Clerical Abuse Watch

The Catholic Church's Secret Sex-Crime Files

2011-09-06T22:28:00.000-07:00

The five co-defendants sit close enough to shake hands in the Philadelphia courtroom, but they never once acknowledge one another. Father James Brennan, a 47-year-old priest accused of raping a 14-year-old boy, looks sad and stooped in a navy sweater, unshaven and sniffling. Edward Avery, a defrocked priest in his sixties, wears an unsettlingly pleasant expression on his face, as though he's mentally very far away. He and two other defendants – the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, also in his sixties, and Bernard Shero, a former Catholic schoolteacher in his forties – are accused of passing around "Billy," a fifth-grade altar boy. According to the charges, the three men raped and sodomized the 10-year-old, sometimes making him perform stripteases or getting him drunk on sacramental wine after Mass.

Heinous as the accusations are, the most shocking – and significant – are those against the fifth defendant, Monsignor William Lynn. At 60, Lynn is portly and dignified, his thin lips pressed together and his double chin held high. In a dramatic fashion statement, he alone has chosen to wear his black clerical garb today, a startling reminder that this is a priest on trial, a revered representative of the Catholic Church, not to mention a high-ranking official in Philadelphia's archdiocese. Lynn, who reported directly to the cardinal, was the trusted custodian of a trove of documents known in the church as the "Secret Archives files." The files prove what many have long suspected: that officials in the upper echelons of the church not only tolerated the widespread sexual abuse of children by priests but conspired to hide the crimes and silence the victims. Lynn is accused of having been the archdiocese's sex-abuse fixer, the man who covered up for its priests. Incredibly, after a scandal that has rocked the church for a generation, he is the first Catholic official ever criminally charged for the cover-up.

-read the extensive, full report at Rolling Stone Culture.

Australian Professor says church suppressed child abuse report

2011-09-05T05:07:00.000-07:00

"A LEADING child protection expert has urged the Victorian government to hold a public inquiry into the handling of child-sex cases by a Catholic religious order after the Catholic Church suppressed a report it asked him to write.

Sydney University law professor Patrick Parkinson wrote yesterday to the Victorian Attorney-General, Robert Clark, and Police Minister, Peter Ryan, seeking an inquiry into the behaviour of the Salesians of Don Bosco.

In his letter, Professor Parkinson says the church's actions have cast doubt on its commitment to protect children before it protects itself."

-full report at Sydney Morning Herald

'via Blog this'

Clerical abusers shielded by 'cabal' -Dr Diarmuid Martin

2011-09-04T00:49:00.000-07:00

The Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin has admitted that "a cabal" protecting clerical sex abusers may be operating at the highest levels in the Catholic Church.

Dr Martin said: "There may be a cabal in Cloyne. They may have friends in other parts of the Irish Church. They may have friends in Irish society. There may be friends in the Vatican."

Asked yesterday who was preventing the protection of children, he said: "The numbers that are involved in this are few. The damage that these people cause is horrendous. It's for all of us to see where they are, but in the long term I have to take the responsibility that in Dublin there are not cabals who reject our child protection laws"
- Independent.ie: "

Report criticizes Missouri diocese on priest porn case

2011-09-02T15:21:00.000-07:00

"Catholic church officials in Kansas City are pledging to review immediately a new report on how to protect children after a local priest was charged in May with possessing child pornography.

A law firm hired by the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph found in the report that diocese leaders "failed to follow their own policies and procedures" in responding to reports that priest Shawn Ratigan had hundreds of child pornography images on his laptop computer."

-full report from Reuters

Pedophile scandal engulfs Church in Latin America

2011-08-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

Brazil, the largest country in Latin America and by extension the country with the biggest Catholic population in the world, has been shocked by the pedophile scandal in recent weeks.

A hidden-camera video broadcast on television -- and now being sold illicitly on the streets -- shows one 84-year-old priest in northeastern Brazil, Luiz Marques Barbosa, receiving oral sex from a former choir boy in front of an altar.

Two other priests were implicated in the video, in which three former choir boys said they were sexually abused as minors by them. The video has triggered a parliamentary inquiry and Barbosa's arrest.

The local bishop in charge of the three priests, Valerio Breda, wrote to parishoners pleading for "forgiveness in the name of the Church."

Other Church officials in Latin America have done likewise.

"There is no place for a priest who abuses children. There is no excuse that can justify this crime," the head of Chile's bishops' conference, Alejandro Goic, told a news conference.

"We ask forgiveness, and we appeal for these acts to be communicated to us," he said, adding that the Church was committed to ensuring "these grave crimes are never repeated."

So far, 20 known cases of pedophile priests have been revealed in Chile, five of whom have been convicted.

The Mexican Bishops Conference a week early also asked for pardon for the crimes, including those perpetrated by the late founder of the Legion of Christ order.

The bishops pledged to allow civilian authorities to intervene "to carry out the law" in current and past pedophile cases.

Although the scandal has galvanized and revolted many in recent months, pedophilia is not new in the Church's activities in Latin America.

In 2002, five Argentine priests were convicted to eight to 24 years in prison for sexual abuse, while a bishop had to step down after being implicated in sexual impropriety.

A more recent case, in December 2009, saw an Argentine former archbishop, Edgardo Storni, given an eight-year prison term for abusing a seminarist in 1992.

Last year, a priest, Julio César Grassi, was also convicted and sentenced to 15 years for sexual abuse and corruption of a minor in a foundation for vulnerable children.

Costa Rica was shaken by a priest, Enrique Delgado, famous for presenting a popular religious television program, who was sent behind bars in 2005 for 12 years for abusing three minors.

Also in 2005, orphans accused an Italian priest, Marcos Dessi, of sexually abusing them while he ran a Nicaraguan orphanage, earning him a 12-year prison sentence in Italy.

In Paraguay, ex-members of the parish blasted a local bishop, Rogelio Livieres, for covering up a priest's alleged abuse of an adolescent.

In Venezuela, where no predatory behaviour has come to light, Caracas Bishop Luis Armando Tineo told AFP that while he rejected such crimes and found them unjustifiable, "we can't fall into the impression that there's an epidemic." (By Ana Ines Cibils/ AFP)

http://www.mysinchew.com/node/38103

Clerical Abuse - in Africa

2011-08-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

MAKANKA, Sierra Leone — A rutted red dirt track leads to the "bar," a couple of homemade wood benches in the shade of an old tree dripping with wild mangoes. Within easy reach, there's a yellow plastic jerry can of the fiery palm wine the American priest loved.

A 40-year-old schoolteacher now charges that the Rev. James Tully gave the palm wine to teenage boys to make them more susceptible to his advances.

This faraway corner of West Africa — with no electricity or piped water — is where the Roman Catholic Church sent Tully, twice. The teacher told The Associated Press that Tully abused him and other boys repeatedly during his first stint in Sierra Leone, from 1979 to 1985. After a conviction in the U.S. for giving minors alcohol and groping them, the church sent Tully back to Sierra Leone for a second stint from 1994 to 1998.

Tully's story is an example of how the church transferred abusive priests from country to country, in a scandal now emerging worldwide. But it also shows the deep reluctance to come out against a Catholic priest in many parts of Africa.

Catholic Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg cautioned this month that the scandals in the church were not particular to the United States and Europe.

"It simply means that the misbehavior of priests in Africa has not been exposed to the same glare of the media as in other parts of the world," Tlhagale said.

-Associated Press

Parish priest accused of rape by his 18-year-old helper

2011-08-28T20:56:00.000-07:00

An 18-year-old woman has filed a complaint with public prosecutors in Agusan del Norte that a parish priest whom she had served as a domestic helper repeatedly raped her earlier this year.

The priest, Fr. Raul Cabonce, has reportedly sought refuge in the Bishop's residence in Butuan City and could not be reached for comment, but has previously denied the allegations.

The complainant said in her affidavit filed last Thursday that Father Cabonce had offered her a scholarship in exchange for her services as a "convent girl" who would serve his household needs.

Hired in her hometown of Las Nieves, Agusan del Norte where Cabonce was then parish priest, the alleged victim was brought to the town of Tubay last year when Cabonce was reassigned"

- GMA News, Philippines: "

Coulm Kenny: It is the truly faithful who are aghast at the Church

2011-08-28T20:41:00.000-07:00

Bishop Philip Boyce of Raphoe sees the Catholic Church "attacked from the outside by the arrows of a secular and godless culture: rocked from the inside by the sins and crimes of priests and consecrated people".

Missing from his blame equation last week were non-criminal acts and omissions of the hierarchy and other Church authorities. These have contributed mightily to the decline of the Irish Catholic Church and to the despair of its faithful.

Bishop Boyce was speaking at Knock, Ireland's major shrine for the traditionally devout. It is a place where the truly afflicted go for comfort. Yet Bishop Boyce seemed to equate their personal problems with those of the institutional Church that is itself largely to blame for its own current troubles.

Last week too, Archbishop Dermot Clifford of Cashel and Emly, tried again to distance himself from the handling of child abuse complaints in Cloyne. But mere words will not redress the harm done for decades by a hierarchy that was unable or unwilling to change its Church's thinking and structures to meet modern needs."

- Colum Kenny, Independent.ie

Former Chicago priest sued for sex abuse - Houston Chronicle

2011-08-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

"A lawsuit has been filed by a Chicago teenager who claims he was a victim of a former Roman Catholic priest.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court accuses Daniel McCormack, the former priest at St. Agatha Catholic Church, of abusing the boy between 2004 and 2006."

- Houston Chronicle

Another lawsuit accuses former priest of sex abuse - Chicago Tribune

2011-08-26T20:51:00.000-07:00

"Another person who says he was a victim of Daniel McCormack filed a lawsuit against the former St. Agatha Catholic Church priest today in Cook County Circuit Court accusing him of sexual abuse.

After McCormack pleaded guilty in 2007 to sexually abusing five boys and was sentenced to 5 years in prison, numerous other alleged victims came forward with similar stories of abuse.

The latest is an unidentified Chicago teenager who says he was sexually abused by McCormack between 2004 and 2006 in the West Side church’s rectory and school buildings, according to the lawsuit. The alleged victim was 11 or 12 when the abuse began."

- Chicago Tribune

Catholic Officials in US Release List of Accused Priests

2011-08-25T21:06:00.000-07:00

"Roman Catholic officials in Boston have released a list of priests accused of child sex abuse.

The Archdiocese of Boston says the publication of the names is part of an effort to protect children and “rebuild trust” in the wake of the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in recent years.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley said in a statement accompanying the posting that the effort is to ensure the “tragedy of sexual abuse is never repeated.”

The list contains the names of 157 priests and two deacons in cases over the last several decades. O'Malley did not include the names of 91 people, including dead priests who were never publicly accused and were never investigated by the Church."

-VOA

Records: Priest in Ky. admitted sex addiction

2011-08-25T15:29:00.000-07:00

"Court records show a Roman Catholic priest accused of abusing boys in Kentucky in the 1970s told church officials he was a sex addict in 1985.

Records released Tuesday say the Rev. James R. Schook was not removed from ministry at the time because officials believed he was involved with men, not boys, according to The Courier-Journal (http://bit.ly/p6owkL). Instead, he was put into a treatment program.

Shook is now facing seven counts of sodomy in Jefferson Circuit Court involving two teens in the 1970s. He has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, David Lambertus, declined to comment to the newspaper about the released records."

- Houston Chronicle

'via Blog this'

U.S. lawyer says Vatican knew of priest's sex abuse

2011-08-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

"A lawyer representing a victim of priest abuse in a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic church said on Monday Vatican documents show the church hierarchy and the pope were ultimately responsible.

A lawyer for the church disagreed, saying the newly released documents show the Holy See was not involved in the offending priest's transfer from Ireland to Chicago and then to Portland, Oregon, where the victim was a minor in the 1960s.

In April, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman in Oregon ordered the Vatican to produce documents in the case that alleged a cover-up of priest sex abuse.

At the time, the judge's order was termed a "historic step" by attorney Jeffrey Anderson, who sued the Holy See in Rome and U.S. archdioceses and church officials on behalf of an unnamed man in Oregon.

Anderson said on Monday an analysis of the 1,856 documents written in Latin, Italian and English showed the Vatican had direct control over the placement and laicization of Rev. Andrew Ronan, who left the priesthood in 1966 and died in 1992."

-Reuters

Hideaway bishop John Magee pledges full response to sex abuse report

2011-08-22T21:03:00.000-07:00

"The Newry-born Catholic bishop severely criticised in the Cloyne report for his approach to child abuse cases has broken his silence.

Bishop John Magee, whose resignation was accepted by the Pope, is now thought to be timing a public response to coincide with the Vatican's official reply to the damning report.

Now retired, Dr Magee yesterday spoke for the first time about the report, after he was tracked down by the Sunday Independent to his home in Mitchelstown, Co Cork. He had not been seen since the report revealed serious mishandling of child sex abuse cases."

- Belfast Telegraph

Trenton diocese to pay $1 million to five men in sex-abuse settlements

2011-08-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

" The Catholic Diocese of Trenton has agreed to pay $1 million to five men who claimed their parish priest sexually abused them when they were altar boys 30 years ago.

The settlements, announced Tuesday, bring to $1.3 million the amount the diocese, which encompasses Burlington, Monmouth, Ocean and Mercer Counties, has paid to alleged abuse victims of the Rev. Ronald Becker, who served in parishes in the Trenton area from 1973 to 1989.

Becker was removed from active ministry in 2002 and has since died."

- Philly.com

'via Blog this'

Former Fresno Priest Target of Sex Abuse Lawsuit

2011-08-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

"New sexual abuse allegations have turned the Catholic diocese of Fresno into a target for protesters claiming crimes are covered up.

A lawsuit filed last week accuses a priest of sexually victimizing a boy in San Jose ten years ago. Father Don Flickinger started his career in Fresno and worked for many years at San Joaquin Memorial High School.

Flickinger also worked at St. John's in Downtown Fresno, and that's where protesters gathered Tuesday.

Abuse victims came to the church to shine a spotlight on what they call a "continuing cover-up" of sex abuse that reaches all the way to the top of the Catholic Church. But the church's deacon told Action News the church has mended its ways.

44 years ago, Julie Kliegel was a 7-year-old princess living on the grounds of the Catholic diocese of Fresno. But her kingdom crumbled in a single day. She says a priest and a seminarian beat and raped her, then left her lying there."

abc30.com

Weakland, Sklba to be questioned as part of archdiocese bankruptcy case

2011-08-12T15:22:00.000-07:00

"Retired Milwaukee bishops Rembert Weakland and Richard Sklba will answer questions under oath in October about the extent and alleged coverup of child sex abuse in the archdiocese, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley ruled on Friday.

However, that testimony won't be available to the public, at least initially.

Kelley granted a request by survivor-creditors to question the two, along with defrocked priest Daniel A. Budzynski, who is believed to have molested several children, as part of the church's bankruptcy proceedings.

The judge scheduled the questionings for the weeks of Oct. 17 and 24. But she imposed strict limits on their duration and ordered them sealed from public view.

- JSOnline

"I don't want this on anybody's website," said Kelley, a reference to victims' attorney Jeff Anderson's distribution of Weakland's 2008 questioning, in which the retired archbishop referred to Sklba as his "go-to guy" in the handling of sex abuse cases.

"This isn't about embarrassing these people. This is about giving the parties relief," Kelley said."

'via Blog this'

Church sex abuse inquiry 'not needed'

2011-08-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

"An independent inquiry into dozens of suicides among victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests and brothers in Victoria would achieve little, a Catholic bishop says.

Police investigating the case of convicted pedophile Brother Robert Best believe at least 26 victims of sexual abuse at schools in which he taught have committed suicide.

One of the investigating officers wants a parliamentary inquiry to investigate the deaths.

"If it helps the victims I'd be more than happy for it to go ahead," Bishop of Ballarat Peter Connors told AAP.

"I don't think they'll learn very much more ... I'm convinced we've done the best we can in more recent years."

-Sydney Morning Herald

Monterey diocese sued over sex abuse allegations

2011-04-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

"Two men have filed separate lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey, claiming negligence by church officials allowed them to be molested by priests.

In one suit, the plaintiff says he was 9 when he was first molested by Father William Allison in the rectory of San Carlos Church in 1966.

The abuse continued for 18 months, although the man only recently discovered the psychological damage it inflicted, according to the suit filed on July 21 in Sacramento County.

It further claims diocese officials were aware of previous allegations of abuse against Allison and had reason to suspect he was abusing the boy, but did not inform his family. Allison is no longer alive, according to diocese spokesman Warren Hoy.

"At no time did defendant diocese ever send an official ... to advise parishioners either verbally or through a church bulletin that there were credible allegations against Father Allison," the suit contends."

- San Jose Mercury News

Payment offered to German Abuse Victims - but Rejected By Victims

2011-01-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

The German Jesuits have offered a financial payment to the victims of sexual abuse at their schools, but victims have rejected the offer as too low.

German Jesuits offer payment to sex-abuse victims

Berlin - Germany's Jesuit order of Catholic priests is offering to pay 1 million euros (1.36 million dollars) in compensation to some 200 victims of sex abuse.

The offer, equivalent to 5,000 euros per person, was made public on Wednesday. It concerns mostly men who turned to investigators to report suffering a variety of abuses, including semi-naked caning by teachers, at the country's four Jesuit schools.

The scandal erupted last year, when a Jesuit secondary school in Berlin, Canisius College, wrote to former pupils seeking evidence of sex abuse.

Germany's Catholic bishops have yet to settle a separate compensation package for people who were abused in parish churches, diocesan schools and other institutions. The Jesuits are a semi- independent institution within the Catholic Church.

Thomas Busch, a Jesuit spokesman in Munich, refused to call the planned payments 'compensation,' saying the suffering of the abused could never be put right with money.

-Monsters and Critics

Sex abuse victims reject Church payout offer

Victims of sexual abuse at Jesuit schools in Germany said Thursday that the Catholic Church’s offer of €5,000 in compensation is too low.

“This sum is not at all sufficient to compensate for the damages suffered or to signal a recognition of guilt,” leader of the Eckiger Tisch victim’s group Thomas Weiner told daily Frankfurter Rundshau.

Weiner also said he found it incomprehensible that victims already known to the Church would have to file an application to receive the payment.

-The Local.de

Catholic abuse victims offered firm payout (24 Jan 11)

European court rules preventive detention of sex offenders unjust (13 Jan 11)

Pastor sacked for sex in Hamburg church (7 Jan 11)

Monastery sex abuse cases in Switzerland claim 40 victims from 15 monks

2011-01-27T09:05:00.000-08:00

Fifteen monks were found guilty of sexual abuse at a monastery in Einsiedeln, in central Switzerland, in cases stretching back over six decades, an investigative panel said on Thursday.

The panel said there were at least 40 victims, with the majority of the cases occurring in the 1960s and 1970s.

The cases only began to come to light when preventive measures were introduced in 1998.

Nine of the monks found guilty committed indecent acts on children, the panel said.

Three monks were found to be ring leaders and the notion of sexual abuse at the monastery had become accepted, the investigators said.

For the first time last year, the Catholic Church in Switzerland compiled detailed statistics of cases of sexual abuse committed by priests and other pastoral workers.

Dutch Church Reports on Abuse - Repeats earlier patterns of US, Ireland, Germany.

2010-12-09T15:59:00.000-08:00

The Dutch church has released the findings of its own investigation into sexual abuse in the Netherlands Catholic Church - and its not pretty. Repeating the pattern already established in the US and Ireland, and more recently reported for Germany, this investigation has established the existence not only of extensive sexual abuse, but also strong indications of widespread coverups or failures by the Church to act against perpetrators.

Dutch Panel Found 2,000 Church Abuse Claims

BRUSSELS — The Roman Catholic Church, battered by sexual abuse scandals from the United States to Belgium, is facing a new set of damaging allegations in the Netherlands. Figures released Thursday by an investigative commission showed that almost 2,000 people had made complaints of sexual or physical abuse against the church, in a country with only four million Catholics.

“The Roman Catholic Church has not faced a crisis like this since the French Revolution,” Peter Nissen, a professor of the history of religion at Radboud University in the Netherlands, said of the growing abuse scandal.

With one legal case starting this week, and accusations against two former bishops, the reaction of the church appears to have fueled the crisis. Nearly all of the cases are decades old, with probably no more than 10 from the past 20 years.

Asked in March on television about the hundreds of complaints already surfacing, one of the church’s most senior figures, Cardinal Adrianus Simonis, shocked the nation by replying not in Dutch but in German. “Wir haben es nicht gewusst” — We knew nothing — he said, using a phrase associated with Nazi excuses after World War II.

“A lot of people perceived it as an affirmation of the culture of covering up cases,” said Professor Nissen, adding that it meant to many, “ ‘We should have known’ or ‘We knew but we didn’t want to know.’ ”

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said that he had no comment and that the matter was in the hands of Dutch bishops.

Next month Cardinal Simonis, the retired bishop of Utrecht, will testify in Middelburg as a witness in a court hearing already under way involving sexual abuse.

In an interim report, issued Thursday, a commission headed by Wim Deetman, a Protestant and former education minister, said it had received roughly 1,975 reports of sexual or physical abuse, some directly but others through a body set up for victims, called Hulp en Recht, or Help and Justice.

One central accusation in the Netherlands is that, as in other countries, known abusers were simply transferred to new parishes.

In recent weeks it has emerged that a Roman Catholic order, the Salesians of Don Bosco, paid about $22,000 to settle an abuse claim against one bishop, Jan ter Schure, who died in 2003. The abuse is said to have taken place in Ugchelen between 1948 and 1953. The order declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Hulp en Recht is examining claims against a former bishop, Jo Gijsen, now 78, who has been accused of having an abusive relationship with a student at the Rolduc seminary between 1959 and 1961. He has denied accusations against him.

Central to the growing public debate over the church’s culpability is the extent to which sexual abuse was tolerated and covered up.

The hearing at which Cardinal Simonis will testify next month involves a priest convicted of abusing three youngsters in Terneuzen. The priest had been arrested, though not prosecuted, on similar grounds in the late 1970s as director of a Catholic youth center near The Hague, part of the diocese where Cardinal Simonis was then bishop.

The accuser’s lawyer, Martin De Witte, who represents about 120 other people claiming abuse, said his client wanted an apology and damages. “We say the Catholic Church didn’t take the measures to protect children from this man,” he said. “They gave him another chance, and another, and another.”

-full report, NY Times

A Priest's Open Letter on Abuse, Call for Full Disclosure

2010-12-06T16:09:00.001-08:00

Last week, Fr. James Connell, vice chancellor of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, stood on the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist and called on his bishop to release documents related to the local sexual-abuse crisis: “I am absolutely convinced that we need the truth. Justice requires that the truth be known.” His appearance was a surprise to SNAP, which organized the press conference. According to Milwaukee News Buzz:

SNAP called the press conference Tuesday after learning that lawyers for the archdiocese and Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba have asked a judge to seal a sworn statement given by Sklba in a local court case regarding priest sex abuse cases.
(…)
There is some irony in Connell linking arms with Isely. About a year ago, Connell was the subject of another press conference in which Isely called on the priest to step down from the internal church board that hears sex abuse allegations. Isely pointed out that Connell had investigated allegations against Father Lawrence Murphy, a priest who abused scores of deaf children, according to church records.
(…)
Connell added that he had undergone a conversion of sorts after he began wondering what his life would have been like if he had been abused. Connell has since organized a group of other priests who hold monthly candlelight vigils for those who have been abused. He also began to challenge the hierarchy of the church as to whether officials were living up the Dallas Charter, the 2002 document adopted by the bishops to deal with sex abuse allegations.

Today, Connell released an open letter to priests [PDF] “regarding the need for the revelation of truth concerning the priest sexual abuse scandal.” It’s a remarkable document, one that deserves to be read by Catholics lay and ordained alike. Read it at Commonweal

Newark Abusers protected by Archbishop John Myers

2010-12-05T16:32:00.000-08:00

Newark archbishop shielded at least 4 priests accused of sexual abuse

w.nj.com

Eight years ago, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers stood among the nation’s bishops at a landmark gathering in Dallas and helped craft a policy intended to cleanse the priesthood of pedophiles and restore trust among shaken American Catholics.

In ratifying the Dallas Charter, Myers and his colleagues promised a new era of reform and transparency. Allegations of sexual abuse against priests would no longer be hidden from parishioners or police, and any priest believed to have molested a child would be permanently banned from ministry.

In the years since, Myers and his aides say the archdiocese has taken aggressive measures to identify abusive priests.

But a Star-Ledger review of the archbishop’s record since 2002 shows Myers on at least four occasions has shielded priests accused of sexual abuse against minors and one adult. In the four instances, the priests have either admitted improper sexual contact, pleaded guilty to crimes stemming from accusations of sexual misconduct or been permanently barred from ministry by the archdiocese after allegations of sexual misconduct.

The archdiocese also wrote a letter of recommendation for one of the priests, a week after it learned he was accused of breaking into a woman’s home in Florida and possibly assaulting her.

From one perspective, the newspaper’s findings suggest Myers continues to take a cautious hand in publicly naming priests. The findings, coupled with testimony from a 2009 deposition, show the issue weighs heavily on Myers.

From another view, the archbishop has failed to live up to the guidelines and spirit of what was set forth in Dallas. The most controversial example is the Rev. Michael Fugee, who confessed to police eight years ago that he molested a 13-year-old boy. Fugee was never ousted from the priesthood, and the archdiocese assigned him last year as chaplain to St. Michael’s Hospital in Newark without telling hospital officials of his past.

In other cases:

- In 2004, the Newark Archdiocese wrote letters to six dioceses in Florida on behalf of the Rev. Wladyslaw Gorak, one week after learning Gorak’s ministry had been terminated in the Orlando Diocese — after he was accused of breaking into a woman’s home.
- Also in 2004, the archdiocese banned the Rev. Gerald Ruane from public ministry after investigating an allegation he molested a boy, but did not publicly notify lay people or other priests. Ruane continued to say Mass and wear his collar in public.
- In 2007, the archdiocese failed to inform lay people that it found a molestation claim credible against the Rev. Daniel Medina, who had worked in parishes in Elizabeth and Jersey City. The case wasn’t made public until a victims group uncovered an alert sent by the archdiocese in September 2008 to other bishops saying Medina was on administrative leave and could not be located.

Read the full report:

The Vanishing Accused Priests

2010-12-04T14:35:00.000-08:00

Ten years after the clergy sex abuse scandal first exploded in the United States, lawsuits have been settled, reports issued, policies overhauled. But even as the crisis has shifted to Europe and the Vatican prepares to issue new guidelines on how to handle sex abuse cases, something glaring is missing in this country: the accused priests.

Although the vast majority were removed from ministry long ago - barred from celebrating Mass in public, administering the sacraments, wearing their clerical collars or presenting themselves as priests - church officials say they have no way to monitor where the men are now. Nor do they keep official data on how many were defrocked, or stripped of their priestly status; how many were imprisoned or placed on sex-offender lists; how many are working; and how many are dead.

The priests have largely vanished from public view. Their fates are often a mystery to their victims, their parishioners and even their attorneys.

Independently compiling data about what happened to the men is nearly impossible. Reports by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops show that at least 5,768 priests were accused from 1950 to 2009. Although the church deems most of the allegations credible, the vast majority have never been proved, and many of the priests have never been publicly identified.

The same is true in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington, where local church officials put the tally of accused priests at 42 without naming all of them. (At least five additional men who belong to religious orders have been accused in the Washington Archdiocese.)

But a comprehensive list of names does not exist. Victims groups often disagree with church officials on who should be included and maintain their own lists.

The Washington Post was able to identify 31 priests accused in the Washington area and locate nine who are alive. All declined to talk about their cases or their lives, but court documents and interviews with those around them offer glimpses. The outcomes vary so much that they defy sweeping generalizations about the way the allegations were handled by the church or the courts.

Many of the cases never made it into criminal court because the alleged abuse occurred decades earlier and fell beyond local statutes of limitations or made evidence difficult to gather. Sometimes the accusers did not want to press charges. But at least 11 men were sentenced to prison, and at least five were sued in civil court. Seven are dead, including Monsignor William Reinecke, longtime chancellor of the Arlington Diocese, who shot himself after a former altar boy confronted him after Mass. At least 10 were defrocked by the Vatican. Four of those convicted of crimes wound up on sex-offender registries.

-Read the full Washington Post article

Breaking News: German Cover-up of Abuse Revealed in Church Report

2010-12-03T22:27:00.001-08:00

Is this the first sign of an extensive cover-up in Germany, in Cardinal Ratzinger's diocese of Munich and Freisung, including during his tenure as Archbishop? The report of an investigation commissioned by the Church itself seems to think so.

I reserve my own comment for now, but read the facts from Deutsche Welle, in a report that was commissioned to "try to air some dirty laundry":

German study finds systematic cover-ups in Catholic priest abuse cases

An investigation into cases of sexual abuse in the German Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, where Pope Benedikt XVI was once archbishop, has revealed a "systematic system of cover-up" and a lot of missing paperwork.

Germany's Catholic Church systematically covered up cases of sexual abuse within its own ranks for several decades, according to an expert study commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.
The lawyer heading up the investigation, Marion Westpfahl, said at a press conference on Friday that the available records pointed to huge gaps in the documentation between 1945 and 2009. She added this hinted strongly at a "systematic system of cover-up," in which few abuse cases were criminally prosecuted.
"Only 26 priests were convicted for sexual offences," Westpfahl explained to reporters, saying she found 365 files containing evidence that "acts of abuse had taken place in an almost commonplace manner."
"We have to assume that there is a large unknown number [of abuse cases]," she said. "We are dealing with the extensive destruction of files."
The incriminating evidence Westpfahl found among 13,200 available files implicated 159 priests, 15 deacons, 96 religion teachers and six pastoral employees, with rural areas particularly affected.
The victims' suffering often remained a mystery, she said, as the reports usually discussed abuse in coy euphemisms.

Details sketchy on papal era

Westpfahl also said that the period of 1977 to 1982, when Pope Benedikt XVI - then Archbishop Josef Ratzinger - headed up the archdiocese, was particularly poorly documented.

In this timeframe, she only found one document, regarding an abuse case. Ratzinger had dealt with the case himself, ordering that an abusive priest be removed from his parish, she said.

Westpfahl praised the church for giving her free reign in her research, a task to which she was assigned by current Archbishop Reinhard Marx.

"For me, these were surely the worst months of my life," Marx told reporters on Friday. "I felt shame, grief and dismay. As a church, we ask forgiveness for those things done by our church employees."

The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising was one of the worst hit in Germany during the wave of abuse accusations that swept across much of Europe in 2009, and Westpfahl's report was commissioned in response to the allegations.

Delaware Parish to carry $3m of record damages award.

2010-12-03T14:39:00.000-08:00

A Delaware court has awarded $30 million dollars in compensation to a victim of clerical sexual abuse. The plaintiff of course, will never see that amount: the guilty priest is personally liable for most of this, and of course does not have it. But in an unusual move which should terrify every church-going Catholic in the US, the jury determined that the local parish where the abuse took place should pay 10% of the award, a hefty $3 million, because it had failed to exercise adequate supervision over its priest. There could be more to pay, too. This amount does not include any punitive damages, which could still be added to the existing sum.

A jury in Delaware on Wednesday awarded $30 million in compensatory damages to a man who said he was sexually abused more than 100 times by a Roman Catholic priest — the largest such award granted to a single victim in a clergy abuse case, victims’ advocates said.

In an unusual outcome, the jury decided that the parish where the abuse occurred, St. Elizabeth in Wilmington, must pay $3 million of the damages, while the perpetrator is liable for the rest. Parishes have previously been held liable in only one or two cases involving abuse by Catholic priests, according to records kept by an advocacy group for victims known as bishopaccountability.org.

-(Full report at the NY Times)

Pause a minute, and let that sink in.

At a time when so many churches are being closed for lack of funds, how many parishes could cope with a legal claim for $3 million and more, as well as the legal costs and administrative nightmare of defending a case? It's not enough to simply say that in practice, the diocese will pick up the tab. They might, if this were the only case. It is not, not by a long chalk.

This is just one defendant. A recent study suggested that possibly half of all parishes may have had an abusive priest working with them in the past. Imagine if half of all parishes in a diocese were to find themselves in the same position as this one?No way could the diocese take on a payment of $3 mil per victim for half their parishes.

Adding salt to the wounds, is that the offences took place many years ago. The parishioners who failed in their supervision of the priest, are probably no longer around. The people who will be acting for the parish, and find ways to produce the money, are almost certainly not the ones who were personally responsible for the lapses of oversight in the first place.

But look on the bright side. Far too many parish priests simply do not permit any meaningful lay oversight over their activities, and too many parish councils simply step back, and defer to the priests wishes. If they know that courts could find themselves responsible for earlier misdeeds of their priests, they might just be bolder in future, and be less likely in future to simply accept in good faith the priests' reassurances of good behaviour.

Chicago: More than half of parishes had priest accused of abuse

2010-10-13T03:54:00.000-07:00

In Chicago, a careful analysis by activists based on the Church's own database and on court records has been simply dismissed by the diocese. The report concluded that over half of the diocese's parishes have at one time or another been served by a priest accused of sexual abuse. The diocesan response was that the priests concerned have been dismissed from ministry.

A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Chicago said officials have not seen the study, but told of the report's highlights questioned its conclusions.
"From the description of what we have heard, it appears that the analysis and conclusions are questionable," said Colleen Dolan of the archdiocese in an e-mailed statement. "The priests referred to in the ... report have all been removed and are not in ministry in the Archdiocese of Chicago."

This response is entirely beside the point. The report is not about the current situation, but an attempt to illustrate the geographical scale of the problem. Once again, the Church's response is to entirely ignore the evidence.
Image via Wikipedia

More than half of Chicago's Roman Catholic parishes have had a priest accused of sexually abusing a child working there at some point, according to a study released today that was quickly questioned by the Chicago Archdiocese.
In some cases, multiple priests accused of misconduct worked at the same church, according to the study, conducted by reform groups Voice of the Faithful, African American Advocates for Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
"In almost 60 percent of the parishes, an accused predator worked there," said Barbara Blaine, president of SNAP.
For example, from 1980 to 1990, 57.7% of Chicago parishes had an accused priest working there, said Bob Kopp, one of the study's researchers and vice president of Chicagoland Voice of the Faithful. Other decades examined in the study had similar percentages of affected parishes, he said.
Read more

News conference, concerned Catholics and clergy sex abuse victims will disclose and discuss a new study Monday, October 11th (chicagonow.com)
Chicago Priests Challenging Cardinal George Receive Support (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)
Chicago Priests Call Cardinal George, President of U.S. Catholic Bishops, to Accountability (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)

New twist in Belgian Catholic abuse legal row

2010-10-13T00:43:00.000-07:00

After the Belgian police controversially raided the bishops' offices and Cardinal Daneels' home, confiscating truckloads of material relating to allegations of church sexual abuse, two lower courts ruled that the raid had been inaoppropriate, and ordered that the material would be inadmissable as evidence. However, this is not over yet. "Expatica" yesterday reported from Belgium that there has been a

New twist in Belgian Catholic abuse legal row

BRUSSELS: Belgium's highest court ordered magistrates on Tuesday to re-examine evidence seized by police relating to decades of child abuse and alleged Roman Catholic Church cover-ups.

The court overturned two previous decisions by lower courts that rendered inadmissible evidence taken from church headquarters, the home of a former archbishop and a church-backed commission investigating sex crimes perpetrated by priests.

Responding to lawyers acting for alleged victims who lodged appeals, the judges said the lower courts were wrong not to hear civil parties and therefore magistrates should look again at the evidence in a new light.

It means that truckloads of material gathered by police in spectacular raids in June that drew the ire of Pope Benedict XVI himself could potentially be used to relaunch state prosecutions for abuse.

However, it does not automatically mean a prosecution case will be launched, because the lower judges could reach the same decisions as before, saying they have done so this time while considering aggrieved parties' accusations.

The raids on June 24, conducted as a Vatican ambassador was meeting with church leaders, opened the eyes of the world to the scale of the scandal within the Belgian Catholic Church, but the church and retired archbishop, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, asked that the material seized be declared out of bounds.
Read more:

Child psychologist Peter Adriaenssens then unleashed nationwide controversy with the release on September 10 of a report by a commission he led which revealed nearly 500 people reported abuses by priests since the 1950s and 13 victims committed suicide.
Adriaenssens subsequently called on the pope to resign.

Belgian Cardinal Attempted to Secure Silence on Abuse (clericalabusewatch.blogspot.com)
Belgian Bishops Put Money Before Victims (clericalabusewatch.blogspot.com)
Belgian Cardinal: "Damage Control" Before Concern For Victims (clericalabusewatch.blogspot.com)
Belgian Abuse Report: "Almost Every Diocese". (clericalabusewatch.blogspot.com)

Godfried Danneels, Belgian Cardinal, Offered To Keep Sex Abuse Case Quiet Until Bishop's Retirement (huffingtonpost.com)
Belgian child abuse report exposes Catholic clergy (guardian.co.uk)

Belgian Bishops Put Money Before Victims

2010-09-16T08:16:00.001-07:00

The Belgian bishop of Tournai, Guy Harpigny, has admitted what was probably a factor in the episcopal cover-up of sexual abuse in the church not only in Belgium, but everywhere else as well. They were concerned that breaking their silence would have exposed them to claims for financial compensation. They put financial considerations ahead of concern for the victims.

From the Daily Telegraph:

Belgian Catholic Church sex abuse: we feared compensation claims

Belgium's Roman Catholic Church did not apologise for decades of endemic child sexual abuse by its clerics because an official apology would triggered a flood of expensive compensation claims, a senior bishop has admitted.

Guy Harpigny, the bishop of Tournai and the senior cleric responsible for rooting out sex abusers within the Belgian church's ranks, has further inflamed outrage by confessing that financial concerns over litigation stopped an official apology.

"We did not dare. If you officially apologise, then you are acknowledging moral and legal responsibility. Then there are people who ask for money and we don't know what lawyers and the courts will do about that," he said.

San Deurinck, 65, a Catholic activist who tried to commit suicide after he was abused by two priests as a teenage boy, has called on the Church to "respect victims" and to ensure justice by handing paedophile priests over to the police.

"I always had hope, but then I lost it," he said. "Let the Church understand that justice must do her work. The Church must comply to respect of victims.

Read the full report

.

Belgian Abuse Report: "Almost Every Diocese".

2010-09-11T03:24:00.001-07:00

In the extraordinary saga of the police / state tussle investigation into the Belgian Church history of child abuse, the church’s own investigator has found that abuse was widespread, occurring in “almost every” diocese, and in “virtually every school” run by the Church. Yet as recently as March of this year, the Belgian bishops believed that abuse was a problem affecting only the USA and Ireland, and was of only minor extent in their own country.

A court had ruled this week that the evidence seized by police in a church raid would not be admissible in court, as the raid had been “disproportionate”. Almost immediately, the church’s investigator, Peter Adriaenssens, released his report.

In the church’s favour, the very existence of the report goes some way to vindicate it in its hostile reaction to the police raid. Suggestions at the time were that police action was prompted by suspicions that the church was incapable of investigating itself – a suspicion supported by the patent inaction under the previous head of the Church, Cardinal Daneels. The damning evidence shows that finally, the church is now willing to examine itself, just as the Irish Church did last year.

Also in its favour, is Adriaenssens’ finding that the scale of the problem is clearly in decline.

The abuse went back to the 1950s, was most common in the 60s and was tailing off by the 1980s, Adriaenssens said.
"The exposed cases are old, of course," he said. "Society has developed. But there's nothing to indicate that the number of paedophiles has diminished. Where are they today?"
Most of the victims were now middle-aged, but remained traumatised.
- The Guardian

However, several disturbing questions remain. If the problem was indeed so widespread, why was it not known, even by the current bishops, until recently? Was there a cover-up and protection of offending priests, as occurred in Ireland and the US – and as Cardinal Daneels tried to buy time for bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Brugge as recently as this year?

The next question is, what will be the Church’s response? It will not be enough to simply say that things have improved. On BBC News last night, one survivor of English church abuse pointed out that although the offences may have occurred in the past, they are not “past” to the victims, but are ever-present in their lives today. This is also the sentiment of the Belgian victims:

"There are days when I thank God for having the chance to speak," testified one woman.

"Four years of psychotherapy have taught me that silence kills. I have had enormous depressions, going as far as attempted suicide. At other times I think it would be wise to let sleeping dogs lie. But in the end I've chosen to speak ... Since the resignation of the bishop of Bruges, I am living again in anxiety and fear. And I am far away. I've chosen to live far from my country, hoping that the past won't rejoin me."
This testimony was from a woman abused in the 1980s, but most of the cases concerned young boys and teenagers, as well a documented case of a two-year-old boy being molested.
Another victim told of being repeatedly sexually molested by his parish priest for five years from the age of seven.
"From being a violated child, I myself became, several years later, an abuser of adolescents and was sentenced to eight years in jail of which I served four and a half … The priest's violations certainly strongly shaped my sexual identity and influenced my life choices."

Will the investigations still under way in other countries show the same pattern? Germany too believed that the problem was primarily restricted to the English speaking countries – until Der Spiegel began to report on a few German cases, and the floodgates opened, as more and more victims who had previously kept silent, began to come forward. The same occurred in Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. These have not yet reported their findings in any detail but they will. What of the rest of the world, countries which have not conducted any formal enquiries into past abuse? There is no reason at all to suppose that they have been immune.

Finally, what will be the response of the global church to the systemic problems this crisis has revealed? Pope Benedict has said that we need prayer and repentance, rather than institutional reform. He is wrong – we need both.

Quite apart from the problem of abuse itself by individual clergy, which really does seem to be on the decline, there remains the problem of a Church which remains aloof and distant from the real world, which continues to see itself too often as above the secular law. The world’s largest global corporation and largest employer operates in every country of the world, but does not see itself as accountable to any – because it still sees itself as an independent “state”.

This independent statehood is no more than a polite legal fiction. The politicians of the world really do now need to stand up to the Vatican and hold it to account.

20 000 pennies donated in Rockville

2010-09-09T03:44:00.000-07:00

Send The Bishops a Message has donated 20 000 pennies to the Diocese of Rockville, NY. The number of 20 000 was deliberately chosen to represent a (conservative) estimate of the number of US victims of sexual abuse by priests.

A message for the Rockville Centre diocese

Members of a national coalition led by Send the Bishops a Message delivered 20,000 pennies and a letter to Bishop William Murphy last Sunday morning during a sidewalk "press conference" outside St. Agnes Cathedral.

The group, which claims to represent over 25,000 people, called upon Murphy to use the money as a seed for a special fund to aid clergy sexual abuse victims.

The coalition, which also includes Victims' Voice, Road to Recovery and the National Survivor Advocates Coalition, is calling for a proposed Diocese of Rockville Centre Good Samaritan Clergy Sexual Abuse Victims’ Trust fund to be overseen by independent trustees who would distribute grants and other support to help victims and their families recover and heal from the trauma they say resulted from the abuse.

The number of pennies being donated, the group said, represents a conservative estimate of the number of people in the United States who experienced sexual abuse by Catholic priests and other church employees since 1950.

LiHerald.com

Boston Archdiocese: New Accusations Against Priest

2010-09-09T03:31:00.000-07:00

BRAINTREE, Mass. (AP) ― A priest cleared by the Boston Archdiocese three years ago of child sex abuse is now facing more accusations.

The archdiocese said Wednesday the Rev. Thomas Curran has been restricted from public ministry following new allegations that he sexually abused children in the 1970s and 1980s.

Curran was on administrative leave from 2002 to 2007 during the archdiocese's investigation of two sexual abuse allegations, which it found were unsubstantiated. Curran was then placed on permanent disability, which restricted his ministry to family. He's now restricted from any ministry. His current location could not immediately be determined.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley said the new charges brought the church "great sadness" and underscored the importance of its efforts to protect children.

SNAP, an abuse victims advocacy group, said the case shows "how extraordinarily flawed" church sex abuse investigations are.

-Massachusetts AP News

Belgian Cardinal: "Damage Control" Before Concern For Victims

2010-09-09T02:44:00.000-07:00

Cardinal Godfried Danneels also acknowledged that "all too often" the Roman Catholic Church had given damage control precedence over concern for victims in sexual abuse cases involving clergy.

Roger Vangheluwe, the Bishop of Bruges, resigned at the end of April after admitting to a paedophile relationship with his teenage nephew n the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he was still a priest.

The victim, according leaked transcripts of a meeting on April 8, was then asked by Cardinal Danneels to keep silent about the abuse until Bishop Vangheluwe retired next year.

The cardinal insisted that he had tried to establish why the family had kept quiet about the abuse for almost 25 years and he denied mentioning the bishop's impending retirement to influence the relatives.

"I never wanted to suggest that it should not be made public," he said.

Cardinal Danneels, who retired in January, has been questioned by police as a witness in an investigation into sexual abuse by the Church in Belgium.

He said that he had only become aware of a sex abuse problem was big after cases emerged in the United States, the Netherlands and Germany.

"We knew of a few cases. But the stream of reactions that came in after Vangheluwe's resignation made the scale of the problem clear, also for me," he said.

German Bishops' Abuse Guidelines Require Reporting to Police

2010-09-08T13:45:00.000-07:00

Any suspicion of the mistreatment of children by church officials will in future be reported to prosecutors immediately, according to new guidelines presented by Germany's Catholic bishops on Tuesday.

The Roman Catholic Church in Germany on Tuesday unveiled a new set of guidelines for dealing with cases of sexual abuse within the church.

All future allegations of abuse at the hands of church officials are to be reported to state prosecutors, which was not the case under the previous policy. Rules have been extended to include not just clergy but all staff working for the church.

"The shocking revelations and experience of recent months has shown us that the guidelines of 2002 were not precise enough in every area", said Stephan Ackermann, the Bishop of Trier, at a press conference to present the new rules.

The German Bishops' Conference gave Ackermann the responsibility for re-drawing the guidelines in February, after allegations of mistreatment at an elite Jesuit school in Berlin. Further cases of mistreatment in Germany and across Europe have caused severe damage to the Catholic Church.

The new 55-point regulations are to replace 16-point guidelines from 2002, and take effect on Wednesday, September 1. They were approved by the bishops' permanent council at a meeting in Wuerzburg last week.

"It was important for us bishops to make sure that the new guidelines prevent cases of sexual abuse being covered up," Ackermann said in the western city of Trier.

-Deutsche Welle

Priest gets 4 years for molesting St. Charles boy

2010-09-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

A former Roman Catholic priest was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison for sexually assaulting a St. Charles boy.

Alejandro Flores, 37, of Shorewood, pleaded guilty to one count of criminal sexual abuse, a Class 1 felony, at a hearing in Kane County.

Prosecutors said Flores preyed on a boy whose family he met while working at St. Mary's Church in West Chicago. The abuse occurred on multiple occasions in Flores' car and in the victim's home, when the boy was 12 or 13 years old, prosecutors said. There also were allegations that Flores made attempts to have sexual contact with the victim's older brother.

As a result of his conviction, Flores must register as a sex offender for life and face deportation to his native Bolivia upon release from prison.

By law, he must serve at least 85 percent of the sentence, or about three years and five months, Judge T. Jordan Gallagher said.

- from Daily Herald

Alejandro Flores, 37, of the 600 block of Brook Forest Avenue in Shorewood, had been charged with 16 felonies, including predatory sexual assault, criminal sexual assault, criminal sexual abuse, indecent solicitation of a child and attempted aggravated sexual abuse in connection with the alleged sexual abuse of his now 13-year-old godson.

Without the plea bargain, Flores could have faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 12 to 16 years in prison, especially given the predatory sexual assault charge, according to Kane County Assistant State’s Attorney Debra Bree. She said the prison sentence could have been even longer than that if the judge decided to sentence each charge consecutively.

The Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office said between Jan. 1, 2005, and Jan. 1, 2010, Flores had sexual contact with a St. Charles minor between the ages of 8 and 13.

Prosecutors allege during the same period, Flores also tried to have sexual contact with the victim’s older brother, who also was a minor.

-from My Suburban Life

Belgian Cardinal Attempted to Secure Silence on Abuse

2010-09-01T13:16:00.000-07:00

The church has been protesting vigorously that the scandal of sexual abuse is mostly about past history, that for the most part, past failings have been corrected and appropriate procedures are now in place. To some extent this is true - but some degree of episcopal cover-up clearly continues.

In April this year, the Belgian Bishop Roger Vangheluwe admitted to sexual abuse, and resigned. Shortly before this, the then head of the Belgian Church, Cardinal Daneels, tried to persuade the victim from going public with his allegations until after Vangheluwe's resignation.

From BBC News, Aug 28:

The former head of the Catholic Church in Belgium tried to stop a victim of sex abuse from going public with their story, Church officials have confirmed.

During a meeting in April, Cardinal Godfried Danneels advised the victim to delay a public statement until the bishop who abused him had retired.

Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who was also at the meeting, admitted to the abuse in April and resigned.

The victim recorded the meeting, and released the tape to Belgian media.

Decades Long Abuse Alleged in California

2010-08-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES — The Roman Catholic Church in the United States has become embroiled in a new pedophilia scandal with six women and one man alleging sexual abuse by a priest over three decades.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Oakland, California accused Father Stephen Kiesle of acts of sexual abuse between 1972 and 2001, and alleged that Catholic Church officials knew of the crimes but did not stop them.

Pedophile priest scandals and allegations of high-level cover-ups that swept Australia and the United States in 2004 have surged again since last year and rocked the Catholic Church in Europe and the United States.

"The Catholic bishops in the United States of America and the Holy See have long facilitated the sexual molestation of children by engaging in the harboring and protection of known child molesting priests," read a copy of the latest lawsuit obtained by AFP.

"The bishops and Catholic hierarchs have done so to prevent the priests from being prosecuted and to avoid scandal," the lawsuit read.

It said church figures "have subjected Catholic families and children in these communities to known pedophiles, counting on the devotion and reverence in the communities to keep any further abuse by the priests secret."

The plaintiffs, six women and one man, said they were abused by Kiesle throughout childhood and adolescence, although one alleged victim, Teresa Rosson, 48, said she suffered abuse at the hand of the cleric until about a decade ago.

-from AFP

Clerical Abuse: Will Germany follow Ireland?

2010-08-08T03:17:00.001-07:00

In the ongoing story of clerical abuse in Ireland, what set this country apart from all the others where abuse has been uncovered, was the thoroughness of the church’s (belated) own Ryan Report last, year, and then the exhaustive government investigation into cover-ups by the diocese of Dublin, culminating in the Murphy report in November. The impact of that report, in Ireland and elsewhere, left me wondering how it would be if other countries were to follow the example of the Irish. (Even at the time of that report, there were calls for an expansion into other Irish dioceses, and into Northern Ireland by the UK government. That pressure will not have been eased by the dissatisfaction at the Vatican meeting with the Irish bishops.) Now it seems that Germany may follow a similar path. For weeks, there have been a series of news reports of abuses, over several decades, at a Jesuit church school in Berlin. But reports are now emerging of other problems in other cities too, and for other religious orders as well. It seems that the more the press digs into this story, the more there is to find – and the more willingly former victims are coming forward to shed more light on the past. Now, church organisations are calling for full disclosure from the church – and German politicians are starting to join in. If the German Church does indeed decide to launch its own Murphy style investigation, they will inevitably find the same Irish and American style cover –ups, as these were clearly mandated in directives from the CDF. Then, after the Germans, how many other nations might follow?

The weekly Der Spiegel, in its issue to appear on Monday, quoted Education Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger as saying she wanted the Church to take "concrete steps" to this end. She proposed a meeting with government representatives, the Church and victims of abuse to discuss possible compensation

Details of the allegations reported in US and British media have been sketchy, but this English language report from inside Germany is detailed and horrifying. From Der Spiegel:

The Catholic Church in Germany has been shaken in recent days by revelations of a series of sexual abuse cases. Close to 100 priests and members of the laity have been suspected of abuse in recent years. After years of suppression, the wall of silence appears to be crumbling. This is what it looks like, the document of a conspiracy: 24 pages, with appendix, in Latin, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican. A "norma interna," or confidential set of guidelines for all bishops, who were required to keep it a secret for all eternity, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. According to the instructions from Rome, the bishops were to deal very firmly with each individual case - so firmly, in fact, that everything would remain within the confines of the HolyChurch. After all, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- formerly known as the Inquisition - has centuries of experience in conducting internal investigations. The Vatican has always filled all the positions in such investigations - prosecutors, defendants, judges - from within its own ranks, while the investigation files have been kept in the secret archives of the Roman Curia.

(For a discussion of the content and significance of this document, see at “Queering the Church”. At the time that its existence was discovered and reported in the press, the Vatican claimed that it was out f date, and had been replaced. However, a much later document from Cardinal Ratzinger, then at the CDF , placed the same emphasis on secrecy.) For the details of the actual allegations, read the full report. Vatican responses to the Irish problems have consistently attempted to portray it as a local governance problem. However, there have also been widespread problems across the United States, and problems also in Germany, Canada, the UK, Italy, Austria, Australia and South Africa – and these are just the ones I know of off the top of my head. I suspect that the major difference between countries is not the prevalence of abuse, but just how much has so far been uncovered. The German pattern seems to be following much the same path as the early days of the exposure in the US, while the German Bishop’s internal guidelines on responding to the problem are entirely consistent with the pattern laid down by the Vatican decades ago – and the pattern displayed elsewhere.

Code of Secrecy But upon closer inspection, even these guidelines are pervaded by the Church's way of thinking, as affirmed by the Holy See in 1962 under Pope John XXIII and once again in 2001. According to those guidelines, which remain in force today, potential cases of abuse must be reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The guidelines also forbid bishops worldwide from taking any steps beyond an initial investigation of accusations without direct instructions from Rome. The entire procedure is subject to "pontifical secrecy," the second-highest level of secrecy within the Holy See. Anyone who violates this code of secrecy without papal permission can be punished. The guidelines of the German Bishops' Conference are worded accordingly and emphasize the primacy of discreet internal investigations. Before making a decision, each bishop must first consider ways to protect the reputation of the priest and theChurch. When Rome takes over the investigations, some abuse cases can be quietly dealt with in secret trials. Based on its own canonical law, the German Catholic Church does not feel obligated to immediately report cases of abuse within its own ranks to the German authorities, so that the authorities can conduct house searches, for example. Critics say that theChurch is exposing itself to charges of obstruction of justice, as long as the clergy handles cases purely on an internal basis. Critical Catholic groups have long sought to change the Bishops' Conference guidelines, but to no avail. Bernd Göhrig, the executive director of a group called theChurch from Below, calls for the establishment of independent ombudsmen to address the concerns of the victims, instead of the biased representatives of the diocese. This is probably the only viable option, given that the German bishops are as reluctant to address the issue of prohibited sex as the German pope. Even after the massive abuse scandal in the United States in 2002, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, the bishop of the southwestern German city of Mainz and the head of the German Catholic Church at the time, felt no particular need to take action. "We don't have a problem of the same dimension (as in the American Church)," he told Spiegel in an interview at the time. In his diocese, he said, anyone who "is truly a pedophile is immediately removed from pastoral service." These kinds of people, he said, could "not simply be transferred to a different location." Only a few weeks later, however, Lehmann was confronted with a new case of abuse inside his own diocese, in a parish near Darmstadt. A few months earlier, parents in a small city near Frankfurt had discovered, to their dismay, that the new director of their children's choir, Father E., was the same man who had been forced to leave his previous parish because of questionable relationships with minors. Lehmann's system had already shuffled the priest around several times from one location to another.

Critical Catholic groups have long sought to change the Bishops' Conference guidelines, but to no avail. Bernd Göhrig, the executive director of a group called theChurch from Below, calls for the establishment of independent ombudsmen to address the concerns of the victims, instead of the biased representatives of the diocese. This is probably the only viable option, given that the German bishops are as reluctant to address the issue of prohibited sex as the German pope.

These German instructions are clearly based on two Vatican documents to bishops worldwidem one of them produced by Cardinal Ratzinger himself. I would like to remind Pope Benedict of a fundamental principle of Catholic theology familiar to me from primary school. It is always possible to obtain forgiveness for sin, but there can be no absolution before confession, repentance and reparation. In the case of abuse, reparation is not possible - but when will we hear from him a confession of his own role in the decades long mishandling of this? Where will this end?

More on "Suicide, Catholic Church, and Abuse": A Readers's Story:

2010-07-31T08:57:00.000-07:00

My post on the church's culpability in youth suicide has brought this moving comment at Queering the Church, which has brought me , quite literally, to tears. I reproduce it here for your consideration, with no further comment - I have no words that would be good enough:

Thank you Terence for posting this thought provoking post. I would not want to comment directly on the Unglo family’s actions, though I have a good idea of their anguish and pain.

All I would say is that sometimes (and more often than appears on the surface) your two threads of thought intersect, tragically.

My wife and I are firmly convinced that young gays and lesbians are far more likely to be clergy sexually abused than their straight peers.

Here is our story, which is the story of our beloved son: Remembering Eric - 2nd Anniversary Of His Death the associated links tell some more about him and us. I know we had to fight my then-Bishop to have Eric’s funeral service in the local church building ~ because ‘the canons’ forbade the funeral of ‘a suicide’ in church. Heaping insult upon injury.

May Eric, and all the other suicide-victims of clergy sexual abuse … rest in peace, and rise in Glory!
sincerely,

John Iliff

"Eric's story" concludes with these word:

It was there in 1935 that he told his students:

'The one who does not cry out for the Jews has no right to sing Gregorian chant'.

Today, we forthrightly submit that:

'The one who does not cry out for the victims of clergy sexual abuse has no right to say the Catholic mass nor sing the Orthodox Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom'.

Irish Abuse Outrage as "Painful Surgery" - Bishop

2010-07-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

A newly appointed Irish bishop, Liam McDaid of Clogher, has described the crisis of abuse which has rocked the church worldwide, but especially in Ireland, as "painful surgery", which was necessary, but has brought much-needed healing. It's a striking analogy, and like any surgery, it has certainly been painful and was clearly necessary. Has it brought healing, as he suggests? I don't know about Ireland, but from a broader perspective, I'm sceptical. It takes time to get over from major surgery, and recovery is never guaranteed. On the surgery executed on the church, the jury is still out. Has the surgeon's knife cut deep enough? Were the cuts and stitches made the correct ones? Only time will tell. Before reaching a verdict and signing off on a clean bill of health, we must continue to watch the patient closely, and monitor all symptoms.

“Painful surgery” good for Church, says new Bishop

The newly ordained Catholic Bishop of Clogher Liam McDaid has said that the Church was in need of “painful surgery” in order to cleanse it of the iniquity of having been responsible for years of child abuse.

The Bishop said that the abuse scandal which rocked the Church brought the institution to its knees, ‘but perhaps that isn’t a bad thing,’ he added.

He invited fellow clergymen and lay-person to “repentant return to the well of salvation” as he prayed for a new direction for the Church in Ireland.

A native of Bundoran, Co Donegal, Bishop McDaid said “society has forced us in the Irish church to look into the mirror, and what we saw were weakness and failure, victims and abuse. The surgeon’s knife has been painful but necessary. A lot of evil and poison has been excised.

“There comes a time when the surgeon’s knife has done what it can, is put away, and a regime of rehabilitation for the patient is put in place.

“We have been brought to our knees, but maybe that is no bad thing. It can bring us closer to the core of the mystery.”

He continued: “So while society keeps the mirror in front of us and rightly checks that we are sincere in our intentions and efforts towards rehabilitation, can I invite you, priests and people of the diocese of Clogher, to join me in a repentant return to the well of salvation.

“The journey will include, for many, facing the enormous challenge of forgiveness.
“Despite his intense suffering, Jesus forgave those who mocked, spat at, scourged and abused him. One of the co-crucified could not bring himself beyond abuse and excluded himself; the other rose to embracing forgiveness, and was welcomed into the kingdom. There are many painful experiences in life where only forgiveness can bring closure.”
-Irish Times

UK: Child Protection Head Criticizes the Vatican

2010-07-30T21:15:00.000-07:00

The Vatican’s recently published new guidelines provide for the doubling of the time limit allowed for prosecution under the statute of limitations, from 10 years to 20. The head of the UK Church’s own Child protection agency says this doesn’t go far enough, as it fails to reflect the long-term effects of abuse. He argues that it should be removed altogether.

UK Catholic child protection agency criticises Vatican

National Catholic Safeguarding Commission calls for abolition of statute of limitations on prosecution of priests over child abuse

The head of child protection for the Catholic church in England and Wales has said the Vatican should remove the statute of limitations on prosecution of of priests for child abuse offences.

William Kilgallon, the chair of the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission (NCSC), argued that the time limit was unhelpful and failed to reflect the long-lasting effects of abuse.

He described the Vatican's recent decision to double the time period from 10 years to to 20 as "better than it was", but said he would have preferred its abolition.

He was speaking at the launch of the NCSC's annual report, which highlighted developments in the protection of children and vulnerable adults.

When asked to comment about the latest guidelines from the Vatican, Kilgallon replied: "It is good the time limit has been extended; my advice would have been to remove any limit. It is better than it was, but I would have preferred to see the removal of limits entirely."

He explained that the church in England and Wales was becoming more aware of the serious impact of abuse, and how the effects persisted with people into their adult lives. Events late in life could trigger feelings and trauma, forcing people to relive their experiences, he told the press conference.

-(Full report at the Guardian)

Suicide, Abuse, and the Catholic Church

2010-07-30T08:41:00.001-07:00

One of my earliest memories from primary school religion lessons is that suicide is a grievous sin, one of the worst of all. If that is so, how serious is it to be responsible for another person's suicide? And how serious is it if that person is a representative of the Catholic Church, or indirectly, the whole impersonal structure of the Church itself?

The Church has by now become accustomed to being sued by survivors of clerical abuse, of boys, girls, and adults alike. It is also now accustomed to paying out large sums, as the result of court judgements, out-of court settlements, or (in some cases) plain hush money, all for abuse.

In Pennsylvania, it is now facing a monetary claim on different grounds, still arising from a case of alleged abuse. Michael Unglo was an abuse victim in the diocese of Pittsburgh, where he was molested for several years by Fr Richard Dorsch, who was later defrocked and imprisoned. After Unglo attempted suicide in 2008, Bishop Zubik promised him that the church would "right the wrong" that had been done to him, and began paying for psychiatric treatment. Earlier this year, he was told that a payment of $75 000 would be his last one. Two months later, he killed himself. (See "Suicide's family sues Catholic church", at UPI.com )

Now the family are suing the diocese for wrongful death, arguing that the diocese should have continued paying for his treatment.

I have no intention of getting into the rights and wrongs of this case, but there are some important and intriguing questions that arise here.

First, concerning this particular case, if the diocese had accepted initial responsibility for the treatment costs, why on earth did they suspend payment after only a couple of years? Mental health treatment around suicidal problems is never quick and easy.

More generally, if it becomes established that there is indeed wrongful death in this case, what will that mean for other abuse victims who have similarly killed themselves, before being offered treatment for that abuse? Very many survivors have received financial settlements for the damages received, and to pay for treatment. What of those who did not survive, and like Michael Unglo, took their own lives?

If it does become established that the church can be held responsible for the suicide of the victims of direct sexual abuse, what about suicides that arise from other forms of abuse - specifically, the mental and emotional abuse inflicted on young gay men and lesbians, or the physical abuse they endure in the name of "Christianity"

Youth suicide is a far bigger problem for gay and lesbians than for other youngsters. They endure verbal and physical bullying, and sometimes serious assaults. The bullies and assailants will often defend their actions as doing the "Lord's" work, or as punishing these people for their "sins". The Catholic church will insist (quite correctly) that it does not in fact promote such bullying themselves - but they consistently oppose state plans to counter bullying in schools, on the grounds that it will interfere with "freedom of religion". This sends a clear message to some people that homophobic bullying is permissible under "freedom of religion".

On the other side, the young people themselves are taught by the church that they are fundamentally "disordered", and that developing normal and healthy emotional and sexual relationships appropriate to their orientation is sinful and must be fought against, or borne as a "cross". Is it any wonder that some conclude that this cross is one they are not prepared to carry, and instead prefer suicide?

The fact of disproportionately high suicide rates among gay and lesbian young people is well -established. The link to religious-based homophobia, indirectly encouraged or condoned by church teaching, is also clear.

I do not want to argue that any court would or should make a clear connection of church culpability to one specific person's suicide. The "causes" of suicide are far more complex than that - but statistically at least, there is surely a case that the teaching and practice of some Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, should be held responsible for contributing to driving an unknown but probably substantial number of young people to suicide.

So: I repeat my earlier question. Which is the greater sin - to take one's own life in response to unbearable bullying and emotional suffering, or to drive many others to do so, in a sadly distorted interpretation of the Gospel message?

Examining the Abuse Crisis in the Church: NCR Review

2010-07-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while now since I wrote anything at all about the problems of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. That is not because I’ve lost interest, and still less because the problem has gone away – quite the contrary. I just reached a point, especially after the papal response to the Irish bishops, that there seemed so much to say, but also so much being written elsewhere, that the issue was in danger of becoming all-consuming, and with it, a risk of becoming contaminated with what my colleague Jayden Cameron calls “psychic poison”. I needed to take a step back, and get some of the perspective that comes with distance.

With that advantage, I now want to make a regular return to the topic, not with my own thoughts, but by drawing to your attention some of the better commentary I have seen elsewhere – with the emphasis on commentary, not the gory details. I am also no longer particularly interested in analysing the causes, (except where there is something fresh being said), as much of these have been discussed endlessly, both here, at Queering the Church, and elsewhere. I am now more interested in writing about the likely long-term impact on the church (as I began to discuss here).

(As Andrew Sullivan observes, "One imagines that this 1973 design for the Catholic Church's Archdiocesan Youth Commission would not make the cut today")

To kick this off, I wiant to draw your attention to what has become an impressive continuous series on the subject at National Catholic Reporter, some of which I will be discussing later in more detail.

NCR Series on the abuse Crisis

A proposal for dealing with priest perpetrators

by Mary Gail Frawley ODea on Jul. 28, 2010

About 5,000 priests and religious brothers have been identified as credibly accused of sexually violating minors. Most of these men were unavailable to criminal prosecution due to statutes of limitation; some within the statutes are in prison. The rest are dead, have voluntarily left the priesthood, were laicized, are residing in religious communities with more or -- usually -- less appropriate supervision, or wait in limbo for the church to adjudicate their cases.

Beneath the child abuse scandal

by A.W. Richard Sipe on Jul. 22, 2010

Many people, including bishops, date and label the "Crisis in the Catholic Church" to Jan. 6, 2002 when The Boston Globe began publishing its series about sexual abuse of minors by priests and revealing the conspiracy of bishops in covering up crimes. That was the flash point of a worldwide scandal. The crisis it epitomizes is more profound.

Read the full report here: Beneath the child abuse scandal

Scandal vs. crisis; PR vs. raw data

by A.W. Richard Sipe on Jul. 09, 2010

Ron Westrum, professor of sociology at Eastern Michigan University, suggests that organizations react in a series of stages to “anomalous reports.” They are: 1) suppression, 2) encapsulation, 3) public relations, 4) local fix, 5) global fix, and 6) investigation of root causes. He came to his formulation through the study of the battered child syndrome that many people, even professionals, found hard to admit was a widespread phenomenon.

It is not difficult to match the trajectory of church response to allegations of hidden clergy sex abuse against Westrum’s model. It’s a good fit.

Compromised hierarchy needs relational wisdom of women

by Charlene Spretnak on Jun. 17, 2010

If the church is to emerge from the crisis of the clergy sex abuse scandal and cover up and enter a new day, rather than being permanently degraded and diminished by it, a vital project of renewal is needed. It would involve all Catholics -- laity, nuns and priests, including the hierarchy -- in an energetic search for creative and vital means of replacing patterns of domination and control with more cooperative ways of interacting.

Mandatory celibacy: the heart of what's wrong

by James Carroll on Jun. 08, 2010

Like all Catholics, I gratefully depend on the faithful ministry of the many good priests who serve the church. Yet I offer a broad critique of something central to their lives and identities -- the rule of celibacy. Many priests will recognize the truth of what I describe.

I write from inside the question, having lived as a celibate seminarian and priest for more than a decade when I was young. In the Bing Crosby glory days, celibacy was essential to the mystique that set priests apart from other clergy, the Roman collar an “Open sesame!” to respect and status.

From a secular perspective, the celibate man or, in the case of nuns, woman made an impression simply by sexual unavailability. But from a religious perspective, the impact came from celibacy’s character as an all-or-nothing bet on the existence of God. The Catholic clergy lived in absolutism, which carried a magnetic pull.

Read Carroll's full commentary here: Mandatory celibacy at the heart of what's wrong

Sex: Obedience & Disclosure

by A.W. Richard Sipe on Jun. 01, 2010

Theologian Yves Congar once said, “In the Catholic Church it has often seemed that the sin of the flesh was the only sin, and obedience the only virtue.” This dynamic dichotomy forms the linchpin to the structure of the entire clergy sexual abuse crisis currently embroiling the Catholic Church.

But the sexual abuse of minors by clerics vowed to celibacy is only the symptom of a system desperately in need of fundamental reconsideration.

Surely Rome can do better

by James Ewens on May. 26, 2010

Let me take you into a situation that illustrates the church institution's instinctive reaction to cover-up scandal. It was a workshop in 2000 for new Jesuit superiors. The presenter, a former provincial, was discussing the circumstances when a superior could break the bond of confidentiality between himself and the men he was in charge of. He said something could be shared with the provincial "If it was a matter of danger for the individual or to others."

Cracks in the wall of the curia

by Jason Berry on May. 20, 2010

Examining the Crisis

The Roman Curia is the Vatican bureaucracy. Most people know little about the men who run the curia. But press coverage of the clergy abuse crisis is closing in on cardinals whose blunders in the clergy abuse crisis have begun to draw criticism from other Princes of the Church.

As words fire back and forth in the press, the wall of secrecy that traditionally surrounds the curia is showing cracks.

Don't expect accountability from the last feudal system in the West

by Donald Cozzens on May. 17, 2010

Miters somewhat askew, the recent queue of bishops from Ireland to Germany, and beyond stepping forward to offer apologies for sexual abuse by their priests is unprecedented for the European Catholic church.

Even as the apologies pile up and policies for dealing with abuse allegations are tightened and meetings with victims are promised, something remains amiss that takes the heart out of the bishops' mea culpa.

On the crisis, Benedict XVI changes the tone

by John L Allen

Lisbon, Portugal -- Not long ago, there was a brief flurry of speculation in the Italian media hinting that Benedict XVI was insulated from the full gravity of the sexual abuse crisis swirling around his papacy. Reports suggested the pope was getting only a carefully redacted daily press digest, producing a skewed impression of global discussion – and in particular, perhaps, shielding the pope from grasping the negative fallout of the “blame the messenger” commentary from some senior Vatican aides.

Tuesday morning, however, Benedict XVI seemed to show that he gets it just fine.

The gift of shame

by Mary Gail Frawley ODea on May. 10, 2010

Examining the Crisis

Jesuit Fr. James Martin suggests on the Huffington Post that the church’s hierarchy, from the pope on down, largely has failed to perform penance for its role in the relentlessly ongoing sexual abuse crisis. This omission is a grave deviation from the church’s own paradigm of penitence and restoration -- the sacrament of reconciliation -- which requires the penitent to make reparation to those harmed and to the larger community. The steadfast refusal to welcome the hope accompanying shame may be at work in this pastoral absence.

Church leaders are spinning their wheels

by Maureen Paul Turlish on May. 04, 2010

The institutional Roman Catholic church can attack every newspaper in every country in the world but that will not change the fact that as an institution it has participated in an extremely well documented, egregious pattern of enabling and covering up for the sexual abuse of thousands of innocent children the world over during almost an entire century.

Abuse crisis is actually a hierarchy crisis

by An NCR Editorial on Apr. 30, 2010

The sex abuse crisis is not fundamentally about sex. The phrase is a convenient tag that has been applied to a deeper, ongoing problem that, at its core, has to do with power and authority and how it is used in the church.

Secret sex in the celibate system

by A.W. Richard Sipe on Apr. 28, 2010

Viewpoint

Sexual behavior has a long and well-documented history. Even the current problem of sexual abuse of minors is neither new nor limited to clerics. It is a practice that crosses ethnic, cultural, religious and economic strata and custom. Incest (familial contact) is the most common. However, the sexual abuse of minors by declared celibate clerics poses special issues. There are three factors that draw special attention to the sexual practices of Roman Catholic clerics today.

Rehabilitating Peter, praising women

by Ross Beaudoin on Apr. 23, 2010

A homily for the Third Sunday of Easter

The gospel reading [for April 18] is a double-header. We get two stories in one. Both stories are about the apostle Peter, and they take up most of Chapter 21 of the Gospel of John.

Scholars tell us that Chapter 21 was added to the Gospel, which originally ended with Chapter 20, and that this “postscript” material probably dates around 60 years after the death of Jesus. These added stories must have been very important to the early Christian community. The question becomes: Why did the Johannine community feel the need to add these stories to the Gospel?

Revising history Vatican style

by Thomas P. Doyle on Apr. 21, 2010

The latest Vatican attempt at damage control and image recovery is really an example of history revision. The Vatican has posted to its Web site a short explanation of the 2001 motu proprio, Sacramentorum sancitatis tutela. This decree was not hidden in official secrecy and is fairly well-known throughout the world. The short article provided a summary of the main action steps for cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics. That offered nothing new. A real surprise, though, is found in one sentence: “Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed.”

Turn this dreadful moment into a graced moment

by Fr Michael Ryan on Apr. 20, 2010

· Examining the crisis

As he read the scriptures for the Third Sunday in Easter, Fr. Michael Ryan, says, it was hard " not to read all this in light of what is currently happening in our church, and to express the hope that, during this current, painful crisis, our church leaders will hear Peter's words as a challenge to humbly acknowledge that, despite their intentions, instead of speaking for God they have sometimes spoken -- and acted -- all too humanly."

Not Just Catholics: Minnesota

2010-07-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

Suit to accuse Minn. Christian retreat leader of sex abuse

A longtime minister and founder of a Christian retreat in northwestern Minnesota is being accused of sexually assaulting a pre-teen girl whom he counseled.

The sexual-abuse accusations against the Rev. Gerald Derstine will be made in a federal lawsuit to be filed Wednesday by Jeff Anderson, the St. Paul attorney who has rattled the Roman Catholic Church all the way to the Vatican over long-running allegations of clergy abuse.

Anderson's law firm has scheduled a news conference Wednesday afternoon in St. Paul, after the suit is filed in U.S. District Court.

Along with the 81-year-old Derstine, the suit will name as defendants the Florida-based Gospel Crusade Inc., which he founded and chairs, and other entities under his direction.

The suit will allege that Derstine was involved in the "recruiting, grooming and subsequent sexual abuse and exploitation of an 11-year-old female from Minnesota," Anderson's law firm said in a news release.

The abuse took place at Gospel Crusade's Strawberry Lake Christian Retreat from August 2007 to July 2009, the law firm contends.

Full report from the Strib:

Fewer Abuse Claims in England & Wales

2010-07-28T00:38:00.000-07:00

While there remain numerous serious problems with the church's handling of sexual abuse (of children and of adults), it is important to recognize that the scale of the problem has at least been declining in recent years. The diocesan administrator in Cardiff, Monsignor Robert Rearodon, says this is a sign of "how strongly the church was tackling the problem".

This is illustrated, for example, in this report from the UK:

Fall in Catholic child abuse claims

CHILD abuse allegations in the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales fell in 2009, according to a new report.

And a senior Catholic priest in Wales said the figures, released in the annual report of the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission, showed the church was dealing robustly with issues of safeguarding young people.

The Catholic church received 41 allegations of abuse relating to 43 alleged abusers and 52 victims in 2009.

The claims made in 2009 have so far resulted in one police caution or warning and one jail sentence.

There are investigations under way in 17 cases, while no action has been taken by the authorities in relation to 24 allegations.

Monsignor Robert Reardon, the administrator of the Archdiocese of Cardiff, said the report was evidence of how strongly the church was tackling allegations of child abuse, though he admitted there was still work to be done.

Full report at Wales Online

Pedophilia, Women's Ordination - and Kid Gloves for the Legion

2010-07-25T03:29:00.001-07:00

Amid a welter of excellent commentary on the mad coupling of pedophilia and women's ordination, Nihil Obstat makes a different comparison: she notes that in the same week as the latest madness, Pope Benedict has appointed Archbishop Velasio De Paolis to take control of the finances and assets of the Legionaries of Christ. The need for an outsider to take control of the vast fortune was obvious. The extraordinary, horrifying part is the mild words in the news release about the problem's of the order, and the legacy of its founder, Father Marcial Maciel, who is said to have " fathered children and was guilty of other crimes.”

That has to place first as the wryest, drollest, understatement of the year.
Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado raped and sexually abused underage seminarians and priests; kept mistresses on two continents; fathered at least three children; raped his sons; lied, cheated and stole his order’s money to support an illicit lifestyle. He was aided and abetted by senior members of the Legion. The organization was maintained by secrecy and deceit.
In the Zenit article Archbishop De Paolis said it is understandable that some Legionaries are “going through difficult moments, that some have already thought of a different path.” He cautioned that the “vocation is something too serious to be able to make a decision about it in a moment of disorientation.”
Maciel’s key supporters in the Vatican, who provided him with a protective shield, included Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state from 1991 to 2006; Cardinal Eduardo Martinez, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life; and Cardinal Stanislaw Dzwisz, the Polish secretary of late Pope John Paul II.
Fr. Maciel’s biggest enabler was Pope John Paul II himself. Maciel brought in money and men to the priesthood; and that balanced the account as far as the pope was concerned.
Ponder this for a minute…..senior members of the Vatican hierarchy protected a serial molester and rapist, a priest that had several children with two different women—because this man had created an organizational structure that attracted seminarians and espoused traditional values and practices.
At the same time, they have set into place the most savage penalties for bishops and women who want to become priests, and refuse to consider the issue of priestly celibacy.

No wonder that she says she is herself now "disoriented" by the events of the week.

-(Read the full post)

"Shock" in Rome: Priests at Gay Sex Clubs !

2010-07-25T03:07:00.000-07:00

In Rome, an undercover journalist from the Panorama news magazine has filmed three priests in gay sex clubs - and having sex. Assisted by a gay "accomplice", the journalist monitored the three men for almost twenty days, accompanying them to "sex clubs", restaurants and private parties, where there was dancing with naked men. The accomplice is said to have gone home with one of the priests, and had sex with him. Film footage, the magazine has promised, will be placed on the net from tomorrow - including footage of a Mass celebrated by one of them, to confirm that they are indeed genuine priests. The intention, you will be relived to learn, is not to shock or cause scandal, but only to illustrate the double life some priests lead.

It really had to happen. The only surprise here is that it has taken so long for the tabloid press to do something like this.

It is well known that a substantial proportion of priests, whether gay or straight, are not, well, as totally celibate as the Vatican would like us to believe. ("The Myth of Clerical Celibacy") Some are gay. If they are going to find sexual expression, just where are they to do it? Some few (very few) are fortunate in having regular, loving relationships, either openly or more likely, secretly. Options for the rest are limited. One option, as I wrote earlier this week, is to pay for it: but on a priest's income, that may lead to some pilfering from the collection plate to cover the expense. Another has been to indulge in anonymous sex in a nightspot. Up to now, they have been protected by the discretion of the press.

It has been observed that in the Vatican, the community of Vatican journalists know precisely which highly placed prelates - senior priests, bishops and cardinals alike - are sexually active, with whom, and with what particular sexual preferences or peccadilloes. Rather like the discreet French journalists who similarly know the sexual habits of their politicians but do not report them, the Vatican press contingent have kept their knowledge private.

To my mind, there are two scandals here. The first is not that these men were attempting to include sexual expression in their lives. Sexual activity is an entirely normal and natural part of the human make-up. It is rather, that the rules left them with few options but to do so in the impersonal, emotionally sterile context of casual encounters rather than in loving relationships. The second, concerning the actions of the press, is not their invasion of privacy - but that their victims were ordinary priests, and not the cardinals most active in promoting the hostile anti-gay doctrines of the church. Perhaps that will still come.

There has been little official comment yet, beyond complaints that this was mere "scandal-seeking", supposedly devoid of any actual evidence. (Just wait until that is all over the internet.) However, the Vicar of Rome has said that all gay priests should come out and leave the priesthood.

“No one is forcing them to stay in the priesthood to exploit the benefits,” the Diocese of Rome said in a statement posted on its Web Site. “If they are coherent, they should come out into the open.”

Is he serious? If all gay priests really did follow his call, the current dire shortage of priests would immediately become dramatically more acute.

From the Daily Mail:

A gay priest sex scandal has rocked the Catholic Church in Italy today after a weekly news magazine released details of a shock investigation it had carried out.
Using hidden cameras, a journalist from Panorama magazine - owned by Italian Prime Minister and media baron Silvio Berlusconi - filmed three priests as they attended gay nightspots and had casual sex.
Today there was no immediate comment from the Italian Bishops Conference and the Vatican - which has been rocked by a series of sex scandals involving paedophile priests since the start of the year.
A preview of the Panorama article sent out by email last night added that video footage from the investigation would be made available.

-(Read the full article)

Or try looking at these Italian sites:

“Le notti brave dei preti gay”, inchiesta di Panorama che ...
- [ Translate this page ]22 lug 2010 ... 91 Commenti a ““Le notti brave dei preti gay”, inchiesta di Panorama che imbarazza il Vaticano”. Flavio scrive: 22 luglio 2010 alle 22:24 ...
www.uaar.it/.../le-notti-brave-dei-preti-gay-inchiesta-di-panorama-che-imbarazza-il-vaticano/
PANORAMA CHOC: "LE NOTTI BRAVE DEI PRETI A ROMA" VATICANO ...
- [ Translate this page ]22 lug 2010 ... Preti sorpresi a frequentare i locali di ritrovo dei gay romani, ..... Panorama in un reportage parla di "notti brave" dei preti gay a Roma. ...
www.leggo.it/articolo.php?id=73779
Panorama, inchiesta shock su preti gay Il Vaticano: è puro ...
- [ Translate this page ]23 lug 2010 ... «Le anonime ma autorevoli fonti vaticane citate relativamente all'inchiesta diPanorama sulle notti brave dei preti gay a Roma - sottolinea ...
www.ilmessaggero.it/articolo.php?id=111859&sez=HOME_INITALIA
«Panorama», inchiesta choc: le notti brave dei preti gay a Roma ...
- [ Translate this page ]ROMA (22 luglio) - Preti sorpresi a frequentare i locali di ritrovo dei gay romani, filmati con una telecamera nascosta durante feste notturne con ...
www.ilmattino.it/articolo.php?id=111869
Le notti brave dei preti gay, inchiesta shock di Panorama ...
- [ Translate this page ]22 lug 2010 ... La copertina di Panorama su cui campeggia il titolo ''Le notti brave dei preti gay'' e si vedono due mani giunte su un rosario con lo smalto ...
www.ansa.it/web/notizie/.../2010/.../visualizza_new.html_1874375812.html

Priests and Prostitutes

2010-07-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

No, not a theme for a fancy dress party, but a real- life problem.

Mike Jones is a (former) male prostitute with first-hand personal knowledge. He was the man some years ago who outed one of his clients as Ted Haggard, then a popular and successful bible-punching preacher well-known for his regular attacks on the homos "sinful" lifestyle - but who furnished his church with homeorotic statues and populated his stage with hunky male assistants:

When I attended Haggard's New Life Church after the scandal broke, I was amazed to see all the explicitly homoerotic statues and paintings—sculptures of nude, muscular men all over the place. I also noticed that all the people on stage where Ted would preach were young men—not a female in sight. I was later told that Ted picked out all the art work and the final decision as to who was on stage lay with him.

After J0nes read reports of Father Kevin J. Gray. the Connecticut priest who is facing trial over allegations that he had stolen $1,3 million from his parish to pay for high living and hustlers in New York, he wrote at the Daily Beast that based on his extensive experience, a sizeable proportion of men hiring prostitutes are clergy. Thinking about it, this doesn't really surprise me. We know that priests after all are no more than human, and that a significant proportion of priests are not totally celibate. Some few are lucky enough to negotiate proper, stable relationships - but what, exactly are the options for a priest who is closeted? Some discreet toe tapping in a toilet cubicle, and run the risk of being rumbled, like Larry Craig? Late night cruising in the park?

No, there are sound reasons for thinking that some priests may see the safest option for some safe sex is just to buy it. There is, however, one major problem. Sex for sale is outside the pay scale for Catholic Priests. (Unlike some other preachers, such as Alan Rekers) . Mike Jones describes one solution.

But more than once I was paid for my services with a handful of crinkled ones and fives. I would think to myself, how could they take from their own church’s collection plate? The answer is simple and sad: addicts will do whatever they need to do to support their habit.

I have written before of the many ways in which the insistence on compulsory celibacy is damaging to our priests - and to their partners, where they are lucky enough to have them. What I hadn't considered, was that it might even lead some to steal from the church.

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A Looming Ecclesiastical Revolution? A Child Abuse Tsunami?

2010-07-22T03:24:00.001-07:00

After the flood of revelations over child abuse earlier this year, emerging in country after country to ever greater outrage over abuse, cover-up, and claims of inadequate institutional response, the flow of big, really scandalous news stories has pretty well dried up. There's a limit to just how long the press can continue discussing the precise degree of personal culpability of then Archbishop Ratzinger in Munich, or of Cardinal Ratzinger at the CDF- and a limit to how long readers or television viewers will continue to pay any attention.

Sure, there continues to be a steady trickle of local news stories concerning one or other clergyman being accused or coming to trial, and we now have fresh complaints that the newly released revised guidelines don't do enough, and will be ineffective. I don't believe thought that most Catholics will pay enough attention to these details to be seriously bothered. So does this mean that the whole affair will slowly die a death, with bygones allowed to be bygones, and the present dealt with means that while not perfect, will at least ensure that it is never again quite as bad as it was?

Not a bit of it.

It should be obvious to all that whatever the outcry may have done or not done to remedy the problem of abuse, there has been a major impact on the entire structure and internal relationships inside the church. Ordinary Catholics on all continents have had their confidence in the church authorities severely shaken. In many regions, they are formally resigning in significant numbers. Where they have not resigned, they are not attending Mass as often, or withholding contributions to church coffers, or are simply feeling more confident in openly defying the supposed authority of the Church, even to the extent of accepting women bishops or other unauthorized Eucharistic celebrants. (Perhaps this is why there is after all a macabre logic to linking paedophilia to women's ordination: the problems the church has had with one have increased the appeal of the other).

I have not seen any reports of the impact on local priests, but there must have been some. They will have been angered in the same way as ordinary Catholics, and for additional reasons too: many will feel that the shadow of suspicion will now fall unfairly on them personally, and they will certainly find that as the men on the ground, they are the ones that will have to deal with the impact of greater lay resistance or outright hostility.

It is certainly clear that the bishops, collectively, have been affected. There have been unprecedented increases in veiled or direct criticisms from the bishops, on the institutional procedures, on the institutional culture, and even on each other. This is not surprising. They are the ones shouldering the blame for cover-ups and protecting abusive priests, but many will feel they were simply following CDF rules, rules the Vatican has been claiming were simply misunderstood.

What of the secular authorities, and their relationship with the Church? In many countries, political, judicial and police authorities have clearly demonstrated a far greater assertiveness towards the church than ever before, instituting inquiries, summoning clerical representatives to testify, and allowing court cases against the church to proceed. In Venezuela, President Chavez is seriously talking of revoking the Vatican's diplomatic status, a move that has growing support (outside of government) in many other countries as well - notably right here in the UK.

The Vatican itself, though, appears largely unchanged. It is the institutions fundamental disconnect with real life beyond its borders, I believe, that was a key part of the problems in the first place, and that has not changed one iota. It is no wonder that the latest revisions to procedures strike so many observers as simply tinkering with detail, rather than the deep-rooted reform that is really needed. I will return to the subject of the Vatican's response to changing relationships below.

The impact has to be substantial, but it will take time before we can really evaluate the impact. Some sources are suggesting it will be huge - "you ain't seen 'nuttin yet."

Recall that one of the immediate consequences of the early revelations in March was that many countries instituted their own inquiries into the history of abuse . cover-ups, and the causes. These inquiries have not yet reported their findings, but when they do, if there is any evidence of complicity or negligence on the part of the church authorities, you can bet that the whole sorry mess will be all over the papers, internet and TV screens yet again. I for one will not be betting against the likelihood of further evidence of malfeasance being uncovered.

It was an analysis of the dramatic developments in one of these investigations, in Belgium, that caught my eye. At NCR, in an article analysing the seemingly heavy handed recent actions of the police there is a throw-away line that had me catch my breath in awe at its implications. It is a statement by an unnamed Vatican source, so we cannot evaluate its reliability: but the content, to my mind, had a ring of at least plausibility, given my analysis of the situation sketched above:

Pope Benedict XVI has announced the creation of a new department at the Vatican: the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization. The pope hopes this new office will clear up problems created by secularism in Western Europe. What the pope might not fully realize, however, and what his new department will not likely clear up, is the impact of current European-wide tsunami of people coming forward with reports of sexual abuse in the church. A canon lawyer who has been working with abuse cases for the past 10 years, but is restricted from speaking on the record, said in a long phone conversation recently that we are witnessing just the start of an immense reporting of sexual abuse and the start of an ecclesiastical revolution. It is unclear whether the Vatican can even understand what’s really happening.

When the current investigations have run their course, there may well be a "tsunami" of revelations. In Ireland, as in the US, there had been media reports for years, before anybody really took serious notice. It was not until after the government investigation reported, that the story really caught fire. Across Europe, the other countries are currently at the stage Ireland was at before the Ryan and Murphy reports. What will be their position after the investigations are complete?

The Vatican, meanwhile, has demonstrated once again how desperately out removed they are ftom reality. Instead of attempting to grapple with the real issues, of the institution of a celibate, all male clergy starved of any life of emotional intimacy, of a highly centralized power mad structure that lends itself to abusive power relationships, and a totally inappropriate regime for the selection and training of candidates for the priesthood, what has it done? It has created a program to "re-evangelize the West", apparently in the belief that is the secular culture, and not their own institutional faults, that is to blame for the mess - and tinkered with its existing procedures.

It is unclear whether the Vatican can even understand what’s really happening.

Indeed. It is no wonder that there is said to be a major ecclesiastical rebellion brewing. The bishops are themselves not exactly in close touch with real people and their lives, but they are certainly more so than the Curia. Note too, that the most vocal criticisms have come from bishops and Cardinals with responsibility for real dioceses - not the Vatican bureacrats, with nothing more to think of than institutional rules and politics.

Get your lifebelts ready. You'll need them when the tsunami hits.

A Looming Ecclesiastical Revolution? A Child Abuse Tsunami?

2010-07-22T03:24:00.000-07:00

Not a bit of it.

The impact has to be substantial, but it will take time before we can really evaluate the impact. Some sources are suggesting it will be huge - "you ain't seen 'nuttin yet."

Pope Benedict XVI has announced the creation of a new department at the Vatican: the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization. The pope hopes this new office will clear up problems created by secularism in Western Europe. What the pope might not fully realize, however, and what his new department will not likely clear up, is the impact of current European-wide tsunami of people coming forward with reports of sexual abuse in the church. A canon lawyer who has been working with abuse cases for the past 10 years, but is restricted from speaking on the record, said in a long phone conversation recently that we are witnessing just the start of an immense reporting of sexual abuse and the start of an ecclesiastical revolution. It is unclear whether the Vatican can even understand what’s really happening.

It is unclear whether the Vatican can even understand what’s really happening.

Get your lifebelts ready. You'll need them when the tsunami hits.

Why Belgium?

2010-07-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

At NCR, John A Dick ( a retired historical theologian and resident of Belgium)_asks the question, "Why should it be Belgium, why has it become the latest location to explode in the clergy sex abuse scandal?"

Exploring the issues, he concludes that there are four contributory factors:

The authorities have reacted speedily to the matter of child abuse, to which they have been extra sensitive since the Marc Dutroux affair.
Today, there is a growing demand for transparency.
There is an intense awareness of the state of the church across Europe, and the intense scrutiny of the church everywhere on matters of abuse.
The person of Cardinal Godfried Danneels, former archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, who Dick suggests is the subject of a personal vendetta by "certain persons", who are said to be using the abuse problem in the church to besmirch his reputation. For what reason, the post does not make clear.

(Read the full analysis at NCR)

Vatican 13 Years Late With UN Child Rights Report

2010-07-16T03:30:00.000-07:00

If you want rights, you must accept responsibilities. If the Vatican wants to be taken seriously as a genuine independent state, it must behave like a state. The Vatican claims representation at the UN, a status that brings with it obligations to comply with reporting requirements on a wide range of matters pertinent to global concerns. One one of these, the Vatican has neglected these obligations for thirteen years! Is is a co-incidence that the subject is child rights?

This neglect is not mere oversight. They have had repeated reminders, and officials assured the UN last year that completion of the report was imminent. But still - there is not yet any sign of a report appearing. It may be some small consolation that they are not alone. The only other states that have not yet submitted reports are St. Kitts and Nevis and five Pacific minnow states - the Cook Islands, Nauru, Niue, Tuvalu and Tonga.

These AP news extracts are via CBS News, where you can read the full report:

Catholic church fights lifting of sex abuse suit limits

2010-06-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

The principle behind a statute of limitations is sound – but it falls down hopelessly in cases of child abuse. In all such cases, most victims simply do not report them to anyone, and when they do, their parents often don;t believe them – or choose not to take the matter any further. Although reporting of abuse in the Church has improved, underreporting was particularly high years ago, when the majority of cases now known took place. Many of those victims said nothing until many years later, as adults. To impose a statute of limitations on such cases is effectively to deny the victims any redress, simply because they were children at the time and did not know any better than to keep quiet. Yet the Catholic Church, in Michigan and elsewhere, continues to fight efforts to extend the time frame applicable under the statute of limitations applicable to child abuse.

From Detroit News:

Lansing -- The abuse David Collins suffered as a teen from a Catholic priest in the archdiocese of Detroit confused him for decades. He spiraled into alcohol abuse. He suffered years of depression and post-traumatic stress. His relationships suffered because he had trouble trusting others. Twenty-six years after the abuse, he's confused again.
The church has paid for extensive counseling for Collins, 40, of Livonia. Officials from the Archdiocese of Detroit have met with him and been apologetic and sympathetic, Collins said. But the church also is lobbying to stop legislation that would allow victims like Collins from suing the church.
"They say one thing to me and say something else (to others) depending on the context," Collins said. "It seems somewhat hypocritical."
Victims of abuse by Catholic clergy are expressing dismay at the strong lobbying the church is doing in Lansing to halt an effort to remove Michigan's statute of limitations on sex abuse cases. In Michigan, victims must file criminal or civil complaints by the time they turn 19 -- what some say is an unrealistic limit on kids who often are traumatized for years by the abuse.
The church maintains that removing the statute of limitations could open the floodgates to abuse cases that are a half-century old and could take money away from programs that benefit the poor. But victims such as Collins see the church's actions as another example of the church protecting itself rather than victims.

Accused priest given victims file in new church scandal

2010-06-25T18:16:00.000-07:00

The Catholic Church are currently investigating claims that the child protection delegate in the diocese of Clone handed over a confidential file containing evidence of child abuse to the priest at the centre of the allegations.

Fr Bill Bermingham was appointed child protection delegate for the the Clone diocese by the Catholic Church's National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) in 2008. The NSBC is currently seeking to meet with Birmingham to determine his motivations behind the handing over of the confidential file to the accused.

It was revealed that Birmingham took an informal statement from a woman last year and gave a copy of the statement to the accused priest before he was questioned by the police. It has also emerged that several other priests saw the confidential statement.

The alleged victim was made aware of the leaking of her statement and subsequently lodged a formal complaint to the NSBC a few months ago. Archbishop Diarmuid Dunne has been informed of the incident as has the Catholic Church's clerical abuse helpline, Faoiseamh and victim support group, One in Four.

According to the Irish Examiner, Birmingham has not responded too any requests for an interview and the Clone diocese has refused to comment on the situation until the Dublin Archdiocese report is published in the Autumn.

One in Four chief executive Maeve Lewis said she was "horrified by" the actions of the Clone diocese but refused to make any further comments as the victim is one of her clients.

"This action may not have broken specific Church protocol but it is a horrific betrayal of a victim," said Lewis.

Birmingham was appointed child protection delegate for the Clone diocese after child protection standards were found to be "inadequate and in some respects dangerous".

The victim who wishes not to be named released a damning statement:

"Nothing has changed whatsoever in the past 18 months despite claims to the contrary. "I feel like I have been run over by a number of trains in the way I have been treated by the Church in the past year.

"I am so angry and appalled any information about me could be passed on to anyone else. Yet I am told no criminal law was broke. Where is the justice for the likes of us?"

(From Irish Central)

Belgium: Does the Cover-up Continue?

2010-06-25T03:29:00.000-07:00

One of the repeated claims made by Church authorities to counter the outcry over abuse, is that while they acknowledge past mistakes, these are indeed all in the past, that procedures have been mended, and that in the church as it is now, all is well. Belgian police are not convinced, and have raided the offices of the Bishops’ headquarters, the Archbishop’s palace, and the home of the Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, confiscating computer files and documents relating to ongoing investigations of abuse.

Monsignor Giacinto Berloco, papal nuncio to Belgium and Luxembourg, speaks to police during a raid on the offices of the country's most senior Catholic prelate. Photograph: Matthew Busch/AP

The Belgian Catholic Church has long had an established commission to investigate allegations of abuse, but this appears to have been pretty well moribund until the public outcry over abuse earlier this year led to public declarations of apology and pleas for forgiveness from the bishops, and to one high profile episcopal resignation, of the Archbishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe. The commission was then revived and re-invigorated with a well-respected new leader, child psychiatrist Peter Adriaenssens.

The commission of inquiry is well-respected and is led by Peter Adriaenssens, one of Belgium's top child abuse experts, whose office has received hundreds of complaints this year and who has threatened to resign should his work be impeded by the church hierarchy. He emerged as a national figure following the notorious Marc Dutroux paedophilia and murder case in 1996 and runs one of the country's most respected child abuse centres.

-Guardian

It is not clear why the police have intervened in this case, although there have in the past been allegations that in former times the commission was too easily influenced by the bishops. There appear to be some suspicions that there may again be collusion, although other observers believe that the head of the commission is fully independent.

"The police have a number of accusations connected with the sexual abuse of children within the church," said Jean-Marc Meilleur, a Brussels police spokesman. "The searches are the result of the investigation we started recently. We are collecting evidence material."

Police declined to say whether any of the individuals at the centre of today's raids were direct suspects or whether the searches concerned evidence affecting other cases.

-Guardian

Reaction has been mixed. Understandably, the Bishops have expressed collective outrage, while Bishop is alarmed that the loss of his material will impede the work of his own investigation, and is concerned that some of the material he had, now removed by the police, came from victims who were expecting that their statements would remain entirely confidential. On the other hand, some surviivors’ groups, such as SNAP, have expressed satisfaction that the Church is seen by this action to be not beyond the reach of the law, and will not be simply left to police its own misdeeds.

One odd claim reported in the New York Times concerned the raid on the Cardinal’s home:

The RTL television station in Belgium reported the raid on the home of Cardinal Godfried Danneels, who retired in January as archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels. The cardinal’s computer was removed, RTL said. Mr. Tornielli, the Vatican expert, said that to the best of his knowledge, the cardinal would have diplomatic immunity as a Vatican official, and would have to have given permission for a police search of his home.

Huh? Diplomatic immunity? Even of one grants the dubious claim of the Vatican to be an independent state, only the Papal Nuncio in each country is commonly recognised as having diplomatic status. How does this claim stack pu against the earlier claim by the Vatican that US victims of abuse cannot sue the Vatican, as local bishops are independent and are not employees of the Pope. Come on, now: you can’t have it both ways.

(Also see the Guardian and New York Times for more).

Vatican asked to investigate Chilean priest sex abuse accusations

2010-06-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

Santiago, Chile (CNN) -- The archbishop of Santiago has asked the Vatican to investigate a priest accused of sexually abusing four minors, a church official said.

Archbishop Francisco Javier Errazuriz decided to ask the Vatican to intercede after learning of the grave accusations against the Rev. Fernando Karadima, the church official said in a statement broadcast Friday on CNN Chile, CNN's partner network in the nation, and on the Chilean church's website.

"The strong accusations, their painful airing on television, the scandal they have provoked and the investigative process have produced in our community sentiments of suffering, disorder and lack of faith," Errazuriz said.

The archbishop also asked the Vatican to lift the statute of limitations on any possible infractions because some of the accusations date back many years, Errazuriz said.

Karadima has denied the accusations and said he welcomes the investigation, published reports said.

(Read the full report at CNN)

Italian priest charged with molesting youngsters

2010-06-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

A high-profile former Roman Catholic priest in Italy has been charged with sexual abuse.
Pierino Gelmini, 85, is alleged to have abused 12 young people at a drug rehabilitation centre he had founded.
He denies the charges. Mr Gelmini left the priesthood two years ago to defend himself.

The Comunita Incontro, which runs drug rehabilitation centres worldwide, has enjoyed the support of powerful figures in Italian politics.

In 2005, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gave $6m (£4m) to his organisation.

Mr Gelmini set up the Communita Incontro in 1963 in the Umbrian town of Amelia. It has more than 200 centres in Italy - and others in France, Spain, the US, Brazil and Thailand.
The allegations against him surfaced in 2008 when nine young men said he had sexually abused them. Another three went to police later.

The first hearing of his trial is due on 29 March 2011.

(Read the full report at the BBC)

German Prosecutors Charge the Head of the Church

2010-06-02T23:44:00.000-07:00

Catholic abuse scandal hits head of German Church

(Reuters) - The growing scandal over sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests threatened Germany's top bishop who was charged on Wednesday with aiding and abetting a known abuser by allowing him to get a new job in a German parish.

Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops' Conference and archbishop of Freiburg, was accused by prosecutors in Freiburg in southwest Germany of permitting a priest accused of child abuse in the 1960s to be reappointed to a parish job in 1987.

The church in Freiburg accused the prosecutors and media of "sensationalism" by talking of charges of "aiding and abetting sexual abuse" against the 71-year-old archbishop and denied that the appointment was his direct responsibility.

(Full report at Reuters)

Another Bishop Resigns - In Nigeria

2010-05-31T23:27:00.000-07:00

Africa has not been in the news much over abuse in the church. However, there are many reports of widespread flouting of rules on celibacy. Now, there is news that a bishop in Nigeria, Richard Burke of Benin City, has resigned following a sexual scandal. He denies that there ever was any question of "abuse", but only of a broken vow of celibacy, as the partner involved was an adult of 21 when the relationship started. She says she was much younger.

From the BBC:

The Vatican has accepted the resignation of an Irish archbishop in Nigeria accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl in the Niger Delta.

Richard Burke, the archbishop of Benin City, admits to a relationship but denies she was a minor when it began.

"The reason for my resignation is that I have been unfaithful to my oath of celibacy," he said in a statement in the Irish Catholic newspaper.

The Irish Times puts both sides of the story:

She says

The woman making the allegation, Dolores Attwood (41), now lives in Canada with her husband and three children. In a detailed statement last October she accused the archbishop of having abused her in 1983 when she was 14 and a patient in hospital. She also alleged he had abused other young Nigerian girls.

He says:

he and Mrs Atwood “had a caring relationship that began in the latter part of 1989, when she was 21 and I was 40. I was posted back to Ireland in March 1990 and returned to Nigeria in April 1996. In the last 20 years, Mrs Atwood and I met on seven occasions. On three of those occasions our relationship was again expressed sexually. This was entirely inappropriate behaviour and it is something for which I am truly sorry.”

"Entirely inappropriate", indeed. The problem is, for an ordained priest, there is no possibility of an "appropriate" sexual or even emotional relationship with anyone.

A “Recovered Catholic” Tells Her Story.

2010-05-29T03:36:00.001-07:00

Sue Cox is an English woman from a “fanatically” Catholic family who says she was molested by a Catholic priest at the age of ten, and a few years later was raped by him.

She has written frankly and dispassionately of her experience in the Guardian, where you can read it. What I want to point to here is the aftermath, even after dropping out of school, early marriage, alcoholism, and self-harm – what happened after she began to recover and put her life together:

Then, at 28, I stopped drinking and joined AA. My marriage ended and I met Gez, an artist, when I was 36. Life was good: we opened a business; I studied acupuncture and counselling, and trained others in addiction work. But I could never forget what had happened and not telling anyone the full story had made me feel so much worse. Telling Gez was the first step, but I needed to take my secret back to where it began – the Catholic church.

When I told them, the Diocese of Birmingham seemed regretful, offering me prayers. Archbishop Nichols of Westminster himself wrote that I was in his thoughts. But what use to me were prayers or an archbishop's thoughts?

Indeed.

Now she is yet another who describes herself as a “recovered Catholic”:

These days, I am a Buddhist. I appreciate the need for faith – but my chosen religion is compassionate. Best of all, I feel no shame in telling people: I have recovered from alcoholism, eating disorders, self-harm, marital abuse, childhood rape. And the Catholic church.

"End Celibacy": Appeal to Pope from - priests' mistresses.

2010-05-25T03:21:00.000-07:00

"Abuse" by priests is not only about sexual abuse of children, or even the sexual abuse of children and adolescents, or the sexual and physical abuse of children and adolescents. It also includes the sexual abuse (or "sexual harassment") of adults, of religious women, of seminarians, and of junior priests by ecclesiastical superiors. Less obvious, but also very real, is the emotional abuse inflicted on the voluntary partners of priests. The abuse here is inflicted not directly by the priests, but by the institutional rules which force these women and men to keep their relationships, forcing them into a clerical closet not of their own making.

We know that there are very many of these, in all areas of the world. Now, like gay men and women before them, some are starting to open the closet doors. I love this open letter to the pope from a group of Italian priests' mistresses. Now, how long will it be before we see some priests' boyfriends make a similar move?

Italian priests' secret mistresses ask pope to scrap celibacy rule

Forty women send unprecedented letter to pontiff saying priests need to 'experience feelings, love and be loved'
Dozens of Italian women who have had relationships with Roman Catholic priests or lay monks have endorsed an open letter to the pope that calls for the abolition of the celibacy rule. The letter, thought by one signatory to be unprecedented, argues that a priest "needs to live with his fellow human beings, experience feelings, love and be loved".
It also pleads for understanding of those who "live out in secrecy those few moments the priest manages to grant [us] and experience on a daily basis the doubts, fears and insecurities of our men".
The issue was put back on the Vatican's agenda in March when one of Pope Benedict's senior advisers, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, said the abolition of the celibacy rule might curb sex abuse by priests, a suggestion he hastily withdrew after Benedict spoke up for "the principle of holy celibacy".
The authors of the letter said they decided to come into the open after hearing his retort, which they said was an affirmation of "the holiness of something that is not holy" but a man-made rule. There are many instances of married priests in the early centuries of Christianity. Today, priests who follow the eastern Catholic rites can be married, as can those who married before converting to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism.

(Read the full report)

Priest Arrested in Brazil

2010-05-24T23:48:00.000-07:00

For the third time in two months, Brazilian authorities have initiated prosecutions against Catholic priests. In Aoril, three priests were taken into custody in a heavily publicised case after video footage of them with a former altar boy was screened on television. Also last month, another priest was charged by prosecutors with sexually molesting several altar boys. Now, in a third incident, another priest has been arrested.

Priest Arrested in Brazil on Charges of Sexually Abusing Boy

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — The authorities in Rio de Janeiro said Sunday that they had arrested a Polish priest and charged him with sexually abusing a 16-year-old former altar boy.

The judge who issued the arrest warrant said the priest, Father Marcin Michael Strachanowski, 44, had used his parish’s rectory as an “erotic dungeon” to carry out sex acts with boys.

The police in Rio de Janeiro State said that Father Strachanowski, who was arrested late Friday, was being held at a police station awaiting court proceedings. He is accused of handcuffing the 16-year-old to a bed “to satisfy his sexual whims,” according to state prosecutors.

It is the third case of sexual abuse involving a priest in Brazil, which has the world’s biggest Roman Catholic population, in the last two months.

(Read the full report at the New York Times)

Brazilian Church Acknowledges "Crime" of Abuse

2010-05-20T17:16:00.000-07:00

The Brazilian Roman Catholic Church said Thursday that cases of child abuse committed by clergymen are crimes that should not be covered up and must be investigated right away.

Wrapping up its annual meeting in the world's largest Catholic country, the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops also said it did not condone sending priests accused of abuse to other locations, a practice that has helped some alleged abusers escape prosecution.

The Associated Press recently reported 30 cases around the world of priests accused of abuse who were transferred or moved abroad, and some escaped police investigations. Many had access to children in other countries, and some abused again. The probe spanned 21 nations across six continents.

Conference president Archbishop Geraldo Lyrio Rocha called child abuse a sin for which the church must show "forgiveness and mercy," but also a crime that must be dealt with to the full extent of civil and canon law.

"Should a candidate for the priesthood show any sign that he may go down the wrong path in this area, he must be barred from entering the seminary," Rocha said.

A statement released by the bishops said clergymen accused of child abuse should be banned from the priesthood.

Sex abuse scandals involving the church have mushroomed around the world recently, and some of the accused priests have surfaced in Brazil.

Late last month, prosecutors charged the Rev. Jose Afonso with abusing altar boys ranging in ages from 12 to 16. Prosecutors said the alleged abuses took place this year, in 2009 and in 2001 in Franca, in Sao Paulo state.

Also last month, 83-year-old Monsignor Luiz Marques Barbosa was detained in northeastern Brazil for allegedly abusing at least three boys after being caught on videotape having sex with a young man, a former altar boy. Barbosa is under house arrest while authorities investigate. Two other priests in the same archdiocese are also accused of abuses.

The bishops' conference announced earlier this week that it would prepare a manual with guidelines to help bishops combat child-abuse cases.

Associated Press

Abuse Dominates German "Kirchentag"

2010-05-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

Although more than 3,000 displays fought for the attention of hundreds of thousands of German Christians for five days, the topic that got the most attention was the clerical sex abuse scandal.

Even Pope Benedict XVI addressed the issue in his message to the second ecumenical "Kirchentag," or church days, in Munich May 12-16.

The Kirchentag focused on the theme of hope, and the pope said that at a time when the world's people are in need of hope, some people are asking if the church really is a place to find it.

"In the past few months, we repeatedly have had to face news that could attempt to remove the joy from the church, news that obscures it as a place of hope," he said.

Using the words of a Bible parable, the pope said that people might be tempted to ask God whether he sowed the seeds of his Gospel in good earth.

"Weeds exist even in the heart of the church and among those whom the Lord has welcomed into his service in a special way. But the light of God has not set, the good grain has not been suffocated by the seed of evil," the pope said.

The church continues to be a place of hope, he said, because it is the place where people hear the word of God, "which purifies us and shows us the path of faith."

A clergy sex abuse scandal that emerged at a Catholic school in Berlin in January has widened not only to the rest of Germany but to other European countries. Several speakers at the Kirchentag called for an examination of the celibate priesthood, and Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg received applause when he said the laity, especially women, must be more active in church affairs.

At the opening of the program, German President Horst Kohler addressed the assembly and told participants, "We should not forget how much good is done through the churches." However, he also called for "full disclosure and a focus on the victims."

Alois Gluck, president of the Central Council of German Catholics, told the assembly, "We hope this crisis will lead to new cooperation in partnership among lay people, priests and bishops."

The Central Council of German Catholics teamed up with the Protestant organization Kirchentag to sponsor the event. Topics ranged from church teaching, praying, education and involvement in areas like fair trade, health care or the environment to presentations by human rights activists, the police force, the military and Christian organizations of homosexuals or wives of priests.

Topics went beyond church-related themes; organizations represented at the Kirchentag mirrored Germany's pluralistic society. Political parties tried hard to explain their affinity with Christian values, regardless of their emphasis on separation of church and state.

"There is simply too much," noted more than one visitor trying to find his way through the displays in the Munich exhibition center.

Some Kirchentag speakers also addressed the issue of Germany's role in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. Since 2002, German forces have been part of the International Security Assistance Force to help rebuild the country.

With more than 5,300 German soldiers and police serving in Afghanistan, Germany has the third-largest contingent in the country, after the United States and Britain. In recent months, as casualties have mounted, some troops and those at home have questioned Germany's role.

At Christmas time, Margot Kaessmann, former head of Germany's Protestant Church, said Germany should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. At the Kirchentag, Bishop Heinz Algermissen of Fulda called for more public resistance against the German policy in Afghanistan.

"The electorate should press their representatives that the Bundestag develops a mandatory perspective to withdraw," he said May 15.

However, some politicians warned of the human disaster that an early withdrawal might cause.

Reinhard Eroes, a former German military officer who runs the nongovernmental organization "Kinderhilfe (Kids Help) Afghanistan," called for more respect for the Afghan population.

Catholic News Service

Belgian bishops apologise

2010-05-20T07:10:00.000-07:00

BELGIAN bishops asked for forgiveness on Wednesday from the victims of paedophile priests, and for the Church's silence on the abuse, in an open letter to the Catholic community.

'To all the victims of sexual abuse, we ask for forgiveness, both for the acts of aggression and for the inadequate treatment of them,' the bishops wrote in a letter to the faithful following a visit to the Vatican. 'The most important consideration must be the security and protection of children. On this point there can be no equivocation,' they said.

Following priest abuse charges in Austria, Germany, Ireland and the United States, the Belgian Church was plunged into a paedophile scandal last month with the veteran bishop of Bruges forced to step down after admitting to sexually abusing a boy in the 1980s. Roger Vangheluwe, who took up his post as bishop of the Flemish city of Bruges 25 years ago, became the country's first Catholic bishop to resign in those circumstances.

The case prompted 300 complainants to come forward and give their own stories to an independent committee set up to look into cases of abuse by clerics. The new Belgian primate, Andre Leonard, has promised a policy of zero tolerance.

The bishops wrote: 'We recognise that church officials have not sufficiently taken into account the effect of sexual abuse on minors.' 'With this silence the reputation of the ecclesiastical institution and of its ministers has taken precedence over the dignity of the young victims.

Read the full report at Straits Times

Vatican's New Legal Strategy

2010-05-19T19:00:00.002-07:00

The Vatican will embark on a sweeping new legal strategy Monday in responding to allegations of sex abuse in the United States, CNN has learned.

Responding to a Louisville, Kentucky, lawsuit that seeks to depose top Vatican officials -- including Pope Benedict XVI -- the Holy See plans to file a motion Monday denying that the church issued a document mandating secrecy in the face of abuse allegations, as many victims allege, according to a Vatican attorney.

The Vatican's motion also will argue that bishops are not employees of the Holy See, exempting the Vatican from legal culpability in cases of alleged abuse in the U.S., said Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's U.S.-based attorney.

Whether or not the Vatican succeeds in getting the Louisville case dismissed based on those arguments will likely have implications for church abuse lawsuits across the country -- including two other suits that target the Vatican -- at a time when allegations of abuse and cover-up are dogging the church worldwide.

Much of the litigation against the church has argued that a 1962 document -- called crimen sollicitationis in Latin, which means "crimes of solicitation" -- barred church officials from contacting civil authorities with allegations of sex abuse against the church.

Abuse victims and their attorneys have said the document is evidence of a broader church culture of secrecy and cover-up in responding to abuse allegations.

For the first time, the Vatican on Monday will challenge those charges.

"Contrary to what some plaintiffs' attorneys have contended, crimen did not mandate bishops to keep silent about sexual abuse in their dioceses," Lena said. "That is important, because many Catholics, in particular, have been saddened by the idea that the laws of their church would prevent compliance with the law, and it simply is not true."

The 1962 document primarily refers to cases involving confession. If a priest tries to solicit sex from someone who is trying to give their confession, it says, the allegation against the priest should be "pursued in a most secretive way ... under penalty of excommunication."

Church leaders argue the document had no bearing on civil or criminal law and was superseded by the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which "treats the sexual abuse of a minor (and solicitation of a penitent by confessor) as criminal behavior, which may be punished by dismissal from the clerical state."

The Vatican also plans to argue Monday for the first time that bishops are not employees of the Vatican, as a handful of U.S. lawsuits against the Holy See allege.

"We will respectfully submit that this is a fallacious theory," Lena said. "The Holy See, or the Pope, does not 'employ' bishops in the United States."

The church argues that bishops act with local autonomy in their respective dioceses.

The Louisville case was filed in 2004 by three men who allege that they were victims of priest abuse as children and who are seeking damages from the Vatican.

The men's attorney, William McMurry, did not return a call to his office on Sunday night. He is seeking to interview top Vatican officials, including the pope, in the case.

CNN

Cardinal Brady "Failed in His Duty", But Vows to Stay On

2010-05-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

The head of the Irish Church's own child protection watchdog has found that Cardinal Brady clearly failed in his duty to safeguard children. Even so, the Cardinal has vowed to stay on.

From the Irish Times:

CATHOLIC PRIMATE Cardinal Seán Brady was wrong in his handling of 1975 child sex abuse investigations, the head of the church’s child protection watchdog said yesterday.

Ian Elliott, chief executive of the the National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC), also said it “would have been helpful” had the cardinal disclosed details of the matter sooner than their disclosure in newspapers last March.

In 1975, the then Fr Brady conducted a canonical investigation into child sex abuse by Fr Brendan Smyth in Kilmore diocese and swore to secrecy the two teenagers involved, whom he believed.

He passed a report on the matter to his bishop, but did nothing more. Smyth continued to abuse children for a further 18 years.

Asked yesterday whether he believed the then Fr Brady had dealt with the matter correctly, Mr Elliott said: “No. He didn’t handle it properly from the safeguarding of children point of view. You could not say that the action taken prioritised the safeguarding of children.”

He was “quite sure if you posed the situation to the cardinal today . . . other actions would have been taken.”

Mr Elliott said he had written to Cardinal Brady following his request on Monday that the NBSC prioritise Armagh archdiocese in its new audit.

(Read the full report)

Meanwhile, the Cardinal insists he will not resign. From the Belfast Telegraph:

Irish victims of clerical abuse have expressed disappointment that Cardinal Sean Brady is to stay on as Primate despite their calls for his resignation over his role in the 1975 cover-up of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

Maeve Lewis, executive director of the One in Four support group, said Cardinal Brady had allowed many other children to be sexually abused and their lives to be devastated by his failure to report Smyth to the authorities.

“Cardinal Brady states that he has consulted with survivors,” she said. “He certainly has not listened to what they have said.

“Survivors who are in contact with One in Four are very clear that they need senior Catholic churchmen to be accountable for what they have done — and to resign.”

Ms Lewis said that if Cardinal Brady was genuine about overseeing change, he should challenge responses victims meet when they attempt to bring their experiences to the attention of authorities.

Irish Church 'took nine years to reveal abuse case'

2010-05-19T06:44:00.000-07:00

From the "Newsletter"

THE Catholic Church in Ireland waited nine years before disclosing a case of alleged child abuse, the News Letter has found.

In March 2006, then Archbishop Sean Brady stated publicly that the Church had disclosed all allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy to the police.

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has told the News Letter that the Church had been aware of at least one of those cases of alleged abuse for nine years before Cardinal Brady led moves to disclose it.

A spokesman for the PPS told the News Letter that the complaint in question "was made to the Catholic Church in 1997 – the Catholic Church reported the matter to police by way of letter dated 7th March, 2006".

A spokesman for Cardinal Brady said they did not know what case the News Letter was asking about and that the PPS had refused to discuss it with the Church for data protection reasons.

"As a result we are unable to identify the specific cases listed in your letter and therefore to provide you with an accurate response to your query," said the Church spokesman.

The News Letter asked the PPS why the Church was not investigated for potentially withholding information on child abuse for over nine years.

A PPS spokesman responded that it is the PSNI's responsibility to investigate and that the complainant had asked for no further action to be taken.

The PSNI declined to make any specific comment on the apparent nine-year delay in reporting the case.

Instead, the News Letter was directed to a PSNI statement which affirmed that the PSNI would take its lead from the Northern Ireland Executive in supporting any inter-departmental response to clerical child abuse. A new dedicated PSNI team under the Serious Crime Branch was to take over clerical child sex abuse investigations from the start of this month.

The Northern Ireland Executive asked Health Minister Michael McGimpsey to take the lead on such abuse last year. In December, he announced he would submit a paper to his ministerial colleagues about the way forward.

A spokeswoman for Mr McGimpsey said yesterday that the Executive was still considering the paper.

Clerical "Celibacy", In Austria

2010-05-19T03:09:00.000-07:00

In my explorations around the Austrian bishops' discussions of celibacy, I stumbled on a snippet from March 2009 that adds an interesting new dimension. In the diocese of Linz, the news agency Kath.net reported that a parish priest and dean, Father Josef Friedl, acknowledged in a public forum that he was living openly with a mistress, and that his congregation "had no objection". The newspaper Der Welt was said to have reported that Fr Friedl was only one of "several" deans in the Linz diocese that were living openly with women.

Corroborating the claim in Der Welt, after publication of the report on Fr Friedl, the Austrian group "Wir Sing Kirche" published a statement from a priests' support group, claiming that in their estimates, about a third of Catholic priests in the German speaking countries were in the same position. It is likely that they may have overestimated the numbers, but whatever the true exact figure, it is clearly not negligible.

"(...) As those who are in the same situation, we network in self-help groups in Austria and other adjoining German-speaking dioceses. According to our insight, the reality is that there are about one third of the Catholic priests in the same situation. We ask the church leadership to seek a path which liberates this priestly form of life in the Church. We are all aware of the service of the priest as vocation and fulfilment in life. Our partners are our gift from heaven and valuable assistance in our lives and service. (...)"

This suggests to me, that the primary reason for the bishops' current discussion on the need to do away with compulsory celibacy, is just a healthy dose of reality: in practice, in the real world, priestly celibacy as a norm simply does not exist. I have known for some time that in Africa, it is widely accepted that many priests and even some bishops have open relationships with women, even raising children and families in church houses, but this is the first suggestion that I have seen that similar open flouting of the rules occurs elsewhere.

Clerical Celibacy is a Myth.

(For more, see the report s at Rent a Priest, here and here)

"Rent a Priest" blog describes itself as a "conversation about the married Catholic priesthood and church reform". The archives are packed with many tantalizing headlines, which I wish I could explore properly right now - but its far too late to do it tonight. The associated website, which I've written about before, reminds us of the well-established rule, "Once a priest, always a priest", and promotes priest who are no longer work within formal church structures, continuing to offer less formal ministry, for example as marriage officers and other freelance services.

Irish Priests, Aussie Abuse

2010-05-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

TWO IRISH Catholic priests have been named in a programme about sexual abuse which was aired by Australia’s ABC television last night.

Alleged victims of Sydney-based Fr Finian Egan and Melbourne-based Fr Paddy Maye have gone public with their allegations because the priests continue to conduct church services despite being found by the Catholic Church to have committed abuse offences.

A church investigation found that Fr Egan groped two girls over several years in the 1980s, but despite this, he was praised at a public Mass last year for his 50 years in the priesthood.

Fr Maye was banned from acting as a priest after church investigators found he had committed serious sexual abuse in 1973 by forcing himself on a 31- year-old woman when she was in a “vulnerable” state. The church also found he groped two sisters over several years in the 1980s.

Kellie-Anne Roche is the daughter of Irish immigrants who trusted Fr Egan because he was also Irish. In 1981, she says, she was abused by Fr Egan and the abuse still affects her life.

“I have put up with a facade all my life . . . there is a wall between me and sex,” she says.

At youth group meetings, the guitar-playing Fr Egan would “arrange me on his lap and put my arm around his neck so my breasts were in his face”.

Then he would put his hand between her legs and, she said, “I would feel his erection”.

Another victim, known only as “Kathie”, says she was repeatedly groped by Fr Egan when he gave her guitar lessons. She says the church discouraged her from going to police.

Both women took part in the church’s Towards Healing programme for victims of sexual abuse.

“It’s called Towards Healing but nothing they did has helped me to heal,” Roche says. “If anything, it made me feel like they were protecting him. I would advise victims to go to the police, not [to] Towards Healing. I don’t trust them.”

Roche says she is now going to take her case to the police.

The women both say their main reason in making their complaints is to see Fr Egan removed from any role in the church or from having involvement with children.

They were told their cases would be dealt with in a few months, but they took more than two years.

Last July Bishop David Walker of Sydney wrote to each woman “to apologise to you for the way you have been treated by Finian Egan”.

“What happened to you is contrary to what is expected of a member of the clergy.

“We proclaim a Gospel which sees this behaviour as totally unacceptable and I regret that you have been exposed to it by a member of our clergy.”

However, a month later Fr Egan was the celebrant at a Mass in a church across the road from Bishop Walker’s office. The Mass was advertised as honouring Fr Egan’s 50 years as a priest.

“It makes you feel like a victim again. Even though the church upheld my allegations and they tell me that they believe me, they don’t show it by taking away his robes as a priest,” Roche says.

Five years ago Fr Maye was forced by the church in Melbourne to retire early with his “canonical faculties” removed, so he could not act in public as a priest – a step below defrocking.

The Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, wrote three letters warning Fr Maye against working as a priest and saying “any publicity will reflect adversely upon yourself [and] upon the church”. But this did not stop Fr Maye saying Mass for Melbourne’s Irish community on St Patrick’s Day this year and last.

Irish Report Marks "Tangible Progress"

2010-05-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

ON MONDAY of last week, in his much discussed address to the Knights of Columbanus, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin spoke of “strong forces” in the Catholic Church “which would prefer that the truth did not emerge” about clerical child sex abuse.

Yesterday we were presented at a press conference in Dublin with one of those strong forces in the church which is even more determined that the truth will emerge.

There is no doubt that the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSC) has earned its credibility. Its uncompromising uncovering in 2008 of “inadequate and in some respects dangerous” child protection practices in Cloyne diocese represented a baptism of fire for the fledgling board and its then new chief executive Ian Elliott.

But it stuck to its guns, eventually persuading Cloyne diocese to publish that damning report on its own website in December 2008.

The result was the resignation of Bishop John Magee and an extension of the remit of the Murphy commission to include Cloyne diocese, which it is now investigating.

Similarly, the NBSC decision to yesterday “name and shame” three dioceses which have been tardy in appointing parish safeguard representatives will have earned them few friends in Killala, Clonfert, and/or Ossory. But it is another uncompromising move towards ensuring children are safe in Catholic-run contexts on this island.

The obstinacy of the NBSC in pursuit of this aim and in particular of its chief executive, Elliott, has prompted some humour, with a recognition that much of the church’s future credibility where child protection is concerned rests on the shoulders of a Presbyterian, which Elliott is.

A native of Dublin and a Trinity College graduate, he has spent most of his working life in Northern Ireland, where he implemented major reforms in child protection services for the Department of Health and Social Security there.

Such was his reputation that he was head-hunted by the Catholic Church to become chief executive of the NBSC in July 2007.

That alone indicated a serious commitment by strong forces within the church to properly address child protection.

The continuing and unequivocal support that Elliott and the NBSC have received from church authorities, through the Cloyne upheaval and the fall-out from the Ryan and Murphy reports, indicates a sharp change of approach to this catastrophic issue by most of the church’s authorities in Ireland.

It is, however, a work in progress.

As NBSC chairman John Morgan, who has been dealing with child protection issues on the church’s behalf since 1999, said in a statement accompanying yesterday’s report, from the NBSC perspective “the best thing we can do is help change the future – and that is our pivotal emphasis”.

He went on to say that “clearly a cultural correction is required in the Irish church to deal with the problem of abuse”.

He said “there is little apparent recognition that Vatican II decisively moved the role of the church lay faithful from collaboration to co-responsibility. A form of collective authority in the safeguarding of children might assist the ushering in of a wider recognition of the principle of co-responsibility.”

The NBSC intended “to participate in this crucial debate”, he added.

For his part, Elliott was as uncompromising. “The radical change imperative within the church is an acceptance that the safety of the child is paramount,” he said. All other considerations, including the reputation of the church, the hierarchy, or any member of the clergy, “comes some way after the safety of the child in any consideration of decisions to be made or actions to be taken”.

He warned that “within some areas of the church, this commitment has been tempered by a mistaken belief that it is possible to continue with past and familiar practices”.

That, to quote Margaret Thatcher, is “out”.

In more than an echo of Archbishop Martin’s address last week, Elliott said that this approach had led to “a reliance on a defensive legal response when complaints emerge rather than a focus on safeguarding concerns and the elimination of risk to other vulnerable young people”.

Radical change required “nothing less than a major step away from the defensiveness of the past to a more open and accountable future,” he said.

And where abuse victims were concerned, he said the church “must improve significantly” in “communicating a sense of regret and remorse for what has happened, along with a sincere concern for their present wellbeing.”

Such victims were also “a great source of wisdom and guidance about what mistakes to avoid in the future,” he said.

Elliott’s comments on the Christian Brothers yesterday were unexpected. Of all 18 congregations investigated by the Ryan commission it had been the most recalcitrant and reluctantly co-operative. It also emerged very badly from the Ryan report.

Elliott said that since publication of that report last May the Christian Brothers had been “working diligently” to ensure that all information they held on members suspected of being involved in abuse was reported to statutory authorities and to the NBSC.

The organisation also now had a mandatory reporting policy in place. The Christian Brothers had become “an excellent example to be followed by the church” and were deserving of “the highest praise”, he said.

Quite a turnaround, and a welcome one, for a congregation which had been denying any abuse had taken place in its institutions five days before publication of the Ryan report on May 20th last year.

Irish Times

"Zero Tollerance": Has it Applied to Bishops?

2010-05-11T03:26:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks, there has been a spate of bishops' resignations tendered or accepted by Pope Benedict, some remarkably quickly. This might appear to represent a new spirit of accountability, but Rachel Zoll, writing for the Canadian Press, argues that there have still been far too few:#

Catholic Church's 'zero tolerance' doesn't apply to bishops

who left abusers in ministry

NEW YORK, N.Y. — In the latest Roman Catholic sex abuse scandals in Europe and beyond, more bishops already have resigned for failing to protect children than ever stepped down during the U.S. abuse crisis.

American bishops point to their repeated apologies to victims and millions of dollars spent on child protection since 2002, when they enacted a stricter discipline policy. Yet critics say the focus of those reforms remains on reining in guilty clergy, ignoring the role of leaders who enabled the abuse.

Only a tiny number of prelates overall have stepped down for keeping predators in ministry. Experts say the push for resignation must come from the Vatican itself.

"A bishop would never resign unless it would be seen as in the service of the church," said R. Scott Appleby, a University of Notre Dame historian and expert on American Catholicism. "If he doesn't get signals from his superior in Rome that this is the appropriate thing to do, then he would not consider it the appropriate thing to do."

Four bishops in Ireland have resigned since the results of a government-ordered inquiry into the Archdiocese of Dublin were published last year, although the Vatican has only accepted two of the resignations so far. The investigation found church leaders had shielded more than 170 sexually abusive priests from the law. A fifth Irish bishop resigned in March after a separate inquiry found he was continuing to hide abuse claims from civil authorities.

While some bishops in the U.S. and elsewhere have resigned over their own sexual misconduct, only one U.S. prelate, Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, has ever stepped down for mishandling cases of guilty priests. This, despite national studies commissioned by the U.S. bishops that found priests accused of abuse were moved from parish to parish without warnings to parents or police.

(Read the full report)

Bishop Martin in Attack on "Dark Forces" Hiding the Truth

2010-05-11T03:19:00.000-07:00

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has been a shining beacon to his colleagues in his response to clerical abuse, in sharp contrast to his predecessors in Dublin, and to so many bishops elsewehere. So, his thoughts on the bigger picture are worth taking seriously - and they are not optimistic. The Irish Times reports that he believes there are powerful "dark forces" within the Church that are working to prevent the full truth becoming known.

AN emotional Diarmuid Martin claimed last night that "strong forces" in the Catholic Church wanted the truth about clerical sex abuse scandals to remain hidden.

The Archbishop of Dublin revealed he had never felt so disheartened and dejected since assuming the post six years ago.

His remarks could be interpreted as a broadside at the Vaticanand Irish hierarchy.

In a deeply personal but sombre address, the 65-year-old church leader indirectly hit out at Cardinal Sean Brady and other bishops for failures to fully protect children from paedophile clerics.

Dr Martin was speaking at Ely Place in Dublin, the headquarters of the archly conservative church group the Knights of Columbanus, on 'The Future of the Catholic Church in Ireland'.

Almost six months after the publication of the Murphy Report on abuse cover-ups in the Dublin diocese, Dr Martin revealed the most obvious reason for his discouragement was "the drip-by-drip never-ending revelation about child sexual abuse and the disastrous way it was handled".

"There are still strong forces which would prefer that the truth did not emerge," he said.

(Read the full report)

James Martin, SJ, on Dissecting the Anger

2010-05-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- There is a distinctly different level of anger from the public directed toward the Catholic Church over the sexual abuse of minors than toward other organizations whose leaders commit similar crimes, noted two psychologists who work in the field. And though newly revealed cases of abuse in the United States are less common than a few years ago, news about cases elsewhere has sparked a resurgence of anger in the United States as well. "People are enraged by what they see as a coverup, by no high-ranking Catholic clergy being fired," said Thomas Plante, a professor of psychology and director of the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara University in California.

(Read more at America)

Benedict Accepts German Bishop's Resignation

2010-05-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

Pope Benedict on Saturday accepted the resignation of a German bishop who has been accused of sexually abusing minors. Bishop Walter Mixa is the latest in a string of Roman Catholic prelates forced to resign over a clerical sex abuse scandal that has been rocking the church.

Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday accepted the resignation of a leading bishop from his German homeland who is accused of abusing children and alleged financial misconduct at a children's home.

A Vatican statement said the pope agreed Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg in Bavaria should step down. He is the first bishop to quit in the pope's native Germany over the clerical sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Church in several European countries and the United States.

Bishop Mixa was an outspoken conservative voice in the German church and a military chaplain in his country. He had already admitted to slapping children decades ago when he was a priest. But pressure increased for him to step down when prosecutors revealed an investigation was underway into his involvement in an alleged case of sexual abuse.

From VoA news.com

Pope Meets Belgian Bishops

2010-05-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

Belgium's Catholic church has been rocked by recent allegations of abuse by paedophile priests and clumsy, slow handling of the cases by the bishops.

Pope Benedict XVI met at the Vatican with Belgian's bishops on Saturday, telling them their church was "tried by sin in these times," over the minor's abuse scandals.

Belgium's Catholic church has been rocked by recent allegations of abuse by paedophile priests and clumsy, slow handling of the cases by the bishops.

Belgians are stunned by recent revelations that Roger Vangheluwe, the bishop of the Belgian city of Bruges, 73, abused a boy for years.

There were also contentions by a retired Belgian priest, named Rik Deville, that he told Belgium's then highest-ranking prelate, now Cardinal Godfried Danneels over a decade ago, about the abuse but that no action was taken.

(Read more, at eitb.com)

Two More Irish Resignations

2010-05-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday accepted the resignation of two Irish bishops, bringing to five the number of bishops to resign since the abuse crisis hit the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. In a statement, the Vatican said that Joseph Duffy, bishop of Clogher, and Francis Lagan, the auxiliary bishop of Derry, stepped down after reaching the retirement age of 75. Bishops are required to tender their resignations at 75, but the pope can decline to accept and, in some cases, he has kept bishops well past that age. In March, Bishop Duffy said that he had known about abuse allegations against a priest in his diocese but that he had not told the civil authorities at the request of the victim’s parents, Irish news media reported. The priest was later jailed.

(From New York Times)

The Belfast Telegraph has described Msgr Liam McDaid, who was named to replace Bishop Duffy, as a "conservative" choice. Meanwhile, there is still no indication whether he will accept the resignations of two other Irish bishops, who tendered resignations in December, after being criticized in the Murphy report fr inaction over the abuse scandals.

(Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/pontiff-goes-conservative-as-he-names-new-bishop-14796626.html#ixzz0nLxqQehV)

New Accusations Against Cardinal Mixa

2010-05-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

Last month, the German Cardinal Mixa resigned, after admissions that he had (physically) assaulted schoolchildren in his care some decades ago. Now there are allegations that the abuse goes further: German police are investigating charges that he was also guilty of sexual assaults on minors.

Sydney Morning Herald:

Leading bishop accused of abuse

GERMANY'S Catholic Church is in turmoil after prosecutors said they were investigating paedophilia claims against a leading bishop who had offered his resignation after admitting beating orphans.

Prosecutors in the southern city of Augsburg said they had opened a preliminary probe into Walter Mixa after he was accused of sexually abusing a boy while bishop of Eichstaett between 1996 and 2005. Bishop Mixa has rejected the accusations.

The diocese of Augsburg said it had alerted prosecutors to the accusations in line with new German Bishops' Conference guidelines.

Legion of Christ to be Restructured

2010-05-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

Finally, after years of foot-dragging, the Vatican has confirmed what everybody knew has to be done: The Legionaries of Christ, the order founded by the late Fr Marcial Maciel, is to be fundamentally restructured.

From AFP:

VATICAN CITY — The Roman Catholic Church will overhaul the ultra-conservative Legion of Christ whose late founder Marcial Maciel was disgraced after abuse scandals, the Vatican said.

Maciel's "conduct... had consequences in the life and the structure of the Legion that are so serious as to require a journey of profound restructuring," a statement said.

Pope Benedict XVI will name an interim leader within weeks, said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi. The move comes as the Church faces intense pressure to crack down on abusers and their protectors in the hierarchy.

"The pope is taking this case very seriously," Lombardi said.

The Church "has the firm resolve to accompany and help (the order) on the way to the purification it needs," the statement said.

The Mexican-born Maciel, who died in the United States in January 2008 aged 87, was accused of molesting eight seminarians and secretly fathering children.

Many members of the order had been unaware of Maciel's misconduct as he "created around him a defence mechanism that shielded him for a long time," said the Vatican.

"Uncovering the truth caused surprise and deep pain," it said.

(Read the full report)

Italian Catholic Oppose Celibacy

2010-04-25T03:16:00.000-07:00

Sophia Loren had a romantic problem with Marcello Mastroianni in this 1971 film because he was a man of the cloth. But attitudes have changed since The Priest’s Wife was released and now a majority of Italians believe that priests should be allowed to marry, according to an opinion poll.

The survey, by the polling organisation Demos, came as Catholic bishops in Austria called on the Vatican to open up the issue of priestly celibacy for discussion.

The survey, published yesterday in La Repubblica, showed that confidence in the Pope in Italy had dropped from 53.7 per cent in 2007 to 46.6 per cent, compared with 77.2 per cent for Pope John Paul II in 2003.

Sixty-two per cent said they believed that the Church had sought to minimise or cover up sex abuse scandals.

Ilvo Diamanti, an Italian sociologist, said the drop in support for the Church and the papacy partly stemmed from the Vatican’s slow, divided and confused response to the paedophile crisis at a time of fast moving global media. It was also linked to the decline of the priesthood in Italian society, with the Church increasingly seen as out of touch with modern social attitudes and mores.

The poll followed the conclusion at the weekend of a congress at Mariazell south of Vienna at which Austrian bishops called on the Vatican to discuss the issue of celibacy and whether to ordain married priests.

Bishop Alois Schwarz of the Carinthia diocese told the meeting: “We hear this question as bishops, and we are telling Rome that we have this problem.”

He said the role of women in the Church was also among the “many open topics which we need to discuss with sensitivity and from different viewpoints”. The bishops ended their meeting with a call for “broad reforms”.

Last week the Bishop of Eisenstadt, Paul Iby, said in a newspaper interview: ‘It should be left up to every priest whether he wants to live a life of voluntary celibacy or in a family.”

“Rome is too timid in such questions,” Bishop Iby told the daily Die Presse, adding that priests should be allowed to choose whether they would like to marry to counteract the falling number of vocations. “But nothing is moving ahead in Rome,” he said.

Celibacy has been required of Catholic clergy since the early Middle Ages. However, it was not imposed in the early Church, and, according to Gospel accounts, St Peter was a married man.

Some senior Catholics, including Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, have linked paedophile priest scandals to the issue of celibacy. The Vatican has denied any such link, pointing out that in secular society paedophilia is often committed by married men.

Times Online

Four Bishops Resign.

2010-04-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

In a clear sign of a harder line being taken inside the Vatican on issues around abuse, there have now been four bishops resigning within four days, in four different countries.

On Thursday, Pope Benedict accepted the resignation of Bishop James Moriarty of Kildare. Thursday. Two other Irish bishops have already resigned since December, and two more have offered resignations. Pope Benedict has yet to decide on these, but is expected to agree. There is also strong public pressure on the head of Ireland's Catholic Church, Cardinal Sean Brady, to step down, but he has not yet agreed to do so. In all of these Irish resignations, the reasons given concern their failure to act decisively against accused abusive priests, rather than any direct misbehaviour of their own.

In the US, the Archbishop of Miami, John Favarola resigned unexpectedly earlier this week, and had his resignation promptly accepted - very unusual in a Vatican bureaucracy where wheels usually move exceedingly slowly. Usually, a bishop tenders his resignation on turning 75 (which he will not do until December), and is routinely asked to stay on further until a replacement has been secured. This resignation was accepted under a special rule that allows for early retirement in cases of ill health, or other matters of pressing importance.No such special considerations have been mentioned. Officially, this has nothing to do with abuse: but behind the scenes, I have come across reports that Miami too saw some protection of abuse offenders under his watch, and that is the reason for the speed of acceptance.

Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg, Germany, resigned yesterday following well-publicized allegations of hitting children decades ago when still a priest, and of financial irregularities at an orphanage where he once worked.

The most dramatic announcement came today in Belgium, where up to now there have not been any major reports of abuse. In this case, it was indeed over direct involvement in abuse. Bishop Roger Vangheluwe said in a statement admitted "abusing" a boy in his close entourage when he was still a priest, and when first a bishop.

Vatican Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos Shielded American Abusive Priest.

2010-04-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

Last week, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos was in the news when a letter surfaced, showing how he had earlier praised a French archbishop who had refused to co-operate with the police in the prosecution of a priest over claims of sexual molestation of young boys. We now know that letter was written with the approval, even support, of Pope John Paul II.

Now, Cardinal Hoyos is in the news again, with claims that he actively intervened, in opposition to the wishes of the local bishop, in disciplinary procedures brought against an Arizona priest, Fr Robert Trupia.

From NCR Online:

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the former Vatican official who sent a letter in 2001 praising a French bishop for sheltering an abusive priest, had earlier intervened, against the wishes of a U.S. bishop, on behalf of an American abuser priest, according to documents that were part of a lawsuit.

Castrillon pressured Bishop Manuel Moreno, who was bishop of Tucson, Ariz., from 1982-2003, to allow a priest sex abuser to take a pension and work outside the diocese, despite allegations that would later jolt the diocese and cost millions to resolve. Fr Robert Trupia "sexually abused dozens of minor boys" before he was defrocked in 2004, according to documents in the civil case.

The litigation surrounding the case opens a rare window on the operation of the Vatican legal system.

Castrillon, who was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1998, sparked a new episode in the Vatican crisis last week when his 2001 letter to a French bishop surfaced, praising him for sheltering a predator. Moreover, Castrillon implicated the late John Paul II in that decision. "After consulting the pope ... I wrote a letter to the bishop congratulating him as a model of a father who does not hand over his sons," Castrillon was quoted in the daily La Verdad as telling a religious conference in Spain on April 16.

(Read the full report)

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