ST. LOUIS (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

[the entire deposition – via Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis]

Dennis Coday | Jun. 11, 2014 NCR Today

The Minnesota lawyer who released the deposition of St. Louis’ archbishop this week took the archbishop’s response to a question “out of context and suggested that the Archbishop did not know that it was a criminal offense for an adult to molest a child. Nothing could be further from the truth,” says in a statement the archdiocese released this morning.

“Recent inaccurate and misleading reporting by certain media outlets has impugned Archbishop Carlson’s good name and reputation,” the statement says.

A full reading of the deposition shows that Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis was responding not to a general question about the sexual abuse of children but to a question about a specific point of Minnesota law — mandatory reporting laws — when he said, “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.”

“In the deposition video, which was released by Plaintiff’s counsel, the dialogue between Plaintiff’s counsel and Archbishop Carlson focused on Archbishop Carlson’s knowledge of Minnesota child abuse reporting statutes and when clergy became mandatory reporters,” the archdiocesan statement says.

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IRELAND
Bock the Robber

Posted by Bock on June 10, 2014

How symbolic it is that the inquiry into the oppressive practices of the religious orders in Ireland should be announced by a son of Oliver J Flanagan.

Who’s that? somebody asked me earlier today.

Oliver J Flanagan, TD, was an extremely conservative Catholic bigot, an anti-Semite, a short-lived Fine Gael minister and a proud Knight of Columbanus. The Mountmellick Monolith, as John Healy once called him in the Irish Times, represented the worst of parish-pump Irish political stroke-pulling, a ward-heeling kisser of every episcopal ring that came within 100 miles of his ambit and a symbol of everything that was wrong with this backward little country since independence.

How refreshing, therefore, that his son, Charlie Flanagan, minister for children and youth affairs, should be the one to announce a commission of inquiry into the activities of the mother and baby homes that wrought such misery on some Irish people, with the active support of many others.

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UNITED STATES
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) 2014 Spring General Assembly will be held in New Orleans June11-13, 2014. You will be able to follow the bishops’ actions at the meeting by viewing the live stream or reviewing video-on-demand of the public sessions and following the Twitter feed. You will also find links to related USCCB news releases and coverage from Catholic News Service on this page. Links to the agenda, speeches, votes and other material will be posted in the right hand column of this page.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Delco News Network

By Patti Mengers

RIDLEY TOWNSHIP — Notre Dame de Lourdes Church parishioners who had expected to submit an appeal to keep their parish open to Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput last Friday, finally sent him their letter, drafted by a canon lawyer, Monday along with petitions containing more than 3,000 signatures.

“Everybody we speak to says the momentum is growing. I hope we can sustain it,” said Thomas Donahue, spokesman for the parish’s Save Notre Dame de Lourdes campaign.

The 3,527 parishioners learned at masses on May 31 and June 1 that the archbishop, on the advice of the archdiocesan Strategic Planning Committee, has determined that Notre Dame de Lourdes will close July 1 and merge with Our Lady of Peace Parish in Milmont Park.

The closures and mergers are part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Parish Planning Initiative conceived in 2010 by former Philadelphia archbishop Cardinal Justin Rigali and implemented in 2011 by Chaput to determine parish sustainability. For now, the churches of the closed parishes will remain as worship sites for special occasions, but their assets, debts and properties will be transferred to the parishes with which they are merging.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Fox 2

[with video]

JUNE 11, 2014, BY ANTHONY KIEKOW

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – St. Louisans continue to question the comments Archbishop Robert Carlson made during his recent deposition testimony. Two organizations plan to protest Wednesday afternoon. They are fuming about comments the Archbishop made during a deposition in a sex abuse case.

His comments during the deposition have the Association for the Rights of Catholics and SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, planning to protest outside of the new cathedral. The deposition was about what Carlson knew about sex abuse allegations during the 80s and 90s, when he served as a Catholic official in Minnesota. Carlson admitted that he never once called police to report any abuse allegations and he said something else that upset many people.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis released a statement saying the Archbishop believes abuse is “A most egregious offense.” The protest will begin at 2p.m.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Delaware County Daily Times

By Phil Heron, Delaware County Daily Times

POSTED: 06/11/14

The fight goes on for the parishioners of Notre Dame de Lourdes.

They have no intention of going quietly into the night after receiving the stunning word from the archdiocese that instead of taking in residents from another embattled parish, their doors would be closing and they would be forced to go elsewhere.

They have filed a formal petition and appeal with the archdiocese with more than 3,000 signatures. They are posting signs around the neighborhood.

And tonight they will be here in Primos to talk about their uphill fight on our live-stream Internet show, ‘Live From the Newsroom.’

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AUSTRALIA
Sunshine Coast Daily

Jessica Grewal | 11th Jun 2014

A CHILD-abusing teacher told a 10-year-old victim he would kill her entire family if she outed him when he took a transfer to a Lismore Catholic School, the royal commission has heard.

Gregory Sutton, a former Marist Brother who was allowed to teach at schools across Australia and the US before finally being extradited to NSW and jailed in the late 90s, already had a swath of victims when he was given a job at St Carthages in1985.

At his previous school, St Thomas Moore at Campbelltown, two young girls had endured a year of being fondled, abused and forced to commit sexual acts on Sutton and each other while he watched on.

One witness, known as ADM, told the commission she and her best friend were in Sutton’s Grade 5 class when he befriended them and began asking them to sit on either side of his lap before eventually asking if he could “go inside” her pants.

As time went on, Sutton became more aggressive in his behaviour, asking the girls to see him before class or after hours and abusing them in the school storage room, often asking them to kiss each other and sending them back to class with a bottle of glue or paint to hide what had really occurred.

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

ST. LOUIS • A group of concerned Catholics and a support group for clergy sex abuse victims will hold a vigil this afternoon outside the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis protesting comments made by St. Louis’ archbishop during a deposition that was released on Monday.

Leaders of the ARC, the Association for the Rights of Catholics and SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, say they are upset by admissions and alleged memory lapses by the area’s top Catholic official, Archbishop Robert Carlson.

The event will be at 2 p.m. outside the “new” cathedral at 4431 Lindell Boulevard.

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

By Bill McClellan bmcclellan@post-dispatch.com 314-340-81437

To • Archbishop Robert J. Carlson

From • Swifty McClellan, Public Relations Maven

Good morning, Your Eminence. How you doing? Don’t answer. I know how you’re doing. You’re still reeling from the release of that transcript of a deposition from Minnesota in which you claimed you couldn’t remember whether you used to know it was a crime for an adult to have sex with a child.

That didn’t play too well, did it? Especially because at the very time you supposedly weren’t sure about the legality of molesting kids, you were writing memos to your boss about the statute of limitations for such a crime. If you knew about a statute of limitations, you had to know it was a crime. Or am I missing something?

Again, don’t answer. I am not here to harangue you. I’m on your side. As far as I’m concerned, “Thou shalt not lie” is strictly Old Testament stuff.

You need some public relations help, Your Em. Nothing against the people you have on staff, but I read the statement from Gabe Jones, spokesman for the archdiocese: “While not being able to recall his knowledge of the law exactly as it was many decades ago, the archbishop did make clear that he knows child sex abuse is a crime today.”

You think the flock is going to rally around something like that?

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IRELAND
Laois Nationalist

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou is backing calls for the Mother and Baby Home inquiry to include the Magdalene Laundries.

A full commission of inquiry is being set up, and will have the power to compel documents and witnesses.

It will include at least one institution outside Catholic control.

Speaking today Deputy McDonald said concerns expressed about a report on the issue carried out by Martin McAleese could be addressed in the new investigation.

“To understand the Mother and Baby homes you have to include the Magdalene Laundries,” Deputy McDonald said.

“It makes no sense to have a thorough, statutory investigation into those institutions and to excluse the laundries.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Ciara McDonagh

Wednesday 11 June 2014

The Children’s Minister says he doesn’t want the mother and baby home inquiry to take ‘years to report’.

Charlie Flanagan was responding to repeated calls for the Magdalene Laundries to be included in the investigation announced by the government yesterday.

At least one institution outside the control of the Catholic church will be included in the team’s work.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Jun 11, 2014 12:29 By David Coleman

Ms Burton was speaking after Commission of Investigation launched into mother and baby homes

Labour’s Joan Burton has opened up about her own adoption and called for adoptees to be allowed access to their birth certificates.

Ms Burton was speaking after a Commission of investigation was launched into mother and baby homes following the discovery of a mass burial ground in Tuam, Co Galway.

She told Newstalk Breakfast: “I have a personal interest in all of this, as a child I was adopted and the matters are of a very significant concern to me, as well as of political concern.

“That legislation has existed in Scotland for decades, and in the UK. I think there has been a enormous amount of work done on it and there are different points of view.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Shaun Connolly, Claire O’Sullivan and Conall Ó Fátharta

Catholic bishops apologised for the “hurt caused by the Church” as Taoiseach Enda Kenny ordered a wide-ranging investigation into what he branded the “abominable” way mothers and babies were treated in religious-run homes.

The probe will look at death rates and burial practices at the homes, as well as illegal adoptions and vaccine trials.

The bishops’ conference said in a statement: “The investigation should inquire into how these homes were funded and, crucially, how adoptions were organised and followed up.

“We also support the Irish Government’s intention to publish legislation on ‘tracing’ rights for adopted children and their mothers with due regard to the rights of all involved.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Shaun Connolly Political Correspondent

Women and children are still being discriminated against by the State, the Dáil heard as TDs debated the mother-and-baby home scandal.

Independent Wexford TD Mick Wallace said women were treated badly across a range of issues, from the denial of the right to choose whether to have a termination in the Republic, to cuts in lone parent payments.

Mr Wallace warned that children were suffering now under the Direct Provision restrictions on asylum seekers and their families.

“And how do we treat our most vulnerable today?” Mr Wallace asked in the Dáil.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

A maintenance worker employed in Bessborough in the late 1980s and early 1990s has spoken of how he came across child remains while burying the bodies of two nuns.

Eugene Kelly, from Cork, worked as maintenance man at the former mother-and-baby home and adoption society in Blackrock between 1984 and 1992 and recalls coming across “little skulls and little bones” as he buried two nuns in the small graveyard on the site.

“I was only asked then when Timmy [who operated the farm] was getting too old, when he was semi-retired, would I bury a few of the nuns? I said ‘No problem’ — it was an adventure to me, I was only 19 or 20 at the time. It frightened the bejaysus out of me the first time.

“I remember when I was doing the dig, I came across little skulls and little bones. It was frightening. It was frightening, as it was half past five on a November or something like that, or December, and it was getting dark.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Claire O’Sullivan
Irish Examiner Reporter

Adoption, children’s and human rights organisations have welcomed the decision by the Department of Children to set up a statutory commission to investigate practices, deaths, illegal adoptions and vaccine trials at the country’s mother-and-baby homes.

Groups welcomed the fact that the commission’s statutory footing meant it would be able to compel witnesses to attend and organisations to provide documentation. Many of the groups also commented that successive governments had known about abuse at these homes for years.

Adoption Rights Alliance chairwoman Susan Lohan said that Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan’s announcement appeared to “answer everything we were looking for” but said that “these matters could have been dealt with decades ago” as various groups had lobbied for their investigation. These thoughts were echoed by Amnesty International Ireland executive director Colm O’Gorman who said successive governments had been made aware of concerns about mother-and-baby homes.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Yesterday afternoon’s announcement that a statutory commission will inquire into unfolding scandals in religious-run mother-and-baby homes is very welcome despite its inevitability and the horrors it will undoubtedly uncover.

Its findings are unlikely to strengthen this society’s idea of self-worth but if they force us to confront the dysfunction at the heart of our treatment of vulnerable children and women then something of worth might be achieved.

The chilling story — the remains of 796 infants believed buried at a home run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours in Tuam; forced adoptions often secret or illegal; children offered and used as guinea pigs in vaccine trials — is so utterly appalling that any other response would not have been acceptable and would have perpetuated the dishonesty, cruelty, and institutionalised misogyny that underlines these horrors.

It may be half a century since the last child was buried at the Tuam home but that does not diminish the obligation to try to understand what went on, how such cruelty and evil was so very commonplace. That this inquiry follows others almost too many to count into the horrors inflicted on the vulnerable, the abandoned, and the ostracised by religious orders makes this story even darker.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Gerard Howlin

IN Ireland there are particular circumstances feeding the recurring frenzies of first using nuns as guardians of female sexuality, and then turning on them for doing just that.

Post-famine Ireland, the development of a large Catholic class of smallholders and a smaller catholic middle class, was rooted in social insecurity and the craving for respectability. The norms of what is socially respectable have changed, but the craving remains unabated. The outburst of anger, the running of rhetoric ahead of facts, is as much a recoiling from the horror of ourselves as any love of justice — least of all for the afflicted.

The repetitive episodes of first handing over unmarried pregnant women into the ‘care’ of women religious, the employment, and then excoriation of those same women religious are part of a continuing theme. It has deep-rooted, but not extinct echoes, of a centuries old treatment of women who through their economic independence, social isolation or sexual apostasy, challenged the norm.

Seeing the differences, without understanding the similarities, between the nuns who managed mother and baby homes, and the women who were put into them, is to read history backwards. It is the means for a socially insecure, vindictive society to isolate and punish errant women. ‘Witch-hunt’ recalls a craze, but only partly that, where women, overwhelmingly ones isolated from appropriate male authority, were picked off and punished. The unmarried and the widowed were far more likely to be accused. Their lack of appendage to a man, affronted and unsettled people. It left them vulnerable to the phobias of a surrounding society and the recurring need for vengeance we are so familiar with now.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

By Fiachra Ó Cionnaith
Irish Examiner Reporter

Detailed 80-year-old legislation gave Government a clear right to all records on child deaths and adoptions in mother-and-baby homes as they happened — but allowed “charities” to exempt themselves from the oversight.

The situation is outlined in the Registration of Maternity Homes Act, 1934 — a law only passed in response to concerns over standards of care at maternity facilities, including religious-run “not-for-profit” mother-and-baby homes.

Documents obtained after a trawl of legal records by the Irish Examiner show the law, which remains on the statute, allowed Government unrestricted access to details, that 80 years later, it is only now searching for.

However, the law also exempted an unknown number of groups from the vital public safety net as they were considered not-for-profit charities that did not need to be examined.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Colette Browne

It is too late to help the 800 children whose bodies were dumped in a septic tank in Co Galway, but there are thousands of children living in poverty and suffering from neglect today who can be saved.

Speaking about the shocking discovery of hundreds of tiny corpses in a mass grave in Tuam, Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan said it was “a reminder of a darker past in Ireland”.

The notion that back then, in a dim and distant past, Ireland didn’t cherish all of its children equally is both distressing and reassuring.

We grieve for the long-dead children of unmarried mothers, who were condemned to a life of torment for the crime of being born, but salve our consciences with the knowledge that today things are better.

We tell ourselves that the callousness and cruelty of the past are interred with the remains of those children in their tomb.

But for many, the suffocating gloom of that dark past never lifted. We just choose to ignore it.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Colette Browne

The establishment of a Commission of Investigation into the mother-and-baby home scandal is welcome, but the church is not the only body with questions to answer.

For the past number of weeks there have been ubiquitous expressions of shock, surprise and revulsion from church leaders, politicians and the public at the horrifying stories emanating from mother-and-baby homes.

Tales of ostracised women incarcerated for years, newborn babies being torn from their hands and children being raised in Dickensian, disease-ridden conditions leading to mortality rates that were five times higher than the national average.

But these institutions did not operate in a vacuum and the depredations suffered by women and children, locked up behind their walls, have been a matter of public record for many decades.

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IRELAND
The Guardian (UK)

Andrew Brown
theguardian.com, Wednesday 11 June 2014

Why is it that we are more shocked by what happens to dead babies than to live ones? The story that almost 800 dead babies were buried in a disused sewage tank outside Tuam in rural Ireland turns out to be problematic. It is certain that 796 babies did die under the care of nuns in a home for unmarried mothers there between 1925 and 1961 and that is in itself a shocking statistic. But what gave the story wings was the claim that their bodies had been dumped in a septic tank, widely attributed to Catherine Corless, the local historian who uncovered the scandal.

In an interview she has denied that she ever used the term “dumped”. More to the point, it was impossible that 800 children were placed there, since “only” 204 died in the years before the home was connected to the mains water supply, in 1937. In her first account of the discovery, Corless described the structure as a “crypt”. Only later did she identify it, from a map, as a septic tank. If the bodies were placed in it long after it had been drained and disused, this would seem much less shocking. That less shocking story is at least plausible: the alternative would be that the nuns buried some babies decently in the unofficial graveyard but just dumped others in the cesspit. On what basis could they possibly have chosen?

This is not to deny that almost 800 children died and were buried in an unofficial graveyard behind the home. In the manner of these things in rural Ireland, it was both known and not known – according to the Irish Times “this small grassy space has been attended for decades by local people, who have planted roses and other flowers there, and put up a grotto in one corner”.

Twenty babies dropped in a cesspit as corpses is a horrifying figure. Even one would be dreadful. And of course the whole story fits wonderfully into the larger stories of Irish nuns as heartless and cruel, which many undoubtedly were. But what’s interesting to a student of religion is why the desecration of dead bodies should be so very much more shocking than the deaths of living babies.

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AUSTRALIA
Cairns Post

JESSICA MARSZALEK THE CAIRNS POST JUNE 11, 2014

TWO former teachers from a North Queensland school and at least two ex-students will be witnesses at a royal commission into child sexual abuse.

The inquiry is sitting in Canberra to consider whether the Marist Brothers ignored repeated reports and suspicions of abuse by two long-serving brothers, choosing instead to move them on to new schools.

The 16-person witness list for the 10-day commission ­includes a former teacher and a former principal of a Marist Brothers school in North Queensland.

It also lists two former ­students of the school, which has not been named.

The inquiry yesterday heard that a self-confessed paedophile was allowed to teach in NSW and the ACT for 40 years during which he allegedly assaulted nearly 50 boys ­despite repeatedly ­admitting his ­actions to ­superiors.

It heard Brother John Chute taught from 1952 to 1993, despite admitting to four cases of abuse when children came forward ­between 1960 and 1972. Despite these admissions, he went on to teach for 17 years at Marist College Canberra, which 39 of his 48 alleged victims attended.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

A former senior teacher at Marist College Canberra said he cannot recall being told in 1986 that Brother Kostka Chute was a child molester but he stopped short of denying the conversation ever took place.

John Doyle gave testimony by phone from London on the same day a witness told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse in Canberra that the Marist Brothers had long had a culture of condoning the unacceptable and that going to confession (about acts of abuse) was regarded as “washing dirty water off their chests”.

Witness AAJ, who says he was abused at Marcellin College in Randwick by Chute in 1960, said on Wednesday that while women were out of bounds, boys were considered acceptable.

Earlier in the day, former Marist College Canberra student Damian De Marco, who says he has a vivid recollection of speaking to Mr Doyle about Chute in 1986, told the commission he was not surprised that the lawyer representing Marist Brothers had used Mr De Marco’s past drug use to question his testimony.

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AUSTRALIA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn

11 June 2014

The Canberra hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse are under way at the ACT Magistrates Court Building in Civic.

The focus is on the response of the Marist Brothers to allegations of child sexual abuse in schools in the ACT, NSW and Queensland.

The hearings, set down for nine days from 10 June, run from 10am-4pm each day (with breaks from 11.30am-noon and 1-2pm) and are open to the public.

Hearing room updates are available on the Church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council website here. A live webcast can be viewed on the royal commission website here.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Child sex abuse royal commission hears paedophile Marist brother dressed students up before abusing them

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JUNE 11, 2014

A NOTORIOUS paedophile Marist brother made one boy dress up in women’s clothing and then kiss him, the child sex abuse royal commission has been told today.

The 65-year-old man said he still found it difficult to talk about it even 53 years later.

He said that Brother Kostka Chute, then aged about 26, had told him there was going to be a school play at the Marcellin school in Randwick.

“I was dressed up like a Mandarin woman,” the man said.

“The thing was that there was never going to be a play. It was like the whole thing was invented in order for Brother Kostka to have physical contact with me.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Helen Davidson in Canberra
theguardian.com, Wednesday 11 June 2014

A man who repeatedly warned the Marist Brothers that one of their members, Brother Kostka Chute, had abused him and was still abusing other young students said he was ignored and given false promises that Chute would be kept away from children, the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has heard.

The 13th public hearing for the commission is examining the Marist Brothers order’s response to numerous allegations and complaints that two of its members were sexually abusing students for decades. It is known at least five men among their ranks abused children. Four were convicted and one took his own life shortly after confessing.

Greg Sutton and Kostka Chute were shifted from school to school across Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT throughout their teaching careers, despite – and in some cases because of – multiple complaints against them alleging child sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour.

Sutton, who could be legally identified for the first time in 18 years from Tuesday, was convicted in 1996 after pleading guilty to 67 charges of sexual assault against 15 children. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison, with a minimum term of 12 years, and was released in 2008.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

EWAN GILBERT
June 11, 2014

A man sexually abused as a child has told an inquiry how a Catholic Brother made him dress in women’s clothing and kiss him in the school gymnasium.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard the victim, know only as AAJ, was nine years old when he first attended Marcellin College in Sydney’s Randwick in the 1960s.

His teacher was John Chute, also known as Brother Kostka, who has since been convicted of paedophilia.

AAJ detailed how Brother Kostka sexually abused him at Marcellin College.

“The thing about Brother Kostka is he was none too discreet,” AAJ told today’s hearing in Canberra.

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NEW JERSEY
WPIX

[with video]

JUNE 10, 2014, BY MARY MURPHY

MORRIS COUNTY, N.J. (PIX11) — When 44-year-old Bill Wolfe finally won the right to reveal his story of priest sex abuse at the private Delbarton School in Morristown, New Jersey, his sister noticed something she hadn’t seen in thirty years.

“His shoulders went back! His whole demeanor absolutely changed,” Lisa Gerwig told PIX 11 Investigates. “The smile is back.”

Wolfe was 14-years-old and a freshman in 1984 when he sought help from Delbarton’s guidance counselor, Father Timothy Brennan.

He felt that he wasn’t fitting in with other classmates.

“He gained my trust,” Wolfe recalled recently to PIX11 Investigates. “It’s a process, a grooming process,” Wolfe said.

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NEW YORK
CBS 6 Albany

[with video]

Updated: Wednesday, June 11 2014

CLIFTON PARK– A local priest accused of inappropriate conduct with an underage girl makes his first court appearance this morning.

James Michael Taylor, known to many as Father Michael, was arrested back in April after police say he had physical contact with a 15-year-old Saratoga County girl.

Police tell us that the two met when Taylor was serving as Deacon and Youth Minister for the Corpus Christi Church in Clifton Park. Taylor has since been ordained and now serves at Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Parish in Schenectady but is on administrative leave.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, June 10, 2014

For more information:

David Clohessy 314 566 9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com, Robert Schutzius 314 837 0678

Two groups hold vigil
They’re appalled by archbishop
Just-released deposition gets national attention

A group of concerned Catholics and a support group for clergy sex abuse victims will hold a short vigil tomorrow outside the Cathedral protesting comments made by St. Louis’ archbishop during a deposition that was released on Monday.

Leaders of the ARC, the Association for the Rights of Catholics and SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are upset by admissions and alleged memory lapses by the area’s top Catholic official, Archbishop Robert Carlson.

The event will be at 2 p.m. outside the “new” Cathedral on Lindell (at Newstead)

Last month, under oath, Carlson:

– claimed 193 times that he didn’t recall specifics about clergy sex abuse cases,
– admitted that he never once called police to report abuse in 24 years as a Catholic official in Minnesota, and
– said he wasn’t sure if he knew in the 1980s whether child sex abuse was illegal.

A firestorm of criticism, from conservative and liberal Catholics, has erupted and articles from coast-to-coast have pilloried Carlson.

http://arcc-catholic-rights.org/

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CANADA
APTN

10. JUN, 2014

Kathleen Martens
APTN Investigates

WINNIPEG – A Calgary lawyer is being allowed to resign instead of being kicked out of the legal profession.

David Blott is scheduled to give up his right to practice in Alberta on Friday, June 13. The move is in lieu of a disciplinary hearing where Blott could be disbarred for financially exploiting residential school survivors.

Legal officials say a resignation means the same thing as a disbarment but not to Kelly Busch of Saskatoon. Busch was one of the form-fillers indirectly employed by Blott to find and obtain residential school compensation information from survivors.

“A disbarment is not the same as resigning,” a disappointed Busch said over the phone. “It’s almost like letting him take the coward’s way out.”

Busch was one of two whistle-blowers to expose the Blott operation in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which involved wrongly charging survivors for filling out their residential school compensation forms, wrongly providing loans at exorbitant interest rates in advance of compensation payouts, and overcharging for legal work — along with other financial and legal misconduct.

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IRELAND
RTE News

The Adoption Rights Alliance has called for the establishment of counselling services for former residents of mother-and-baby homes in tandem with the promised statutory inquiry.

While cautiously welcoming the Government’s commitment to a statutory inquiry, the alliance warned against further delays in providing access to family records and advice on reunions given the age profile of the women who suffered in the homes.

It said the Government should speedily establish regional counselling services.

The Justice for Magdalenes research group has asked for Magdalene laundries to be included in the inquiry’s terms of reference, citing what it called the “huge traffic” between mother-and-baby homes and the laundries.

It said the Government-appointed McAleese investigation into State involvement with the Catholic-run laundries did not retain records received from the religious orders which operated them.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Caroline Crawford
Published 11/06/2014

A SURVIVOR of the Tuam mother-and-baby home has told how he wouldn’t “crawl” to the State for any compensation after a large swathe of women in the Magdalene Laundries were barred from the redress scheme for those facilities.

JP Rodgers welcomed the news that a full inquiry would be held into the mother-and-baby homes but warned the Government that it must not make survivors “jump through hoops” for redress.

In the 1940s, Mr Rodgers’ mother was moved from St Mary’s home in Tuam and placed into the Magdalene Laundry in Galway when he was just 13 months old. Mr Rodgers (right) remained in the Tuam home until he was fostered out at the age of five. He believes it was a miracle that he survived.

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DEUTSCHLAND
SR Online

[Summary: The sexual abuse case against a priest from Weiskirchen is time-barred. He is alleged to have abused a 16-year-old in the early 1980s. While the Trier diocese is investigation under canon law, the prosecution will not deal with it.]

Ein Pfarrer aus Weiskirchen soll Anfang der 1980er Jahre eine16-Jährige sexuell missbraucht haben. Während das Bistum Trier den Fall kirchenrechtlich untersucht, wird sich die Staatsanwaltschaft nicht weiter damit beschäftigen. Die Sache ist juristisch gesehen verjährt.

(10.06.2014) Der wegen angeblichen sexuellen Missbrauchs einer 16-Jährigen beurlaubte Pfarrer aus dem Saarland muss nicht mit strafrechtlichen Folgen rechnen. Die vorgeworfenen Taten seien „unter allen denkbaren rechtlichen Gesichtspunkten“ verjährt, teilte der Leitende Oberstaatsanwalt Harald Kruse am Dienstag in Koblenz mit. Das Verfahren sei daher eingestellt worden.

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SUEDAFRIKA
Westdeutsche Zeitung

Willich/Kreis Viersen. Das Verfahren gegen den aus Willich stammenden Pfarrer Georg K. vor einem Gericht in der Nähe von Johannesburg (Südafrika) ist am heutigen Dienstag überraschend zu Ende gegangen. Der Geistliche hatte sich seit 2009 dort verantworten müssen, weil er sich in einem Kommunioncamp Kindern sexuell genähert haben soll.

Der Prozess hatte sich schier unendlich in die Länge gezogen. Jetzt wurde der Priester wegen verfahrenstechnischer Probleme freigesprochen, allerdings sitzt er dem Vernehmen nach in Auslieferungshaft und soll so schnell wie möglich nach Krefeld gebracht werden.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Helen Davidson, in Canberra
theguardian.com, Wednesday 11 June 2014

A man who was abused as a child by a former Marist Brothers teacher accused the Catholic church of having a “sociopathic disregard for the welfare of victims” after its senior counsel attempted to discredit him as a witness by airing past drug use.

Damian De Marco told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Canberra that he had repeatedly warned the Marist Brothers that one of their members, brother Kostka Chute, had abused him and was still abusing other young students, but he was ignored and given false promises that Chute would be kept away from children.

Chute eventually admitted to abusing six boys and was jailed for two years in 2009.

On Tuesday afternoon Peter Gray, who was representing the Marist Brothers but is also representing the Catholic church’s Truth, Justice and Healing council throughout the royal commission, sought to paint De Marco as a heavy marijuana user who likely had an affected memory as a result.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

John Downing
Published 11/06/2014

POOR young women who had children outside marriage were treated as “an inferior sub-species” for decades in Ireland, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said as he announced a major state inquiry into religious-run mother-and-baby homes.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that in many cases their treatment, and that of their babies, was an abomination,” the Taoiseach said in an emotive statement to the Dail.

Children’s Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said the special commission will investigate the deaths of babies at mother-and-baby homes across the country in the wake of the discovery of a mass grave in Tuam containing almost 800 babies’ remains. He said the inquiry will cover the infant mortality rate, vaccines, medical trials, the geographic spread of these institutions and the legal complexities.

Mr Flanagan conceded that the question of compensation ultimately may arise and could not be ruled out. “But dealing with matters of compensation at this stage is premature,” he told the Irish Independent.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Miriam Lord

Wed, Jun 11, 2014

The publication of the Cooke report should have taken our minds off the Tuam babies story, but it didn’t. After the furore caused by the allegations surrounding alleged bugging of the Garda Ombudsman office by persons unknown, the arrival of the report into the affair was met with tired indifference around Leinster House. Although the government is happy, as Mr Justice Cooke concluded the evidence did not support the proposition. Some in South Dublin (or perhaps further afield, if he’s had enough of Kildare Street for the present) like Alan Shatter was probably allowing himself a rueful smile.

Sometimes, a ball of smoke is just that – a ball of smoke. Is it case closed? It would seem to be, unless GSOC or the Sunday Times or Verrimus (the interntional security company which carried out the examination of GSOC premises which gave rise to suspicion in the first place) can say otherwise.

But the day was really about the terrible history of Ireland’s mother and baby homes. All to do with an Ireland past, of course. We’re much more tolerant now. Enda pulled out all the stops in the Dáil. In fairness, he’s damn good at this. He oozes compassion and understanding. He can gather up a nation’s pain and soothe it with just the right amount of sadness, contrition and anger. A good deal of this is down to language. The Taoiseach casts out lines which catch the heart and sum up what most of us have been feeling. With lyrical bluntness, he holds the shameful deeds of a shared past up to the light and we publicly acknowledge our disgrace. For the first couple of times, the evocative phrases and skilful honesty really struck home. That emotional eloquence was on show again in the Dáil yesterday. But this time, we were kinda expecting it. Which somewhat took the shine off the latest performance.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Helen Davidson in Canberra
theguardian.com, Wednesday 11 June 2014

The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse is “a moment of truth for this nation”, said a witness who told of years of abuse by his teacher.

The man also accused the Marist Brothers of enabling the teacher, likening it to “putting an alcoholic in charge of the alcohol cabinet”, and described the actions of the church insurers in dealing with his complaint as “outrageous”.

The commission’s 13th public hearing opened in Canberra on Tuesday morning, focusing on the cases of two former Marist brothers: Greg Sutton and John Chute.

The royal commission was told that the two men were shifted from school to school across Queensland, NSW and the ACT throughout their teaching careers, despite – and in some cases because of – multiple complaints against them alleging child sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour.

Chute, also known as brother Kostka, eventually admitted to abusing six boys and was jailed for two years in 2009.

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UNITED STATES
The Guardian (UK)

Associated Press in Nashville, Tennessee
theguardian.com, Tuesday 10 June 2014

An Arkansas mega-church pastor was elected Tuesday to lead the country’s Southern Baptists as the conservative denomination tries to turn around declining membership, church attendance and baptisms and faces increasing conflict with mainstream culture, especially over its conviction that gay sex is immoral.

Later on Tuesday, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination is scheduled to consider a resolution opposing the idea that gender identity can be different from a person’s biological sex. And a motion made from the floor by one Southern Baptist Convention delegate asks the group to discipline a Southern California church that has stopped preaching against homosexuality.

In nominating the Rev Ronnie Floyd for president, the powerful head of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the Rev Albert Mohler, told the crowd of 5,000 meeting in Baltimore, “The nation is embracing a horrifying moral rebellion that is transforming our culture before our very eyes.”

He warned of “direct challenges to our religious freedoms and churches” and said Floyd is the person who can “convey our message in the midst of the most trying times.”

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Times-Picayune

By Theodore P. Mahne, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on June 10, 2014

New Orleans may have lost out on its bid to host the Super Bowl in 2018, but this week the city welcomes the leadership of the Catholic Church from across the United States, as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops convenes its annual Spring General Assembly.

The meeting will draw about 250 bishops, archbishops and cardinals to the Hyatt Regency Hotel and the St. Louis Cathedral from Wednesday through Friday (June 10-12).

New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond, as the host bishop, acknowledged that he had an easier time drawing his colleagues to New Orleans than persuading NFL owners to bring their championship game back to the city. It required no major public relations bid or politicking, he said.

“The city has all those things that attract anyone to it,” he said. In addition to the traditional lures of the history, food and culture, its Catholic culture and identity also were integral to the appeal.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KPLR

JUNE 10, 2014, BY BETSEY BRUCE

(KPLR)- A supporter of Archbishop Robert Carlson has called on him to “clarify” his testimony from a recent deposition in a Minnesota case.

Archbishop Carlson was asked by lawyers for a plaintiff in a sex abuse case from 30 years ago if “you knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid.”

Carlson responded, “I’m not sure if I knew or not, that it was a crime. I understand today it’s a crime.”

Critics have called the testimony “disturbing” and even “unbelievable.” St. Louis Catholic Bill Hannegan provided a statement to FOX2 News Tuesday. He questions the words used by the attorney suggesting the church leader could have “misconstrued” them.

Hannegan said, “ If Archbishop Carlson had been clearly asked whether he knew, back in 1984, that it was a crime for a priest, or any adult, to sexually abuse a child, I believe he would have answered yes, as he did when asked about a specific case elsewhere in the deposition. The actual questions he was asked did not contain the words ‘child’ or abuse,’ and so might have been misconstrued as questions about Minnesota Age of Consent laws. The sexual abuse of children has always and everywhere been a crime. I hope Archbishop Carlson quickly clarifies this confusion.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Daily Mail (UK)

Archbishop quizzed in sexual abuse lawsuit claims he didn’t know it was illegal for priests to have sex with children in the 1980s

A St Louis archbishop embroiled in a sexual abuse scandal has claimed he didn’t know it was illegal for priests to have sex with children in the 1980s, according to a court deposition released on Monday.

Archbishop Robert Carlson, who was chancellor of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul at the time, was deposed as part of a sexual abuse lawsuit in Minnesota involving the archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona.

In a testimony filmed last month and released by the St. Paul law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, the Catholic archbishop was asked whether he had known it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child.

‘I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,’ Carlson responded. ‘I understand today it’s a crime.’

When asked when he first realized it was a crime for an adult – including priests – to have sex with a child, Carlson, 69, shook his head.

‘I don’t remember,’ he testified.

Yet according to other documents released by attorney Jeff Anderson, who is representing an alleged clergy abuse victim, Carlson showed clear knowledge that sexual abuse was a crime when discussing incidents with church officials during his time in Minnesota.

In a 1984 document, for example, Carlson wrote to the then-archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis – John R. Roach – about one victim of sexual abuse and mentioned that the statute of limitations for filing a claim would not expire for more than two years.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Lawyer Herald

Documents show St Louis archbishop discredit himself on knowledge of priests having sex with kids as a crime

[via Jeff Anderson & Associates:
Watters Deposition 3-17-86 p. 55 for Carlson
Carlson Ex. 301 – Adamson meeting 11-25-80
Carlson Ex. 304 – Statute of Limitations 6-29-84
Carlson Ex. 305 – Meeting with McDonough 7-9-84]

On Monday, documents pertaining to the sexual abuse-related charges lodged against several senior church members and employees in the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis revealed that the a former auxiliary bishop is aware that sex abuse on children is a crime, Buzzfeed reported.

In a 1984 letter to then archbishop John Roach of St Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese, 69-year-old Robert Carlson, who is now archbishop, discussed the case of one sex abuse victim and the statute of limitations regarding the lawsuit. The document, which was released by law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, revealed that Carlson mentioned that the statute of limitations for filing a claim will not expire for over two years. The letter also indicated that Carlson had wrote to the parents of the victim, who were considering to file a report to the police regarding the sexual abuse incident.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch said that the law firm had taken Carlson’s deposition as part of the sexual abuse lawsuit filed in Minnesota against Reverend Thomas Adamson.

In the deposition, Anderson asked Carlson about an alleged sexual abuse incident by another priest in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Referring to a 1987 church memo, he asked, “But you knew a priest touching the genitals of a kid to be a crime, did you not?”

Carlson said yes.

Last month, Buzzfeed said Carlson testified in a case involving a lawsuit about the Minnesota Archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona not disclosing information on priests who have sexually abused minor patrons. Carlson himself is facing a clergy abuse lawsuit along with over a hundred priests and church employees of the Archdiocese of St. Louis for the fact that he served as an archbishop there since 2009.

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

by Lilly Fowler lfowler@post-dispatch.com 314-340-822110

It was supposed to be a happy day for Archbishop Robert J. Carlson.

Tuesday marked the fifth anniversary of his installation as St. Louis’ archbishop, the shepherd of the region’s Roman Catholics.

But any celebrating on the part of Carlson was done in the midst of nationwide headlines about his connection to the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church for more than a decade.

On Monday, attorney Jeff Anderson released a deposition in which Carlson said he was uncertain whether during his time as auxiliary archbishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis he knew that a priest engaging in sex with a child constituted a crime.

Over and over, for a total of 193 times throughout the deposition, Carlson said he did not remember in response to questions posed by Anderson.

The deposition, taken last month, is part of a sexual abuse lawsuit in Minnesota involving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona, Minn.

Carlson’s statements have angered many, prompting hundreds of comments on social media and news websites. The fact that he was a man of the cloth pleading ignorance has made the situation worse for some.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
WTHR

By WTHR Channel 13

ST. LOUIS –
The head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis said in a deposition he didn’t know it was a crime for a priest to have sex with a child.

In the deposition given last month, but just released this week, Archbishop Robert Carlson said under oath he couldn’t recall details of how he handled allegations of abuse against a Minnesota priest decades ago.

“Archbishop, you knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid,” Carlson was asked in the deposition.

“I’m not sure I knew whether it was a crime or not,” Carlson replied.

Carlson, who served as chancellor of the Twin Cities archdiocese in the 1980s also said he didn’t go to authorities in 1984 when the priest admitted that he engaged in sexual conduct with a minor.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

David Unze, dunze@stcloudtimes.com June 10, 2014

COLLEGEVILLE St. John’s Abbey Abbot John Klassen on Tuesday called allegations of inappropriate sexual contact by a former St. John’s Prep School headmaster against a former member of the St. John’s Boys’ Choir unsubstantiated and defended his integrity and character.

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 Klassen and St. Cloud Bishop Donald Kettler.

The McDermids wrote the letter after learning that Backous had presided over Mass on Memorial Day weekend at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. They asked Nienstadt to investigate the allegations and not allow Backous to be around children. …

Statement from Abbot John Klassen, 10 June 2014:

I am certain that the pain the McDermid family has expressed is sincere, and I am sympathetic to what they describe they have been through.

I have known Father Tim Backous for many years, worked side-by-side with him, and observed his many, many interactions with children and young people. I have also reviewed the reports from nearly 25 years ago when the allegations of inappropriate conduct against Father Backous were first presented. The allegations were not substantiated. Father Backous has no restrictions placed upon him. I have absolute confidence in his integrity and character.

We have publicly acknowledged those members of our monastic community against whom there are credible allegations, and we have reached out to victims to accept responsibility. We will continue to do so. But we also hope that those who are innocent will not have to live under clouds of doubt because of the actions of others.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
International Business Times

By Sounak Mukhopadhyay | June 11, 2014

Archbishop Robert Carlson said that he was not sure if sex with children was a crime.

The St. Louis Archbishop, who is involved in a sex abuse scandal which had taken place in the 1980s, said in court that he had not been aware back then that it was against the law for priests to have sex with children. The video depiction of the court statement was released on Monday, June 9.

According to NBC News, the former chancellor of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul was ousted after the lawsuit against the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona, Minnesota has taken place. The court video, released by the St. Paul law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, shows Carlson responding to the question if he had been aware that it was a crime to engage in sexual activities with a child. “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson said. “I understand today it’s a crime.” He was also asked when it was the first time that he realised that sex with a child was a crime. “I don’t remember,” the 69-year-old priest said.

Carlson was in charge of investigation of sexual abuse claims during his tenure as the archbishop. He admitted earlier that he had not contacted police even though a clergy member confessed getting involved in inappropriate sexual behaviour. Attorney Jeff Anderson, representing an alleged clergy abuse victim, released documents that indicated that the archbishop had been aware of the gravity of child abuse accusations in 1984. One of the documents shows that he wrote to then-Archbishop John Roach to inform him that the parents of one of the alleged victims was planning to contact police.

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SOUTH AFRICA
iAfrica

A South African regional court Tuesday cleared the extradition of a German Catholic priest wanted in his home country for the sexual abuse of children, a court official said.

After six years of court cases, Georg Kerkhoff could finally be sent home to face charges if the South African justice minister approves the judicial decision, according to a court clerk.

The judge in the town of Brits, northwest of Johannesburg, ordered Tuesday that Kerkhoff, aged in his fifties, be detained “pending the decision of the minister. The decision should made within 72 hours.”

He had been free on bail since last September.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Times LIVE

Aarti J Narsee, Jerome Cornelius | 11 June, 2014

While the alleged victims of German Catholic Priest Georg Kerkhoff may never get closure, he will return home to face prosecution after his extradition application was granted

Yesterday, the Brits Magistrate’s Court halted all criminal proceedings against Kerkhoff in South Africa to make way for his extradition, following an agreement between the state and the defence.

The order was followed by an extradition application held in chambers on the defence’s request.

Kerkhoff, a priest at a Catholic church in Sundowner, Randburg, was facing charges of sexually abusing five boys, aged nine to 11, after he allegedly climbed into their tents wearing just boxer shorts during a First Holy Communion camp in February 2008.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Brian McDonald

Wed, Jun 11, 2014

Medical professionals who oversaw vaccine trials at Irish mother and baby homes insisted the vaccines did no harm and were administered in the children’s best interests.

But no parental consent was sought for the trials. Doctors effectively granted each other permission to proceed in at least one of the trials.

Babies, almost all of them under 12 months and a small number of whom were either described at the time as mentally or physically “handicapped”, were used in the trials carried out on behalf of the British multinational pharmaceutical company Wellcome by two of Ireland’s most eminent medical scientists in the 1960s and 1970s.

Prof Patrick Meenan and Prof Irene Hillary, attached to the department of medical microbiology at University College Dublin, oversaw the Irish trials involving the three-in-one vaccine and its use in conjunction with the polio vaccine. But Prof Hillary insisted she did not regard them as trials. “I view them as investigations to improve things,” she said in a 1997 interview with me.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Carl O’Brien

Wed, Jun 11, 2014

In May 1999 then taoiseach Bertie Ahern announced plans for a statutory inquiry into the mistreatment of children in reformatories and industrial schools.

The decision was welcomed as a genuine effort to shine a light on a very dark period of Irish history. But within months, the enormity of the task began to emerge to those involved in the process.

Ryan report Three years later, the judge appointed to head the inquiry had resigned . A key avenue of inquiry into the issue of vaccine trials had sunk into a legal quagmire. And the air was rank with accusations of lack of co-operation from government departments and rows over issues such as compensation.

It was a decade before the statutory inquiry’s report – the Ryan report – eventually emerged into the light of day.

It’s a reminder that the decision by the Government to establish a commission of inquiry into the mother and baby homes is the easy bit. Attempting to draw together the complex strands woven into this period of Irish life – such as infant mortality, burial arrangements, vaccine trials, forced adoptions and social attitudes – will prove far more daunting.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Shaun Connolly, Claire O’Sullivan and Conall Ó Fátharta

Catholic bishops apologised for the “hurt caused by the Church” as Taoiseach Enda Kenny ordered a wide-ranging investigation into what he branded the “abominable” way mothers and babies were treated in religious-run homes.

The probe will look at death rates and burial practices at the homes, as well as illegal adoptions and vaccine trials.

The bishops’ conference said in a statement: “The investigation should inquire into how these homes were funded and, crucially, how adoptions were organised and followed up.

“We also support the Irish Government’s intention to publish legislation on ‘tracing’ rights for adopted children and their mothers with due regard to the rights of all involved.”

The bishops’ statement added that the scandal reminds us “of a time when unmarried mothers were often judged, stigmatised and rejected by society, including the Church”.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Amy Forliti
Associated Press
POSTED: 06/10/2014

Attorneys for victims of alleged sexual abuse by clergy are asking a judge in St. Paul to order the archdiocese to turn over its electronic data on accused priests — such as emails, texts and data on hard drives — so they can get an even deeper look at what church leaders knew and when.

If the judge agrees, attorney Jeffrey Anderson said, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis will be required to turn over more of its internal communications than ever before.

“I think it really will give us a very deep insight into the inner workings (of the church) and the conscious choices being made by the top officials,” he said.

The archdiocese did not immediately answer questions sent via email. Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North will hold a hearing on Anderson’s request later this month.

Anderson said he and his colleagues have already received roughly 70,000 pages in documents from church officials as part of a case in which they claim the archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona created a public nuisance and risked public safety by keeping the names of accused priests secret.

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OREGON
Albany Democrat-Herald

• By Kyle Odegard, Albany Democrat-Herald

An Albany man who was a priest with a Lewisburg Orthodox church was sentenced to nearly 11 years in prison as part of a plea deal for child pornography charges on Tuesday.

Stanley Brittain, 39, pleaded guilty in Linn County Circuit Court to four counts of first-degree encouraging child sex abuse during Tuesday’s hearing.

Prosecutor Michael Wynhausen said Brittain trafficked online in child pornography, and had hundreds of images and movies, some with victims of abuse who were babies or toddlers.

An investigation in Oklahoma child pornography suspect led authorities to Brittain, who was arrested by Albany police in April.

Wynhausen spent minutes giving graphic details about some of the child pornography. “This is just a fraction of the images,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – Religion and Ethics Report

[with audio]

[Crimen Sollicitationis – 1962]

[Crimen Sollicitationis – 1922 – with notes from Thomas Doyle, O.P., J.C.D.]

Friday 6 June 2014
Noel Debien and Tiger Web

For 80 years, the Catholic Church did more than discourage the reporting of child sexual abuse, it enforced a policy of strict and absolute secrecy, punishable by excommunication. Noel Debien and Tiger Webb report on ‘crimen sollicitationis’, a papal decree with direct practical effects long after it was repealed.

This isn’t a conspiracy.’

Kieran Tapsell is adamant—it’s simply too big for that: ‘You can’t have a conspiracy of 5000 bishops.’

Tapsell is talking about the air of secrecy surrounding the Catholic Church’s response to allegations of clerical sex abuse. For him, the reason for this secrecy isn’t conspiratorial; it’s the result of a clearly defined canon law. This argument makes up the bulk of his new book, Potiphar’s Wife: the Vatican’s Secret and Child Sexual Abuse.

‘I don’t like using words like smoking guns,’ Tapsell says, ‘but canon law imposes secrecy, and the law is there to be obeyed.’

It wasn’t always thus: for most of the two millennia the Catholic Church has been in business, priests committing the heinous crime of sexual abuse were dismissed from the Church and handed over to the civil authorities. That changed in 1922 under Pope Pius XI, with the secret issue of one document: crimen sollicitationis.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

They want independent review of clergy abuses & cover-ups
And they warn more lawsuits will happen if officials don’t act

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos, child sex abuse victims and their supporters will hand out fliers about child molesting clerics to church members attending the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting. The leaflets urge Baptists to:

–insist that their church officials hire independent experts to review child sexual abuse scandals, and
–immediately respond to child sexual abuse reports with openness and compassion.

The fliers also

–warn that more victims will start suing Baptist officials unless the church hierarchy begins to take “real steps” to “expose those who commit and conceal clergy sex crimes,” and
-encourage church members to ask their children or loved ones if they were molested by church workers or volunteers and, if so, call police and therapists immediately.

WHEN
Wednesday, June 11 at 11:45am- 1pm

WHERE
Outside the main entrance of the Baltimore Convention Center: One West Pratt Street Baltimore, MD 21201

WHO
4-6 Victims of child sex abuse who are members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org) including the mom of a child sex abuse victim who is suing a Montgomery County-based ministry with ties to the Baptists.

WHY
Thousands of Baptists from across the U.S. are in Baltimore this week for their annual convention, and abuse victims want the church-goers to prod their denominational hierarchy to take child sex abuse cases more seriously. (Southern Baptists are the second largest religious group in the nation.)

Twice in recent months, SNAP leaders wrote to Dr. Frank Page, head of the Southern Baptist Convention, asking to speak at this meeting, to help the SBC in shaping practices and policies that help prevent abuse and cover ups. SNAP also asked the SBC to hire and consult with an independent organization called GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) for an independent expert review of the scandal involving a convicted child sex offender and Baptist minister John Langworthy of Mississippi and Texas.

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CALIFORNIA
The Valley Catholic

By Roberta Ward

Anthony Gonzalez has been named Director of the Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults (OPCVA) for the Diocese of San Jose. The office responds to victims’ inquiries and allegations and is responsible for training employees and volunteers in parishes, schools and diocesan-related programs and projects aimed at protecting youth and others from sexual abuse.

Gonzalez comes to the diocesan position from Child Quest International, Inc. where he was Assistant Director, leading services which address victim advocacy and case management. He also served as communications ambassador for government affairs and directed daily operations for the agency’s partnerships and client services.

His academic background is in Communication Design and Media Arts, and he has professional certifications as a NamUs Victim Advocate, radKIDS Abduction and Abuse Prevention Trainer, and i-SAFE Internet Safety Trainer.

Building on the work of the office since the OPCVA began a decade ago, Gonzalez notes that today there are fewer reports of diocesan offenders because “the training and checking are paying off, and there is overall compliance.”

He especially noted a new aspect of training of “teen leaders” which includes volunteers under 18 who may be in regular contact with minors or vulnerable adults.

As of May 21, 2014, they may no longer use the “Shield the Vulnerable” online option for Safe Environment volunteer training.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler Jun 10, 2014

Please, Archbishop Carlson, don’t insult our intelligence, and we won’t insult yours.

You have testified, under oath, that in the 1980s it was not clear to you that sexual abuse of children was a crime. Do you expect us to believe that? Do you want us to believe it?

If you didn’t know that molesting children was a crime, why were you concerned that parents of a victim might talk to the police? If you didn’t know that sex with children was illegal, why did you write a memo alluding to the statute of limitations?

Leave aside the apparent contradictions in your sworn testimony. Taking it at face value, how are we to respond to your claim that you didn’t know for sure that child abuse was a crime? We aren’t talking about fine detail of the law, some gray area, some arcane local statute. Civilized society, always and everywhere, has taken a dim view of the sexual exploitation of children. If you actually expect us to believe that you didn’t know it was illegal to molest children, then you’re also asking us to believe that you have less practical judgment, less common-sense discernment, less understanding of the nature of law than we expect of any intelligent adult.

But of course you probably did know that sexual abuse was illegal. You probably meant to say that you didn’t know whether or not the terms of the law applied to the particular cases under discussion during your deposition. You were giving a lawyerly response, trying to defend yourself and defend the archdiocese in which you had served. In much the same way, you dodged other questions by saying almost 200 times that you couldn’t recall the details of various cases.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

In response to Archbishop Robert Carlson’s disturbing deposition, the Association for the Rights of Catholics (314-837-0678) and SNAP are holding a brief news conference Wednesday, 6/11 at 2 p.m. outside the “new” Cathedral on Lindell (at Newstead). For details: Barbara Dorris, SNAPdorris@gmail.com 314-503-0003

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SOUTH AFRICA
The New Age

A South African regional court Tuesday cleared the extradition of a German Catholic priest wanted in his home country for the sexual abuse of children, a court official said.

After six years of court cases, Georg Kerkhoff could finally be sent home to face charges if the South African justice minister approves the judicial decision, according to a court clerk.

The judge in the town of Brits, northwest of Johannesburg, ordered Tuesday that Kerkhoff, aged in his fifties, be detained “pending the decision of the minister.

The decision should made within 72 hours.”

He had been free on bail since last September.

Originally from Aachen in West Germany, Kerkhoff was sought for alleged pedophilia.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, June 10, 2014

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

America’s bishops meet tomorrow in New Orleans. We urge officers and members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to censure – or at least harshly denounce – current and former Twin Cities bishops for the ongoing horrific cover up scandal there, especially Archbishop John Nienstedt, retired Archbishop Harry Flynn, and Archbishop Robert Carlson (who now heads the St. Louis archdiocese).

In recent depositions

–Flynn claimed he couldn’t recall details about predator priests 132 times,

–Carlson claimed he didn’t remember 193 times, and

–Nienstedt admitted that he never took any action against those who enabled child sex crimes and he doesn’t believe he should.

These revelations, under oath, speak volumes about how top Catholic officials are still dealing with the child sexual abuse scandal – through continued cover-ups and deceit.

Every promise made over the last 12 years by every US Catholic official – about children’s safety, and openness, transparency, and “zero tolerance” – rings hollow when prelates gather, year after year, and stay silent about their complicit colleagues.

Bishops who conceal child sex crimes are virtually never punished, either in the church or in the secular courts. So at a bare minimum, they should be denounced in public, especially by their colleagues, if there’s ever going to be a chance at real reform of the church hierarchy.

At recent USCCB meetings, every single bishop kept quiet after Bishop Robert Finn was convicted of hiding child sex crimes. We beg America’s bishops to find some courage tomorrow and not make the same mistake by ignoring the on-going crimes and cover ups by Nienstedt, Flynn, Carlson and others who are protecting or have protected Twin Cities predator priests and are endangering or have endangered Twin Cities children.

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IRELAND
Journal

THE MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES should be included in the government’s statutory investigation into mother-and-baby homes, Justice for Magdalenes Research has said.

It welcomed the announcement of the investigation into the abuses in Ireland’s mother and baby homes, and its members “stand in solidarity with all women and children who spent time in these institutions and with their family members”.

It is now calling on the government to include the Magdalene Laundries in the terms of reference of this statutory investigation.

It gave the following reasons:

* There was huge traffic between mother and baby homes and Magdalene Laundries
* The McAleese Committee did not retain records received from the religious orders responsible for operating the Magdalene Laundries
* The McAleese Committee’s terms of reference did not allow it to investigate individual complaints of abuse or examine fully the religious orders’ financial records
* All religious orders responsible for the Magdalene Laundries have refused to apologise or provide compensation.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Mary Joyce and the others have made it an annual pilgrimage for years, writes Midlands Correspondent Ciaran Mullooly.

Mary’s mission is straightforward: she comes back time and time again to the Castlepollard Mother and Baby Hospital because she is searching for her Aunt Carmel, who was just 17 years old when she came to this austere and bleak three-storey building run by the nuns in the countryside just outside Castlepollard.

Her ‘sin’ – to have become pregnant – and then moved into St Peter’s.

Mary says she is certain the baby was born here and she holds a death registration certificate to confirm the same infant died less than three weeks later at Tullamore hospital – more than 80km away.

“She died on December 13 1950 of hydrocephalus [water on the brain] and spina bifida” says Mary – who is still angry about what happened.

Every summer Mary and the rest of a small group of relatives now meet here to remember the dead and the missing.

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SOUTH AFRICA/GERMANY
IOL

June 10 2014
By SAPA

Johannesburg – A South African regional court Tuesday cleared the extradition of a German Catholic priest wanted in his home country for the sexual abuse of children, a court official said.

After six years of court cases, Georg Kerkhoff could finally be sent home to face charges if the South African justice minister approves the judicial decision, according to a court clerk.

The judge in the town of Brits, northwest of Johannesburg, ordered Tuesday that Kerkhoff, aged in his fifties, be detained “pending the decision of the minister. The decision should made within 72 hours.”

He had been free on bail since last September.

Originally from Aachen in West Germany, Kerkhoff was sought for alleged pedophilia. He had made a new start in South Africa, where he then was accused of relapsing.

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MEXICO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, Western Regional Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 949.322.7434, jcasteix@gmail.com )

A credibly accused serial predator priest is missing. The next step is clear: Mexico’s bishops must use their resources – pulpit announcements and websites and everything in between – to warn their flocks about him and beg those with information about him to call law enforcement.

[VICE News]

Fr. Eduardo Cordova was found guilty by the Vatican of abusing a teenage boy. The Archdiocese of San Luis Potosi filed a criminal complaint in May with secular authorities, and 19 victims have filed criminal complaints since then.

Although the Vatican found the complaints against Cordova credible, enough so to defrock him, it appears that Cordova still maintains a level of support among his colleagues. It is always disappointing and troublesome when church officials or parishioners support a credibly accused predator priest. It hurts victims and intimidates witnesses and victims.

Child molesting clerics will keep moving elsewhere to evade justice as long as bishops let them. When bishops show real courage and leadership – and alert parishioners and parents and the public – about these dangerous priests, this precarious practice will stop.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

June 10, 2014

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

The first witness to give evidence at the child sexual abuse royal commission hearing in Canberra says she was unhappy with the $93,000 compensation payment she received.

The female witness, identified as ADM, said she had been repeatedly abused over an extended period of time by former Marist Brother Gregory Sutton at a school in Campbelltown in the mid-1980s.

She gave graphic evidence of the nature of the abuse saying that on occasion, Sutton had her and another girl on his lap at the same time.

ADM said she had eventually been granted $93,000 in the late 1990s as a result of a mediation process.

But she only received $58,711, with $24,989 going on legal fees and another $9,300 being rebated to the Health Insurance Commission to cover the cost of earlier counselling.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

June 10, 2014

A victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of a Marist Brother recalls turning around a crucifix worn by her abuser “so Jesus wouldn’t see what was going on”.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, sitting in Canberra, is looking at whether the church turned its back on scores of victims by failing to act on numerous reports of inappropriate behaviour.

In 1984 and 1985, Brother Gregory Sutton worked as a teacher at St Thomas Moore School at Campbelltown in southwest Sydney.

A woman identified only as ADM gave evidence to the commission on Tuesday, relating to her time as a Year 5 student at the school.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

LEMA SAMANDAR THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JUNE 11, 2014

A MAGISTRATE has been forced to allow a child molester to escape jail because of a dated law, despite what he described as the “catastrophic” impact on the victim.

Daniel Hayman, 50, a Jewish orthodox man who pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a child under his authority at a Yeshiva camp in 1987 or 1988, received a 19-month suspended sentence.

Then aged 24, the camp leader drove the 14-year-old boy from the Stanwell Tops camp to isolated bushland where he sexually ­assaulted the teen, Downing Centre Local Court heard yesterday.

Magistrate David Williams said he had to sentence Hayman under 1980s law, but if he was to punish him under today’s legislation he would “not hesitate in sending him to jail”. He described the assault’s impact as catastrophic after hearing a victim’s impact statement.

Hayman was last month acquitted of a similar offence against a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s due to a “legal oddity”. During sentencing, Hayman kept his head down and read a religious text.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Jared Owens
Reporter
Canberra

THE Marist Brothers repeatedly failed to remove pedophile teachers from classrooms, flying one self-confessed offender to north America where he subsequently worked as a Catholic school headmaster despite facing 24 charges of sexual abuse back in Australia, a royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has turned its attention the Marist Brothers, examining the Catholic order’s failure to act on repeated warnings about brothers Gregory Sutton and John Chute, who are collectively suspected of molesting 69 children at numerous schools between 1960 and 1991.

The commission yesterday heard Sutton — who allegedly abused 21 children in Sydney, Canberra, Lismore and north Queensland between 1973 and 1987 — admitted pedophilia to the order’s then head, Alexis Turton, in 1989 after receiving a “tip off” from a local family that two teenage girls had reported him to police.

The girls, now middle-aged, told the commission Sutton molested them on countless occasions in private and in full view of their Year 5 class while sitting on his lap. They were forced to perform sex acts on him, and on each other.

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IRELAND
Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference

Statement of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference welcoming the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes

On the second day of its Summer General Meeting, the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference has published the following statement welcoming the announcement by Government of a Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes:

We welcome the announcement today of a statutory Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland.

The harrowing story which is continuing to emerge of life and death in Mother and Baby homes has shocked the people of Ireland. It is disturbing that the residents of these Homes suffered disproportionately high levels of mortality and malnutrition, disease and destitution.

Sadly we are being reminded of a time when unmarried mothers were often judged, stigmatised and rejected by society, including the Church. This culture of isolation and social ostracising was harsh and unforgiving. The Gospel calls us to treat everyone, particularly children and the most vulnerable, with dignity, love, compassion and mercy. We must ensure that all children and their mothers always feel wanted, welcomed and loved. Mindful of the words of Jesus, ‘Let the little children come to me, because it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs’, we apologise for hurt caused by the Church as part of this system.

It is important that the Commission, and all of us, approach these matters with compassion, determination and objectivity. We need to find out more about what this period in our social history was really like and to consider the legacy it has left us as a people. Above all we need to enable those who were directly affected to receive recognition and appropriate support. We therefore welcome the Government’s intention that the Commission of Investigation will have the necessary legal authority to examine all aspects of life in the Homes. The Investigation should inquire into how these Homes were funded and, crucially, how adoptions were organised, processed and followed up.

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IRELAND
Journal

THE IRISH CATHOLIC Bishops’ Conference has today welcomed the announcement of an inquiry into mother and baby homes in Ireland.

They commented that the “harrowing story which is continuing to emerge” has shocked the people of Ireland. “It is disturbing that the residents of these homes suffered disproportionately high levels of mortality and malnutrition, disease and destitution,” they said.

“Sadly we are being reminded of a time when unmarried mothers were often judged, stigmatised and rejected by society, including the Church. This culture of isolation and social ostracising was harsh and unforgiving. The Gospel calls us to treat everyone, particularly children and the most vulnerable, with dignity, love, compassion and mercy. We must ensure that all children and their mothers always feel wanted, welcomed and loved.”

The bishops said it is important that we find out more about what is a period in our social history was really like and to consider the legacy it has left us as a people.

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UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

Q. Are you the Son of God?

JESUS. I really don’t remember.

Q. Did you say you would destroy the temple and build it in three days?

JESUS. I have no recollection of that. Do you have that in a document?

Q. I have a document here that quotes a number of things you said.

JESUS. I don’t remember that document. May I see it?

Q. Before I show it to you, I’m asking if you recall the events it describes, such as chasing the money changers out of the temple. Did you do that?

JESUS. Is that recorded in the document?

Q. I’m asking you if you have any recollection of that outside the document?

JESUS. I have done many things. I don’t remember every one of them.

Q. Did you heal a blind man on the Sabbath?

MR. THURM. Objection. Leading the witness, and a vague time frame. Which Sabbath?

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

“And Pilate asked him, ‘Art thou the King of the Jews?’ And he answering said unto him, ‘I can’t remember.’ ”

Of course that’s not what the second verse of the 15th chapter of Mark’s gospel actually says. Jesus, on trial for his life before Pontius Pilate, replies, “Thou sayest it.”

He didn’t deny it, he didn’t admit it, he certainly didn’t go all Watergate on him and say, “At this point in time, I have no present recollection of what may or may not have happened.”

Now contrast that with how St. Louis Archbishop Robert J. Carlson responded in a deposition on May 23. He was answering — more precisely, not answering — questions posed by attorney Jeff Anderson of St. Paul, Minn., who represents a victim in a priest-abuse case that took place in 1984. Archbishop Carlson then was an auxiliary bishop in the St. Paul archdiocese. He held the title of chancellor to then-Archbishop John R. Roach.

Mr. Anderson asked the archbishop if at the time, he knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child.

“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Archbishop Carlson replied. “I understand today it is a crime.”

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MINNESOTA
The Blaze

Jun. 10, 2014 Billy Hallowell

An archbishop’s claim that he wasn’t sure decades ago whether he knew an adult — and, more specifically, a priest — having sexual relations with a child was illegal has raised more than a few eyebrows.

St. Louis Archbishop Robert J. Carlson told attorney Jeff Anderson last month in a taped deposition that he wasn’t certain he knew priest sex abuse was criminal when he served as auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis during the 1980s, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

“Archbishop, you knew the crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid,” Anderson said.

Carlson, though, expressed uncertainty: “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.”

Anderson continued his questioning, asking when Carlson first discerned that it’s criminal for adults to engage in sex and when he first understood that it was illegal for priests to have sex with children.

“I don’t remember,” Carlson answered on both counts.

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MEXICO
VICE News

By Alasdair Baverstock

June 10, 2014

A Catholic priest in northern Mexico is still nowhere to be found after 19 people filed a sexual abuse criminal complaint against him with authorities late last month.

Eduardo Córdova, a clergyman and legal representative for the church in the state of San Luis Potosi, is accused of using his clout to prey upon minors over the course of his 30-year career.

Evidence has been passed on to prosecutors but no formal charges have been filed yet. Cordova’s current whereabouts are unknown.

The Vatican has since stripped Córdova of his clerical functions, following investigations into the alleged sexual abuse of a 16-year-old in 2012.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, June 10, 2014

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

In a deposition released yesterday that’s attracting national attention (The Washington Post, NBC News, the Religion News Service, and elsewhere), former Saginaw bishop Robert Carlson said 193 time he “couldn’t recall” information about predator priests. He also made three other startling claims;

1) Carlson admits that he never called the police about known or suspected clergy sex crimes at any point in his 24 years as a priest, bishop and other top church official in Minnesota.

2) Carlson testified under oath that he wasn’t sure whether he knew it was illegal for priests to have sex with children when he served as chancellor of the Twin Cities archdiocese in the 1980s.

[Minnesota Public Radio]

3) And another Catholic bishop testified under oath – in a different deposition – that Carlson advised him to claim memory loss if he were deposed in clergy sex abuse cases.

Clearly, he’s being deceptive. And he continues to be deceptive in clergy sex cases here in St. Louis.

Given this, we can’t help but suspect he also concealed clergy crimes during his years in Saginaw (2005 – 2009).

So we call on current Saginaw Bishop Joseph Cistone to do what Carlson never did and take a firm stand to protect children and expose wrongdoing. He must post on his website the names, photos and whereabouts of all predator priests (proven, admitted and credibly accused). He needs to personally visit the parishes where they worked, begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to call police. And he should publicly denounce his predecessor for being deceitful.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

BY JONATHAN CAPEHART
June 10

Pope Francis is pretty awesome. His prayer summit with the presidents of Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the Vatican on Sunday was the latest example of the leader of the Catholic Church putting action behind his words of peace, reconciliation and mutual understanding. After more than a year of reading stories about the pontiff’s penchant for humility, mutual understanding and advocacy for the poor, we shouldn’t be surprised.

Frances Kissling and I got to talking about the breath of fresh air that is Pope Francis at a dinner on Sunday. We continued the conversation via e-mail the next day. “I’m one of those Catholics who want to see big changes in how the Catholic church treats its people. It just too often hurts people and ignores their suffering,” she wrote. “And it has never stopped being a middle ages monarchy flashing its ‘bling’ in the presence of abject poverty. So, when Francis took over, I had and still have a lot of hope for some important changes.”

But the former longtime president of Catholics for Choice who joined a convent at age 19 and lasted all of six months tamped her enthusiasm during our initial chat with a characteristically bold statement. “The pope looks more like God every day,” Kissling said. Just like God, “he allows evil to exist around him.”

By evil, first and foremost, Kissling means the priest sex-abuse scandal that continues to rock the Catholic Church. She decried the pope’s “inability to grapple with the high-level evil that perpetuated sexual abuse: the priests and cardinals that abused children and are still unpunished, not even criticised publicly.” Kissling isn’t the only one surprised and disappointed by the pope’s seeming inattention. That he recently announced he would to sit down with victims of abuse is being met with cautious optimism in some quarters.

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IRELAND
Journal

Updated at 4.30pm

TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY has said the Government will engage in a full consultation process with opposition parties and independent politicians as it works to establish a full Commission of Investigation into mother-and-baby homes run by religious orders.

It follows confirmation from the Children’s Minister this afternoon that a wide-ranging probe will go ahead “with full statutory powers to examine all matters pertaining to mother-and-baby homes throughout the state”.

Speaking in the Dáil, Enda Kenny said the investigation was being launched with a sense of sadness and a “sense of duty”.

He said the Commission would examine “a period when women and particularly young women were silent and silenced”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CatholicPhilly

BY LOU BALDWIN

Brother Robert Schieler, F.S.C., was elected Superior General of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (De La Salle Christian Brothers) on May 20 at the Institute’s 45th General Chapter in Rome.

Philadelphia born and educated, Brother Robert is the 27th successor to St. John Baptist de La Salle (1651-1719). As such he will lead the largest teaching congregation of men in the world with approximately 4,300 members serving in 80 countries.

Brother Robert was born in the former Most Blessed Sacrament Parish in West Philadelphia and was taught by the Christian Brothers at West Philadelphia Catholic High School for Boys. After his 1968 graduation he entered the Christian Brothers in Ammendale, Md. He received his bachelor’s degree in history from La Salle University in 1972 and also earned a master’s degree in European history from Notre Dame University and a doctorate in educational administration from the University of Pennsylvania.

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MEXICO
Diario Oaxaca

Procuraduría de SLP dice que citará a arzobispos señalados por presuntas víctimas de encubrir al padre Córdova

[Summary: Miguel Angel Garcia Covarrubias, attorney general for the state of San Luis Potosi, said citations will be issued to Archbishops Antonio Szymanski, Arturo Ramirex, Luis Morales Reyes and Carolos Cabrero Romero Jesus, to testify in the case of former priest Eduardo Cordova Bautista, who is accused to abusing at least 100 children during a 30-year period.]

México.- El Procurador general de Justicia de San Luis Potosí, Miguel Ángel García Covarrubias, dijo que sí habrá citatorios a los arzobispos Arturo Antonio Szymanski Ramírez, Luis Morales Reyes y Jesús Carlos Cabrero Romero, para declarar sobre el caso del ex sacerdote Eduardo Córdova Bautista, acusado de abusar de al menos 100 niños durante 30 años.

El funcionario no precisó si serán citados al mismo tiempo, argumentando secrecía en los procesos de investigación.

La razón para llamarlos sería para que aporten posibles datos necesarios en la investigación que se sigue a Córdova Bautista, quien enfrenta dos denuncias por abuso sexual en la Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado (PGJE).

Presuntas víctimas del sacerdote señalaron que en su momento denunciaron los abusos ante la alta jerarquía católica de la entidad, pero fueron ignorados.

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MINNESOTA
The American Conservative

[with video]

By ROD DREHER • June 10, 2014

In the clip above from a recent videotaped deposition, released today, Robert Carlson, the Roman Catholic archbishop of St. Louis, claims that he didn’t always know it was a crime for adults, including priests, to have sex with children. He testifies that he’s not sure when he learned that it was illegal. He testifies that he’s not even sure he knew as far back as the 1970s that sex with children was illegal.

If this testimony is accurate, Archbishop Carlson is a moral idiot who lacked the sense to run a Boy Scout troop, much less a Catholic parish or diocese. But there is good news for the archbishop: documents released yesterday indicate that he may simply be a butt-covering coward perjurer:

Anderson went on to ask Carlson whether he knew in 1984, when he was an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, that it was crime for a priest to engage in sex with a child.

“I’m not sure if I did or didn’t,” Carlson said.

Yet according to documents released Monday by the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates in St. Paul, Carlson showed clear knowledge that sexual abuse was a crime when discussing incidents with church officials during his time in Minnesota.

In a 1984 document, for example, Carlson wrote to the then archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, John R. Roach, about one victim of sexual abuse and mentioned that the statute of limitations for filing a claim would not expire for more than two years. He also wrote that the parents of the victim were considering reporting the incident to the police.

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UNITED STATES
City of Angels

Kay Ebeling

In 2008 Google blocked ads on my blogs with no explanation, while I was at the SNAP conference in Chicago. That block is still active, who knows who was behind it.

Now even though I get thousands of clicks a week here at City of Angels the only way I can make money from the blog is to ask readers directly for cash. I also never got a settlement from the Chicago Archdiocese, so this blog is really my only asset.

Now and then I have to hold a PayPal campaign to raise funds.

Dear Readers, please send money!

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IRELAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, June 10, 2014

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

The Irish government announced today that it would set up an independent commission to investigate all aspects of the mother and baby homes throughout the country. We are glad that action is being taken and we hope the commission is up and running and fully funded soon.

[The Journal]

Irish mother and baby homes have recently been in the news because of startling discoveries of infant mass graves and cruel and inhuman treatment of the mothers and children. The Irish Children’s Minister, Charlie Flanagan, stated that now is the time to “shine a light” on these homes. We are glad that government officials have acted quickly to start setting up a commission of inquiry.

Learning the truth helps prevent future abuse and aids in the healing of those who suffered. We hope anyone who was affected by any of the Irish mother and baby homes will gain comfort from knowing that they no longer need to suffer in silence.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Philip Ryan
Published 10/06/2014

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has called the treatment of mothers and babies in church run homes an “abomination”.

Mr Kenny was speaking in the Dail following the announcement of a Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes run by religious orders.

The move follows weeks of controversy after the discovery of an alleged mass grave containing the remains of almost 800 babies in Tuam, Co Galway.

Mr Kenny said he felt a “sense of sadness” when the shocking details emerged but said he had a duty to resolve the issues.

The Taoiseach said young women were “banished” from areas of the country or forced to face “shame and suppression” when they became pregnant outside of marriage.

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IRELAND
Journal

THE CHILDREN’S MINISTER has said he is anxious that the Bethany Home in Rathgar is included as part of the Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes in Ireland.

Charlie Flanagan said today that he was conscious of the grievances felt by those connected to the Bethany Home, a protestant-run home on Dublin’s Orwell Road, where young unmarried mothers lived with their young children.

Many of the children were subsequently adopted, and survivors say they suffered neglect as children.

Over 200 children died while in the care of Bethany Home. A monument to them was recently unveiled.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

By Sarah Bardon

Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan confirms probe will take place after Cabinet meeting this morning

The Government today confirmed a Commission of Investigation will be set up to probe the horrific revelations at mother and baby homes across the country.

Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan revealed the inquiry will have the power to compel witnesses and documents.

He said it will examine forced adoptions, burials and clinical trials on young children in an attempt to shine a light on “these dark periods”.

Mr Flanagan said: “It is my hope and determination to ensure that all of these issues are dealt with in a way that is comprehensive.

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IRELAND
Sunday World

By Kevin Palmer

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has admitted that babies of unmarried parents were treated as “an inferior sub-species” for decades in Ireland, in shocking comments that will resonate across the country.

A special commission of investigation will examine the high mortality rates at the so-called mother and baby homes for much of the 20th century, with the burial practices at these sites and also secret and illegal adoptions and vaccine trials on children on the agenda of investigation.

It is thought about 35,000 unmarried mothers spent time in 10 homes run by religious orders in Ireland.

The inquiry has been ordered after massive national and international focus on the story of one home, run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours in Tuam, Co Galway, where the remains of 796 infants are believed to be buried.

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MINNESOTA
CBS St. Louis

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMOX)

That’s how many times St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson answered questions with some form of the phrase “I don’t remember” during a deposition last month regarding how he handled allegations of abuse against a Minnesota priest when he was there in the 1980s.

Transcripts of the deposition were released on Monday.

This case happened in 1984, when Carlson was an Auxiliary Bishop in the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese. The plaintiff’s attorney asked Archbishop Carlson if he knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child.

“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Archbishop Carlson responded. “I understand today it’s a crime.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Maureen Fiedler | Jun. 10, 2014 NCR Today

I just finished reading the NCR report on the upcoming meeting of U.S. bishops in New Orleans, scheduled for Wednesday through Friday.

I am glad they will continue to grapple with the ongoing issue of sex abuse and search for ways to reach out to typhoon victims. I assume the conversations on the family will include a discussion of divorced and remarried people being able to receive Communion, since this is part of the upcoming Synod of Bishops in Rome and Pope Francis is clearly interested in making this change.

But as I read the agenda, a lot is missing. Not surprisingly, I have some suggestions that do not appear in the pre-meeting report.

If the bishops are going to discuss family issues, which women are speaking or being consulted? Last I checked, women are 50 percent of heterosexual marriages. And those who bear children might have a lot to say about that “contraception mandate” in the Affordable Care Act. Many would not agree with the bishops’ position on this.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

[with video]

By Ray Downs Tue., Jun. 10 2014

St. Louis’ “Most Reverend” cloaked man says that back in the wild and crazy ’80s, he didn’t know sexually abusing a child was against the law.

The comments came during a deposition for a lawsuit against Thomas Adamson, a former priest who is accused of molesting more than a dozen kids in the Minnesota area during the 1980s. Carlson was the chancellor of the Minnesota archdiocese during those years, and attorneys representing the plaintiffs called upon him to comment about what he knew.

And Carlson basically said he knew so little, that he didn’t even know raping kids was a crime.

See also: Fr. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang: Archbishop Robert Carlson Subpoenaed in Priest Sex Abuse Case

The deposition was made in May but not released until Monday by attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents the plaintiff in Minnesota. Anderson also released video of the deposition in which Carlson repeatedly denies knowing whether or not sexually abusing a child was a crime back in the 1970s and ’80s. Here’s the video:
Anderson: “Archbishop, you knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid.”
Carlson: “I’m not sure I knew whether it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.”

Anderson: “When did you first discern it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid?”

Carlson: “I don’t remember.”

Anderson: “When did you first discern that it was a crime for a priest to engage in sex with a kid who he had under his control?”

Carlson: “I don’t remember that either.”

Anderson: “Do you have any doubt in your mind that you knew that in the ’70s?”

Carlson: “I don’t remember if I did or didn’t.”

Anderson: “In 1984, you are a bishop, an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. You knew it was a crime then, right?”

Carlson: “I’m not sure if I did or didn’t.”

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Josephine McKenna | Jun 10, 2014

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis canceled a second day of private audiences and his morning Mass on Tuesday (June 10) because of a minor illness, but Vatican officials downplayed speculation about ill health.

The Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope had postponed several appointments and was resting.

“There is nothing to worry about,” Lombardi said. “His life has been very intense in the past few weeks. It is totally normal for the pope to rest.”

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BELGIE
Katholiek Nieusblad

De 57-jarige diaken en verpleegkundige Ivo Poppe uit Wevelgem is aangehouden op verdenking van veelvoudige moord.

Dit meldt de Vlaamse krant Het Nieuwsblad. Volgens het parket van Kortrijk heeft de man meer dan tien patiënten in het Heilig Hart-ziekenhuis van Menen (ondertussen AZ Delta) onwettig geëuthanaseerd. Hoeveel slachtoffers de man precies maakte, is nog onduidelijk. Wel zeker is dat hij bekentenissen afgelegd heeft. “Mijn cliënt handelde uit medelijden met mensen in een uitzichtloze situatie”, zegt Filip De Reuse, de raadsman van de verdachte. “Mijn cliënt is altijd een graag geziene man geweest in Wevelgem.”

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BELGIUM
UCA News

Catholic Ireland Belgium June 10, 2014

A deacon serving in the Catholic Church in Belgium has been arrested and charged over the deaths of at least 40 patients in a Catholic hospital.

57-year-old Deacon Ivo Poppe reportedly kept records of patients whom he smothered or to whom he gave a lethal dose of insulin at Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur Menin.

The married father of three adult children worked at the hospital as a nurse from 1980 until 2002 when he was ordained as a deacon.

He continued to visit the hospital as a part-time pastoral assistant until he began working full-time as a deacon in 2011.

According to his lawyers, Poppe said he was acting out of compassion when he felt the patients’ suffering was excessive.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Carl O’Brien

Tue, Jun 10, 2014

Until recent decades, the landscape was dotted with institutions where unmarried women were consigned to give birth in conditions of shame, secrecy and hardship.

But even though we feel we know all about this dark chapter of Ireland’s social history, we have few details on the precise nature of women’s and children’s experiences inside these homes, or the power structures used by society to confine them.

There have been four statutory reports into the abuses of children, and a Government inquiry into the Magdalene laundries, but no investigation into mother and baby homes.

We have some fragments, courtesy of valuable work by historians, journalists and the memoirs of those consigned to these institutions.

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IRELAND
Newser

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff
Posted Jun 10, 2014

(NEWSER) – The story went that the remains of 800 babies were found in an Irish septic tank—but it’s becoming increasingly clear that things are more complicated. Yes, 796 babies died at St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in Ireland between 1925 and 1961. But “some of the headlines that went abroad internationally were quite horrendous and gave a very mistaken impression of what actually happened,” says Irish education minister Ruairi Quinn. Indeed, historian Catherine Corless now tells the Irish Times she “never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank.” But she “still believe(s) those bodies are there in that general area.”

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IRELAND
Reuters

In the leafy grounds of a center for the disabled in rural central Ireland, a small tombstone hints at the building’s previous role as a “mother-and-baby home”. It reads: “In Memory of God’s Special Angels”.

No names, no dates, just an acknowledgement that buried in the garden of the Manor House in Castlepollard are children born to unwed mothers at the Church-run institutions that dotted Ireland half a century ago.

The discovery of a mass grave at a similar home, two hours drive to the west in the small town of Tuam, has prompted the Irish to ask why so many babies died, anonymously, in the care of the Catholic Church that was once a pillar of respectability.

“If something happened in Tuam, it probably happened in other mother-and-baby homes around the country,” said Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, who has seen the Church’s authority shattered by revelations of sex abuse by priests and cruelty at so-called Magdalene laundries where “fallen women” were forced to work in harsh conditions.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

A statutory inquiry is to be set up by the Irish Government into state sanctioned, religious-run institutions used to house pregnant mothers.

The special commission of investigation will examine the high mortality rates at Mother and Baby homes across several decades of the 20th century, the burial practices at these sites and also secret and illegal adoptions and vaccine trials on children.

It is thought about 35,000 unmarried mothers spent time in one of 10 homes run by religious orders in Ireland.

The inquiry has been ordered after massive national and international focus on the story of one home, run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours in Tuam, Co Galway, where the remains of 796 infants are believed to be buried. Some lie in the remnants of what was once a concrete septic tank on the grounds of the home.

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IERLAND
KerkNet

BRUSSEL (KerkNet/Irish Times/RTE) – De Ierse minister voor Onderwijs Ruairí Quinn en de historica Catherine Corless distantiëren zich van de sensationele berichtgeving over de kinderlijkjes in een voormalig weeshuis van zusters. Het onderzoek van Catherine Corless legde de basis voor een verhaal dat wereldwijd het nieuws haalde. Haar onderzoek maakte duidelijk dat 796 kinderen, veelal zuigelingen, tussen 1925 en 1961 de dood vonden in het tehuis van de zusters in Tuam. Corless verzamelde de overlijdensakten van elk kind, waarin ook telkens de naam, de leeftijd, de plaats van geboorte en de doodsoorzaak worden vermeld. Dat maakt duidelijk dat baby’s en kinderen overleden aan de gevolgen van tuberculose, krampen, mazelen, kinkhoest, griep, bronchitis, hersenvliesontsteking en andere ziekten. Zij stierven in een periode dat kinderen veel sneller de dood vonden en infecties zich, vooral in instellingen, snel konden verspreiden. Maar de Ierse historica uit Tuam benadrukt dat zij nooit heeft beweerd dat 800 kinderlijkjes in een beerput werden gedumpt. Zij stelde vast dat vele kinderen werden begraven in een onofficieel kerkhofje achter het tehuis, waar de plaatselijke bevolking rozen legt en waar een Mariagrot werd gebouwd.

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