Another Bishop Resigns - In Nigeria

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.

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.

"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

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

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"

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

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