baker, accused in the sexual abuse of at least 11 men who attended Warren John F. Kennedy High School, is dead, according to a statement from the Youngstown Diocese.

“The Provincial of the Third Order Regular Franciscans, Father Patrick Quinn, announced this morning that Brother Stephen Baker had died,” said a statement from Bishop George V. Murry, posted on the diocese’s website. “At this time, the circumstances of his death are under investigation.”

The statement continued: “Let us continue to pray for all victims of abuse, for Brother Baker’s family and the repose of his soul.”

Baker taught, coached baseball and served as athletic trainer at the school from 1986 to 1991. Since word of settlement of a lawsuit on behalf of the 11 men earlier this month, other men in Pennsylvania and other areas have come forward with stories of abuse by Baker.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Huffington Post

By RON TODT 01/26/13

PHILADELPHIA — A Franciscan friar accused of sexually abusing students at Catholic high schools in Ohio and Pennsylvania killed himself at a western Pennsylvania monastery, police said Saturday.

Brother Stephen Baker, 62, was found dead of self-inflicted wounds at the St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday morning, Blair Township Police Chief Roger White told the Associated Press. He declined to specify the type of wounds or say whether a note was found.

Baker was named in legal settlements last week involving 11 men who alleged that he sexually abused them at a Catholic high school in northeast Ohio three decades ago. The undisclosed financial settlements announced Jan. 16 involved his contact with students at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, Ohio from 1986-90.

The Youngstown diocese previously said it was unaware of the allegations until nearly 20 years after the alleged abuse.

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

UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By FRANK BRUNI

Published: January 26, 2013

“I HAVE nothing against priests,” writes Garry Wills in his provocative new book, “Why Priests? A Failed Tradition,” and I’d like at the outset to say the same. During a career that has included no small number of formal interviews and informal conversations with them, I’ve met many I admire, men of genuine compassion and remarkable altruism, more dedicated to humanity than to any dogma or selective tradition.

But while I have nothing against priests, I have quite a lot against an institution that has done a disservice to them and to the parishioners in whose interests they should toil. I refer to the Roman Catholic Church, specifically to its modern incarnation and current leaders, who have tucked priests into a cosseted caste above the flock, wrapped them in mysticism and prioritized their protection and reputations over the needs and sometimes even the anguish of the people in the pews. I have a problem, in other words, with the church’s arrogance, a thread that runs through Wills’s book, to be published next month; through fresh revelations of how assiduously a cardinal in Los Angeles worked to cover up child sexual abuse; and through the church’s attempts to silence dissenters, including an outspoken clergyman in Ireland who was recently back in the news.

LET’S start with Los Angeles. Last week, as a result of lawsuits filed against the archdiocese of Los Angeles by hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by priests, internal church personnel files were made public. They showed that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony’s impulse, when confronted with priests who had molested children, was to hush it up and keep law enforcement officials at bay. While responses like this by Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals have been extensively chronicled and are no longer shocking, they remain infuriating. At one point Cardinal Mahony instructed a priest whom he’d dispatched to New Mexico for counseling not to return to California, lest he risk being criminally prosecuted. That sort of shielding of priests from accountability allowed them, in many cases across the United States, to continue their abusive behavior and claim more young victims.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

Friday, January 25, 2013

By Ralph Cipriano
for bigtrial.net

It was a telling sign in the prosecutor’s closing statement that he spent as much time attacking a social worker for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia as he did the two defendants in the case.

But Assistant District Attorney Mark Cipolletti had to address glaring discrepancies between what “Billy Doe,” the alleged victim in this sex abuse case, told the social worker, Louise Hagner, back in 2009, and what he subsequently told law enforcement authorities.

Cipolletti also had to call into question the testimony of former priest Edward V. Avery, who showed up in court in a prison uniform last week to tell the jury that he never touched Billy Doe.

Avery may have pleaded guilty last year to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with the former 10-year-old altar boy, the former priest testified, but he only did it because he was facing 20 years in prison, and the prosecution offered him a sweetheart deal — 2 /12 to five years in jail. Incredibly, nobody ever asked the 70-year-old defrocked priest if he actually was guilty of committing the crime he pleaded guilty to until last week.

The assistant district attorney also had to explain away another factual discrepancy between what Billy Doe told this jury, and what he told a detective in the district attorney’s office.

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

UNITED STATES
Vatican Insider

The shocking case involving a Catholic hospital in Cañon City has occurred just as the annual March for Life is taking place

Alessandro Speciale
Rome

Just as anti-abortion activists celebrate the annual March for Life in Washington, the American Catholic Church finds itself in a rather embarassing situation: a Catholic hospital in Colorado defended itself against a wrongful death lawsuit, stating that a foetus is not the same as a person.

This stance is in direct contrast with the position of the Church which has fought for years for the rights of unborn children and the rights of the hospital in question which in its statute states that the sanctity of life should be defended from conception until natural death.

In court, however, the lawyers representing Catholic Health Initiatives – the chain of hospitals which St. Thomas More in Cañon City is part of – claimed the opposite. A woman who was pregnant with twins died in St. Thomas More hospital on New year’s Eve in 2006, partly because according to her husband, the on-call obstetrician who was supposed to assist in the operating room did not turn up.

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.

GERMANY
Vatican Insider

A study on Germany’s Catholic community reveals the discontent of faithful with the ecclesiastical institution. But proposals for solutions are lacking

Alessandro Alviani
Berlin

The Pope’s ecclesiastical policies are “backward-looking” and suspected of trying to take the Church back to the pre-Second Vatican Council period. As for the Church’s leaders, they are “cut off from reality, reactionary and obstructionist.”

This is the opinion German faithful have of Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church according to a study by Sinus Institute and consulting agency MDG (which the German Church controls). In-depth interviews were conducted with 100 Catholics from different social backgrounds. According to the study, which picks up on a similar one carried out in 2005, German faithful are convinced that today’s Church finds itself in a “desolate situation” and the most obvious manifestation of this is the sex abuse scandal.

The authors of the study wrote that the scandal seriously damaged the image of the Church, even in the eyes of the most fervent Catholics, whose faith was deeply shaken. The scandal was seen as confirmation of the Church’s “modernization deficit”. The Church lost a great deal of credibility not just as a result of the accusations of paedophilia made against it but also because many believe it dealt with the abuse issue inadequately.

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

Der Begriff „Opfer sexueller Gewalt“ bedürfe einer „differenzierten Betrachtung“. Mit diesen Worten hat Bernhard Schweßinger, Pressesprecher der Diözese Würzburg, auf einen Gastbeitrag des Theologen Bernhard Rasche in dieser Zeitung reagiert. Rasche, der aus Bischofsheim (Lkr. Rhön-Grabfeld) stammt, hatte den Umgang der katholischen Kirche mit Missbrauchsfällen in den 70er Jahren im Internat Lebenhan (Lkr. Rhön-Grabfeld) scharf kritisiert.

Schweßinger erklärt: „Einen solchen Gastbeitrag sollte besser jemand schreiben, der tatsächlich missbraucht wurde, nicht jemand, der Zeuge war.“ In der aktuellen Diskussion würde der Opferbegriff, so Schweßinger, „zunächst die direkt betroffenen Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs“ bezeichnen. „Darüber hinaus können Zeugen sexuellen Missbrauchs oder Angehörige von direkt betroffenen Opfern im weiteren Sinne auch Opfer sein“.

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.

CONNECTICUT
My Fox NY

By DAVE COLLINS
Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – To onlookers, Monsignor Kevin Wallin’s fall from grace at his Connecticut parish was like something out of “Breaking Bad,” the television series about a high school chemistry teacher who becomes a methamphetamine lord.

The suspended Roman Catholic priest was arrested on federal drug charges this month for allegedly having methamphetamine mailed to him from co-conspirators in California and making more than $300,000 in drugs sales out of his apartment in Waterbury in the second half of last year.

Along the way, authorities said, he bought a small adult video and sex toy shop in the nearby town of North Haven named “Land of Oz & Dorothy’s Place,” apparently to launder all the money he was making. He has pleaded not guilty, and jury selection in his trial is scheduled to begin March 21.

On social media sites, people couldn’t help but compare Wallin with Walter White, the main character on “Breaking Bad” who was making so much cash that he and his wife bought a car wash to launder their profits. He has also been dubbed in some media as “Monsignor Meth.”

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.

IRELAND
Evening Echo

THE ordination of the Diocese of Cloyne’s new bishop on Sunday will be streamed online amid unprecedented interest in the appointment.

Canon William Crean will be ordained at St Colman’s Cathedral in Cobh on Sunday during an invitation-only ceremony at 3pm.

Parishes throughout the diocese have been restricted to 25 places for parishioners at the ceremony due to the demand to be present for the event. The Diocese of Cloyne has 46 parishes, 107 churches and 150,000 parishioners.

Up to 150 priests will attend the ordination, as will Papal Nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown, the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Dr Dermot Clifford and Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin. St Colman’s Cathedral has a capacity of approximately 600.

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.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Asian Journal

Friday, 25 January 2013
Mico Letargo | AJPress

LOS ANGELES – Confidential records attached in a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles revealed how church officials attempted to keep silent about abuse allegations for decades, and maneuvered outside of the public eye to shield molester priests.

An in-depth report by the Associated Press revealed that one of the molester priests was exiled to the Philippines by archdiocese officials and was paid a ‘secret salary’ as well.

The exiled priest, along with six other clerics, were accused of having sex with a teen and impregnating her.

The lawsuit also implicated retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and other top church officials in the handling of the damage control campaign for the archdiocese, in attempts to keep parishioners uninformed of the abuses.

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.

AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY and MICHELLE HARRIS
Jan. 25, 2013

TWO Hunter men were in tears on Friday after the NSW government expanded the scope of its special commission of inquiry to include Hunter paedophile priest Jim Fletcher.

And then there were cheers.

‘‘That is bloody brilliant,’’ said John Feenan, whose son Daniel’s evidence about Fletcher’s crimes put the priest in jail, where he died in 2006.

‘‘Our family has always believed the church hierarchy knew Fletcher was a risk around children, which is why he was moved. Bishop Leo Clarke and others knew.

‘‘It’s my birthday today, and that’s the best present I’ve had in years.’’

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.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By D.J. Waldie
January 27, 2013

In January 2002, the Boston Globe published the first in a series of articles that exposed the sordid history of sexual abuse of youth in the Boston Roman Catholic archdiocese. Those stories revealed how church officials had kept knowledge of abuse from parishioners and kept abusing priests in parishes where they continued to blight the lives and faith of the innocent.

Later in 2002, as more cases of sexual abuse in more dioceses tumbled out of the dark and the silence to which they had been consigned, the U.S. Conference of Bishops hurriedly promised transparency. The Catholic faithful, the bishops said, should know the extent of priestly abuse and their church’s response.

In 2007, after paying at least $660 million in abuse settlements, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles joined a torturous legal defense of a privilege to conceal its part in that history. The Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press, along with advocates for the victims, challenged the claim of archdiocesan officials.

Last week, in response to a court order, the archdiocese released internal records documenting the actions church officials took — or failed to take — when priests were accused of abuse. More documents will be released in coming weeks, but from those we’ve seen already, we know that in the 1980s, then-Archbishop Roger Mahony and his Vicar of Clergy, then-Msgr. Thomas Curry, failed repeatedly when moral judgment required them to choose the good of the Catholic community over loyalty to their fraternity of parish priests.

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

CALIFORNIA
The Orange Juice Blog

By
Ricardo Toro
– January 24, 2013

“This week’s revelations of deliberate efforts by [Los Angeles Cardinal] Mahony and others to shield abusers from law enforcement authorities are deplorable yet entirely unsurprising. It all fits the M.O. that’s was in place at least through the 1980s:

“Conceal the church’s dirty secrets at all costs. Don’t notify the police when abuse is reported. Keep prosecutors at bay with legal challenges. Avoid reforms until public pressure mounts. And, when all else fails, have Mahony issue a carefully scripted ‘apology.’

“His latest was perhaps his most odious and offensive, with Mahony saying he didn’t fully appreciate the hell victims had been put through until many years later.

“You need years of reflection to realize that the rape, abuse, betrayal and psychological exploitation of children by their spiritual leaders is both devastating and unconscionable?”

This is how Steve Lopez, LA Times columnist, describes the outrage of the recently released documents in a current legal proceeding against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles by a victim of a priest.

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, describes the relevance of these documents:

“Because of one survivor’s fight in the California Civil Courts against Father Nicolas Aguilar Rivera and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, never seen before documents containing vital evidence of how clergy abuse cases were handled by the Archdiocese are now available for public view.

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

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Recent Vatican behavior indicates growing fear, if not panic, apparently related mainly to the ongoing clerical sex scandals and to recent papal political defeats. World media outlets are reporting almost daily now more priest sex scandal allegations, most recently about former Los Angeles Cardinal Mahony’s cover-ups for predatory priests and former New York Cardinal Egan’s ex-aide’s cross-dressing and drug and porn dealing. Moreover, on February 4, a week from Monday, HBO will begin airing internationally the devastating award winning documentary, “Mea Maxima Culpa”, about the abuse of over 200 deaf boys and the Vatican’s failure to curtail it. No more free media passes for the Pope, it appears. For some more examples, please read, “How Much Longer Can the Vatican Avoid Priest Sex Abuse?” accessible by clicking on to the heading at the top or to: http://wp.me/P2YEZ3-fj .

Meanwhile, the scandal is seriously harming the Vatican politically, legally, reputationally and financially. Government officials in the USA, Ireland, Italy, Australia, the Philippines, Germany and other nations increasingly challenge papal positions, including on child protection and contraception, sensing evidentally a weakened papacy. If the Pope continues to lose more political clout, he will also lose his power to exchange with political leaders his electoral support for special privileges and subsidies for the Catholic Church, as is already happening in Ireland and will probably soon happen in Australia, the USA and even in his fatherland, Germany.

The new appointment as chief of staff to President Obama of Denis McDonough, the highly regarded brother of a senior hierarchical canon lawyer from the Minneapolis-St. Paul diocese, with its extensive priest sex abuse claims, suggests the President will know well what is going on in the USA with its more than 100,000 estimated survivors of priest sex abuse. President Obama has already spoken out strongly against child sex abuse in organizational settings; now he may step up and do more than talk about it.

Given this, one would have expected the Vatican to try to address the priest scandals seriously and sensibly, and not merely with cosmetic changes and stepped-up spin. Instead, the Vatican seems to be hardening its defenses of the status quo hoping to survive the scandal, very likely a doomed strategy that has failed completely so far. What’s going on?

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Altoona Mirror

January 26, 2013

By Russ O’Reilly (roreilly@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

Despite an allegation of child abuse in 2000, which his current superior said resulted in Hollidaysburg-based Brother Stephen Baker’s removal from public ministry at Bishop McCort High School, the friar had a continued presence at the Johnstown school through the late 2000s, sources said.

A Bishop McCort alumnus told the Mirror that Baker spent time around the school’s football team as an athletic trainer/equipment manager in 2001.

He said Baker arranged for the team’s water boys, eighth-graders, to have their own suite and meal passes during Bishop McCort football camp at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown in fall 2001.

“He made it possible for five or six other eighth-graders to actually stay overnight at camp as water boys,”?he said.

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

SPRINGFIELD (IL)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[Springfield police department report – The Smoking Gun]

Tim Townsend

After all three Masses last weekend, parishioners of St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Springfield, Ill., were handed a statement written by the diocese’s leader, Bishop Thomas Paprocki.

The bishop explained that St. Aloysius’s pastor, the Rev. Thomas Donovan, “is suffering from a psychological condition that manifests itself in self-bondage as a response to stress.”

The statement was a response to a 911 call in November by Donovan from the parish rectory. In it, the priest tells dispatchers he had placed himself in handcuffs and asks police to help free him.

After the recording of Donovan’s 911 call rocketed across the Internet, Paprocki was in a unique situation. His priest had not done anything illegal, and yet he’d been found doing something most people would consider bizarre.

In Paprocki’s 1,038-word response to parishioners, he took the unusual step of delving deep into Donovan’s psychological problem. With the priest’s consent, the statement includes a description of what Donovan’s own clinical therapist had diagnosed as “non-sexual self-bondage.”

For the last decade, in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse crisis that rocked the Catholic church, bishops have been hammered by critics for breaking repeated promises for transparency in documentation of past abuses and investigations of present-day accusations of sexually abusive priests.

But there are signs that a younger generation of church leaders have learned lessons from the last decade and are attempting to be as open as possible when a crisis comes to their diocese.

Yet in the case of St. Aloysius, that desire for transparency may have produced a response that caused more harm than good.

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.

PROVIDENCE (RI)
Calgary Herald

By David Klepper, The Associated Press
January 25, 2013

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A judge agreed on Friday to delay the release of documents related to a disgraced Roman Catholic organization called the Legion of Christ to give it time to appeal his earlier ruling unsealing them.

Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein gave the Legion until Feb. 15 to ask the state Supreme Court to intervene in the tug-of-war over the records, which are from a lawsuit filed by a woman contesting the will of a wealthy aunt who left the Legion $60 million.

The judge had ruled on Wednesday that the public had a right to access the documents despite concerns from the Legion’s attorney, Joseph Avanzato, that they could taint a future jury. Avanzato, in asking the judge to stay his ruling, said Friday that it would be wrong to release the documents before the Legion had an opportunity to appeal the decision that unsealed them.

“The Legion has a right of appeal here, which would be destroyed if there is no stay,” Avanzato said.

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

PROVIDENCE (RI)
National Catholic Reporter

by Dennis Coday | Jan. 25, 2013
NCR Today

National Catholic Reporter is one of four media outlets that asked Silverstein to unseal the documents. The Providence Journal of Providence, R.I.,The New York Times, and the Associated Press are the others.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island judge has agreed to delay the release of records related to the Legion of Christ to give the Roman Catholic order time to appeal his ruling that unsealed the documents.

Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein on Friday agreed to give the Legion until Feb. 15 to ask the state Supreme Court to intervene. The documents are from a lawsuit contesting the will of a woman who left the Legion $60 million.

Silverstein ruled Wednesday that the documents should be unsealed, despite the Legion’s concerns that they could taint a future jury.

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
NW-News

VON ANNIKA FALK UND PETER HASENBEIN

Paderborn. Der Missbrauchsskandal lässt die katholische Kirche nicht zur Ruhe kommen. Nachdem die Bischofskonferenz vor zwei Wochen ein 500.000 Euro teures Forschungsprojekt des renommierten Kriminologen Christian Pfeiffer gestoppt hatte, erntete die Kirche erneut herbe Kritik.

Trotzdem soll das Forschungsprojekt weiterlaufen, widersprach der Paderborner Erzbischof Hans-Josef Becker jetzt den Vorwürfen, die Kirche wolle etwas vertuschen. Man suche gerade einen neuen Kooperationspartner, habe bereits erste Angebote eingeholt und wolle die Ergebnisse anschließend auch veröffentlichen. Becker gab zu, dass man sich von der Prominenz des Kriminologen verleiten ließ und besser etwas länger nach einem passenderen Institut gesucht hätte.
Gekündigt habe man Pfeiffer wegen eines “zerrütteten Vertrauensverhältnisses”, erklärt das Paderborner Generalvikariat in einem gemeinsam verfassten Positionspapier aller Bistümer.

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.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Minnesota SNAP

By Vinnie Nauheimer

Let’s hear it for Cardinal Mahony!
Never was one so full of baloney;
Cunning hypocrite of the first order;
Priest, whose hypocrisy knows no border.

Panderer to the pedophile priest
Let loose the sick, hungry, ravaging beast
Who gorged upon the innocent flesh
Of our children; their pure souls to enmesh.

Roger the dodger spent untold dollars
Keeping, out of jail, rapists with collars!
Spending for lawyers to tighten the screws
On tortured child victims from the pews!

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.

MISSOURI
Ozarks First

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Rev. Stan Archie, the President of the State Board of Education, tendered his resignation Friday. This comes after a lawsuit alleging child sexual abuse, defamation and counseling malpractice.

The Kansas City Star reports the lawsuit was filed by a Kansas City area woman who accuses Rev. Archie of encouraging her to be sexually promiscuous and tell him about her sexual experiences in counseling sessions beginning when she was 15. She says when she ended their relationship, he began harassing and defaming her. The suit also names the his church.

Gov. Jay Nixon announced Friday he accepted the Kansas City native’s resignation. Archie represented the Fifth Congressional District on the Board of Education.

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.

MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

By JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star

The Rev. Stan Archie resigned Friday as the president of the Missouri State Board of Education, two days after a lawsuit was filed in Jackson County Circuit Court accusing him of child sexual abuse.

The resignation was announced in a news release from Gov. Jay Nixon’s office, saying Nixon had accepted it Friday afternoon.

“Strengthening our public education system is a fundamental priority of my administration, and there are several key areas to address in the coming months,” Nixon said. “The State Board of Education will continue to have a crucial role in these matters, and it is important for the board to have a clear focus without distraction from its mission.”

Nixon said he would “be moving forward with consideration of a new appointment to this board.”

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

CALIFORNIA
KCOY

[with video]

By Liberty Zabala

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Dark days fall upon the Catholic Church as files upon files of alleged child sex abuse finally come to light.

Letters between Archdiocese of Los Angeles – Santa Barbara Region Bishop Thomas J. Curry and Cardinal Roger Mahony show they knew about alleged child sex abuse but choose to cover it up.

“You can imagine what the church has to lose,” says Child Sex Abuse Therapist Nancy Gutfreund. “You’re supposed to be an organization that completely protects its people and when there’s damage done nobody wants to admit it.”

But Bishop Curry was forced to, releasing this statement saying:

“I wish to apologize for those instances when I made decisions regarding the treatment and disposition of clergy accused of sexual abuse that in retrospect appear inadequate or mistaken.”

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.

TENNESSEE
Christianity Today

Bobby Ross Jr.

posted 1/25/2013

In response to a civil lawsuit alleging that it covered up numerous cases of child sexual abuse, Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) has pledged to “carefully review” each accusation.

However, the lawsuit—which claims the association of Reformed church plants discouraged victims’ parents from reporting abuse to authorities and had victims forgive their abusers in person—has also prompted the denomination to cite its First Amendment right to religious freedom.

Specifically, SGM has defended its freedom to provide confidential pastoral counseling free of government infringement.

“SGM believes that allowing courts to second-guess pastoral guidance would represent a blow to the First Amendment that would hinder, not help, families seeking spiritual direction among other resources in dealing with the trauma related to any sin including child sexual abuse,” Tommy Hill, SGM’s director of administration, said in a November 14 statement.

Such a stance strikes some legal observers as more of a smokescreen than a legitimate defense.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Beacon Journal

Associated Press
Published: January 25, 2013

YOUNGSTOWN: A Catholic high school in Pennsylvania has hired an attorney to investigate allegations that a Franciscan friar named in Ohio sexual-abuse settlements molested students in Johnstown in the 1990s.

Attorney Susan Williams said three former students at Bishop McCort High School have talked to her in detail about the alleged abuse.

Brother Stephen Baker taught and coached at the church-run John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, Ohio, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and at Bishop McCort in Johnstown from 1992-2000.

Bishop McCort said in a news release that it hired a Pittsburgh law firm to investigate after school trustees became aware of the allegations last week.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott kmellott@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — The number of former Bishop McCort students claiming sexual abuse by Brother Stephen P. Baker continues to grow, with an Altoona attorney saying Friday that he has been contacted by 12 alleged victims.

Attorney Richard Serbin said he is amazed by the number of students that the Franciscan friar had access to during a span of about two decades at Catholic schools in Ohio and Johnstown.

The number of former Bishop McCort students who have stepped forward since the story emerged a week ago is an indication that many people may have been molested, Serbin said.

An unofficial count of victims contacting attorneys Serbin, Michael Parrish of Johnstown, Mitchell Garabedian of Boston and Susan Williams of Greensburg shows the number reaching close to 50.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

January 26, 2013

By Ann Rodgers / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Franciscan friar from Cambria County has been accused of molesting dozens of teens in at least three states, including more than 25 at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

Brother Stephen Baker, 62, has been restricted to Franciscan facilities since he was banned from ministry after an initial complaint from Minnesota in 2000, said the Rev. Patrick Quinn, minister provincial of the Franciscan Friars (Third Order Regular) of the Immaculate Conception Province in Hollidaysburg. Last week, after an attorney for 11 victims in Warren, Ohio, announced an earlier settlement of civil suits, more than 25 former McCort students contacted at least four attorneys.

Johnstown attorney Michael Parrish represents 20 of them. “I can tell you from the clients that I have spoken to that 20 is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said Friday.

The board of Bishop McCort has hired Kathleen Gallagher, a former Allegheny County prosecutor experienced with sexual assault cases, to do an internal investigation. Bishop McCort was a diocesan school until 2008, when it became independent.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Times

JOE HUMPHREYS

Q What does it take to get excommunicated?

The censuring of Fr Tony Flannery by his superiors in the Catholic Church has been the subject of claim and counterclaim this week.

Just whether or not he has been threatened with excommunication for his “dissident” views remains hotly debated.

As with many matters of canon law, there is scope for different interpretations.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes excommunication as “the most severe ecclesiastical penalty, which impedes the reception of the sacraments and the exercise of certain ecclesiastical acts”. It is reserved for “certain particularly grave sins”, and cannot be absolved except by the pope, a bishop or an authorised priest. Theologians who spoke to The Irish Times described excommunication as extremely rare and almost unheard of in an Irish context. Traditionally, it has been reserved for clergy who hold “heretical” views or who have been involved in unauthorised ordinations. But it has also been used recently to penalise figures within the church who have supported or advocated abortion.

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.

IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter

by Eugene Cullen Kennedy | Jan. 25, 2013

The Irish Redemptorist Fr. Tony Flannery refuses to meet the Vatican demand that he affirm, among other things, that “Christ instituted the church with a permanent hierarchical structure and that bishops are divinely appointed successors to the apostles.”

Flannery, a popular preacher and writer, told The New York Times he has been “writing thought-provoking articles and books for decades without hindrance” and that the campaign against him “is being orchestrated by a secretive body that refuses to meet me. Surely I should at least be allowed to explain my views to my accusers.”

Flannery also organized the Association of Catholic Priests in 2009 to articulate the views of rank-and-file members of the clergy, the Times reports. Flannery may have gotten himself investigated as much for giving Irish priests a voice as for using his own in challenging old-fashioned formulations with his well-informed knowledge of theology and history.

If Father Flannery is being asked to endorse the notion that Jesus established the hierarchical church and that the bishops are the divinely appointed successors of the apostles, one might be more concerned about how firm a grasp his accusers have on modern theology.

This incident is an early 21st-century reprise of the early 20th-century Roman worldwide crackdown on priests who were keeping up with the new advances in theological and scriptural studies. All priests were forced to take the Oath Against Modernism, the vague catch-all phrase that supposedly summarized the heresies rampant in the new learning.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Catholic Culture

Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Missouri, has confirmed that the National Catholic Reporter should not advertise itself as a “Catholic” publication.

In a column appearing in his diocesan newspaper, Bishop Finn notes that he, as the bishop of the diocese in which the Reporter is located, has the duty to “call the media to fidelity.” He cites the Code of Canon Law, which (in #1369) calls for “a just penalty” for anyone who “excites hatred of or contempt for religion or the Church.”

The National Catholic Reporter, Bishop Finn remarks, has taken an editorial stance that puts the publication at odds with the Church, by “officially condemning Church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of Church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established Magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues.” He reveals that he has received numerous complaints about the Reporter’s editorial policies.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
LifeSite News

by John Jalsevac

Fri Jan 25, 2013

January 25, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper renowned for its “liberal” editorial stance on numerous doctrinal and moral issues, should not advertise itself as Catholic, according to Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City.

The headquarters of the Reporter (not to be confused with the National Catholic Register) are located in Bishop Finn’s diocese, putting the paper under his ecclesiastical authority.

“I have received letters and other complaints about NCR from the beginning of my time here,” writes Bishop Finn in a new column published today in the diocesan newspaper. The column was published to coincide with the feast of St. Francis de Sales, considered the patron saint of journalists by the Catholic Church.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Posted: Friday, January 25, 2013, 1:18 PM

After 81/2 days of testimony and closing arguments that brought the alleged victim to tears, a Philadelphia jury has begun working toward a verdict in the child-rape trial of a Philadelphia Catholic priest and ex-parochial-school teacher.

The Common Pleas Court jury of eight men and four women met for two hours Friday before breaking until Monday.

The Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero are charged in one of the most salacious episodes in the 2011 county investigating grand jury report on child sex-abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia: the serial rape of a 10-year-old Northeast boy.

Engelhardt, 66, and Shero, 49, have pleaded not guilty to assaulting the altar boy the grand jury named “Billy Doe.”

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.

IRELAND
Irish Times

The High Court has cleared the way for a man in his 60s to sue the Catholic Diocese of Clonfert over alleged sexual and physical abuse when he was an altar boy by a priest who has since died.

As the priest is no longer alive he sued the Bishop of Clonfert, Dr John Kirby, in his capacity as nominee of the diocese. It is claimed the abuse occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Yesterday, Mr Justice Peter Charleton dismissed a pretrial motion by the bishop aimed at having the action struck out on grounds of inordinate and inexcusable delay. He ruled the balance of justice permitted the trial proceed.

Rossa Fanning, for the bishop, had argued the delay meant a real risk of an unfair trial. Bishop Kirby had conducted a detailed investigation of diocesan records and could find no complaints or allegations against the priest, counsel said.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KVUE

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The jury in a Philadelphia church-abuse trial will return Monday for a second day of deliberations in a case involving a priest and ex-teacher.

The jury of eight men and four women worked for less than two hours before adjourning Friday.

The jury must weigh the credibility of a 24-year-old heroin addict whose sex-abuse complaint took down a church official — and brought thousands of secret church files to light.

The policeman’s son came forward in 2009 with the stunning claim that he’d been raped by two priests and a teacher.

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.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTMJ

By Jay Sorgi

MILWAUKEE – The chief of staff of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee says bankruptcy proceedings are putting Milwaukee’s Catholic Church in a ‘dire situation.’

However, Jerry Topczewski told Newsradio 620 WTMJ’s “Wisconsin’s Morning News” that “The Church isn’t going out of business by any means.”

The Journal Sentinel reports that the Archdiocese filed court documents showing that it’s losing so much money on legal fees that, under current legal demands, it will no longer be able to pay its regular operational expenses after Easter Sunday.

It’s asking Federal Judge Susan Kelley to let them stop making payments to lawyers except for reorganization.

“It’s a dire situation in the sense that the Archdiocese does not have a lot of resources. A lot of people think the Church is rich. Financially, the Archdiocese runs on a very small, balanced budget,” explained Topczewski.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KATV

Updated: Jan 25, 2013

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The credibility of a 24-year-old heroin addict whose sex-abuse complaint took down a Roman Catholic church official in Philadelphia – and helped bring thousands of secret church files to light – is now in the hands of a jury.

The policeman’s son came forward in 2009 with the stunning claim that he’d been raped as a boy by two priests and his sixth-grade teacher. A jury heard two weeks of evidence before deliberations in the case began Friday.

One priest facing five other complaints accepted a plea deal on the eve of trial and went to prison, yet denies any contact with the trial accuser. The remaining defendants, the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, 66, of Wyndmoor, and ex-teacher Bernard Shero, 49, of Levittown, have staked their case on the accuser. He’s changed his story several times, in significant ways, since the disclosure.

In closing arguments Friday, prosecutor Mark Cipolletti pointed out the many civil lawyers in court representing financial interests of the Philadelphia archdiocese, Engelhardt’s religious order, the accuser and others.

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.

IRELAND
Leinster Express

A PORTLAOISE priest has defended the Irish priest threatened with excomunication by the Catholic church.

Writing in the Portlaoise Parish newsletter to be distributed at masses this weekend, Fr Paddy Byrne describes the silencing and threatened expulsion of Fr Tony Flannery as “distressing”.

Up to now Fr Byrne had used twitter to question the church’s stance but this weekend he speaks directly to his parishioners in defence of Fr Flannery and equates what is happening as “repression”.

“The recent silencing and possible excommunication of Fr Tony Flannery makes for distressing news. The gift of conversation is both valuable and necessary, when reflection is silenced and those who do so punished, it creates an atmosphere of fear and repression,” writes Fr Bryne.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on January 25, 2013

We applaud these brave victims who are helping to expose corruption Catholic officials in court.

We hope Pennsylvania’s archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitations won’t thwart their efforts to win justice. We also hope their courage will inspire others who were hurt ask kids to come forward. Silence and inaction helps predators and endangers kids.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
KMBC

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —A former congregant at a Kansas City church alleges the new head of the Missouri State Board of Education used his position as pastor to engage in sexual misconduct, the second such lawsuit filed against him in a little more than a year.

The latest lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court, alleges that the Rev. Stan Archie made lewd comments about his sexual prowess after he began counseling a 15-year-old female member of the congregation, who is now 23. Archie also is accused of encouraging the teenage girl to act promiscuously and report her experiences to him, often by Skype. The suit said Archie sometimes would masturbate as she told him her experiences.

The suit said Archie told her he was her pastor and mentor and that nothing they were doing was wrong.

A lawsuit filed last year claimed that Archie engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with his former assistant.

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.

YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
WFMJ

By Michelle Nicks, Reporter

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – At a press conference Thursday, the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown apologized to the victims in a sexual abuse allegation against a former religious teacher and coach at the Warren John F. Kennedy High School.

“I am deeply sorry for the pain the victims of Brother [Stephen] Baker endured while at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren,” Bishop George Murry told news reporters. “Brother Baker betrayed the trust these young men placed in him as a spiritual leader.”

Baker was accused of sexually abusing 11 Warren JFK students more than 20 years ago, but the men just recently came forward in a lawsuit against the diocese and Third Order Regular Franciscans in Pennsylvania where Baker was a member.

The suit was settled with a monetary award for the men. The Third Order Regular Franciscans of Pennsylvania paid 70 percent of the settlement and the other 30 percent came from the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown.

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.

OHIO/PENNSYLVANIA
WKBN

A Pennsylvania attorney has filed a notice of intent to sue the Catholic diocese in Youngstown and Johnstown, Pa. and a school where a Franciscan friar allegedly abused teenage boys he was supposed to be treating for sports-related injuries.

About 60 people have now alleged abuse against Franciscan friar Brother Stephen P. Baker during his tenures at Warren’s John F. Kennedy High School and Johnstown, Pa.’s Bishop McCort High School, according to several attorneys now involved in the case.

Baker, according to attorneys and seven alleged victims from JFK and Bishop McCort, used his position as athletic trainer at the schools from 1986-2000 to give teenage boys massages where he would fondle their genitals and digitally penetrate them. Baker was also a religion teacher and baseball coach at both schools.

Baker was removed from ministry at Bishop McCort in 2000 when allegations surfaced that Baker molested a student during the 1980s. A confidential lawsuit was resolved in 2002, the Altoona Mirror reported. Bishop McCort, which is no longer a diocese school, launched an internal investigation Thursday, according to diocese spokesman Matthew Beynon. The diocese was in charge of the school when the alleged abuse occurred. They hired former Allegheny County District Attorney Kathleen A. Gallagher and Eckert Seamans to investigate the claims.

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
Failed Messiah

Britain’s Haredim Write Letter On Child Sex Abuse That Claims UOHC Is Blameless, Rabbis Must Screen Allegations

The letter written on Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations (Kedassia) stationary says that it is “our duty” to consider “every allegation” of child sexual abuse a “very serious” thing. UOHC therefore needs to inform the haredi public how to properly deal with this and to “make fences” to prevent it and to properly help everyone who has been abused.

UOHC says it has a committee of “rabbis, teachers and members of the community who know how to properly help abuse victims,” set up to deal with abuse cases in the haredi community. UOHC’s “rabbinic leadership recognizes that there are certain times when it is correct and necessary to call the social services and police. The committee will consult with the those rabbis to determine the proper course of action in each case. The committee will try to use the advice and help of experts to help families or children who have suffered from abuse, may God protect us.”

In other words, rabbis will screen cases and rabbis will decide whether or not police or social services will be called and the committee will try to follow the advice of experts to help victims and their families – but it will not promise to do so.

Why?

Almost certainly because 99.999% of these experts are not UOHC members or haredim, and to seek and follow their advice means to involve people outside the haredi community that UOHC does not control. And UOHC can’t have that in many cases – especially in cases of child sexual abuse where UOHC does not want police or social services to be involved. Why? Because those experts are often mandated reporters who will report the abuse to police or social services.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Posted: Friday, January 25, 2013, 1:18 PM

A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury has begun getting legal instructions from the judge after a morning listening to closing arguments by a second defense lawyer and the prosecutor in the child-rape trial of a Philadelphia Catholic priest and ex-parochial schoolteacher.

Judge Ellen Ceisler told the jury her legal instructions, known as the charge, will take about 40 minutes. After that, the jurors will begin evaluating the charges against the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero.

Engelhardt, 66, and Shero, 49, are charged with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, child endangerment and two related counts involving the alleged serial sexual assault in 1998-99 of a 10-year-old altar boy in the St. Jerome’s parish in the Northeast.

Defense attorney Michael McGovern challenged the jury in his closing this morning not to convict Engelhardt as part of what he called a national “groundswell of the presumption of guilt” in cases involving Catholic priests and sexual abuse of children.

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.