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

" 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

"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

 "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'

"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

"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

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

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.