Abuse Tracker

WISCONSIN
WISN

MADISON, Wis. -- The attorney for a Madison priest charged with fondling a teenage girl in Stevens Point and at her Monona home in 2003 and 2004 said the clergyman is innocent and looks forward to exonerating himself.

The Rev. Joseph Gibbs Clauder made his initial appearance in Dane County Circuit Court on Thursday. Attorney Stephen Eisenberg spoke on Clauder's behalf.

According to the criminal complaint, Clauder allegedly threatened to sue the girl for slander to stop her from telling other people about the incidents.

SEATTLE (WA)
The Seattle Times

By Sara Jean Green
Seattle Times staff reporter

A South Seattle pastor and music teacher accused of raping and molesting a teenage girl was placed on electronic-home monitoring Thursday, despite efforts by King County prosecutors to have him held in the King County Jail while he awaits trial in a case that carries a potential life sentence.

The Rev. Royce Shorter, 54, was arrested and charged in February with two counts of third-degree rape and one count of third-degree child molestation, court records show. Members of Shorter's church "pooled their money" to post his $350,000 bail, according to defense attorney Amy Muth. Jail records show he was released less than 24 hours after he was booked.

On Thursday, King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Julie Kays filed two more charges against Shorter: second-degree rape and first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor. Additionally, Kays added the aggravating factor of abuse of trust to each charge. Those aggravating issues can be used as a basis for an exceptional sentence if Shorter is convicted.

WASHINGTON
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By LEVI PULKKINEN
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

In an early test of a change in state law that allows defendants facing life in prison to be held without bail, a King County judge opted to let a minister remain free until he faces allegations that he raped a teenage student at trial.

King County prosecutors had asked that Royce Clenton Shorter be held without bail under a change in state law that allows such an action against defendants facing the possibility of life without parole.

Shorter -- a convicted rapist who faces a life sentence under Washington's "two-strikes" law for violent sex offenders -- was the first King County defendant to face such a pre-trial restriction, approved by voters through a constitutional amendment last year.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
UPI

PHILADELPHIA, March 31 (UPI) -- The Archdiocese of Philadelphia says it has placed two more clerics on administrative leave, making a total of 29 suspended for behavior involving children.

Spokeswoman Donna Farrell, citing archdiocesan policy, did not identify the two but said both had retired within the last six years and were living in private residences, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Thursday.

Joelle Casteix, a regional director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a victims' advocacy group, denounced Cardinal Justin Rigali for failing to release the priests' names or their alleged wrongdoings.

TENNESSEE
Times News

By Kacie Breeding

Published March 31st, 2011

A former Kingsport priest's admission of guilt and apology for sexually abusing a boy in North Carolina are among several items recently added to his case file in Sullivan County court.

William "Bill" Casey, 76, 740 Shakerag Road, Greeneville, is scheduled to stand trial on two counts of aggravated rape and a single charge of first-degree sexual misconduct in Sullivan County Criminal Court on April 11. In a separate case, Casey pleaded guilty to charges of crimes against nature and was given two years of supervised probation in lieu of a three-year suspended sentence in a McDowell County, N.C., court in July of 2010.

Both cases, and a third still pending in Scott County, Va., involve the same alleged victim. Warren Tucker, 45, of Jeffersonville, Ind., alleges Casey sexually abused him from the time he was 10 until he was about 15 years of age. The Sullivan County charges stem from incidents that he alleges occurred while Casey was a priest and he was an altar boy at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in Kingsport in the 1970s.

WISCONSIN
Wisconsin State Journal

SANDY CULLEN | scullen@madison.com

A Madison priest who allegedly fondled a teenage girl in Stevens Point and at her Monona home in 2003 and 2004 maintained his innocence through his attorney at a court hearing Thursday.

Rev. Joseph Gibbs Clauder, 64, made his initial appearance in Dane County Circuit Court before Court Commissioner Scott McAndrew.

McAndrew said Clauder could remain free on a signature bond and ordered that he have no contact with the alleged victims or unsupervised contact with minors.

Attorney Stephen Eisenberg said Clauder maintains his innocence.

TEXAS
The Statesman

U.S. Marshals say they are reasonably confident that Prakashanand Saraswati is “hunkered down” in Nuevo Laredo, said Hector Gomez, supervising deputy marshal of the agency’s Austin office.

“I really think we’ve got him landlocked now,” he said.

And Gomez said he expected new charges to be filed eventually against devotees who helped the guru escape: “When it’s all said and done, we’re going to catch a lot of people in a lot of lies.”

Prakashanand, the founder and leader of the Barsana Dham ashram in Driftwood, disappeared two days after he was convicted on 20 counts of indecency with a child by sexual contact. The charges were based on the accounts of two women who said the guru, known to his devotees as Swamiji, molested them when they were young teens living on the ashram in the mid-1990s.

FLORIDA
Herald-Tribune

SARASOTA COUNTY - A Nokomis man filed a lawsuit against The Order of Carmelites on Friday, accusing the religious group of failing to supervise a priest now charged with repeatedly sexually abusing his son.

The lawsuit claims Carmelites were aware of Father William Wert's past conviction for touching a 14-year-old boy on the inner thigh when they allowed him to move to the Carmelite home in Venice while on a leave of absence.

Wert now faces criminal charges he had a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old Nokomis boy from September to January, including at the order's home, where Wert lived, and in a motel room.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel
March 31, 2011

A Madison priest who had been removed from active ministry in 1999 due to complaints of improper sexual conduct with a woman he was counseling was charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting a teenage girl in 2003 and 2004.

Father Joseph Gibbs Clauder, 64, threatened the girl not to tell anyone about the assaults, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. She finally went to church officials in 2009, when she was 20. Madison Catholic Diocese officials told the State Journal that they did not immediately inform police because the woman wanted it handled within the church.

In August 2009, Madison Bishop Robert Morlino referred the case to Vatican officials after a diocesan board found the complaints credible.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said the organization learned of that and informed the state Attorney General's office in 2009.

SCOTLAND
Express

A YOUNG Roman Catholic priest has quit his Scottish parish after fathering a secret child, it was revealed yesterday.

Father Piotr Koczorowski, a Polish chaplain based at St Mary’s RC Church in Inverness, mysteriously disappeared in December following a Christmas party.

Rumours were rife among parishioners that the 35-year-old, who plays bass in a ­Christian rock band, had become a parent.

SCOTLAND
Scotsman

By Laurence Ford
A YOUNG Roman Catholic priest has quit the church to look after his love child.

Father Piotr Koczorowski, the former Polish chaplain based at St Mary's RC Church in Inverness, disappeared following a Christmas party.

Rumours were rife among members of the congregation that a woman was involved and that they had a baby.

SCOTLAND
stv

A priest in Inverness has quit the church to be with the mother of his child.

Father Piotr Koczorowski shocked the local congregation with the revelation. He suddenly left St Mary's Roman Catholic Church in the Highland Capital on December 18 last year.

Rumours quickly spread that the Polish-born 36-year-old quit after falling for a woman who went on to have his child. Now the Scottish Catholic Church has confirmed the news.

BELGIE
Vandaag

"De Antwerpse bisschop Johan Bonny stelde ons voor om een schaderegeling voor slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik uit te werken. Wij gaan op zijn voorstel in en doen de Kerk een aanbod dat ze niet kan weigeren". Dat zei Christian Brotcorne (cdH) bij de voorstelling van het eindrapport van de Kamercommissie Seksueel Misbruik in de Kerk.

De Commissie discussieerde vijf maanden lang over dit probleem en kwam nu tot zeventig voorstellen. Wat staat er in het rapport?

* De Commissie stelt voor dat de Kerk onder begeleiding van het parlement een schaderegeling voor slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik laat uitwerken door een "scheidsgerecht". Zulke scheidsgerechten (in vakjargon: arbitrage genoemd) bestaan nu al in de commerciële sector. Het gaat eigenlijk om een soort rechtbank waarbij de partijen zelf hun rechters kiezen. "Ons aanbod moet de Kerk toelaten om haar morele verantwoordelijkheid op te nemen voor seksueel misbruik dat verjaard is. Dat moet onder begeleiding gebeuren van een parlementaire opvolgingscommissie die om de maand de vorderingen bekijkt", zo heette het.

BELGIE
RKnieuws

BRUSSEL (RKnieuws.net) - De bijzondere Kamercommissie die seksueel misbruik in en buiten de kerk onderzoekt, heeft haar eindverslag met aanbevelingen klaar.

Het rapport van de Kamercommissie werd vandaag voorgesteld na enkele lange vergaderingen de afgelopen dagen. Het document, 400 bladzijden, bevat 70 aanbevelingen over de aanpak van seksueel misbruik.

BELGIE
Nieuws

(Novum/AP) - Het Belgische parlement wil dat een onafhankelijke arbitragecommissie onderzoek gaat doen naar schadevergoedingen voor de slachtoffers van het grootschalige kindermisbruik door de rooms-katholieke geestelijkheid. Het instellen van de commissie is een van de aanbevelingen in een rapport van een speciale commissie van het parlement. De aanbevelingen in het rapport werden woensdag unaniem goedgekeurd.

Naast het instellen van de arbitragecommissie wil het parlement ook dat de verjaringstermijn van seksueel misbruik wordt verlengd van tien naar vijftien jaar na het bereiken van de leeftijd van 18 jaar.

BELGIE
RKnieuws

BRUSSEL (RKnieuws.net) - De Belgische bisschoppen en hogere oversten nemen kennis van de aanbevelingen van de bijzondere commissie betreffende de behandeling van seksueel misbruik en feiten van pedofilie binnen een gezagsrelatie, inzonderheid binnen de Kerk.

De bisschoppen en hogere oversten willen vooreerst hun waardering uitdrukken voor het parlementaire initiatief om het maatschappelijke probleem van kindermisbruik grondig aan te pakken. De Bijzondere Commissie betreffende de behandeling van seksueel misbruik en feiten van pedofilie binnen een gezagsrelatie, inzonderheid binnen de Kerk heeft de voorbije maanden intens gewerkt om na een ruime bevraging bij getuigen en experten te komen tot aanbevelingen voor het parlement. Daarbij is terecht ook veel aandacht gegaan naar de slachtoffers van dit misbruik, een zorg die ook heel sterk speelt bij de bisschoppen en de hogere oversten.

BELGIE
De Morgen

Verschillende commissieleden wezen er in hun verklaring voor de eindstemming op dat de bijzondere commissie geen strijdtoneel tussen voor- en tegenstanders van de kerk geworden is, zoals sommigen hadden voorspeld. "Dit is geen grote afrekening geworden met de katholieke kerk", stelde Siegfried Bracke (N-VA).

Vooral de piste die de commissie had uitgewerkt om te komen tot een erkenning en schadevergoeding van de slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik in een pastorale relatie kwam vaak terug in de tussenkomsten. Christian Brotcorne (cdH) zei een gebaar verwacht te hebben van de kerk voordat de commissie met haar conclusies naar buiten kwam, maar dat is niet gebeurd. Hij wees erop dat de oplossing van de commissie door de Antwerpse bisschop Johan Bony werd gesuggereerd. Voor Renaat Landuyt (sp.a) moet de kerk het juridisme verlaten. Ze moet niet spreken over verjaring maar het verleden aanvaarden en haar morele verantwoordelijkheid hard maken.

Morele verantwoordelijkheid voor verjaarde zaken
De kerk krijgt volgens Raf Terwingen (CD&V) de unieke kans om haar morele verantwoordelijkheid te nemen. Voor verjaarde zaken kan hiermee toch iets gedaan worden, luidde het. Carina Van Cauter (Open Vld) sprak van een belangrijke doorbraak.

BELGIE
De Redactie

De Werkgroep Mensenrechten in de Kerk (WMK) heeft de bisschoppen opgeroepen om gevolg te geven aan het "arbitrage-initiatief" van de bijzondere Kamercommissie Seksueel Misbruik. De bisschoppen willen de aanbevelingen eerst onderzoeken.

"Bisschoppen, dit initiatief kan uitgroeien tot een soort waarheidscommissie die genezend kan zijn, zowel voor de slachtoffers als voor de kerk zelf", zegt priester Rik Devillé van het WMK. Hij noemde het werk van de commissie een hoopvol keerpunt in de Belgische kerkgeschiedenis.

De WMK kijkt als slachtoffervereniging hoopvol uit naar deze nieuwe bemiddelingscommissie, zodat niet langer kan worden beweerd dat "niemand verantwoordelijk is voor dit jarenlange kindermisbruik", aldus Devillé. Deze commissie zou over schadevergoedingen voor slachtoffers kunnen oordelen.

BELGIE
HLN

Priester Tommy Scholtès, voormalig Franstalig woordvoerder van de bisschoppen voor de Kamercommissie Seksueel Misbruik, is voorstander van de oprichting van een arbitrageorgaan voor de niet-juridische zaken van misbruik door geestelijken. Dat zou de Kerk voor haar verantwoordelijkheden stellen, zei hij in het RTBF-programma La Première.

"Het voordeel is dat de Kerk voor haar verantwoordelijkheden geplaatst wordt. Ze heeft gezegd dat ze de slachtoffers zal vergoeden, ze moet daarvoor nu de modaliteiten vastleggen", zei Scholtès. Het is nu aan de betrokken partijen om rond de tafel te gaan zitten. Daar moeten ze "de regels, een budget en de schalen van schadevergoedingen vastleggen naar gelang de vragen van de slachtoffers en wat ze ondergaan hebben", vindt de priester. De keuze voor een schriftelijke procedure heeft volgens hem het voordeel dat het helpt de spanningen en emoties beter te kanaliseren.

BELGIE
De Redactie

[met video]

do 31/03/2011 - 10:06
Walter Van Steenbrugge (foto), advocaat van een aantal slachtoffers, is tevreden met de aanbevelingen van het rapport van de commissie Seksueel Misbruik. Nu is het belangrijk om erop toe te zien dat het geen dode letter blijft, stelt hij in "De ochtend" op Radio 1.

Van Steenbrugge is gematigd tevreden over het resultaat van de commissie. "Ik vind het in ieder geval een goede zaak dat er een duidelijk maatschappelijk signaal is gekomen, gedragen door een heel brede basis over de partijen en over de taalgrens heen. De slachtoffers met wie ik gesproken heb, vinden dat ook een goede zaak."

De advocaat van een deel van de slachtoffers vraagt nu dat er concreet gevolg aan gegeven wordt. "De aanbevelingen zijn een soort van opstap naar een goede regelgeving in de toekomst." De kritiek in het rapport op de houding van de kerk in het verleden vindt Van Steenbrugge niet meer dan logisch. "Dat de kerk hier niet goed uitkomt, is een zaak die voor de hand ligt."

MALLORCA
Euro Weekly

THE Mallorca Bishopric has suspended the Can Picafort parish priest from his duties following accusations of alleged sexual abuse to minors. This was revealed by a report contained in the online version of Spanish daily, Diario de Mallorca which also wrote that an exhaustive internal investigation is being carried out into the accusations against by the Mallorca Church.

Pere Barcelo is accused of molesting young girls in and out of the island more than a decade ago. It has not been revealed if there are any cases of alleged abuse in recent years.

The Bishop of Mallorca, Jesus Murgui informed the priest the decision, prohibiting him from giving mass both in Can Picafort as in any other parish.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND 03/31/2011

The Society of Our Lady of the Blessed Trinity is in the spotlight, following the allegations of misconduct against one of its members, Father John Corapi. The Register spoke with Father Gerald Sheehan, regional priest servant, based in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas, to learn more about the charism of the order and its rules for members.

What are the distinctive elements of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Blessed Trinity?

The Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Blessed Trinity (SOLT) is a society of apostolic life. We were founded in 1958, and now have 160 priests working in 20 countries. We are a society of apostolic life of diocesan right. [A society of “diocesan right” is overseen by one local bishop on behalf of the Church, whereas those of “pontifical right,” like Maryknoll missionaries and the Sulpicians, are directly overseen by the Vatican.] We are a community of priests, sisters and laity, working in ecclesial teams in areas of greatest apostolic need. Father Rogel Rosalinas is the general priest servant; he will have ultimate authority regarding any decision related to the allegations involving Father Corapi.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND 03/31/2011

Father John Corapi of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT), among the nation’s most popular Catholic evangelists, was placed on “administrative leave” following allegations of misconduct leveled against him by a former employee.

Announced on the priest’s personal website, the news shocked Catholics who have been inspired by his robust articulation of Church teaching, and his powerful personal conversion story.

He stated, “On Ash Wednesday I learned that a former employee sent a three-page letter to several bishops accusing me of everything from drug addiction to multiple sexual exploits with her and several other adult women.”

As Internet pundits reacted to the headlines, his supporters questioned whether the formal process of investigating such claims conveyed the impression that the accused was “guilty until proven innocent.”

BOSTON (MA)
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Paul Kellen’s update to:

Tuesday March 29 at Boston College: Protesting the Talk by Cardinal Roger Mahony

Paul Kellen, NSAC and Anne Barrett Doyle, BishopAccountability.org and survivor advocates Marge Bean, John Mudd, Lucia Mudd, Bob Sidorowicz, Ken Scott.stood with signs and handed out leaflets at the Boston College entrance. They opposed the honoring of retired cardinal Roger Mahony as guest speaker for the Church in the 21st Century program. C21C was founded as the university’s response to the sex abuse scandal revelations in 2002.

They were well received by the majority of cars and pedestrians entering. It was however sad that many young people, presumably students, avoided or ignored the message.

Later Paul Kellen, and Anne Barrett Doyle attended Mahony’s talk. After being ignored during the question period, Doyle addressed the cardinal as he was leaving. She asked if he was relieved not to be in jail considering he abetted the rape and sodomy of hundreds of children by priests under his control. Doyle then addressed the audience asking how they could remain passive considering the Cardinal’s deeds. She also addressed the head of the Theology department who had ignored the abuse scandal in her introduction of the Cardinal.

CONNECTICUT
The Bristol Press

By Lisa Backus
Staff Writer

A priest recently identified as part of a sexual abuse settlement led congregations in Bristol and Plainville for many years while also serving as a minister at a local high school.

According to papers filed in a Hartford court in 2009, the Archdiocese of Hartford approved a settlement of more than $20,000 for Jeff Libby, a 48-year-old former Bristol resident now incarcerated in Maine. Libby claims he was repeatedly abused by the Rev. Richard McGann in the 1970s.

McGann was pastor of St. Gregory the Great Church on Maltby Street in Bristol from 1975 to 1977, when the abuse allegedly occurred, court papers show. McGann went on to serve as a chaplain at Hartford Hospital and a pastoral minister at St. Paul High School before being assigned as pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Church in Plainville in 1987.

ROME
Apic (Suisse)

Rome, 31 mars 2011 (Apic) Le pape Benoît XVI a retiré à Mgr Jean-Claude Makaya Loemba, la charge pastorale du diocèse de Pointe-Noire, au Congo-Brazzaville, a indiqué le Bureau de presse du Saint-Siège le 31 mars 2011. Cette mesure extrêmement rare a été motivée par de "graves problèmes de gestion", a indiqué par la suite le Vatican.

Le Vatican précise que l’évêque de 56 ans s’était vu retirer sa charge en raison de graves problèmes de gestion au sein du diocèse, "entre autres de gestion économique". Le Bureau de presse du Saint-Siège a fait part de "fortes tensions présentes dans le diocèse", indiquant par ailleurs que les problèmes n’étaient pas d’ordre moral.

[summary]

The Vatican said removal of the bishop of 56 years was due to serious management problems. Removal of a bishop is extremely rare.

CITTA' DEL VATICANO
ASCA

(ASCA) - Citta' del Vaticano, 31 mar - Papa Benedetto XVI ha ''sollevato'' oggi dalla cura pastorale della diocesi di Pointe-Noire, nel Congo-Brazzaville, mons, Jean-Claude Makaya Loemba. Il motivo della rimozione, spiega la Sala Stampa vaticana, non e' dovuto a problemi ''di morale'' del presule, ma a contrasti e tensioni nella diocesi che mons. Makaya Loemba non era stato in grado di gestire, oltre a questioni di carattere economico. Il presule, diversamente da quanto accade generalmente in casi simili, non aveva presentato le dimissioni.

In passato, il vescovo di Pointe-Noire aveva chiesto l'allontanamento dalla diocesi del missionario italiano padre Fedele Bisceglia, accusato di molestie sessuali a diverse donne. In seguito, p. Fedele e' stato arrestato per violenza nella gestione di un Centro per migranti in Puglia.

[summary]

The bishop had not submitted his resignation. In the past, Bishop Loemba had requested the removal from the diocesese of Father Fedele Bisceglia, an Italian missionary who was accused to sexual molestation of several women.

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

VATICAN CITY, 31 MAR 2011 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Removed Bishop Jean-Claude Makaya Loemba from the pastoral care of the diocese of Pointe-Noire, Republic of the Congo.

CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
ABC (Espana)

Ciudad del Vaticano, 31 mar (EFE).- El papa Benedicto XVI ha destituido al obispo de Pointe-Noire, en Congo-Brazzaville), Jean-Claude Makaya Loemba, informó hoy el Vaticano, a la vez que fuentes de la Santa Sede precisaron que se ha debido a problemas de gestión de la diócesis y a las tensiones creadas con el clero local.

La decisión del Pontífice, según fuentes vaticanas, se debe a la manera con la que gestionaba la diócesis congoleña, considerada "negativa" por el clero local, lo que había desembocado en los últimos tiempos en una situación de tensión insostenible entre el prelado y los sacerdotes, que habían perdido la confianza en él.

Las fuentes precisaron que en la destitución no hay motivos referentes a la vida privada del obispo, sino exclusivamente relativos a la gestión, "también económica", de la diócesis.

CALIFORNIA
Mercury News

Posted: 03/30/2011

SAN FRANCISCO—A lawyer for four men who claim they were molested by a priest at their Northern California parish says he has temporarily withdrawn his clients' lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa.

Attorney Joseph George said Wednesday that he is working with a Minnesota lawyer with an international clergy abuse practice to expand the scope of the suits involving former priest Patrick Joseph McCabe.

McCabe is awaiting extradition to his native Ireland to face charges that he sexually abused young boys there in the 1970s and early '80s.

George says the Minnesota lawyer, Jeff Anderson, is traveling to Ireland this weekend to try to gather information showing that church officials in Dublin knew McCabe was a pedophile when they allowed him to transfer to St. Bernard's Parish in Eureka.

BELGIE/CANADA
hbvl

In Canada hebben zich in een maand tijd al tien nieuwe slachtoffers van de Vlaamse pedofiele pater Eric Dejaeger gemeld. Hij werd in januari aan Canada uitgeleverd.

Eric Dejaeger wordt verdacht van het seksueel misbruiken van Eskimokinderen tijdens zijn missiewerk in Canada. Gisteren is hij voor de tweede keer verschenen voor de rechtbank in Iqaluit, de hoofdstad van het Canadese Nunavut.

De 63-jarige West-Vlaamse pater werd vorig jaar door Interpol gezocht. Hij is in ons land meer dan tien jaar kunnen onderduiken voor de politie tot hij zichzelf in september 2010 wel moest aangeven.

ISRAEL
The Jerusalem Post

By JONAH MANDEL
03/31/2011

Reports suggest that principal of settlement's Ashkenazi school currently on trial on suspicion of sexually abusing three boys from Sephardi families.

A sexual abuse case recently made public is shedding some new light on the development of the ethnic tensions that exploded in Emmanuel last year.

Channel 2 reported on Monday that the principal of Emmanuel’s Ashkenazi elementary school for boys, Rabbi Moshe Nussboim, is currently on trial behind closed doors in the Kfar Saba Magistrate’s Court on suspicion of sexually abusing three boys from Sephardi families in his school between the years 2002-2008.

IRELAND
The Irish Examiner

By Jennifer Hough

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

THE survivors of a Protestant home for unmarried mothers where more than 200 babies died have asked for the Government’s position on including it in the redress scheme.

Just last October, while in opposition, Junior Minister Kathleen Lynch said the Government must "do the decent thing and end this outrage".

The Bethany Survivors Group, headed by Derek Leinster, has fought for years to have the home recognised as a state-run institution, despite what it calls a "cover up" to exclude it from the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme.

OSTERREICH
Krone

Ein Jahr nach ihrem Antritt will die ehemalige steirische Landeshauptfrau Waltraud Klasnic ihre Funktion als "Opferschutzanwältin" für kirchliche Missbrauchsopfer nicht so schnell aufgeben. "Ich stelle mir vor, dass ich zumindest drei bis vier Jahre brauche", sagte sie. Die Schicksale, mit denen Klasnic konfrontiert ist, seien zu persönlich für ein schnelles Ende, begründet sie ihr anhaltendes Engagement in der Kommission.

Nach einem Jahr zeigt sich Klasnic jedenfalls froh über ihre damalige Zusage, auch wenn sie dereinst nicht gewusst habe, was auf sie zukommt. Inzwischen haben sich mehr als 800 Betroffene bei der achtköpfigen "Opferschutzanwaltschaft" gemeldet, 167 Entschädigungszahlungen wurden bisher geleistet.

OSTERREICH
Die Presse

Bei 499 Personen hat sich der Verdacht auf sexuellen oder physischen Missbrauch erhärtet, aber die meisten Fälle sind verjährt, zogen die Bischöfe Bilanz. Die Urteile in der Kreuz-Debatte seien "bahnbrechend".

Die Kirche hat im vergangenen Jahr 125 mutmaßliche Missbrauchsfälle zur Anzeige gebracht. Das berichtete Kardinal Christoph Schönborn am Freitag nach der Frühjahrsvollversammlung der Bischofskonferenz im Südtiroler Brixen. Bei insgesamt 499 Personen habe sich der Verdacht erhärtet, dass sie Opfer von Übergriffen im kirchlichen Bereich geworden sind. Schönborn zeigte sich in einer Pressekonferenz am Freitag in Wien mit den Richtlinien gegen sexuellen Missbrauch zufrieden.

Eine strafrechtliche Relevanz sei bei 4,4 Prozent der Fälle - also bei 22 der 499 mutmaßlichen Opfer - wahrscheinlich. Um aber keinesfalls eine mögliche strafrechtliche Relevanz zu übersehen, seien von kirchlicher Seite dennoch 25,1 Prozent - also 125 Fälle - zur Anzeige gebracht worden, betonten die Bischöfe in einer Erklärung nach der Vollversammlung.

OSTERREICH
ORF

499 Personen sollen Opfer von Übergriffen im kirchlichen Bereich geworden sein. Diese Bilanz der Ombudsstellen hat Kardinal Christoph Schönborn nach der Frühjahrsvollversammlung der Bischöfe bekanntgegeben.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Becky Schlikerman, Tribune reporter

An advocacy group for people abused by priests on Wednesday asked Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to launch a grand jury investigation into the Chicago-based Jesuit province.

The plea comes after a scathing addition to three men's lawsuit was filed in Circuit Court alleging that Jesuit leaders in Chicago knew that now-defrocked Catholic priest Donald McGuire was sexually abusing underage boys and that they sought to cover it up and mislead authorities.

"We want the prosecutor of Cook County to investigate whether there is sufficient evidence of crimes committed by the Jesuit superiors," said Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP.) "It seems as though there's evidence of conspiracy (and) evidence of perjury."

IRELAND
Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference

PRESS RELEASE

29 March 2011

The Apostolic Visitator for the Irish seminaries, Archbishop Timothy M Dolan, Archbishop of New York, has sent his regards to the seminary community in Ireland, along with the following brief statement.

“After hearing of the recent report by the Irish Catholic about our “recommendation” to Rome, I can easily conclude that unsubstantiated and inaccurate reporting by the press is hardly a monopoly of the American media. Had anyone from this paper asked, I would have pointed out that our report to the Holy See is still not even complete. The sole mandate of the Apostolic Visitation is to review the seminaries to ensure they are responding properly to the present-day needs of the Church.”

IRELAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the apostolic visitor for Irish seminaries, has confirmed that there has been no ‘recommendation’ made to Rome to close Maynooth College.

“Our report to the Holy See is still not even complete,” Archbishop Dolan said in a statement released Tuesday by the Irish Episcopal Conference. “The sole mandate of the apostolic visitation is to review the seminaries to ensure they are responding properly to the present-day needs of the Church”

This follows media reports last week claiming that Maynooth College, Co. Kildare would be forced to close over concerns about academic standards and falling numbers of seminarians and teaching staff.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
CBS 58

MILWAUKEE -- A clergy abuse survivors group is accusing Marquette University president Robert Wild of concealing the crimes of a pedophile priest.

The group, SNAP believes court documents released this week indicate Father Wild knew a Jesuit priest under his supervision 25 years ago, was a child molester, but refused to turn him in.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

The list of Catholic priests suspended in the last seven weeks here for alleged aberrant behavior involving children grew to 29 Wednesday, as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia placed two more clerics on administrative leave.

Citing archdiocesan policy, spokeswoman Donna Farrell declined to name the two, but said both had retired within the last six years and were living in private residences.

The 27 priests already on forced leave accounted for nearly 7 percent of the almost 400 clergy who were in active ministry in the five-county archdiocese when the year began. An additional 150 are retired or ill.

The Inquirer has identified one of the priests placed on leave Wednesday as the Rev. David Givey. Details of the allegations against him were not available.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Philly

[with video]

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia placed two retired priests on administrative leave Wednesday while it investigates allegations of inappropriate behavior with minors.

That means 23 priests have been suspended following a recent grand jury report focusing mainly on alleged child sex abuse.

And just like the previous 21 suspensions, the Archdiocese is outright refusing to release the names of the newly suspended priests or what exactly they're accused of doing.

But, Fox 29 has identified one of them as Father David Givey.

Our own Joyce Evans spoke to one catholic who knew him well

MUNCIE (IN)
TheIndyChannel

MUNCIE, Ind. -- A handful of convicted sex offenders spoke frankly to 100 strangers Wednesday night in Muncie, with no questions off limits.

The workshop was a first-of-its-kind event put on by the Family Services Society to prevent future abuse, 6News' Tanya Spencer reported.

As offenders spoke candidly about the crimes that put them in jail, two of the panelists said they assaulted young girls they had just met. One abused his own daughter and another was a church mentor. ...

Counselors with the Family Services Society said unfortunately there's no known set of characteristics or personality traits that will help parents identify an offender. They also said that 90 percent of sexual abuse is committed by someone the victim knows and trusts.

The best advice from those who know best how to lure young victims is to talk to and listen to kids.

BOSTON (MA)
The Heights

By Joseph Pasquinelli
Heights Staff

Tuesday afternoon, a group of seven sign-carrying protestors gathered in front of St. Ignatius Church in opposition to the appearance of Cardinal Roger Michael Mahony, former Archbishop of Los Angeles, who presented a lecture on campus that night.

Mahoney's lecture, titled "Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Bishop's Ministry of Oversight," touched upon his attempts to foster reconciliation amongst his parishioners and his dealing with social issues including a California farm workers' strike, immigration, and the Catholic Church abuse scandal. He also discussed how the Church and its leaders must adapt to and change with the times.

The lecture was sponsored by the theology department, the School of Theology and Ministry (STM), and the Church in the 21st Century (C21).

At the event, Mahony reflected on his tenure as Archbishop of Los Angeles prior to his retirement in February. At the conclusion of his presentation, Mahony answered questions from the audience. When she wasn't called upon, Anne Barrett Doyle of Bishop Accountability, an organization dedicated to creating a public archive documenting abuse and encouraging the accountability of bishops, spoke up loudly, asking Mahony about his response to the abuse scandal.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

By GLORIA CAMPISI
Philadelphia Daily News
campisg@phillynews.com 215-854-5935

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which has placed 24 priests on administrative leave in the past two months because of allegations of sexual misconduct involving minors, announced yesterday that it has taken similar action against two retired priests.

The actions come in response to a February report by a Philadelphia grand jury that said that 37 priests still were ministering to parishioners despite accusations of sexual abuse or improper behavior with minors.

Cardinal Justin Rigali has said that these steps are interim measures and not final determinations or judgments. Both of the priests who were placed on leave yesterday live in private residences, the Archdiocese said.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CNN

(CNN) -- Two more priests have been placed on administrative leave by the Philadelphia Archdiocese as part of an ongoing investigation into the sexual abuse of children by clergy.

Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop of Philadelphia, announced that the two unnamed priests, who are currently retired, have been placed on administrative leave, effective immediately, pending a more thorough independent investigation.

That investigation is being conducted by Gina Maisto Smith, a former child abuse prosecutor in Philadelphia, and a team of experts.

CALIFORNIA
The Press Democrat

By SAM SCOTT
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Four men who claim they were molested by a Humboldt County priest in the 1980s have dropped their case against the Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa. But only so they can expand their target to include “an international conspiracy” that extends to Ireland, their attorneys said.

The new suit will take aim not only the local diocese, but the Archdiocese of Dublin and the Catholic order that treated the priest for pedophilia, attorney Joseph George said Wednesday.

The legal action will allege negligence, fraud and conspiracy against leaders of the three organizations that helped transfer the Rev. Patrick McCabe from pulpits in Ireland to California despite knowing his deep problems.

A 2009 report commissioned by the Irish government said the Santa Rosa bishop at the time, the late Mark Hurley, accepted McCabe knowing he'd been treated for pedophilia at a Catholic facility in New Mexico.

BELGIUM
Zee News

Brussels: Belgium's Parliament on Wednesday called for an independent arbitration committee to deal with years of child abuse by Roman Catholic clergy and possible compensation for victims.

A special parliamentary committee unanimously approved a report, which also urges to extend the time for victims to come forward with their complaints to 15 years after adulthood instead of 10.

Last year, the church acknowledged widespread sexual abuse over half a century and pleaded for time to set up a system to punish all abusers and provide closure for victims.

PENNSYLVANIA
PhillyBurbs

By JAMES MCGINNIS Staff Writer Calkins Media, Inc.

Attorneys for a Bristol family called off a press conference on the alleged abuse of their deceased son while he was an altar boy.

Two more priests were placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by experts in child abuse and forensic psychiatry, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Wednesday.

Church officials declined to release the names of the priests or elaborate on the accusations against them. Both priests are retired and living in private residences.

PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

By PATTI MENGERS
pmengers@delcotimes.com

Two retired priests, one of whom formerly served in Delaware County, have been placed on administrative leave by officials in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia while they review complaints of inappropriate behavior by the priests with minors.

Archdiocesan officials announced the suspensions Wednesday. They declined to identify the retired priests who are both living in private residences, other than to say one retired in 2005 and is not serving in public ministry because of poor health and the other retired in 2006 and is assisting in parishes in another diocese where officials have been informed of his suspension.

But a source identified one of the suspended priests as the Rev. David Givey, 66, who was ordained in 1971 and served as editor of the Catholic Standard & Times, the archdiocesan newspaper, from June 1984 to July 1991.

From 1971 to 1973, he served at St. Katharine of Siena Parish and Archbishop Carroll High School, both in Radnor, and, from 1978 to 1984, at Archbishop Prendergast High School in the Drexel Hill section of Upper Darby. He was on staff at Our Lady of Peace Parish in the Milmont Park section of Ridley Township from 1996 to 2001.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
TMJ 4

[with video]

Milwaukee - Marquette University is gearing up to host a conference on clergy abuse. But newly released court documents are leading abuse victims to question whether Father Robert Wild helped cover up for one of the nation’s most notorious priests.

Before Fr. Wild was president at Marquette University, he was the provincial leader for Chicago's Jesuits. One of the priests he supervised was notorious sex offender Father Donald Mcguire. Mcguire is now serving prison time for molesting boys. Accusations against him date back to the 1960's.

"Fr. Wild during his entire time as provincial until 1991 left Fr.McGuire in ministry where he then continued to sexually asault and abuse children under Fr. Wild’s watch,” said Peter Isely of the Survivors Network for Those Abused By Priests.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel
March 30, 2011

Clergy sex abuse survivors on Wednesday called for Father Robert Wild, president of Marquette University, to apologize for leaving pedophile priest Donald McGuire in active ministry when Wild led the Chicago Jesuits in the 1980s, and to join in calling for more disclosure by the Jesuits about abusive priests within the order.

At a news conference at Marquette, members of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, also handed out excerpts of documents filed Monday in a Chicago court that SNAP says show Jesuits "knew with certainty that McGuire was a serial predator and an ongoing and chronic danger to children," yet took no steps to protect them, while actively covering for McGuire.

A SNAP letter to Wild read, "Mindful of your many accomplishments during the course of your impressive Jesuit career and grateful for your decades of service to the Catholic community, we are nonetheless deeply disappointed and alarmed to learn that one of those Jesuit superiors, according to the evidence in the Chicago documents, was you."

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Marquette University

Event Information
Date: Monday and Tuesday, April 4 and 5, 2011
Time: 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Place: Marquette Law School, Eckstein Hall

Harm, hope and healing to examine the crisis and the way forward

Marquette University Law School will host an international conference on the clergy sex abuse scandal that has shaken the Catholic Church over the last decade. “Harm, Hope, and Healing: International Dialogue on the Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal,” sponsored by the Law School’s Restorative Justice Initiative, will feature the stories of abuse victims, the impact of the scandal on other clergy, and panelists from Australia, Ireland and across the United States as it examines the path to healing from the scandal. It will take place Monday and Tuesday, April 4 and 5, 2011 at Marquette University Law School’s Eckstein Hall, 1215 W. Michigan St.

The Most Reverend Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, will give an address on his personal journey, “The Truth Will Set You Free,” Monday, April 4, at 9:30 a.m. In addition, a panel of abuse survivors; representatives from the Boston Archdiocese, where the scandal broke nearly one decade ago; and other speakers will make presentations. A complete conference schedule is available online.

“Restorative justice is a process that creates a safe environment for dialogue,” Janine Geske, distinguished professor of law and former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, said. “At this year’s conference we want to hear the voices of and facilitate conversation among the many individuals and groups affected by clergy sexual abuse – victims and their families, church leaders, other priests and Catholic laity – so we can confront and heal from the pain.”

MILWAUKEE (WI)
The Republic

MILWAUKEE — A Milwaukee university is hosting an international conference about the clergy sex abuse scandal.

The event will feature victims' stories, panelists from Australia, Ireland and across the United States and it will look at the impact on other clergy.

Representatives from the Boston Archdiocese, where the scandal broke nearly a decade ago, will also make a presentation. The Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Reverend Diarmuid (DER'-muhd) Martin, will give an address on Monday.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
WISN

MILWAUKEE -- Marquette University's president is accused of protecting one of the nation's most notorious predator priests.

The allegations are part of a pending lawsuit against the Rev. Donald McGuire and his order.

The Rev. Robert Wild supervised McGuire in the late 1980s when he headed up the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus.

Long before McGuire was a convicted pedophile, he was arguably the one of the country's most prominent Jesuits.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

Manya Brachear

Anyone wondering why Elizabeth Taylor's family insisted on a private memorial for the Hollywood superstar need only turn to Westboro Baptist Church for part of the answer.

Members had threatened to picket outside the funeral as sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court a few weeks ago.

There could be similar demonstrations outside houses of worship in Chicago since the city has refused to enforce an ordinance prohibiting protests outside houses of worship during services. ...

Barbara Blaine, founder and president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which has had held numerous protests outside Holy Name Cathedral, said her group never encountered anyone trying to enforce the ordinance. But she said the group rarely demonstrates during mass. They usually distribute leaflets to parishioners coming and going.

"I don't see where we have a lot of other options with witness or whistleblower potential," she said. "We frequently hear from other victims when we do the leafleting."

But she said SNAP is very careful to emphasize they're not protesting the parishioners who have a right to worship in peace.

MADISON (WI)
Channel 3000

MADISON, Wis. -- A Madison priest faces a second-degree sexual assault of a child charge following an incident that dates to 2004, according to Dane County Court documents.

The Madison Roman Catholic Diocese released a statement detailing the background of the Rev. Joseph Gibbs Clauder in the church. Clauder was removed from his public role as a priest in 1999 the diocese became aware of an inappropriate relationship with an adult woman.

The diocese said that in 2009, the woman, who at the time was a minor, came forward and claimed Clauder had made inappropriate sexual contact with the woman in 2004.

MADISON (WI)
Madison.com

ED TRELEVEN | etreleven@madison.com | 608-252-6134 madison.com

A Madison priest allegedly fondled a teenage girl in Stevens Point and in her Monona home in 2003 and 2004, then threatened to sue the girl and her cousin for slander to stop them from telling other people about the incidents, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday.

The Rev. Joseph Gibbs Clauder allegedly told the girl that if he told anyone else what she had done she would not go to heaven and that nobody in her family would believe her, according to the complaint, filed in Dane County Circuit Court.

She said she did not reveal the incidents to anyone until 2009, when she was 20 years old, because she was afraid of Clauder, and even said she did not want to go to heaven because he could be there.

“I never want to be near him,” she told a nurse, her parish priest and family members in February 2009.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Philly

[with video]

PHILADELPHIA - Devout Catholics are having their say when it comes to the church sex abuse scandal.

The group "Catholics 4 Change" is demanding a face-to-face dialogue with church leaders. It's something they say up until now they haven't gotten.

The site's founder, Susan Matthews, said she hopes the movement will keep Catholics in church by giving them a voice.

A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia reacted by saying, "Catholics 4 Change is a very positive effort. These are people who love their children and their church. It's very encouraging."

RHODE ISLAND
Rhode Island Catholic

BY BISHOP THOMAS J. TOBIN
3/31/11

For reasons that will become obvious, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the parable of the farmer walking down a rural road who came across a tiny sparrow, lying along side the road on his back, with his little feet up in the air.

“What are you doing?” said the farmer to the sparrow. “I heard that the sky is falling and I want to do my best to hold it up,” responded the little bird. “That’s ridiculous,” declared the farmer. “First of all, the sky isn’t falling . . . And secondly, even if it is, your tiny feet won’t help very much.” “Well,” said the sparrow with determination, “One does what one can.”

I feel a bit like the sparrow these days, bombarded as I am with the daily reports about the decline and fall of the Catholic Church. “The sky is falling,” reports seem to confirm.

NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

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

A defrocked Bronx priest, found guilty by Catholic officials of molesting a teenaged boy, is suing one of his victims. Shame on him.

Ex-priest Charles M. Kavanagh claims everyone is wrong: his victim, the church official who suspended him, the church officials who permanently ousted him and the church officials who gave his victim a financial settlement. Kavanagh claims that never, in an eight year church process, did the truth surface.

Kavanach’s victim Daniel Donohue has suffered enough. Our hearts ache for him. We are glad he’s been brave enough to come forward and expose Kavanagh as a predator. We’re confident he’s strong enough to endure this injustice too.

TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

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

A Dallas priest is on probation now after pleading no contest to charges that he sexually exploited a girl.

We applaud Fr. Crisp’s victim for cooperating with police and prosecuting and exposing a sick cleric. Her courage has made other kids safer.

At the same time, we worry because Crisp isn’t locked up. We hope officials will closely monitor him and harshly punish him if he’s caught violating conditions of his release.

It is still important for anyone who saw, suspected or suffered crimes by Fr. Crisp to come forward, seek help and call police. We suspect there are others who have been hurt by Fr. Crisp, and we hope that some of these crimes can be prosecuted. When predators are behind bars, then children are safe.

BELGIUM
The Associated Press

By Raf Casert, The Associated Press

BRUSSELS — Belgium's parliament on Wednesday called for an independent arbitration committee to deal with years of child abuse by Roman Catholic clergy and possible compensation for victims.

A special parliamentary committee unanimously approved a report, which also urges to extend the time for victims to come forward with their complaints to 15 years after adulthood instead of 10.

Last year, the church acknowledged widespread sexual abuse over half a century and pleaded for time to set up a system to punish all abusers and provide closure for victims.

BELGIUM
The New York Times

By STEPHEN CASTLE
Published: March 30, 2011

BRUSSELS — Almost a year after a scandal engulfed Belgium following the resignation of a Roman Catholic bishop who admitted he had sexually abused boys, a parliamentary commission called Wednesday for a new panel to adjudicate compensation claims for the hundreds of people who say they were the victims of predatory priests.

The parliamentary investigation was the most comprehensive attempt yet to draw lessons from an abuse scandal that, like those in Ireland and the United States, sent shock waves through the country and plunged the Catholic Church into crisis. The commission did not investigate specific cases of abuse.

And, while a representative of one victims’ group welcomed the findings, she said it would be vital to insure that any new arbitration committee would be truly independent.

“Many questions were posed, many things were said and many things were learned about an issue that has been taboo in our society,” said Karine Lalieux, the Belgian deputy who headed the special commission after the conclusions were approved. “The victims were at the heart of our recommendations and at the heart of our report. We were working for them.”

BELGIE
Gazet van Antwerpen

"De Antwerpse bisschop Johan Bonny stelde ons voor om een schaderegeling voor slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik uit te werken. Wij gaan op zijn voorstel in en doen de Kerk een aanbod dat ze niet kan weigeren". Dat zei Christian Brotcorne (cdH) bij de voorstelling van het eindrapport van de Kamercommissie Seksueel Misbruik in de Kerk.

De Commissie discussieerde vijf maanden lang over dit probleem en kwam nu tot zeventig voorstellen. Wat staat er in het rapport?

* De Commissie stelt voor dat de Kerk onder begeleiding van het parlement een schaderegeling voor slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik laat uitwerken door een "scheidsgerecht". Zulke scheidsgerechten (in vakjargon: arbitrage genoemd) bestaan nu al in de commerciële sector. Het gaat eigenlijk om een soort rechtbank waarbij de partijen zelf hun rechters kiezen. "Ons aanbod moet de Kerk toelaten om haar morele verantwoordelijkheid op te nemen voor seksueel misbruik dat verjaard is. Dat moet onder begeleiding gebeuren van een parlementaire opvolgingscommissie die om de maand de vorderingen bekijkt", zo heette het.

VATICAN CITY
Wall Street Journal

BY STACY MEICHTRY
VATICAN CITY—The Vatican is scrambling ahead of a Friday deadline to finalize new rules for how the Holy See will monitor the movement of funds in and out of Vatican walls and punish money launderers.

Pope Benedict XVI late last year bowed to the demands of the international financial community and announced the Vatican would create a watchdog to police its bank's opaque finances and bring to justice anyone who commits financial misdeeds on Vatican territory. As the watchdog formally comes into power on Friday, regulators and banks in Italy and abroad will be watching closely to see if the ...

MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP - Wisconsin

To: Fr. Robert Wild, President, Marquette University
From: Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director
Re: Fr. Donald McGuire

Fr. Wild,

I am writing to you on behalf of the many victim/survivors of childhood sexual abuse by clergy who are members of our international self help organization, but particularly those victim/survivors of rape and childhood sexual assault of the Jesuit priest, Fr. Donald McGuire.

McGuire, as you know, was convicted in Wisconsin and Illinois of multiple state and federal counts of child sexual assault in 2006 and 2010 and is currently serving a 20 year sentence.

Thousands of pages of new court documents filed in a Chicago lawsuit yesterday concerning McGuire and his Jesuit superiors incontrovertibly demonstrate that the Jesuit order, under the direction of several provincial superiors over a period of time spanning nearly four decades, knew with certainty that McGuire was a serial predator and an ongoing and chronic danger to children.

According to one of the nation’s leading experts quoted in the New York Times yesterday, there has rarely been seen in the history of the church sex abuse scandal, “such detailed and frequent notice received by the priest’s superiors, so many ‘directives’ regarding the priest’s future behavior, and so much evidence presented to his superiors that those directives were being violated, without the priest being removed from ministry.”

NEW YORK
ABA Journal

By Martha Neil

Found guilty by a church tribunal in 2006 of sexually abusing a minor decades ago and subsequently defrocked, a high-ranking former New York priest has now turned the tables on his accuser.

Onetime monsignor Charles Kavanagh, 73, has filed a defamation suit against the former seminary student in federal court in Manhattan, contending that the defendant lied to reporters about the sexual abuse in order to extract a monetary settlement from the New York archdiocese, reports the New York Post.

The complaint points to newspaper headlines, such as one in the Post calling Kavanagh a "Pervert Priest," to substantiate its allegations that he was "held up to ridicule and scorn" as a result of the accusations. However, it doesn't name any news organization as a defendant, the Post reports.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia, today announced that he has placed two retired priests on administrative leave effective immediately. This action is a result of the continuing dialogue with the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office following the Grand Jury Report issued February 10, 2011. In its ongoing response to concerns raised by the District Attorney's Office, the Archdiocese conducted an initial review which resulted in the administrative leave of the two priests pending a more thorough, independent investigation. Consistent with Cardinal Rigali's previous statement, these steps are interim measures and are not in any way final determinations or judgments.

Cardinal Rigali's actions today and on March 8th when he placed 21 priests on administrative leave were based upon recommendations by Gina Maisto Smith, a former child abuse prosecutor with the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office for nearly two decades. As previously announced Mrs. Smith, a partner at the law firm of Ballard Spahr, is conducting an initial review of cases of concern.

The cases of administrative leave will be more fully investigated by Mrs. Smith and a team of experts including a pediatrician with expertise in the field of child abuse, a forensic psychiatrist and psychologist, an expert from the child advocacy community and other experts.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Beaumont Enterprise

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has placed two retired priests on administrative leave, bringing to 23 the number of priests suspended following a scathing grand jury report that accused church officials of protecting predator priests.

Cardinal Justin Rigali placed the unidentified priests on leave Wednesday pending an investigation.

One priest retired in 2006 and has assisted at parishes in another diocese where he lives. That diocese has been informed of the suspension. The other priest retired in 2005 and is not serving in any public ministry.

BELGIUM
Baltimore Sun

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A Belgian parliamentary inquiry asked the Catholic Church Wednesday to compensate people who were abused by priests as children.

Widespread sexual abuse of minors by Belgian clerics has driven at least 13 people to suicide, a Church commission said last year.

"We recommend that the church puts in place an arbitration commission to be able to compensate the victims even if the facts are very old," said Lalieux Karine, the president of the inquiry. "It's money, but if they want a moral recognition they also can (ask for it)."

PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

By PATTI MENGERS
pmengers@delcotimes.com

Attorneys canceled their plan today to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on behalf of family members of a Bucks County man who they said committed suicide after archdiocesan officials dismissed his allegations of clerical sexual abuse.

Attorney Jeff Anderson, an internationally-known expert in sexual abuse litigation based in St. Paul, Minn., said he could not comment on why the plan to file the lawsuit had been canceled or whether it would be filed at a later date.

The man, who was 36 when he died, was allegedly molested by the Rev. Joseph Gallagher while he was an altar boy at St. Mark parish in Bristol, Bucks County. Gallagher served as assistant pastor at the former St. Michael's Church in Chester from June 1970 until October 1974.

PENNSYLVANIA
PhillyBurbs

by JAMES McGINNIS Calkins Media, Inc.

Lawyers for the family of a man who committed suicide in 2009 have called off a Wednesday press conference to discuss allegations of repeated sexual abuse by a priest formerly assigned to St. Mark Catholic Church in Bristol.

A Philadelphia grand jury report released in February alleges that the man, identified as "Ben," had approached church investigators in 2007 with claims of repeated fondling and abuse by a priest at St. Mark during the 1970s. "Ben" had been an altar server at the church at the time.

According to the grand jury, "Ben" had provided the church with names of other former altar boys for St. Mark who could confirm his story. Investigators said that a second boy came forward with allegations of fondling by the same priest.

CANADA
CNW

OTTAWA, Ontario, March 30, 2011 /CNW/ -- September 19, 2011 is the Deadline for former Indian Residential Schools students to apply for a Common Experience Payment (CEP). On September 19, 2007 the Indian Residential Schools Settlement became effective. At the time, it was estimated that 80,000 former students were alive in 2007. As of January 1, 2011, Common Experience Payments have been issued to 76,623 former students. The application deadline is now approaching.

The Common Experience Payment is a payment made under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to former students who lived at a recognized Indian Residential School under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and who were alive on May 30, 2005. Payments are $10,000 for the first school year (or part of a school year) plus $3,000 for each additional school year (or part of a school year).

To apply for a Common Experience Payment, eligible former students must please complete and submit an application form by September 19, 2011. An application form is available by calling 1-866-879-4913, at the www.residentialschoolsettlement.ca website or by visiting a Service Canada Centre. Service Canada staff members are available to help applicants complete the CEP application form.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Philly

[with video]

PHILADELPHIA - The national victims group SNAP has released a previously undisclosed grand jury report on sexually abusive priests in Philadelphia.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests says the 2003 document affirms what two later grand juries found: that abusive Roman Catholic priests were protected and transferred among parishes.

She says it's an interim report from a grand jury whose 18-month time limit had expired. A second grand jury continued the investigation; it released a scathing 2005 report that includes material from the 2003 document.

CANADA
Hamilton Spectator

A Hamilton Catholic high school teacher has been charged with sexually assaulting a student.
Police allege Giuseppe (Joe) Graziano, who has been teaching cosmetology and Spanish at Cathedral High School for the past 14 years, approached a student at school in January and asked for sex.

Police and school officials would not reveal the student's gender, age or grade.

In February, according to the Hamilton police child abuse branch, Graziano sexually assaulted the student in an empty classroom.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

More trouble for the Archdiocese:

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is drawing attention to a lesser-known grand jury report on sexually abusive priests in Philadelphia.

SNAP says the 2003 document affirms what two later grand juries found: that abusive Roman Catholic priests were protected and transferred among parishes.

TEXAS
Houston Chronicle

ROWLETT, Texas — A Dallas-area priest has been put on probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor assault over the inappropriate touching of a 14-year-old girl.

The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday that the Rev. Bob Crisp had been a priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rowlett for a decade. The 62-year-old priest was put on leave last April.

Crisp pleaded no contest Tuesday in Rowlett Municipal Court and received six months of deferred adjudication, plus was fined $650 over the summer 2009 incident. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

De bijzondere Kamercommissie Seksueel Misbruik is er na een marathonzitting niet in geslaagd de bespreking van de aanbevelingen af te ronden. De commissieleden trokken zich dinsdagmiddag rond 12.30 uur terug in besloten zitting en gingen woensdag rond 3.30 uur uiteen. Woensdag om 12.30 uur zetten ze de bespreking voort achter gesloten deuren.

De commissieleden gingen vrijdag en zaterdag al in conclaaf om het verslag van de commissie en de aanbevelingen op te stellen. Het plan was om maandag de finale redactie van het verslag te voltooien, maar dat was blijkbaar te hoog gegrepen.

Dinsdag diende immers nog de redactie van het delicate hoofdstuk 'Kerk' te gebeuren. Daardoor kon pas in de late namiddag gestart worden met de bespreking van een voorlopige versie. Tegen middernacht was men pas door de helft van een veertigtal pagina's.

BELGIE
De Redactie

De bijzondere Kamercommissie die seksueel misbruik in en buiten de kerk onderzoekt, is er afgelopen nacht na een marathonzitting van 15 uur niet in geslaagd om de bespreking van het eindverslag af te ronden. Vandaag zou de bespreking wel afgerond moeten zijn.

De bespreking van het eindverslag was vrijdag begonnen. Gisteren hielden de commissieleden een marathonvergadering van 15 uur. Rond 12.30 uur begonnen ze eraan om pas om 3.30 uur afgelopen nacht weer uiteen te gaan.

De marathonvergadering bracht echter geen afgewerkt verslag voort, tegen middernacht was nog maar de helft van de tekst - in totaal zo'n 40 pagina's - besproken. Naar verluidt zijn de conclusies van het commissiewerk klaar, maar is er nog veel discussie over de aanbevelingen.

BELGIE
Lalibre

Les membres de la commission s'étaient réunis mardi vers 12h30 mais se sont quittés mercredi vers 03h30 sans résultat final. Les débats se poursuivront mercredi dès 12h30.

Le commission spéciale de la Chambre sur les abus sexuels souhaite que la Chambre mette sur pied une "commission de suivi" pour la mise en oeuvre de ses recommandations. Celle-ci serait également chargée d'une mission d'arbitrage pour les abus commis dans le cadre d'une relation pastorale, selon les indiscrétions recueillies mercredi matin à l'issue d'une nuit de réunion-marathon. Une série d'autres points litigieux devront être tranchés à partir de 13h00, dont le délai de prescription ou la responsabilité des évêques. Dans ses recommandations, la commission suggère de mettre sur pied, sous le contrôle d'une "commission de suivi pour les abus commis dans une relation pastorale", une instance d'arbitrage qui sera chargée d'établir des critères pour les indemnisations des victimes d'abus sexuels.

La commission serait également d'avis de maintenir quasiment en l'état la réglementation sur le secret professionnel. Elle préconise par ailleurs aux zones de police qui n'ont pas d'équipe spécialisée de collaborer avec celles qui en disposent.

CANADA
Edmonton Journal

Prosecutors have filed more charges against Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger.

In the past month, the Crown added 10 charges to the list of accusations facing the priest who was removed from Belgium earlier this year.

He now faces a total of 20 charges, mostly sex-related, brought by complainants who lived in Nunavut in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

A court-ordered ban prohibits the publication of information that could identify the complainants.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP - Wisconsin

WHAT
At a sidewalk news conference survivors of childhood sexual abuse by clergy will release and discuss new secret church documents that show that Fr. Robert Wild, President of Marquette University, concealed the crimes of Fr. Donald McGuire during his tenure as Provincial of the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). After remarks survivors will attempt to hand deliver a letter to Fr. Robert Wild urging him to:

–publically apologize to victims of pedophile priest Fr. Donald McGuire and their families for his failure to remove McGuire from the priesthood, report McGuire to the police, and alert the public of McGuire’s criminal history against children,

–provide to the Marquette community, to Catholics and the public, a detailed account of his involvement, and those of his colleagues in the Chicago Province, in the decades long cover up of Fr. Donald McGuire’s sexually abusive history and the withholding of key documents to law enforcement officials during McGuire’s 2006 Wisconsin prosecution,

–Join victim/survivors and insist that Jesuit officials immediately create a public registry of all Jesuits in the Wisconsin, Chicago and other provinces who have substantiated reports of sexual abuse of children.

WHO
3-4 members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims, including the group’s longtime Midwest Director.

WHERE
Outside the entrance of Zilber Hall, Marquette University, 1250 W. Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee

WHEN
Wednesday, March 30, 11:30 a.m.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
BishopAccountability.org

Excerpt:

In nearly all cases, the Archdiocese did not report to law enforcement officials the allegations it received that priests had sexually abused children. Monsignor Lynn testified that the Archdiocese chose not to notify law enforcement, based upon its view that it was only required to do so if the violated child him or herself reported the assault to them. He claimed that if the child's parent Or some other interested adult notified them that a priest was abusing or had abused a child, they had no legal obligation to notify civil authorities. We are appalled that they put children at risk based upon such a technical interpretation of a statute that was intended to protect society's youngest members. As a result of the Archdiocese's failure to report these offenses, hundreds of allegations that priests sexually abused children were not investigated by law enforcement officials and scores of abusers escaped accountability for their crimes. We find that had the Archdiocese reported these allegations to law enforcement officials, countless children would have been spared the mghtmare of priest sexual molestation: perpetrators, whether or not arrested and convicted of their crimes, would have known that they could not rely upon the Archdiocese to conceal their perversions, and parents would have been alerted
to the risks of allowing anyone, including supposedly celibate priests, from having unfettered access to their children.

The Archdiocese also failed to notify even the parishioners that a priest assigned to their parish had admitted to sexually molesting a parish child, thereby depriving the community of the opportunity to find additional child victims, and protect children from further abuse. In many cases perpetrators who were transferred to another assignment continued to abuse children from their prior assignments. Due to the failure to notify the community, many parents were at a loss to understand the personality changes and behavioral problems manifested by their children that resulted from the trauma of sexual abuse.

The Archdiocese failed to conduct even its own investigation to determine if the accused priest had abused or was abusing other children in the parish. We find that after being removed from his parish or assignment, an accused priest was generally sent for a mental health evaluation at an Archdiocese owned and operated mlental health facility or other Catholic facility where the Archdiocese believed it could influence the evaluation.

We reviewed Archdiocesan documents indicating that in many cases Archdiocesan managers songht mental health evaluations, not primarily to diagnose and treat priests who sexually abused children but to show that they had "acted responsibly" to provide justification for retuming the accused priests to ministry: the Archdiocesan managers could claim that they relied upon "experts" if their decisions to allow the accused cleric continued access to children were ever challenged. Based upon expert testimony we heard we also find that in many cases the mental health facilities the Archdiocesan managers selected either lacked adequate diagnostic expertise or chose not to employ available and necessary forensic testing. We find that these practices endangered the safety of children.

Moreover, we find that the Archdiocese frequently failed to provide the treatment facility with complete information about the allegations of abuse or the alleged abuser, in some cases omitting critical information about the priest's sexually inappropriate or abusive behavior. At least in part as a result of the Archdiocese's influence over the treatment facilities and its deliberate withholding of relevant information concerning the allegedly abusive priest, we find that in most cases predator priests- including those who admiued having sexual contact with multiple children - received psychological evaluations declaring that they were of little or no risk to children and could return to ministry. In many cases, Archdiocesan managers then reassigned the accused abuser to an unsuspecting parish or assignment. In these instances, they intentionally declined to tell the pastor of the new parish or any other person in authority in the new assignment (including those supervising the transferred priest) that the priest had been accused of sexually abusing minors. This was so even when the priest had admitted. or was believed to have committed, the abese or had been accused by multiple victims. We find
that these practices jeopardized the safety of children.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

By DAVID GAMBACORTA
Philadelphia Daily News
gambacd@phillynews.com 215-854-5994

It was the middle of autumn in 2007 when a 36-year-old man named "Ben" decided to share his nightmares with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

He told terrible - and terribly detailed - stories about abuse that he claimed he had suffered as an altar boy decades ago at the hands of the Rev. Joseph Gallagher at St. Mark's Parish, in Bristol.

It was sick, gut-wrenching stuff, some corroborated by other former altar boys, according to a recent grand-jury report.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

[The Jesuits and Donald McGuire SJ: A Management History]

BY DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter/drozek@suntimes.com Mar 29, 2011

Dozens of reports dating back more than 45 years show Jesuit officials ignored or covered up allegations that former priest Donald McGuire was sexually abusing boys, said attorneys representing three men who contend they were molested by McGuire.

More than 60 documents filed as part of a Cook County lawsuit against McGuire and his Roman Catholic religious order indicate Jesuit officials had repeated warnings that McGuire was sexually abusing teenage boys but took no action against him, attorney Marc Pearlman said.

“They knew about it the whole time,” said Pearlman, who represents three men suing McGuire and the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus for alleged abuse by the now-defrocked 80-year-old priest.

McGuire, a longtime adviser to Mother Teresa, is serving a 25-year prison term after being convicted in 2008 of federal charges that he brought a minor across state lines to engage in sex. He also was convicted in 2006 of molesting two boys in Wisconsin during the 1960s.

CONNECTICUT
The Bristol Press

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Staff report

HARTFORD — A group that advocates for clergy abuse victims says the Roman Catholic Archdiocese settled an abuse claim with a man serving a 60-year prison term in Maine for the killing of his grandfather.

The Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests disclosed the agreement, settled privately in September 2009, and said it addressed Jeffrey Libby’s claims of sexual abuse by a priest from a Bristol church in the mid-1970s,

Libby has alleged that he was molested by the priest as a teenager while living in Bristol. He claims the abuse occurred from 1975 to 1977 at St. Gregory’s Catholic Church in Bristol and while on out-of-town trips. He says he was 12 years old when the abuse began.

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY Scott Shifrel
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

A once-prominent Bronx priest who was defrocked after a church tribunal found him guilty of sexually abusing a teen is suing his accuser for defamation.

Charles Kavanagh, who was once in charge of the archdiocese's fund-raising arm, claimed in a federal suit filed Tuesday that he's innocent.

Kavanagh, 73, was dismissed from the clergy after former seminary student Daniel Donohue said the priest took him to a Right to Life rally in Washington and molested him in a motel room.

"When he made this accusation in writing, Donohue knew it was false and he made it with malice," Kavanagh says in the lawsuit.

By Cynthia Dizikes
Tribune reporter

[The Jesuits and Donald McGuire SJ: A Management History]

For decades, Jesuit leaders in Chicago knew that now-defrocked Catholic priest Donald McGuire was sexually abusing underage boys and, instead of acting to prevent it, sought to cover it up and mislead police, according to a motion for punitive damages filed this week.

The document, which was filed Monday in Cook Circuit Court on behalf of three men whom McGuire allegedly abused, includes excerpts of letters written between Jesuit leaders.

In one 1969 letter, Fr. Charles Schlax writes to Fr. John Reinke, a former president of Loyola Academy in Wilmette and ranking Superior of Loyola Academy’s Jesuit community, about his concerns upon learning from a student that he and McGuire had been staying overnight at the school.

PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

Published: Tuesday, March 29, 2011

By Patti Mengers, pmengers@delcotimes.com

The family of a Bucks County man who claims he committed suicide after Archdiocese of Philadelphia officials dismissed his allegation of clerical sexual abuse is expected to file a wrongful death suit against the archdiocese today.

The family alleges the man, who was 36 when he died, was molested by the Rev. Joseph Gallagher while he was an altar boy at St. Mark parish in Bristol, Bucks County. Gallagher served as assistant pastor at the former St. Michael's Church in Chester from June 1970 until October 1974.

Now retired, Gallagher was last listed by archdiocesan officials as pastor emeritus at St. Richard parish in Northeast Phialdelphia since October 2006. He is currently relieved of his priestly duties and living in a private residence while an archdiocesan team led by former Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Gina Maisto Smith, reviews the sexual abuse allegations.

UNITED STATES
AlterNet

March 29, 2011

AlterNet / By Sarah Seltzer

It’s been years since the massive wave of Catholic clergy-abuse stories began to break, with victims speaking out and horrors uncovered. It’s true that instances of traumatizing sexual and physical abuse from clergy in many other religions and denominations have surfaced in the ensuing years, proving that the problem is hardly endemic to one religion or group of people. But in Catholic strongholds where abuse was widespread, the problem has been systemic, and the coverup attempts by the church are egregious and often premeditated and coordinated. Centralized hierarchies have led to centralized denial--until recent years, when there has been a centralized attempt to clean house.

Nowadays, the subject of child abuse by the clergy is often one broached by standup comedians and cynics. A disconnect is growing between the American Catholic church and its followers, and not just on this issue: study after study shows that Catholic laypeople are aligned with the rest of the American population--and against the church--when it comes to “social issues” abortion, especially birth control (which a vast majority use, directly countering church doctrine) and now even gay marriage.

Yet the clergy abuse stories continue to unfold in the arenas of church politics, law enforcement and the religious landscape. The last big scandal was in Wisconsin, when abuse at a school for the deaf was revealed, and more have surfaced since.

NEW YORK
New York Post

By BRUCE GOLDING

A defrocked priest filed a defamation suit yesterday against the former seminarian whose abuse allegations led to his ouster from the clergy.

Former Monsignor Charles Kavanagh -- the highest-ranking New York cleric caught up in the Catholic Church sex scandal -- says Daniel Donohue repeatedly lied to reporters to extract a "monetary settlement from the New York Archdiocese."

Kavanagh's Manhattan federal-court suit demands unspecified damages from Donohue.

Court papers cite more than a half-dozen damning newspaper headlines, noting that Kavanagh was "held up to ridicule and scorn . . . when he was labeled a 'Pervert Priest' in The Post."

Neither The Post nor any other news organizations are named as defendants.

UNITED STATES
NPR

[with audio]

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

A couple of years ago, the Philadelphia archdiocese heard about three priests who had allegedly raped two boys. It gave the priests' files to law enforcement, and a grand jury began to investigate. Then, the grand jury stumbled on a bombshell. A church employee testified that there were many other priests the panel should know about.

"The grand jury found that a policy of zero tolerance was not actually in effect," says District Attorney Seth Williams, "and that there were many priests that had allegations made against them that were still in active ministry."

There were 37 priests, according to a scathing report by the grand jury, which was released last month. Shaken by accusations that it was trying to keep abusers in ministry without telling parishes, the archdiocese moved quickly: It hired Gina Maisto Smith, a former prosecutor with a specialty in child sex abuse cases, to investigate further. The church soon put 21 clergy on administrative leave. ...

It turns out that there's a lot of play in the rules, says Terry McKiernan, president of Bishop Accountability.org, a watchdog group. He says when an allegation comes in the church, the bishop doesn't have to pursue it very far.

"A bishop may decide at a very early stage that an allegation is without merit," he says. "And if he does that, we never even get to the stage of a priest being removed." ...

Philadelphia may not be alone, says William Gavin. Gavin is former FBI agent who was hired by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to audit each of the 195 Catholic dioceses each year and make sure they're preventing and reporting sex abuse cases.

"It was an audit in quotes," he says. "I think it was more of a program review than anything else."

PENNSYLVANIA
Montgomery Media

By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

Editor’s note: Mike Morsch is executive editor of Montgomery Newspapers. He has family members that are members of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer Parish in North Wales and was at this meeting Monday evening. What follows is strictly an opinion piece with some analysis on what he observed.

Parishioners at Mary, Mother of the Redeemer in North Wales are angry and upset at the scandal now gripping the Philadelphia Archdiocese in the wake of the most recent grand jury report that has forced the archdiocese to take 21 priests out of active ministry for allegedly sexually abusing young boys.

And on Monday evening, MMR’s pastor, Monsignor John T. Conway, put himself squarely in the congregation’s collective crosshairs in front of what at times seemed like a pitchfork and flaming torches kind of crowd looking for answers and guidance.

For Monsignor Conway, it was a lose-lose situation. And although he met the situation head-on — and for that he deserves a lot of credit — he didn’t necessarily have a lot of answers that people were seeking.

CANADA
CBC News

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is worried that more former residential school students will want to attend its next national gathering this June in Inuvik, N.W.T., than it can afford to send.

Former residential school students from across Canada's North, as well as officials, media and others, are expected to converge on Inuvik from June 28 to July 1 for the commission's second of seven national events.

But there is confusion among some in Inuvik, located about 1,100 kilometres northwest of Yellowknife, about the commission's plans to help fund travel and accommodations costs for former students, also known as residential school survivors, who want to attend the event.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

[Read the report]

[Fact sheet on the FIRST grand jury report]

SNAP statement on newly-disclosed THIRD Philly grand jury report on clergy sex cover-ups

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (312-399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com)

Even more warnings and even earlier warnings by even more people. . .that’s what this newly-discovered and newly-released grand jury report shows.

It also exposes, more clearly than ever before, the incestuous and self-serving collusion between Catholic therapists, Catholic treatment centers and the Philly Catholic hierarchy. It’s now painfully obvious that Catholic mental health professionals knew they’d keep getting paid if they kept giving the advice that Catholic officials were truly seeking – recommendations that proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics should and could quietly be put back around kids. Shame on each and every church official and lay therapist who perpetuated and profited from this inexcusably dangerous but mutually beneficial scheme.

Consider what it says about archdiocesan priorities and motives and practices.

Regarding archdiocesan priorities, the jurors found that “the protection of the church from ‘scandal’ (was) more important that the protection of children from predators” (p. 3) and that “Cardinal Bevilacqua’s true priority was the avoidance of scandal” (p. 14).

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
BishopAccountability.org

IN RE: Misc. No. 01-00-8944
COUNTY INVESTIGATING
GRAND JURY OF
SEPTEMBER 26, 2001 ...

I. Finding and Recommendations
We, the County Investigating Grand Jury of September 26.2001 were impaneled pursuant to the Investigating Grand Jury Act, 42 Pa.C.S.A. §4551 et seq. On May 2, 2002 we were charged to investigate the sexual abuse of minors by individuals associated with religious organizations and denominations. We issue this report and request that it remain sealed until such time as the Grand Jury impaneled in September 2003 concludes its investigation of this matter.

At the outset of our investigation we expected to hear testimony that the extent of the problem of sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy was limited to a small number of isolated incidents that occurred decades ago. This belief was based in part on public statements by Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua and other officials of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In March 2002, approximinately two months before the investigation began, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia issued a statement that in the prior fifty-two years it had received credible allegations of child sexual abuse against a total of thirty·five priests. Three months later, Cardinal Bevilacqua assured the public in a television interview that, as part of a "zero tolerance" policy, he had never transferred any priest who had abused a child to another assignmnent where he would have access to children. The clear import of these statements was to distinguish the Philadelphia Archdiocese from Boston and other dioceses across the country by conveying the impression that Philadelphia Archdiocesan officials had dealt swiftly and harshly with any priest found to have sexually abused a child and that these practices had been instrumental in keeping the number of priest child sexual assault victims lower than in other dioceses. We believed that the extensive national publicity about clergy sexual abuse of minors might in large part be a creation of the press and that the criticism of religious leaders for their handling of the matter was unwarranted. We took the Archdiocese at its word, imagining that it shared our belief that there is no higher duty or interest in our society than protecting children from the physical and emotional ravages of sexual abuse by clergy or any other predator.

Our investigation uncovered evidence that over the past thirty-five years more than 120 priests serving in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had been accused of sexually abusing hundreds of adolescents and younger children, and that, with rare exceptjons, the Archdiocese did not report these accusations to public authorities. The 120 priests were accused of conduct ranging from fondling to oral, vaginal and anal rape. Moreover, the evidence established that Cardinal Bevilacqua and his predecessor, knowingly transferred priests who had been credibly accused of molesting children to new assignments where they retained access to, and control over, children.

Over the course of this investigation, we heard testimony from 73 witnesses and examined 994 exhibits. The witnesses jncluded victims of clergy sexual abuse, accused abusers, church officials, including Cardinal Bevilacqua and Secretary of Clergy Monsignor William Lynn, parishioners, members of religious orders, experts in Canon Law, psychologists, psychiatrists, and a forensic profiler. We scrutinized the testimony of each witness and reviewed thousands of pages of documents.Based upon all of the evidence, we find that Archdiocesan officials, including Cardinal Bevilacqua and Monsignor William Lynn, as well as other church officials with
supervisory authority over priests (collectively referred to hereafter as "managers"), were ware that a significant number of priests presented a danger to children.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Examiner

The Associated Press
The national victims group SNAP has released a previously undisclosed grand jury report on sexually abusive priests in Philadelphia.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests says the 2003 document affirms what two later grand juries found: that abusive Roman Catholic priests were protected and transferred among parishes.

Tasha Jamerson, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, says there is nothing new in the document.

UNITED STATES
Patheos

Wearing a Roman collar can bring about a "martyrdom of mockery," but when priests forego this outward sign, we lose the example of consecrated commitment, and of one's willingness to suffer for it.

By Elizabeth Scalia, March 29, 2011

A friend of mine who is studying for the Permanent Diaconate related to me that he'd been wondering why so few priests seem to wear their collars, anymore. He got his answer when one of his teachers, a priest who does wear his collar, reported that during the day he'd been spat upon and threatened with physical violence as he walked down the street.

I have a cousin who is a priest, a Capuchin, who rarely wears his robes outside the church because it's become such a hassle to deal with the foul remarks, "trolling for a teenager, Father?"

Clearly, some of the abuse that good priests have to put up with these days is directly connected to the terrible and scandalous crimes of pederasty that were perpetrated for too long upon too many, with seeming impunity—a steaming and infected boil on the church that is finally being lanced. The scandal has been a tragedy for the victims, and a tragedy for the faith, and it is also a tragedy for the countless good priests, who have remained faithful to Christ and to the Gospel, and who have honored their vows, but are carrying a cross of scandal for the sins of others.

BOSTON (MA)
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

WHAT
Speaking publicly and passing out flyers, alumni of Boston College will urge Boston College officials and students to:

— contact officials of the C21C program (617 552 0470/) and urge them to:

— a.) HELP us restore integrity to the C21C Program; and

— b.) issue a public apology for the hurt they are causing

— c.) establish an outreach to survivors to recover some needed sensitivity

WHEN
Today, Tuesday, March 29 at 3:15 p.m.

WHERE
Boston College Main Gate at 140 Commonwealth Ave, Chestnut Hill, MA [Boyden Park entrance]

WHO
Two or three individuals, including a 1958 alumni of Boston College

UNITED STATES
America Magazine

Posted at: Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Author: Kevin Clarke

I spoke of the responsibility to protect at the international level in the preceding post. The sorry tale of Father Donald Maguire, S.J., recounted in today's NY Times, depicts a profound failure of RtP at a smaller scale (albeit one no less devastating to the victims described here). What else can be said about such things that haven't already be said? To read this tale as a parent and try to imagine the thinking of the administrators of this dangerous man who persisted in discounting the damage he was capable of inflicting and in ignoring decades of warning signs and malevolent behavior . . . it is beyond mind-boggling. Discouraging vocations among gay men has become the preferred focus for "fixing" this problem of abuse, but chasing gay men away from or out of the priesthood won't do anything to correct the institutional failures and almost pathological nonchalance and indifference described here in the handling of a monster like Maguire and too many like him (oh, and good luck managing the church without its many gay priests).

UNITED STATES
Catholic Sentinel

Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON — The grand jury report alleging past sexual abuse by clergy and other church personnel in the Philadelphia Archdiocese “puts a cloud over everything” the church is doing to prevent abuse, says Teresa Kettelkamp, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection.

In the wake of the archdiocese placing 21 priests on administrative leave in its ongoing response to the grand jury inquiry, Kettelkamp said people want to know what happened, how it happened and what can be learned from it.

She does not attribute any failure in responding to claims of abuse to the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” adopted by the U.S. bishops in 2002 at their Dallas meeting. The charter is meant to put a system in place to stop abuse.

PENNSYLVANIA
Montgomery Media

By Bradley Schlegel
For NorthPennLife.com

The Rev. Msgr. John T. Conway — pastor at Mary, Mother of the Redeemer Catholic Church in Montgomery Township — told a meeting of parishioners March 28 that his inclusion in a 2005 Philadelphia grand jury report regarding the investigation of sexual abuse by clergy made him “angry as hell.”

Conway also said that the implication that he knew of one priest’s “history of improper relationships with adolescent boys,” is completely untrue.

“I feel completely duped,” Conway said. “My heart is broken. I’m very angry. Please give me a few minutes to explain myself.”

The pastor said he called the special meeting to explain the appearance of his name in the 2005 legal document — from the office of then-District Attorney Lynne Abraham — and set the record straight.

CANADA
CBC News

The Catholic priest in Igloolik, Nunavut, has left the community after he was recently threatened, while many residents are dealing with pain and anger they feel towards the Roman Catholic Church for alleged past abuses.

The sudden departure of Rev. Tony Krotki came after emotions were stirred up in Igloolik, a remote hamlet of about 1,500 in the eastern Arctic, by allegations that the community's former priest sexually abused children in the late-1970s and '80s.

Acting Mayor Paul Quassa said Krotki received a threat sometime within the past month, after Eric Dejaeger was brought back to Nunavut to face multiple charges of indecent assault, buggery and other offences.

WISCONSIN
PolitiFact

[with video]

Greater Wisconsin Committee says Supreme Court Justice David Prosser mishandled allegation of sex abuse by priest

A new TV ad claims that in 1978, when Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser was a district attorney, he didn’t ask police to investigate an abuse case involving a longtime pedophile priest, then refused to file charges and participated in a cover-up.

The claims are made by the liberal Greater Wisconsin Committee, which frequently runs TV ads critical of Republicans. The group is also running an anti-Prosser ad linking the 13-year justice to Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

Both ads were released less than two weeks before Prosser faces challenger assistant state attorney general JoAnne Kloppenburg in the April 5, 2011, election.

The priest ad quickly sparked controversy partly because two brothers who were the victims in 1978 case repudiated it.

NEW YORK
WETM

Elmira, NY -- The Catholic Diocese of Rochester says a sexual abuse allegation of a former Elmira priest is credible.

Reverend Vincent Panepinto has been placed on administrative leave.

The Catholic Diocese of Rochester says he can no longer practice his priestly duties in public.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Temple News

A former parishioner of Monsignor John Gillespie questions the safety Catholic schools are suppossed to provide.

As a graduate of Our Lady of Calvary grade school in Northeast Philadelphia, the priest molestation controversy has made me ashamed of not only to say where I graduated from but also to admit I’m Catholic.

Monsignor John Gillespie, our beloved parish pastor, has been the target of the lawsuits and complaints.

Serving as the priest at my Communion, I knew Gillespie to be an engaging, cheerful man.

UNITED STATES
Catholic League

March 29, 2011

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on recent attacks on the rights of priests:

In an editorial that is pure boilerplate, the Seattle Times said yesterday that 37 priests in the Philadelphia archdiocese have been allowed to continue in ministry despite a finding of sexual misconduct by a grand jury. But the grand jury did not find anyone guilty—that's not what they are empowered to do! Moreover, all of the accused were initially investigated and 24 have been suspended on a second look; most of the others have been found innocent or have left ministry. Most important, if mere accusations—not substantiated ones—are the new bar for contacting the authorities, then this should apply to all institutions.

Archbishop Dolan, who leads the bishops' conference, reaffirmed last week the "resolve to deal firmly" with offending clerics. For this he was condemned by a wildly unreliable blog, the National Survivor Advocates Coalition, for engaging in a "shellgame." Another website, BishopAccountability.org, took aim at the Bridgeport archdiocese for not listing the names of "accused priests"—not "credibly accused priests"—as if that were somehow unusual. SNAP, the professional victims' group, expressed anger at the Philly archdiocese for doing what it is entitled to do—pay the fees of an accused cleric.

IRELAND
Irish Central

Ireland’s Minister for Education, Ruairí Quinn, has established an expert group to examine how the majority of primary schools will be moved from Catholic Church patronage.

The minister has said he wants more than 50 percent of the Ireland’s schools currently under Church patronage to move to an alternative guardianship.

The Catholic church controls about 90 percent of the State’s 3,200 primary schools.

OREGON
The Oregonian

By Rebecca Woolington, The Oregonian

The case: A tennis coach at Valley Catholic High School on May 18 was arrested on charges that he took nude pictures of an underage girl.

Christopher Rijken, 27, of Beaverton, was arrested on charges of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct and encouraging child sexual abuse and was lodged in the Washington County Jail.

Rijken convinced a teenager to remove her clothes while the two were in the vicinity of the Portland Rose Garden near the Oregon Zoo, according to an affidavit filed in Washington County Circuit Court. The affidavit, filed by Beaverton police, says he told the girl to lift up her shirt.

When she questioned him, the affidavit says, he told her she had to do what he asked. She then removed her clothing, the affidavit says, and Rijken took pictures.

UNITED STATES
Catholic and Enjoying It!

Mark P. Shea

Permit me to add one thing: Those of us who believe in the Professor Digory Kirke Approach to Things about Which We have No Actual Knowledge also believe strongly in avoiding interested parties who hector us to side with them and who insist on larding our comboxes and the blogosphere with exhortations to trust them and despise their accusers.

So, for instance, when extremely interested parties such as the Vice President of Santa Cruz Media send out bulletins insisting, not that I mind my own business as I am wont to do, but that I take his/her(?) word for it (as a wholly secular, for-profit interest) that Fr. Corapi is the victim of an "unsubstantiated rant of a former employee, who, after losing her job with this office, physically assaulted me and another employee and promised to 'destroy' Father Corapi"--well, that makes it harder to mind my own business, because I find myself being badgered on what to think, not by some nasty accusatory woman, but by enthusiasts for Fr. Corapi who are not only trying to prejudice me against some woman I don't know, but are also telling me that "We have consulted with a number of canon lawyers. They have assured us that the actions of the Bishop of Corpus Christi, Texas are, on several points of canon law, illicit." So I'm being instructed to think that not only is Fr. Corapi's accuser bad, but the people investigating him are bad too. And how am I to know these things? Because somebody who stands to make a lot of money off Fr. Corapi says so and other people repeat this pseudoknowledge endlessly as though they know what they are talking about. Period.

My first question: why is this "don't trust this crazy liar and that mean unjust bishop" bulletin on Fr. Corapi's site and not on Santa Cruz Media's site?

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Several good overviews in recent days of the questions we're left with after Philadelphia, where it has become apparent that a significant number of priests credibly accused of abuse have been left in active ministry, despite assurances of the U.S. bishops that we now have a well-functioning system in place to remove such priests from ministry:

As Laurie Goodstein and Tom Roberts report recently in the New York Times and National Catholic Reporter, the Philadelphia news, and the indictment of that archdiocese's secretary for clergy Msgr. William Lynn on charges of endangering the welfare of children, come as a shock to many U.S. Catholics, since we've been told by the bishops that the abuse situation is a thing of the past, that it's under control. Among the questions Goodstein and Roberts report American Catholics are now asking (and have to ask), post-Philadelphia:

1. Do the review boards set up by dioceses to review allegations of clerical abuse of minors receive all pertinent information from diocesan clergy files? Are files scrubbed of some information before they reach reviewers' hands?

2. Since the annual audit completely missed the 37 priests in the Philadelphia archdiocese who have apparently continued in ministry despite credible allegations of abuse of minors, is the audit system functioning? Is there any assurance that auditors have access to all information they need in every diocese to do their job?

3. How are review boards selected, and what independence do they actually have from diocesan control as they do their review work?

4. Are all the standards and norms of the 2002 Dallas charter actually being applied uniformly in dioceses across the nation?

5. And--to me, most ominous of all--how many other situations like Philadelphia are still out there?

In my opinion (and I've linked to a statement of Peter Isely of SNAP suggesting this--see here), Philadelphia is not unique. On a daily basis, new indicators come out of an abysmal lack of accountability and transparency among the pastoral leaders of American Catholicism, vis-a-vis the abuse crisis.

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

Het biechtgeheim staat op de helling. In de Kamercommissie Seksueel Misbruik gaan er stemmen op om er definitief komaf mee te maken, zodat geen enkele priester nog aan zijn meldingsplicht kan verzaken. Maar in kerkelijke kringen wordt met verontwaardiging gereageerd. 'Dit gaat in tegen het diepste wezen van de Kerk.' DajoHermans en StefTelen

Moet de Kerk komaf maken met het biechtgeheim? Het is momenteel een van de grote twistpunten binnen de commissie Seksueel Misbruik, die morgen haar eindrapport aflevert. Strikt genomen zegt het kerkelijk recht dat elke biechtvader mag en moet zwijgen. Zelfs als justitie hem bij een strafrechtelijk onderzoek vraagt wat een verdachte hem tijdens de biecht vertelde, heeft hij alle recht om de tanden op elkaar te houden.

Het is een eeuwenoude traditie, maar voor een reeks niet-gelovigen niet meer van deze tijd. Priesters mogen zich niet langer achter hun zwijgplicht verschuilen, klinkt het. Indien nodig móeten ze ingrijpen.

PROVIDENCE (RI)
WRNI

By FLO JONIC (2011-03-28)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WRNI) - Advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse are calling on Providence Catholic bishop Thomas Tobin to come clean with the names of accused priests.
In 2007, officials with the diocese of Providence disclosed in court documents that 125 priests had been accused of child sexual abuse since 1971. The names of only 29 have been disclosed. Now, Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org is demanding the names of the other 96 be released.

"Bishop Tobin has a private list of sex offenders that he has no right to be keeping private," she says.

David Clohessy of SNAP, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, says full disclosure is a matter of vital concern to Rhode Island Catholics.

PENNSYLVANIA
Citizens Voice

By Michael R. Sisak (Staff Writer)

Lord have mercy.

Gregory Malia, the former Northeastern Pennsylvania Episcopal vicar dubbed "the partying priest" by a New York City tabloid, is being sued by his 24-year-old daughter for assault, battery and infliction of emotional distress.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in Luzerne County Court, is the latest legal twist in an ugly family drama that erupted two summers ago when Malia drew a gun during a fight outside a Jenkins Township bar.

Malia, 46, pleaded no contest last September to reckless endangerment and simple assault and agreed to serve two years of probation. Weeks after the fight, Malia's daughter filed a protection-from-abuse petition against him that included details of the altercation.

UNITED KINGDOM
Coventry Telegraph

ANOTHER man has come forward to claim he was a victim of former Coventry priest James Robinson.

The 73-year-old was jailed for 21 years at Birmingham Crown Court last October after being found guilty of multiple sex offences against six boys, as young as 10.

His trial followed a lengthy extradition process after he fled to America amid abuse rumours in the 1980s.

WEST ALLIS (WI)
WTMJ

[with video]

WEST ALLIS - A man from West Allis was expected to come forward on Tuesday and detail his claims of being abused while a student at St. Nicholas Parish in Milwaukee.

The man alleges that Fr. Laurin Wenig sexually abused him as a child.

Because of the allegations, Fr. Wenig was removed from active ministry at St. Mary's in Elm Grove.

POLAND
The News

A former pastor from the coastal resort town of Kolobrzeg is in court today accused of two counts of unlawful sexual acts with minors.

Owing to requests from both the plaintiffs and the defendant, the case will remain closed to journalists.

The priest stands charged with performing a sexual act on a 14-year-old boy in 1999, and an 11-year-old boy in the years 2000-2001.

The accused is pleading not guilty to the charges.

PARAGUAY
ABC

El medio español LNE expresó que el presidente paraguayo Fernando Lugo sigue siendo obispo puesto que la dispensa papal es una prebenda y no una suspensión.

“Fernando Lugo no puede administrar los sacramentos y podría reintegrarse a su condición de clérigo si lo solicitara y la curia romana lo aprobara. Su dispensa es una prebenda que le otorga el Vaticano y no una sanción, como la suspensión 'a divinis' que se le aplica al sacerdote asturiano”, expresa el sitio LNE.es.

Dicha información se resume luego de que un sacerdote asturiano, Arturo García, haya fundado un partido para candidatarse a un cargo político.

BOSTON (MA)
The Catholic Review

By Catholic News Service

BOSTON – The Boston Archdiocese and members of the Daughters of St. Paul were scheduled to go before a mediator March 29 to resolve a number of issues in a dispute over pension funds.

The religious community said that for five years, it has tried to withdraw from the archdiocesan pension fund for lay employees so that it can establish its own pension plan for its lay employees.

According to The Associated Press, the sisters filed a lawsuit in December alleging that the pension fund’s trustees, including Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, did not give them a full accounting of what their portion of the fund is.

OSTERREICH
Der Standard

von Elisabeth Haselauer | 21. März 2010, 20:06

Perspektivenwechsel: "Die Heilige Jungsfrau züchtigt das Jesuskind in Anwesenheit von drei Zeugen" - Ölgemälde von Max Ernst, 1926, Sammlung Krebs, Brüssel
Alle reden von der Erziehungshölle in Männerklöstern und Knabeninternaten. Hier eine Erinnerung aus weiblicher Sicht - an die pädagogische Performance eines Lehrkörpers in Nonnentracht

Jetzt werkeln sie anderswo. In Linz. Und in Gosau. Doch in den Fünfzigern gab es noch das "Mädchenpensionat Ort bei Gmunden", eine Erziehungshölle erster Ordnung, die den ins Gerede gekommenen Knabenanstalten um nichts nachstand.

Lauter Kreuzschwestern. Ein Schlafsaal mit 30 Eisenbetten. Und ein Spind pro Kind, dessen Ordnung mit dem Zentimetermaß gemessen und nach Genauigkeit des Übereinanderliegens von Hemdchen und Höschen "benotet" wurde. Ich hab zu lang gebraucht, um die vier Dinger zentimetergenau zu stapeln, lag dann erst um vier Millimeter falsch, bekam Arrest und eine "Fünf". Bei dreimal "Fünf" wurden die Eltern verständigt. - Das war in meinem Fall gefährlich.

MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

[with audio]

by Matt Sepic, Minnesota Public Radio
March 29, 2011

St. Paul, Minn. — People who attended St. John's Preparatory School in Collegeville may soon receive an unusual letter in the mail. According to a settlement announced Monday, St. John's must send a letter to all alumni of its prep school that lists 17 monks and priests who are "credibly accused of abuse, exploitation or misconduct."

The letter is part of the settlement with nine people who say they were sex abuse victims at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville. The agreement ends several lawsuits that accused clergy at a Catholic prep school of abusing minors for decades.

One of the victims named in this new settlement -- and the only one who's speaking publicly so far -- is Jerry McCarthy. He was 15 years old in 1971 when he was sent to Father Bruce Wollmering for counseling and testing.

MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

Written by
David Unze
dunze@stcloudtimes.com

ST. PAUL — A key provision of a deal to settle nine of the 12 pending lawsuits against St. John’s Abbey, St. John’s Prep School and 10 clergy members accused of sexual misconduct was in dispute late Monday.

The settlement announced earlier in the day in St. Paul was cast into confusion just hours later when the sides disagreed about how to distribute a letter signed by Abbot John Klassen and two abuse survivors. The letter names 17 current or former St. John’s community members who have had what the abbey and survivor attorney Jeff Anderson agree are “credible allegations of sexual abuse, exploitation or misconduct brought against them” while they worked in one of the apostolates of St. John’s Abbey or before that.

At the news conference to announce the settlement, Anderson stood by survivor Jeramiah “Jerry” McCarthy and detailed the terms of the agreement. Among several was the letter, which would be distributed to everyone who attended Prep, whether they graduated or not, Anderson told reporters.

YAKIMA (WA)
KIMA

[with video]

By Ryan Simms

YAKIMA -- KIMA is following up on the massive sexual abuse settlement involving the Jesuit society.

Many of you wondered why father John Morse, accused of molesting 38 people, hasn't faced any charges.

We learned the statute of limitations expired on all the cases against him.

Lawyers say it's a problem that happens all too often in sexual abuse cases.

CONNECTICUT
New Haven Register

By Ed Stannard, Register Metro Editor
estannard@nhregister.com

[settlement agreement]

HARTFORD — Holding a secret settlement agreement with a victim of sexual abuse by a priest, advocates called today for two Connecticut bishops to “come clean” and reveal the identities of predators.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, held a press conference in front of the Cathedral of St. Joseph on behalf of Jeffrey Libby, who settled with the archdiocese in 2009 for an undisclosed sum. Libby is now serving 60 years in a Maine prison for the murder of his grandfather, whom Clohessy said also abused Libby.

He would not reveal the amount of the settlement, which was redacted on the document.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Lisa Wangsness
Globe Staff / March 29, 2011

A onetime top official of the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is blasting the church’s handling of pension payments for retired lay church workers, six years after the same official defended the archdiocese’s management of clergy pensions against criticism.

The unusual development comes shortly after an order of nuns, the Daughters of St. Paul, sued the archdiocese in an effort to extricate the retirement accounts of the nuns’ lay workers from archdiocesan control.

Former archdiocesan chancellor David W. Smith, saying he was acting “out of moral outrage,’’ disclosed yesterday that he has asked Attorney General Martha Coakley and Secretary of State William F. Galvin to appoint an independent trustee to oversee the funds in order to protect lay workers from being financially harmed by the archdiocese’s handling of the transition from a traditional pension plan to retirement accounts funded largely by employee contributions. Smith said he has also filed a letter expressing his concerns to the IRS.

VIRGINIA
Washington Post

By Anita Kumar
Gov. Bob Mc­Don­nell signed a bill to give victims of childhood sexual assault more time to sue their abusers.

The bill would allow victims to file a lawsuit up to 20 years after the incident, after the victim turns 18 years old, or after the abuse has come to light, such as through a recovered memory. The current statute of limitations sets a two-year limit.

The law goes into effect July 1.

Several adult victims traveled to Richmond to lobby for the bill during the legislative session, sharing stories about abuse inflicted decades ago by clergy, police officers and other adults whom they had trusted.

UNITED STATES
Seattle Times

Promised reforms in the wake of the Roman Catholic Church's sex-abuse scandals should not insulate priests and bishops from legal accountability. Prosecute those accused of sex offensives and send the guilty to jail. Church leaders have repeatedly demonstrated their loyalty is to their vocation, not church members.

AFTER decades of silence, deceit and settlements, the Roman Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal might finally be headed where it truly belongs, U.S. criminal courts.

Church leadership has been granted extraordinary latitude in handling epic cases of sexual assault against children who put their innocence and trust in religious figures who violated them, sometimes for years. Again and again, bishops invested more loyalty in the clergy responsible for the assaults than in the people in the pews.

Last week, a $166 million settlement was announced for victims abused by Jesuit priests on Northwest tribal lands and in remote Alaskan villages. Affirmation of their suffering and belated accountability for their exploiters will mean as much as the eventual financial payouts.

AUSTRALIA
Western Advocate

LOUISE HALL COURTS
29 Mar, 2011

A FORMER Catholic brother has told a jury he never took a teenage boy on an overnight trip to St Stanislaus College and he did not sexually abuse the 17-year-old.

William Stanley Irwin, 55, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of gross indecency on a male under the age of 18, alleged to have occurred in 1986.

The Crown case is that Mr Irwin, a former student, house master and part-time teacher at the college, took the teenager, whom he met through the local Catholic youth group, on a road trip from Melbourne to Sydney and Bathurst.

NORTH CAROLINA
Fayette Observer

A staff and wire report

DUNN - A Baptist minister from Harnett County has been charged with sexual misconduct.

Benson police arrested 74-year-old Paul Burke Johnson last week on four counts of misdemeanor sexual battery. He was scheduled to appear in court Monday. It wasn't clear if he has a lawyer.

Benson police reported that Johnson, a minister who visits patients at a Benson nursing home, had several encounters with a 64-year-old woman who has a diminished mental capacity.

PROVIDENCE (RI)
WPRI

[with video]

Mary Karalis
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - A local group is holding a protest outside the Providence Catholic Diocese Headquarters.

The survivors network of those abused by priests and Bishopaccountability.org gathered for a joint protest Monday.

The protestors are demanding Bishop Thomas Tobin release the names of all of the priests who have worked in Rhode Island , and have been accused of sex abuse.

The Diocese says it is aggressive in efforts to find abuse victims.

A statement released reads in part:

"The Catholic Church in Rhode Island takes very seriously all allegations regarding clergy abuse and has been in the forefront of instituting and improving policies and procedures for preventing sexual abuse, educating personnel and investigating allegations.

BRIDGEPORT (CT)
CT Post

Tim Loh, Staff Writer
Updated 11:11 p.m., Monday, March 28, 2011

BRIDGEPORT -- A pair of Roman Catholic activists on Monday called on Bishop William Lori to warn parishioners of three individuals they claim have been "credibly accused" of sexual improprieties.

In a mid-afternoon rally held outside the diocese headquarters on Jewett Avenue, the two protesters also urged Lori to place the names of all priests who have been removed for allegations of sexual abuse on the diocesan website and to more openly share information about all personnel who come under review for the offense.

None of the three individuals the protesters cited as being dangerous -- the Rev. Paul Carrier, a former Fairfield University official; Carlo Fabbozzi, a former janitor and landscaper at St. Theresa's Church in Trumbull; and the Rev. Patricia Long, a former minister at the Congregational Church of New Canaan -- has ever been charged criminally.

BRIDGEPORT (CT)
WTNH

[with video]

By: Keith Kountz
Bridgeport, Conn (WTNH) - Some advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse are making demands of the Catholic Archdiocese in Bridgeport.

They say more information needs to be revealed about accusations made against clergy members, and on Monday they delivered that message in person.

Two groups representing the victims of clergy abuse say the Bridgeport Archdiocese and Bishop William Lori need to be more forthcoming about former church employees who have been publicly accused of wrongdoing.

"If you look at the Archdiocese website you don't find names of accused priests at all, but you do find their press releases, in which they discredit a victim from a year ago," said Anne Barrett Doyle from the website BishopAccountability.org

PORTLAND (OR)
Salem News

Their repentance and amendment is superficial and, if not formally at least subconsciously, is motivated by a desire to be again in a position where they can continue their wonted activity." - 1957 report to the Bishop of Manchester.

Courtesy: sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - Another event of the long saga of clergy abuse of children involving Roman Catholic priests in the United States has come to a financial settlement this week.

It was announced Friday in Portland that the Oregon province of the Society of Jesus has agreed to pay $166.1 million to hundreds of people abused as children by Jesuit priests at schools throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

The province will pay $48.1 million into a trust for the victims, while one of its insurance carriers will pay $118 million of the settlement. Some of the cases occurred as far back as the late 1940’s.

PORTLAND (ME)
Press-Herald

The head of Maine's Roman Catholic diocese has set aside a day of penance and prayer next week to help heal the wounds caused by incidents of sexual abuse by members of the clergy.

Bishop Richard Malone said a "day of atonement" will be held April 5, a week later than originally planned, because of the death of a priest.

During next week's event, Malone will celebrate Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland with a focus on penance and prayer.

The diocese said priests and parishioners are invited to participate, and that pastors and administrators throughout the diocese are being urged to open their churches for at least a few hours during the day for people to join in prayer and acts of penance.

PARAGUAY
ABC (Paraguay)

El intendente de la localidad de San Lázaro (Concepción), el ex sacerdote Celso Ovelar, tiene un hijo de tan sólo meses, según un documento del Registro Civil. El jefe municipal justificó que tuvo la relación después de presentar su renuncia a los votos religiosos. Sin embargo, antecedentes indican lo contrario.

En fecha 23 de enero de 2011, en el Registro Civil de Limpio, Celso Ovelar reconoció a su hijo. En conversación con ABC Digital, indicó este domingo que asumió su compromiso de papá y abona la prestación alimentaria a la mamá de 23 años.

Manifestó que la relación se inició poco después de haber renunciado al sacerdocio, en febrero de 2010, y poco tiempo después tuvo relaciones con la madre del chico, una joven indígena. De esta forma, precisó que no faltó al voto de castidad que hacen los clérigos de la Iglesia católica.

CANADA
CBC News

The case of a scandalized former Anglican priest who worked near St. John's has led to more arrests in a worldwide child pornography network, police say.

Robin Barrett was charged in 2009 when police found photographs and videos of child pornography in his Conception Bay South home.

Barrett, who pleaded guilty, was given a 2.5-year prison sentence last September.

Evidence collected in the Barrett case, though, has fuelled police investigations in multiple jurisdictions.

CANADA
Nunatsiaq News

Prosecutors have filed more charges against Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger.

In the past month, the Crown added 10 charges to the list of accusations facing Dejaeger.

He now faces a total of 20 charges, mostly sex-related, brought by complainants who lived in Igloolik in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A court-ordered ban prohibits the publication of information that could identify the complainants.

ROCHESTER (NY)
WHEC

We're learning more about the Rochester priest removed from ministry because of an allegation of sex abuse.

Father Vincent Panepinto is on what the diocese calls administrative leave. The diocese says it received a "credible" allegation of sex abuse against Panepinto. It goes back to the late 1960's.

Click here to read Bishop Matthew Clark's paper on preventing sexual abuse of children.

Today we talked to the person at the diocese specifically set up to takes these cases.

Barb Pedeville says the majority of claims that end up on her desk are credible. Why would anyone want to make this up? Especially in this case that goes back more than 40 years.

"There's nothing to be gained from these people coming forward and telling their experience when they were a child," Pedeville said (meaning the victims have nothing to gain personally other than peace). "There's nothing to be gained for them."

MINNESOTA
Fox 59

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - In a settlement aimed at broader public disclosure of clergy sex abuse, nine Minnesota victims have settled claims against St. John's Abbey and 10 monks or brothers for incidents from the 1960s to 1990s, their attorney said on Monday.

St. John's has agreed to disclose more information about incidents of sex abuse and to allow victims who settled other cases under confidentiality agreements to speak openly, said attorney Jeff Anderson, who has pursued lawsuits charging clergy sex abuse across the United States since 1983.

A St. John's Abbey spokesman said it may respond later.

The lifting of confidentiality was "a giant step toward child protection and the recovery of power of these survivors," Anderson said in an interview.

CHICAGO (IL)
Jeff Anderson & Associates

(Chicago) New information to be filed in Cook County Circuit on Monday by attorneys for three men who were repeatedly sexually abused by Chicago-based Jesuit priest Donald McGuire, will document a four decade cover-up by top Jesuit officials of the priest’s sexual rampage.

The documents are contained in a motion to seek punitive damages in the lawsuit the attorneys have filed against the Jesuit’s Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus on behalf of the three men.

Jeff Anderson, the St. Paul, Minnesota-based clergy abuse attorney, who along with Chicago attorney Marc Pearlman represents the Plaintiffs, said justification for punitive damages in the case is based on Jesuits officials having been aware of McGuire’s sexual predatory behavior over a 40 year period but still allowed him to have free reign with access to children.

MINNESOTA
KARE

[with video]

Written by
Allen Costantini

MINNEAPOLIS -- Attorney Jeff Anderson said Monday that he has reached a settlement with Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville and the Order of Saint Benedict that "exposes" abuses by monks at the Collegeville Monastery that adjoins Saint John's University.

Anderson said the settlement rises from the cases of nine alleged victims or "survivors" and 11 alleged clergy abusers. Anderson insists the Abbey must publish a list of 15 "credible" monk abusers on the school's website .

at names the credibly accused clerics from Saint John's. It is signed, no only by the Abbott, but by two of the 'survivors' and goes to the terms of this settlement to every single student that attended Saint John's, whether they graduated or not," said Anderson.

The lawyer stood in front of photos of some of the alleged abusers, alongside Jeremiah McCarthy, one of the alleged victims. McCarthy told reporters he was abused at the age of 15 by a monk at Collegeville.

CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

By DAVE ALTIMARI, daltimar@courant.com
The Hartford Courant

A convicted murderer serving a 60-year sentence in Maine for killing his grandfather received a secret settlement from the Hartford Archdiocese after charging that a Bristol priest sexually abused him when he was a teenager, an advocacy group revealed Monday.

Although the undisclosed settlement was paid to Jeffrey Libby in 2009, the leaders of a priest abuse survivors' group held a press conference Monday in front of the archdiocese's Farmington Avenue headquarters to call on Bishop Henry J. Mansell to acknowledge the settlement. They also urged the Catholic Church to disclose what happened to the priest who allegedly abused Libby in the early 1980's.

The priest served as parish priest in Bristol and Plainville. Maria Zone, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Monday that the priest was placed on administrative leave in 2005, which means he cannot function as a priest.

MAINE
Bangor Daily News

By Dawn Gagnon

PORTLAND, Maine — Because of the death of a Bangor-area priest and arrangements for his funeral, a day of prayer and penance for harm done to survivors and the faithful by past incidents of clergy sexual abuse has been postponed by one week.

The Mass, which had been scheduled for Tuesday, has been rescheduled for 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Sue Bernard, communications director for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, said in a news release Monday.

BENSON (NC)
WRAL

Benson, N.C. — The sexual misconduct charges against a Harnett County pastor involved a patient at an assisted living center in Benson, police said Monday.

Paul Burke Johnson, 74, the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Dunn, was charged Thursday with four counts of misdemeanor sexual battery.

Benson Police Chief Kenneth Edwards said Johnson had visited patients at Liberty Commons Nursing Center, at 2315 N.C. Highway 242 North, for the past year and had several encounters with a 64-year-old woman there. The woman has a diminished mental capacity, Edwards said.

BRIDGEPORT (CT)
WTNH

Keith Kountz
Bridgeport, Conn. (WTNH) - Advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse say more information should be revealed about accusations made against clergy members.

The groups say the Bridgeport Archdiocese and Bishop William Lori need to be more forthcoming about former church employees who have been publicly accused of wrongdoing.

"If you look at the diocesan website you don't find names of accused priests at all, but you do find their press releases in which they discredit a victim from a year ago," said Anne Barrett Doyle, BishopAccountability.org.

CHICAGO (IL)
BishopAccountability.org

This webpage provides a user-friendly version of the most significant document on religious orders yet to emerge from the Catholic abuse crisis. It is a motion, filed on March 28, 2011 in two Chicago court cases, that analyses and documents in shocking detail the Jesuits' 50-year history of concealing and enabling sexual abuse by Donald McGuire SJ – scholar, retreat leader, high school teacher, and confessor to Mother Teresa and the nuns of her international order.

The Jesuits are the largest Catholic religious order in the world, and their high schools and universities in the United States are elite institutions in the country's educational system. They have a massive missionary presence in the developing world, and especially since Vatican II and the demise of confession, their Ignatian spirituality has been a dominant approach in Catholic spiritual direction and retreats. The Donald McGuire case offers insight into abuse within Jesuit education and spiritual practice, and is a highly significant window into the way abuse cases are managed within the system of Jesuit provinces. It also reveals the lengths to which the provincials of the order will go to defend the Jesuit brand and the fund-raising that depends on it.

The 180 pages of Jesuit documents that accompany this motion also offer unique insight into abuse within the far-flung orthodox Catholic community, providing a case history of vulnerability and resourcefulness among devout Catholics. McGuire is a shocking example of the ways in which confession and spiritual practice can be perverted. His method of obtaining total control over his victims – as high-school boarders, live-in-assistants during his retreats, even in one case as a ward with McGuire as guardian – show the dark side of a strong Jesuit culture, whose leaders showed consistent and thorough neglect of the parents and victims who approached them over the years.

CHICAGO (IL)
The New York Times

By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: March 28, 2011

Jesuit leaders in Chicago largely ignored or kept secret numerous reports, spanning four decades, that a prominent priest was sexually abusing teenage boys, lawyers for victims charged on Monday in a motion for punitive damages in a Chicago court.

Included in the motion were more than 65 recently obtained church documents and depositions that, the lawyers said, demonstrated “a reckless disregard for the safety of others in the face of repeated reports of sexual misconduct” on the part of Chicago Jesuit leaders. ...

Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, a victim advocacy group that has long monitored the church’s response to sexual abuse charges, said that the series of warnings given to Jesuit leaders by parents and fellow priests was unusually long and clear.

“I have never seen such detailed and frequent notice received by the priest’s superiors, so many ‘directives’ regarding the priest’s future behavior, and so much evidence presented to his superiors that those directives were being violated, without the priest being removed from ministry,” Mr. McKiernan said.

His group has posted a history of the case and many of the key documents.

LIVINGSTON (NJ)
News 12

[with video]

(03/27/11) LIVINGSTON - Several men picketed outside St. Philamena's Church in Livingston during Sunday Mass today, claiming they were sexually abused by the church's pastor, the Rev. John Laferrera. The victims are also outraged the Archdiocese has done nothing to have Laferrera removed.

Ernest Fabregas says he was abused by Laferrera when he was the priest at the Immaculate Conception church in Newark. He presented his accusations to the Archdiocese in 2009, and a spokesman for the Archdiocese and Laferrera says the claims were found to be unsubstantiated. He and three other victims have since filed a civil suit against the Archdiocese and Laferrera.

"The main thing is we want him out of the church," said Samuel Rivera, who claims he and his brother Daniel were also abused by Laferrera. "We want him defrocked so he won't go around and abuse anymore kids."

NEW JERSEY
Buffalo News

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - The spiritual leader for one of the largest Syrian Jewish sects in the United States has entered a guilty plea in a massive federal corruption probe in New Jersey.

Rabbi Saul Kassin of Brooklyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty in a Trenton federal courtroom Monday to one count of unauthorized money transmitting.

The 89-year-old is the chief rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn and New Jersey.

Kassin was among five rabbis arrested in July 2009 and charged with money laundering using charitable nonprofit groups they or their synagogues controlled.

RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Officials of two organizations advocating for victims of clergy sex abuse renewed their call Monday morning for greater disclosure from the Diocese of Providence.

For roughly a decade, the groups say, they've been seeking from the diocese the names of Rhode Island priests accused of sexual abuse, said Anne Barrett Doyle, director of the organization Bishop Accountability.

"We're renewing that call," Doyle said.

The renewal, Doyle said, follows news last week that a grand jury in Philadelphia found 37 priests accused of sexual abuse in that diocese were still serving. Also, Doyle said, last summer a suit was filed in Boston against a priest for sexual abuse.

UNITED STATES
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A representative of the media company owned by Father John Corapi challenged the action to place the popular speaker on administrative leave from priestly ministry, saying that it was illicit under "several points of canon law."

Bobbi Ruffatto, vice president of operations at Santa Cruz Media, Inc., in Kalispell, Mont., charged in a posting on Father Corapi's Facebook page March 25 that Bishop William M. Mulvey of Corpus Christi, Texas, acted improperly, according to canon lawyers consulted by the company.

The statement offered no specific citations of canon law.

However, Marty Wind, director of communications for the Diocese of Corpus Christi, disputed Ruffatto's claim that Bishop Mulvey placed Father Corapi on leave. He said the action was taken by officials of the priest's order, the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity in Robstown, Texas.

ST. PAUL (MN)
NECN

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Nine men who filed lawsuits claiming sexual abuse at the hands of monks or priests have reached settlements with St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, the plaintiffs' attorney said Monday.

The accused clergy all taught at St. John's Preparatory School or were assigned to parishes, attorney Jeff Anderson told The Associated Press. He declined to disclose a dollar amount.

The alleged abuse occurred from the 1960s to 2004. At least one of the alleged offenders is now dead.

The settlement requires St. John's to send a letter to anyone who attended the prep school, disclosing the names of alleged offenders against minors, Anderson said. None of the men accused in the lawsuits still works at the school and none has ever been criminally charged, he said.

RICHMOND (VA)
ABC 13

Associated Press - March 28, 2011

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Victims of sexual abuse now have 10 times longer to file a lawsuit in Virginia.

Gov. Bob McDonnell signed legislation Saturday extending the deadline to file a civil lawsuit against an attacker or an organization responsible for the assault from two years to 20 years.

The Catholic Church, which faced a priest sex scandal that triggered lawsuits nationwide, lobbied hard against the extension. Advocates had worried McDonnell, a Catholic, would change the bill.

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Another quick update to the Father John Corapi story: yesterday, Tom O'Toole blogged at the Renew America site about some of the connections between Corapi and Father Thomas Euteneuer, about which I knew nothing when I posted several days ago about some of the parallels between the Corapi and Euteneuer stories, and the models of priesthood both men have been promoting (and see also here). In fact, until a reader of the two Bilgrimage postings to which I've just pointed readers--ClevelandGirl--told me that Corapi was Euteneuer's spiritual director, I had no idea of that fact, when I first began to recognize strong parallels between their stories and their models of pastoral ministry.

And now from O'Toole's posting, I'm learning much more about the strong ties that link these two rock-star priests of the talk circuit of the American Catholic right. O'Toole tells a sensational story: not only does he confirm that Corapi was Euteneuer's spiritual director, but he claims that in that capacity, Corapi encouraged Euteneuer to burn a diary of the woman Euteneuer has admitted molesting under his pastoral care.

If this is true--and I'll emphasize that I'm reporting here what Tom O'Toole has just said on his blog--this is disturbing information, and it possibly has criminal implications. Readers will remember that it was O'Toole who broke and kept pushing the Euteneuer story, and who published a statement by the parents of the young woman Euteneuer admitted molesting on his Fighting Irish blog.

PARAGUAY
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- A priest who doubles as mayor of a small town in Paraguay has acknowledged fathering a child with a woman in his former parish.

The secretary for San Lazaro Mayor Celso Ovelar says he has reached a settlement with the woman. The mother says he had been giving her about $70 a month. Now that Ovelar's paternity of the 1-year-old boy is public, she says he agreed to pay her more, and give her a motorcycle as well.

Ovelar tried to resign as priest in December to run for mayor. His secretary Gustavo Maldonado said Monday that the church hasn't let him go.

UNITED STATES
Whistleblowers Protection Blog

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Richard Renner

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to review a Michigan decision that allows a church to fire a middle school math teacher after she reported suspected sexual abuse to government authorities. According to the Court's docket, this case has been distributed for consideration at all three Friday conferences this month. The Court's web page says that decisions are normally released on the Monday following each Friday conference. One might therefore conclude that this case is not normal. The case is Weishuhn v. Catholic Diocese of Lansing, Case No. 10-760. Adding to the intrigue, today the Supreme Court accepted another case in which it will consider the scope of the "ministerial exception" to employment lawsuits (Hosanna-Tabor Church v. EEOC, Case No. 10-553). In the Hosanna-Tabor Church case, the Supreme Court will be reviewing a decision by the Sixth Circuit that reinstated the disability and retaliation claims of Cheryl Perich. Perich was a third and fourth grade teacher at the Church's school in Michigan. She took a disability leave for the 2004-2005 school year due to a recent onset of narcolepsy. Before the year was up, and after Perich retained an attorney to represent her in saving her job, the Church fired her. The Sixth Circuit held that, "Perich’s claim would not require the court to analyze any church doctrine; rather a trial would focus on issues such as whether Perich was disabled within the meaning of the ADA, whether Perich opposed a practice that was unlawful under the ADA, and whether Hosanna-Tabor violated the ADA in its treatment of Perich."

PROVIDENCE (RI)
San Antonio Express-News

IAN MacDOUGALL, Associated Press
Updated 11:09 a.m., Monday, March 28, 2011

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The state's Roman Catholic leader should release the names of all priests who have worked in Rhode Island and have been accused of sex abuse, two groups that advocate for victims of clergy sex abuse said Monday.

"It's a moral and civic duty of the Providence bishop to disclose those names, their whereabouts and the accusations against them," said David Clohessy, national director of The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

His group and BishopAccountability.org also urged Bishop Thomas Tobin to seek out victims of John Dority, a priest convicted of child molestation in Rhode Island in 2005. Dority was released from prison in 2007 and now lives in Coventry, Conn., according to the Connecticut state police's sex offender registry.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Mar. 25, 2011
By Tom Roberts

The recent Philadelphia grand jury report, a scathing assessment of the archdiocese’s handling of sex abuse allegations against priests, has wider implications for the church, say several experts, because it exposes inherent weaknesses in the process that is employed nationally for dealing with allegations against Catholic clerics.

The evident failure in the Philadelphia archdiocese of the system set up by the U.S. bishops in 2002 raises the question of whether similar circumstances exist in other dioceses, most of which have not come under the scrutiny of a grand jury or other law enforcement agencies. The question that keeps surfacing is: Are there other Philadelphias out there?

“There could be, but we don’t know,” said Nick Cafardi, a member of the original National Review Board established by the bishops to oversee implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, adopted during the bishops’ national meeting in Dallas in 2002. The charter, essentially an acknowledgement of the problem and a promise by the U.S. bishops to implement procedures and programs to deal with the crisis, is enforced by “Essential Norms,” promulgated in 2002, that have the force of canon law.

MONTGOMERY (AL)
Gadsden Times

The Associated Press Published: Monday, March 28, 2011

Police say a former Montgomery minister has been arrested and charged with sexual torture and aggravated child abuse.

The minister, 47-year-old Barry Cook, was arrested Thursday. Cook resigned Monday from his position at the Christian Life Church of Montgomery, citing personal issues.

Cook is being held in the Montgomery County Detention Facility on a $500,000 bond. Police say the former minister will be arrested on an outstanding domestic violence warrant when he is released from the county jail.

UNITED STATES
GetReligion

The Newspaper That Lands In My Yard had an interesting story the other day that focused on what may be a new wrinkle in the ongoing sexual-abuse scandals that have rocked the clergy of the Catholic Church for three decades.

Let me first state that there may, in fact, be fire down under this latest cloud of smoke. However, the story contains some interesting gaps that need to be explored. Here’s the top of the Baltimore Sun report:

Advocates for victims of clergy abuse called … for an investigation into its allegations that the Catholic Church purposely funneled problem priests into the chaplain corps of the U.S. military.

O’Brien’s spokesman called the allegations absurd, groundless and unsupported.

So how many priests are we talking about and what is the time frame for these crimes, especially in relation to the Catholic Church’s attempts to reform its procedures on handling these matters? Of special concern is the number of cases in the past five to 10 years.

RHODE ISLAND
Turn to 10

By The Associated Press
Published: March 28, 2011

PROVIDENCE --
Two groups that advocate for victims of clergy sex abuse are calling on Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence Thomas Tobin to release the names of all priests who have worked in Rhode Island and have been accused of sex abuse.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and BishopAccountability.org will gather Monday at 10 a.m. outside the diocesan headquarters.

Representatives will discuss the case of a man convicted of child molestation in Rhode Island in 2005. They said they recently learned he was a Franciscan priest in other states and they want Tobin to say whether he ever worked as a priest in Rhode Island

CANADA
CBC News

More charges have been laid against Eric Dejaeger, a Roman Catholic priest accused of sex crimes against children in Nunavut in the late-1970s and 1980s.

Three more individuals from Igloolik, Nunavut, came forward in the past month with new accusations against Dejaeger, who had served as a missionary in the eastern Arctic community between 1978 and 1982, according to court documents obtained by CBC News.

Dejaeger, now 63, faces a total of 20 criminal charges, which include indecent assault and buggery, from multiple complainants. He initially faced six charges when he was brought back to Nunavut in January.

ST. PAUL (MN)
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Settlement includes major non-monetary child protection measures

What: At a news conference on Monday attorney Jeff Anderson and several survivors will announce a significant settlement of lawsuits brought by nine victims of sexual abuse against Collegeville, Minnesota-based Order of St. Benedict, St. John’s Preparatory School, St, John’s Abbey, and eleven clergy defendants.

The settlement includes several non-monetary child protection disclosure issues that are of major importance—including names of previously undisclosed predator priests.

WHEN: Monday, March 28, 2011

1 P.M.

WHERE: Jeff Anderson & Associates

366 Jackson Street Suite 100

St. Paul, MN 55101

MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

Written by
David Unze
dunze@stcloudtimes.com

A news conference has been scheduled for this afternoon to announce the settlement of lawsuits brought by nine victims against St. John’s Abbey, St. John’s Preparatory School, the Order of St. Benedict and 11 individual clergy defendants.

Jeff Anderson, the attorney representing the victims, announced the news conference in a news release this morning. The news conference will be at 1 p.m. at Anderson’s St. Paul law office.

The settlement includes several “non-monetary child protection disclosure issues” that includes public disclosure of previously unnamed “predator priests,” according to the news release.

ST. PAUL (MN)
Star Tribune.

By PAUL WALSH, Star Tribune

Last update: March 28, 2011

A legal settlement is being announced Monday in St. Paul by several people who contend they were victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy.

The nine plaintiffs and their St. Paul attorney, Jeff Anderson, will reveal settlement of their lawsuits brought against the Order of St. Benedict, based in Collegeville, Minn., St. John's Preparatory School, St, John's Abbey and 11 clergy.

"The settlement includes several non-monetary child-protection disclosure issues that are of major importance," Anderson's law firm said in a statement, "including names of previously undisclosed predator priests."

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
USA Today

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

Catholic Bishops, look into the eyes of the future of the Church and step up.

That's the message behind a campaign by two mothers in Philadelphia. That's,where an excruciatingly detailed grand jury report has led for the first time to a criminal indictment of a high ranking church official for transferring known pedophile priests from one unsuspecting parish to the next.

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Monica Yant Kinney wrote Sunday about two outraged Philadelphia moms, Susan Matthews and Kathy Kane, are asking people to mail their archbishop pictures of their children, the face of the future, and then make radical change to bring in lay voices in the fight to clean up the clergy sex abuse mess.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Courthouse News Service

By REUBEN KRAMER

PHILADELPHIA (CN) - At an intensely combative and vitriolic hearing Friday afternoon in a sex-abuse case that has shaken the Philadelphia Archdiocese to its core, the judge left one defense attorney seething after disclosing that he could be disqualified from the case because the government thinks the lawyer might be a witness as a former seminarian.

The lawyer, who represents a current Roman Catholic priest charged with raping a boy in his parish, fired back that prosecutors were being "anti-Catholic" and had uttered an "abomination."

Court of Common Pleas Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes told defense attorney Richard DeSipio that she's received information that "might make you, in fact, a witness because of events that occurred while you were a seminarian."

IRELAND
Galway News

The trial of an 82-year-old priest charged with the alleged sexual assault of a boy in Galway has been adjourned until October.

The priest - who can't be named for legal reasons - was listed to appear before this month's sitting of Galway Circuit Criminal Court.

The priest was unable to appear before Judge Raymond Groarke as he is in hospital, according to Defence Barrister Deirdre Browne.

UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition Statement

March 28, 2011

Contact: Kristine Ward, 937-272-0308

Archbishop Dolan’s statement on behalf of the Administrative Committee of the United States Catholic Conference (USCCB) is a starburst of light on a huge defect in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People: no sanctions, discipline, removal or even slap on the wrist for any hierarch who doesn’t comply with zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance is about placing priests on administrative leave. Priests don’t place themselves on administrative leave. Bishops have to do it. Bishops defeat zero tolerance by not removing credibly accused priests Philadelphia is the perfect example. Do taxpayers have to foot the bills for grand juries to be convened in every city and county in all 195 dioceses in the country in order for us to know if the Bishops are telling the truth?

Archbishop’s Dolan’s statement is another ploy in the shellgame of the USCCB’s posturing which is full of sound and fury about sexual abuse but signifies nothing because the Bishops consciously continue to duck and dodge any discipline let alone bring pressure to bear on the removal of a hierarch who does not fulfill the Bishops’ role in zero tolerance.

We ask Catholics to take due notice that there is no “fraternal correction” let alone announcement of contact with Pope Benedict for the removal of Cardinal Justin Rigali for failure to remove the 37 priests the Philadelphia Grand Jury report revealed who remained in ministry while Cardinal Rigali publicly pronounced that he had no priest who remained in ministry after credible allegations were made.

CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will disclose a confidential, substantial settlement involving an alleged child molesting priest who has never been publicly accused before. They will also urge Hartford’s Catholic archbishop to, for the safety of kids,
-- disclose whether he’s paid secret settlements involving other priests,
-- put this cleric in a treatment center, and
-- post on his website the names, photos, whereabouts and work histories of all predator priests.

The two groups will also prod parishioners to
-- ask their kids and loved ones if they were hurt by any of the 28 publicly accused Hartford predator priests, and
-- if so, contact independent sources of help like police, prosecutors, therapists and support groups, instead of contacting church officials

WHEN
Monday, March 28 at 12:45 p.m.

WHERE
In front of the Cathedral of St. Joseph, 140 Farmington Avenue (corner of Sigourney) in Hartford CT

WHO
Two-four child sex abuse victims who belong to a support group called SNAP (including a Missouri man who is the organization’s long time director)

WHY
SNAP is disclosing a draft 2009 lawsuit and a previously secret, six page, Sept. 2009 settlement between the Hartford Catholic archdiocese and a man who reported being sexually abused 200 times by Fr. Richard McGann, whose whereabouts are unknown.

PROVIDENCE (RI)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will call on
-- Rhode Island’s attorney general to launch a full scale grand jury investigation into clergy sex crimes and cover up by the Providence diocese, and
-- Rhode Island’s Catholic bishop to
--seek out others who may have been hurt by a former Catholic priest who was convicted of molesting at least one child, and
--post on his website the names of all credibly accused child molesting clerics.

WHEN
Monday, March 28, 10 a. m.

WHERE
Outside the chancery of the Providence Catholic diocesan headquarters (“chancery”)

One Cathedral Square, in downtown Providence RI

NEW YORK/NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

WHAT: Holding signs and childhood photos at two sidewalk news conferences, clergy sex abuse victims and supporters will disclose, for the first time, a civil child sex abuse and cover up lawsuit. It involves an alleged child molesting cleric who has never been publicly accused before. The victims will also urge Catholic officials in NJ and NY to

--disclose whether there are other lawsuits – pending, settled or tossed out – against priests who’ve worked or work in northern NJ, and
-- post on church websites the names, photos, whereabouts and work histories of all predator priests.

DATE: Monday, March 28

WHEN/WHERE: At 11:00 a.m. – Outside the Holy Name Provincial Office, 129 W. 31st St. in Manhattan (646) 473-0265

At1:30 p.m. - Outside the Paterson Catholic diocesan chancery office, 777 Valley Road, (near corner of Rt. 3 & Rt. 46) in Clifton, NJ

MARYLAND
Diamondback

By Diamondback editorial board

There are few things more devastating or damaging than sexual assault. Depending on the degree and length of abuse, a person can be scarred in varying degrees. For minors, the repercussions can be even more severe. And yet, in this state, those who are victims of groping or fondling, usually classified as fourth-degree assault, have no more than one year to report the crime. A day longer and the statute of limitations expires, and the person who committed the crime cannot be charged.

However, that may soon change.

Legislation before the General Assembly would rewrite that law to extend the statute of limitations to three years in order to provide a larger window for victims to come to terms with the crime committed against them and seek help.

And while the original piece of legislation applied to all victims, regardless of age, legislators have since amended the bill, extending that three year window for only those who were under the age of 18 when the crime occurred. To be sure, there are substantial arguments in favor of extending the statute of limitations for minors — who are often scared into silence by their abusers or cannot process the magnitude of the incident — but there are equally valid reasons to extend this protection to adults.

IRELAND
Sunday Business Post

By John Burke and Kieron Wood

The government is expected to publish a long-awaited report into the handling of clerical child abuse claims in the diocese of Cloyne by early May.

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter is due to seek directions concerning publication of the report next month from the High Court.

Under the terms of the inquiry, Shatter has to seek the sanction of the High Court when publishing the report in its entirety or with some redactions.

CANADA
Vancouver Sun

By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun March 28, 2011

The RCMP is trying to verify a list of 31 girls aged 12 to 17, who over a 10-year period are alleged to have been transported by their fathers and brothers between Canada and the United States for religious marriages to older men.

If the list is verified and charges laid, it would be one of Canada's largest cases of crossborder smuggling of humans.

The list is based on documents seized by Texas authorities in a 2008 raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in search of girls sexually exploited by male members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

It's a who's who of North American polygamy including FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs and his most trusted American lieutenants as well as Canada's two most prominent polygamists, James Oler and Winston Blackmore, and their relatives from Bountiful.

MAINE
San Antonio Express-News

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The head of Maine's Roman Catholic diocese has set aside a day of penance and prayer to help heal the wounds of past incidents of clergy sexual abuse.

Bishop Richard Malone says Tuesday has been designated as a "day of atonement" for past abuses.

During the day, Malone will celebrate Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland with a focus on penance and prayer.

ROCHESTER (NY)
WHEC

The Catholic Diocese of Rochester has placed an area priest on administrative leave, amidst allegations of the sexual abuse of a minor dating back to the late 1960s.

The allegations are against Vincent Panepinto who served at a number of Rochester parishes, as well as at Our Lady of Mercy High School. The diocese says he has had his priestly duties withdrawn.

The diocese encourages victims of abuse to always report incidents. They can be reached at 328-3228 extension 1215.

ROCHESTER (NY)
Democrat and Chronicle

A local priest has been placed on administrative leave after an allegation of sexual abuse against a minor dating to the 1960s was deemed credible by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester. The Rev. Vincent Panepinto, who most recently was a sacramental minister at St. France Xavier Cabrini parish in Rochester, can no longer exercise public ministry and his priestly faculties have been withdrawn, according to a release on the diocese's website.

Panepinto was ordained a priest in 1967 and served at the former St. Philip Neri parish in Rochester. He also worked at St. Michael's in Rochester, at several state prisons and at Our Lady of Mercy High School. He was spiritual director at Becket Hall discernment house and pastor of the former City East parishes.

ROCHESTER (NY)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester

March 27, 2011

An allegation of sexual abuse of a minor dating back to the late 1960s has been made against Rev. Vincent Panepinto and deemed credible after an investigation by the Diocese of Rochester.

Rev. Panepinto has been placed on administrative leave and his priestly faculties have been withdrawn. He can no longer exercise public ministry in any capacity.

Rev. Panepinto was ordained a priest on June 3, 1967. He served at the former St. Philip Neri parish in Rochester and St. Anthony’s in Elmira; St. Michael’s in Rochester; as a chaplain at several state correctional facilities and at Our Lady of Mercy High School; as spiritual director at Becket Hall discernment house; as pastor of the former City East parishes in Rochester (Corpus Christi, Holy Redeemer, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel); and most recently as sacramental minister of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini parish in Rochester.

HELP FOR VICTIMS: The Diocese of Rochester encourages victims of abuse to always report to the civil authorities. To report a case of possible sexual abuse and to receive help and guidance from the Diocese of Rochester, victims are encouraged to contact Barbara Pedeville, the victims’ assistance coordinator appointed by Bishop Matthew H. Clark: Phone 585-328-3228, ext. 1215 (toll-free 1-800-388- 7177, ext. 1215), or by e-mail to pedeville@dor.org

LIVINGSTON (NJ)
Livingston Patch

By Sonya Kimble-Ellis

Three men, who were once altar boys, protested outside St. Philomena’s Church in Livingston today against a priest they accused of sexually abusing them almost 30 years ago.

On Sunday, 7-8 men from Road to Recovery protested outside the church, distributed leaflets and carried signs protesting the alleged sexual abuse, according to Father Bob Hoatson, founder of Road to Recovery, a victims advocate group. The group handed out the leaflets at the 7:30 a.m., 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and noon Masses Sunday.

On Saturday, a half-dozen men also protested prior to Saturday evening services. The men distributed leaflets from the entrance at the Oval to churchgoers willing to take them.

"The image of the church and what's going on in it needs to change,” said Hoatson.

ROCHESTER (NY)
Catholic Courier

The Diocese of Rochester announced Sunday, March 27, that it has investigated and deemed “credible” an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor dating back to the late 1960s against the Rev. Vincent Panepinto.

Rev. Panepinto, who served most recently as sacramental minister of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish in Rochester, has been placed on administrative leave, and his priestly faculties have been withdrawn. He can no longer exercise public ministry in any capacity.

Rev. Panepinto was ordained a priest on June 3, 1967. He served at the former St. Philip Neri Church in Rochester; St. Anthony in Elmira; St. Michael in Rochester; as a chaplain at several state correctional facilities and at Our Lady of Mercy High School; and as spiritual director at Becket Hall discernment house. Prior to his most recent assignment, he was pastor of the former City East parishes in Rochester (Corpus Christi, Holy Redeemer, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel).

VERENIGDE STATEN
RKnieuws

SEATTLE (RKnieuws.net) - De Amerikaanse jezuïeten hebben aanvaard meer dan 166 miljoen dollar schadevergoeding te betalen aan 500 slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik in het noordwesten van de VS. Dat hebben lokale media gemeld.

Het gaat om één van de grootste akkoorden die werden gesloten na de enorme schadebedragen die de jongste jaren door de Kerk in Californië werden betaald: 660 miljoen dollar in Los Angeles en 198 miljoen in San Diego.

Het akkoord met de jezuïeten kwam moeizaam tot stand, verklaarde Dorothea Skalicky (42) aan de Seattle Times. ‘Ik hoop ook dat er nu ook efficiënte maatregelen worden genomen om seksueel misbruik te voorkomen’, voegde zij eraan toe.

VERENIGDE STATEN
NOS

Jezuïeten in de VS gaan een enorme schadevergoeding betalen aan slachtoffers die door leden van de orde seksueel zijn misbruikt. In totaal wordt er ruim 166 miljoen dollar uitgekeerd aan meer dan 450 slachtoffers.

Het misbruik gebeurde op scholen die door de jezuïeten werden gerund in indianenreservaten in de staten Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington en Alaska. Bijna alle slachtoffers zijn indianen of eskimo's.

De slachtoffers beschuldigen de orde van een doofpot. De jezuïeten zouden priesters waar problemen mee waren, hebben doorgeschoven naar de reservaten, waar ze ongemoeid hun gang konden blijven gaan.

BELGIE
De Stamdaard

De bijzondere Kamercommissie Seksueel Misbruik, die vrijdag en zaterdag in conclaaf was voor het opstellen van aanbevelingen, heeft nog heel wat werk maandag en dinsdag om woensdag het rapport en de aanbevelingen te kunnen stemmen. Dat bleek zaterdagavond uit de weinige indiscreties.

Er is evenwel geen sprake van revanchisme tegen de Kerk zoals zaterdag in De Tijd werd gesuggereerd, was uit verschillende hoek te horen.

De afgelopen twee dagen werd in een constructieve sfeer gewerkt, waarbij zowel het misbruik binnen de Kerk als in andere sectoren aan bod kwam, luidde het.

UNITED STATES
John Paul II Millstone

Paris Arrow

Written on the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25 … but where,oh,where is the Angel of the Annunciation during the millions of reincarnations of Christ in the Eucharist? Are sinful rapists-priests and their cohorts e.g. Cardinal Bernard Law more powerful than Mary, the holiest creature of them all?

The worldwide appearances of John Paul II during his 27 years papacy with his papal blessings, his thousands of speeches and writings, with the WYD World Youth Day chanting of “JP2 we love you” and “Santo Subito” at John Paul II’s funeral in Rome -- never protected children then and therefore cannot protect children now. John Paul II is the same yesterday and today and forever JP2 is heartless and powerless to safeguard children from predator rapists-priests. Praying to a false god and FALSE SAINT John Paul II cannot protect children from crimes on this earth in this life (or from eternal damnation in Hell in the after-life). Venerating John Paul II’s coffin or blood vial and JP2 statues, medals and relics or reading his thousands of writings cannot protect children – because in his lifetime as Pope John Paul II for 27 years he (wilfully) never protected children from rapists-priests and therefore in death he cannot protect children (or anyone) either. The biggest evidences of this are how he covered-up and promoted the serial rapist-priest Father Marcial Maciel and Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston who confessed to aiding and abetting 80 rapists-priests in Boston.

NEDERLAND
Kerknieuws

Bij het Oostenrijkse meldpunt hebben zich 499 slachtoffers gemeld van seksueel misbruik binnen de Kerk. Bij 22 daders van misbruik, of bij 4,4% van de klachten, is een juridische vervolging gestart. 55% van de meldingen had betrekking op seksueel misbruik, 28% op geweld en 17% geweld én seksueel misbruik.

53% van het misbruik vond plaats vóór 1970. De cijfers werden vrijdag bekendgemaakt door de Oostenrijkse bisschoppen. Zij onderstrepen dat zij sinds de bekendwording van het misbruik al vele maatregelen hebben genomen.

UNITED STATES
PhillyBurbs

The week's highs and lows

Thumbs-up

To U.S. Catholic bishops, who last week renewed their 2002 pledge to remove all predators from the priesthood. The one thing the organization didn't do was slam the Archdiocese of Philadelphia over the grand jury allegations that it had knowledge about 37 dangerous priests and still kept them on the job. If, as the Rev. Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York and president of the bishops' group said, the No. 1 priority of the church is protecting children, then the bishops should have gone further and mentioned the Philadelphia Archdiocese in their statement.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

WHAT:
As Catholic parishioners leave mass, clergy sex abuse victims will hand out fliers at a church where a just-suspended alleged predator priest worked. The leaflets will list two dozen recently-ousted Philly priests and will urge parishioners to:
-- ask loved ones and fellow church members if anyone saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups to contact law enforcement,
-- call Cardinal Justin Rigali and insist that he STOP PAYING for a defense lawyer for a priest who allegedly endangered hundreds of children and who now faces criminal charges.

WHERE:
Outside the St. Timothy Catholic Church , 3013 Levick Street (corner of Battersby) in Philadelphia

WHEN:
Sunday, March 27 at 12:30 p. m.

WISCONSIN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (312-399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com)

We applaud the Wisconsin law enforcement officials who are filing criminal charges against church officials who have apparently spanked two month old babies. Nothing an infant that age does justifies a spanking. And no book or belief a church official cites truly justifies such violence.

Church officials can believe whatever they want. They can't do whatever they want. A line is crossed when private beliefs become criminal actions. And there's really one clear, proven way to prevent such crimes: punish the wrongdoers.

We hope that others who saw or suspected these crimes will come forward, contact law enforcement, and put the safety of children ahead of the reputation of adults, and the healing of families ahead of the reputation of a church.

UNITED STATES
Doug Lawrence: Just Another Faithful Catholic

By Doug Lawrence

Some have maintained that the statement issued by Santa Cruz Media was in some way, disobedient, inappropriate or misleading. Taking it at face value, I see it merely as additional positive confirmation of the facts alleged in Father Corapi’s original statement.

By now, many have figured out that Santa Cruz Media Inc. is a corporation of which the CEO and registered agent appears to be none other than Father John Corapi. I say, “So what?” For a host of reasons, running a business through a corporation is a smart way to go. Furthermore … the statement of Bobbi Ruffatto, Vice President of Operations at Santa Cruz Media, stands on its own as the best, first hand, eye-witness testimony we have, so far. I’m grateful for that.

As for the part about the corporation being a private, secular corporation, not under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church: Of course that’s true! And because of that, there is absolutely no reason for Santa Cruz Media to suspend normal business operations, even though Father Corapi has been temporarily suspended from his ministry.

Some have also assumed that Father Corapi had taken a vow of poverty … something which seems very unlikely, based on his apparent living arrangements. But even if he did, there’s nothing to say that he couldn’t have been dispensed from that vow.

UNITED STATES
The Anchoress

March 26, 2011 by Elizabeth Scalia

It was not my intention to comment on this memo that was released by Santa Cruz media in defense of Fr. John Corapi. I was frankly happy to see passions abating from previous posts on the subject, and earlier in the week I had decided that, until something was “known” I would not post any further on Corapi.

Then the memo was released on Friday, and I thought, “oh, blerg! Not more!” I really didn’t want to open up another round of conjecture and speculation based on a memo that I thought raised as many questions as it seemed, for some, to answer. None of us knows any more than we did last week, when Corapi said, himself, that the allegations originated from a former employee, so it seemed pointless to comment on. And unlike a few inquiring email correspondents, I didn’t find the thing to be “proof” of anything much, and some of it bothered me. That being the case, I thought discretion would be the better part of valor, for all concerned, and that I’d take a pass on the memo.

Also, I figured Deacon Greg, that old newshound, basically had it covered.

Discretion would be a little bit easier, though, if Fr. Corapi — who was the one who announced this whole mess to begin with — could pipe down and just let this thing play out. Instead he puts the memo on his site — not on the Santa Cruz Media site (there doesn’t seem to be one) but on his site, and the thing immediately invites questions. Why is the first line of the memo about the “intellectual property” of Corpai’s work, as though it was making a public notice against a claim? Why was the VP of operations writing this, not the CEO; why does it begin by declaring itself a wholly secular, for-profit interest, making a point that it answers to no Catholic authority, and then commence holding forth in what struck me as the downright Corapian language of a religious firebrand?

UNITED KINGDOM
Sunday Mercury

Mar 27 2011 by Jeanette Oldham, Sunday Mercury

THREE new victims claim they were abused by a pervert priest who was allowed to flee to America by the Catholic Church.

And the Sunday Mercury can today reveal how Father James Robinson, 73, was helped to leave the country when allegations were first made against him in the 1980s.

Church officials played down alleged abuse to US counterparts to facilitate his move abroad – describing the first victim’s claim that the priest had repeatedly raped him as “an unfortunate relationship”.

Anna Wheeler, a senior prosecutor with West Midlands Crown Prosecution Service’s Complex Casework Unit, finally extradited Robinson back to Britain to face justice.

UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By Ian Gallagher
Last updated at 4:39 AM on 27th March 2011

Senior Catholic Fr Michael Seed admits soliciting charity donations of up to £50,000 for prestigious honours
Franciscan Friars ‘appalled’ by MoS disclosures... as Seed admits his actions could be ‘morally wrong’

One of Britain’s most high-profile Catholic priests has admitted arranging papal knighthoods for wealthy businessmen for money.

Father Michael Seed, who regularly celebrated Mass for Tony Blair and his family in Downing Street, now faces questions from his religious order after an investigation by The Mail on Sunday.

The most damaging evidence concerns his attempted cultivation of an Israeli arms dealer, Hezi Bezalel, who was seeking business opportunities in the Balkans.

It shows that Fr Seed, a former ecumenical adviser to the Archbishop of Westminster, had ‘agreed’ a papal knighthood for Mr Bezalel before approaching him. In return for a £45,000 donation to charity, Fr Seed said he could also introduce Mr Bezalel to influential Balkan politicians ‘and the man who looks after all arms for the region’. Mr Bezalel declined the offer, saying he did not give to charity ‘under instruction’.

CANADA
Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Inuvik, NWT – The Truth and Reconciliation Commission invites you to join Commissioner Marie Wilson in a discussion on the Northern National Event in the host town of Inuvik.

National Events are an important part of the TRC mandate and are intended to share and record the truth of those people affected by the Residential School System. Hosted by the town of Inuvik, NWT from June 28 to July 1, 2011, this event will offer a unique experience from Canada’s North.

As preparations begin for this event, Commissioner Wilson will offer insight into what the community can expect from this experience and how you may participate.

What: TRC Community Meeting-Information Session
Who: TRC Commissioner Marie Wilson
Where: Ingamo Hall, Inuvik, NWT
When: Monday March 28th from 5pm to 7pm MT

Soup and bannock will be served.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Monica Yant Kinney
Inquirer Columnist

A funny thing happened in the aftermath of yet another clergy sex-abuse scandal embroiling the Archdiocese of Philadelphia: Nothing.

Area Catholics contend that they're enraged by the revelations, but they have a strange way of showing it.

Some stay home. Others put less in the offering basket. Neither Voice of the Faithful nor the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has gained critical heft to make Cardinal Justin Rigali and church lawyers tremble.

Philadelphia sports fans earned their rabid rep. But Catholics here remain passive, unwilling to challenge men who lie and betray.

BLACK EARTH (WI)
Madison.com

By DEVIN ROSE | drose@madison.com

The head pastor of a Black Earth church and his brother have been charged with a total of 12 counts of child abuse, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in Dane County Circuit Court.

Philip Caminiti, 53, head pastor and elder at Aleitheia Bible Church, and his brother, John Caminiti, 45, also of Black Earth, allegedly hit the backsides of children with rods and dowels. The alleged victims are children in the Caminitis' family and other children whose families are part of the church.

"If you spank early and it is done right, then kids will be happy and obedient," Philip Caminiti told investigators.

He also admitted to instructing parents within the church — which holds services and meetings at his and another member's home — to hit their children on the bare buttocks with a rod because there's a large amount of flesh there.

BLACK EARTH (WI)
WSAW

BLACK EARTH, Wis. (AP) -- The head pastor at a Dane County church and his brother face child-abuse charges after being accused of using rods to spank children on the buttocks.

Prosecutors filed charges Friday against 53-year-old Philip Caminiti, the head pastor at Aleitheia Bible Church, and his brother, 45-year-old John Caminiti.

The Wisconsin State Journal quotes the criminal complaint as saying the brothers used rods to spank their own kids and children whose families are part of the church.

WISCONSIN
LaCrosse Tribune

Six more members of a Black Earth church are expected to face child abuse charges in what experts say is a rare - and legally indefensible - case of claiming the Bible dictates using a rod to punish children as young as 2 months.

"I think these are deviant people, not deviant beliefs," said law professor Michael Broyde, who is academic director of the Law and Religion Program and a project director at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University in Atlanta.

"It's an exceptionally rare view of the Bible that permits activity that would otherwise be considered abuse," said Broyde, who is also a rabbi.

"As I understand the Biblical text," he said, "there is no right in the Bible to commit child abuse."

WISCONSIN
Star Tribune

By ROSE FRENCH, Star Tribune

Members of a small Wisconsin church took the "spare the rod, spoil the child" philosophy way too far, authorities say. Now they face child-abuse allegations for using actual wooden rods, dowels and spoons on the bare buttocks of children as young as 2 months old.

The head pastor of Aleitheia Bible Church, his brother and three sets of parents who are members of the congregation in Black Earth were charged after former church members told authorities that children were being mistreated.

The case involves 12 children ranging in age from infancy to 6 years old who got spankings for behavior such as being emotional, grumpy or crying, according to a criminal complaint. The parents defended their actions and said the spankings left just redness and bruising.

WISCONSIN
AOL News

Lisa Holewa

The pastor and seven members of a small church in central Wisconsin have been charged with using wooden rods to spank infants as young as 2 months old for "being emotional, grumpy or crying," the Dane County Sheriff's office said.

The Aleitheia Bible Church, in the town of Black Earth, was started in 2006 with a donation in the range of $500,000-$600,000 from Bob and Lori Wick of nearby Mazomanie, according to a news release from the sheriff's office.

Lori Wick is the author of almost three dozen historical Christian novels with more than five million books in print, according to her Amazon profile. Reached by AOL News today by telephone at their home, Bob Wick said they "have no comment" on the case.

PELLA (IA)
Des Moines Register

Written by
ADAM BELZ
abelz@dmreg.com

Pella, Ia. - Patrick Edouard, the former Pella pastor accused of raping three women from his church, was a dynamic preacher in a church and community where theology matters, the sermon is the crescendo of the worship service and the senior pastor is revered.

Had Edouard only engaged in affairs with women in the church, it would have been a devastating transgression against the women, their families and the congregation, said Clarence Hettinga, an elder and president of the council at Covenant Reformed Church in Pella.

"That's a lifetime of hurt," Hettinga said.

But Edouard has been accused of far more in Marion County District Court.

UNITED STATES
Renew America

By Marielena Montesino de Stuart

The Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuits) has agreed to pay $166.1 million to hundreds of Native Americans and Alaska Natives who are sex abuse survivors from schools run by a Jesuit order in the Pacific Northwest — Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

The full name of the order is Society of Jesus — Oregon Province.

And what are Church officials doing while this moral disaster is taking place in the Church?

For one, they are running very expensive long ads on CNN television, asking Catholics to go back to the Church. CNN? Interesting.

Yet, not a word is mentioned in those ads about the pain and suffering inflicted on victims who were sexually abused by pederasts and pedophiles in the Church.

PORTLAND (ME)
Kennebec Journal

BY JUDY HARRISION

PORTLAND -- Bishop Richard J. Malone, head of the Roman Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, designated Tuesday as a day of prayer and penance for "harm done to survivors and the faithful by past incidents of clergy sexual abuse."

Malone will celebrate Mass at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate conception in Portland. The section during the service called "Prayers of the Faithful" will reflect the intention of the Mass, according to a press release issued by the diocese last week.

"Each year, I ask the clergy to join me in marking a day of atonement for past offenses," the bishop said in the press release issued Wednesday. "Through prayer and reflection, may we become even more dedicated to healing the wounds of the past and preventing harm in the future."

UNITED STATES
Renew America

By Tom O'Toole

On Ash Wednesday I learned that a former employee sent a three-page letter to several bishops accusing me of everything from drug addiction to multiple sexual exploits with her and several other adult women.

There seems to no longer be the need for a complaint to be deemed "credible" in order for Church authorities to pull the trigger on the Church's procedure, which was in recent years crafted to respond to cases of the sexual abuse of minors. I am not accused of that...[but] I have been placed on "administrative leave"...I'll certainly cooperate with the process, but personally believe that it is seriously flawed, and is tantamount to treating the priest as guilty "just in case"...The resultant damage to the accused is immediate, irreparable, and serious, especially for someone like myself, since I am so well known. I am not alone in this assessment, as multiple canon lawyers...civil and criminal attorneys [agree]...All of the allegations in the complaint are false, and I ask you to pray for all concerned. — Fr. John Corapi, SOLT, 3-18-11
---------------------------------

Father Thomas Euteneuer has performed a valuable service in giving us...Exorcism and the Church Militant. Everyone...can profit from a careful and prayerful reading of this book. Priests especially should profit from this material [as] preparation for this dimension of spiritual warfare is singularly lacking in almost all seminaries, novitiates, or other Catholic institutions of learning. One of the reasons for this is that many such institutions have faculty that...don't necessarily believe what the Church believes. This leaves a terrible void...Hopefully this fine book will inspire many priests to equip themselves with the necessary weapons to fight for souls in this arena. — Rev. John A. Corapi, SOLT, STD, excerpt from the Foreword, Exorcism and the Church Militant

UNITED STATES
Renew America

By Matt C. Abbott

Regarding the upcoming beatification of Pope John Paul II, I'm torn. Perhaps I shouldn't be, but I am. Many Catholics are excited about it — almost "rock star"-like excited. Alas, I'm not.

Don't get me wrong, I do think John Paul did a lot of good during his pontificate. He was a man of deep faith and prayer, a strong opponent of communism, a champion of the preborn, a gifted writer, and had a certain charisma, even in the last several years of his life. I even like to pray his luminous mysteries of the rosary.

That said, John Paul's legacy is, in my view, problematic enough to make me wonder, why is he being beatified so soon? What's the rush? (Perhaps I should be asking: Does he deserve to be beatified period?) The cynical part of me believes the Vatican decided to speed things up because it needs a PR break from the ongoing clergy abuse scandal.

At any rate, readers may want to check out "A Statement of Reservations Concerning the Impending Beatification of Pope John Paul II," recently posted on the website of The Remnant. The statement has been signed by a number of traditional Catholics, including a priest-theologian who was ordained by the late pontiff. No, I haven't signed it, but it does make some cogent points. Click here to read it.

MAINE
Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland

Bishop Richard Malone has designated Tuesday, March 29, as a day of prayer and penance for harm done to survivors and the faithful by past incidents of clergy sexual abuse.

“Each year, I ask the clergy to join me by marking a day of atonement for past offenses,” said Bishop Malone. “Through prayer and reflection, may we become even more dedicated to healing the wounds of the past and preventing harm in the future.”

On Tuesday, the bishop will celebrate Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland at 12:15 p.m. During the Mass, the Prayers of the Faithful will reflect in a particular way the intention of this Mass. Priests have been invited to concelebrate the Mass and parishioners are also invited to participate.

MAINE
Bangor Daily News

By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted March 26, 2011

PORTLAND, Maine — Bishop Richard J. Malone, head of the Roman Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, designated Tuesday as a day of prayer and penance for “harm done to survivors and the faithful by past incidents of clergy sexual abuse.”

Malone will celebrate Mass at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate conception in Portland. The section during the service called “Prayers of the Faithful” will reflect the intention of the Mass, according to a press release issued by the diocese last week.

“Each year, I ask the clergy to join me in marking a day of atonement for past offenses,” the bishop said in the press release issued Wednesday. “Through prayer and reflection, may we become even more dedicated to healing the wounds of the past and preventing harm in the future.”

ESPANA
levante-emv

J. ANTEQUERA
«Nunca abusé de él, sólo quiero que se aclare todo y volver a la iglesia». Así de contundente se mostró ayer el fraile carmelita de Burriana que ha sido acusado de abusar de un monaguillo de 17 años en la parroquia. El padre Josemi, como se le conoce en la localidad castellonense, prestó declaración durante más de una hora ante el titular del Juzgado de Instrucción Número 1 de Castelló, que no tomó ninguna medida cautelar contra él.

El fraile le dijo al juez instructor que las acusaciones que se formulan contra él son «falsas» y que en ningún momento mantuvo relación amorosa ni de amistad con la supuesta víctima, que hoy tiene 21 años.

Emilio Pérez, abogado defensor del cura, aseguró al término de la comparecencia que su cliente estaba deseando declarar para negar los hechos. «Él quiere aclararlo todo cuanto antes y volver a ejercer su oficio», dijo. El letrado aseguró que la versión del fraile ha sido la misma «desde el primer momento» y que nunca ha reconocido los hechos. «Él no mantuvo ninguna relación ni de amistad ni de ningún otro tipo. Ni fue su guía espiritual, ni su confesor y siempre mantuvo una relación distante con él», alegó. El abogado dejó caer que en la fecha en que ocurrieron los hechos, hace ahora tres años, el monaguillo ya había mantenido relación homosexual con otro chico en Zaragoza», añade el letrado. «Quizá el chico denunció al padre Josemi al ser de una familia ultracatólica que considera la homosexualidad como una enfermedad. Quizá buscaba un chivo expiatorio», insiste.

ESPANA
Mediterraneo

24/03/2011 YOLANDA TENA SOLA-VERA

Soy inocente, yo no he abusado de nadie". Estas fueron las declaraciones que vertió ayer, por primera vez ante un juez, el fraile de la orden de los Carmelitas Descalzos, J.M.M., de 44 años, que fue acusado de un supuesto abuso sexual hace ahora un año por parte de un monaguillo vecino de Burriana J.S.G., de 20 años, que trabajó para él en la parroquia del Carmen de Castellón durante el invierno del 2007 y 2008.

El acusado, que lleva 12 meses recluido en un convento de Huesca castigado, acudió a la Ciudad de la Justicia de la capital de la Plana a primer hora de ayer, arropado por sus familiares, acompañado por su abogado, Emilio Pérez Mora, y protegido por unas fuertes medidas de seguridad que evitaron la captura por parte de los fotógrafos de su imagen.

A las 11.00 horas dio comienzo la vista, en la que estuvo también presente el letrado del monaguillo, Virgilio Latorre, así como el fiscal encargado de este caso.

ESPANA
El Mundo

La orden de los Carmelitas Descalzos ha denunciado a uno de sus religiosos ante la Fiscalía por un presunto caso de pederastia en Castellón "siguiendo con ello fielmente las recomendaciones de la Iglesia católica", según han confirmado a ELMUNDO.es fuentes de esta congregación religiosa.

Los responsables de esta orden en la demarcación Aragón-Valencia han adoptado esta medida al tener conocimiento de unos supuestos abusos sexuales a un menor de 16 años, que colaboraba como monaguillo en una parroquia de la provincia.

Advierten, no obstante, que esto "no supone prejuzgar conducta alguna y se hace con pleno respeto a la presunción de inocencia de las personas y, al mismo tiempo, con pleno respeto a quien se considera víctima de un ilícito penal".

ESPANA
El Mundo

El fraile de la congregación de los Carmelitas Descalzos de la provincia de Castellón denunciado por abusar sexualmente de un joven cuando era menor ha negado este miércoles todos los hechos, según ha informado a los medios de comunicación el abogado del religioso, Emilio Pérez, tras finalizar la declaración ante el juzgado de instrucción número 1 de Castellón.

Según el letrado, su cliente "ha negado todos los hechos, tal y como ha venido haciendo desde el primer momento", y ha incidido en que "en ningún caso" han aceptado los hechos. "Simplemente la defensa en su día presentó un escrito analizando desde un punto de vista jurídico la denuncia y diciendo que, tal y como estaba redactada, no suponía la comisión de ningún delito, lo que nunca ha supuesto ni supone que mi cliente haya reconocido para nada los hechos denunciados".

La defensa del fraile ha propuesto la testifical de unas 14 personas, entre castequistas y antiguos monaguilllos, "que van a decir que este señor se ha comportado siempre de forma excelente y totalmente decente con todos ellos", según el abogado.

BELGIE
De Standaard

Wie een dossier over seksueel misbruik in de kerk had ingediend bij de commissie Adriaenssens, dient best opnieuw een dossier in bij het federaal parket. De oproep geldt alleen voor slachtoffers die willen dat hun klacht ook een gerechtelijk gevolg kent.

De 475 dossiers van de commissie Adriaenssens waren in juni 2010 door onderzoeksrechter De Troy in beslag genomen. Later besliste de Brusselse KI echter dat De Troy zijn boekje te buiten was gegaan en dat het gerecht de dossiers niet mocht gebruiken. De Troy moest ze teruggeven aan de slachtoffers.

Teruggave

'Ik heb de griffie nu opdracht gegeven de stukken terug te bezorgen aan de slachtoffers die daarom vragen', zegt federaal procureur Johan Delmulle. 'Er moet wel eerst een kopie gemaakt worden omdat eventuele latere verdachten die stukken moeten kunnen gebruiken om hun onschuld aan te tonen.'

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimary

William D. Lindsey

I had decided not to blog any further about the story of Father John Corapi, about which I posted several days ago (and here and here). That is, I had decided not to blog any further about this story until substantial new information came along. Continuing to pursue and parse this story in the absence of new information only deepens the implication that there's really something there about which to blog. And if Corapi is correct in maintaining that he is innocent of the charges made against him, then deepening the implication that smoke points to fire is not fair to him.

But then this happened, and to anyone following this unfolding story, it's an important development, and demands attention. As with the initial statement about his suspension due to allegations of sexual liaisons with several women employees and drug abuse, Fr. Corapi himself has put the announcement I'll discuss in a moment on his website, and has apparently assured its wide dissemination throughout the Catholic blogsphere.

Yesterday, Corapi placed on his website a statement by Bobbi Ruffatto, vice-president for operations of Santa Cruz Media, the corporation that owns his intellectual property and sells his DVDs, CDs, and books. And here's what Ruffatto is saying: the charges made against Corapi are "false allegations," an "unsubstantiated rant" by a former employee who lost her job and is out to "destroy" Corapi.

Ruffatto's statement defending Fr. Corapi makes other extremely interesting claims. It maintains that Santa Cruz is a "secular corporation" "not affiliated with the Catholic Church in any way," and yet it goes on to launch into a theological defense of Corapi which notes that he was placed on administrative leave on Ash Wednesday, that the glory of the risen Lord will no doubt shine into this situation and vindicate Corapi by Easter, that Corapi is a great servant of the church and is for that reason hated by the devil, etc. It's hard to see how this analysis substantiates Ruffatto's claim that she (I think Bobbi Ruffatto is a she, though I may be wrong in concluding that) is working for a secular corporation not affiliated with the Catholic church in any way.

WISCONSIN
Madison.com

“Today outside interests stooped to a new low in an effort to capture a seat on the Supreme Court. They are running an ad featuring a 32-year-old case that then-Outagamie County District Attorney David Prosser reviewed. The as is distasteful, factually flawed and clearly an act of a group desperate to change the composition of the court.”

“Justice Prosser has earned the trust of over 70 members of the law enforcement community and 100 judges, whom believe he should continue his impressive work on the court. They know he has been a hard working law and order judge.”

Brad Schimel, District Attorney
Waukesha County

Fact: Thirty-three years ago an Outagamie mother came to then DA-Prosser and the sheriff with a complaint alleging her two young children were sexually abused by a priest (Fr. John Patrick Feeney)—namely being inappropriately touched by a priest—while at the home of the victims. Previously, the mother had approached the area-Diocese, which failed to act.

Fact: The sheriff’s department did conduct an investigation including several interviews, the matter was also brought to a second district attorney in 1979.

Fact: After an investigation Prosser made the decision not to prosecute. Prosser while sympathetic to the victims, believed the evidence wasn’t strong enough to convict the accused as it would lead to competing individual testimony between an adult priest and two boys, and that a jury trial would be emotionally challenging for the young victims. Lack of a corroborating eye witness, and what was then believed to be a one-time incident were key contributors to such a decision.

WISCONSIN
The Raw Story

By David Edwards
Friday, March 25th, 2011

The Wisconsin Supreme Court justice that recently admitted to calling a female colleague a "bitch" now has another problem.

Progressives in the state have launched an ad campaign against Justice David Prosser, suggesting that he's on the side of child molesters.

While District Attorney of Outagamie County in 1979, Prosser had refused to prosecute a priest that had allegedly sexually abused two children.

"I was ready to take the stand," Troy Merryfield, one of the abused children, told the Mulwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel years later. "He (Prosser) said it would be too embarrassing for a kid my age and said what jury would believe a kid testifying against a priest?"

MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN • vhahn@post-dispatch.com > 314-621-5804

An outstate Missouri man has sued the Archdiocese of St. Louis, claiming he was molested by a priest decades ago.

Girard Wipke, of Auxvasse, Mo., sued the church in St. Louis Circuit Court earlier this week. He claims the Rev. Thomas Graham sexually assaulted him twice in 1966 when Wipke was in seventh grade.

The suit claims the church knew Graham had assaulted others before and after the alleged assaults on Wipke but the church did nothing about it.

In 2006, the Missouri Supreme Court overturned a sodomy conviction of Graham in another case, for which Graham had maintained his innocence. He had been convicted for allegedly engaging in oral sex with a teenager at the Old Cathedral downtown in the 1970s.

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By J.M. Lawrence
Globe Correspondent / March 26, 2011

At Harvard Law School in the early 1970s, Geoffrey C. Packard looked like Robert Redford and talked like the lawyer Atticus Finch from the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,’’ friends said.

A magna cum laude law school graduate, he could have made a fortune at a big law firm but spent 30 years as a public defender, representing some of the most despised criminals, including defrocked pedophile priest John Geoghan.

He became a district judge in 2003 after being nominated by Acting Governor Jane Swift, and served on the bench in Lowell and Malden.

“There’s not anyone I know who didn’t respect his brilliance,’’ said Dorchester District Judge Rosalind Miller. “He was an incredible lawyer. The fact he wanted to be a judge was a gift really to the public.’’

Judge Packard died of lung cancer on March 17 at his home in Watertown. He was 62.

UNITED STATES
Sky View

Bishop Fulton Sheen once said that “the corruption of the best is the worst.” In the worst case scenarios, fallen away Catholics often turned out to be the worst enemies of the Church. And yet there are others who just fall away; and to be sure, their fall is felt throughout the Catholic world. This is especially true with priests whose fall from grace.

Quite often, however, people fail to distinguish between a weak priest and the Catholic Faith itself. When a priest falls from grace and therefore falls out of favor with the believer, his or her faith in Christ is sadly dragged down with it. It is a mistake- but common nevertheless -that the sins of priests become associated with God himself. For many souls, disillusionment with the former leads to the distrust of the latter. This is why the recent developments over the allegations concerning Fr. John Corapi’s misconduct are so important and heartfelt.

Although at this point it is only an allegation, I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that the news of Fr. John Corapi rocked the Catholic world. It grieves me to no end to think that there is a lingering possibility that such a solid priest- a real man of faith –could have involved himself in the aforesaid misconduct. With Fr. John Corapi or with any priest for that matter, it is a loss for the Mystical Body of Christ that such a celebrated reputation could be in question; especially a priest who was an emblem of a sanctified manliness such as his.

MONTGOMERY (AL)
WSFA

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) - A former Montgomery church employee and author has been arrested on accusations of child abuse and sexual torture.

Dr. Barry Cook, 47 of Montgomery, was arrested Thursday on charges of Sexual Torture and Aggravated Child Abuse. He also has an outstanding warrant for Domestic Violence in the Third Degree.

Cook is listed as a leadership teacher and member of the Pastoral Staff at the Christian Life Church on Monticello Drive in Montgomery. On the church's website, Cook is listed as teaching the "Ordinary People, Extraordinary Power: God Still Speaks" class on Sunday mornings. According to Montgomery Child Protect spokesperson, Jannah Bailey, Cook was fired from the church earlier this week.

UNITED STATES
BBC News

An order of US Catholic priests has agreed to pay $166.1m (£103.3m) to hundreds of Native Americans sexually abused by priests at its schools.

The former students at Jesuit schools in five states of the north-western US said they were abused from the 1940s through the 1990s.

Under a settlement, the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province, will also apologise to the victims.

The order had argued paying out abuse claims would cause it to go bankrupt.

UNITED STATES
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

By Daily Mail Reporter

A bankrupt order of priests has agreed to pay $166.1 million to hundreds of Native American and Alaska Natives who were abused at their schools.

The payout by the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province - part of an agreement to resolve its two-year-old bankruptcy case - is the third biggest settlement to date in the Catholic Church's ongoing sexual abuse scandal.

According to lawyers for the victims, it also is the largest ever by a single Catholic religious order.

IRELAND
Irish Central

By CATHY HAYES, IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Former priest Oliver O'Grady (65) has been charged in Dublin with the possession of thousands of pornographic images of children.

The defendant has lived in various addresses in Ireland since he was extradited from the United States in 2001. He rents a storage lock-up facility and a postbox in Ireland to store his personal belongings.

The documentary ”Deliver Us from Evil” featured O’Grady’s long career as a pedophile priest and won best documentary award at the Los Angles Film Festival in 2006.

O'Grady was arrested in Dublin on December 10 for the possession of child porn. In court Detective Garda Johanna Doyle told Judge Cormac Dunne that three further charges have been brought against the defrocked priest. The material confiscated included images and videos on a USB key, an external hard drive and a laptop computer.

GERMANY
The Weekend Telegram (Canada)

Published on March 26, 2011

Hans Rollmann

Responding to a deepening crisis and what many find to be an inadequate response from the church’s leadership in the wake of many revelations of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church of Germany, more than 300 German Roman Catholic theologians have recently signed a public memorandum about the “crisis of the Catholic Church.”

Beyond Germany, Catholic theo­logians, including Canadians, have expressed solidarity with their German colleagues.

Responding to an unprecedented number of people who, because of the scandals, left the Roman Catholic Church in 2010, the theo­logians proposed 2011 should be a year of genuine renewal, which should include self-criticism and exposure to “critical impulses.”

The troubled theologians be­lieve the church can hope to reclaim any sense of trust only by radically open communication.

PELLA (IA)
WQAD

[with video]

[criminal complaint]

Dan Winters
Reporter

PELLA, Ia.— The Marion County attorney has charged a well-known and widely popular former pastor with sex crimes. Forty-one-year-old Rev. Patrick Edouard is accused of using his position as the pastor of Covenant Reformed Church in Pella to coerce, and in some cases physically force four married women in his congregation into having sex with him.

He was arrested and transported to the Marion Co. Courthouse in Knoxville on Wednesday to face three counts of Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree, a class "C" felony and three counts of Sexual Exploitation by a Counselor, Therapist, or School Employee (including clergy), a class "D" felony.

The criminal complaint states that that Edouard invited the women to individual counseling sessions. He is accused of methodically "grooming" the women over periods of several months. Grooming is a term used by psychologists and counselors to describe the methods of mental preparation that a sexual abuser may employ. The criminal complaint states, "Patrick Edouard performed a sex act, which included contact between the genitalia of one person and the genitalia of another, knowing the act was against her will. The act was coupled with and followed by stern warnings that if she raised an alarm it would be her word against his, she would not be believed and he would make sure everyone knew she was crazy." It continues to describe, "...a pattern or practice by Mr. Edouard to engage in sexual conduct which he perpetrated against... emotionally dependent female congregants for the pupose of arounsing or satisfying the sexual desires of Mr. Edouard... over a prolonged period of time from 2003 to 2010."

NEW YORK
WNYT

[with video]

COLONIE - 34-year-old Michael DeSantis described the alleged sexual abuse in Friday's Times Union newspaper, saying that between 1986 and 1991, he was fondled or raped by four Catholic priests.

In the article, DeSantis said he was an alter boy at the former Our Lady Of Mercy church in Colonie, and that Pastor Alan Jupin committed most of the abuse at his apartment at the Towers of Colonie on Sand Creek Road.

"I was used as pretty much like a child sex slave," DeSantis was quoted in the newspaper, saying the molestation started as early as age nine.

PELLA (IA)
WOI

By Lisa Martone

A 41-year old man serving as a pastor at a Pella church has been arrested and charged with sexual abuse and exploitation.

Patrick Edouard was a pastor at the Covenant Reformed Church in Pella.

According to court papers filed on Thursday, Edouard sexually abused three "emotionally dependent" women, and had sexual contact with a fourth.

Court documents said all four victims went to him for private counseling.

TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

By Domingo Ramirez Jr.
ramirez@star-telegram.com

Pastor Danny Crosby would never have thought of church safety 30 years ago.

But on Tuesday, Crosby and more than 10 of his staffers at First Baptist Church of Cleburne will attend a daylong seminar on the matter.

"Churches are no longer exempt," Crosby said. "I think training is needed."

Representatives from more than 70 North Texas churches are scheduled to attend the conference hosted by Cleburne police.

The free seminar, designed for church leaders and police, will focus on youth safety, church safety awareness and how to handle disruptive people.

CALIFORNIA/ALABAMA
San Diego Union-Tribune

By Susan Shroder, UNION-TRIBUNE

A former Oceanside pastor was arrested in Alabama on suspicion of sexual torture and aggravated child abuse, authorities said.

Barry Cook, 47, was arrested Thursday, said Montgomery police Lt. Mark Drinkard. Cook founded Ambassador Family Church in Oceanside, which went into foreclosure in 2008.

Cook was fired earlier this week from the pastoral staff of Christian Life Church in Montgomery, television station WSFA in Montgomery reported.

PELLA (IA)
Journal Express

Clint Brown

Pella — Patrick Edouard, a former pastor at the Covenant Reformed Church in Pella was arrested Wednesday and charged with three counts of sexual abuse 3rd degree, two counts of sexual exploitation and one count of sexual exploitation by a counselor.

Following transport to the Marion County Jail, Edouard was released on $45,000 bond.

A preliminary hearing for Edouard is set for April 1 at 9:30 a.m. at the Marion County Courthouse.

ALASKA
Fairbanks News-Miner

by Mary Beth Smetzer / msmetzer@newsminer.com
Mar 26, 2011

FAIRBANKS — More than 200 Alaska Natives are among the 500 victims of sexual abuse represented in the $166.1 million bankruptcy settlement with the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province, announced Friday.

The majority of the 300 or so other victims are identified as Native Americans who attended boarding schools run by the Jesuits until the mid-1970s on Indian reservations.

The Oregon Province, also known as the Northwest Jesuits, encompasses five states, including Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana.

Alaska claimants range in age from their 20s to late 70s and reported abuse by Jesuit clergy from the 1940s to as recently as 2003.

UNITED STATES
ABC News (Australia)

An American Jesuit order has agreed to pay $166 million to compensate nearly 500 victims of decades-long "horrific" sexual and psychological abuse by priests in five states, lawyers said.

The US north-west chapter of the Rome-based Society of Jesus agreed to the payout, which lawyers said is the biggest by a religious organisation in the US, as part of bankruptcy proceedings.

Most of those abused by priests from the Oregon Province - the Jesuit order which covers the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana - were Native Americans at mission schools on Indian reservations.

YAKIMA (WA)
Yakima Herald-Republic

by Phil Ferolito
Yakima Herald-Republic

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Though it was some 40 years ago, Kathy Mendez remembers all too clearly getting called into a priest's office time after time as a student at St. Mary's Mission and School near Omak, Wash.

It was the setting for countless, and secret, episodes of sexual abuse by the priest, whose behavior was tolerated for decades.

The Wapato woman kept those memories locked deep inside, hiding her pain. But they would later complicate her life, touching even her 10 children.

But now the 55-year-old is ready to start the healing process with her family.

UNITED STATES
The Spokesman-Review

Kevin Graman Staff writers
The Jesuit order that established Catholic missionary schools across the Northwest and Alaska has agreed to a $166 million payout to settle child sex-abuse allegations from 500 people against its clergy and other agents.

The proposal would be among the largest payouts so far in the crisis that has beset the Roman Catholic Church during the past decade. And it would require The Society of Jesus, Oregon Province, to offer written apologies and provide pertinent records of the approximately 140 priests, nuns, brothers and lay workers accused from the 1950s through the 1980s.

“The breadth of the abuse and the sheer number of victims is staggering,” said attorney Michael Pfau, who represents 150 of those who alleged abuse. “It’s troubling that so much of the abuse happened to the poorest and most vulnerable children among us.”

UNITED STATES
The News Tribune

DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP BY SHANKAR VEDANTAM; The Associated Press The Washington Post
Published: 03/26/11

In one of the largest settlements in the Catholic Church’s sweeping sex abuse scandal, an order of priests agreed Friday to pay $166.1 million to hundreds of American Indians and Alaska Natives who were abused at the order’s schools around the Pacific Northwest.

The Jesuit order, called the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, has been accused of using its schools in remote villages and on reservations as dumping grounds for problem priests.

Attorneys representing the mostly American Indian and Alaska Native victims said the abuse added to the mistreatment already endured by these children, some of whom were forcibly removed from their homes to attend these schools.

UNITED STATES
iAfrica

A US Jesuit order has agreed to pay $166-million (R1.1-billion) to compensate some 500 mostly Native American child victims of "horrific" sexual abuse at religious mission schools, lawyers said Friday.

The US Northwest chapter of the Rome-based Society of Jesus agreed to the payout — which lawyers said is the biggest by a religious organisation in the United States — as part of bankruptcy proceedings.

Most of those abused by members of the Oregon Province — the Jesuit order covering the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana — were at mission schools on Indian reservations, from the 1940s through to the 1990s.

UNITED STATES
Radio New Zealand

The Jesuit religious order in the United States has agreed to pay millions of dollars to mainly Native American victims of sexual abuse.

Almost 500 victims from a region along the Pacific Northwest and Alaska will receive more than $NZ212 million.

They'll also get a written apology for the abuse suffered at schools run by the order.

The Society of Jesus had argued paying out abuse claims would cause it to go bankrupt.

UNITED STATES
Telegraph (United Kingdom)

A US Jesuit order has agreed to pay $166 million to compensate some 500 mostly American Indian child victims of 'horrific' sexual abuse at religious mission schools.

The US Northwest chapter of the Rome-based Society of Jesus agreed to the payout, which lawyers said is the biggest by a religious organisation in the United States, as part of bankruptcy proceedings.

Most of those abused by members of the Oregon Province – the Jesuit order covering the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana – were at mission schools on Indian reservations, from the 1940s through to the 1990s.

"This settlement recognises that the Jesuits betrayed the trust of hundreds of young children in their care, and inflicted terrible atrocities upon them," said Blaine Tamaki, a lawyer for the order.

ARIZONA
Tucson Citizen

by Michael Clancy on Mar. 25, 2011

Dale Fushek, the once-popular Catholic pastor who lost his position and ultimately was excommunicated and defrocked in the church-abuse scandal, finally is speaking out in his own defense.

In a new book, The Unexpected Life, and in an interview with The Arizona Republic - his first since he was arrested in late 2005 – Fushek details a hell-and-back story in which he denies ever having done anything that might have led to the accusations he faced.

Charged with several misdemeanors, he ultimately was convicted of one – for what he calls accidental contact. He maintains that any legal settlements made on his behalf were made not out of guilt but a desire to hold down costs.

The former priest also attacks Bishop Thomas Olmsted, the man who moved to throw Fushek out of the priesthood, calling him a “symbol of all that is wrong with the institution of the Catholic Church.”

The diocese declined to comment.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Ocala

KATHARINE Q. SEELYE Published: Saturday, March 26, 2011

PHILADELPHIA — In a blistering courtroom session on Friday, the judge overseeing the case involving priests accused in the sexual abuse scandal in the Philadelphia Archdiocese granted the prosecution’s request to bypass a preliminary hearing and scheduled arraignment for April 15.

At that time, the accused — two Roman Catholic priests, one former priest, a former parochial school teacher and a monsignor — are expected to plead not guilty. Given the city’s backlog of cases, any trial would probably not begin for at least a year.

The judge, Renee Cardwell Hughes, also agreed to the district attorney’s belated request to charge all five with conspiracy. The priests and the schoolteacher are already accused of rape; the monsignor, William Lynn, the highest-ranking official to be accused of a crime in the three-decade-long abuse scandal in the United States, is suspected of covering up rape by the priests and is charged with child endangerment.

SEATTLE (WA)
Ocala

WILLIAM YARDLEY Published: Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 6:30 a.m.

SEATTLE — A Roman Catholic religious order in the Northwest has agreed to pay $166 million to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse, many of whom are American Indians and Alaska Natives who were abused decades ago at Indian boarding schools and in remote villages, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Friday.

The settlement, with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, known as the Northwest Jesuits, is the largest abuse settlement by far from a Catholic religious order, as opposed to a diocese, and it is one of the largest abuse settlements of any kind by the Catholic Church. The Jesuits are the church’s largest religious order, and their focus is education. The Oregon Province includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

“There is a huge number of victims, in part because these Native American communities were remote and vulnerable, and in part because of a policy by the Jesuits, even though they deny it, of sending problem priests to these far-off regions,” said Terry McKiernan of Bishopaccountability.org, a victims’ advocacy group that tracks abuse cases.

UNITED STATES
The Deacon's Bench

March 25, 2011 by Deacon Greg Kandra

Santa Cruz Media, which owns and distributes Fr. John Corapi’s CDs and DVDs has posted the following statement on his website:

We are a secular corporation and not affiliated with the Catholic Church in any way. As such, we are not under the jurisdiction of any bishop or other official in the Catholic Church, although we have the utmost respect for Church authority.

We fully support Rev. John Corapi in this terrible trial, not surprisingly having begun on Ash Wednesday. Through the sacrifice and struggle of the desert and all of the dark moments that this entails, we are confident that the glory of the risen Lord will shine forth from the power of the Resurrection and Easter.

We have consulted with a number of canon lawyers. They have assured us that the actions of the Bishop of Corpus Christi, Texas are, on several points of canon law, illicit. It is our fervent hope that The Dallas Charter will be changed because of false accusations like this. There is no evidence at this time that Fr. Corapi did anything wrong, only the unsubstantiated rant of a former employee, who, after losing her job with this office, physically assaulted me and another employee and promised to “destroy” Father Corapi. We all continue to pray for this person, and we ask you to do the same.

We sincerely believe that the work Fr. Corapi has done is of greatest value to the Church, hence hated by the devil. We fully intend to make Fr. Corapi’s material available as a service to the Church and the world for as long as we possibly can.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
PhillyBurbs

by JAMES McGINNIS Calkins Media, Inc.

A Philadelphia judge issued a gag order Friday, forbidding four Archdiocesan priests, one parochial school teacher, all involved attorneys including district attorney Seth Williams to discuss with the press the allegations of sexual misconduct and conspiracy alleged in a recent grand jury report.

Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes presided over a two-hour hearing dominated by ethical questions about the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's payment of legal bills for the Msgr. William Lynn, former secretary of the clergy and now facing charges of child endangerment. The judge said attorneys paid for by the church might potentially care more about protecting the church and less about their true client.

The judge also stated that Richard DiSipio, defense attorney for the Rev. James Brennan, might be called as a witness in the case. Prosecutors said they were investigating a report that DiSipio, once a student at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, might have knowledge of an incident involving a priest and occurring more than 20 years ago. Details about that incident and DiSipio's role were not disclosed in court. But the judge cautioned Brennan that his attorney might be unable to represent him.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WAMC

By Dave Warner

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A judge on Friday skipped a preliminary hearing and ordered an immediate trial for a Catholic monsignor, two priests and others named in the sexual abuse scandal rocking the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Dismissing arguments by defense attorneys, Common Pleas Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes told Monsignor William Lynn and his four co-defendants they would proceed directly to trial in the priest pedophilia case.

Lynn, a former secretary of the clergy in the Archdiocese, faces charges of child endangerment. Priests Charles Engelhardt and Edward Avery, former priest James Brennan and former Diocesan teacher Bernard Shero face rape and other criminal charges.

UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: March 25, 2011
Nine years after a scandal in Boston prompted America’s Roman Catholic bishops to announce sweeping policy changes to protect children from sexual abuse by priests, the bishops are scrambling to contain the damage from a growing crisis in Philadelphia that has challenged the credibility of their own safeguards.

When a grand jury in Philadelphia reported last month that the archdiocese there allowed 37 priests accused of abuse or inappropriate behavior to remain in ministry, it came as a complete surprise to the local and national “review boards” that the bishops have put in place to help keep them accountable, members of those boards said.

Church officials are also deeply troubled by how it is possible that in the bishops’ most recent annual “audit” — conducted by an outside agency to monitor each diocese’s compliance with the policy changes — Philadelphia passed with flying colors, said Teresa M. Kettelkamp, executive director of the bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection, which issues the annual audit reports.

“To have that level of compromise of our programs and our process, I was totally shocked,” said Ms. Kettelkamp, who spent 30 years in law enforcement and corruption investigations before she was hired by the bishops.

UNITED STATES
CBS News

(CBS) - Elizabeth Taylor shared a shocking secret about fellow screen legend James Dean during an interview 14 years ago, but requested that it not be published until after she died.

"I loved Jimmy. I'm going to tell you something, but it's off the record until I die. OK?" she told writer Kevin Sessums during a 1997 interview for POZ magazine, according to a piece published by the Daily Beast Friday.

"When Jimmy was 11 and his mother passed away, he began to be molested by his minister," she alleged.. "I think that haunted him the rest of his life. In fact, I know it did. We talked about it a lot."

"During 'Giant' we'd stay up nights and talk and talk, and that was one of the things he confessed to me," Taylor said, referring to the 1956 movie the two co-starred in with Rock Hudson.

UNITED STATES
Pop Eater

By Kelly Fisher Posted Mar 25th 2011

As the world mourns the loss of an American icon, newly released details from a 1997 interview with Elizabeth Taylor reveals a shocking secret about legendary film star James Dean that she allegedly kept for most of her life.

According to The Daily Beast, writer Kevin Sessums interviewed Taylor for a cover story for POZ, an American magazine dedicated to AIDS activism. It was then the actress reportedly let him in on a secret about Dean, a close friend of hers.

"I loved Jimmy. I'm going to tell you something, but it's off the record until I die. OK? When Jimmy was 11 and his mother passed away, he began to be molested by his minister," she revealed to Sessums, who was sworn to secrecy.

"I think that haunted him the rest of his life. In fact, I know it did," she said of her friend. "We talked about it a lot. During 'Giant' we'd stay up nights and talk and talk, and that was one of the things he confessed to me."

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Reporter

MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — Three Roman Catholic priests, an ex-priest and a teacher are heading for trial in a sex abuse case after a Philadelphia judge upheld all charges.

The judge is denying defense lawyers the chance to fight the evidence at a preliminary hearing.

Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes says a 124-page grand jury report demonstrates probable cause, even on newly added conspiracy charges. She is also issuing a gag order.

The case is drawing attention because prosecutors for the first time charged a church official with child endangerment for allegedly transferring problem priests to new parishes. Monsignor William Lynn faces up to 28 years in prison if convicted.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Weekly

For the first time since the recent Philadelphia grand jury report and removal of more than a dozen priests for sexual abuse allegations, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Thursday that they will not “derail” their plans to renew their vows to out predator priests, a reform effort first adopted in 2002.

Tomorrow, a former member of a California Catholic diocese abuse review board will discuss, among other topics, the role of diocese lay review boards in the cover-up of child sexual abuse at the Parish House of Episcopal Christ Church and St. Michael’s at 4 p.m.

The event is sponsored by SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPNetwork.org) and Voice of the Faithful (VOTF). Some Church protesters claim they had recommended the removal of abusive priests to the Philadelphia Archdiocese, but Cardinal Rigali ignored their requests.

But in light of this discussion and recent protests, it’s important to consider a Church’s halo effect, being that Churches– contrary to what seems to be a popular myth– are simply not factories that churn out sick child-molesters.

MONTANA
LifeSite News

by Kathleen Gilbert
Fri Mar 25, 2011

[Statement of Santa Cruz Media, Inc. Relative to Fr. Corapi’s Suspension]

KALISPELL, Montana, March 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A leader of the company that manages Rev. John Corapi’s media has claimed that the recent accusations against the popular priest were launched by a “disgruntled” former employee who vowed to “destroy” Corapi’s reputation.

Corapi, a well-known Catholic personality and member of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT) who has been extremely outspoken on the life and family issues, has been placed on “administrative leave” in consultation with the diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas, where SOLT is based.

The move was in reaction to a letter by a former employee of the media company sent to several bishops and claiming that Corapi was addicted to drugs and sexually involved with multiple women.

The priest himself announced the allegations in a note on his website, and has said that all the allegations are false.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Huffington Post

MARYCLAIRE DALE | March 25, 2011

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic monsignor will let the Philadelphia archdiocese pay his legal fees in a clergy abuse case despite a warning that at trial his interests could conflict with the church's.

Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. Catholic Church official charged with child endangerment for allegedly transferring problem priests to new parishes. He faces up to 28 years in prison if convicted.

A judge warned him Friday that he may need to shift blame to someone in the archdiocese as he defends his case. The 60-year-old Lynn says he understands but accepts the arrangement.

WASHINGTON
The Oregonian

By Kimberly A.C. Wilson, The Oregonian

For 40 years, Katherine Mendez kept the story of her abuse at the hands of a Jesuit priest to herself.

But the details were never far from mind: She had been 11 years old when she was raped at St. Mary's Mission School in Omak, Wash., moments after she scuffled with another student and then brought into the office of Father John J. Morse.

The sexual abuse continued from sixth grade into eighth grade, she said.

"Every day, every single day, it was a nightmare," Mendez said today. "I was always looking over my shoulder."

PELLA (IA)
Des Moines Register

Written by
DANIEL P. FINNEY

A former Pella pastor is accused of raping three women in his congregation and having sexual contact with a fourth and using his position as church leader to exploit the women.

Marion County prosecutors have charged the Rev. Patrick Edouard, 41, former pastor of Covenant Reformed Church in Pella, with three counts of third-degree sexual abuse — which allege he forced three separate women into sex acts in early 2006, August 2007 and April 2008.

Edouard also faces two charges that he used his position as a pastor to exploit two of the women who had sought his counseling. The charge comes under a state law that forbids counselors, therapists, teachers and clergy from having sexual relationships with their patients and clients.

A sixth charge against Edouard alleges he had a sexual relationship with a fourth woman between May 2008 and June 2010. The woman had also sought counseling from Edouard, court documents allege.

MICHIGAN
The Grand Rapids Gazette

By Nate Reens | The Grand Rapids Press

BYRON TOWNSHIP - A Byron Township man, once a popular pastor in Pella, Iowa, has been charged with multiple sex crimes alleging he took advantage of his position to assault women who attended his church.

The Rev. Patrick Edouard, 41, was booked in Marion County, Iowa, on the felony counts, jail officials confirmed.

Authorities at the Pella Police Department, which investigated the sexual assault claims, refused to take phone calls on the probe Friday. The county attorney's office also declined to confirm the charges or circumstances surrounding Edouard's arrest. Courthouse clerks on Friday directed all comments to the county attorney's office.

IOWA
Chicago Tribune

PELLA, Iowa— A former pastor has been accused of persuading or forcing members of his congregation to have sex with him during counseling sessions in the basement of his Pella home.

Court records say the Patrick Edouard (ed-WAHRD') is charged with three counts of sexual abuse and three of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist.

Des Moines television station WHO says Edouard was arrested on Wednesday. A Marion County jailer said Friday that Edouard has bonded out of custody.

NEW ZEALAND/AUSTRALIA
Otago Daily Times

Learning that a priest accused of sexually abusing boys in his care has died will reopen lasting emotional wounds for his alleged victims, a sexual abuse counsellor says.

"It will retraumatise them, that's for sure ... They have been on a horrendous journey," Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Trust manager Ken Clearwater, of Christchurch, says.

Dunedin-born Fr Raymond John Garchow (64), who had lived in Australia for many years, died in Sydney this month.

He was one of five Catholic brothers or priests accused of sexually abusing boys at the St John of God Order's Marylands school at Halswell, on the outskirts of Christchurch.

TENNESSEE
Greeneville Sun

BLOUNTVILLE — Sullivan County Criminal Court Judge Robert Montgomery today denied a motion by former Catholic priest William “Bill” Casey, 76, to dismiss sexual molestation-related charges against him.

With the denial of the dismissal motion, it appears that Casey’s Criminal Court trial here on the charges will proceed as scheduled on Monday, April 11.

The charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and aggravated rape are based on alleged actions by Casey some 30 years ago when he was pastor of St. Dominick’s Roman Catholic Church in Kingsport.

YAKIMA (WA)
Yakima Herald

YAKIMA, Wash. -- In a settlement that's being called historic, an order of Roman Catholic priests has agreed to pay $166.1 million to roughly 450 Native Americans who were sexually abused by priests.

It’s the largest settlement in history between a single religious order and victims of sexual abuse, according to attoneys involved in the case.

In the settlement, the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, also agreed to issue written apologies to each victim and produce documentation that the religious order was aware of the abuse.

Attorneys from across the Northwest representing the victims, a handful of whom are Yakama tribal members, announced the settlement this morning.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Mar. 25, 2011
By John L Allen Jr

America’s Catholic bishops are notoriously divided on many fronts, but there’s at least one new point where complete consensus reigns: that the recent scandal in Philadelphia, where a grand jury found that 37 priests remained in ministry despite "substantial" allegations of sexual abuse, couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Not only do the findings call into question the bishops’ much-ballyhooed “zero tolerance” policy and their system of annual audits, but they also threaten to cloud two looming milestones that should have been occasions to tout progress: the release of a massive study of the “causes and context” of the crisis by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, slated to appear this spring, and a review of the bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” this June.

Bishops across the country say they remain committed to zero tolerance, and insist that tremendous gains have been achieved in ensuring that the church is a safe environment for children. They concede, however, that Philadelphia makes that message a much tougher sell.

“It’s a perfect storm,” one bishop said. “We’re all worried that public reaction will just bury us.”

SEATTLE (WA)
The Seattle Times

By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP
Associated Press

SEATTLE —
In one of the largest settlements in the Catholic church's sweeping sex abuse scandal, an order of priests agreed Friday to pay $166.1 million to hundreds of Native Americans and Alaska Natives who were abused at the order's schools around the Pacific Northwest.

The settlement between more than 450 victims and the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus also calls for a written apology to the victims and disclosure of documents to them, including their personal medical records.

"It's a day of reckoning and justice," said Clarita Vargas, who said she and her two sisters were abused by the head of St. Mary's Mission and School, a former Jesuit-run Indian boarding school on the Colville Indian Reservation near Omak, Wash., in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

UNITED STATES
KOMO

SEATTLE - A group of Northwest priests who sexually abused hundreds of children in the 1940s through the '90s have agreed to pay $166.1 million to the victims, say attorneys involved in the settlement.

The huge payment by the Northwest Jesuits marks the largest settlement between a religious order and abuse victims in the history of the United States.

The abuse took primarily took place in Jesuit-operated mission schools and boarding schools on Indian reservations in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Many of the victims are now in their 50s or 60s, but still have not forgotten the fear and torment they suffered at the hands of Jesuit priests who abused them sexually and psychologically. Many of those children were brought to the missions after they were abandoned by their parents.

UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

March 25, 2011, 10:46 am Posted by Grant Gallicho

Late yesterday afternoon, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops put out a statement on the sexual-abuse scandal from its president, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York. (You may have seen him on 60 Minutes this week, where he also discussed the continuing scandal.) The purpose of the statement, the archbishop writes, is “to offer reassurances that this painful issue continues to receive our careful attention, that the protection of our children and young people is of highest priority, and that the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People that we adopted in 2002 remains strongly in place.” Without noting any of the concerns about zero tolerance he shared with John Allen last month, Archbishop Dolan reaffirms the policy “to remove permanently from public ministry any priest who committed such an intolerable offense.” He also says that the charter is up for review by the bishops at their June meeting. Which is good, because, as the Catholics of yet another scandalized diocese know all too well, something isn’t working properly.

CANADA
The Casket

A Diocese of Antigonish spokesman says the settlement of a class action lawsuit filed against the diocese on behalf of victims of sexual abuse remains on track and that the process is meeting its timelines.

“It is going the way we anticipated it going,” Father Paul Abbass said. “The response of the parishes and the generosity of the parishes in this pooling, albeit very difficult for them, has been very good.”

The diocese has collected about $4 million from parishes and sold nearly $2 million of real estate listed as non-core assets. Non-core assets include parish and diocesan properties not currently in use as worship spaces or as residences for priests.
A website (www.churchpropertysales.info) lists the properties which are being sold. Individual properties are being listed by local realtors and include a short description and a link to the information page on www.realtor.ca.

CANADA
CBC News

[The Casket]

A 159-year-old community newspaper owned in part by a church is on sale to help pay millions in compensation to victims of sexual abuse.

The Casket serves the Antigonish, N.S., area. The Roman Catholic diocese of Antigonish is the majority owner, with a 62 per cent share.

But the diocese needs to raise $18 million by November for people abused by priests decades ago, so is selling the paper as well as several properties.

OREGON
The Oregonian

By Bryan Denson, The Oregonian

The Northwest's Jesuits and their insurers have agreed to pay $166.1 million in a bankruptcy settlement aimed at compensating nearly 500 people with active claims of sexual abuse by priests.

The payout is one of the largest ever made by a religious organization in the United States to abuse victims. The settlement, part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, is designed to restore financial stability to the Portland-based province.

Lawyers representing creditors in the case are announcing the settlement this morning at news conferences across the region.

OREGON/ALASKA
NWCN

by KREM.com
NWCN.com
Posted on March 25, 2011

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Society of Jesus, Oregon, has agreed to pay $166 million to settle the claims of hundreds of victims of clergy sexual abuse. The claims span a 30-year period, from the 1950s to the 1980s. They include victims across a five-state region, including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. Most victims still live in the region.

The settlement of more than 500 individual claims, the result of over a year of negotiations, is believed to be the single-largest, clergy sex-abuse bankruptcy settlement in the United States. While a number of Catholic Dioceses have filed for bankruptcy, including the Spokane Diocese, the Jesuits are the first religious order to see bankruptcy protection.

A steering committee of seven victims and their attorneys began negotiating with the Jesuits several months ago. The same committee will recommend to all claimants that the offer be accepted. Under the terms of the proposed settlement agreement, approximately 70% of the payout will come from insurance assets. The remaining 30% will be paid directly by the Oregon Province.

ALASKA
KTUU

by Chris Klint

ANCHORAGE, Alaska— A clergy organization representing Jesuit priests in Western states announced Friday that it has reached a $166.1 million agreement to settle 524 claims of clergy sex abuse.

Under the settlement, the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus -- which represents Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska and Montana -- will pay $48.1 million into a trust for the victims, while one of its insurance carriers will pay $118 million. In addition, the society will take steps to protect children from future sexual abuse.

The settlement comes after 37 lawsuits demanding about $3.1 million were filed against the Oregon Province in February by people alleging clergy sex abuse. The plaintiffs told the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Portland that the society gave money to various church-related entities before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and that the funds should be considered part of the order’s assets.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
PhillyBurbs

by JAMES McGINNIS

Four Archdiocesan priests and parochial school teacher from Bristol are expected at court in Philadelphia this afternoon for the second hearing since their arrest in February.

The Rev. James Brennan, who held positions at St. Andrew parish in Newtown Township and Assumption BVM in Feasterville, has already drawn sharp criticism from Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes after statements the priest made about the reimbursement of his legal bills.

During a March 13 hearing, Brennan said he expected the church to pay his legal bills if acquitted. Hughes said such a payment arrangement with the church would give him a disincentive to negotiate with the prosecutors, because his legal expenses might not be paid if he spoke out against the church.

TENNESSEE
Times News

By Wes Bunch

BLOUNTVILLE -- A Sullivan County judge denied a motion Thursday to dismiss the case of a former Kingsport Catholic priest who is standing trial on charges of sexually abusing a young boy over 30 years ago.

William "Bill" Casey, 76, 740 Shakerag Rd., Greeneville will now stand trial April 11 at 8:30 am in Sullivan County Circuit Court on charges of aggravated rape and first-degree sexual misconduct.

UNITED STATES
Catholic News Service

By Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. bishops' procedures for addressing child sex abuse remain "strongly in place" and the bishops remain "especially firm" in their commitment "to remove permanently from public ministry any priest who committed such an intolerable offense," said the president of the U.S. bishops' conference.

"This painful issue continues to receive our careful attention," said Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York.

"The protection of our children and young people is of highest priority," the archbishop said in a statement released March 24. He added that the "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" approved by the bishops in 2002 "remains strongly in place."

UNITED STATES
The WIP

by Alexandra Marie Daniels

-USA-

In a coffee house on Alvarado Street in Monterey, California I sat down with documentary filmmaker Jules Hart to talk about her film Pink Smoke Over the Vatican. Pink Smoke, a story about the controversial movement for women’s ordination in the Roman Catholic Church, is a subject I would normally shy away from. I have actively avoided formal religion for most of my life. But when my friend Rick Chelew, who made the film with Hart, emailed me and said “This is a perfect story for The WIP,” I was intrigued. Pink Smoke Over the Vatican is about the Catholic women and men who have taken a stand, despite excommunication, to put an end to 2,000 years of misogyny, sexism, and silence.

As a filmmaker, Jules Hart is interested in women and spirituality but wasn’t initially drawn to a film about Catholic women priests. Yet as she shared with me, “Every time you hear women can’t do something, maybe we should investigate.” Her investigation led to an inspiring film important for all. Hart illustrates the ways in which this is not only a religious issue, but also a human rights issue.

Despite ancient, archeological evidence of women as priests, bishops, and even deacons, the Roman Catholic Church succeeded for centuries in silencing women’s voices. In recent years, devout women throughout the world are responding to a calling to priesthood despite complete rejection from the Vatican. March 25, 2011 is the 17th Annual World Day of Prayer for Women’s Ordination.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Journal Times

A high-ranking church official in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia will seek to challenge evidence that led prosecutors to charge him with child endangerment.

Monsignor William Lynn will demand a preliminary hearing Friday to see if the charge should be upheld. His lawyers say the former secretary for clergy never supervised or cared for children in the archdiocese, and cannot be charged with endangering them.

Prosecutors say a 124-page grand jury report is enough to send the case to trial. The grand jury alleged Lynn transferred priests with sex-abuse histories to new parishes without sufficient warning.

TENNESSEE
WBIR

[with video]

The trial against a former East Tennessee priest accused of sexual abuse will move forward in Sullivan County.

Friday, Judge Robert Montgomery denied William Casey's motion asking that the charges to be dropped.

He ruled the statute of limitations didn't apply, because at the time, the charges carried the possibility of life in prison as a punishment.

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Friday, March 25, 2011

Additional charges were brought today against a defrocked priest accused of possessing thousands of pornographic images of children.

Oliver O'Grady (aged 65), with an address at a hostel, on Charlemont Street, in Dublin 2, had been arrested on December 10 last and charged with possessing child pornography.

He had been remanded on bail and at his fifth appearance at Dublin District Court today, Detective Garda Johanna Doyle told Judge Cormac Dunne that three further charges have been brought against Mr O'Grady.

UNITED STATES
News-Press

The Catholic Church has been running a series of advertising asking Catholics to “come home.”

I don’t think many Catholics will come home unless the Church provides divorced couples with “amnesty.” The Church’s process of “annulment” is a joke.

But this is just one of the many reasons Catholics have departed the Church, by far not the most important.

The biggest reason Catholics have abandoned Rome’s institution is because they are disgusted with the way bishops throughout the world under the precise orders of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have handled the sexual abuse of minors by priests. (And they want to canonize John Paul II?)

WISCONSIN
WTMJ

By Charlie Sykes

The left-wing Greater Wisconsin Committee has launched an attack ad against Justice David Prosser, bringing up a 33 year old case of priest sexual abuse.

The ad is already backfiring badly: one of the victims in the case has issued this letter, calling on the GWC to remove what he calls an "offensive, inaccurate and out of context context." Troy Merryfield also calls on Joanne Kloppenburg to repudiate the ad.

You can read the letter here.

WISCONSIN
WISN

[statement from Troy J. Merryfield]

MILWAUKEE, Wis. -- The 30-year-old case of Green Bay priest John Feeney is suddenly in the middle of the State Supreme Court Justice race between David Prosser and Joanne Kloppenburg.

In 1979, when Prosser was the district attorney, he investigated allegations against Feeney of child abuse, but declined to file charges.

Feeney was moved to other states and parishes.

Years later, the 1979 case was re-opened and Feeney was found guilty of abusing Todd and Troy Merryfield and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

This page presents a preliminary list of accused priests who have worked as military chaplains and chaplains at Veteran's Administration hospitals. It has been common practice for bishops and superiors of religious orders in the United States to use chaplaincies in the armed forces as a convenient place to send priests who have molested children. As a result, servicemen have been sexually assaulted, the children of soldiers have been abused, and children visiting a parent or relative at a VA hospital have been endangered. A priest's time in the military often ends with a transfer back into a parish, where parishioners know nothing of their new priest's sexual history, and the priest can use his military career in grooming new victims.

In the military, a sexually abusive priest has a powerful new tool to continue his sexual misconduct – his rank and the authority it gives him over soldiers of lower rank and their families. The Catholic church's cynical and criminal use of the armed forces as a warehouse for sex offending priests is a neglected and important aspect of the sexual abuse crisis. The bishops' practice of not reporting crimes to the police, and of moving priests who molest to unsuspecting parishes, already dishonors the justice system, the people of the parishes, and the priesthood itself. The bishops' use of the military dishonors and the men and women who protect our country, and the families that they are raising.

When bishops place priests in the VA system, they must sign a legal document stating that there is no "adverse information" regarding the priest, and a U.S. Attorney found that Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre provided false information on this form, which is a federal offense. For more details and documents about this case, see the Rev. William J. Scanlan entry below. It is certain that many other bishops have also broken the law in order to place offending priests at VA hospitals.

How prevalent is the practice of sheltering in the armed forces priests who sexually offend? Unfortunately, it is very common indeed. The preliminary list on this page provides the names of 95 priests accused of sexual abuse who have worked as military chaplains and/or VA chaplains, with information on their military service and links to articles. Our 95 is a small fraction of the true total. Yet when Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien of Baltimore, who ran the Archdiocese for the Military Services in 1997-2007, was asked in 2004 to give an account of sexual abuse in his chaplain ranks, he could count only 2 offending priests. Transparency regarding the abuse of military chaplaincies by U.S. bishops and order superiors is long overdue.

WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Sharif Durhams and Don Walker of the Journal Sentinel
March 25, 2011

A victim of Father John Patrick Feeney's sexual abuse in the 1970s writes that he's upset with an ad criticizing Supreme Court Justice David Prosser's decision not to pursue charges against Feeney when Prosser was Outagamie County District Attorney.

Troy J. Merryfield, who now lives in Suffolk, Va., released a statement Friday that says the ad by the Greater Wisconsin Committee is "offensive, inaccurate and out of context" and that he would actually vote for Prosser if he was a Wisconsin resident. He wrote that he wanted the group to remove the ad from the airwaves.

Three years ago, Merryfield was critical of Prosser, saying he should step aside when cases involving priest sexual misconduct come before the high court.

IOWA
Wisconsin Gazette

A former youth pastor in Council Bluffs, Iowa, says he had sex with teenage boys because it was his pastoral duty “to help (the teen) with homosexual urges by praying while he had sexual contact with him.”

But law enforcement has a different view of his actions. Earlier this month, Brent Girouex, 31, was arrested on 60 counts of suspicion of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist, reported The Daily Nonpareil.

In February, Girouex told Council Bluffs police detectives that he had sexual contact with four young men starting in 2007 in order to help them gain “sexual purity in the eyes of God.”

NEW YORK
Albany Times Union

By BRENDAN J. LYONS Senior writer
Updated 06:47 a.m., Friday, March 25, 2011

COLONIE -- "Treat him like you treat me. Give him God's love," he recalled the priest saying.

The bedroom door would close as a second priest would allegedly rape the little boy. When it was over, the victim said, the Rev. Alan Jupin would walk him to a bathroom where a third priest, seated, would make him perform oral sex.

"I was used as pretty much like a child sex slave," he said. "My wife has wept by my side, seen me cry myself to sleep. ... I would have flashbacks of the nights I was there during thunderstorms. I was 34 years old and laying in my bed in a fetal position in the thunderstorms."

Michael DeSantis, 34, who grew up in Colonie, said the molestation started when he was about 9. Though several years of his childhood are a complete blank, he has vague memories of riding his skateboard to Jupin's apartment at Colonie Towers on Sand Creek Road.

PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

In "Surviving and Other Essays," Bruno Bettelheim (1903-1990), the Holocaust survivor and child psychologist, wrote: "What cannot be talked about cannot be put to rest. And if it is not, the wounds will fester from generation to generation."

In the fallout from the ongoing sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, the festering continues.

So do demonstrations of courage from the survivors of horrific abuse by Catholic priests.

Silent for decades, one, Mark Rozzi, bravely began talking about the abuse he said he suffered at the hands of the Rev. Edward Graff at Holy Guardian Angels school in Hyde Park in the 1980s. I was privileged to have Mark share his story with me for this column.

PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

By KATHY KANE
Times Guest Columnist

When the first wave of clergy sex abuse in Philadelphia was exposed a few years ago, it changed something in me forever. How could this happen in my religion? How could even one child of God, let alone hundreds, be harmed by those who were proclaiming the gospel message?

It distanced me from my church; however, I remained. I stayed even though I had found that some of the same priests who have abused children have ministered to me throughout my life. I have received the Holy Eucharist from hands that have violated children, and confessed my sins to those whose own sins were simply inexcusable.

A priest who had a profound impact on my life as a child was identified as someone who did not report a fellow priest who was a notorious serial abuser. This charismatic priest, who always encouraged children to try to do the right thing, when put to the test did not do so himself.

BOSTON (MA)
the Catholic Review

By Catholic News Service

BOSTON – The Boston Archdiocese and members of the Daughters of St. Paul were scheduled to go before a mediator March 29 to resolve a number of issues in a dispute over pension funds.

The religious community said that for five years, it has tried to withdraw from the archdiocesan pension fund for lay employees so that it can establish its own pension plan for its lay employees.

According to The Associated Press, the sisters filed a lawsuit in December alleging that the pension fund’s trustees, including Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, did not give them a full accounting of what their portion of the fund is.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

ALL RELIGIONS have their mysteries. The status of their pension funds should not be one of them.

For years, the Daughters of St. Paul have been trying to obtain basic financial information about a pension fund run by the Boston Archdiocese. Frustrated by the lack of response, this order of nuns is now asking the Supreme Judicial Court to order Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley to give them a full accounting of their investment — or to rule that they were technically never part of the church-run plan and deserve a full reimbursement of their contribution.

The Daughters represent 60 nuns who live in Boston and run a publishing house. The funds at stake are not for the nuns, but for their lay employees. The nuns, who have been trying to leave the fund since 2005, believe they are owed about $1.3 million. But, according to their suit, the archdiocese won’t tell them what their assets are worth.

IRELAND
CathNews

While the public face of the Apostolic Visitation of the Church in Ireland has shown the determination of the visitators to listen to those who have been abused by priests or Religious and to demonstrate the Church’s remorse, there has been another aspect that has been unreported, reports The Tablet.

Part of the team’s remit has been to investigate seminaries and institutes of theology, and this task has been entrusted to the Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan. The Irish College in Rome and Ireland’s national seminary, St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, have come under particularly close scrutiny.

I was able to obtain part of the visitation’s working document or instrumentum laboris that relates to the seminaries. This sets out the intention to “cover all aspects of priestly formation”, noting that “special attention will be given to the criteria for admission of candidates, and the programmes for human and spiritual formation aimed at ensuring that they can faithfully live in chastity for the Kingdom.

Furthermore, attention will be reserved for the intellectual formation of seminarians, to examine its fidelity to the Magisterium, especially in the field of moral theology” (Instrumentum laboris [IL], 1, 3).

While it is clear that Archbishop Dolan (pictured) is simply following the guidance given in the working document, this part of the visitation appears to have caused some concern to staff involved and members of the wider theological community in Ireland, particularly in the field of moral theology.

UNITED KINGDOM
Ekklesia

A new European network of survivors of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church is being launched at a gathering in central London on Saturday 26 March.

Survivors Voice is an international community of men and women who were abused by Catholic clergy in their childhood.

The meeting takes place at Conway Hall from 1.30pm - 4pm, and speakers include Bernie McDaid and Gary Bergeron, co-founders of Survivors Voice from the USA; Peter Tatchell, human rights activist; David Greenwood, specialist child abuse lawyer, and Dr Tommaso Dell’Era from Italy, a former member of Opus Dei and a survivor.

In addition Silvia Amodio, a photographer from Italy, will exhibit her project, ‘Out of the Shadows’. This features pictures and stories of survivors, recently published in Marie Claire.

MONTROSE (PA)
Press Connects

Written by
William Moyer
wmoyer@gannett.com

MONTROSE, Pa. -- A former Episcopalian priest at parishes in Broome and Tioga counties will serve a 4 1/2-to-18-year sentence in a Pennsylvania state prison for sexual misconduct.

Ralph E. Johnson, 84, was sentenced Thursday in Susquehanna County Court in Montrose, Pa., according to the district attorney's office. Johnson had pled guilty last November to two charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with teenage boys in the early 1990s.

Each charge against Johnson carried a maximum sentence of 20 years.

UNITED KINGDOM
This is Staffordshire

By emma king emma.king@thesentinel.co.uk

A CATHOLIC priest at the centre of abuse allegations has been re-arrested on suspicion of similar offences.

Father Alexander Bede Walsh already faces 17 counts of indecent assault and two of serious sexual offences against four boys.

He was arrested on Wednesday regarding further allegations of sexual assault and has been bailed pending inquiries.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly Post

Robert Huber

I’m sure the apology is coming any day now, though I don’t think she’s holding her breath. Back in 2002, Lynne Abraham started noticing reports in newspapers all over the country—often small items—about sexual abuse of parishioners by priests in Catholic churches. There were vague rumblings locally about the same thing. Then the sex-abuse scandal broke in Boston. It seemed strange to Abraham that in 11 years as D.A., she had not gotten any reports, not one, about sexual misconduct of priests. Not from the Archdiocese, not from anyone. She started probing. A grand jury was convened.

What shocked her, she says now, “was the breadth and depth of the cover-up. It’s simply breathtaking. An elaborate cover-up of foisting predatory priests on children and other parishes.”

Not to mention the horrendous abuse itself that the grand jury report, released in ’05, took pains to detail: “We should begin by making one thing clear,” the report stated. “When we say abuse, we don’t just mean ‘inappropriate touching’ (as the Archdiocese often chooses to refer to it). We mean rape. Boys who were raped orally, boys who were raped anally, girls who were raped vaginally.” The report got the ball rolling, into the big public mess the Archdiocese created, and continues to create.

It might seem almost funny now, what their lawyers had to say way back then, in 2005: That the grand jury report was “a vile, mean-spirited diatribe” that sought “to convict the Catholic church and its leadership in the court of public opinion, if not in a court of law, based upon an unfair and inaccurate portrayal of facts.” The grand jury and prosecutors were “inquisitors,” the whole deal was an “anti-Catholic” smear.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Former Philadelphia district attorney Lynne Abraham, who left office more than a year ago, is hinting she might be interested in a return to public service.

Abraham, the first female DA in Philadelphia history, served in that office from 1991 until January 2010.

Retired now from public life for a little more than a year, Abraham is now working in private practice for a Philadelphia law firm.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

By Shannon McDonald

Sparked by revelations in other cities across the country, then-District Attorney Lynne Abraham led an investigation into the Archdiocese of Philadelphia nearly 10 years ago.

The accounts of rape she uncovered were hotly denied by the diocese in 2005. Her personal character was called into question.

Well we all know how that one turned out. Philadelphia magazine's Robert Huber is thinking maybe now the archdiocese should issue an apology to Abraham, since replaced by Seth Williams.

UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

by Ed Beavan

THREE Anglican Primates, attending the launch of a new report at Lambeth Palace on Monday, have reiterated their commitment to speaking out against sexual violence.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Archbishops of Burundi and Congo have written the foreword to a Tearfund document, Silent No More, which calls on Churches across the globe to take a lead in tackling sexual violence and in challenging stigma about it.

The report says that the “largely untapped potential of Churches can be released to help prevent sexual violence and reduce its impact”. It notes the statement made by the Primates at their meeting in Dublin in January, which acknowledged that Churches “must accept responsibility for our own part in perpetuating oppressive attitudes towards women”.

YAKIMA (WA)
Yakima Herald-Republic

by Jane Gargas
Yakima Herald-Republic

YAKIMA, Wash. -- A Seattle woman who said she was sexually molested by a Yakima priest when she was a teenager has settled a lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Yakima for $287,500.

Known in the lawsuit as M.C., the 57-year-old Yakima native said that Christopher Breen, who served as a priest and supervising pastor at St. Paul Cathedral in the 1960s and early 1970s, repeatedly molested her beginning when she was a sophomore in high school.

"I feel a deep sense of betrayal," M.C. said in a phone interview Wednesday from Seattle.

"I was a Catholic girl who was having family problems and, unbelievably, the person you'd least expect turned out to be a predator," she said.

MONTROSE (PA)
The Times-Tribune

BY STACI WILSON (Staff Writer)
Published: March 25, 2011

MONTROSE - An 84-year-old deposed Episcopal priest will spend 4½ years behind bars for sexually assaulting two teenage boys more than a decade ago in his Susquehanna County home.

The sentence delivered Thursday to Ralph Johnson of Gibson Twp. is likely a "death sentence," said his attorney, John Petorak, after the hearing.

In November, Mr. Johnson pleaded guilty in Susquehanna County Court to two felony counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a minor. Mr. Johnson will serve two concurrent 4½-to-18-year sentences in a state prison.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

A judge has ordered one of the priests charged with raping boys to reimburse the city $1,350 for his court-appointed lawyer during the grand jury investigation into child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes gave the Rev. James J. Brennan until Friday to repay the First Judicial District. The order could stir a new round of fireworks when, at 2 p.m., Brennan and his four codefendants return to Hughes' courtroom for the second time since their arrests last month.

In a March 14 hearing, Hughes berated Brennan when she learned he had hired private lawyers and that they hoped to be paid by the archdiocese. She said she had approved a court-appointed attorney for Brennan during the grand jury investigation because he told her at the time that he had no money to pay for counsel.

UNITED STATES
Baltimore Sun

Sun colleague Tricia Bishop reports:

Advocates for victims of clergy abuse called Thursday for an investigation into its allegations that the Catholic Church purposely funneled problem priests into the chaplain corps of the U.S. military.

Meeting with reporters outside the Downtown headquarters of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called for congressional hearings to determine “how frequently and why Catholic officials dumped predator priests on military bases.”

And they distributed documents that they said showed that Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien ignored sexual misconduct by chaplains when he headed the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Marquette Tribune

By Zach Buchheit. Published March 24, 2011.
The Archdiocese of Omaha has permanently removed a Jesuit priest, Rev. Perry Robinson, from public ministry on an allegation that he engaged in inappropriate conduct with a Marquette University High School student in the early 1980s.

Archbishop George Lucas removed Robinson, 69, from St. Gerald Catholic Church in Ralston, Neb., where he had served since 1989, after receiving a letter from the MUHS alumnus last month. The letter said Robinson had given the student an inappropriate back rub in high school and pointed out Robinson’s involvement in an early 1990s controversy, which found him in possession of several nude photographs of MUHS students.

Daniel Sheehan, the now-deceased archbishop at that time, was unaware of Robinson’s past when hiring him, according to Tim McNeil, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Omaha. Upon receiving the letter, Lucas immediately removed Robinson in keeping with the archdiocese’s “zero-tolerance” policy toward sexual abuse.

PENNSYLVANIA
Argus Press

Associated Press

An elderly former Episcopal priest has been ordered to spend more than four years in prison in northeastern Pennsylvania for involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.

WNEP-TV reports 84-year-old Ralph Johnson was sentenced Thursday to four-and-a-half years in prison as the result of his guilty plea in November.

Prosecutors said Johnson repeatedly assaulted two boys at his home near Gibson in Susquehanna County in the 1990s. Johnson was the pastor at St. Ann's church in Afton, N.Y., at the time of the assaults.

Church officials say Johnson was defrocked as a priest several years before he was charged last year.

UNITED STATES
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

WASHINGTON (March 24, 2011)—Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, reiterated the U.S. bishops’ resolve to deal firmly with clerics who abuse children in a March 22 statement.

He highlighted and endorsed efforts by bishops, clergy and laity to implement the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which was drafted by the bishops in 2002 to deal with the crisis of sexual abuse of minors by clerics. Archbishop Dolan said child abusers will not be tolerated in ministry.

“We remain especially firm in our commitment to remove permanently from public ministry any priest who committed such an intolerable offense,” he said.

The statement was developed during the USCCB Administrative Committee meeting in Washington. The Administrative Committee is the highest ranking body of bishops when the full body is not in session. It meets every September, March and November.

The full statement follows.

In light of the recent disclosures about the Church’s response to the sexual abuse of minors by priests, I have been asked by my brother bishops, gathered for the recent meeting of the Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, to offer reassurances that this painful issue continues to receive our careful attention, that the protection of our children and young people is of highest priority, and that the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People that we adopted in 2002 remains strongly in place.

Over the past nine years, we have constantly reviewed the high promises and rigorous mandates of the Charter, as we continually try to make it even more effective. Thanks to the input of our National Review Board, Catholic parents, professionals, the victim-survivor community, law enforcement officials, and our diocesan victim-assistance coordinators, we keep refining the efficiency of the Charter. We want to learn from our mistakes and we welcome constructive criticism. In fact, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has a long-planned review of the Charter scheduled for our June meeting.

UNITED STATES
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHILADELPHIA -- U.S. Catholic bishops are renewing their vow to oust predator priests, weeks after a grand jury accused the Philadelphia archdiocese of keeping 37 problem priests on the job.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says reforms adopted by the U.S. bishops in 2002 must not be "derailed."

The statement Thursday does not name the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

But the statement from Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York refers to "recent disclosures about the church's response" to priest-abuse complaints.

PENNSYLVANIA
WBNG

Montrose, PA (WBNG Binghamton) A former Episcopal priest is sentenced for having sex with minors.

Ralph Johnson, 82, will spend the next 4 1/2 to 18 years in state prison.

Johnson was sentenced this morning in Susquehanna County Court in Montrose.

Johnson was a priest at St Ann's Church in Afton.

CANADA
London Free Press

By Jane Sims The London Free Press

It wasn't until a phone call in 1989 from a school principal in Pain Court, near Chatham, that retired Bishop John Sherlock says he first heard about disgraced priest Charles Sylvestre's sexual abuses.

For the first time, the retired bishop of the Diocese of London was testifying in court in London to what he knew about Sylvestre's activities after knowing him from the time both were young priests working in Hamilton in the 1950s.

Sherlock testified at a civil trial Thursday that's examining what the church knew about Sylvestre, who was convicted in 2006 of 47 counts of indecent assault invovling girls who were members of his parishes in WIndsor, Sarnia, London, Chatham and Pain Court.

UNITED STATES
Catholic Exchange

Posted By Fr. Gordon J. MacRae On March 24, 2011

I was grateful last month when Catholic Exchange published Ryan A. MacDonald’s “A Voice in the Wilderness [1],” a review of my blog TheseStoneWalls.com [2], but something happened right afterward that left me feeling very conflicted — especially in light of this brief paragraph:

“Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of These Stone Walls is what is not found there … These Stone Walls portrays articulately a spirituality for the wrongly imprisoned and it does so with grace, dignity, and a challenge to all of us to seek justice upon the high road.”

The timing of such high praise could not have been worse. A week after I read a hard copy of the Catholic Exchange review, I learned that one of the state prosecutors in my 1994 trial took his own life several months ago. I have no idea why he did this terrible thing. I am told that he left behind a wife and child and other family.

His death had nothing to do with me, of course. It has been well over 16 years since my trial, and though it was not at all a forum for the truth, I have no reason to doubt that the prosecutors just went on to other cases without ever giving me or that trial another thought. I knew very little about this man beyond his unjust prosecution of the case against me.

UNITED STATES
Main Line

Published: Thursday, March 24, 2011

By Ray Hoffman

Nobody asked me but I think that there needs to be another level of defined sin in the Roman Catholic Church. Mortal and venial sin each has a long litany of offenses identified over the centuries, and one might think that this multitude of imperfections and separation from God covered it all. Not so fast, my friends. A few short years ago, the white-hot spotlight of front-page press illuminated pedophilia among priests throughout the United States. Child abuse by priests was amok, even affecting legions of faithful families along the Main Line. As if this evil plague of child abuse were not enough in itself, the heinous cover-up by the church hierarchy of priests abusing innocent and trusting children was equally disgraceful. The world continues today to be further appalled by and mourns this unthinkable parasitical pestilence on a daily basis. As the incidences of child abuse grow in number and location, the question could well be asked: where and when does this stop?

Last week fellow columnist Henry Briggs joined a clamoring contingent of lamenting and lambasting journalists in the cry: “Enough!” Which brings me to my suggestion that there should be another level of defined sin within the Catholic Church: unforgivable sin. No ifs, ands and buts! Just unforgivable! I know that the basis of many organized religions is that God is a forgiving Creator and Father. But it is difficult for me to believe that my God would not have a hard time forgiving men who have prostrated themselves before him, vowing that they would do his will, and to have those men shatter the sanctity of young and innocent children who have been entrusted to their care and spiritual upbringing. What is even viler is that many of these offending pedophiles are also homosexuals. Pedophilia and homosexual behavior is more than mortal (deadly) sin. It is the work of evil incarnate and therefore unforgivable.

UNITED STATES
Googling God

I’ve been quiet on this story for a bit, hoping that things will shake out faster than expected. However, things are slow and while I’m home sick for the rest of the week, I have had some time to reflect on this.

EWTN’s Fr. John Corapi has been accused by a woman of “drug addiction and multiple sexual exploits with her and other women.” He has been placed on administrative leave by his superiors until the truth can be ascertained.

I do not know, nor have I ever met Fr. Corapi. I have watched his television program a few times and have found him to be amusing and entertaining, even when I disagree with some theological points he’s made. He was in Buffalo last year and I was unable to attend his lecture. Full disclosure: His almost militaristic style is one that I don’t really like, per se, but I think he’s a good broadcaster and knows how to use the media well. I also believe that his conversion story is genuine and that he is sincere in his efforts to bring people to the faith. Perhaps he’s a bit of an egomaniac, but anyone in the public eye can fall to that allure, myself included.

DUITSLAND
Nieuws (Nederland)

(Novum/AP) - Duitsers die als kind seksueel misbruikt zijn krijgen tot dertig jaar na hun 21ste verjaardag de tijd om hun daders voor het gerecht te slepen. Het Duitse kabinet heeft daartoe een wetswijziging voorbereid. Aanleiding vormt het misbruikschandaal binnen de rooms-katholieke kerk vorig jaar.

Voorheen was de limiet voor misbruikzaken slechts drie jaar. Strafzaken hebben limieten van drie tot dertig jaar, afhankelijk van de aanklacht. De Duitse minister van justitie Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger is vol lof over de nieuwe wet omdat die slachtoffers meer rechten geeft.

IRELAND
Spero News

Monsignor Hugh Connolly, President of Saint Patrick's College, Maynooth, said today that speculative media reports suggesting that the national seminary may close "are without foundation".

Msgr Connolly said: "There are 72 men studying for the priesthood in Maynooth, making us the largest seminary on these islands and one of the largest in Europe. Media reports today about the possible closure of the seminary are without foundation. The media outlet leading with this incorrect story was sent a reply from us yesterday and its absence from the published copy is disappointing and damaging.

"Saint Patrick's College, Maynooth, is a vibrant centre of seminary formation and theological research. In addition to our 72 student priests, we provide academic formation for an increasing number of non-resident seminarians from religious orders, and for 366 lay students."

IRELAND
UTV

The President of Ireland's largest training college for priests has said media reports suggesting the national seminary may close "are without foundation."

St Patrick's College Maynooth in Co Kildare has been preparing men for the priesthood since 1795.

Monsignor Hugh Connolly said: "There are 72 men studying for the priesthood in Maynooth, making us the largest seminary on these islands and one of the largest in Europe. Media reports today about the possible closure of the seminary are without foundation.

IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

Maynooth College may soon cease to function as a Catholic seminary marking the end of a 200-year-tradition, The Irish Catholic has learned.

The national seminary, which has educated Irishmen for the priesthood since 1795, may be set for closure after the recent Apostolic Visitation by New York's Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan. It is expected the report will recommend that Pope Benedict XVI move all Irish seminarians to a reformed and restructured Pontifical Irish College in Rome.

The historic shift would bring an end to concerns about falling academic standards at Maynooth and claims by some that the college in no longer 'fit for mission'. One senior academic told The Irish Catholic that the Apostolic Visitors were ''appalled'' by some of the standards in Maynooth. Rome would give access to heavyweight universities under direct scrutiny from the Vatican.

IRELAND
Irish Central

By CATHY HAYES, IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

New York's Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan will submit a report to Pope Benedict XVI which is expected to recommend that all Irish priests be trained in the Pontifical Irish College in Rome according to the Irish Catholic newspaper.

This means that priests will no longer be trained in Ireland.

Dolan is one of the American and Canadian bishops tasked with enforcing strict new rules on the Irish church by the Vatican after the pedophile controversy.

His historic decision would mean that officially the seminaries in Ireland are no long "fit for mission". A senior academic told the Irish Catholic that the Apostolic visitor were "appalled" by the standards at Maynooth College, in Kildare where priests have been trained for centuries.

IRELAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

The head of Maynooth College has denied reports it is to close, describing them as ‘disappointing and damaging.’

“Maynooth is confident of its contribution to the future of the Church in Ireland,” Mgr Hugh Connolly said. “There are 72 men studying for the priesthood in Maynooth, making us the largest seminary on these islands and one of the largest in Europe. Media reports today about the possible closure of the seminary are without foundation.” ...

The future of the seminary was reported to be in doubt following the recent Apostolic Visitation by Archbishop Timothy M Dolan of New York, amid concerns about failing academic standards and the low number of seminarians and teaching staff at Maynooth

CALIFORNIA
Leagle

JOHN DOE, Plaintiff and Appellant,v.THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF STOCKTON et al., Defendants and Respondents.
No. C064094.
Court of Appeals of California, Third District, San Joaquin.

Filed March 23, 2011.

BUTZ, J.
Another alleged victim of sexual abuse comes before this court, appealing the dismissal of a lawsuit that seeks to hold Catholic Church entities liable for child sexual abuse perpetrated by one of their priests decades ago.

Plaintiff John Doe claims his suit is timely under the common law "delayed accrual" rule as recognized in Evans v. Eckelman (1990) 216 Cal.App.3d 1609 (Evans), or under the current version of Code of Civil Procedure section 340.1,1 because he did not recover memory of the abuse and its connection to his psychological injuries until he was well into middle age. He maintains this position despite the fact that his lawsuit was filed well after the one-year "revival window" that the Legislature created during the calendar year 2003 within which to bring lapsed claims against nonabuser defendants who knew or had reason to know their agents or employees were molesting children. (§ 340.1, subds. (b)(2), (c).)

We have weighed in on the issue on previous occasions. (K.J. v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Stockton (2009) 172 Cal.App.4th 1388, review granted June 24, 2009, S173042; D.D. v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Stockton (Aug. 12, 2009, C057260) [nonpub. opn.], review granted Nov. 10, 2009, S176451; L.A. v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Stockton (Aug. 12, 2009, C057895) [nonpub. opn.], review granted Nov. 10, 2009, S176483;Jane Roe 21 v. Defendant Doe 1 (2010) (Dec. 7, 2010, C062505) [nonpub. opn.], review granted Mar. 2, 2011, S189814.) On each occasion, we agreed with the result reached by the Second Appellate District, Division Eight, in Hightower v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Sacramento (2006) 142 Cal.App.4th 759. Hightower held that childhood sexual molestation claims against nonabuser entity defendants that were time-barred before January 1, 2003, remain time-barred unless the victims filed suit during the one-year revival window, even if they did not recover their memory of the abuse until after the window period closed. (Hightower, at pp. 767-768.)

PENNSYLVANIA
Independent Weekender

BY STACI WILSON and ROBERT L. BAKER

A priest from a Susquehanna County monastery is accused of sexually assaulting a teen boy whose family was staying at the cloistered retreat in Little Meadows.

Phillip Albert Ferrara, 48, of 550 Lake of the Meadows Road, Little Meadows, faces three counts of indecent assault of a person under the age of 16 and three corruption of minor charges stemming from incidents that occurred between Nov. 3, 2010, and Jan. 2.

All are misdemeanor counts. Tpr. Mark Keyes filed the charges against the priest.

Ferrara turned himself in at the Gibson State Police barracks Friday at about 9:30 a.m.

UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

By William Oddie on Thursday, 24 March 2011

There can be very little doubt that it had become necessary to set up some kind of procedure for the protection of children from sexual abuse by that tiny minority of priests who have been involved in this hideous crime. As I have repeatedly pointed out, this minority is numerically no greater than the percentage of abusers in the male population at large. According to one source, “the prevalence of paedophilia in the general population is not known, but is estimated to be lower than five per cent based on several smaller studies with prevalence rates between three per cent and nine per cent”. The rate among priests is almost certainly at or below the lower end of this range. That is, of course, no excuse for those who have committed it. It’s no defence to say that priests are no worse than other men: they ought to be a good deal better.

As Archbishop Vincent Nichols has rightly said, “in the last 40 years, less than half of one per cent of Catholic priests in England and Wales (0.4 per cent) have had allegations of child abuse made against them. Fewer have been found guilty. Do not misunderstand me. One is too many… The work of safeguarding, needed within any organisation and within our society as a whole, is demanding but absolutely necessary.”

So, something had to be done, even though the Church is practically the only organisation in society which is actually doing it. First, those very few children and teenagers actually in danger from Catholic priests obviously had to be protected. Second, and understandably, Catholic hierarchies, having erred in one direction in the past, had to make sure they were immune from such accusations in the future. So they set up procedures so rigorous that they have now erred in the other direction: in other words, without necessarily having any evidence of any kind, they now immediately suspend any priest accused, whether the accusations are believable or not. Innocent or guilty, this has often been enough to wreck his priestly ministry for ever: after all, everyone knows that there is no smoke without fire.

PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

By Phil Heron, editor@delcotimes.com

We had a great discusssion last night concerning the sex abuse scandal dogging the Catholic church on our weekly live Internet show, “Live From the Newsroom.”

Many thanks to our two special guests who joined Gil Spencer and myself for the show.

Frank Finnegan, the Collingdale man who went public with his plight last week when he filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese and several church leaders alleging sexual abuse and a cover-up, again made a passionate call for change in church policies and its hierarchy.

Frank was joined via conference call by his brother Jack, who lives in California. Jack told a similarly harrowing tale of abuse by a now-dead priest, a close friend of the family who came into their home and had dinner with the family every week for 30 years, who is now deceased.

AKRON (OH)
ABC 6

AKRON, Ohio (AP) -- An Ohio Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty in a federal tax fraud case has been suspended as he and federal prosecutors appeal his sentence.

The Beacon Journal in Akron reports the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland suspended the Rev. Samuel Ciccolini (chih-koh-LEE'-nee) last week, meaning he can't participate in public ministry.

Ciccolini was ordered in October to pay nearly $3.5 million in restitution to the fundraising arm of an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center he founded. He also was fined $350,000 and sentenced to one day in prison for federal banking and income tax fraud charges.

AKRON (OH)
Beacon Journal

By Colette M. Jenkins
Beacon Journal religion writer

The Rev. Samuel R. Ciccolini has been suspended by the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. The suspension, effective last Friday, means the well-known priest, better known as ''Father Sam,'' cannot publicly say Mass or hear confessions.

Ciccolini, 68, has assisted at Immaculate Conception of Mary parish in Akron's Kenmore neighborhood since 1980. Over the years, he has celebrated weekday Mass on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and one on weekends at the church.

Parishioners at Immaculate Conception were read a letter from Catholic Diocese of Cleveland Bishop Richard G. Lennon during weekend Masses informing them of Ciccolini's suspension and that his salary, paid by the diocese, would be discontinued effective March 31. The Rev. Michael B. Smith, pastor at Immaculate Conception, confirmed that the letter was read but would not comment further.

GERMANY
The Associated Press

By The Associated Press

BERLIN — Germans who were sexually abused as children will now have up to 30 years after their 21st birthday to bring their alleged attackers before the courts.

The change was triggered by last year's sex abuse scandal that rocked the nation's Roman Catholic Church.

The previous statute of limitations on civil abuse cases was only three years. Criminal cases have a statute of limitations ranging from three to 30 years, depending on the charges.

Mar. 23, 2011
By Gerald Slevin

Germain Grisez, a retired moral philosophy professor who worked on the papal birth control commission in the 1960s, appears to be trying to revise Vatican history with the revelation of new documents dealing with the workings of the commission.

However, the documents, apparently without intention, reveal how a powerful Vatican official, working closely with Pope Paul VI, privately maintained a close control of the process and results of the commission’s work.

The commission, begun by Pope John XXIII in 1962 and later working on the aegis of Paul VI, eventually ended its tenure with a report asking that the church’s ban on all forms of artificial birth control be lifted.

Immediately, a second report, objecting to the commission’s final report, was called for by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and a powerful church conservative at the time.

IRELAND
The Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW in Rome

THE PRESIDENT of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Msgr Hugh Connolly, yesterday denied media speculation the college may shortly be closed.

Responding to a report in this week’s Irish Catholic which claims that the Vatican’s apostolic visitors will recommend that all Irish seminarians be moved to the pontifical Irish College in Rome, Msgr Connolly said: “There are 72 men studying for the priesthood in Maynooth, making us the largest seminary on these islands and one of the largest in Europe. Media reports today about the possible closure of the seminary are without foundations.

“Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth is a vibrant centre of seminary formation and theological research.”

GERMANY
Michael-in-Norfolk

As noted in recent posts, the Catholic Church hierarchy has continued its anti-gay jihad and even oppose the newly adopted U.N. resolution opposing the criminalization of homosexuality and same sex relations, a problem that is wide spread in Middle Eastern nations and certainly parts of Africa and in a number of Caribbean nations. Now, perhaps in a case of Divine justice, Germany's cabinet has approved legislation that extends the statute of limitations to take legal action in civil cases for sexual abuse from three to 30 years after a victim's 21st birthday. Given the ongoing explosion of sex abuse allegations in Europe and Germany in particular, it is safe to assume that the Catholic Church and a number of "princes of the Church" may well be hit with a wave of lawsuits. Personally, I hope that such is the case and that in the course of such lawsuits, the abject moral bankruptcy of the Church hierarchy becomes unmistakable even to the worse Church apologists. Here are highlights from Duetsche Welle:
*
Germany's cabinet approved legislation on Wednesday that extends the statute of limitations to take legal action in civil cases from three to 30 years after a victim's 21st birthday. The legislation is expected to pass in parliament later this year.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel
March 23, 2011

While bankruptcy has stalled the pending court cases against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee over its handling of clergy sex abuse cases, its biggest benefactor is waging its own battle - now before the U.S. Supreme Court - over allegedly fraudulent securities practices by energy conglomerate Halliburton Co.

The Erica P. John Fund, known until 2009 as the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Supporting Fund, is the lead plaintiff in an 8-year-old class-action lawsuit alleging that Halliburton made false statements about its business between 1999 and 2001, causing investors to lose money when it corrected those statements and its stock price declined.

At issue before the Supreme Court is whether plaintiffs should have to prove "loss causation" - in this case whether Halliburton's corrected statements caused the price drop and subsequent losses - in order to be certified as a class action.

NEW HAVEN (CT)
Yale Daily News

By Eli Markham
Contributing Reporter

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic charity organization headquartered in New Haven, is the target of a sexual abuse lawsuit.

After two Texas men who claim the organization neglected to protect them from a sexual predator in the 1970s and 1980s filed a lawsuit against the Knights last December, the Knights moved to have the case dismissed Mar. 14. The Knights deny all allegations and claim to have acted promptly when they first became aware of the problem in 2009. They have asked the United States District Court in Hartford to dismiss the case on the grounds it was filed too late.

The two men, who were both members of the Knights’ youth program, Columbian Squires, claim that they were molested by Juan Rivera, the leader of the Squires in Brownsville, Tex. They claim that the Knights of Columbus refused to act or protect them despite learning about the incident 25 years ago.

GERMANY
Deutsche Welle

Germany's cabinet has approved a bill to allow of in adults who were sexually abused as children to sue for damages decades later.

Adults who were victims of sexual abuse as children will soon have considerably longer to sue for damages in German court. Germany's cabinet approved legislation on Wednesday that extends the statute of limitations to take legal action in civil cases from three to 30 years after a victim's 21st birthday.

The legislation is expected to pass in parliament later this year.

The government was prompted to change the current limitation by last year's Catholic Church sex scandal, in which German clerics were accused of over 50 sexual abuse cases in the 1970s and '80s. Victims had little chance of pursuing such cases in court due to the three-year limit to take legal action.

CALIFORNIA
San Cemente Times

The Orange County District Attorney's Office is seeking the public's help identifying potential additional victims of a former San Clemente youth pastor who allegedly sexually assaulted a 14-year-old female parishioner in 1993.

Authorities filed the charges after his alleged victim came forward earlier this year.

Joe David Nelms, 47, faces eight felony counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 and faces a maximum sentence of 22 years in state prison if convicted.

Nelms was arrested March 18, 2011, in Lindale, Texas, on an Orange County warrant and is being held without bail. He will now face extradition proceedings in Texas. Upon his extradition to Orange County, the People will be requesting Nelms be held on $200,000 bail. His arraignment date is to be determined.

CALIFORNIA
The Orange County Register

By LARRY WELBORN
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – A Texas man has been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl when he was the youth pastor at a San Clemente church in 1993, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Joe David Nelms, 47, formerly of San Clemente, is charged with eight felony counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 and faces a maximum sentence of 22 years in state prison if convicted

County warrant and is being held without bail pending an extradition hearing. Upon his return to Orange County, prosecutors will request that he be held in lieu of $200,000 bail, according to a news release from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

UNITED STATES
Catholic News Agency

By Archbishop Timothy Dolan

It was only the third time it had happened to me in my nearly thirty-five happy years as a priest, all three times over the last nine-and-a-half years.

Other priests tell me it has happened to them a lot more.

Three is enough. Each time has left me so shaken I was near nausea.

It happened last Friday...

I had just arrived at the Denver Airport, there to speak at their popular annual “Living Our Catholic Faith” conference.

As I was waiting with the others for the electronic train to take me to the terminal, a man, maybe in his mid-forties, waiting as well, came closer to me.

“Are you a Catholic priest?” he kindly asked.

“Sure am. Nice to meet you,” says I, as I offered my hand.

He ignored it. “I was raised a Catholic,” he replied, almost always a hint of a cut to come, but I was not prepared for the razor sharpness of the stiletto, as he went on, “and now, as a father of two boys, I can’t look at you or any other priest without thinking of a sexual abuser.”

ALBANY (NY)
Albany Times Union

ALBANY -- The story of the Rev. John Corapi has been told many times.

The Hudson native went from Green Beret to millionaire in Las Vegas. He had a mansion in Malibu, a Ferrari and a yacht -- then lost it all with drug abuse that left him homeless in Los Angeles.

In 1991, at the age of 44, Corapi was ordained by Pope John Paul II. He has appeared on cable television.

His story has been one of redemption -- until now.

Corapi, 63, of Montana, has been placed on administrative leave amid allegations of affairs with women and drug use. His Texas-based order, the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, announced the action March 18.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Los Angeles Times

Sexual abuse lawsuit: In the March 22 Section A, a brief news item about a civil lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by a priest in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia misspelled the name of a parish cited by the man who filed the suit. The man, a former altar boy, said he was abused at Our Lady of Calvary, not Cavalry, parish from 1988 to 1991.

CALIFORNIA
Modesto Bee

By Bill Lindelof - blindelof@sacbee.com

The Rev. John Corapi, who once served a prominent position in the Sacramento Roman Catholic Diocese, has been placed on administrative leave in Texas after allegations of misconduct.

The claim of misconduct does not involve minors and does not rise to a level of criminal conduct, said the Rev. Gerald Sheehan of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity based in the Corpus Christi area.

Corapi, 63, is a nationally known speaker and a regular on Catholic television. When he was in Sacramento during the mid-1990s, he served as the director of Catholic Faith Formation and packed churches and social halls with his talks about sin, sacraments and faith.

DeKALB (IL)
Rockford Register Star

DEKALB — The Rev. John Corapi has been placed on administrative leave and has canceled scheduled stops in Rockford and DeKalb following allegations of drug use and sexual misconduct.

Corapi, a nationally known Catholic priest, was set to be the only speaker at a Catholic Charities Diocese of Rockford fundraising event Saturday at the Northern Illinois University Convocation Center. Corapi, 63, also was to be in Rockford on Friday meeting with sponsors of the event.

Corapi, in a three-page letter from a former employee sent to several bishops, was accused of abusing drugs as well as having sexual encounters with multiple women.

TEXAS
Houston Press

By Mandy Oaklander, Wed., Mar. 23 2011

​Guru Prakashanand Saraswati, founder and religious guiding light of Barsana Dham ashram near Austin, was found guilty earlier this month of 20 counts of sexual indecency with children. Three of his former female students accused him of fondling and kissing them when they were all around age 12. This, they were told at the time, was an auspicious honor.

"I was told it was a test and if I failed it I would go to hell," one of the women said in court. Now the 82-year-old Saraswati is trying to sidestep a hell of his own -- 280 years in jail -- by fleeing to Mexico.

Officials say the runaway guru is likely hiding either in Nuevo Laredo, where he is presumed to have crossed the border, or in Monterrey, reported the Austin American-Statesman.

STATEN ISLAND (NY)
NBC New York

A former counselor at a Staten Island summer camp for special needs kids has been charged with child sex abuse, law enforcement officials said.

Francesco Zaffuto, 19, of Huguenot, is accused of directing an 8-year-old autistic child to perform sexual acts on him on at least three occasions while he was working at the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin at Mount Loretto summer camp, District Attorney Dan Donovan said.

Zaffuto had been arrested in late January on charges of uploading and possessing dozens of images that show children younger than 16 engaging in sexual acts with each other and with adults, including the photos of himself with the victim, police said.

STATEN ISLAND (NY)
Staten Island Advance

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A former special-needs camp counselor is accused of forcing an 8-year-old autstic boy to perform sexual acts on him on three occassions -- and keeping "trophy photos" of the incident on his computer.

Prosecutors today unsealed a shocking 104-count indictment against Francesco Zaffuto, 19, of Huguenot, who worked in 2008 as a counselor at a summer camp at the Mission of the Immaculte Virgin at Mount Lorretto, Pleasant Plains. Among the most-serious charges are three counts of first-degree criminal sex act.

The alleged victim was one of the youngsters under his care, and was unable to verbally communicate the abuse due to his condition. Authorities say the abuse occurred on three instances.

STATEN ISLAND (NY)
New York Daily News

BY Barry Paddock and Rocco Parascandola
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

A former counselor at a Staten Island summer camp was charged Wednesday with sexually abusing an autistic boy and taking pictures of the crime, officials said.

Francesco Zaffuto, 19, forced the then-8-year-old boy - who can't speak - to perform sex acts in a camp bathroom over several days in 2008, Staten Island prosecutors said.

Zaffuto documented the assaults by snapping 35 pictures on an iPhone, authorities said.

STATEN ISLAND
New York Post

By PERRY CHIARAMONTE

A creepy counselor who used his mother’s iPhone to take "trophy photos" of an 8-year-old autistic boy he allegedly assaulted at a Catholic-run Staten Island day camp came to court today bizarrely clutching "The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll" – a collection by the child nudity-loving author of "Alice in Wonderland."

Francesco Zaffuto, 19, turned himself into the District Attorney’s office this morning and was hit with an 104-count indictment, including four counts of sexual abuse, three counts of performing a criminal sex act, endangering the welfare of a child and 48 counts each of promoting and possessing the sexual performance of a child.

Prosecutors said Zaffuto used his mother’s iPhone to snap images of an assault on the boy at the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin at Mount Loretto summer camp in Pleasant Plains in late August 2008.

In some photos, the victim can be seen wearing clothing with the logo of the camp, which is affiliated with the Archdiocese of New York.

SACRAMENTO (CA)
Sacramento Bee

By Bill Lindelof
blindelof@sacbee.com

Father John Corapi, who once served a prominent position in the Sacramento Roman Catholic Diocese, has been placed on administrative leave in Texas after allegations of misconduct.

Corapi, 63, is a nationally known speaker and a regular on Catholic television. When he was in Sacramento during the mid-1990s, he served as the director of Catholic Faith Formation and packed churches and social halls with his talks about sin, sacraments and faith.

"We have received an allegation that Father Corapi has behaved in a manner unbecoming a priest and are duty-bound to conduct an investigation," said Father Gerald Sheehan of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity based in the Corpus Christi area.

Sheehan in his statement noted that the allegation does not imply that Corapi is guilty. The claim of misconduct also does not involve minors and does not arise to the level of criminal conduct, Sheehan said.

TEXAS
The Statesman

By Eric Dexheimer | Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Yesterday afternoon we reported that U.S. Marshals believed Prakashanand Saraswati, who was convicted by a Hays County jury of 20 counts of indecency with a child by sexual contact on March 4 and who fled two days later, was hiding out in Mexico.

A spokesman for the federal agency said the Hindu guru, who founded the Barsana Dham ashram in Driftwood, was probably receiving logistical and financial support from his devotees, and was likely seeking to hire a plane to take him to India.

We’ll report developments as they occur. In the meantime, here is the U.S. Marshal’s wanted poster:

CHICAGO (IL)
Dolan Law Offices

Last October, a cooperative study among Chicago advocacy groups showed that more than half of Chicago’s parishes had employed priests accused of sexual abuse. Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP,) African American Advocates for Victims of Clergy and Sexual Abuse, and Voice of the Faithful found that publicly accused priests have worked in nearly 60% of Chicago parishes.

The study and statistical analyses were carried out by VOTF and SNAP advocates using official church directories listing priests and their assignments, as well as the Archdiocese of Chicago website and USPS ZIP code information. (VOTF.) The study also relied on the Bishop Accountability website, a widely respected source on accused clergy. The groups spent five years combing through data. They believe that the number of unreported cases could make the number even larger.

“The key word is ‘publicly accused’” said SNAP founder and president Barbara Blaine. “History, psychology and common sense tell us there are dozens and dozens of other offending nuns, seminarians, brothers, priests, bishops and lay employees who have molested or are molesting kids now whose identities are not known” (Huffiington Post.)

DeKALB (IL)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockford

Father John Corapi will not appear as planned at the Northern Illinois University Convocation Center on Saturday, March 26, or meet with sponsors of the event the night before
in Rockford.

Corapi was to be the only speaker at a major conference planned as a fund-raising program for Catholic Charities, according to Frank Vonch, director of the agency. “Without him there is no program,” Vonch said.

He added that all ticket sales and sponsorships would be refunded, although he is still working on details regarding how the refund process will proceed. “We hope to have those details worked out in the next 72 hours,” he said, adding that they will be posted on the Catholic Charities website (www.fathercorapidekalb.com) as soon as they are finalized. If people have
questions, they are welcome to call the Catholic Charities office at 815- 387-3374 between 9
a.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays.

Vonch said today that he received word from Father Corapi’s religious superior, Father Gerard Sheehan, Regional Priest Servant of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, that Father Corapi would not be able to fulfill his engagements in DeKalb and Rockford because he “has been placed on administrative leave from priestly ministry, in accordance to the Code of
Canon Law of the Catholic Church.”

DeKALB (IL)
Daily Chronicle

By DAILY CHRONICLE - news@daily-chronicle.com

DeKALB – A fundraiser that was to be held Saturday at the Convocation Center in DeKalb has been canceled after misconduct allegations were made against the keynote speaker.

Father John Corapi was to be the only speaker at a conference planned as a fundraising program for Catholic Charities, Frank Vonch, director of the agency, said in a news release from the Rockford Diocese.

On March 18, all U.S. bishops were sent a memo from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that said Corapi had been placed on administrative leave and removed of his priestly duties after officials received allegations of misconduct about the priest, according to the news release.

TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The Associated Press

AUSTIN — A federal marshal says a Hindu guru sentenced to 20 14-year prison terms for molesting two girls as they grew up on his Central Texas ashram is believed to be in Mexico.

Prakashanand Saraswati (prah-KAHSH'-ah-nahnd sah-rah-SWAH'-tee) failed to appear for his March 8 sentencing in San Marcos, and State District Judge Charles Ramsay issued a warrant for his arrest.

TEXAS/MEXICO
The Statesman

A religious guru who fled Hays County after being convicted of more than 20 counts of indecency with a child by sexual contact, is believed to be hiding in Mexico with the aid of his followers, U.S. Marshal Hector Gomez said Tuesday. Gomez said 82-year-old Prakashanand Saraswati, also known as Shree Swamiji, fled March 6 and probably crossed through the border city of Nuevo Laredo. He was later sentenced to 14 years in prison for each of 20 counts of molesting two girls who grew up at the Barsana Dham ashram in Driftwood.

Officials think he is either still in Nuevo Laredo or Monterrey. Gomez said Prakashanand is probably trying to solicit a pilot to fly him to India, but that could be difficult without his passport, which the court seized. "There are people that we've talked to who are devoted followers of his and they will sacrifice criminal charges and prosecution to help his flight," Gomez said. The biggest challenge, he said, is capturing Prakashanand before he enters his native India, where his extradition back to the United States might not be granted.

GUAM
Pacific News Center

Guam - The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests [SNAP] is again calling on Archbishop Anthony Apuron to make public the names of all priests who work, or have worked on Guam, and have been "credibly accused" of sexually abuse.

In a release to the media, SNAP's Western Regional Director, Joelle Casteix, says she has written a letter to Archbishop Apuron asking him to "embrace 'the letter and the spirit' of two new laws that help victims keep kids safe by exposing child predators in court."

The letter asks the Archbishop to:

* make public on the diocese website and in the media the names of all credibly accused priests who work or have worked on Guam,
* turn over secret documents that outline abuse allegations and actions taken (if any) by church officials, and
* make public all information about abuse on Guam disclosed to officials in other dioceses.

TEXAS
KXAN

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Missing Hindu leader Shree Swamiji, who was convicted this month of sexually abusing two girls in Central Texas, is likely in Mexico and soliciting flights to India, the U.S. Marshal's Office said Tuesday.

Federal authorities are also charging Swamiji with unlawful flight to avoid apprehension.

"He is believed to be in one of the Mexican towns of Tamilitas or Nuevo Leon," said Hecto Gomez, a supervisory deputy marshal. "We’ve contacted the Mexico City office to coordinate with their local counterparts there as to likely locations. Our search efforts are focusing right across the border or no further than Monterrey."

UNITED STATES
Patheos

What seemed "The Most Important Story in the Catholic Universe" to some is causing nary a ripple in the lives of other Catholics, but in another sense, it concerns the whole Body of Christ.

By Deacon Greg Kandra, March 23, 2011

Since Saturday, the blogosphere has been crackling with the sensational news that Fr. John Corapi—renowned speaker, televangelist, and a "star" at EWTN—has been placed on "administrative leave." Corapi's own website broke the story Friday night with the headline "A Call for Prayer," explaining that a female former employee had accused him of "everything from drug addiction to multiple sexual exploits"—all allegations that the priest says are false.

Well. The news quickly spread from my blog to others, darting through Twitter feeds and Facebook postings and chatrooms, ricocheting from computer screen to laptop like an Angry Bird breaking through bricks. I was stunned at the fevered reaction and at what some commenters had to say about it.

Fr. Corapi has had a profound impact on thousands of lives, and the Cult of Corapi is undeniably large, and loyal. Some readers said he was the only one proclaiming the Truth. Others sent in phone numbers, offering their legal services. For some, he is nothing less than John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness. To others, he is another Padre Pio, undergoing persecution for the sake of the Kingdom.

As the news continued to spread, one could be forgiven for thinking this was The Most Important Story in the Catholic Universe last weekend. But mid-day Monday, I found myself by a bank of elevators, waiting to go to lunch. Two priests soon joined me, also heading out to lunch. One of them, a monsignor, smiled and said hello. We waited for several long moments in silence, and then I decided to make chit-chat.

"So," I offered, clearing my throat, "did you hear the news about Fr. Corapi?"

GUAM
KUAM

by Mindy Aguon

Guam - The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) have called on the Guam Catholic Church to embrace the letter and spirit of two new laws to keep kids safe from child predators.

The organization have urged Archbishop Anthony Apuron to make public the names of all credibly accused priests who work or have worked on Guam, turn over secret documents that outline abuse allegations and any actions taken by church officials and make public all information about abuse on Guam disclosed to officials in other dioceses.

SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Catholic San Francisco

March 23rd, 2011

The Archdiocese of San Francisco released the following statement March 18:

Last week an allegation of sexual abuse of a 17-yearold young woman surfaced against Father Daniel Keohane, the associate pastor of St. Cecilia Parish in San Francisco. The alleged abuse took place in the late l970s when Father Keohane was assigned to Church of the Epiphany. The archdiocese has deemed this allegation to be credible (i.e., warranting further investigation), and thus in accord with archdiocesan policies for the protection of minors, Father Keohane has been placed on immediate administrative leave pending a comprehensive investigation. He has denied the allegation.

Also in accord with archdiocesan policy, the district attorney has been informed about this allegation. The Independent Review Board of the archdiocese has been consulted and will be responsible for an evaluation of the findings and a recommendation of action to the archbishop once the comprehensive investigation has been completed.

IOWA
Press TV (Iran)

A former youth pastor arrested in Iowa on 60 counts of suspicion of sexual exploitation allegedly told teenage boys he was trying to help them gain "sexual purity in the eyes of God."

Thirty-one-year-old Brent Girouex, a former youth pastor at Victory Fellowship Church in Council Bluffs, turned himself in to the police in February after four young men came forward with allegations against him, The Daily Nonpareil reported.

Girouex has been released on a $30,000 bond and is due back in court on April 21. If found guilty, he faces up to five years on each charge.

Court documents show Girouex told investigators he had sexual contact with a teenage boy 25 to 50 times over a four-year period, starting when the boy was 14-years-old. He allegedly told investigators that it was his duty as a youth pastor "to help [the teen] with homosexual urges by praying while he had sexual contact with him."

NEW YORK
Gothamist

In January Michael Clare, the 38-year-old married pastor of the Harvest Worship Center in the Bronx (and principal of its affiliated school, Harvest Prep), was charged with sexual abuse by one of his flock. Specifically, a now 15-year-old girl claimed Clare inappropriately interacted with her for over three years. Despite DNA evidence from the victim's aborted fetus, Clare has maintained his innocence and yesterday rejected a plea deal that would have put him behind bars for just two years.

"He turned down the plea deal because he's innocent," Clare's lawyer Paul Brenner explained after court. Not that prosecution seems to mind the defendant's insistence, though. "This was a sweetheart offer considering the evidence against him," one prosecutor said after court. "It won't get any better from here."

VANCOUVER (WA)
KPTV

By Jamie Wilson
jamie.wilson@kptv.com

VANCOUVER, Wash. -- Jason Wolk, who is accused of sexually abusing two teenage boys from his church youth group, made his first appearance in Clark County Court today.

The 25-year-old is charged with four counts of child molestation and one count of sexual misconduct with a minor.

Wolk used to lead the youth group at the Vancouver Wesleyan Church. Investigators believe he molested the boys during private mentoring meetings and on a camping trip out of the area.

Some family members of the accusers were in the courtroom today to face Wolk. One relative, who did not want to be identified, tells FOX 12 that when the boys came forward about Wolk, the whole family was blindsided.

VANCOUVER (WA)
The Columbian

By Bob Albrecht
Columbian Staff Reporter

A former volunteer youth leader at a Vancouver church made his first appearance in court Tuesday afternoon on suspicion of inappropriate sexual conduct with two teenage boys.

Jason Lee Wolk, 25, of Vancouver will be arraigned next month on one count of second-degree sexual molestation and four counts of third-degree child molestation.

The sexual abuses were alleged to have taken place between June and December.

Wolk said little during his appearance before Clark County Superior Court Judge John Nichols.

MISSISSIPPI
The Clarion-Ledger

Written by
Jimmie E. Gates
jgates@clarionledger.com

An attorney for a Jackson pastor accused in a lawsuit of coercing a young male church member into a sexual relationship says the lawsuit has no merits and the accuser is only seeking his 15 minutes of fame.

Kevin Joseph Boyd Sr., senior pastor of The Apostolic Church, 1735 Shady Lane Drive, is responding to the lawsuit filed against him in Hinds County Circuit Court in October. Boyd also operates a church in New Orleans.

"The bishop vehemently denies the allegations of sex abuse and looks forward to his day in court to clear his good name," said Boyd's attorney, Carlos Moore of Grenada. "I have not seen one shred of evidence to substantiate any of the allegations against my client."

UNITED STATES
Voice from the Desert

Frank Douglas

There is no implied order or priority in this list.

1.The culture of celibacy provides an effective hiding place for many sexually dysfunctional men.
2.Church leaders hate democracy; they don’t believe in freedom, equality, or free speech.
3.Unlike the Mafia, Church leaders (bishops, pope) don’t protect women and children.
4.Bishops swear complete loyalty to the pope; they are in effect kept men.
5.Money buys influence in the Church, just like everywhere else.
6.The pope is the absolute monarch. Nothing of import happens without his approval.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Thomas C. Fox on Mar. 22, 2011 NCR Today

A number of conservative Catholics, jointly signing an article in the Remnant Online, have seriously questioned the rush by the Vatican to beatify the last Pope John Paul II.

It appears arch-conservative Catholics are joining with many others on the progressive side of the church to examine the legitimacy of the quick beatification. Curiously, on the list was the late pope's relationship with Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries. (Editor's note: It is not often NCR is quoted to add credence to Remnant analysis.).

The letter stated:

The “filth” that afflicted the Church during the last pontificate includes the long history of sexual predation by Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado (being blessed by Pope John Paul in photo to the left), founder of the “Legionaries of Christ,” supposedly the very exemplar of the “renewal” in action. John Paul II refused to initiate any investigation into Maciel’s conduct despite mounting evidence of abominable crimes which, thanks to worldwide publicity, are now the most notorious ever committed by a Catholic cleric. Paying no heed to the long-pending and widely known canonical charges against Maciel by eight of the Legionary seminarians he had sexually molested, John Paul lavishly honored him in a public ceremony at the Vatican in November 2004. Days later, however, then Cardinal Ratzinger “took it on himself to authorize an investigation of Maciel.” [Jason Berry, “Money Paved the Way for Maciel’s Influence in the Vatican,” National Catholic Reporter, April 6, 2010].

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Thomas C. Fox on Mar. 22, 2011 NCR Today

In an article entitled "What can Benedict do to resolve the sexual crisis of Catholicism?" author Richard Sipe and Joe Rigert, write on the Australian Catholica website:

What can Benedict do to resolve the sexual crisis of Catholicism? At the very least he could open up for discussion and study the antiquated sexual teachings on such common practices as birth control, use of condoms and sex outside of marriage. Further, he could lead the way to making celibacy optional for priests and allow women in the ministry. (Would women have taken part in, or allowed, the sex abuse scandal?) And he might call for a representative church council to consider all of these basic reforms.

But it is unlikely that any of these reforms will happen as long the aging pope and the old men of the Vatican persist on retaining their power and control. They must be willing to share their authority and then undertake a Sexual Copernican Shift in their basic assumptions about sexual teaching and discipline, a shift recognizing that our core sexual nature is a bio-diverse reality, not a theological construct. Only then will the pope and his men begin to address the crisis now inundating the church.

UNITED STATES
Washington Post

[with video]

By Elizabeth Tenety
Popular Catholic preacher Fr. John Corapi has been placed on administrative leave by leaders of his religious order following an accusation of sexual misconduct and drug abuse.

From a report by Catholic News service:

“We have received an allegation that Father Corapi has behaved in a manner unbecoming of a priest and are duty-bound to conduct an investigation into this accusation,” said Father Gerard Sheehan, a spokesman for Father Corapi’s community, the Texas-based Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. “It is important to keep in mind that this action in no way implies Father Corapi is guilty of the allegation,” Father Sheehan said. “It is equally important to know that, based on the information we have received thus far, the claim of misconduct does not involve minors and does not arise to the level of criminal conduct.”

SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
The Bay Citizen

By Trey Bundy
March 22, 2011

Catholic Church officials in San Francisco said this week that they are investigating new allegations of child abuse by a local priest, but one support group for victims is not convinced the church is taking ownership of the problem.

KTVU reported Monday that Father Daniel Keohane, a 58-year-old priest at Saint Cecilia Parish, has been placed on indefinite leave pending a church investigation into whether he sexually abused a 17-year-old girl in the 1970s.

In an interview with KTVU, Maurice Healy, spokesman for the archdiocese of San Francisco, said the church had been working to determine the precise age of the girl at the time of the alleged abuse.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
KMOX

Tanya Sinkovits/Fred Bodimer
March 22, 2011

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX/AP) — “I was nine years old, this was in 1940 so this gives you some idea on how old I am,” explains alleged priest abuse victim Fred Carr.

Carr waited seventy years to tell his story of abuse at the hands of the late Father John Wieberg.

Rev. Wieberg died nearly a half-century ago, but his affect on the lives of many still remain. The Archdiocese of St. Louis is now reaching out to potential victims abused by Rev. Wieberg.

So far five people have come forward alleging abuse that happened from the mid-1940s through the early 1960s.

CORPUS CHRISTI (TX)
KZTV

Posted: Mar 22, 2011 1:30 PM by Jose Martinez

CORPUS CHRISTI - An internationally known priest who is affiliated with a religious order based out of Robstown has been placed on administrative leave because of misconduct claims. Father John Corapi is accused by a former female employee of having sexual encounters with several adult women and using drugs.

In a statement on his website Corapi says,"all of the allegations in the complaint are false, and i ask you to pray for all concerned." "His radio and TV programs have been taken off the air pending an investigation."

LAS VEGAS (NV)
8 News Now

LAS VEGAS -- A Las Vegas man says a Franciscan friar sexually assaulted him when he was a boy more than 20 years ago.

Tim Coonce said in a civil lawsuit filed in Clark County that Brother Tom Thing sexually assaulted him when Coonce was a seventh-grader at St. Christopher Elementary School in North Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS (NV)
Fox 5

LAS VEGAS -- A group representing victims of abuse within the Catholic Church claim the Diocese of Las Vegas is protecting a man accused of sexually assaulting a boy in the 1980s.

Members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests protested outside of the diocese headquarters on Monday night in response to a civil lawsuit filed against Brother Tom Thing.

In the lawsuit, Las Vegan Tim Coonce accuses Thing of abusing him when Coonce attended St. Christopher's Catholic Elementary School in North Las Vegas.

CALIFORNIA
Redding.com

By Ryan Sabalow
Record Searchlight
Posted March 22, 2011

The Catholic priest who was one of the key whistleblowers in the Redding Medical Center heart surgery scandal has been placed on leave by his religious order while his superiors investigate allegations that he had affairs with a number of women and abused drugs.

The Rev. John Corapi denies the allegations in a statement posted late last week on his website.

“There seems to no longer be the need for a complaint to be deemed ‘credible’ in order for church authorities to pull the trigger on the church’s procedure, which was in recent years crafted to respond to cases of the sexual abuse of minors,” Corapi, 63, said. “I am not accused of that, but it seems, once again, that they now don’t have to deem the complaint to be credible or not, and it is being applied broadly to respond to all complaints.”

Corapi was the first patient to allege that Redding Medical Center’s doctors were performing unnecessary heart procedures.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A support group for individuals sexually abused by priests visited a Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood where a priest was removed from service due to possible sexual misconduct.

“We want to help protect the vulnerable and to heal the wounded. We want to reach out to anyone else who may have been hurt to let them know it is safe to come forward and there is helping hand.”

David Lorenz is the Director of the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. The organization met outside the Ascension of Our Lord Church in the 700 Block of East Westmorland Street to pass out fliers and to raise awareness about priest sex abuse.

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Here's why I think the stories of Fathers Euteneuer and Corapi are worth paying attention to, why they matter:

When the first round of revelations about the abuse crisis broke in Boston in 2002, the more or less immediate response of the U.S. Catholic bishops and the Vatican was to look for a scapegoat--to deflect attention from their own responsibility for the abuse crisis, for the decades of cover-up and shuffling around of serial abusers of which we got a glimpse in the files that the cases in Boston opened to us.

That scapegoat was gays. To be specific, it was gay priests. To be very specific, it was gay priests who did not comport themselves in a macho-posturing way that hid their sexual orientation from others. The initial diversionary response of church officials to the abuse crisis--the initial tactic to divert attention from the fact that the bishops and Vatican were themselves responsible for the crisis--was to point the finger at a socially marginal group rather easily scapegoated, as the problem to be dealt with to solve the abuse crisis.

And so not far down the road from the Boston revelations, a Vatican-mandated policy came down, barring gays from the priesthood and requiring seminaries to screen candidates on the basis of sexual orientation. Now, as Todd Aglioro notes in the essay to which my posting about Corapi yesterday pointed, Catholic seminaries are actively screening for "manlier" candidates. They're actively choosing candidates for the priesthood who come pre-equipped with what Max Lindenmann calls a Father Corapi Starter Kit--who strut, shout, affect a hyper-macho shtick, and teach "crunchy" doctrine regardless of whether that doctrine is received or not.

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

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

Yesterday, it was disclosed that a Kalispell Montana priest has been suspended because of allegations that he sexually exploited an adult woman.

We don’t know the age or gender of Fr. John Corapi’s accuser, nor do we know anything about the allegations against him. (Originally, he was a priest of the Corpus Christi diocese though he’s apparently been working recently with a Robstown-based Catholic Religious order.)

But we do know that America’s Catholic hierarchy has repeatedly pledged to be “open and transparent” in clergy sexual abuse cases.

So if he’s been suspended, some church official or church officials are violating that promise by not publicly announcing his suspension and the reasons for it. This apparent move – quietly or secretly suspending a cleric accused of sexual misdeeds – is precisely what bishops have done for decades. Catholics deserve better. The vulnerable need better. Bishops have promised better. But secrecy about alleged sexual misconduct continues to be “job one” for many Catholic officials.

TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

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

It’s outrageous that a prominent Catholic priest has been suspended because of credible allegations of sexual misconduct, but his supervisors can’t be honest about it.

A spokesman for the Robstown-based Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity can’t bring himself to use the words “sexual abuse” or “sexual exploitation” or “sexual misconduct.” Fr. John Corapi has been accused of abusing his power and position, sexually, with a woman. But SOLT spokesman Fr. Gerard Sheehan only says Corapi has been accused of conduct “unbecoming a priest.”

If Catholic officials can’t manage to even talk about sexual misdeeds, how can we have even the slightest confidence that they can address sexual misdeeds in any effective way?

Again, we call on those with any information or suspicions about Corapi to contact criminal authorities, not church authorities.

CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

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

Time and time again, St. Louis Catholics and church officials vilified former St. Pete resident Michael Powel. Now, Michael has again been vindicated.

The Bridgeport Post reports that Catholic officials there have paid $200,000 to Powel’s family. (In 2009, Catholic officials in St. Louis also paid his family a settlement, though the amount was not disclosed.)

When he began speaking up in 2002, when the church’s abuse and cover up scandal was at a fever pitch, many found it easy to dismiss Powel’s claims. In two separate lawsuits, Powel said five men in two states molested him and that he repressed some of the memories until he began suffering from brain cancer. None of the accused had ever been charged with or sued for abuse before.

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

VATICAN CITY, 22 MAR 2011 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Msgr. Donald F. Hanchon of the clergy of the archdiocese of Detroit, U.S.A., episcopal vicar and pastor of the parish of the Holy Redeemer, and Fr. Michael J. Byrnes, also of the clergy of Detroit, vice rector and dean of formation at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary, as auxiliaries of the archdiocese of Detroit (area 10,106, population 4,556,000, Catholics 1,515,000, priests 641, permanent deacons 191, religious 1,552). Bishop-elect Hanchon was born in Wayne, U.S.A. in 1947 and ordained a priest in 1974. Bishop-elect Byrnes was born in Detroit in 1958 and ordained a priest in 1996.

DETROIT (MI)
Metro Catholic

WASHINGTON (MetroCatholic) – Pope Benedict XVI has named Msgr. Donald F. Hanchon, 63, pastor of Holy Redeemer Parish in Detroit and episcopal vicar for the central region of the Archdiocese of Detroit, and Father Michael Byrnes, 52, pastor of Presentation/Our Lady of Victory Parish and vice-rector of Sacred Heart Seminary, as auxiliary bishops for the Detroit Archdiocese.

The appointments were publicized in Washington, March 22, by Archbishop Pietro Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States.

Donald F. Hanchon was born October 9, 1947, in Wayne, Michigan. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from St. John Provincial Seminary, a Master of Arts degree in religious studies from the University of Detroit and a Master of Arts degree in liturgical studies from the University of Notre Dame.

NORTHERN IRELAND
RTE News

A former Catholic priest from Dublin has been acquitted at a court in Belfast of sexually molesting a schoolgirl more than 30 years ago.

Belfast - Judge directed jury to acquit James Doyle A former Catholic priest from Dublin has been acquitted at a court in Belfast of sexually molesting a schoolgirl more than 30 years ago.

A judge directed the jury to acquit 61-year-old James Doyle of fifteen counts of indecent assault.

NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A former Catholic priest has been acquitted of indecently assaulting a schoolgirl more than 30 years ago.

James Doyle, 61, from Lower Gardiner Street in Dublin, was acquitted of 15 counts of indecent assault.

The judge at Belfast Crown Court ruled the alleged victim's evidence had been innocently contaminated by another alleged injured party.

UNITED STATES
Catholica (Australia)

by Joe Rigert and Richard Sipe

The world knows that Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the billion-member Roman Catholic church, has a horrible problem of child sex abuse in his church, especially in North America and Australia. Now a surge of alleged abuse cases in Europe, including almost 500 in tiny Belgium alone, shows that the problem is far more widespread than originally believed, reaching right into the papacy itself. Along with other bishops, Benedict was complicit earlier in tolerating and covering up the crimes of the priests.

But the abuse scandal, even if the worst in the history of the modern church, should not be treated in isolation, for it is a symptom of a systemic problem rooted in church structure and teaching. It is a symptom of an outmoded, in some cases ludicrous, teaching on sex and sexuality. In short, the pope—and his church—have a sex problem.

The pope's problem with sex is seen in the excommunication of a nun hospital administrator for allowing an abortion to save the life of a mother. It is reflected in the ban on birth control, even though practiced by a majority of Catholics. It is tragically shown in the effort to prevent the use of condoms to curtail the spread of AIDS, which has made millions of children AIDS orphans.

Obviously, however, this pope and other popes have been unable to fully enforce their teaching on sex, even in the priesthood. They have professed to maintain a no-sex celibacy in the clergy, but they know that a high percentage of priests is or has been sexually involved. They also brand homosexual acts as intrinsically evil, despite conservative estimates that a third or more of priests are homosexual as a genetic predisposition. (Not to mention the futile prohibition of masturbation, or of divorce and remarriage.)

This papal "sex problem" puts Catholics in a position of having to choose between what the church teaches and what they actually believe and practice. And it means that secular governments must contend with bishops, the pope's men, who use the power of their religion to lobby against practices like abortion.

NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

A former Catholic priest has walked free from court after he was acquitted of sexually molesting a schoolgirl more than 30 years ago.

Belfast Crown Court Judge Tom Burgess directed the jury to acquit 61-year-old James Doyle of 15 counts of indecent assault after he ruled that the alleged victim's evidence had been "innocently contaminated" by another alleged victim.

Doyle, from Lower Gardiner Street in Dublin, faced 20 further charges of indecent assault against the second girl.

But, prosecution lawyer David Russell asked for those to be "left on the books" after telling the court that she does not feel able to give evidence against the former priest again.

NEW YORK
Fox 23

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany today announced that Bishop Howard J. Hubbard has taken the following actions involving four retired priests related to allegations of sexual abuse of minors:

The Rev. Robert Purcell, retired pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Margaretville (Delaware County), has been removed from ministry.

The allegation made recently against Father Purcell, 76, involved an incident in 1957, 17 years prior to his ordination to the priesthood.

As is the Diocese's policy, the allegation was promptly forwarded to the Albany County District Attorney's office, based on where the alleged abuse occurred.

NEW YORK
The Daily Mail

ALBANY — Albany Roman Catholic Bishop Howard Hubbard has placed three retired priests on administrative leave and removed another from ministry amid allegations that they sexually abused minors.

Diocese spokesman Kenneth Goldfarb said 76-year-old Rev. Robert Purcell, retired pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Margaretville, was removed from ministry as the result of a recent abuse claim dating to 1957. Purcell has denied it.

Hubbard placed three retired priests on leave amid allegations that they abused a minor in Albany between 1986 and 1991. They are 73-year-old Rev. Alan Jupin, retired pastor of Our Lady of Fatima in Schenectady, and 77-year-old Rev. Donald Ophals, once pastor at St. Francis de Sales in Troy. They had remained in active ministry.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

A former Northeast Philadelphia altar boy on Monday became the fourth man in a month to sue the Archdiocese of Philadelphia over claims that it failed to stop a pastor from sexually abusing him.

The 32-year-old Arizona man, identified in court papers only as John Doe 168, says in the lawsuit that he was abused between 1988 and 1991 by Msgr. John Gillespie, then the pastor at Our Lady of Calvary Church along Knights Road.

Dan Monahan, one of the man's lawyers, said his client came forward after reading news accounts about a similar lawsuit filed two weeks ago by 31-year-old Philip Gaughan of Delaware, who says Gillespie also molested him as a boy.

ILLINOIS
WREX

UNDATED (WREX) - Father John Corapi has been forced to cancel a Catholic Charities fundraiser in DeKalb after accusations of drug addiction and sexual exploits surface.

The accusations against Father John Corapi were made by a former employee. He has been put on leave and was forced to cancel his speaking engagement at the March 26 fundraising event at the Northern Illinois University Convocation Center. Corapi was also scheduled to meet with sponsors of the event the night before in Rockford, that has also been cancelled. All ticket sales and sponsorships for the event will be refunded.

"Obviously, we are devastated" said Director of Catholic Charities Frank Vonch. "We have been working for almost two years building support for this event and we have been looking forward to a very special day. The proceeds would have provided vital support to our many Catholic Charities ministries. But at this moment, I don't know how we're going to recover the expenses of our preparations, much less forgo the contributions we have been anticipating to help fund our programs for children."

CONNECTICUT
The Examiner

The Associated Press

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport has agreed to pay $200,000 to the family of a man who said he was abused as a child by a gardener and a priest at a Trumbull church.

Michael Powel, who died of cancer in 2008, said he was abused as a child at St. Theresa's Church in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His wife and two adult children moved forward with the suit after his death.

A spokesman for the diocese tells The Connecticut Post that the church does not admit any wrongdoing but determined that settling would be less expensive than fighting what he called a "frivolous" lawsuit.

VANCOUVER (WA)
KATU