VATICAN CITY
euronews

We speak to Sébastien Maillard, Vatican correspondent for the French newspaper la Croix, about the latest organisational reforms in the Roman Catholic Church civil service, the Curia.

Fabien Farge, euronews: “It’s been a busy week in the Vatican, two years after Pope Benedict’s shock abdication. His successor, Pope Francis, launched ambitious reforms of the Catholic Curia. Sébastien, where are we with this famous reform of the Curia, and why change it?”

Sébastien Maillard: “Before the Conclave at which Pope Francis was elected almost two years ago, in March 2013, all the cardinals assembled and agreed it was high time to tackle this reform. The pope has waited for real movement on it before reconvening the cardinals. At this stage, in the past few days, he’s been consulting them for advice about the reform they asked for, a sort of mandate they entrusted to him after his election.”

euronews: “That mandate is already under way. There has already been a reshaping of the economic and financial services, even a secretariat for the economy.”

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

David Gibson | February 13, 2015

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis’ new cardinals, who will be formally installed on Saturday (Feb. 14), represent everything the pope says he wants for the future of Catholicism: a church that reaches out to the periphery and the margins, and one that represents those frontiers more than the central administration in Rome.

That’s why he picked cardinals for the first time ever from countries like Myanmar and Cape Verde, as well as one from the Pacific archipelago of Tonga, which has just 15,000 Catholics out of a population of 100,000 spread across 176 islands.

The 15 new cardinals who are of voting age — five new “honorary” cardinals are over 80 and ineligible to vote for the next pope — come from 14 countries and include prelates from Ethiopia, Panama, Thailand and Vietnam, and from places in Europe far removed from the traditional power dioceses of Old World Catholicism.

In fact, only one new cardinal comes from the Roman Curia, the Italian-dominated papal bureaucracy that Francis is struggling to tame in the wake of a series of scandals that revealed a deep dysfunction at Catholicism’s home office.

But will diversifying the College of Cardinals make it look more like the church’s global flock of 1.2 billion members? Or will it leave the electors so fragmented by geography, language and viewpoints that they won’t be able to serve as a counterweight to career churchmen in Rome?

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Saturday, Feb. 14

Statement by Mary Caplan of New York City, SNAP Leader, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 917 439 4187, mcaplan682@aol.com )

On Sunday, the hierarchy of the Catholic church becomes more inclusive than ever as prelates are promoted from several new nations. For the safety of kids, this could be problematic.

[Crux]

In our experience, very few church officials handle clergy sex crimes and cover ups well. Bishops in the developed world, however, have made minimal progress but only because they’ve been forced to act due to civil lawsuits, journalistic investigations, educated laity and well-funded, sophisticated law enforcement agencies. Sadly, these factors are less prevalent in the developing world.

In the developing world, there tend more religious order priests, closer ties between government and religion and a wider power and education gap between clerics and lay people. These are problematic factors too.

So bishops in those regions tend to be even less responsive and forthcoming about clergy sex crimes and cover ups. Put more bluntly, they tend to conceal clergy sex crimes more because they know they can get by with it more.

In the larger picture, adding more prelates from traditionally under-represented regions of the world may be just and healthy. But we fear it won’t make kids safer and may in fact make kids more vulnerable.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WCHS

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Charleston police said six people were arrested in a prostitution sting Thursday, including a county school superintendent and a pastor.

Police said Wetzel County Schools Superintendent Dennis Albright, 57, and Bradford Poe, 48, a minister in Proctorville, Ohio, were both arrested in the sting overnight Thursday. Albright and Poe are charged with engaging in prostitution.

Police said Albright told them he was in town to push a bill through the Legislature. Albright is a former Braxton County Schools superintendent.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The World Today

ELIZABETH JACKSON: At the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse the head rabbi of Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre has denied preaching against victims reporting their abuse to police.

But Rabbi Zvi Telsner says he apologises if he caused any victim or their family pain.

Victims have told the royal commission that they and their families were ostracised by the Yeshivah leadership and community after reporting their abuse to police.

Our reporter Samantha Donovan is covering the royal commission in Melbourne and she joins us now.

Sam, what exactly did the rabbi say in these sermons?

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Well, to explain the lead-up Elizabeth, in 2011 a furore erupted in Melbourne’s ultra-orthodox Jewish Yeshivah community when a victim of child sex abuse at Yeshivah College, Manny Waks, went public with allegations that several boys including himself had been abused at the school.

And he alleged to a newspaper that the Yeshivah leadership had covered it up and named Yeshivah’s head rabbi, Rabbi Groner, as having done nothing to remove a serial abuser from the school.

Manny Waks and another witness, AVB, have told the royal commission that they urged other victims to go to the police and that this angered Rabbi Groner’s brother-in-law, Zvi Telsner, who by this time had taken over as head rabbi after Rabbi Groner’s death.

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The Economist

Erasmus

A COUPLE of days ago, a senior African cleric was holding forth on the need to combine religious instruction with, in the broadest sense, sex education. Both at home and at school, declared Archbishop Henri Isingoma, boys must be taught about the higher purpose of sex as “the way God wanted to make the human race continue”. Another acute problem, he added, was “ignorance of the responsibilities of men towards women.” He was speaking in a webinar organised by a department of the global Anglican church, drawing in clergy and church workers from their own and other Christian confessions.

So…was this one more depressing display of the giant cultural gap between the liberal north and the traditional south, especially over sexuality, which is tearing apart the 80m-strong Anglican Communion, and many other religious bodies?

No, it was nothing of the kind, and that’s what made the discussion more worthwhile. The topic was “gender-based violence” which is a catchall term that describes both domestic cruelty and the still-greater horrors that take place on battlefields when soldiers run amok and commit rape. Victims of GBV are mainly female, but they also include men and boys. And the striking thing was that on this exceptionally grave subject, “conservatives” and “liberals” plainly find it useful to talk and cooperate, and the talk goes well beyond platitudes.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 13, 2015

ROME — Pope Francis’ finance czar today informed fellow members of the College of Cardinals that the Vatican has more than $1.5 billion in assets it didn’t previously know it possessed, although that potential windfall has to be balanced against a projected deficit of almost $1 billion in its pension fund.

The discoveries mean that the Vatican’s total assets rise to more than $3 billion, roughly one-third more than previously reported.

The cardinals were also informed that the Vatican’s real estate holdings may be undervalued by a factor of four, meaning that the overall financial health of the Vatican may be considerably rosier than was previously believed.

The disclosures at the closed-door meeting by Australian Cardinal George Pell, installed as secretary for the economy a year ago, was part of a wide-ranging overview of efforts at financial reform under Francis presented today to cardinals from around the world.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, February 13 – As an extraordinary consistory of cardinals continued two days of meetings Friday at the Vatican, child sexual abuse was on the agenda with an update on a commission appointed by Pope Francis on the protection of minors, according to a Vatican press release. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who heads the commission, gave a presentation to the College of Cardinals, said the director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi. Reports on financial reforms in the Vatican, including at the scandal-plagued Vatican Bank, were also presented as the cardinals continue to work on changes to the Roman Curia. That is the central body though which the pontiff runs the Catholic Church. It has reportedly been hit by infighting in recent years and in December the Argentine pontiff warned that the quest for power risked infecting clergymen with “spiritual Alzheimer’s”. As Francis opened the extraordinary consistory on Thursday, he described its goal as being “always that of promoting greater harmony in the work of the various dicasteries and offices”. He added that “reform is not an end in itself, but a means to give a strong Christian witness; to promote a more effective evangelization; to promote a more fruitful ecumenical spirit; to encourage a more constructive dialogue with all”. Saturday an ordinary consistory will see 20 new cardinals created at the Vatican. The reform of the Curia is part of the Francis’s drive to overhaul Vatican structures after the Church’s image was tarnished by scandals regarding child-sex abuse, financial and media leaks during the papacy of his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The government is being urged to extend the scope of the child sexual abuse inquiry to cover the whole of the UK – rather than just England and Wales.

The investigation should cover Scotland and Northern Ireland, including claims of abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast in the 1970s, a Home Affairs Committee report said.

The panel must seek to avoid “gaps” between the various inquiries, it said.

The Home Office said the report had been noted and was being considered.

The independent, panel-led inquiry was set up by Home Secretary Theresa May last year to consider whether public bodies and other institutions failed in their duty to protect children.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY NAOMI LONG – 13 FEBRUARY 2015

The new chair of the statutory inquiry into historic child abuse allegations this week told a Westminster committee she is willing to discuss including Kincora Boys’ Home as part of the investigation.

It has given new hope to the victims and survivors of the east Belfast home, following several setbacks to the original investigation caused by the resignation of its two previous chairs.

In spite of Home Secretary Theresa May’s statement to the House of Commons that her department’s investigation would be limited to England and Wales, Justice Lowell Goddard’s confirmation that she would raise it with the Home Secretary, if she felt it necessary, allows another opportunity to put Kincora on the agenda.

Kincora is already being probed by Sir Anthony Hart’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry. But I have previously gone on record to state how Kincora is uniquely different to other homes being investigated in Northern Ireland.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

SCOTTISH ministers have rejected proposals from MPs to extend the scope of a UK government-backed child sexual abuse inquiry to cover Scotland as well as England and Wales.

Westminster’s home affairs committee, said an independent, panel-led inquiry set up by Home Secretary Theresa May to examine abuse in England and Wales should also include Scotland and Northern Ireland to “avoid gaps” between investigations in different parts of the UK.

The Scottish Government has already announced its own plans for a statutory public inquiry to examine historical cases of abuse of children in care north of the border, where child protection is devolved to Holyrood.

Ministers today rejected the call from MPs to extend the influence and authority of the inquiry ordered by the Home Secretary, which a Scottish government spokeswoman said was a “primarily a matter for the UK Government”.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

In two weeks in February 2015 Pope Francis has uncovered finally, in secret meetings with Cardinals, his real plans and timetable, after two years of spinning the media and worldwide Catholics. Despite his disarming public smile and massive media efforts, the pope’s plans are basically a continuation of his two failed predecessors’ oppressive policies and teachings, only now under tighter papal control.

Holding bishops accountable for child abuse has this week been buried in a farcical “do nothing commission”, that is now even promoted by well intentioned but misguided abuse survivors. Money matters are being dealt with by disgraced Cardinal Pell, who proved by his brutal treatment of priest abuse survivors in Australia that he can be expected always to put the financial fortunes of the Catholic Church’s clerical leadership ahead of Jesus’ Gospel mandates.

Pope Francis is evidently stretching out making “formal infallible papal decisions”, including on divorced and gay Catholics, on women’s perpetual inequality, on confirming the contraception ban, et al., to help (1) US bishops and their low tax billionaire donors (with help from Cardinal Burke’s contrived and planned anti-gay marriage pitch to fundamentalist US voters) elect Jeb Bush as US president next year, and (2) then to help German bishops thereafter to save their $7 billion annual tax subsidy. This continuity of the essential elements of the last two pope’s disastrous policies is captured in “a thousand words” in a revealing photo, at the secret Cardinals’ meeting, of Pope Francis and Cardinal Sodano running the show as a team, see here,

[National Catholic Reporter]

The overall implications and fatal flaw of Francis’ plans are discussed in my remarks, “The Crisis Pope Francis Faces” here,

[Christian Catholicism]

Cardinal Sodano has been the most powerful Cardinal since the 1870 Vatican Council I first made popes “infallible”. Sodano’s longtime protege, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, is being groomed by “interim Pope Francis” to be the next pope, likely to occur soon after next year’s critical US elections since Francis’ friendly facade is needed to help get more US Latino voters to vote Republican.

Sodano was “de facto pope” during much of John Paul II’s reign. He treated the priest sex abuse scandal as an annoying distraction. Sodano’s Easter 2010 world televised address to Pope Benedict referred dismissively to the abuse scandal. Sodano arrogantly told the bewildered Benedict and the world that “… The People of God are with you and do not allow themselves to be impressed by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials that sometimes assail the community of believers” . (emphasis mine). Has Cardinal Sodano really ever asked the People of God — his biggest mistake, no?

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

David Unze, dunze@stcloudtimes.com February 13, 2015

A prominent attorney representing clergy sex abuse victims this week released a list of 17 clergy from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis who have been accused of sexual abuse or misconduct with a minor. The men have been identified in notice of claims submitted to the Archdiocese and its insurance carriers, the first step toward a possible lawsuit. The 17 names have never before been made public. The same list that attorney Jeff Anderson released is also on the archdiocese’s website.

The priests on the lists are deceased, permanently out of public ministry, on leave from ministry or on restricted ministry while the claim is being investigated. The archdiocese also posted a larger list of men with substantiated claims of sexual abuse of a minor while assigned as clergy in the archdiocese. One name added to that list this week is Michael Bik, a former monk from St. John’s Abbey.

Bik’s name appeared previously on a list of abbey monks with substantiated allegations of abuse against them. Bik was permanently removed from ministry in 2002.

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NEW MEXICO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 13

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach CA, western regional director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (949 322 7434, jcasteix@gmail.com)

When it comes to kids’ safety, there’s no excuse for incomplete or inaccurate information, especially when the potential threat involves alleged clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

So for public safety, Gallup Bishop James Wall should immediately

— honor his promise answers and answer questions about Fr. Ravi Kiran’s sudden departure from St. Anthony Mission months ago,
— add more proven, admitted and credibly accused predator priests to his diocesan list,
— reverse his decision and post photographs of the credibly accused abusers on church websites, and
— aggressively seek out others who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups in Gallup and beg hem to call law enforcement.

Wall will claim his bankruptcy notices meet this request. He’s wrong. Bankruptcy notices are about a financial deadline. They’re not about prosecuting criminals. They’re not about keeping predators away from kids. They’re not about real justice, healing, prevention and truth telling.

Catholics and citizens need and deserve more honesty from Wall than he’s providing. Parishioners should donate elsewhere until their bishop

It’s important to be generous. But we hope New Mexico Catholics will give to organizations that prevent child sex crimes, not organizations that conceal them.

The claim by one of Wall’s public relations staffers (made to the Gallup Independent newspaper) that “Sometimes it takes a while to dig through the files” is both laughable and disingenuous. At some point, we predict, Suzanne Hammons, will look back with shame and regret that she made such a ridiculous and irresponsible claim and was part of a calculated decision to delay disclosing important information that could have helped keep innocent kids safe and helped wounded victims heal.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 13

Statement by Peter Isely of Milwaukee, board member of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 414 429 7259, peterisely@yahoo.com )

Last week, Boston Cardinal O’Malley said the church needs new guidelines to discipline bishops who conceal abuse. He told journalists in Rome “When you don’t have a clear path to respond in cases of sexual abuse, people tend to improvise. And when they improvise, they make many mistakes.”

Two full years ago, O’Malley told the Boston Globe the very same thing: “. . .if you don’t have policies, you’ll be improvising, and when you improvise, you make a lot of mistakes,” he said.

[Boston Globe]

How many more children have been raped or sodomized by priests over those two years? How many bishops have concealed child sex crimes over those two years?

And guess when the first US pedophile priest made national headlines? It was 30 years ago, when Fr. Gilbert Gauthe was convicted of abusing as many as 39 young children.

[BishopAccountability.org]

We may seem impatient. Martin Luther King ends his famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail by begging his critics for forgiveness if he’s shown “unreasonable impatience.” But he begs God to forgive him if he has “a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Soli Salgado | Feb. 13, 2015

At the Synod of Bishops on the family held at the Vatican in October 2014, several couples from around the world were invited to attend as representatives of the Catholic laity. One American couple, Alice and Jeff Heinzen, spoke about the beauty of family life and the advantages of natural family planning, a practice embraced in the church’s teachings.

But Deborah Rose-Milavec, executive director of FutureChurch, said, “While their voice and constituency should be represented, they should not be overrepresented. The purpose of the synod is to break new ground on these issues and to develop pastoral practices that reach out to Catholics who have not felt welcomed because they do not entirely conform to current teaching and practice.”

In an effort to “widen the circle” at the second synod on the family, scheduled for October 2015, reform groups FutureChurch, Voice of the Faithful and the American Catholic Council have drafted a petition calling for more diverse laity to be invited. Twenty other organizations have joined the cause. The letter, which launched Jan. 21, addresses Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, and the bishops of the world. Organizers plan to deliver it March 4 by mail and email to the bishops, and hand-deliver a copy to Baldisseri at the Vatican.

The petition names groups of people that will be discussed according to the 2014 synod document, known as a lineamenta, and therefore should be included in the conversation:

* Divorced and remarried people;
* Cohabitating couples;
* Interfaith families;
* Impoverished families;
* Single parents;
* Families with lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender members;
* Same-sex couples;
* Families torn by the violence of war and abuse.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

The bishops of Scotland have met with a leading Vatican exert on prevention of clergy abuse of children as part of their efforts to learn from past cases and continue to develop best practice.

Mgr Robert Oliver travelled to Salamanca in Spain to address the bishops during an in-service session at the end of January. Bishop Joseph Toal of Motherwell said it was part of the bishop’s desire to ‘demonstrate to survivors a willingness to listen and an expression of understanding in the context of carefully prepared personal meetings.’

“The Catholic Church in Scotland is committed to learning from past mistakes, developing best practice and allowing external scrutiny of our work,” he said. “The priority principle must be assistance to the victims of abuse.”

Pope Francis appointed Mgr Oliver as the new secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors last year. The Pope established the commission to advise him directly and to propose initiatives to encourage local responsibility within the Church.

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LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 13

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

A Baptist preacher who was accused of molesting kids and ran a controversial South Carolina childrens’ home has passed away.

Mack Ford opened and operated childrens homes in Louisiana and in Waltersboro, SC. He allegedly assaulted girls in Louisiana.

According to the New Orleans Picayune, “In both of those locations, abuse allegations resulted in criminal charges, though not against Ford.

In 1981, Longstreet school manager L.D. Rapier was arrested and charged with cruelty to children after four boys ran from the home and told authorities they’d been beaten. The charges were eventually dropped.

In 1984, South Carolina authorities closed the Waltersboro home after they found a 14-year-old sleeping in a windowless padlocked cell, where he had been for several days. Two employees there were charged with unlawful neglect of a child and kidnapping, and they eventually pleaded to a lesser charge of false imprisonment.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 13 February 2015 (VIS) – The Extraordinary Consistory of the College of Cardinals with Pope Francis did not complete its work this morning as expected. The meeting will continue during the afternoon, with an update on the work of the Commission for the Protection of Minors by its president, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, explained the director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., during a press conference today.

Yesterday, Thursday, the meeting continued in a serene and constructive atmosphere, with interventions by a further 28 cardinals who offered different perspectives on the reform of the Curia, focusing on the relationship between the Curia and the local Churches, and underlining the importance of better serving the Church in the world. They spoke of “decentralisation”, and the theme of “subsidiarity” was recurrent. Further reflection was invited on what can be done better and where: or rather, in which cases it would be more useful for the Roman dicasteries to act, and when instead the involvement of the dioceses or the episcopal conferences would be more useful.

Other interventions were dedicated to the usefulness and importance of the central service of the Holy See, bearing in mind the experience in various countries where the local church is weak and may be subject to pressure, and is therefore supported by the work of the Vatican.

Coordination within the Curia was addressed not with a merely functional focus, but rather from the perspective of a sense of communion between the different dicasteries, of communication that creates union in the common mission. More specifically, the interministerial commissions were referred to as tools for achieving this objective and the importance of continuity in this dimension of coordination was noted.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Feb. 13, 2015 NCR Today

VATICAN CITY The Catholic cardinals meeting with Pope Francis to discuss reform of the Vatican are continuing their conversations and are not expected to make any formal votes approving or disapproving changes to the church bureaucracy, the Vatican said Friday.

Speaking in a briefing with the press, spokesman Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi again indicated that the process to reform the Vatican bureaucracy may take longer than originally expected.

The some 160 prelates in Rome to discuss the reform, the spokesman said, have talked about the need to have a “gradual path” where some changes to the bureaucracy, known as the Roman Curia, may happen before a new organizational chart explaining the role of all Vatican offices is completed.

The cardinals are meeting Thursday and Friday at the Vatican to discuss the process of reform, which seems to be languishing in debates over the purpose, scope and role of the Curia.

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UNITED STATES
Homiletic & Pastoral Review

JANUARY 29, 2015 BY RICHARD P. FITZGIBBONS, M.D.

The evaluation process of accusations against priests in regard to determining their suitability for priestly ministry would benefit from greater justice and knowledge of psychological science. There are presently severe weaknesses in this process that should be addressed.

Response to Accusations

The practice of immediately removing a priest from ministry after an accusation is made should be reevaluated unless it has significant credibility. When the accusation is questionable and involves supposed boundary violation, grooming behavior, or consensual sexual behavior with an adult, the removal from active ministry harms the good name of the accused priest. A more just approach is that given to most other professionals who continue in their work while accusations are being evaluated.
Also, many priests have complained that some diocesan officials have treated them in a manner that lacked any sense of justice or charity, as though they were already convicted of criminal behavior, based on an unproven allegation.

An inappropriate response of some diocesan investigators is to go to the accused priest’s parish and communicate to parishioners the (unproven) accusations against him. Then, parishioners are asked to report any information they may have of any inappropriate behavior by the accused priest. Such behavior could create false memories in parishioners1 and harm the accused priest.

The Accuser

Justice requires an in-depth knowledge of the accuser, given the prevalence of false accusations in the culture such as occurred in the false memory epidemic against fathers that was influenced by mental health professionals.2 This knowledge would include an identification the accuser’s emotional background with his/her father because unresolved anger with a father can be misdirected, perhaps even unconsciously, at another father figure, the priest. It is also vital to evaluate any major weaknesses in secure attachment relationship from childhood and adolescence with parents, siblings and peers, and any traumatic experiences in adult life.

At a 2012 Rome conference on the crisis, a priest-psychologist stated that 95 percent of accusations against priests are valid in his experience. Most mental health professionals with expertise in working with priests do not accept such a view and have extensive experience with false accusations against priests and others, particularly related to divorce and custody issues.

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UNITED STATES
Rhymes with Religion

Boz Tchividjian | Feb 13, 2015

Not long ago, a friend was staying overnight with a family during an out of town visit. That evening, the family had a group of friends and acquaintances over for dinner and conversation. Sometime during the dinner, one of the male guests got up from dinner and sat in the adjoining living room. During and after dinner, my friend observed this male guest remain in the living room talking and playing with the elementary age son of the guests. At first, my friend did not think anything of the fact that this young man was spending time with this boy. However, as the evening went on, my friend realized that the attention of this adult was focused exclusively upon this child as they played on the couch together, touched each other’s faces, and engaged in other seemingly “innocent” physical contact. At some point, my friend became troubled with the ongoing contact between this guest and the child. After dinner, my friend overheard the young man invite the boy to follow him to the (dark) basement to go hide during a game of hide and seek. At this point, my friend became conflicted about whether she should say something to the boy’s parents or simply leave the situation alone.

My friend’s predicament is not unique. In the past 20 years, I have come across many situations where folks have found themselves conflicted about whether to say something after observing unsettling behavior between an adult and a child. Unfortunately, too many have decided it’s best to remain silent. A silence that is all too often fueled by fear. Here are five common fears that can convince us to “leave the situation alone”:

Fear of being wrong: We fear that we could be wrong since no blatant abuse was observed. We second-guess our instincts and all too often convince ourselves that our worries are unfounded. We decide it’s best to remain silent.

Fear of being right: We fear the incredibly dark possibility that someone we actually know may be grooming a child for abuse. Such depravity is too much for us to comprehend and is much easier to deny. We decide it’s best to remain silent.

Fear of being ignored: We fear that our concerns will be ignored by those who refuse to believe that suspecting adult could possibly have had any sinister motives for their behavior. In her book, Predators, psychologist Anna Salter writes,

“…those who see child molesters as monsters seem the quickest – when their neighbor, friend, or family member – to say that it is definitely a false report.”

We decide it’s best to remain silent.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

The Concerned Catholics of Guam has sent the Archdiocese of Agana two separate letters but has not yet received a response.

Guam – The Concerned Catholics of Guam organization is challenging Archbishop Anthony Apuron to sign over ownership of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary back to the Archdiocese of Agana. But local Catholic observer Tim Rohr suspects the Archbishop will not be able to, not because he doesn’t want to but because, as Rohr explains, he doesn’t have the power to.

The letter was dated January 14. In it, the Concerned Catholics of Guam urges Archbishop Anthony Apuron to quitclaim the Redemptoris Mater Seminary. This real estate transaction would essentially transfer full ownership of the property over to the Archdiocese of Agana. There is much controversy over this property valued at $40 million. Local Catholic blogger Tim Rohr shares with us his observations.

“Well the question is if he’s really in control of both then why deed it over in the first place. Well we know why he did that. He did that because he was told to do that. So basically the CCOG is calling his bluff and simply saying, ‘Well, okay, if you really are in control of both corporations then what reason would you have to deed it in the first place?'” says Rohr.

In fact, Rohr believes the Archbishop will not only refuse to sign a quitclaim deed, he won’t be able to. He says this is because, based on the way the documents are written, “on paper the archbishop only controls 25 percent of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary,” he points out.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FEBRUARY 14, 2015

Michael McKenna
Reporter
Brisbane

THE Anglican Church has expressed­ disappointment that Australia’s royal commission into child abuse appears to have ignored­ its request to investigate the cover-up of the rape and beatings of young boys at one of its Queensland boarding schools in the 1960s.

North Queensland Anglican Bishop Bill Ray said yesterday he now feared the extent of the sexual abuse by former principal Robert Waddington and other clergy at St Barnabas boarding school in Ravenshoe, southwest of Cairns, would remain a secret.

Bishop Ray formally asked the royal commission to use its special powers to investigate the abuse and response of church ­officials to complaints of victims of the late Reverend Waddington, who later rose to become one of the church’s senior clergymen in Britain.

Waddington later abused children in England, and it was revealed that at least three young clergymen he hired and mentored in the north Queensland boarding school were later jailed for child abuse offences at other schools around Australia.

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 13, 2015

ROME — Because he’s such a beguiling media personality, Pope Francis says and does lots of things that get spun as revolutionary but really aren’t. Saying Catholics don’t have to breed “like rabbits,” for instance, is irresistible as a sound-bite, but remarkably old-hat as official teaching.

Saturday, however, shapes up as the real deal, perhaps the most revolutionary day so far in Francis’ two-year run.

By creating 20 new cardinals from all around the world on that day, this first pope from the developing world is poised to change Catholicism forever — not in terms of the ideology of left v. right, perhaps, but definitely in terms of the geography of north v. south.

Equally consequential, this is the second consistory of Francis’ reign, meaning the ceremony in which new cardinals are inducted, and it cements impressions that Francis has overhauled the criteria for making these all-important picks.

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GUAM
Concerned Catholics of Guam

On February 11, 2015, the Concerned Catholics of Guam delivered an official letter addressed to Archbishop Anthony Apuron asking him six questions about the Annual Archdiocesan Appeal which will commence on Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2015.

Click the link below to view and download the letter:

Letter to Archbishop Apuron, dated Feb. 10, 2015

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

02/12/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

Earlier today, in the same ‘Archdiocesan Update’ that contains a reminder that the Congregation for Clergy insists on the ‘importance of ensuring the proprietorship of personal data contained in parish archives remain exclusively with the Catholic Church’ (ahem, too late for us), there is a link to FAQs by the Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, John Nienstedt, who suggests that his residence may soon be up for sale.

Q. Is the archdiocese considering selling some property?

A. That is a possibility. Property that could potentially be sold is the Chancery building, the Hayden building [the old Cathedral School building] and the archbishop’s residence in an effort to decrease operating costs and use all available resources to help those affected by clergy sexual abuse while continuing the mission of the Church.

Of course, the same article also contains this:

Q. Did the archdiocese create organizations like the CSAF to protect its assets from creditors during the Reorganization process?

A. No.

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

“Downsizing expectations.”

That’s the title I’d give Father Federico Lombardi’s briefing today on the College of Cardinals’ meeting to discuss Roman Curia reform.

For one thing, the cardinals were told it could take years to complete the reforms. An explicit comparison was made to Pope John Paul II’s modifications to the Roman Curia, which took 10 years to design and implement, with multiple stages of consultation and approval.

I’m not sure Pope Francis has 10 years to dedicate to this project.

The cardinals were also offered a vague outline of a proposal to combine six or seven pontifical councils into two new congregations, which are more important Curial agencies. The hypothesis, which has been floating around a while, would foresee a Congregation for Laity, Family and Life, and a Congregation for Charity, Justice and Peace.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Feb. 13, 2015

Can the content of a confession be revealed in court? Must a priest report to police information about the abuse of a minor that he hears in confession? Can a priest reveal what he was told in confession if the penitent gives him permission?

These issues are being debated because of a court case involving the diocese of Baton Rouge, La.

The case involves the 2008 confession of a then-14-year-old girl, Rebecca Mayeux. She says she told Fr. Jeff Bayhi, pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Zachary, La., on three different occasions that she was kissed and fondled by a now-dead lay member of the parish.

According to the Times-Picayune, the parents of the minor say the priest in the confessional told the girl to deal with it herself because “too many people would be hurt.” The girl said, “He just said, ‘This is your problem. Sweep it under the floor.’ ”

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IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Kelly Catholic News Service | Feb. 12, 2015

DUBLIN
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said he would seek assurances from religious congregations operating in his diocese that they are rigidly following child protection guidelines after a fresh round of audits raised serious concerns.

In a statement Tuesday, Martin said it was “appalling” that some major religious congregations had delayed fully implementing the church’s child protection guidelines and that, in some cases, this process only really got underway in 2013.

Martin said the delays left him “seriously concerned.”

The Irish church’s monitoring watchdog, the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, published 16 reviews on the implementation of policies in religious congregations — eight male, eight female.

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VATICAN CITY
Ames Tribune

By Flavia Krause-Jackson and Alessandra Migliaccio
Bloomberg News

He’s met with a transgender man, told Catholics not to breed like rabbits and washed the feet of a Muslim woman. While all this may sound like he’s ready to overturn dogma, Pope Francis’ real interest is geopolitics.

In less than two years in office, Francis has nudged the conversation away from abusive priests and used the image makeover to wade into such as matters as Cuba-U.S. relations and climate change. In September, he will become the first religious leader who serves as a head of state to address a joint session of Congress.

“He’s capitalizing on the fascination that he exercises,” said John Wauck, a professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. “He’s gotten the attention of the world and is using it.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

By Keith L. Alexander, Michelle Boorstein and Peter Hermann February 12

Law enforcement officials said there may be at least 150 women who allegedly were secretly video­taped by a prominent D.C. rabbi as the women prepared for a ritual bath, according to three people briefed on the investigation.

The Orthodox rabbi, Barry Freundel, was arrested in October on charges that he videotaped six women in the nude while he was at Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown. He has pleaded not guilty. He has not been charged with any additional counts.

At a meeting at the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Wednesday, two people present said some of the women and their attorneys were told by law enforcement that there may be more victims. Authorities said they were looking for help in identifying 88 women whose images appeared on the video.

Another 64 women were allegedly videotaped between 2009 and 2011 and could not be part of a case since they are outside of the statute of limitations, those people said.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Daily Mail (UK)

By Kate Pickles For Mailonline and Associated Press

A rabbi has been accused of secretly videotaping more than 150 nude women at a Jewish ritual bath.

Barry Freundel was charged with voyeurism in October last year in relation to recordings of six women while he was at Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown. He denies the charges.

Following an investigation, it has been claimed Freundel had filmed 152 women.

During a meeting with victims Wednesday evening at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, prosecutors discussed the number of victims revealed by an investigation along with the benefits of a plea deal in the case.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY NAOMI LONG – 13 FEBRUARY 2015

The new chair of the statutory inquiry into historic child abuse allegations this week told a Westminster committee she is willing to discuss including Kincora Boys’ Home as part of the investigation.

It has given new hope to the victims and survivors of the east Belfast home, following several setbacks to the original investigation caused by the resignation of its two previous chairs.

In spite of Home Secretary Theresa May’s statement to the House of Commons that her department’s investigation would be limited to England and Wales, Justice Lowell Goddard’s confirmation that she would raise it with the Home Secretary, if she felt it necessary, allows another opportunity to put Kincora on the agenda.

Kincora is already being probed by Sir Anthony Hart’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry. But I have previously gone on record to state how Kincora is uniquely different to other homes being investigated in Northern Ireland.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

Source: AAP
13 FEB 2015

Rabbis fear some of their colleagues with “fringe” views on pedophiles have damaged the standing of Australia’s Jewish leadership.

A royal commission has wrapped up in Melbourne after two weeks of examining the response of Jewish schools and centres, in Sydney and Melbourne, to a string of child sexual abuse cases going back to 1980.

Under questioning, some rabbis have put forward controversial views, including that ageing pedophiles who have not offended in decades deserve leniency, or that they could be “cured” and still maintain regular contact with children.

One rabbi told the commission that about the time he received a child abuse report in 2002, he “did not know that as a fact” it was against the law for an adult to touch a child’s genitals.

Rabbi Yaakov Glasman, a former president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, called such opinions “fringe”.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

PAEDOPHILES and gay people could probably be cured, a rabbi has told a child abuse Royal Commission.

But Rabbi Zvi Telsner, spiritual leader of Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne, believes it would require both extended therapy and time.

“There is a certain belief that if someone, for example, after 20 or 25 years, has not committed any offences, and all of this time has gone to therapy, there would be a good possibility that the person may have been able to change his way of life,” Rabbi Telsner said on Friday.

“I’m saying through therapy, and through counselling, and if you see that over the last 20 odd years the person has been able to control themselves being amongst children, the possibility (is) that he is in control of himself.” Rabbi Telsner was giving evidence to the royal commission that’s examining institutional responses to reports of child sex abuse. The rabbi was asked if he held the same views about homosexual people.

“I would say the same thing could happen to someone who was gay, I would suspect,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Manny Waks fought back tears as he described how it felt to be an 11-year-old boy taunted in the school yard by students who knew he’d been sexually abused.

He’d been molested by a man (named only AVP for legal reasons) and his fellow Yeshivah College students found this out.

Manny’s life got even worse – when the caretaker at his school also began to prey on him, subjecting him to repeated sexual abuse.

This man, David Cyprys, assaulted Manny and at least eight other boys while he worked at Yeshivah College during the 1980s and 1990s.

‘Most of the time I felt completely deserted and alone,’ said Mr Waks, now 38, describing his school years to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Melbourne.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 13, 2015

Jane Lee

Australia’s most senior rabbi this week sent a text message calling the father of three child sexual abuse victims, including prominent victims’ advocate Manny Waks, a “lunatic” who had neglected his own children.

Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, gave evidence on the last day of the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Abuse’s Melbourne hearing.

Zephaniah Waks, Manny’s father, has told the Commission he felt forced to move to Israel with his wife after being ostracised the ultra-orthodox Jewish Chabad community for supporting Manny in publicly discussing his abuse.

Rabbi Kluwgant told the Commission that he only watched parts of Mr Waks’ testimony to the inquiry last Tuesday.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Friday 13 February 2015

The most senior rabbi in Australia called the father of three sons who were sexually abused a “lunatic” who was guilty of “killing” the Orthodox Jewish community within which his sons had been violated.

On Tuesday Zephaniah Waks told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse how he and his family were ostracised and bullied by religious leaders after speaking out about the abuse of his sons at the Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne. He had demanded to know from senior religious leaders within the Orthodox Chabad community why they had ignored it.

On Friday the commission heard that as Waks was giving his harrowing evidence, the president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, sent a text message to the editor of the Australian Jewish News.

“Zephaniah is killing us,” the message read. “Zephaniah is attacking Chabad. He is a lunatic on the fringe, guilty of neglect of his own children. Where was he when all this was happening?”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Jean Edwards

Australia’s most senior rabbi sent a text message calling a father whose children were molested at Melbourne’s Yeshivah College a “lunatic” who neglected his children, the royal commission into child sexual abuse has heard.

Rabbi Meir Kluwgant admitted sending the message about Zephaniah Waks to the editor of the Australian Jewish News, Zeddy Lawrence, on February 3.

The Waks’s lawyer Melinda Richards SC put it to the rabbi that he sent an SMS to Mr Lawrence which read: “Zephaniah is killing us, Zephaniah is attacking Chabad, he is a lunatic on the fringe, guilty of neglect of his own children, where was he when all this was happening?”.

“I may have sent that, yes,” Rabbi Kluwgant replied.

The rabbi is the president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia.

He initially said he did not recall sending the text message and denied watching or listening to Mr Waks’s testimony.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY STEVEN ALEXANDER – 13 FEBRUARY 2015

Pressure is growing for the Kincora scandal to be included in a major child abuse inquiry after a powerful Westminster committee said the investigation should be extended to Northern Ireland.

The Commons Home Affairs Committee today strongly endorsed the appointment of New Zealand High Court judge Justice Lowell Goddard to head an inquiry into historical child sex abuse. MPs also called for the scope of the inquiry to be extended to cover Scotland and Northern Ireland – including the allegations of abuse involving prominent public figures at the Kincora Boys’ Home in east Belfast in the 1970s and 80s.

On Wednesday Justice Goddard told the committee that she was willing to discuss the inclusion of Kincora in her inquiry with the Home Secretary Theresa May if she felt it appropriate. Ms May previously said the inquiry will be confined to England and Wales.

Three senior care staff at the home were jailed in 1981 for sexually abusing 11 boys. However, there have been constant claims that MI5 allowed the abuse to continue, as it allowed the security service to blackmail powerful political and establishment figures who were paedophiles.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

Anonymous are about to wage war on rich and powerful covering up child sex abuse in ‘nightmarish’ Friday 13th march

LAMIAT SABIN Friday 13 February 2015

Masked protesters will march on the homes of “elite” paedophiles and public figures they claim have been involved in the “nightmarish” cover-up of child sex abuse.

In a video released on YouTube, Anonymous says it has exposed a club of people in positions of trust and responsibility that have been murdering and torturing children.

“Friday the 13th will see us become the nightmare on Elite Street,” the message says.

“Politicians, royals, media, religious figures, singers, actors, men and women; it seems that the long grotesque arm of this club has no bounds.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Greenville News

Donna Isbell Walker, diwalker@greenvillenews.com February 12, 2015

Hope, survival and justice were the themes of Thursday’s Julie Valentine Luncheon.

Two victims of sexual abuse shared their stories at the annual fundraiser for Julie Valentine Center’s sexual assault- and child abuse-prevention programs, and their prevailing message was that victims should never shoulder the blame for their abusers’ actions.

Jim Clemente, a retired FBI profiler, recounted his ordeal of teen sex abuse at a church camp, and his mission to educate parents and children that predators most often are outwardly “nice” people who prey on vulnerable kids.

Jen Bicha told her story of years of rapes by her older brother and the search for healing that ended with her brother’s conviction and prison sentence.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The government is being urged to extend the scope of the child sexual abuse inquiry to cover the whole of the UK – rather than just England and Wales.

The investigation should cover Scotland and Northern Ireland, including claims of abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast in the 1970s, a Home Affairs Committee report said.

The panel must seek to avoid “gaps” between the various inquiries, it said.

The Home Office said the report had been noted and was being considered.

The independent, panel-led inquiry was set up by Home Secretary Theresa May last year to consider whether public bodies and other institutions failed in their duty to protect children.

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CANADA
Global News

By Blaine Gaffney
Reporter Global News

VERNON – The “controlling and manipulative” Okanagan man believed he had the blessing of the Bible when he beat his children.

But a judge says that doesn’t excuse criminal conduct and he sentenced the man to 4.5 years imprisonment.

The assaults took place in the family home at or near Armstrong between October 2009 and August 2012 when the three children were between the ages of 18 months and four years.

Their father, identified in court documents as L.I., would frequently hit the children with a nine inch long wooden comb, or his hands, causing bruises and welts.

On one occasion, L.I. pinned his two-year-old son to the floor and covered his mouth and nose until the child’s face turned red.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Jean Edwards

The head rabbi of Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse he believes a gay person can be “cured” by therapy, like a paedophile.

Rabbi Zvi Telsner told the commission he believed there was a possibility paedophiles could be cured by counselling and spiritual guidance.

When asked if therapy could do the same for someone who is gay, he replied: “I would say the same thing can happen to someone who is gay, I would suspect. There is a possibility, I’m not discounting that”.

Rabbi Telsner said therapy could help paedophiles change their behaviour.

“There’s a certain belief that if someone for example after 20 or 25 years has not committed any offences, and all of this time has gone to therapy, there would be a good possibility that person may have been able to change his way of life,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

SHANNON DEERY HERALD SUN FEBRUARY 13, 2015

RABBIS embroiled in a sex abuse crisis that has rocked Melbourne’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community still “don’t get it”, a senior figure has admitted.

On the last day of royal commission hearings into Yeshiva Centres in Melbourne and Bondi, Rabbi Yaakov Glasman said some Chabad figures were still clueless when it came to handling child sexual abuse.

Rabbi Glasman, the immediate past president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, said the hearings had caused untold damage to the Jewish community because of a handful of radical-thinking rabbis whose evidence has sparked widespread outrage.

“It would be an understatement to say we are deeply disturbed by some of the comments made by some rabbis,” he said.

“There can be no words to mitigate the damage that they have caused.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 13, 2015

According to Melbourne’s Monash University research, the fully observant or frum community in Victoria accounts for about 15% of the Victorian Jewish community.

This includes Adass, Chabad/Lubavitch and observant Modern Orthodox Jews. Hence, the Chabad community is a very small percentage of the overall Jewish community but it is also the main source of Rabbonim for the mainstream Orthodox Jewish community. This means that it dominates the Rabbinic Council of Victoria, which is the peak body for the Orthodox Rabbinate.

The Yeshivah Centre is the leadership centre for the Lubavitch community whose key institutions includes various community institutions, most notably Chabad and Yeshivah Synagogues, Chabad Youth and Yeshivah Beth Rivkah College.

None of the Yeshivah or Chabad organisations are members of the mainstream Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) and tend to operate separately to the rest of the community, which includes Modern Orthodox, Conservative or Masorti, Progressive Judaism and secular Jews.

The vast majority of Jews in Victoria identify as Orthodox because of tradition or family connection to an Orthodox Synagogue. Nevertheless, most of these Orthodox Jews are not particularly observant, and would find their views on social and communal issues far closer to the views of the general Victorian community rather than anything espoused by the Chabad leadership.

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

By Jonathan Pitts
The Baltimore Sun

Episcopal Church officials are considering whether the Rev. Heather Elizabeth Cook — now facing criminal charges in connection with a drunken driving accident that killed a bicyclist in December — may have lied about her struggles with alcohol to smooth her path to election as the No. 2 bishop in the Diocese of Maryland last year.

In a written notice to Cook made public this week, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said church investigators have received information about “misrepresentations” regarding her “experience with alcohol” that she allegedly made in connection with her candidacy for bishop suffragan.

That information is cited as one reason church officials acted this week to formally restrict Cook from acting as a member of the clergy.

In a case that has roiled the national church and sparked controversy about how it elects its bishops, the mention of “misrepresentations” marks the first time officials have raised the possibility Cook lied during the search process for bishop suffragan, the second-ranking official in a diocese.

According to the notice from Schori, the church is looking at whether Cook gave false information to her former employer, the Diocese of Easton, about her history with alcohol as the Maryland diocese conducted background searches on its final three final candidates. The national church is conducting an investigation that could lead to disciplinary action against Cook.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

New York Archdiocese Parishioners See System of Secrets as They Fight Church Closings

By SHARON OTTERMAN
FEB. 12, 2015

For aggrieved parishioners at churches ordered closed or merged by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan last November, it seemed like a simple task: Get a copy of the formal decree of his decision on their parishes, so they could properly appeal to the Vatican.

So across the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, they began calling and writing letters to Cardinal Dolan and his senior aides, asking for the decrees. Some seven weeks later, a definitive answer came back: No, they could not have copies.

But archdiocesan officials said they would allow parishioners to view the documents — under certain conditions.

There could be no photographs and no transcriptions. Notes could be taken, but sometimes only after the document was out of sight. Viewings were by appointment, monitored by archdiocesan officials, parishioners who saw their decrees said.

The rules bewildered parishioners, who feared they might be stymied in filing their appeals. And several leading canon lawyers interviewed this week said they represented a highly unusual departure from church norms.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

13 FEBRUARY 2015

Home Secretary Theresa May has been criticised by MPs for refusing to release details of the salary of the new head of the inquiry into historic child sex abuse.

The Commons Home Affairs Committee strongly endorsed the appointment of the New Zealand High Court judge Justice Lowell Goddard to head the inquiry after the two previous chairs were forced to step down over perceived conflicts of interest.

But the committee said it was “disappointed” that Mrs May had refused to disclose her proposed salary range, saying only that it would be “in line with other public appointments of this nature”.

“This is not in line with the open and transparent approach we would expect in the course of a pre-appointment process,” the committee said.

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CANADA
Castanet

By Carmen Weld Feb 12, 2015

An Armstrong father will spend 4 1/2 years behind bars after he beat his family in the name of God.

The 42-year-old man, called L.I. to protect the identity of the victims, was convicted of seven counts against his 30-year-old wife and children in 2009 and 2010. These include six counts of committing assault and one count of sexual assault.

The assaults all took place in their family home near Armstrong, between October 2009 and August 2012, when the three children were between the ages of 18 months and four years.

According to B.C. Supreme Court Justice Frank Cole’s judgment, L.I., formerly a pastor doing missionary work in Africa, used faith as a defence for his actions.

Cole said when the wife would attempt to stop L.I. from hurting the children, he would shush her and say, “This is the way the Bible tells us to treat children. Otherwise, they will become liars and prostitutes.”

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The rising waves from government investigations, from Australia, to the UK, to Minneapolis USA and elsewhere are hammering the Vatican Titanic. And the international priest abuse survivor group, SNAP, has finally called for US Federal officials to pursue a national investigation, like Australia has and the UK is just beginning. A USA investigation is coming in due course, unless Pope Francis is successful in getting a right wing ally like Jeb Bush elected US President next year in the expectation of burying any US national investigation.

Yet Catholic Church leaders this week are continuing to sail blindly, full steam ahead, into the priest child abuse iceberg, with their latest secretive meetings of over 150 Cardinals in their full red dress uniforms. The Cardinals are meeting to discuss re-arranging the crews’ deck chairs on the sinking Vatican Titanic to enhance papal power.

Please see “Pope Francis Must Fire Cardinal Pell Now‏” here, [Christian Catholicism], “NY Times Pulls Punches As SNAP Jabs Pope & US Pols On Abuse Ploys“, here, [Christian Catholicism] “Will UK Probe of Teresa May Compel Ex-Pope Benedict To Testify?‏‏‏” , here [Christian Catholicism] and The Crisis Pope Francis Faces. Please see also prominent Australian abuse advocate, Aletha Blayse’s persuasive case for a US presidential investigation commission like Australia already has, here,”Child Abuse, War, and the Need for a National Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse”, here, [Christian Catholicism]

By now many Cardinals must be worried that they jumped too fast out of ex-Pope Benedict’s overheating frying pan into Pope Francis uncontrolled fires. Authoritarian Francis is often wrong but rarely in doubt.

Just follow some of the latest papal wizard’s meanderings down the Yellow Brick Road. Don’t breed like rabbits, just don’t use the Pill. It is selfish not to have children and more are better. Help the poor, but honor, like he seems to do, the crony capitalist billionaires from Wall Street, Big Oil and Big Media who help keep the poor, well poor, and the Catholic Church’s leaders rich. Protect children, but don’t report priest child abuse to the police unless legally obligated to do so. Say that bishops should be held accountable, then study how to do so forever. Slap your kids, but do so respectfully. Protect women, but oppose treaties that actually seek to do so. Be nice to abuse survivors, but go bankrupt to avoid compensating them justly, or if you are Cardinal Pell, grind the victims into unconditional surrender. Don’t judge gay folks, just ostracize them from Church institutions as Archbishop Cordileone is now doing in San Francisco..

Is Pope Francis really shrewd, or just opportunistic, or even duplicitous and hypocritical? Perhaps his advanced age and overwork and excessive traveling has caught up to him? He had planned to retire several years ago. He may have to soon enough.

The Cardinals began with greetings today (2/12/15) from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals and the dominant Vatican bureaucrat for most of a quarter century. His longtime protege and likely next pope, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, was at Pope Francis’ right hand during the past two days as the elite Council of Cardinals rubber stamped the pope’s reorganization plans to consolidate the pope’s power.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP

The principal of a Melbourne Jewish school will be next to give evidence to an inquiry into responses to sexual abuse at Jewish schools and community centres.

Yeshivah College principal Rabbi Joshua Smukler will testify on the final day of hearings at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Friday.

Yeshivah Melbourne spiritual leader Rabbi Zvi Telsner is also expected to continue his evidence.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Jewish Daily Forward

Rabbi Barry Freundel secretly videotaped at least 150 women in the mikveh at his prominent Washington D.C. synagogue, prosectors reportedly told a meeting of alleged victims.

The disgraced Orthodox cleric has been criminally charged with peeping on six naked women in the ritual bath at Kesher Israel.

But prosecutors said the number of victims is far higher at a closed-door hearing, the Associated Press reported.

The AP quoted three separate sources who revealed details of the meeting at which the new information was disclosed. Prosecutors are discussing the possiblility of a plea deal and want to gauge the willingness of victims to testify about the potentially humiliating invasions of their privacy.

The revelation dramatically expands the scope of the legal problems facing Freundel. He faces misdemeanor voyeurism charges in connection with the six women who have come forward to accuse him so far. But he could now face scores more criminal counts.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
TribTown

By JESSICA GRESKO Associated Press
First Posted: February 12, 2015

WASHINGTON — A rabbi accused of secretly videotaping nude women at a Jewish ritual bath recorded more than 150 women, prosecutors said during a meeting with victims, the first specifics they have given on the scope of the man’s recording.

When prosecutors charged Barry Freundel with voyeurism late last year, they based the accusations on recordings of six women but indicated more had been filmed. During a meeting with victims Wednesday evening at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, prosecutors discussed the number of victims revealed by an investigation along with the benefits of a plea deal in the case.

The meeting was closed to the press. But three people who attended told The Associated Press what was discussed. Two individuals spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the closed-door meeting.

The third person, a victim, is not being identified because The Associated Press does not identify victims of sex crimes.

Freundel’s attorney, Jeffrey Harris, did not immediately return a call Thursday requesting comment. William Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia, which is prosecuting the case, declined comment, citing an ongoing investigation.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
WBAL

Prosecutors say a rabbi is accused of secretly videotaping more than 150 nude women at a Jewish ritual bath, the first specifics they have given on the scope of the man’s filming.

Those details were divulged at a meeting with victims Wednesday night at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, according to three people who attended the meeting. The meeting was closed to the press.

Two spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the closed-door meeting.

A third is a victim of the sex crime and is not being identified by The Associated Press.

When prosecutors charged Barry Freundel with voyeurism late last year, they based the accusations on recordings of six women but indicated more women had been filmed.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Prosecutors told alleged victims of Rabbi Barry Freundel that Freundel allegedly secretly videotaped more than 150 nude women at the mikvah (Jewish ritual bath) located next to his Modern Orthodox synagogue in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, the AP reported. This confirms earlier reports by FailedMessiah.com and other media that number of Freundel’s alleged victims was likely to be at least 100.

Prosecutors held a closed meeting with a group of Freundel’s alleged victims Wednesday night at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, three people who attended the meeting told the AP.

Two of those three people reportedly spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the meeting while the third is a victim and therefore is not being publicly identified.

The current charges against Freundel – once one of the most powerful rabbis in America – are based on the videotaping of six women in the Capital Mikvah located next to the Kesher Israel synagogue Freundel headed for decades until he he was fired late last year over the voyeurism.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NBC Washington

Sources told News4 more charges could be brought against a D.C. rabbi accused of secretly videotaping women participating in ritual baths at the Georgetown’s National Capital Mikvah.

Rabbi Barry Freundel was arrested in October 2014, and sources tell News4 police have identified 152 women being recorded while bathing at the mikvah; 88 women were recorded in the past three years and 64 were recorded more than three years ago.

The videos date back to 2009.

Wednesday night, a meeting was held with his alleged victims in which a possible plea deal was discussed. Sources told News4 prosecutors won’t settle for probation and want Freundel to spend time behind bars.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

ANNE CLARK, RIVER FOREST, ILLINOIS February 12, 2015

Pope Francis’ new anti-sex abuse commission met recently in Rome. Members demanded bishops be held accountable for how they handle allegations. The Vatican has vowed that it’s “keenly aware that the issue of accountability is of major importance.”

The St. Cloud Times reported June 11 that the ex-headmaster of St. John’s Preparatory School was accused of sexual abuse. “The allegations of inappropriate contact by the Rev. Timothy Backous surfaced in a letter sent May 31 by Chris and Kathy McDermid, who live in St. Cloud and whose son was in the choir when it made a trip to Europe in 1990, to Archbishop John Nienstedt of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The letter was copied to (St. John’s Abbot John) Klassen and St. Cloud Bishop Donald Kettler.”

Minnesota Public Radio reported June 11 that the McDermids met with the head of St. John’s at the time, Abbot Jerome Theisen. They said “Theisen promised that Backous would no longer be allowed to work with the boys’ choir or students at St. John’s, the McDermids said, adding they put the matter behind them.”

Backous went on to serve as athletic director of St. John’s University and headmaster of St. John’s Prep. The family was not notified of this continued contact with children or that the promise he would no longer be allowed to work with children had not been fulfilled.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Rebecca Catalanello, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on February 12, 2015

The man who founded New Bethany Home for Girls, where some former students say they were abused, has died.

Mack Ford, 82, was found dead inside his home shortly before 8 p.m. Wednesday (Feb. 11) by a relative, Bienville Parish Coroner Don Smith said. Ford’s death appears to be from natural causes, but Smith said his office will be conducting an autopsy.

Ford, a high school dropout turned Independent Fundamentalist Baptist preacher, opened New Bethany in 1971 on a former penal farm turned convalescent home off Louisiana Highway 9 in Arcadia, La., about 50 miles east of Shreveport.

Over three decades until it closed its doors in 2001, New Bethany took in sometimes hundreds of girls a year, according to newspaper accounts and court documents. Ford marketed the school as a home for wayward youth — “a mission project to the incorrigible, unwanted rejects,” he told attorneys in 1997. “Destitute, lonely, prostitutes, drug addicts.”

But many of the former residents who found themselves behind the barbed wire gates of the compound have relayed — to police, media, social workers and others — stories of harsh, physical and mental abuse that included beatings, solitary confinement, and, more recently, sexual abuse.

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LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Feb. 12

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

We hope the death of Mack Ford will bring some measure of closure and healing to the girls’ whose lives he devastated. Though he goes to his grave having faced no consequences for his child sex crimes, Ford’s victim can take a little comfort from knowing that he can’t assault any more children.

[The Times-Picayune]

We hope these brave women will also take pride in having publicly exposed him and in convincing a prosecutor to convene a grand jury to dig in to Ford’s awful crimes. No doubt others who were raped and sodomized as children found inspiration in their courage.

“The moral arc of the universe is long but bends towards justice,” Martin Luther King once said. In the conventional sense, these deeply wounded women found no justice in the courts. But in the court of public opinion, they clearly prevailed.

King also said “No lie lives forever.” All of us should be grateful that these strong women unveiled Mack Ford’s many lies.

We wish them continued strength in their recovery from the horrific childhood trauma Ford forced on them for his selfish pleasure.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC/POLAND
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- The Justice Ministry on Thursday said Polish authorities notified by that the criminal trial against former priest Wojciech Gil (padre Alberto Gil), starts in March, on charges of sexually abusing seven Dominican boys in the highland town of Juncalito, Santiago Province (north).

The Wolomin, Poland Regional Court set the hearings from March 20 to 25, and continues April 10 and 24.

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VATICAN CITY
SpyGhana

The Vatican fears a terrorist attack against Pope Francis, a veteran cardinal said in a Thursday interview, in the most outspoken acknowledgment to date of a possible threat posed by the Islamic State group.vatican

“The fear is there,” Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone told the Italian version of the Huffington Post website. Serving as Secretary of State from 2006 to 2013, Bertone was the Vatican’s second-in-command after retired pope Benedict XVI.

“But there is also a calm and confident attitude, given the precautions that have been taken,” he added, noting that police surveillance and intelligence has been strengthened, along with efforts to reach out to moderate Islam.

“The first defence against the threats coming from fanaticism like the [Islamic State] is this dialogue with the most level-headed and reasoning sections of other religions,” the cardinal said.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

THE MINNEAPOLIS ARCHDIOCESE is re-opening a child sex abuse investigation into Fr. William Stolzman,who was at SLU for four years. This is according to the archdiocesan spokeswoman, ex-KMOV reporter Ann Steffens.

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CANADA
Indian Country Today Media Network

Sentenced to three years for the sexual abuse of boys at a Saskatchewan residential school more than 50 years ago, convicted pedophile Paul Leroux has been granted full parole after serving just one year, CBC News reports.

The victims were all students at Beauval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan during the 1970s, according to CBC News. Among other factors, the judge took into account Leroux’s age, which was 73 at the time, and gave him concurrent, rather than consecutive, sentences, radio station CKOM reported after the 2013 sentencing. Leroux’s victims did not buy it.

“I think it was a farce, given the number of offenses,” said one of the victims to CBC News after his December 2013 sentencing. “And I don’t think age should have ever been a factor in his sentencing, because he sure didn’t consider the age of the people he molested.”

Leroux, who worked as a dormitory supervisor at the Beauval school—which was in operation from 1895 through 1983, and was run by the Catholic Church—had served 10 years for similar abuse at Grollier Hall in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, CBC News said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A victim of an alleged paedophile priest extradited from New Zealand has applauded a decision to move his court proceedings from Sydney to Newcastle.

Police began investigating Catholic Brother Bernard Kevin McGrath in 2010.

After years of calling for his extradition, police finally brought the 67 year old back from New Zealand just before Christmas.

He is facing 252 child sex charges relating to the alleged abuse of 35 boys in the Lake Macquarie region near Newcastle in the 1970’s and 80’s.

Up until now his court proceedings have been in Sydney, but yesterday the matter was moved to Newcastle.

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NEW JERSEY
Press of Atlantic City

By STEPHANIE LODER, Staff Writer

The Rev. Terence McAlinden, former pastor at St. Theresa Church in Little Egg Harbor Township who was removed from ministry in 2007 amid allegations of sexual abuse, has died, the Diocese of Trenton said Tuesday.

McAlinden died Feb. 6.

The diocese declined to release information about his death, according to a statement from the diocese.

“I can confirm that Fr. Terence McAlinden died on February 6, 2015. Prior to his death he had requested that there be no obituary and no funeral Mass. The Diocese is respecting his requests,” said Rayanne Bennett, a spokeswoman for Bishop David M. O’Connell.

McAlinden was the pastor at St. Theresa’s when he was removed from the ministry by the diocese after Chris Naples, 39, of Bass River Township, reported that he was molested by McAlinden for several years.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

(Reuters) – The Vatican is considering setting up an environmental think tank, a spokesman said on Thursday, which could influence the opinion of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics on such thorny issues as climate change.

Father Federico Lombardi said the proposal was discussed at a closed-door meeting of cardinals from around the world who are at the Vatican to deliberate a reform of the Church’s central administration, known as the Curia.

“We see a growth in the awareness (of environmental problems) and in the importance of reflection, commitment, and study of environmental issues and their relation to social and human questions,” he told reporters at a briefing.

Pope Francis has said that man is destroying nature and betraying God’s calling to be stewards of creation.

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MEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Jan. 17, 2015

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

GALLUP – Officials with the Diocese of Gallup are continuing to promise answers to questions about the Rev. Ravi Kiran’s sudden departure from St. Anthony Mission in October and Kiran’s financial management of the Zuni mission.

Diocesan officials had issued mixed messages in December. The Rev. Kevin Finnegan, the diocesan chancellor and vicar general who temporarily took over supervision of the Zuni parish, told parishioners that Kiran had been cleared of wrongdoing. However, in the days following Finnegan’s announcement, Susan Boswell, the diocese’s leading bankruptcy attorney, and Suzanne Hammons, the diocese’s media coordinator, said the investigation was ongoing.

In December, Hammons had said she expected the diocese to release a summary of the mission audit before the end of the month.

On Thursday, Hammons apologized for that deadline not being met.

“I’m kind of leery of giving you a date,” Hammons said, adding she had “no word as of yet” about the audit summary’s release but thought once again it would be soon.

Hammons said the delay was caused when diocesan officials decided to “take a deeper look” into the finances of the mission, which includes both a parish church and K8 school, in order to do a “thorough job” of the audit.

List of abusers

Hammons also clarified some statements she made in December after Bishop James S. Wall released an updated list of credibly accused sex abusers from the Gallup Diocese and posted the list on the diocesan website.

Diocesan officials have said its investigation into other alleged abusers is ongoing, but they have not explained why the names of four former Gallup priests were not included on the recent list. All four have been confirmed as credibly accused abusers by other Catholic dioceses or religious orders.

“Just because they aren’t on the list now doesn’t mean they won’t be,” Hammons said, adding, “Sometimes it takes a while to dig through the files.”

Hammons had made statements in December that the Gallup Diocese would not post photographs of the credibly accused abusers on the diocesan website, or include information about their current whereabouts – information that some Catholic dioceses do post online.

Backing away from that statement a bit, Hammons said although the diocese doesn’t plan to add that information to the website list now, it doesn’t mean it won’t add the information in the future.

Hammons was also asked if the diocese had informed law enforcement agencies about the current whereabouts of the credibly accused abusers who are still living. At least 10 of the 31 credibly accused abusers on the Diocese of Gallup’s list are known to be still alive.

Hammons said she did not know the answer to that and admitted there was further work to do regarding the list of abusers.

“There’s a lot of different strings to follow,” she said.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Jan. 22, 2015

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

ALBUQUERQUE – Bankruptcy attorneys, accountants and insurance investigators have billed the Diocese of Gallup nearly $1.5 million in professional fees and expenses for just the first 10 months of the diocese’s Chapter 11 reorganization case.

The church bankruptcy, which was filed Nov. 12, 2013, is now entering its 15th month and is racking up additional professional fees and expenses with each passing month.

According to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, four law firms, an accounting firm and an insurance archaeology company have billed the diocese $1,452,383.90 in professional fees and expenses from Nov. 12, 2013 to Sept. 30, 2014.

Just prior to the filing date, the Diocese of Gallup paid fees of $297,505.32 to three of the firms, which pushes the combined pre- and post-filing total to nearly $1.75 million.

In addition, the most recent quarterly billing statements, for the period ending Dec. 31, 2014, have yet to be submitted to the court.

Billing breakdown

Quarles & Brady, LLP, the Tucson law firm that is acting as the Gallup Diocese’s lead bankruptcy counsel, billed the lion’s share with $905,906.71 for fees and expenses from Nov. 12, 2013 to Sept. 30, 2014.*

Keegan, Linscott & Kenon, P.C., the Tucson accounting firm that has supervised the diocese’s finances throughout the bankruptcy process, billed the next highest total of $237,950.47.

The California law firm of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP, which represents the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, billed the diocese $235,172.80. Although lead attorney James I. Stang and the committee represent the interests of the 56 people who filed confidential clergy sex abuse claims against the diocese, the Diocese of Gallup is responsible for paying the law firm’s fees and expenses.

The Insurance Archaeology Group, a New York company that specializes in investigating insurance assets, billed the diocese $46,433.20.

Walker & Associates, P.C., an Albuquerque firm specializing in bankruptcy law, billed the diocese $18,062.40, which includes fees, expenses and New Mexico gross receipts taxes. Unlike the other professional firms, Walker & Associates’ total only runs through April 30, 2014.

Stelzner, Winter, Warburton, Flores, Sanchez & Dawes, P.A., also of Albuquerque, billed the diocese $8,858.45, which also includes legal fees, expenses and state gross receipts taxes. Prior to the bankruptcy filing, the Stelzner firm was the Diocese of Gallup’s primary law firm that handled clergy sex abuse lawsuits and claims.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma must approve all the professional fees and expenses. Last February Thuma warned attorneys in the case that he didn’t want to see most of the money in the reorganization going toward litigation costs.

Funding strategy

The Insurance Archaeology Group is the only professional firm to have received payment from the Gallup Diocese since the Chapter 11 petition was filed.

According to court records, the accounting and law firms will have to wait for payment until the diocese’s plan of reorganization is approved and funded.

Based on developments thus far, attorneys for both the Diocese of Gallup and the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors have been looking to fund the reorganization plan through the diocese’s insurance coverage and by attempting to tap into the financial resources of other Catholic entities, such as the Diocese of Corpus Christi and Franciscan provinces, which allegedly allowed sexually abusive clergy to serve in the Gallup Diocese.

Although attorneys with Quarles & Brady have stated that they have worked to identify “property that is not critical to the continued mission and ministry” of the diocese that could be sold to help fund a plan of reorganization, sales of diocesan commercial property, residential lots, and ranch land have not happened yet.

Instead, earlier this month, diocesan attorneys filed a motion requesting authorization to hire an Albuquerque appraisal company to appraise five key pieces of church property in Gallup and Thoreau. At least four of the properties, the Gallup chancery office, two Catholic schools, and the diocese’s retreat center, are all very closely tied to the diocese’s mission and ministry.

Diocesan attorneys did not respond to requests for comment about those appraisal plans.
In contrast to the Diocese of Gallup’s slower moving case, a bankruptcy judge approved the Diocese of Helena’s reorganization plan last week – just one year after the Montana diocese filed its Chapter 11 petition.

According to media reports, the Helena plan includes a $16.4 million settlement for hundreds of clergy abuse survivors, plus another $4.45 million payment from the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province to settle an abuse lawsuit filed by 45 Native American plaintiffs.

*Reporter’s Note: The figure of $905,906.71 was incorrect – over by $3,134.61 – due to an addition error by Quarles & Brady in Document No. 326, filed Nov. 14, 2014, regarding their fees and expenses from April 1 through June 30, 2014. The firm subsequently corrected the error in a later court document.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Feb. 7, 2015

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

ALBUQUERQUE – The Diocese of Gallup, which had to borrow money in order to file for Chapter 11 reorganization, currently owes its lead bankruptcy law firm more than $1 million in legal fees and expenses.

The diocese’s total bankruptcy bill is now in excess of $1.8 million for professional services and expenses provided by various attorneys, accountants and insurance researchers. The updated total represents fees and expenses through Dec. 31, 2014.

Documents filed last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court show the Gallup Diocese has been billed $1,854,316 by six different professional firms.

The diocese’s lead bankruptcy firm, Quarles & Brady LLP of Tucson, is owed the bulk of the money, with its current billing now at $1,129,598. The law firm’s most recent notice of fees and expenses, filed Jan.30, corrected a previous addition error included in a billing notice dated Nov. 14, 2014.

Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP is legal counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which represents the interests of clergy abuse survivors who have filed claims against the diocese in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The Diocese of Gallup is responsible for the firm’s legal fees and expenses, which are now up to $373,374.

The diocese’s Tucson accounting firm, Keegan, LinScott & Kenon, P.C., is now owed $277,093.

Stelzner, Winter, Warburton, Flores, Sanchez & Dawes, P.A., a New Mexico law firm that frequently represented the diocese prior to the Chapter 11 filing, is owed $9,754.

Walker & Associates, P.C., the diocese’s Albuquerque bankruptcy law firm, has not submitted an updated bill beyond its first bill for $18,062.

Insurance Archaeology Group, an insurance research company, did not incur any fees and expenses in the most recent quarterly billing period.

Other than Insurance Archaeology Group, which has been paid $46,433, none of the other firms are slated to receive payment for their professional services until the Diocese of Gallup’s plan of reorganization is approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Prior to filing its Chapter 11 petition, the Diocese of Gallup borrowed $200,000 from the Diocese of Phoenix and $29,000 from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. In December 2013, in testimony before the Assistant U.S. Trustee, Gallup Bishop James S. Wall said he took out the two loans in order to file for Chapter 11 reorganization.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

By Danny Wicentowski Thu., Feb. 12 2015

If Pope Francis wants to change Church doctrine on divorce and gay marriage, he’ll have to go through Cardinal Raymond Burke.

That shouldn’t shock anyone who has followed Burke’s career path since he left St. Louis as archbishop in 2008, especially since the cantankerous, ultra-conservative prelate mansplained his way into the headlines last month by blaming women and gay clergy for the Church’s molestation crisis. In October, when it appeared — for a moment — that the Vatican was ready to make a “seismic shift” on gay rights in the church, Burke used it as an opportunity to publicly remind folks that expressions of gayness can damage children.

But Burke went further this week, telling a French news program that he would feel compelled to “resist” Pope Francis if the pontiff tries to soften Church doctrine.

Burke and the pope are hardly buddies, and much has been made of the pope’s decision to remove Burke from his spot on the church’s highest court. But Burke’s recent sit-down with France2, which aired Sunday, is notable for the interviewer’s blunt probing of rocky relationship between the two spiritual leaders.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

The principal of a Melbourne Jewish school will be next to give evidence to an inquiry into responses to sexual abuse at Jewish schools and community centres.

Yeshivah College principal Rabbi Joshua Smukler will testify on the final day of hearings at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Friday.

Yeshivah Melbourne spiritual leader Rabbi Zvi Telsner is also expected to continue his evidence.

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GERMANY
Catholic News Agency

By Jan Bentz

Rome, Italy, Feb 12, 2015 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- While church attendees dwindle in Germany, questions have arisen once again over the controversial state-imposed church tax – and whether it’s time for the country’s bishops to address concerns around it.

“We are in a time when more and more people realize that the financial apparatus Church works well, that the facade is optimal but what is behind it? Where is the true faith?” asked Martin Lohmann, Catholic publicist, author and spokesperson of the advocacy group Christian Action in Germany.

“While we have a decreasing of Church membership,” he told CNA on Feb. 9, “on the other side we have a raising of Church tax.”

When Germans register as Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish on their tax forms, the government automatically collects an income tax from them which amounts to 8 or 9 percent of their total income tax, or 3-4 percent of their salary.

The “church tax” is given to the religious communities, rather than those communities collecting a tithe. The Church uses its funds to help run its parishes, schools, hospitals, and welfare projects.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY JOANNE SWEENEY – 12 FEBRUARY 2015

A government inquiry into historical child sex abuse may yet hear allegations regarding Kincora boys home following an undertaking by the head of the inquiry.

Justice Lowell Coddard surprised some members of the Home Affairs select committee when she said she had heard of the Kincora case, but was “not familiar” with it in response to a question about it from Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert.

She told the committee on Wednesday that she anticipated there would “probably be avenues by which to revisit” the issue and that she would “certainly raise it” for consideration with the home secretary if she felt it was important to do so.

Three senior care staff at the home in east Belfast were jailed in 1891 for sexual abusing 11 boys.

However, there have been claims that high-ranking security services personnel and senior political figures from England were also involved in the abuse.

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UNITED STATES
The Hill

By Allan J. Lichtman, contributor

Pope Francis has expressed many wise and compassionate thoughts in his brief reign as pontiff:

“We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor.”

“If a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. We shouldn’t marginalize people for this.”

“The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.”

“Women are asking deep questions that must be addressed. We must therefore investigate further the role of women in the Church.”

“Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else — God is in this person’s life.”

However, Pope Francis stumbled badly in his recent unscripted comments on the physical punishment of children. The pope said, “One time, I heard a father say, ‘At times I have to hit my children a bit, but never in the face so as not to humiliate them.'” The pope then added: “That’s great. He had a sense of dignity. He should punish, do the right thing, and then move on.”

Every attempt to hurt a child has baleful consequences. The many dozens of independent scientific studies now conducted on physical punishment demonstrate that it has multiple harmful effects on children, parents and society and virtually no positive effects of any kind.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, February 12, 2015

For more information: Melanie Jula Sakoda ( 925-708-6175 cell, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com ), Cappy Larson ( 415-637-2006 cell, cappy@rlarson.com ), David Clohessy ( 314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )

Clergy sex abuse victims again beg synod to defrock archbishop
He was the Orthodox Church in America’s highest ranking cleric in Canada
But, his appeal denied, he is now in jail for sexually assaulting a young boy

SNAP to church officials: “No more excuses, follow your abuse policy”

Members of an abuse survivors’ group are again urging Orthodox Church in America (OCA) officials to defrock a high ranking clergyman who was found guilty of molesting a child.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, say that the denomination has publicly acknowledged that their sex abuse policy requires that clergy who have been convicted of child sexual abuse be laicized by the synod of bishops.

[Orthodox Church in America]

Storheim was convicted in January of 2014 for sexually violating an 11 year old altar boy in Winnipeg. The archbishop was sentenced to 8 months in jail the following July, but appealed both the conviction and the sentence. However, his conviction and his sentence were recently upheld by the appellate court.

[Winnipeg Free Press]

[CTV]

[Winnipeg Sun]

The survivors’ group wrote to the OCA’s synod of bishops before their meeting last spring, begging them to follow their policy in Storheim’s case.

[SNAP]

SNAP has again written to the synod, again asking them to act at their spring meeting to enforce their own guidelines. The text of the letter, sent today by fax (where available) and email to 12 hierarchs is pasted below. The names and contact information for the bishops follow the text.

“At the risk of repeating myself, this is a no-brainer and should have happened last year,” said Cappy Larson of SNAP. “Both Archbishop Seraphim’s guilt and church policy are crystal clear. Now even the appeal is over and the archbishop is serving his sentence. No more excuses, the synod needs to follow its policy!”

“Please,” added Melanie Jula Sakoda, also of SNAP, “make sure that this convicted child molester can never again use his religious titles or roles to get access to and hurt another child.”

From 1990 until his forced retirement in March of 2014, Storheim headed the OCA’s Archdiocese of Canada and was based in Ottawa, Ontario. Prior to that he worked in Edmonton and other cities in Alberta, Winnipeg in Manitoba, London, also in Ontario, Charlotte, North Carolina in the United States, and in Finland.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By Joe Kimball

The late Monsignor J. Jerome Boxleitner, the long-time head of Catholic Charities who died in 2013, is on a new list of priests accused of sexual abuse.

Boxleitner is one of 17 priests on the list released Wednesday by attorney Jeff Anderson.

Shortly before Boxleitner died, St. Paul officials wanted to name a building for him, but the priest said he didn’t want that, noting: “you should never name something after someone until they’ve been dead for 10 years, to be sure you haven’t made a mistake.”

The Pioneer Press said Anderson’s firm filed a notice of claim with the archdiocese for those 17. “A claim is a precursor to a lawsuit, but because the archdiocese has filed for bankruptcy protection, no new suits can be filed and the claims will be filed with U.S. Bankruptcy Court as part of its reorganization,” the story said.

Boxleitner was widely lauded when he died in May, 2013, for his 21 years at Catholic Charities and his work with the homeless.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 12 February 2015 (VIS) – A total of 165 cardinals participated in this morning’s first session of the Extraordinary Consistory with the Holy Father. Twenty-five were unable to attend due to illness or other serious problems, according to a report from the director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., following the morning meeting.

Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga explained that the meeting of the Council of Cardinals (the so-called “C9”) which came to an end yesterday afternoon, focused primarily but not exclusively on the reform of the Curia; other themes addressed were the regulation of the Synod, the work of the Commission for the Protection of Minors, and relations with the economic entities of the Holy See (COSEA and IOR).

Bishop Marcello Semeraro, secretary of the C9, presented the main lines of reform of the Roman Curia, in the light of the meeting of heads of the dicasteries that took place in November 2014. The issues to be considered are the functions of the Roman Curia, its relationship with other entities such as the episcopal conferences, the criteria for rationalisation and simplification that must guide it in its tasks, the Secretariat of State, the coordination of the dicasteries of the Curia, the relationship between religious and laypersons and the procedures that must govern the preparation of the new constitution.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 12 February 2015 (VIS) – At 9 a.m. this morning, in the Vatican’s Synod Hall, the Extraordinary Consistory of the College of Cardinals began, attended by the Holy Father and by those who will be created cardinals in next Saturday’s consistory. The works will take place over two days, today and tomorrow, with sessions from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Following the Terce prayer and greetings from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, the Holy Father Francis gave a brief address to those present. “Welcome to this communion, expressed in collegiality”, he began, thanking the Comission of the nine cardinals and its coordinator, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga and the secretary, Bishop Marcello Semeraro who presented a summary of the work carried out during these months in drafting the new Apostolic Constitution on the reform of the Curia. This summary, noted Pope Francis, “has been prepared on the basis of many suggestions, also on the part of the heads and officers of the dicasteries, alongside experts on the subject”.

“The aim is always that of promoting greater harmony in the work of the various dicasteries and offices, in order to achieve more effective collaboration in that absolute transparency that edifies authentic synodality and collegiality”, he continued, commenting that “reform is not an end in itself, but a way of giving strong Christian witness; to promote more effective evangelisation; to promote a fruitful ecumenical spirit; and to encourage a more constructive dialogue with all”.

“Reform, strongly advocated by the majority of cardinals in the context of the general congregations before the Conclave, must continue to enhance the identity of the Roman Curia itself, that is, that of assisting Peter’s Successor in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office for the good and in the service of the universal Church and the particular Churches, in order to strengthen unity of faith and the communion of the people of God, and to promote the mission of the Church in the world”, continued the Pontiff.

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AUSTRALIA
The Jewish Daily Forward

By JTA
Published February 12, 2015.

A senior rabbi resigned as a director of Chabad’s Yeshiva Center in Sydney following comments he made at the Royal Commission into the child sexual abuse scandal inside two Chabad institutions in Australia.

Rabbi Yossi Feldman, a son of the chief rabbi of Chabad in Sydney, stood down from the board of management of the Yeshiva Center Wednesday in the wake of a torrent of criticism from the rabbinate and mainstream Jewish leaders, who labeled his testimony as “repugnant to Jewish values and to Judaism.”

Feldman told the commission, which is investigating how rabbis responded to the abuse in Sydney and Melbourne in the 1980s and 1990s, that he did not believe it appropriate for victims to go to the police if offenses took place decades prior. He also claimed that the law should be lenient on pedophiles who had not offended for two decades and had repented.

“As of today I am resigning from my position as a director on the board of management of The Yeshiva Centre, which includes my administrative responsibilities,” Rabbi Feldman said in a statement. “I apologize to anyone in the rabbinate, the Jewish community and the wider Australian community who have been embarrassed or ashamed by my views, words, understandings, recordings or emails about child sexual abuse or any other matter.”

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UNITED STATES
Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs L.A.

Pope Francis will meet with all the Cardinals of the world, along with those to be created on February 14, in Rome on Thursday and Friday, February 12 and 13.

We have been informed that the agenda will focus on the ongoing restructuring of the Vatican Curia, the various offices which assist the Pope in his governance of the Universal Church.

This will be fascinating, and it is becoming increasingly obvious that Pope Francis is leading all of us disciples of Jesus into a fuller and deeper relationship with Jesus as a first step. Any renewal of the broader Church must begin with our own personal renewal in and through Jesus. Then, Pope Francis is pointing us to a simpler organizational and administrative structure, preferring the simpler model of the Church in the Acts of the Apostles. This model places greater autonomy at the local levels of the Church, as lived out historically in the Eastern Catholic Churches and in the Orthodox Churches.

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GUAM
Concerned Catholics of Guam

CCOG will be having a village meeting on February 19, 2015 at 6:00 p.m. at the Yona Senior Citizen Center at Baza Gardens. All are welcome!

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AUSTRALIA
The Daily Beast

Emily Shire

Aided by a communal pressure to not go to secular authorities, some Orthodox Jewish boys in Australia say their sexual abuse has gone unpunished for years.

It is as disgusting as it is ironic that the mikveh—the ritual baths where Jews and converts to Judaism immerse to purify themselves—was one of the places Manny Waks says he was sexually abused as an Orthodox Jewish teenager in Melbourne. According to him, Shmuel David Cyprys, the head of security at Yeshivah Centre—the school Waks attended—instructed him to go to the mikveh with him in 1990.

“During the abuse I became very dizzy and told him that I needed to get out of the water. I went over to the drying area and sat down on the floor. Cyprys came over to me and continued what he had been doing in the bath,” Waks remembered. “I remember feeling very dizzy to the point where I blacked out briefly. Soon after I got up, dressed myself and walked home.”

Waks shared this account last week at the start of the Australia Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse. The Jewish community is hardly the only group that the Australian government is probing. It has, however, warranted two weeks of specific scrutiny as more people like Waks, who kept their abuse hidden for decades after their rabbis allegedly failed to respond, have decided to go public for the entire Jewish community and the country to hear their stories.

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AUSTRALIA
The JC

By Dan Goldberg, February 12, 2015

An inquiry into a child sex abuse scandal that engulfed two Australian Chabad institutions in the 1980s and 1990s has been suffused with acrimony and accusations, tragedy and trauma.

In an email to one of the victims that was read out at the hearing last week, Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, from Sydney, said: “I’m prepared to say that Rabbi [Boruch] Lesches lied when he said that he didn’t know about the abuse.”

Lesches, who now lives in the US, was a senior official at Chabad’s headquarters in Sydney at the time of the abuse. It is understood he will not appear before the commission despite attempts by Australian officials to bring him in.

“People say that everything that will come out is a hilul hashem (desecration of God’s name) — I say the hilul hashem is if it doesn’t come out,” Rabbi Gutnick wrote. “These guys are all bastards. They all have blood on their hands.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

February 13, 2015

Pia Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne

THE rabbi who presided over Melbourne’s Yeshivah College while two staff members were abusing children has apologised for the first time to the victims, prompting renewed calls for his resignation.

Rabbi Abraham Glick joined Yeshivah College — part of the orthodox Chabad community — as a teacher in 1970, becoming head of Jewish studies from 1974 and principal from 1988 to 2007. He was involved in a decision to send teacher and rabbi David Kramer to Israel in 1992 when an abuse allegation was made, and also served as principal while Yeshivah worker David Cyprys was abusing boys in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Rabbi Glick told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday that he was “sickened” the abuse had occurred under his watch.

“I would like to apologise to the students,” he said.

“I see that many mistakes were made. We should have been more vigilant, we should have responded better. Anything that we could do to help them in their healing process, move forwards, I personally would like to know … I think that would help me in my healing process.”

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SCOTLAND
The Tablet

12 February 2015 by Brian Morton

A proposed restructuring of parishes in the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh will lead to a reduction in the number of full-time priests to about 30 by 2035.

Making the prediction, Archbishop Leo Cushley described the restructuring process as “painful” and “unpleasant” but essential in light of falling attendance at Mass, fewer baptisms and weddings, and a dramatic stall in the number of vocations to the priesthood.

Those close to the archdiocese deny that there has been any “O’Brien effect”, as reported in some media, or direct fall-out from the admission of sexual misconduct by disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien in 2013.

The archdiocese has a Catholic population of around 110,000 and has 129 priests, including some who are retired. But the process of restructuring, for which proposals have been canvassed from deaneries and which will be discussed by clergy and lay representatives in a consultation process beginning at Easter 2015, has already begun.

Since 2008 the 109 parishes in St Andrews and Edinburgh have been organised into 31 parish “clusters” by which clergy minister to more than one parish within a particular locality.

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VATICAN CITY
Commonweal

Robert Mickens

February 11, 2015

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors held its first full plenary session in Rome last week under the direction of Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley. They told journalists at a briefing on Saturday they were formulating suggestions for how Pope Francis should make bishops accountable for implementing protection guidelines. As expected, certain survivors’ groups and other critics of the Vatican dismissed this as yet more empty words. That’s unfortunate. But it’s also understandable, especially given the Vatican’s lack of transparency when it comes to dealing with such bishops. The head of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, offered a rare public display (at least for him) of how defensive church officials can be when pressed for more openness. Visibly irritated, he snapped back at an Italian TV journalist who attempted to ask why there was a delay in the trial of Jozef Wesolowski, the defrocked bishop and former papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic who has been charged with sexual abuse of young boys. “It has nothing to do [with this briefing],” the priest said curtly. When she pressed him an aide took the microphone from her and Fr. Lombardi said, “Enough! Let’s move on.” This, too, was unfortunate. The Holy See has publicly dealt with at least four bishops for either committing abuse or trying to cover it up. But there has been no transparency regarding their whereabouts or their status. In addition to Wesolowski, there is also Belgian Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who “resigned” in 2010 after admitting to molesting his young nephews. Where is he now? Has he been laicized? The Vatican has not said. Then there is Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who also “resigned,” just before the conclave of 2013 after being accused of sexual harassment by a number of seminarians and priests. Where is he? The Vatican will not say. And, of course, there’s the case of Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, who was given a two-year suspended sentence after being criminally convicted for failing to report sexual abuse of minors. The Vatican supposedly carried out an investigation last September and two months later in a TV interview Cardinal O’Malley had this to say about the Finn case: “It’s a question the Holy See must address urgently.” Is it cynical to wonder what in the world transparency and urgency mean in the Vatican?

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OHIO
Jewish Community Watch

200 members of Cleveland’s orthodox Jewish community gathered on Sunday night to hear from abuse survivors, mental health professionals, and legal experts, in a “Night of Awareness and Education” about child sexual abuse. The event was organized by Jewish Community Watch (JCW), an organization committed to raising awareness of and preventing child sexual abuse in the orthodox Jewish community. The standing-room only crowd included survivors, parents of small children, and community leaders.

Ruth Gordon spoke about her son Dave Gordon who he had been a victim of horrific sexual abuse as a child growing up in Michigan. As a young adolescent he suffered through depression and addiction but eventually turned a corner and became an outspoken anti-abuse activist. He joined the Israeli Defense Force and partook in the Operation Protective Edge in Gaza this past summer. Shortly after, he was tragically found dead of gunshot wounds.

Ruth spoke about the specific struggles that victims of abuse face within the orthodox Jewish community, where the institutional cover-ups and shame have destroyed numerous lives. She noted the irony that her late son Dave had received more unconditional support in his Narcotics Anonymous groups, which were mostly held in churches, than he received at his local synagogue. With her voice shaking she concluded with a message for the parents in attendance “watch your children, listen to your children, believe your children, protect your children and love your children”

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

[document]

ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS RE PARISH REPRESENTATION

Q: Our parish has not received a notice of claim. Why do we need representation?

A: Although each of the Archdiocesan parishes is a separate corporate entity, which means that its assets are not included in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy, all parishes have a financial interest in the outcome of the Archdiocese’s Chapter 11 case. All parishes contribute to the support of the Archdiocese through their assessments, and therefore, to the extent that the Archdiocese needs money to fund its ongoing operations in the Chapter 11 case and beyond, those funds are going to have to come primarily from the parishes. It is possible that there could be changes to the assessments, depending on the Archdiocese’s operational needs. In addition, most parishes participate in the Archdiocesan general insurance and health and dental insurance plans. Both of these plans are currently holding significant excess funds. Although the Archdiocese has possession of and may hold legal title to these funds, the parishes and other related entities have contributed the vast majority of these excess funds through the payment of their insurance premiums. As a result, the parishes have an equitable interest in the funds which needs to be protected. Finally, all parishes have been listed as creditors by the Archdiocese in the Chapter 11 case and parishes should have legal representation to advise them on how to file a claim and perform any other actions necessary to protect their interests with respect to their claims against the Archdiocese.

Q: Our Parish has received a Notice of Claim. How can an attorney help us?

A: Once your parish receives a Notice of Claim, it is important that your parish tender it as soon as possible to any insurer that may provide coverage for the claim. This is particularly important now, as the mediation process in the bankruptcy is moving quickly, so all insurance carriers with claims should be put on notice as soon as possible. An insurance coverage attorney can draft and send this correspondence on your behalf and then respond to future communications with the insurance company for you. These communications are essential to protecting your parish’s rights under its insurance policy. If the insurance company denies coverage, your insurance coverage attorney can advise you as to how best to proceed.

Q: How does our Parish know who its insurers are?

A: Since many of these claims date back to the 1960s and 1970s, if not before, finding coverage can be tricky. Rarely, are full insurance policies maintained from those time periods. Your attorney will guide your Parish in locating evidence of insurance its files, analyzing this evidence and then contacting the insurers that likely provided coverage.

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

Pope Francis delivered a brief but significant talk to open a two-day meeting of cardinals, convened for a progress report on Curia reform.

At a time when the pace of the reform project is slowing and resistance has increased inside the Vatican, the pope underlined his “determination” to follow through on plans to streamline the Vatican bureaucracy, establish transparency and end the power struggles and careerism inside the Roman Curia.

He reminded his audience that two years ago, in meetings ahead of the conclave that elected him, the majority of cardinals pushed strongly for these reforms.

“The goal is to favor greater harmony in the work of the various agencies and offices, so that there is more efficient cooperation, carried out in that absolute transparency that builds true synodality and collegiality,” the pope said.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

David Gibson | February 12, 2015

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis called for a Vatican that operates with “absolute transparency” as he gathered more than 150 cardinals in Rome for high-level meetings aimed at tackling one of the toughest challenges of his reformist papacy: overhauling the dysfunctional bureaucracy of the Roman Curia.

“The goal we are aiming for is always that of encouraging greater harmony in the work of the various (curial offices) in order to create a more effective collaboration in that absolute transparency that builds authentic … collegiality,” Francis said Thursday (Feb. 12) to a lecture hall filled with the scarlet clad “princes of the church,” as the cardinals are known.

“Reform is not an end in itself, but a means of bearing a powerful Christian witness,” Francis said, a nod to the scandals that in recent years undermined the Vatican’s credibility with the public and dismayed churchmen around the world who had to deal with the fallout.

The two-day gathering with the cardinals – among them 20 new appointees who the pope will officially enroll in their ranks on Saturday – comes almost two years to the day after Francis’ predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, stunned the world by announcing that he would become the first pope in nearly 600 years to resign from office.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Jesus was Jewish, not Catholic. He said child abuse was a serious evil that should be punished severely. After Roman Emperor Constantine and his Fourth Century successors began the transformation of the Catholic Church into a “top down absolute monarchy”, too many popes, up to and including Pope Francis, lost their way on following Jesus’ Jewish mandate to protect children. Pope Francis and his Cardinals are this week working on the pope’s top priority — fine tuning the top down and unaccountable management structure apparently to maximize papal power and wealth. This structure is clearly contradicted by Jesus’ mandate for a leadership that serves, not dominates, that was mainly followed by early Christians for over three centuries.

THE CATHOLIC ANSWER FIRST. The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has found (2/11/15) that Cardinal George Pell and the Sydney Catholic Archdiocese repeatedly failed in their dealings with Sydney abuse victim John Ellis.

After Pell testified before the Royal Commission, Pell moved quickly to Rome to become the top money man in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis had rewarded his Australian service by making him head of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy. He lives in luxury in his palatial Roman “guest house”, Domus Australia, renovated with $30 million of Australian donations.

Cardinal Pell is headlining meetings this week in Rome with Pope Francis and all the world’s Cardinals. If Pope Francis is serious about holding Bishops to account, Pell must be fired pronto, not promoted and honored. Otherwise, the pope is making a mockery of Jesus’ mandates about protecting children and serving, not dominating.. Please see “Pope Francis Must Fire Cardinal Pell Now‏” here,

[Christian Catholicism]

and “NY Times Pulls Punches As SNAP Jabs Pope & US Pols On Abuse Ploys“, here, [Christian Catholicism] .

The criticism of Pell comes in a new Royal Commission Report, Report of Case Study 8: Mr John Ellis’s experience of the Towards Healing process and civil litigation. (2/11/15)

The Report found that Cardinal Pell “did not act fairly from a Christian point of view in the conduct of the litigation against Mr Ellis”. (my emphasis)

The Royal Commission examined the treatment of John Ellis, a Sydney lawyer and former altar boy who was abused repeatedly by Father Aidan Duggan between 1974 and 1979. The Report said Ellis, who suffered personally and severely as a result of the sexual abuse in his youth, spent more than a decade seeking compensation, but lost the case on a legal technicality in 2007 when the Court of Appeal ruled the Catholic Church was not an entity that could be sued.

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

Dan Rodricks
BALTIMORE SUN
dan.rodricks​@baltsun.com

The Episcopal Church’s very public “Agony in the Garden” over the Heather Cook case — with most of the angst focused on whether church leaders knew about her drinking problem before they made her a bishop — continues. Now a high-ranking official is calling for the national church to officially “repent for our role” in the death of bicyclist Thomas Palermo.

Perhaps it’s the Catholic in me, but I associate “repent” with sin, a considerable step above a mere wrong or mistake that would require apology. Sin calls for repentance. So, with that word, the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, president of the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church, elevates this tragedy into a sphere where the laity fear to tread — into the realm of moral evil. That’s somewhere high above criminal law, and well above my credentials, up in the clouds where clergy agonize among themselves.

That’s what spiritual leaders are ordained to do. They wrestle with large moral questions. Among many instructions, they tell us what’s sinful and what isn’t.

But I have to ask: What sin is Jennings suggesting here? A lie of omission?

You could take that from the questions that keep coming up: How did Cook win election last year as Maryland’s bishop suffragan when she had received probation before judgment for drunken driving on the Eastern Shore in 2010? Sub-question: Why were those who elected her not made aware of that incident ahead of the vote?

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

Three separate diphtheria outbreaks among infants in one of the country’s mother and baby homes had 100% mortality rates.

The revelation is contained in a 1945 report in the Irish Medical Journal concerning the prevalence of diphtheria in infants in the Sean Ross Abbey mother and baby home operated by the Sacred Heart Sisters in Tipperary.

The report, co-written by county medical officer for Tipperary North Riding, Dr JB O’Regan, lists seven diphtheria outbreaks between 1935 and 1941.

In three of the outbreaks, all of the 31 children who contracted the disease died. In total, between 1935 and 1941, 54 out of the 118 children who contracted diphtheria died — a mortality rate of 45%.

An abstract from another paper written by Dr O’Regan indicates the mortality rate for diphtheria in infants in the county, as a whole, between 1943 and 1944 was just 2.7%. Children dying from diphtheria in Sean Ross Abbey were excluded from those statistics.

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UNITED STATES
Perspective

There’s been stuff in the news about the Vatican’s new sex abuse commission. I’m glad they have a couple of sex abuse survivors on the commission, but I don’t expect much from the commission in terms of actually making a difference in how the Vatican handles sex abuse. Here’s a bit from Robert Mickens’ recent Letter from Rome on this …

Letter from Rome: Where Is the Vatican ‘Transparency’ on Abuse?

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors held its first full plenary session in Rome last week under the direction of Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley. They told journalists at a briefing on Saturday they were formulating suggestions for how Pope Francis should make bishops accountable for implementing protection guidelines. As expected, certain survivors’ groups and other critics of the Vatican dismissed this as yet more empty words. That’s unfortunate. But it’s also understandable, especially given the Vatican’s lack of transparency when it comes to dealing with such bishops. The head of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, offered a rare public display (at least for him) of how defensive church officials can be when pressed for more openness. Visibly irritated, he snapped back at an Italian TV journalist who attempted to ask why there was a delay in the trial of Jozef Wesolowski, the defrocked bishop and former papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic who has been charged with sexual abuse of young boys. “It has nothing to do [with this briefing],” the priest said curtly. When she pressed him an aide took the microphone from her and Fr. Lombardi said, “Enough! Let’s move on.” This, too, was unfortunate. The Holy See has publicly dealt with at least four bishops for either committing abuse or trying to cover it up. But there has been no transparency regarding their whereabouts or their status. In addition to Wesolowski, there is also Belgian Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who “resigned” in 2010 after admitting to molesting his young nephews. Where is he now? Has he been laicized? The Vatican has not said. Then there is Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who also “resigned,” just before the conclave of 2013 after being accused of sexual harassment by a number of seminarians and priests. Where is he? The Vatican will not say. And, of course, there’s the case of Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, who was given a two-year suspended sentence after being criminally convicted for failing to report sexual abuse of minors. The Vatican supposedly carried out an investigation last September and two months later in a TV interview Cardinal O’Malley had this to say about the Finn case: “It’s a question the Holy See must address urgently.” Is it cynical to wonder what in the world transparency and urgency mean in the Vatican?

And meanwhile, more has come out about the mishandling of sex abuse in Australia by Cardinal Pell, the man in whom Pope Francis puts so much trust. One of the stories in the news today on how Pell mistreated abuse victims … Catholic church fought sex abuse victim’s claims to deter others, inquiry finds …

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