ABUSE TRACKER

CLEVELAND (OH)
National Catholic Reporter

Mar. 15, 2012
By Brian Roewe

A week after news broke about their content, the decrees from the Vatican’s Congregation of the Clergy regarding appeals by 13 shuttered Cleveland parishes have arrived at the diocese and Bishop Richard G. Lennon has received them.

In a brief statement released Wednesday through the diocesan website, Lennon acknowledged receiving the decrees from the congregation and said he will now begin reviewing their rulings with his advisers.

Lennon has 60 days to determine if he wishes to appeal the congregation’s decision to overrule his closing of 13 churches and suppressing their parishes. The appeal process would go through the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s Supreme Court.

Regardless of what Lennon decides to do, those sided with the parishes want Lennon to reopen their churches immediately, in accordance with the decrees.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
The Plain Dealer

By Ken Prendergast, Sun News

CLEVELAND Because nothing official has been received from the Vatican to overrule Bishop Richard Lennon’s decision to close 13 churches, St. Patrick Church in the West Park neighborhood will not be reopened Saturday.

But that won’t stop the church’s former parishioners from holding a prayer service at 9:30 a.m. Saturday on the front steps of the church at Rocky River Drive and Puritas Avenue.

The parishioners requested that the Cleveland Catholic Diocese reopen the church for one day for a Mass inside and to celebrate the 164th anniversary of the parish’s founding. Saturday is St. Patrick’s Day. A group of former parishioners will march in the big St. Patrick’s Day parade downtown.

Diocese spokesman Bob Tayek said Lennon received the request to reopen the church from the parishioners several weeks ago. Instead, a Mass was scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at Blessed Trinity Church, 14040 Puritas Ave.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
Columbus Dispatch

Associated Press
Thursday March 15, 2012

CLEVELAND — The Diocese of Cleveland says it has received official decrees reversing the closure of 13 Roman Catholic churches.

In a statement, Bishop Richard Lennon says that the decrees were received yesterday from the Vatican and that he is reviewing the rulings with advisers.

Lennon has 60 days to must decide whether he will appeal the decisions.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy ruled the bishop failed to follow church law and procedure in the closings three years ago.

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UNITED STATES
Hunter at Random

That’s where you’ll find the Catholic hierarchy. If you ever had any doubt that the institutional Church was about anything but money and power, this should answer that question for you.

Turning the tables on an advocacy group that has long supported victims of pedophile priests, lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse in two Missouri cases have gone to court to compel the group to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.

The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the litigation. But the group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months in Kansas City and St. Louis, and its national director, David Clohessy, was questioned by a battery of lawyers for more than six hours this year. A judge in Kansas City ruled that the network must comply because it “almost certainly” had information relevant to the case.

Of course, Bill Donohue has to stick his two cents in:

But William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a church advocacy group in New York, said targeting the network was justified because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.”

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on March 15, 2012

A new civil lawsuit charges that a teacher and coach at Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento sexually assaulted a female student in December 2009 and that Catholic church and school officials could and should have prevented the crimes.

The complaint is filed against Minh Anh Nguyen, the school and a Washington, D.C.-based religious order called the Lasallian Christian Brothers, which operates the school. Nguyen was a teacher and coach at the high school.

The student, JANE DOE 40, says the crimes happened while she was at a volleyball tournament in Orange County on or around December 4, 2009 while Nguyen was in her hotel room after curfew. Allegedly Nguyen gave her a massage so she would not be tense for the game the next day, During the massage, Nguyen lifted the teen’s bra and pushed down her sweatpants.

Nguyen assured the student and her parents that he had expertise in athletic massage and that he had provided massage therapy to other student at the school.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

From the Crimes against Humanity of Benedict XVI at The Hague, to Amnesty International listing the Vatican for its violation against human rights, to Ireland shutting down its Vatican Embassy in Rome, now it is the United States of America listing the Vatican as a ‘potential money-laundering center’ because of “the large volumes of international currency that goes through the Holy See” — all these prove that the Vatican Titanic Ship is sinking in moral bankruptcy with its Opus Dei Golden Cows Blessed John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger as its Masters of Deception at the helm, read our related articles below.

Behind the cross there stands the dollar. Behind the prelate there stands the plutocrat.

For centuries there has prevailed a strong link between the secular and religious moneyed interests. Today major ministries hold billion-dollar investments in armaments, oil, banking, and just about every other large corporate enterprise…

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CANADA
Times Colonist

Alberni Valley TimesMarch 15, 2012

Sometimes the truth hurts. But often it heals. On Monday and Tuesday, a lot of tears were shed as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard from survivors of the Alberni Residential School.

The stories were both unbelievable and shocking, making the whole experience one that was difficult to witness.

But that is exactly why it is essential that these stories be told. It is only by talking about it that the victims can heal and move on. They will never forget. No one ever could. But the hearing offered hope that nothing like this will ever happen in Canada again.

The Alberni Residential School was in operation from 1929 to 1973. It was known to be one of the worst in Canada. The atrocities that took place there have marked families for generations. In some cases, children were believed to be raped and murdered, and the stories told at Maht Mahs Gym on Monday and Tuesday revealed there was a lot of truth to these frightening stories.

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CANADA
Canada.com

By Julia Caranci, Alberni Valley Times
March 15, 2012

While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard many heartbreaking histories over the last two days, people also shared their tales of hope and healing.

In addition, the commission learned how important gaining back their culture is to Aboriginal People here.

The TRC wrapped up two days of hearings in Port Alberni on Tuesday.

The commission will visit more communities, both large and small, across the country in the coming months. The goal is to create a lasting record of survivors’ experiences while attending residential schools, which were run by various churches under contract to the government.

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UNITED STATES
Triablogue

Or, “this is your infallible Magisterium in action”. But it’s ok, you Roman Catholics. They can be reprehensible, as a group, in real life, and still, God has committed to this reprehensible group, the charism of infallibility when speaking about doctrines and morals. Rest assured that, even when your doctrines rely on mistranslations or just completely changing the meaning of Scriptures, they are completely correct, and everything else is wrong. Never mind that Jesus said, “by their fruit you will recognize them”. Never mind that Paul explicitly stated, “the overseer is to be above reproach” … and reminds Timothy, “If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?”

National Catholic Reporter

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, came into existence in 1989, just five years after national attention was first focused on sexual molestation of minors by Catholic clergy. The founder, Barbara Blaine, is a survivor of abuse. The national director, David Clohessy, is also a survivor. SNAP came into existence because the institutional church, i.e., the bishops, could not and would not do anything to help the victims of the priests they were supposed to supervise.

Realizing that they would have to help themselves, Barbara and the original members started what has become the oldest and most effective advocacy and help group for the countless victims of clergy abuse throughout the United States and Europe as well.

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IRELAND
Wexford People

Wednesday March 14 2012

THE TRAGIC death on Tuesday of Wexford priest Fr. John Sweetman has shocked parishioners throughout the Diocese of Ferns.

Fr. Sweetman, who stepped down as parish priest in Riverchapel last year following an allegation of sexual abuse, died yesterday morning.

Medical assistance was summoned to Ballyvaloo Retreat Centre in Blackwater, where he was staying for a few days.

He was brought by ambulance to Wexford General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 15 March 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father appointed Cardinal Edwin Frederick O’Brien, pro-grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, as grand master of that Order.

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UNITED STATES
Googling God

Common Sense Should Be Applied in Supervision on Sex Abuser Claims

Mike Hayes

As a Catholic, I’m appalled by this defense tactic used by some in the Church to skirt their responsibility for supervising those who ended up abusing children.

From the NY Times:

However, courts in Missouri, Wisconsin and Utah have twisted the First Amendment into a shield for organizational liability for pedophile clergy. In an outrageous case, a Missouri appellate court summarily dismissed a negligence case brought against the Archdiocese of St. Louis by an individual who said he had been abused by a priest. His suit charged the archdiocese with negligent failure to supervise the priest, who had a past record of child sexual abuse. The court threw out the complaint, saying that Missouri law does not allow it because judging the supervision of the priest would require inquiry into religious doctrine, which it contends would violate the First Amendment.

This bizarre conclusion would grant churches a special exemption from neutral, generally applicable laws designed to protect children. The United States Supreme Court now has an opportunity to reverse this erroneous interpretation of the Constitution. The justices should grant the plaintiff’s petition for review, which they are scheduled to consider on Friday.

And consider it they should. Supervision does not have anything to do with religious practice in these instances. If it did, no non-Catholics could work for the church by definition.

It’s also a ridiculous claim. We can’t investigate into whether this person who works for us abused a child because the state can’t determine whether someone actually did that. Um, pardon me, but isn’t this obvious? Either the person did this or didn’t do this and unless they say that God told them to do it—which would be a horrifying thing to say—then their religious perspective is both flawed and irrelevant.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE GOVERNMENT WAS called on today to address the subject of reparation for survivors of the Magdalene laundries.

Ireland’s human rights record is being examined at the United Nations in Geneva today as the country bids to become a member of the UN Human Rights Council. The Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) made a statement to the UN Human Rights Council calling on the government to address the issue of reparation.

The IHRC was joined by the Women’s Human Rights Alliance (WHRA), led by the National Women’s Council of Ireland, when they made a statement to the UNHRC.

The WHRA urged the government to comply with the recommendations of the UN Committee against Torture and the IHRC to institute a statutory inquiry into Magdalene Laundries abuse and a compensation scheme for survivors.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Kos

Kaili Joy Gray

This story is just gonna break your heart:

Cardinal [Timothy M.] Dolan criticized a legislative proposal that would, for a year, drop the statute of limitations for filing civil claims for sexual offenses, allowing for lawsuits by people who say they were abused long ago. The cardinal said he was concerned that a flood of lawsuits over abuse by priests could drain the church of money it is using for charitable purposes.

“I think we bishops have been very contrite in admitting that the church did not handle this well at all in the past,” he said. “But we bristle sometimes in that the church doesn’t get the credit, now being in the vanguard of reform. It does bother us that the church continues to be a whipping boy.”

Aw. Poor bishops. They are just so sick and tired of being blamed for that whole covering-up-the-widespread-rape-and-molestation-of-children thing. Don’t you secular ingrates understand that they can’t do really important stuff—like spend $26.7 million a year lobbying politicians to pass Church-approved laws against gays and vaginas—if they have to keep paying settlements to all those molested kids?

And once you take into account all the money the Church has to spend trying to shut down Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) because, according to William Donohue, head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the bishops believe “they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough” because they “don’t need altar boys,” why, that hardly leaves any money at all to care for the homeless pull funding from services for the homeless because its director supports marriage equality.

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UNITED STATES
Care2

by Paul Canning

Back in January, Catholic League President and frequent Fox News contributor Bill Donohue called victims of priest abuse and their advocates and supporters a “pitiful bunch of malcontents” and “professional victims.”

Now Donahue is calling for victims to be ‘fought one-by-one’ so the church can save money.

He claims that Catholic bishops are reaching the conclusion that “they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough.” “We don’t need altar boys,” he told the New York Times.

He says he’s backing an effort by lawyers for two Missouri priests accused of abuse to subpoena email from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

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JEFFERSON CITY (MO)
KOMU

by Emily Allen

JEFFERSON CITY – Father Brendan Doyle will no longer be able to participate in public ministries in Jefferson City or elsewhere. A seven-person review board for the Jefferson City Diocese recommended Doyle be suspended indefinitely.

The Diocese’s Deacon Dan Joyce said the review board decided this after reviewing evidence from the investigation put on by the US Attorney’s office. Bishop Gaydos accepted the recommendation from the review board and Doyle was suspended.

The investigation started in November when a Helias High School computer technician discovered pornographic web images on Doyle’s computer.

The details of these images were not released. However, the review board said the images violated the charter protecting children and young people.

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UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Aaron Falk
The Salt Lake Tribune

A Mormon bishop accused of failing to report the alleged abuse of a child in his congregation has taken a plea deal that could end with the misdemeanor’s dismissal.

Amado Gress Rojas, 62, entered into a “diversion agreement” Monday in Provo Justice Court. The deal with prosecutors means Rojas can ask the court to dismiss the single class B misdemeanor count if he has no criminal violations over the next six months.

According to defense attorney Mike Esplin, who spoke to The Salt Lake Tribune last month about the charges, the alleged victim and three other girls spoke to Rojas during a meeting in September. The girl reported she had been “touched over the clothing” during a church activity.

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PHILIPPINES
Bulatlat

By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
Bulatlat.com

The children’s welfare advocacy and party-list group Akap-Bata recently called on the Benigno Aquino III administration to enforce Republic Act 9775 or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009. It also aired its dismay over what it said was the Inter-Agency Council against Child Pornography’s (IACCP) “poor performance” since the law was passed in November 2009.

“No culprit of child pornography has been convicted in the almost 30 months since the law’s passage. We want to know if the agency has made any headway in implementing its mandate. We want violators of children’s rights to be punished and for this to serve as a strong warning to the masterminds of child pornography in the country,” said Akap Bata Party-List secretary-general Arlene Brosas.

Brosas said the Aquino government and the IACCP should “do their homework” so they can implement the provisions of the anti-child pornography law. She said the agency should put together a child pornography database to monitor all incidents of child porn in the country. This, she said, can be the starting point for the agency’s strategic plan of action. …

Late in November last year, reports came out that a Massachusetts , United States-based Filipino priest who was caught with child pornography in his computer disappeared before he could go on trial. The priest, Rev. Lowe B. Dongor, is suspected to be hiding in the Philippines.

Based on reports, Dongor was arraigned in Fitchburg District Court on September 12, 2011 on charges of possessing child pornography. The newspaper Telegram said images of child pornography were found in the priest’s laptop. The independent computer service company, which flagged the pornographic material, informed the local police. The report noted that court documents reveal that the images found in the priest’s computer depicted prepubescent girls in various states of undress.

“If this priest is in hiding in the Philippines, what has the IACCP done to find him? It should coordinate with the police authorities and other agencies to find him,” Brosas said.

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UNITED STATES
The Media Report

Dave Pierre

The New York Times is again shilling for the Catholic-hating SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) with more false attacks against the Catholic Church.

Yesterday (Tue., 3/13/12), the Times plastered a sympatheic, front-page portrait of the anti-Catholic advocacy group in an apparent attempt to intimidate the Church from defending itself through the legal process. We have already exposed the dishonest nature of the article (which was written by religion editor Laurie Goodstein).

Then today (Wed., 3/14/12), the Times continued its attack with a misleading and error-laced editorial.

First, the editorial claims that the Catholic Church is “threatening to expose private files” of victims in Missouri. This is patently and demonstrably untrue. If there is one issue that SNAP and the Church agree on, it is that victims’ files must be kept private.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
WTAM

(Cleveland)- Bishop Richard Lennon of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese has received the official word from the Vatican regarding his orders closing 13 Northeast Ohio churches.

Lennon says the Vatican Congregation for Clergy decrees arrived on Wednesday and the process to review these rulings will now be undertaken with his advisors.

Last week the Vatican overturned Lennon’s ruling to close 13 churches.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
The Plain Dealer

By Michael O’Malley, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The official decrees reversing Bishop Richard Lennon’s closings of 13 Catholic parishes finally reached his desk today, the bishop acknowledged in a statement.

That means the clock began ticking today on a 60-day period for him to decide whether to appeal.

“The process to review these rulings will now be undertaken with my advisors,” the bishop wrote in a three-sentence statement posted on the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland’s web site.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
WKYC

CLEVELAND — Bishop Richard Lennon announced Wednesday that he is now in receipt of decrees issued by the Vatican Congregation for Clergy regarding 13 closed churches within the Cleveland Diocese.

The bishop says he will begin to review the decrees with his advisors.

Critics of the church closings want Bishop Lennon to implement the ruling from the Vatican and quickly reopen the impacted parishes.

The Congregation of Clergy ruled that the bishop failed to follow church law and procedure in making the closings.

The 13 churches were among 50 closed by the Diocese due to declining finances and attendance.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Lodi News-Sentinel

By Ross Farrow/News-Sentinel Staff Writer

STOCKTON — The plaintiff in the Michael Kelly civil trial, who said in previous testimony that he was sexually assaulted and fondled while he was in fifth grade in the 1980s, testified on Wednesday that he wasn’t sure what grade he was in when some of the alleged incidents took place.

The former Stockton altar boy also refuted statements by clinical psychologist Amy Charney, who testified he told her that Kelly sexually assaulted her in fourth grade.

During cross examination, Stockton Diocese attorney Jim Goodman showed videotapes of two depositions the plaintiff gave in 2009 in an effort to show inconsistencies between what the plaintiff said during the depositions and what he said on the witness stand Wednesday and last Friday.

Not every incident may have happened in fifth grade, the plaintiff said Wednesday. Some of the incidents may have taken place as late as seventh or eighth grade.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

Editorial

Published: March 14, 2012

Religious institutions have constitutional protections, but they are not above the law. Unfortunately, that has not stopped the Roman Catholic Church and other religious groups from arguing that the First Amendment shields them from civil lawsuits for negligent supervision and retention of employees who sexually abuse children.

Most state courts that have considered the issue have rejected this claim by churches, recognizing that holding religious employers liable for failure to monitor employees in sex-abuse cases does not interfere with constitutionally protected religious freedoms.

However, courts in Missouri, Wisconsin and Utah have twisted the First Amendment into a shield for organizational liability for pedophile clergy. In an outrageous case, a Missouri appellate court summarily dismissed a negligence case brought against the Archdiocese of St. Louis by an individual who said he had been abused by a priest. His suit charged the archdiocese with negligent failure to supervise the priest, who had a past record of child sexual abuse. The court threw out the complaint, saying that Missouri law does not allow it because judging the supervision of the priest would require inquiry into religious doctrine, which it contends would violate the First Amendment.

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STOCKTON (CA)
The Modesto Bee

By Ross Farrow
News-Sentinel (Lodi)

STOCKTON — Defense attorneys claimed on Tuesday that the 37-year-old former altar boy suing Lockeford priest Michael Kelly may have been sexually assaulted by someone else.

During cross-examination, clinical psychologist Amy Charney, a witness for the plaintiff, testified that the plaintiff was in fourth grade, not fifth, when he was sexually assaulted. Charney’s statement contradicts the plaintiff’s testimony Friday that Kelly sexually assaulted him in the fifth grade.

Defense attorney Tom Beatty, representing Kelly, noted that Kelly didn’t begin his duties at Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton until June 1984, when the plaintiff was completing the fourth grade.

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FORT BEND (IN)
The Journal Gazette

Rosa Salter Rodriguez | The Journal Gazette

Nearly every day, they’ve been writing – sometimes a few words, sometimes a sentence or two, often whole paragraphs packed with emotion.

“Words can’t express the sorrow I have for (you), Father Thom,” one wrote. “I can’t imagine your pain, and I look forward to the day that we can welcome you back home with open arms at St. Joseph’s.”

“Still thinking of you and praying you remain strong and sustained … I miss you and I know that God the Father has you in His mighty hand,” another penned.

Those who know the Rev. Thomas C. Lombardi have been voicing their support online for the Fort Wayne-South Bend Roman Catholic Diocese priest accused of sexual misconduct with a teenage boy more than 10 years ago.

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MISSOURI
The Fulton Sun

In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, Deacon Dan Joyce, the communications director for the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City, said Father Brendan Doyle, 73, has been suspended from providing “any public ministry.”

Joyce said the diocesan action was taken, even though “it is the understanding of the Diocese that, at this time, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri has declined prosecution.”

He said the seven-member Review Board considered the results of its own investigation, the information it received from law enforcement and the policies of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

Joyce told reporters late Wednesday afternoon: “Based upon all the information it received, the diocesan review board believed that Fr. Doyle violated the Charter based on downloaded pornographic images that were found on a laptop computer he owned and a school laptop he used.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Democrat

By KATHERINE JARVIS
dailydemocrat.com
Created: 03/14/2012

A former Woodland priest will not return to Sacramento Superior Court on molestation charges until April.

The Rev. Uriel Ojeda, 32, served as a priest at Woodland’s Holy Rosary Catholic Church from 2007 until 2009.

His hearing last Friday was continued until 1:35 p.m. Thursday, April 12. He has yet to enter a plea to seven counts of committing lewd and lascivious acts with a girl under the age of 14 between 2007 and 2009.

According to the criminal complaint, the crimes occurred in Sacramento and Shasta counties, where Ojeda was a parochial vicar at Our Lady of Mercy parish in Redding.

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UNITED STATES
Boys Don’t Tell

Randy Ellison

I’ve been reading a lot of articles lately on how much the Catholic Church is doing to repair the damage to it’s public image. They wish to show us how repentant they are over what they have been doing to our children. There are conferences in Rome where bishops listen to survivors and a really great press release by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin who actually seems to “get it”.

Now, this morning , there is a particularly nauseating press release out of New York by His Excellency Archbishop Timothy Dolan. Mr. Dolan reports on his conversation with NY Governor Cuomo regarding a bill to extend the statute of limitations on child sex abuse five years until age 28: “And the governor listens. He’s a good lawyer. He reminded us of his allegiance to classical jurisprudence that would see a great benefit in the protection of the statute of limitations to see that the innocent of protected and that justice is done.”

Dolan also said the bishops have been “contrite” in admitting the church has handled molestation scandals poorly, but is trying to do more now — and isn’t getting credit for that: So it does bother us that the church continues to be a “whipping boy”…

Really? In arguing against a five year extension of the statute of limitations for victims of child sexual abuse Mr. Dolan describes The Church as needing protection and justice because as hard as they try, they are still just a “whipping boy”? Interesting turn of a phrase if you ask me, and very skillful use of vocabulary to make The Church out to be the victim, in all the child sex abuse claims. Are you serious? After decades of child rape, deviant torture, beatings and destruction of human dignity, life and the theft of souls of helpless children “His Excellency” wants us to view The Church as the victim? And just to top it off he ends the press conference with “Last year when I was here, there were some refreshments up on that shelf, what happened to them?” aka; what happened to the booze?

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NEDERLAND
Het goede leven

woensdag 14 maart

Bisschop Punt van het bisdom Haarlem-Amsterdam heeft een priester van het bisdom postuum uit het ambt gezet.De geestelijke, die in 1991 overleed, was van 1941 tot 1967 rector van het weeshuis De Voorzienigheid in Amsterdam. Diverse klachten van seksueel misbruik zijn bij het meldpunt misbruik van de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk tegen de man in behandeling.

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NEDERLAND
Reformatorisch Dagblad

GRONINGEN – De Rooms-Katholieke Kerk draait slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik een rad voor ogen door zich in civiele procedures te beroepen op verjaring.

Dat stelt Fokko Oldenhuis, bijzonder hoogleraar Religie en Recht aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RUG) in een interview dat woensdag is gepubliceerd op de website van de RUG. Bij monde van aartsbisschop Wim Eijk beloofde de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk geen beroep te doen op de verjaring van seksuele delicten. Bij nader inzien geldt deze belofte echter alleen voor slachtoffers die hun claim bij de kerk indienen.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Barney Zwartz
March 15, 2012

THE Catholic Church in Melbourne has nothing to hide from an independent inquiry into its handling of sexual abuse allegations under the Melbourne Response, the city’s Archbishop, Denis Hart, said yesterday.

Archbishop Hart said he was confident any independent inquiry into its Melbourne Response protocol would confirm this.

But he declined to welcome an inquiry – saying he could not do so until he saw the terms of reference – or to comment on the handling of complaints before the protocol was introduced in 1996.

”We are not dodging for cover and hiding,” he said.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
Fox 8

March 14, 2012, by Dan Jovic

The head of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese, Bishop Richard Lennon, announced on Wednesday that he has received decrees from the Vatican associated with the proposed re-opening of 13 Cleveland-area parishes.

Bishop Lennon issued the following statement on the decrees;

“As indicated in my previous statement, I promised to inform you when I had received from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy decrees associated with parish appeals. The decrees arrived on Wednesday, March 14, 2012.

The process to review these rulings will now be undertaken with my advisors.“
Last week the Vatican overturned the closings of 13 Cleveland-area parishes, according to the attorney who led a legal fight against their doors being shut for good.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
Akron Beacon Journal

By Colette M. Jenkins
Beacon Journal religion writer
Published: March 14, 2012

Catholic Diocese of Cleveland Bishop Richard G. Lennon said Wednesday he has received documents from the Vatican concerning his orders to close 13 parishes.

“As indicated in my previous statement, I promised to inform you when I had received from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy decrees associated with parish appeals. The decrees arrived on Wednesday, March 14, 2012. The process to review these rulings will now be undertaken with my advisors,” Lennon said in a prepared statement.

The documents arrived a week after Peter Borre, a Boston activist who has fought the closing of churches in the Cleveland diocese, told the Associated Press the Congregation of the Clergy had ruled Lennon did not follow proper procedures in the closings of 13 parishes that appealed their suppressions and the closing of their churches.

Since then, Borre and other critics of the closings have called for the bishop to move quickly in restoring the 13 affected parishes. They contend that, although Lennon has 60 days from the receipt of the Vatican documents to appeal, the congregations cannot be denied access to their church buildings.

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UNITED STATES
Benedict XVI Ratzinger: God’s Rottweiler

[‘Pope’s crocodile’ returns to Cuba ahead of papal trip – via BBC News]

Paris Arrow

Updated March 14, 2012 This shows how out-of-touch-with-reality “Holy Father” Benedict XVI is because he would rather meet with a rare Cuban crocodile who flew all the way from Cuba to meet him within his palace…but he refuses to let inside the Vatican his suppossedly Catholic children who walked all the way across Italy to meet him. What Benedict XVI has in common with the rare Cuban crocodile are his crocodile tears for hundreds of thousands of victims of the B16 Army – Benedict XVI Pedophile Priests Army – named aptly after him as Cardinal Ratzinger who together with John Paul II covered-up and condoned pedophile priests and Cardinals and Bishops who transferred them from one parish to another to satiate their bestial pedophilic lust. Read our latest articles in our new blog Pope crimes and Vatican Evils http://popecrimes.blogspot.com/ Will The Hague please move in fast and call on Benedict XVI to go face his trial for his Crimes against Humanity and let the Vatican produce its dream legal team to defend him. Only The Hague can bring justice for the hundreds of thousands of children abused by pedophile priests in countries all over the world.

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Jacob Kleinman

March 13, 2012

An Italian member of the hacktivist collective Anonymous targeted the Vatican website for a second time in under week on Tue. March 13, knocking the website offline and penetrating deeper into the city state’s server to steal the personal information of multiple Vatican Radio journalists.

Although the Vatican confirmed that they had been hacked, but claimed that much of the information the hacktivist gathered was useless.

“There was a second attack we are aware of directed against the [Vatican IP] address,” said a Vatican spokesman today. “[Concerning] Vatican Radio, a database on an old server was accessed. Thirty percent of the information on the server was so outdated it was of no use.”

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IRELAND
Faith Trust Institute

The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, was recently interviewed on 60 Minutes, discussing his efforts since becoming Archbishop to address the sexual abuse of children by priests.

One of his first acts as Archbishop was to release the Diocesan files on priests accused of abuse to the Murphy Commission established by the state to investigate the church’s handling of complaints. Martin’s predecessor had refused to release those files. But Martin has been outspoken in his support of survivors and unequivocal in calling abusive priests to accountability. The Vatican is not pleased.

Archbishop Martin seems to be rebuilding trust with Catholics in Ireland where the church has been devastated by the revelations of abuse by priests. The interviewer sought to paint him as a hero, but Martin demurred: “I didn’t set out to challenge anybody. . . . I was doing my job.” Indeed. He was doing his job as a Bishop: guiding the Church to be the church, responding to the suffering inflicted by the Church, protecting the most vulnerable, telling the truth.

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UNITED STATES
AlterNet

Joey Piscitelli

Bill Donahues’ Catholic League Member # 60201 MCGUO, serial molester Fr. Donald McGuire, is the most notorious Jesuit rapist on earth. Fr. Donald McGuire, who was convicted by US Feds, aided by the Dept. of Homeland Security, was jailed for the rest of his life a few years ago. But this egregious rapist is also known as Mother Teresa’s’ personal confessor, and is responsible for tainting her reputation.

Additionally, Fr. McGuire, who swam in a cesspool of disgrace for decades, and was known by the Jesuits to be a serial molester, and was allowed free reign to travel the world, has another notorious tie- to yet another famous Catholic “celebrity”.

The vocal and obnoxious leader of the Catholic League, William Donahue, who outspokenly condemned child abuse victims and advocates as “A menace to the Catholic Church”, had previously allowed the serial molester Fr. McGuire to join and donate money to his “organization”, and thanked McGuire for his generosity.

This comes as no shock, as Donahue is known by clergy abuse victims for spewing disgraceful hurtful remarks, and showing no remorse for it; in support of clergy abusers. As Mr. Donahue bragged to the New York Times that the Catholic Bishops had got together with a new strategy to fight victims of sex abuse by clergy, and continued his rant about the apparent Catholic war on rape victims and their advocates, his ego was in full swing. It is extremely difficult and sad to witness how proud he is to imply that the Catholic church will do anything possible to defeat innocent child molestation victims, and their advocates.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Thomas P. Doyle on Mar. 14, 2012 Examining the crisis

Commentary

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, came into existence in 1989, just five years after national attention was first focused on sexual molestation of minors by Catholic clergy. The founder, Barbara Blaine, is a survivor of abuse. The national director, David Clohessy, is also a survivor. SNAP came into existence because the institutional church, i.e., the bishops, could not and would not do anything to help the victims of the priests they were supposed to supervise.

Realizing that they would have to help themselves, Barbara and the original members started what has become the oldest and most effective advocacy and help group for the countless victims of clergy abuse throughout the United States and Europe as well.

Over the years since its existence, SNAP has done what the institutional church should have done: It offered understanding, support, solace and above all, hope for anyone who called upon it. SNAP is not a sophisticated organization with a well-oiled and financed bureaucracy. It has always been focused on providing support for victims, giving them the encouragement to begin to heal from the devastation of abuse and giving them hope, knowing they are not alone. …

The latest and most convincing evidence of the bishops’ collective failure following the present pope’s admonitions is the organized attack on SNAP. This attack is being carried out by lawyers who represent two priests accused of abuse, but it’s not about justice for the priests. It’s about destroying an organization that represents not only a source of profound embarrassment to the bishops but a serious threat to their continued duplicity. On one hand, the demand for SNAP’s files is sending a horrific message to all victims of clergy abuse and to all who try to help and support them. The message is clear: Although individual bishops might be truly sympathetic, the bishops as a group simply don’t “get it.” Nothing has changed since 1985, when this sordid issue first came to widespread public awareness. They are only concerned for themselves, their image, their control over the laity and their money. The National Review Board had it right when they pinpointed this in their 2004 report.

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VANCOUVER (WA)
The Oregonian

By Kate Mather, The Oregonian

An employee at the King’s Way Christian School in Vancouver faces criminal charges after investigators say they found evidence of an “inappropriate, sexual relationship” between the woman and a student.

Deputies began an investigation Saturday and arrested Kyley Allworth today on charges of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor, said Sgt. Kevin Allais of the Clark County Sheriff’s Office. She was booked in the Clark County Jail.

Allworth is not a teacher at the private K-12 school, located at 3300 N.E. 78th St., but Allais said she is “involved in a supervisory role” and coaches sports. No information about the student was available.

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VANCOUVER (WA)
KPTV

By FOX 12 Webstaff

VANCOUVER, WA (KPTV) –
A coach at a Vancouver school is accused of having a sexual relationship with a student.

Kyley Allworth, 29, was arrested Tuesday on three counts of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor.

Clark County sheriff’s deputies say Allworth works at Kingsway Christian School on Northeast 78th Street and is involved in a “supervisory role at the school as well as coaching athletics.”

The name of the student involved isn’t being released.

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VANCOUVER (WA)
KION

Reported by: Carla Castaño
Email: ccastano@koin.com

Reported by: Jennifer Meacham

A female school employee from a Christian school in Vancouver faced a judge Wednesday, four days after the start of a law-enforcement investigation into her relationship with a 17-year-old girl at the school.

Some of Kyley Allworth’s family members were in the Clark County courtroom Wednesday. They told KOIN Local 6 they were shocked by the allegations.

“She’s an incredible woman,” said her cousin Mike White.

White and other family members expressed concerns about Allworth’s behavior in recent months. They said they were worried about her drinking and that she might commit suicide.

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VANCOUVER (WA)
The Columbian

By Laura McVicker
Columbian Staff Reporter

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

A former assistant librarian and basketball coach at King’s Way Christian School made her first appearance Wednesday on suspicion of sexual misconduct of a 17-year-old female student.

Kyley J. Allworth, 29, of Vancouver appeared in Clark County Superior Court on suspicion of three counts of sexual misconduct with a minor relating to one victim. Allworth wore a “suicide smock,” or a garment made of tear-resistant fabric that is meant to prevent an inmate from ripping up clothing to fashion a noose.

After hearing that Allworth was at risk of committing suicide, Judge Diane Woolard set bail at $50,000.

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VANCOUVER (WA)
KGW

by Collette Wieland

VANCOUVER — A teacher aide at a Clark County Christian High School has been arrested on sex abuse charges involving a student.

Kylee Allworth, 29, appeared Wednesday in Clark County Superior Court. She was ordered held on $50,000 bail. She was charged with three counts of suspicion of sexual misconduct with a minor. Her next court appearance was scheduled for March 28.

An informer told Kings Way Christian School officials about the allegations on Saturday, who turned them over to the Clark County sheriff’s office.

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast – The Dish

Andrew Sullivan

How hard is to to support the institutional hierarchy of the Catholic church these days? This hard:

Mr. Donohue said leading bishops he knew had resolved to fight back more aggressively against the group SNAP, [Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests]: “The bishops have come together collectively. I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.”

He said bishops were also rethinking their approach of paying large settlements to groups of victims. “The church has been too quick to write a check, and I think they’ve realized it would be a lot less expensive in the long run if we fought them one by one,” Mr. Donohue said.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Interestingly enough, Laurie Goodstein reports today in the New York Times about David Clohessy’s Kansas City subpoena, as I did yesterday, and unless I’m badly misreading her report, it fairly well squares with what I posted on this matter yesterday. Goodstein cites the highly regarded legal scholar and advocate for victims, Marci Hamilton, who thinks that Catholic church leaders are deliberately trying to shut SNAP up by playing ugly legal hardball games in Missouri.

Goodstein also has insider information from Catholic League president Bill Donohue, who tells her that what is happening with SNAP in Missouri is being deliberately orchestrated by the U.S. Catholic bishops:

Lawyers for the church and priests say they cannot comment because of a judge’s order. But William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a church advocacy group in New York, said targeting the network was justified because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.”

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Bully Bill Donohue’s gloating remarks about his insider information vis-a-vis the U.S. Catholic bishops and their current campaign to bully SNAP are not getting good press coverage in the blogosphere. I’m referring here to the statement that the Catholic League director made yesterday in Laurie Goodstein’s New York Times article about the attempt to bully SNAP through hardball legal tactics in Missouri, where Bishop Robert Finn is now facing criminal indictment.

As my posting about this yesterday (to which the first link above points) noted, Donohue told Goodstein that “the bishops have come together collectively” to fight SNAP (and, implicitly, the survivors of clerical sexual abuse SNAP defends), though he can’t give Goodstein specific names of bishops about whom he’s speaking. As I stated, though the USCCB media spokeswoman Sister Mary Ann Walsh denies any such concerted effort of bishops to collude in bullying SNAP in Missouri, I’m inclined to think Dohonue is boasting about insider information he really does have, since he clearly works hand and glove with the USCCB, and, in particular, with the USCCB president His Eminence Timothy M. Cardinal Dolan, with whom Donohue shares an office building.

Donohue does the dirty work the U.S. Catholic bishops don’t want the public to see, so that they can pretend their own hands are clean.

And so, in a piece yesterday entitled “The Hierarchy Re-Abuses the Sex-Abuse Victims,” Andrew Sullivan notes that it’s increasingly difficult to support the institutional hierarchy of the Catholic church these days, and zeroes in on Donohue’s ugly boasts to Goodstein, noting,

Donohue is a thug. But he is for the hierarchy what Hannity is for the GOP base. And the line about “altar boys”? Sometimes, you realize that for some Catholics, nothing has changed since the revelation of the mass rape of children, altar boys often a prime target.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds to today’s editorial in the New York Times on the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP):

We now know from the deposition of SNAP director David Clohessy that he has been (a) lying to the media about his work (b) falsely advertising his group as a rape crisis center (c) working with unseemly lawyers (d) exploiting his clients by providing unauthorized “counseling” services (e) ripping off those who are truly in need of help by failing to contribute even a dime for licensed counselors, and (f) pursuing priests on the basis of legal criteria he admits he cannot explain.

Furthermore, we know from two people who went undercover last summer to a SNAP conference in the D.C. area that the Catholic Church is regarded by these activists as “the evil institution.” Yet when the bishops finally decide to play hardball, they are slammed by the New York Times!

When the Times is sued, does it hire wimpy lawyers? Does it allow itself to be a punching bag? Not on your life: they hire the most aggressive attorneys they can buy. But when the bishops follow suit, they’re accused of not showing “reconciliation” for the victims.

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UNITED STATES
The Chronicle of Philanthropy

March 14, 2012

Lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and accused priests in two Missouri sexual-abuse cases have gone to court to compel a national advocacy group for abuse victims to disclose years of e-mail correspondence, reports The New York Times.

In recent months, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, has been subpoenaed five times in connection with cases involving the Kansas City and St. Louis dioceses. David Clohessy, the largely volunteer-run group’s national director, was asked in a subpoena to turn over 23 years worth of documents.

Mr. Clohessy said he was deposed for six hours by church lawyers in January and called the questioning “a fishing, crabbing, shrimping, trash-collecting, draining the pond expedition” intended to “harass and discredit and bankrupt SNAP.”

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WISCONSIN
WTMJ

ELM GROVE – Advocated for clergy abuse victims claim there could be dozens of sex offenders still working for the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests) held a news conference at St. Mary’s Church in Elm Grove.

Fr. Lauren Wenig, who served as pastor at St. Mary’s, was placed on leave after being accused of abusing a child in 2011.

SNAP wants the names of accused abusers made public.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

Garry O’Sullivan

At last week’s bishops’ press conference in Maynooth, we were told by an unusually upbeat Archbishop Martin that the Church in Ireland is beginning, albeit tentatively, to turn a corner. However, when he was asked by this paper about the Visitation Report, which has been in the hands of the bishops for some time now, the archbishop became his more familiar prickly self.

It is hardly a well kept secret that many of the bishops are very unhappy with the Visitation Report, which is still under debate between them and Rome.

So let’s indeed be tentative about any corners being turned – indeed let’s be very careful about the language that is being employed.

For instance the archbishop went on to say that Croke Park probably would not be big enough for the crowds coming to the Eucharistic Congress, but I reminded him, numbers were never a difficulty for the Irish Church.

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ALASKA
Vimeo

Frontline presents a documentary to illustrate the horror endured by children in Alaska in the hands of a priest.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Lodi News-Sentinel

By Ross Farrow/News-Sentinel Staff Writer

STOCKTON — Defense attorneys claimed on Tuesday that the 37-year-old former altar boy suing popular Lockeford priest Michael Kelly may have been sexually assaulted by someone else.

During cross examination, clinical psychologist Amy Charney, a witness for the plaintiff, testified that the plaintiff was in fourth grade, not fifth, when he was sexually assaulted. Charney’s statement contradicts the plaintiff’s testimony on Friday that Kelly sexually assaulted him in fifth grade.

Defense attorney Tom Beatty, representing Kelly, noted that Kelly didn’t begin his duties at Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton until June 1984, when the plaintiff was completing fourth grade.

However, Charney said that people with repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse are often fuzzy on actual dates and times of traumatic events. She added that children sometimes shut off their memories of events like sexual assault for more than 20 years, as she said was the case with the plaintiff suing Kelly.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WFMZ

[with video]

Author: Dwayne Parker

SPRING TWP., Pa. –
Just after evening mass, Tuesday evening, at St. Ignatius Loyola Church in Spring Township, members were still getting over the piercing allegations facing their priest, Father Cletus Onyegbule.

“I just wanted to cry. I was at five-thirty mass with our bishop and I just wanted to cry,” said Judy Avella-Keller.

Police allege that Onyegbule, 44,admitted to having consensual sex with an 18-year-old woman, several years ago, in the rectory of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Bethlehem Township, Northampton County.

After the young woman became pregnant, officials said Onyegbule paid for an abortion.

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CANADA
National Post

Sarah Boesveld Mar 14, 2012

An Acadian fishing village in turmoil over allegations a priest abused local boys decades ago found catharsis Monday night by removing the clergyman’s name from the local arena without waiting for a planned plebiscite.

After a quick vote at Cap-Pelé, N.B., municipal hall, dozens of townsfolk who had attended the council meeting walked to the arena and cheered as volunteer firefighters pulled down the sign from Aréna Père-Camille-Léger, named after a long-serving priest and community leader who is now, 20 years after his death, being accused of sexual assault.

The town had planned a plebiscite to coincide with May’s general municipal elections, but a weekend apology from the Archdiocese of Moncton that acknowledged abuses at the hands of Léger spurred council to call an emergency meeting Monday.

“To delay the decision to remove the name of Father Camille Léger by plebiscite will cause more pain and uncertainty from the victims,” read the motion, passed unanimously by the council shortly after 7 p.m. Monday.

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POLAND
Sunday Catholic Weekly

Milena Kindziuk

The issues of financing the Church and salaries of priests are still raising emotions. And many environments have been repeating the myth about the wealth of priests for years. The report of the Catholic Information Agency shows what truth on this issue is.

It clearly results from the document that the Church is maintained from the gifts of the faithful in 80%. – The Church is as rich as the faithful are sacrificial – says Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, the chairman of the Episcopal Economic Council. Moreover, the system of financing the Church is also created by: the economic activity of Church institutions and financing from the public means.

A tray not for a priest

There is nearly a general belief that donations ‘on a tray’ are given to priests by the faithful; and that priests ‘gain’ a lot of money every Sunday, whereas a parish, a church and parish buildings and not priests are maintained from the tray or voluntary donations from the faithful. However, the incomes from the tray are various, depending on a region of Poland. As it results from the report of the Catholic Information Agency presented in the Episcopal Secretarial Office ‘Finances of the Catholic Church in Poland’, the average amount of money on the Sunday tray in a small village parish of nearly 1000 inhabitants in the diocese of Tarnów is 487 zlotys. But in a parish of 3-thousand people in the diocese of Bielsko and Żywiec – it is 2300 zlotys, and in a parish in a city, like the archdiocese of Katowice – it can be even 4 thousand zlotys. However, these are not representative data; for we must remember that in Poland there are very poor parishes living on the verge of poverty, like, for example, Korytowo in the diocese of Szczecin and Kamieńsko.

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UNITED STATES
Voice from the Desert

Dear Friends,

I’m sure most of you have seen today’s New York Times article entitled “Church Using Priests’ Cases to Pressure Victims’ Network.”

I hope that you’ll consider responding to this important article by adding your comments on the NY Times site and by visiting the SNAP website too. SNAP deserves our financial and moral support.

The Catholic church in the United States has always played two games with individual survivors of abuse by its clergy—pastoral softball and legal hardball. But now we have confirmation from a straight-talking, knowledgeable player, William Donohue of the Catholic League, that SNAP as an organization is being targeted:

“The bishops have come together collectively. I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.”

The USCCB has issued a denial, but there is ample corroboration for Mr. Donohue’s assessment.

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UNITED STATES
Voice from the Desert

Dear SNAP Members and Supporters:

We are extremely grateful for the support you have shown to us today!

But since we are doing so well in getting our message out – but the threat to us remains–we want to take advantage of this unique moment and ask one more favor of you.

Would you please take the time to sign on to SNAP’s petition and help spread the word about it?

It asks Cardinal Dolan (President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops) to publicly take a stand against bullying tactics by some church officials and lawyers.. It says:

Cardinal Dolan – “Stop the legal bullying!”

As the head of America’s bishops, we urge you to publicly denounce, and stop, the bullying tactics used by bishops and church defense lawyers against those seeking help from the support group SNAP, including victims of abuse by clerics, witnesses, whistleblowers, police, prosecutors and journalists.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

Editorial

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, has played a critical role in making public the horrific crimes of pedophile priests and holding the Roman Catholic Church accountable for the crimes. Now the church is using a tactic that could cripple SNAP by embroiling it in costly litigation in which it is not a party.

As Laurie Goodstein wrote in The Times on Tuesday, lawyers for the church and priests accused of sex abuse in two Missouri cases have gone to court to compel SNAP to hand over two decades’ worth of e-mails and a huge amount of private correspondence with victims, lawyers, witnesses, reporters, prosecutors and the police.

The group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months and its national director, David Clohessy, deposed in the Kansas City, Mo., case. SNAP says it has incurred about $50,000 in legal fees and devoted hundreds of hours of staff time since the subpoenas began. This is a strange level of interest since SNAP is not involved in either case and Mr. Clohessy has sworn that he has had no contact with the accuser in the Kansas City case. The church’s lawyers want information on the network’s members and tactics, going beyond the cases. “The real motive is to harass and discredit and bankrupt SNAP, while discouraging victims, witnesses, whistle-blowers, police, prosecutors and journalists from seeking our help,” Mr. Clohessy said.

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UNITED STATES
The Media Report

Dave Pierre

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is slowly being exposed as the dishonest and mean-spirited organization that is it, and this reality appears to be upsetting the New York Times.

Today’s paper (Tue., 3/13/12) has plastered a front-page article by religion editor Laurie Goodstein that is largely a sympathetic portrait of the anti-Catholic organization.

Goodstein’s narrative is predictable: Big Catholic Church: bad and mean. Little-ol’ SNAP: innocent and good.

Goodstein ignores SNAP’s lengthy history of deception and nastiness. For example, Goodstein writes:

“[I]n 2002, American bishops met at their conference in Dallas with [SNAP] members who gave emotional testimony about the toll of the abuse. But relations have deteriorated since then, and SNAP members say bishops now refuse to meet with them.”

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NEDERLAND
Een Vandaag

[met video]

In Nederland zijn duizenden straten, pleinen, hofjes, onderscheidingen, scholen en kerken vernoemd naar geestelijken. Nu het misbruikschandaal in de Katholieke Kerk in volle omvang zichtbaar wordt, zouden alle namen van misbruikende geestelijken uit het straatbeeld moeten verdwijnen.

Dat stelt één van de slachtoffers van voormalig monseigneur Jan Niënhaus, voormalig hulpbisschop. Niënhaus wordt als een van de weinigen genoemd in het rapport van de commissie Deetman, de commissie die onderzoek deed naar seksueel misbruik in de Katholieke Kerk. De Mgr Niënhausstichting, een stichting voor Katholiek onderwijs, nam in 2007 de naam aan van Niënhaus. Nu is de stichting op zoek naar een nieuwe naam. En daar komt heel wat bij kijken.

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

The following statement was issued by WCASA, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Wisconsin’s largest advocacy organization for victim/survivors of sex crimes:

Recent reports in Milwaukee Federal Bankruptcy court indicate that at least 8,000 alleged acts of sexual assault and abuse were committed against children in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee over the past fifty years. The 570 adult survivors of these childhood crimes who filed a report with the court are to be lauded for their courage and supported in their efforts to obtain justice. They, and indeed all of us, are entitled to transparency and accountability from church officials concerning any policies and practices which have allowed offenders to evade justice and leave countless other children at risk over these many years.

Among the revelations surfacing in the reports submitted to the court are the existence of some 100 alleged clerical sex offenders, church employees, and volunteers not yet investigated or publically identified as abusers by the archdiocese. Some of these offenders are deceased, but a significant number are living and working unidentified in the community, some likely in a professional capacity with children and families.

Research on child sex crimes has repeatedly shown that most victims do not come forward and report the offense, and when they do it often takes years, if not decades to talk to someone, much less call the police. That is why, according to Human Rights Watch, less than 1 in 10 child molesters in the United States are known by law enforcement officials.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WISN

MILWAUKEE — A Milwaukee-area clergy sex abuse victims group is urging the state attorney general to investigate who it calls unidentified sex offenders.

The 100 unidentified individuals came to light during the Milwaukee archdiocese’s bankruptcy filing in federal court. Seventy-five of them are priests.

“This is a public safety concern because the community needs to know where these individuals are, where they’re living, what they’re doing. Are they working with families and children” So this is a very important matter,” Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests Wisconsin Director John Pilmaier said.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
CBS 58

[with video]

by Laura Rodriguez

Victims and survivors of clergy sexual abuse say 2 offenders are currently working with children and families, but the Archdiocese says both men were removed from the priesthood even after civil authorities declined prosecution.

SNAP says one of these men is now a licensed clinical social worker. The other is a funeral director.

“This is a public safety concern because the community needs to know where these individuals are, where they are living, what they’re doing,” said John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director.

The press conference is a response to comments made by bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley during the last court hearing on February 29th.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

He had sex with a minor, according to a 1994 document. He will be suspended, a source said.

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia plans to suspend a priest nearly two decades after church leaders learned he had sex with a girl, 17, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Msgr. Richard T. Powers, 76, who had served in parishes across the region and was most recently assigned to Epiphany of Our Lord in South Philadelphia, will be placed on administrative leave pending a review, said the source, who asked not to be identified discussing a personnel issue.

Powers’ suspension comes after his name emerged on a newly disclosed 1994 internal church memo that listed 35 area priests suspected or accused of abusing children.

Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua allegedly ordered that memo shredded, but a copy was discovered in a safe in the archdiocese’s Center City offices in 2006 and turned over last month to Philadelphia prosecutors.

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NEDERLAND
Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik RKK

Welkom op de website van Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik RKK, voorheen Hulp & Recht.De kerkelijke instelling Hulp & Recht is overgegaan in de onafhankelijke Stichting Beheer & Toezicht inzake seksueel misbruik in de RK Kerk. De door de bisschoppen en de hogere religieuze oversten opgerichte commissie Bandell adviseerde daartoe 24 juni 2011 (zie rapport commissie Bandell)

De stichting kent 4 onderdelen elk met afzonderlijke informatie op deze website:

•Meldpunt, het ‘front office’ waar mensen melding kunnen maken van seksueel misbruik;
•Platform Hulpverlening na seksueel misbruik in de RK Kerk, waar mensen geholpen worden door o.a. vertrouwenspersonen of doorverwezen kunnen worden;
•Klachtencommissie voor seksueel misbruik in de RK Kerk, waar de klachten behandeld worden.
•Compensatiecommissie voor seksueel misbruik in de RK Kerk, waar de compensatie kan worden aangevraagd.

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BELGIE
De Morgen

De zaak-Vangheluwe blijft beroeren. De onthulling van pedofilie in het hart van het West-Vlaamse bisdom deed walgen. Vooral de intrieste manier waarop kardinaal Danneels probeerde de klacht van een misbruikte jongen onder tafel te vegen, was alleszeggend over de (emotionele) intelligentie van de katholieke kerktop in dit land.

Tegelijk strookt de manier waarop bisschop Vangheluwe weg kwam met de zaak niet met ons rechtvaardigheidsgevoel: juridisch gezien blijft hij, door verjaring, volledig buiten schot. En binnen het instituut dat hem de macht gaf om te misbruiken, zijn de sancties op zijn zachtst gezegd niet echt in proportie. De kerk ontnam hem het recht om voor te gaan in een viering, maar houdt hem wel netjes binnen haar muren.

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NEW YORK
News 10

[with video]

By Taryn Fitsik

ALBANY, N.Y.–Abortion, statute of limitations for sex abuse and preserving Catholic schools, all on the list of things discussed Monday between Governor Andrew Cuomo and Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

It is Dolan’s first visit to Albany since being elevated to the College of Cardinals in February.

NEWS10 ABC spoke with Cardinal Dolan after his meeting with the Governor and joins us with what he had to say.

Cardinal Dolan says there are more than 70 issues the church regularly advocates for or against, but for meetings with the Governor, they have to narrow it down to just a few.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY Ken Lovett

In one part of my interview with Cardinal Dolan that did not make this morning’s column, New York’s archbishop said he holds no grudge at group of Irish American state lawmakers who chose not to honor him at its annual dinner tonight.

“I didn’t pay much attention to it,” Dolan said of the snub. “I got a good number of calls from lawmakers saying ‘we didn’t’ intend this.’ ”

My column two weeks ago detailed how it looked like Dolan was set to be celebrated as the guest of honor at tonight’s New York American-Irish Legislators Society dinner. Ultimately, however, the decision was made to instead honor liberal civil rights lawyer Brian O’Dwyer–a move that upset some members of the organization who felt it was an insult given Dolan’s ascension to cardinal this year.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY Celeste Katz

Timothy Cardinal Dolan hit Albany for a round of lobbying on issues close to the heart of the Catholic Church, with those ranging from abortion to same-sex marriage. Per our Glenn Blain, Dolan also spoke at length about a subject arguably as controversial as either of those: The Child Victims Act, which would extend the statute of limitations in clergy sexual abuse cases.

“We feel that this is terribly unjust. It singles [out] the church and it would be — and I use the word purposefully — devastating for the life of the church,” Dolan told reporters gathered in the LCA, as you can see from the pic at right from Blain’s Twitter feed.

“And the governor listens. He’s a good lawyer. He reminded us of his allegiance to classical jurisprudence that would see a great benefit in the protection of the statute of limitations to see that the innocent of protected and that justice is done,” he said.

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CZECH REPUBLIC
Prague Daily Monitor

ČTK

14 March 2012

Prague, March 13 (CTK) – Three Czech activists have sent an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI, telling him they disapprove of the planned Czech law on the return of confiscated property to churches and on financial settlement, they told journalists Tuesday.

Writer Lenka Prochazkova, historian Mojmir Grygar and art director Vaclav Dvorak said in their opinion the planned law is unfounded from the ethical, historical and legal points of view and is at variance with the constitution.

The activists said they have lodged several dozens of criminal complaints over the government’s bill. Prochazkova alone has lodged a complaint against all members of the cabinet on suspicion of abuse of power and breach of trust.

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MINNESOTA
West Central Tribune

By: Carolyn Lange, West Central Tribune

WILLMAR — County officials in west central Minnesota are scratching their heads trying to figure out why they’ve been receiving large packets of priority and certified mailings from Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Jeffs is serving a life-sentence in Palestine, Texas, for raping two young girls that he claimed were his “spiritual” wives.

The bundles of letters and booklets began arriving a couple months ago to many county commissioners in the region.

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NEW YORK
People’s World

by: Dan Margolis

In a meeting with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Democrat, Cardinal Timothy Dolan stressed that he was resolutely opposed to the proposed Child Victims Act, which, he says, “unfairly” targets the Catholic Church.

“We feel that this is terribly unjust. It singles [out] the church and it would be, and I use the word purposefully, devastating for the life of the church,” Dolan told reporters.

In actuality, the bill neither explicitly targets nor mentions the Catholic Church. However, due to the church’s ongoing abuse scandals, the bill it would likely cost the Cardinal Dolan’s diocese and others a good deal of money by making it easier for victims of pedophile priests to bring charges.

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GERMANY
Catholic Sentinel

Catholic News Service

The German bishops welcome progress in the national dialogue on the Catholic Church’s future, inaugurated in the wake of sexual abuse scandals.The talks begin in June by 30 German bishops and 300 invited clergy and lay representatives continue through 2015, with each year examining a church task.Several hundred Germans have claimed molestation by priests and church staffers since allegations were made against a Catholic college in Berlin in 2010.Under church guidelines, people who work with Catholic youth must now obtain police checks and undergo psychiatric tests, while the church’s 27 dioceses must have independent ombudsmen and experts. Germany’s 54 theology faculties and institutes report student admissions have dropped by half in the past 15 years. The sharpest decline was in Pope Benedict’s native Bavaria.The German bishops welcome progress in the national dialogue on the Catholic Church’s future, inaugurated in the wake of sexual abuse scandals.

The talks begin in June by 30 German bishops and 300 invited clergy and lay representatives continue through 2015, with each year examining a church task.

Several hundred Germans have claimed molestation by priests and church staffers since allegations were made against a Catholic college in Berlin in 2010.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Camera

JEB BARRETT
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
Denver SNAP Leader

I hope people are paying attention to what the Catholic Church is doing across the nation! Read Tuesday’s New York Times article.

Every American should be outraged by the continuing hardball tactics of the Roman Catholic Church across the nation, as they do all they can to silence the truth of their historic sexual exploitation of children and vulnerable adults. They would like nothing more than wipe to out the most important lifeline for victims of sexual assault by clergy, so that we can now call ourselves survivors of sexual abuse. Because of what happened to us, we will never know what it would be like to have not been fondled, raped and sodomized.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Wednesday March 14 2012

A SENIOR cleric who denied any wrongdoing after a complaint of child sexual abuse was made against him by a woman last year has died in tragic circumstances.

Fr John Sweetman had taken leave from parish duties in Riverchapel, Co Wexford, pending garda and HSE investigations.

The accusations he faced allegedly took place 30 years ago when he was a young priest in his 20s in Wexford town.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Crawley News

A RETIRED priest, accused of sexually assaulting children in Crawley more than 40 years ago, has been released on police bail.

The 73-year-old man was arrested at his home near Eastbourne last Tuesday on suspicion of historic sexual assaults.

It followed a six-month investigation by a team of specialist Sussex Police child protection detectives.

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ARKANSAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on March 13, 2012

Late last week, a Little Rock Circuit Judge Wendell Griffin (6th Judicial District) ruled that a clergy sexual abuse case will not be dismissed and can proceed toward trial.

We are grateful that this case will move forward. Fr. Charles Kanu apparently used his powerful position as a clergyman to counsel, then assault, this brave woman. After gaining her trust, he attacked her. We fear this is not an isolated incident and suspect that others hurt by Fr. Kanu are still trapped in guilt and self-blame.

We applaud this woman for having the courage to come forward and the wisdom to report these crimes to civil authorities.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Becky Plumly Ianni on March 13, 2012

We’re heartsick over these legal attacks and the chilling impact these church officials are having and will have on vulnerable and hurting victims, witnesses and whistleblowers. They are crippling our work to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded, and rubbing even more salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of hundreds of child sex abuse victims and thousands of betrayed Catholics.

And we’re scared for victims of domestic violence, rape and other sex crimes who, thanks to Catholic officials, must now worry that accused or admitted sex offenders will try to get their private emails in completely unrelated civil lawsuits involving litigants they’ve never meet in places they’ve never been.

We call on Catholic church employees and members – from Cardinal Tim Dolan on down – to publicly denounce and stop these mean-spirited and intimidating attacks. Until America’s bishops forcefully condemn and stop using these brutal tactics, parishioners and the public will believe what Mr. Donahue maintains: that bishops “have come together collectively” to “better toughen up.”

These hardball legal maneuvers by church officials make it harder for citizens to report known and suspected crimes and harder for police and prosecutors to arrest and convict criminals. They make it tougher for suffering victims to get the help they so desperately need and deserve. And they violate Constitutionally-protected freedoms of speech and association and privacy.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WFMZ

Author: Will Lewis

EASTON, Pa. –
A Berks County priest who admitted to having an inappropriate relationship with an 18-year-old woman is now being investigated for the same thing in Northampton County, but this time, officials said there could be more to the story.

The priest, Cletus Onyegbule, has admitted to having sex with the woman in the rectory of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Bethlehem Township, investigators said.

“The day after her 18th birthday, in the rectory of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, he admitted to that essentially,” said Morganelli. “Then she claims she got pregnant right away and in March was taken for an abortion by this priest, and he was with her and paid for it.”

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SCHWEIZ
NZZ

Gross war das Aufsehen, das die Initianten mit der Lancierung ihrer Volksinitiative für die Wiedereinführung der Todesstrafe bei Mord mit sexuellem Missbrauch im August 2010 erregt hatte. Nun ist sie mit viel weniger Getöse formell erledigt worden.

(sda) Die Sammelfrist ist am 24. Februar ungenutzt abgelaufen, wie aus der am Dienstag im Bundesblatt veröffentlichten Mitteilung der Bundeskanzlei hervorgeht.

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OHIO
The Plain Dealer

By Jeff Piorkowski, Sun News

SOUTH EUCLID

— Former, and possibly future, parishioners of St. Margaret Mary Church are ecstatic with the news that the parish could be re-opened.

“I said ‘Thank you God, thank you God, and then I said a Rosary,” said parish member Bobbie French of her reaction after hearing the news that broke March 7.

French was particularly invested in the re-opening, stating, “I sent 14 letters to Bishop (Richard) Lennon, two letters to Rome, two to a bishop in Washington, and one to a bishop in New Jersey.”

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano

Tue., Mar. 13 2012

​Every couple of months, I get a non-sequitor gloat from a local Catholic who’s always too cowardly to sign their name–best guess is Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown, but could easily be notorious outer of sex-abuse victims Matt Cunningham. This yellow belly won’t even send me an email–instead, they submit a rant against me with no return address, no indicators of their pendejo identity.

The emails don’t even make sense, but are directed at me because of my work exposing all of Orange’s nasty pedo-priests and their nastier protectors and even-nastier apologists. This was his last one; here’s the latest!

To wit:

Uh…. Attendance at Catholic churches in Orange County still full… Just bought a $58 million high profile property AFTER paying $100 million in lawsuits just a few years ago… Close to HALF of the parishes are in an EXPANSION project of some kind… Hmmm, Gustavo! Let’s ramp up your anti-Catholic hate! I don’t think all that effort of yours is paying off, except that you’re helping the Church filter out the floosy Catholics because if anybody is influenced by your low-brand city-college level work, it would be idiots like you! Heh heh …. must be so frustrating being you…

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Chicago Tribune

March 13, 2012

By Dave Warner

PHILADELPHIA, March 13 (Reuters) – The former chief financial officer of the beleaguered Archdiocese of Philadelphia surrendered to authorities on Tuesday to face charges that she
stole more than $900,000 from the church to pay her credit card bills.

Anita Guzzardi, 41, is accused of theft, forgery and other charges involving the archdiocese, the nation’s sixth-largest, which is less than two weeks away from the start of a high-profile pedophilia trial.

Monsignor William Lynn faces child endangerment charges, and a priest and a defrocked priest are accused of sexually abusing children between 1996 and 1999. Lynn would be the first high-ranking U.S. cleric to go on trial in a child sex abuse case.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Mercury

The following press release was issued by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia after charges were filed against the archdiocese’s former chief financial officer of the Archdiocese.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has worked closely with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office regarding the embezzlement of funds by Anita Guzzardi, the former chief financial officer of the Archdiocese.

On July 13, 2011, the District Attorney’s Office alerted the Archdiocese to certain accounting irregularities reported to the D.A.’s office by a credit card company. Guzzardi was placed on administrative leave the following day. After a preliminary internal forensic financial investigation by the Archdiocese, she was terminated on July 22. Following the initial investigation, the Archdiocese continued the financial investigation and shared all findings with the D.A.’s office in August.

Estimates show that Guzzardi embezzled more than $900,000 from the general operating fund of the Archdiocese. Donations to the Heritage of Faith ~ Vision of Hope capital campaign and the annual Catholic Charities Appeal were not impacted. The theft had no effect on the work of the Blue Ribbon Commission or the decision to close or regionalize any school.

Insurance will cover most of the costs for embezzled funds and a portion of the fees for the internal investigation.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Courier-Post

Written by
JIM WALSH
Courier-Post Staff

PHILADELPHIA — A South Jersey woman is accused of stealing more than $900,000 while working as a financial officer for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Anita Guzzardi, 42, of Barrington allegedly stole the funds from 2005 until mid-2011, the District Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia said Tuesday. Guzzardi, who joined the archdiocese in 1989, held multiple finance-related posts and was appointed chief financial officer on July 1, 2011.

Authorities said an investigation began in July 2011, when American Express contacted the DA’s office over suspicious activity with two accounts in Guzzardi’s name. Investigators learned Guzzardi allegedly used 184 checks from the archdiocese’s general fund to pay her American Express bills over almost six years. She also allegedly used 146 archdiocesan checks to pay her personal Chase credit card.

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UNITED STATES
Think Progress

By Adam Peck on Mar 13, 2012

This morning, The New York Times published an article outlining the Catholic Church’s apparent new strategy for dealing with lawsuits brought by the victims of sexual assault. Namely, filing legal actions designed to cripple organizations that support victims of pedophile priests.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, is the target of one such suit. The church is asking a court to force SNAP to turn over 20 years worth of email correspondence between the group and victims, journalists and whistle-blowers, a demand that SNAP officials say would cripple their ability to continue supporting victims of sexual assault.

The church would not comment to the New York Times citing a judge’s order, but radical conservative Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, had plenty of words for victims and their supporters:

“[Donohue] said targeting the network was justified because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.” …

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

By Pamela Lehman and Matt Assad, Of The Morning Call

11:16 p.m. EDT, March 12, 2012
A Catholic priest recently removed from his Berks County parish after acknowledging an inappropriate relationship with a woman is under investigation in Northampton County for possible criminal conduct with her when she was 17.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the Rev. Cletus Onyegbule used his position of authority at his former parish, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Bethlehem Township, to groom the girl for a sexual relationship with him, District Attorney John Morganelli said.

According to a source close to the investigation, a day after the girl’s 18th birthday in February 2006, she consented to sex with Onyegbule while in the rectory office at Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

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ALBANY (NY)
Albany Times Union

REV KENNETH DOYLE
Chancellor
Diocese of Albany

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany recently signed an agreement with the 14 district attorneys addressing how allegations of clergy sexual abuse of minors are handled. For nearly 10 years, the diocese has followed a standard protocol when handling sexual abuse allegations, based on the recommendations of the DAs and an independent task force of experts. The new memorandum of understanding updates the protocol based on the collective experience of the last decade.

Much of the Times Union’s March 6 editorial on the topic (“Not the last word on sexual abuse”) was wrong, even though the newspaper had or easily could have had accurate information.

Here are the facts:

It has been and will continue to be our policy to immediately notify the appropriate district attorney of any allegation regarding sexual or physical abuse of a minor by a member of the clergy or employee of the diocese, regardless of when such an act was committed.

It has been and will continue to be our policy to fully cooperate with the DA and to defer our investigation until the DA’s investigation is done.

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KENTUCKY
KY Forward

A friend of mine recently responded to a local newspaper cartoon with a letter to the editor and a cancellation of his subscription. The cartoon depicted a woman being harassed by a bishop about her use of contraception but the bishop then making a forward comment about her little boy. While this cartoon is utterly tasteless, the truly shocking element of all of this were the reader comments submitted on the newspaper’s website. The sheer ignorance of most individuals regarding the priest abuse scandal is astounding. Our mainstream media outlets would lead you to believe that a majority of priests were abusers and the numbers of victims in the millions. Without minimizing the seriousness of the abuse that did indeed occur, it’s important to take a look at the facts and let them speak for themselves.

Here’s how to start. There is an important document known as the John Jay report that outlines the specifics of the crisis with documented statistics. This report was commissioned by the Catholic Church and independently conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York to take a critical look into the matter of accusations against priests to try to get a better understanding of why this crisis occurred in the first place. To my knowledge, this was an unprecedented move on behalf of the American Catholic church. I have known of no other institution upon discovering a weakness of this nature that has freely chosen an investigation into their own operation, but this is exactly what the Catholic Church did.

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MISSOURI
The Rolla Daily News

By Shannon Beck
The Rolla Daily News

Posted Mar 13, 2012

Rolla, Mo. —

When Father Joseph Carlo of the Christ Episcopal Church in Rolla retired in 1990, he left behind a legacy as a priest who led his congregation to flourish. An internal church investigation recently completed by the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of Missouri may leave Carlo with a new legacy.

According to the Rev. Canon Daniel Smith of the Diocese of Missouri, an investigation into reports of alleged sexual abuse of children within the church by Carlo was recently completed.

According to Smith, the church has been in contact with five people who claim they were abused by Carlo between 1975 and 1985.

“We believe that(sexual abuse) has occurred,” Smith said about the abuse allegations and the results of the internal investigation.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

On January 2, David Clohessy, the president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), was deposed in Missouri regarding his role in cases of priestly sexual abuse. The deposition was recently made available [click here]; Catholic League president Bill Donohue has written a report on it, SNAP UNRAVELS [to read it, click here]; it is being mailed to the bishops today.

Donohue summarizes his report as follows:

David Clohessy claims that he doesn’t have to turn over most of the requested documents, or answer many of the questions. Why? Because SNAP is a rape crisis center, and therefore its confidentiality is protected under Missouri law. But when asked directly if SNAP is a rape crisis center, he said, “I don’t know.” He also admitted that he doesn’t know what constitutes a rape crisis center in Missouri.

Clohessy counsels alleged victims of abuse for a living, yet he admits to having no training whatsoever. He confessed that he does his unlicensed counseling in places like Starbucks; he also “consoles” his clients over the phone. Furthermore, there is not a single employed licensed counselor on SNAP’s staff. Moreover, he could not state a single instance where SNAP has paid for a licensed counselor to counsel a specific person.

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UNITED STATES
Young Feminists

Statement of NOW President Terry O’Neill

March 13, 2012

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is at it again. In addition to playing a major role in the right-wing war on women, the all-male hierarchy of the Catholic Church is trying to silence an organization dedicated to helping women and men who have been victimized by clergy.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is a tiny organization of almost all volunteers with an annual budget of less than a half million dollars. The threat SNAP poses to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is not based on its relative strength, but on the power of the truth. So, naturally, the bishops want to squash them like a bug. How’s that for Christian morals?

For decades, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church swept accusations of sexual abuse under the rug along with its collective conscience. Now, in two Missouri cases, attorneys for accused priests are inundating SNAP with subpoenas and other tactical measures that can be viewed as an abuse of the legal process.

The National Organization for Women wants to know: How much money are the bishops spending to demolish SNAP? Wouldn’t that money be better spent establishing processes for rooting out sexually abusive priests and caring for their victims?

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ARKANSAS
Herman Law

By Arick Fudali

March 12, 2012

In a case of first impresstion, an Arkansas Judge recently rejected the Diocese of Little Rock’s claim that the First Amendment prevents an adult parishioner from bringing a negligent claim against the Diocese where the victim was sexually exploited by her priest, Father Charles Kanu, during counseling sessions.

The Court ruled that religious organizations must be held to the same standard as all other employers and that the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment does not allow the Church to put parishioner’s in harms way.

Arkansas has a criminal statute making it a felony for counselors (including clergymen) and other professionals who are in a position of trust or authority to use that position to engage in sex. The Court found that the criminal statute created an independent basis to create a duty of care.

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UNITED STATES
Hotspyer

Stop menacing us with your
“I was raped by a priest” complaints!

File this under oh my god:

[T]here’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.

That’s William Donohue, head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, explaining the Catholic Church’s new “get tough” strategy to silence and shut down those meanie rape and abuse victims and their advocates, by trying to bury SNAP in a barrage of costly and irrelevant legal proceedings.

SNAP is the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. According to the New York Times, it has three paid staff members, and its revenue in 2010 was a whopping $ 352,903. In other words, compared to the mighty Catholic Church, it’s a pretty small, not-very-well-funded organization that exists solely to support those who’ve been victimized by the Church. Which means, according to Donohue, that SNAP is “a menace to the Catholic Church.”

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FREEPORT (ME)
The Forecaster

By David Harry

Mar 13, 2012

FREEPORT — A federal civil lawsuit about sex abuse in Haiti now involves a local man.

Paul Kendrick, 62, has been issued a subpoena by Boston-based attorney Theodore J. Folkman, who represents the Rev. Paul Carrier in a case being heard in U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn.

Carrier is one of 18 individuals and institutions named as defendants by Haitian Joseph Jean-Charles, who seeks $20 million from each for sexual abuse he allegedly suffered at the hands of Douglas Perlitz.

Perlitz was employed by Carrier as the executive director of a residential schools for boys called Project Pierre Touissaint.

According to court records, the school was founded in 1997 by Carrier, Perlitz and Fairfield University, a Jesuit school in Fairfield, Conn. The residential schools and an intake center, all near Cap Haitien, were operated by the Haiti Fund, which was overseen by the university and Carrier.

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BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

Rik Devillé van de werkgroep mensenrechten in de Kerk, heeft bedenkingen bij het pleidooi van Mieke Van Hecke over meer ‘vergiffenis’ in onze samenleving – ook voor mensen als Roger vangheluwe.

Rik Devillé wil wel praten over vergiffenis voor mensen als Roger Vangheluwe. Maar niet zonder dat Vangheluwe zelf eerst stappen doet.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

Richard J. Brennan
National Affairs Writer

The name on the local arena in the French language New Brunswick village of Cap-Pelé was a constant reminder of a time that town residents and victims of the late Father Camille Léger would rather forget.

While memories can’t be erased, council decided to do the next best thing Monday and that was remove Léger name from the front of the arena in the village where he was priest from 1959 to the 1980s.

While Léger, who died 22 years ago, was never charged with sexual assault, even the Catholic Church is convinced that several in the small southeastern fishing village were victimized by him during his tenure there.

As it turns out, when Cap-Pelé residents were told last week they would be asked in a May 14 plebiscite if they wanted to change the name of the local arena, several people came forward with allegations of sexual abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Ms. Magazine

Attorneys representing the Roman Catholic Church and priests who have been charged in two Missouri sex abuse cases have filed a case in an effort to legally compel the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) to disclose its records from the past twenty-three years. The documents requested include correspondences with victims, witnesses, police officers, and lawyers. SNAP, a network of survivors of religious sexual abuse and their supporters, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the case.

Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal adamantly spoke out against the outrageous attempts to intimidate SNAP and compel its records, stating, “The bishops are playing hardball with survivors of priest abuse and with women’s lives in fighting to limit access to contraception or abortion even in cases to save a woman’s life. But the bishops are not playing hardball with worldwide priest sexual abuse. The Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to focus on stopping cleric sexual abuse and the hierarchy’s cover-ups.”

In the past few months, David Clohessy, national director of SNAP, and SNAP have been subpoenaed five times and questioned extensively about SNAP’s operations by defense attorneys, despite the fact that SNAP is not a party in the litigation. Since SNAP refused to respond to all of the questions in the deposition or submit all of the subpoenaed documents in Kansas City, the attorneys on behalf of the Catholic bishops and priests have filed a motion, scheduled for April 20, in attempt to compel SNAP to comply. “The effort to gain SNAP’s records threatens not only survivors of priest pedophilia but also could set a dangerous precedent for victim advocates in domestic violence or other rape cases,” said Smeal. Ten victims’ advocacy groups filed a supporting amicus brief for SNAP saying the subpoena in unconstitutional since it violates the rights of association and would harm victims.

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UNITED STATES
another old woman

It’s time for anyone who considers themselves to be DECENT HUMAN BEINGS to LEAVE “The Most Holy roman Catholic Church” — this from the N.Y. Times – please follow link to original.

“Turning the tables” — another way of saying — “in an attempt to avoid prosecution for proven wrong doing”. The utter immorality of the Roman Catholic Church is stunning. These are the evil men who claim some “moral high-ground” when they attack the rights of women.

I’ve become quite certain they know they will NOT go to hell — they happen to know it does not exist. They also know they will not go to heaven — because I’m sure they no longer believe in that either. They do believe in POWER. They believe in supporting the RICH.

Tax The Church is NOT enough — break it up.

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