ABUSE TRACKER

OSTERREICH
Volksbegehren Gegan Kirchenprivilegien

Gleich zweimal saß der Abt des Zisterzienserklosters Mehrerau, Anselm van der Linde, am Donnerstag vor Gericht. Zwei Opfer sexueller Gewalt fordern vom Kloster zivilrechtlich Schadenersatz

Feldkirch – Eines hatten die Kläger und der Abt beim Zivilrechtsprozess Missbrauchsopfer kontra Kloster Mehrerau gemeinsam: Alle drei Männer waren angespannt, die Situation war ihnen sichtlich unangenehm. Das war es dann aber auch schon: “Kein Vergleich, wir bleiben bei unserer Haltung”, stellte der Anwalt des Klosters, Bertram Grass, klar.

Schadenersatzforderungen, im ersten Fall 200.000 Euro, im zweiten 135. 000 Euro, werden wegen Verjährung abgelehnt. Die Opfer sollten sich an die Klasnic-Kommission wenden.
Zwei ehemalige Schüler, beide geben an, von Pater Johannes, ihrem Lehrer und Erzieher, über Jahre missbraucht worden zu sein, klagten das Kloster unabhängig voneinander. Der Einfachheit halber wurde hintereinander verhandelt.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Saturday April 28 2012

Journalist and broadcaster Fr Brian D’Arcy, who has been living under Vatican censure for the past 14 months, said today that Rome must take some of the blame for the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests.

In an emotional interview on RTE’s Marian Finucane Show this morning, sixty-seven-year-old Fr D’Arcy said that if there is secrecy, and no questioning mind within the Catholic Church, then no child will be protected.

Fr D’Arcy also denied ever questioning the defined doctrine of the Church.

“I have been extraordinarily careful throughout my life to never, ever, ever contradict what is a defined doctrine of faith in the church and never even question it. That’s the way I worked. I would be very careful, even to this day, not to talk about that.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The Pope has entrusted Cardinal Herranz, De Giorgi and Tomko with the task of investigating the leaked documents issue. The enquiry is set to be an uphill struggle

ANDREA TORNIELLI
Vatican City

On 17 March, the deputy Secretary of State, Archbishop Angelo Becciu, agreed to be interviewed by Gian Maria Vian, director of the Vatican daily broadsheet L’Osservatore Romano and assured that the Holy See was promoting thorough investigations into who was responsible for leaking a number of confidential documents from the Vatican archives. The so-called ‘Vati-leaks’ ended up on television and in the newspapers. The deputy said that the Secretariat of State had organized an in-depth investigation which would involve everyone, without exceptions, including all Vatican institutions. A criminal investigation is to be carried out by the Promoter of Justice of the Vatican Tribunal and an administrative one will be carried out by the Secretariat of State itself. An ad hoc committee is being established by Pope Benedict XVI to shed light on the whole affair.

According to rumours circulating in the Vatican, the investigation announced by Mgr. Becciu did not yield great results and potential witnesses have not been questioned yet. Despite the efforts and commitment of General Domenico Giani, head of the Pontifical Gendarmerie, who in the last few years has developed sophisticated investigative methods, the enquiry seems to be groping in the dark. As far as the ad hoc committee (which the deputy mentions), is concerned, its establishment has only been announced today, more than a month later. A statement released by the Vatican Press Office reads: “In the wake of recent leaks of private and confidential documents on television, in newspapers and other communications media, the Holy Father has ordered the creation of a Commission of Cardinals to undertake an authoritative investigation and throw light on these episodes.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

ROME
Vatican Insider

“Silent schisms” and the Pope’s reminder about the essential elements of the Christian message

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

Although (understandably) a great deal of media attention has been given over the past weeks to the outcome of the dialogue between the Holy See and the Society of St. Pius X, the Fraternity founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre which could soon enter into full communion with the Catholic Church again, there is no doubt that a whole different kind of dissent of much vaster and widespread proportions is present in today’s Catholic Church. This dissent, which is spreading through central and northern Europe – in Austria, Germany, Belgium and Ireland – is leading groups of priests to sign appeals to disobedience, adopting highly critical stances against the “Roman” line of thought, on subjects such as sexuality, communion for remarried divorcees, priestly celibacy, female priesthood and the role of the laity in the Church. Meanwhile, the controversy over the stance taken by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith towards the U.S.’s Leadership Conference of Women Religious – the organisation with the largest number of major Superiors of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States – continues to rage on. The LCWR has been placed under supervision for its positions on abortion, homosexuality and priesthood, which are not in line with the doctrine of the Catholic Church. There are silent “schisms” forming which the press is necessarily and mercilessly talking about. In doing so they are are shattering the image of an ever triumphant Church. These “schisms” cannot easily be swept under the carpet as hiccups of the post-conciliar dispute or of the old progressivist fringes destined for extinction.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Vatican Insider

An Irish Catholic lay group will hold a silent vigil in front of the Holy See’s Nunciature in Dublin on April 29 to express solidarity with Irish priests who have been “silenced” by the Vatican, and to ask for a revocation of these disciplinary measures and their replacement by dialogue

Gerard O’Connell
Rome

An Irish Catholic lay group, We are Church Ireland, is organizing a silent vigil outside the Holy See’s Nunciature in Dublin on Sunday afternoon, April 29, to protest against the silencing of several Irish priests by the Vatican over the past two years. It is calling for the revoking of the disciplinary measures against them and the opening of a proper dialogue.

“We are very, very angry, indeed shocked, at the way the priests have been treated, and we want to express solidarity with our silenced priests”, Brendan Butler, the group’s spokesperson, told Vatican Insider. He said many religious women in Ireland are supporting their initiative.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRIA
Vatican Insider

The Archbishop of Salzburg, Alois Kothgasser, is in a hurry to retire

Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican City

Kothgasser is 75 and in a hurry to retire. He has asked permission to pope Benedict XVI who has already met with him about a potential successor. Mgr. Manfred Scheuer’s allure as a candidate for this See grows. He is 57 years old and bishop of Innsbruck, he is also negotiating with the Austrian rebel priests to avoid a schism. Mgr. Manfred Scheuer is playing a pivotal match for the Austrian Catholic Church and has shown a certain amount of openness towards some of the requests of the “disobedient” clergy. In his opinion the seven points of the ‘Appeal to Disobedience’, promoted by the priests who support the “Pfarrer-initiative”, should be viewed individually and not as a package: for example, since there is “real need” for change on the matter of divorcees who have remarried, perhaps they could be allowed to receive the holy communion under certain conditions. “I hope the Church will carry on dealing with this matter in the years to come” said Mgr. Manfred Scheuer . He also suggested taking into consideration whether it might be “necessary from a pastoral point of view” to let “lay people deliver sermons during the Holy Communion”

The main candidate to this prestigious See in Salzburg is on the frontline, facing an explosive situation. In Austria (like in Ireland, Belgium and Germany) after the scandal of paedophilia in the clergy exploded in 2010, groups of priests kept and still keep pressuring Rome asking for reforms on matters like the abolition of the vow of celibacy, the ordination of women as priests and allowing divorcees who have remarried to take the Holy Communion. There is the risk that something may happen in central and northern Europe. Some people in the clergy fear this ‘something’ to be another schism like the Lefebvrian one, but of opposite character.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Published on Saturday 28 April 2012

FOUR weeks on from the scandal of a priest inadvertently showing explicit images to parents at a pre-first communion meeting, the extraordinary incident remains the subject of intense media interest.

It took place at a primary school in Pomeroy on March 26 when up to 16 pornographic pictures of men were projected onto a screen from a memory pen Fr Martin McVeigh had inserted into a laptop computer.

The priest reportedly snatched the memory device from the computer before quickly leaving the room. He was said to have returned some 20 minutes later having regained his composure but offered no apology or explanation. One child was present at the meeting.

Two weeks later, a laptop was reported to have been stolen following a burglary at a chapel adjacent to the main church.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

FRANCE
Clicanoo

COUR D’ASSISES. Depuis hier, l’ancien curé de Sainte-Marie, le père Jacky Hoarau, comparaît devant la cour d’assises pour des faits de viols et d’agressions sexuelles, entre 2007 et 2008, sur un enfant de chœur de 14 ans. Le prêtre reconnaît sa faute en parlant toutefois d’un “accident”. Pour son avocat, Jacky Hoarau n’est pas le seul responsable dans cette affaire. Il met en cause l’Église et son fonctionnement.

Le visage grave, habillé en civil et arborant un crucifix en pendentif, le père Jacky Hoarau a pris place, hier matin, dans le box des accusés. Un cas de figure inédit à la Réunion. Face à lui, un jeune homme élégant, entouré de ses parents. « Vous êtes victime, Monsieur. Et lui est coupable », lance, au moment de débuter les débats, Me Georges-André Hoarau, avocat du prêtre. « Il n’est pas question de contester votre statut de victime. Et il n’y a pas d’autres victimes dans ce dossier ». Un moment fort pour le jeune homme, estime son avocat Me Olivier Chopin. « La société commence à le regarder différemment. Plus comme celui par qui le scandale est arrivé mais comme une victime ».

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

FRANCE
La Croix

Le procès du P. Jacky Hoarau, qui doit répondre de faits présumés de viols, d’agressions sexuelles et d’attouchements commis entre 2008 et 2009 sur un mineur de moins de 15 ans, s’est ouvert jeudi 26 avril devant la cour d’assises de Saint-Denis de La Réunion.

C’est la première fois qu’un prêtre est jugé sur l’île de La Réunion pour de tels faits. Incarcéré pendant six mois après son arrestation en 2010, le P. Jacky Hoarau, placé depuis sous contrôle judiciaire, a été renvoyé par l’Église à l’état laïc. Il encourt jusqu’à vingt ans de prison.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

VATICAN CITY
The Pilot

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Meeting a group of major U.S. donors to Catholic charitable works, Pope Benedict XVI asked them to pray “for the freedom of Christians to proclaim the Gospel and bring its light to the urgent moral issues of our time.”

The pope met April 21 with about 80 members of the Papal Foundation, who presented him with an $8.5-million donation that will be used to fund scholarships and 105 Catholic projects in close to 50 countries.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

OSTERREICH
profil

Helmut Schüller war Chef der Caritas und streitbarer Generalvikar der Erzdiözese Wien. Aber erst jetzt, als kleiner Landpfarrer, macht er die Kirchenleitung so richtig nervös. Mit ihrem „Aufruf zum Ungehorsam“ sorgen Schüller und seine Pfarrer-Initiative für Aufregung bis in den Vatikan.

Von Rosemarie Schwaiger

Reue ist der erste Schritt zur Vergebung. Ein braver Katholik darf sich ruhig einmal danebenbenehmen. Wenn er hinterher seinen Fehler einsieht, Besserung verspricht und Buße tut, werden die Maluspunkte im Himmel wieder gestrichen.

Zu ebener Erde funktioniert dieses System allerdings oft nicht so klaglos. Manch ein Malheur lässt sich im Diesseits nicht mehr ausmerzen. Kardinal Christoph Schönborn etwa bereut sicher nach Kräften, was er vor nunmehr 13 Jahren angestellt hat. Seine Entschuldigung ist aktenkundig, ebenso sein Versprechen, dergleichen in Zukunft nicht mehr zu machen. Gebüßt hat er auch zur Genüge: Schönborns Aktion führte in der Erzdiözese Wien zu einer massiven Austrittswelle; in fast allen Medien wurde der Kardinal heftig gerüffelt.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
Care Leavers Australia Network

Too many ready to call it a day
Before the day starts
Stan Cullimore, Paul Heaton, Ted Key, ‘Flag Day’, 1985

In 2004, at the official hearings of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee as part of the Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care, Leonie Sheedy, co-founder of the Care Leavers of Australia Network, demanded that there be space made available for an exhibition about the experiences of children who grew up in orphanages: ‘Get the dinosaurs out of the Australian museum, for once, and dedicate it to orphanages and children. Let our histories be visible’

Sheedy’s plea, directed at the Australian Museum, Sydney, can be interpreted as a simple preference for social over natural history museums. The National Museum of Australia arguably fulfilled Sheedy’s prescription with the exhibition Inside: Life in Children’s Homes and Institutions, on display in Canberra from November 2011 until February 2012. Sheedy’s proposal to get rid of dinosaur skeletons can also be taken as a criticism of ‘dinosaur’ practices in museums. As this paper will show, there seemed to be an initial reluctance on the part of the National Museum to create an exhibition about Forgotten Australians, and the scope, positioning and temporary nature of the exhibition reflect this. Why this unwillingness? Is the National Museum guilty of a ‘dinosaur’ mentality? Is there a museology that counters this reluctance?

The background to Inside

The federal Senate inquiry into the Forgotten Australians marked the last of a trilogy of reports into Australian twentieth-century institutional ‘care’ for children. The first was the Bringing Them Home report published in 1997, the inquiry into the historical removal of Aboriginal children, now known as the Stolen Generations, from their families. In August 2001 a Senate committee published its report, Lost Innocents, about the consequences for child migrants of the agreement between the British and Australian governments that resulted in the migration of British and Maltese children from the 1920s until 1970. In 2003 the Senate decided that the largest group of Australian children in institutionalised care, the ‘Forgotten Australians’, deserved recognition equal to members of the Stolen Generations and to the group known as ‘Former Child Migrants’.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

FRANCE
Linfo

Le procès du père Jacky Hoarau s’est achevé ce vendredi à la cour d’assises. Pour les fidèles de son ancienne paroisse de Sainte-Marie et de l’église de la Rivière des pluies, cette étape judiciaire a remué des souvenirs douloureux. Tous ont envie de tourner la page sur cette sombre affaire.

Jugé aux assises pour viols sur mineur de moins de 15 ans, l’ancien curé de Sainte-Marie Jacky Hoarau a écopé de 8 ans de prison ferme. Et même si ce n’était pas le procès de l’église, difficile de dissocier l’affaire de la ferveur des fidèles de son ancienne église. A Sainte-Marie, nombreux sont les habitants à ne plus vouloir s’exprimer. Après cette terrible histoire, la majorité préfère tourner la page.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

FRANCE
Le Bien Public

La cour d’assises de Saint-Denis de La Réunion a condamné vendredi un prêtre séropositif à huit ans de prison pour viols sur un enfant de chœur de 14 ans, après deux jours d’audience au cours desquels le fonctionnement de l’Eglise a été au centre des débats.

Le père Jacky Hoarau, 54 ans, ancien curé de Sainte-Marie (nord de l’île), a reconnu avoir abusé de l’adolescent pendant un an, de mai 2007 à juin 2008, le samedi et le dimanche après la messe, dans son bureau de la cure. L’affaire a éclaté lorsque les mauvais résultats scolaires de l’adolescent ont alerté sa mère, le conduisant à confier qu’il était abusé sexuellement par le père Hoarau. Il n’a pas toutefois pas été contaminé par le VIH.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

FRANCE
Clicanoo

Jugé coupable de plusieurs viols sur un enfant de chœur de 14 ans entre 2007 et 2008, l’ancien curé de Sainte-Marie, le père Jacky Hoarau a été condamné, hier, à huit ans de prison. Une sanction qu’il accepte, a indiqué son avocat. Le prêtre a demandé pardon à la victime. L’avocat général avait réclamé une peine pas inférieure à sept ans de prison.

COUR D’ASSISES

A toutes les questions, les jurés ont répondu « oui ». Oui sur la culpabilité et oui sur les circonstances aggravantes. Impassible dans le box et debout face à la cour, le père Jacky Hoarau a écouté le président Michel Carrue annoncer sa condamnation à huit ans de prison.

L’ancien curé de Sainte-Marie s’était préparé à repartir en prison. Comparaissant libre après avoir effectué six mois de détention provisoire entre février et août 2010, il avait rassemblé des effets personnels pour son incarcération.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

FRANKRIJK
RKnieuws

SAINT-DENIS (RKnieuws.net) – Het Hof van Assisen van Saint-Denis in het Franse overzeese departement Réunion heeft priester Jacky Hoarau gisteren tot zeven jaar cel veroordeeld voor verkrachting van een koorknaap.

De behandeling van de rechtszaak nam twee dagen in beslag. Priester Hoarau erkende dat hij homoseksueel is. Hij zei dat hij de feiten nooit gebiecht heeft. De priester vergreep zich aan de koonknaap in zijn parochie tussen 2008 en 2009. De zaak ging in januari 2010 aan het rollen nadat de moeder van de koorknaap aangifte deed.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Lawyers for creditors in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy on Friday threatened to sue to recover $35 million it says the archdiocese fraudulently transferred to a parish trust before filing for Chapter 11 and asked the judge to appoint a mediator as a first step toward a settlement of the 14-month-old case.

Meanwhile, the attorney for 350 victims in the bankruptcy filed a state court lawsuit against a Caledonia parish, putting the archdiocese on notice that if parishes are separate legal entities as it argues in the bankruptcy, then they, too, will be sued.

“This is forced by the position the archdiocese has taken. They leave us no choice,” said attorney Jeffrey Anderson.

Daryl Diesing, one of several attorneys representing the archdiocese, said he had not yet spoken to his client but denied unequivocally that any funds were sheltered to keep them from being tapped for a sex abuse settlement.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Alison O’Connor

Saturday April 28 2012

Pope Benedict is a Catholic, but is the man a Christian? That’s the question going around in my head as I sit here in a rage after hearing the news that Fr Brian D’Arcy is the latest Irish priest to get the mafioso treatment by the Vatican.

These bullyboys certainly have ways of making you not talk. Brian D’Arcy is the fifth Irish Catholic priest to have been censured recently. For well over a year now, his writings and broadcasts have had to be submitted in advance to a Vatican-appointed censor.

Where, you have to wonder, do the Pope and his henchmen in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith get off? Here they are silencing good, decent men who are excellent representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, or at least the kind of church you would wish it to be.

These are priests who are intelligent and questioning and who genuinely appear to have the best interests of their church at heart.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Greg Harkin

Saturday April 28 2012

CENSORED priest Father Brian D’Arcy hit back at the Catholic Church hierarchy yesterday, as he was inundated with messages of support from around the world.

At the St Gabriel’s Retreat centre, at the Passionist Monastery in Co Fermanagh where the celebrity priest is based, there has been a huge outpouring of support.

And it’s being matched by support from around the globe, his supporters said.

Fr D’Arcy (67) was in Belfast yesterday pre-recording his Sunday music programme for BBC Radio Ulster following confirmation he has been censored by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

TEXAS
Phoenix New Times

By Matthew HendleyFri., Apr. 27 2012

If Warren Jeffs — pedophile/leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — had any marbles left when he was sent to prison, he just lost the rest of them.

Jeffs, who’s in prison for sexually assaulting two underage “brides,” wrote a petition to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals — allegedly co-authored by “Lord Jesus Christ” — saying it’s time for Jeffs to be released.

According to “Jesus Christ,” he’s going to be really pissed if Jeffs doesn’t get out of prison “soon.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

TEXAS
WFAA

[Copy of the Homestead Heritage contract signed by members]

[with video]

by BRETT SHIPP
WFAA

WACO, Texas – Church leaders at Homestead Heritage, the religious commune north of Waco, are allegedly encouraging parents to brutally discipline their children.

A News 8 investigation has already uncovered evidence that church elders failed to timely report allegations of sexual abuse of at least two children within the Homestead community.

Now some former members say the brutal disciplining of children is an on-going threat, due to a private pact between church leaders and parents to severely discipline children who don’t conform to church doctrine. It’s an allegation church leaders deny.

Homestead Heritage is a 1,000 member congregation located on a 500-acre, gated commune north of Waco, where God and family come first. But the wholesome, carefree appearances portrayed on publicity videos, according to some who have left, is a facade, masking a quiet culture of abuse.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

TEXAS
WFAA

by WFAA

Below is the complete, unedited statement from Homestead Heritage to WFAA, and below

Statement by Homestead Heritage for WFAA

Though we at Homestead Heritage have given dozens of media interviews in the past on all facets of our community, including our beliefs, our way of life, and even answering criticisms from former members, we chose not to grant an interview for this story. Our decision was due to the known agenda of the former members who instigated this story, the way the reporter approached the story, and our desire to protect the privacy of the innocent victims and families involved.

Though we disagree strongly with the approach of this story and have ample reason to doubt that it will be presented truthfully, we feel no personal animus towards the former members who accuse us or towards the media personnel involved. Our goal with any who may differ with us has always been reconciliation, not polarization. This is one reason why we feel the public media is not an appropriate forum for airing grievances, as that course inevitably tends to drive wedges deeper. Nonetheless, we also feel an obligation to let the truth be known and to do what we can to defend the honor of Jesus Christ and His work on the earth, whether that be in our own community or in any other individual or church expression. Thus we felt it appropriate to offer some explanation of our position in these matters.

First of all, we’ve become all too familiar with the character and agenda of the disgruntled former members that are the source of these slanderous and inflammatory, yet typically subjective and unverifiable, accusations against us. We’ve always discussed with anyone on a personal level any questions on any topic, provided they were asked respectfully and they didn’t become an inquisition. But we were concerned that countering in a public media forum a laundry list of false, sensational accusations and distortions would, at best, simply lend credence to a characterization of our community that was misleading in the very framing of the questions, not to mention as a whole.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CANADA
The London Free Press

By JANE SIMS, The London Free Press

Last Updated: April 27, 2012

It was as if Royden Wood cast a “spell” on the congregation of the now-closed Ambassador Baptist Church.

That was how one of his sexual assault victims described the hold the pastor had on his flock during the years the controversial church at the corner of King and Adelaide streets was in its full flight until it closed in 2007.

The last criminal courtroom chapter of the Ambassador Church scandal ended Friday with a six-year prison sentence for Wood.

The 62-year-old former church leader came to court without his wife Linda in anticipation of being jailed for his crimes.

Superior Court Justice Dougald McDermid said in his decision that Wood “methodically isolated his complainants, manipulated them and brought them under his control.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
PR Web

STATESVILLE, N.C. (PRWEB) April 28, 2012

“Titanic” – one of the most wildly successful films of all time – was recently rereleased in theaters in 3D, reminding moviegoers how amazing stories can spring from the well of terrible tragedies. Offering her own tragedy-to-triumph story, Ann Wagner delivers her new inspirational book, “Hope For The Hurting: A Personal Account of Overcoming Abuse and Betrayal and Gaining the Victory” (published by WestBow Press).

The memories Wagner shares aren’t easy to hear. “Hope For The Hurting” explores the haunting experience of being sexually abused by the pastor of her church. As she recalls, the person who was accused of abusing her and committing multiple sexual crimes died abruptly days before he was to face trial, leaving Wagner feeling frustrated and carrying unresolved hurt.

Wagner eventually found a way to put the pain behind her. Through the help of a counselor, and by relying on God and the Bible, she was able to experience healing. “Although I never saw earthly justice, I have hope and peace through principles that I have come to learn and accept,” she says. “This experience inspired me to share the things that I have learned with others.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

JOANNE MCCARTHY

28 Apr, 2012

RETIRED Newcastle Anglican Dean Graeme Lawrence says his future as a priest is in Bishop Brian Farran’s hands after losing an appeal following sexual misconduct allegations.
‘‘The ball is in his court now,’’ Father Lawrence said yesterday after a NSW Supreme Court judge dismissed his appeal to quash professional standards board findings against him.

The decision means the bishop can act on a board determination to strip Father Lawrence of Holy Orders and remove him from the priesthood. He is considering an appeal.

Bishop Farran declined to comment ‘‘until the appeal period is closed’’, when asked if he would act on the board’s decision.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK
The Daily Mail

By W. T. Eckert
Hudson-Catskill Newspapers

Published: Saturday, April 28, 2012

CATSKILL — During Tuesday’s rally against a Cairo priest accused of sexually molesting a former alter boy and current inmate, unfounded accusations against the priest were made by a one of the protesters.

Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) Western Regional Director Joelle Casteix said when 2006 sexual abuse allegations were filed against Father Jeremiah Nunan, the priest “absconded to Ireland where he hid until the victim in that case, Father Mark Jaufmann, died and the case was dropped.”

That is blatantly untrue, Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany Director of Communications Ken Goldfarb said.

“There was an indication that he was purposely avoiding something by going to Ireland,” Goldfarb said, “and the fact is he makes this trip every year and she used the word ‘hid.’ Everybody knew where he was.”

Nunan traveled to Ireland in 2006, where he was born and has family, Goldfarb said, and it is at the understanding of the Diocese that he has traveled there annually for more than 40 years.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Gale Holland, Los Angeles Times

April 28, 2012

Manuel Vega was in the courtroom when the Los Angeles Archdiocese agreed to pay clergy abuse victims a landmark $660-million settlement. The bailiff had to whisk some of the victims out to make room for all the high-fiving lawyers filing in for their payday, he says.

“Some were even chest-bumping,” recalls the retired police officer. “To me, it looked like a frat party.”

Vega, who says he was molested as a boy by a priest in Oxnard, went along with the settlement only because his attorneys assured him the church would turn over confidential personnel files that would reveal the truth about priest abusers, and those who shielded them, including Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. Four years and nine months later, Mahony is retired, but not a single page from the files has seen the light of day.

Complaints about the delay have become a litany trotted out every year, along with accusations the church is stonewalling to protect its own, and Mahony’s, legacy. What’s different about Vega’s complaint is that he blames not only the church but his own lawyers.

“They took the money and ran,” he says.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

April 27, 2012

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan returns to Wisconsin for the first time since receiving his red cap in Rome for a special Mass of Thanksgiving Saturday at the National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians, at Holy Hill.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is bracing for what could be 2,000 or more worshippers converging at the historic church and basilica to welcome Dolan, whose popularity while archbishop of Milwaukee has only skyrocketed since his move east and onto the international stage.

“You can just sense the growing anticipation. The energy in the air is just phenomenal,” said Julie Wolf, spokeswoman for the archdiocese.

“I’ve never experienced anything like it – the closest I can come to it was at the cardinal’s consistory in Rome. This man is very special,” she said.

Dolan led the Milwaukee archdiocese from 2002 to 2009, coming at one of the darkest times for the local church as it reeled from revelations of clergy sexual abuse dating back decades and the public fall from grace of his predecessor, the now retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland.

Dolan’s ebullient personality and pastoral presence endeared him to many in the 10-county archdiocese. Still, he had his critics, including sex abuse victims who believe he didn’t do enough to address their concerns and others who considered him too theologically conservative.

The archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection two years after he left as a way to settle its mounting sex abuse claims.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CALIFORNIA
Santa Clara University

A Conference Examining the Abuse Crisis

Taking on a still-controversial topic, a diverse group of experts, including victims and clergy, offers reflections on the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, examining what the church has done—and what it still needs to do—to protect children.

Conference Details

Date: Friday May 11, 2012
Location: SCU Benson Memorial Center, California Mission Room
Time: 9am – 5pm

Register by end of day Friday, May 4, 2012

Panelists

Keynote Speakers
Karen J. Terry, PhD
Thomas J. Reese, S.J.

Conference Hosts
Thomas G. Plante, PhD, ABPP
Kathleen L. McChesney, PhD

Panel Speakers
Barbara Blaine
Judge Terrance Carroll
Rev. Gerald D. Coleman, SS, PhD
Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, JCD, CADC
Rev. Paul Macke, SJ
Gerard J. McGlone, SJ, PhD
Judge Michael Merz
Anson Shupe, PhD
A. W. Richard Sipe
Rev. Richard Vega

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CONNECTICUT
Connecticut Law Tribune

By THOMAS B SCHEFFEY

There was action on two fronts last week in one of the state’s biggest civil cases ever, marked by a new $15 million settlement involving dozens of plaintiffs and state Supreme Court arguments focusing on an earlier trial court verdict.

The long-running case involves St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, and Dr. George Reardon, who worked there for more than three decades, into the 1990s. Scores of plaintiffs said Reardon molested them as children, when they visited his office as part of a supposed child development study. Reardon died in 1999, but the hospital has been named as a defendant for not providing adequate supervision of Reardon.

Although not all the settlements have been made public, some estimates put the total damages so far at roughly $50 million.

At the state Supreme Court last week, lawyers for St. Francis Hospital tried to persuade the court to overturn the one jury verdict reached so far in the case. A man identified in court documents only as Tim Doe was awarded $2.75 million last year following a trial in Waterbury. Defense attorneys argued that there was no evidence at trial that any inkling of Reardon’s dangerousness had ever entered the hospital’s collective consciousness.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Dolan returns to the Milwaukee Archdiocese as Catholics learn more about his cover up of clergy sex crimes

New Cardinal plans to celebrate his promotion, not explain his stewardship of diocese which led to bankruptcy

Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director
CONTACT: 414.336.8575

Former Milwaukee Archbishop, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York will return to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee this weekend to celebrate his promotion to the College of Cardinals. Dolan will preside at a Mass of Thanksgiving and attend other celebrations to be held in his honor arranged by himself and church officials from Milwaukee and New York.

Amid the orchestrated fanfare, however, Dolan is unlikely to address his pivotal role in the clergy sex abuse crisis, which after decades is still unfolding in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Dolan, who promised to Catholics during his tenure here that the church would be transparent and accountable returns to an archdiocese that is suffering the consequences of his failure to do both. (For a fact sheet on Dolan’s record handling sex abuse cases click here)

Dolan, when in Milwaukee, never disclosed to Catholics the true nature and extent of the clergy sex abuse crisis in the archdiocese– the number of crimes committed, who committed those crimes, and which church officials covered them up. Only now as a result of revelations in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy, filed soon after Dolan left, are we learning the magnitude of the rape and sexual assault of children that took place in the Archdiocese.

At least 8,000 instances of child sexual assault and abuse likely occurred in the archdiocese over the last several decades, according to court records. And the identities and whereabouts of at least 100 child sex offenders employed or ministering in the archdiocese remain unknown to the public—100 more than the 44 offenders that Dolan claimed was the total number.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRLAND
ORF (Osterreich)

Die irische Regierung plant eine Verschärfung der Anzeigepflicht für Kindesmissbrauch. Ein gemeinsamer Gesetzesentwurf des Justiz- und des Familienministeriums sieht vor, das Unterlassen entsprechender Hinweise mit bis zu fünf Jahren Haft zu bestrafen, wie irische Medien am Donnerstag berichten. Priester sollten sich dabei nicht auf das Beichtgeheimnis berufen dürfen, betonten Justizminister Alan Shatter und Familienministerin Frances Fitzgerald bei der Vorstellung des Textes am Mittwochabend.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

OSTERREICH
Kreuz

Das Schöne am Mißbrauchs-Hoax ist, daß man ihn mit den Zahlen demaskieren kann, die von den Mißbrauchs-Propagandisten veröffentlicht werden. Von Raymund Spindler.

(kreuz.net) Der rote Erzbischof von Wien, Franz Kardinal König († 2004), wird von Altliberalen und Kirchenfeinden wie ein Säkularheiliger verehrt.

Er leitete die Erzdiözese Wien in der Zeit von Juni 1956 bis zum September 1985.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

OSTERREICH
der Standard

Jutta Berger, 26. April 2012

Gleich zweimal saß der Abt des Zisterzienserklosters Mehrerau, Anselm van der Linde, am Donnerstag vor Gericht. Zwei Opfer sexueller Gewalt fordern vom Kloster zivilrechtlich Schadenersatz

Feldkirch – Eines hatten die Kläger und der Abt beim Zivilrechtsprozess Missbrauchsopfer kontra Kloster Mehrerau gemeinsam: Alle drei Männer waren angespannt, die Situation war ihnen sichtlich unangenehm. Das war es dann aber auch schon: “Kein Vergleich, wir bleiben bei unserer Haltung”, stellte der Anwalt des Klosters, Bertram Grass, klar. Schadenersatzforderungen, im ersten Fall 200.000 Euro, im zweiten 135. 000 Euro, werden wegen Verjährung abgelehnt. Die Opfer sollten sich an die Klasnic-Kommission wenden.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

DEUTSCHLAND
Schafsbrief

2.3.5 Meldungen nach Diözese

Von 474 Klienten der katholischen Hotline für Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch liegen
hinsichtlich Meldungen konkrete Angaben zu den zuständigen Diözesen vor. Dabei
geht es um Personen, die ihren Fall direkt der verantwortlichen Diözese bzw. dem
Orden zu melden wünschten und gegenüber dem Täter weitere Maßnahmen zu
erwirken suchten, unabhängig davon, ob dieser noch lebte oder nicht (d.h. entweder
konkrete dienstaufsichtliche Strafe oder Veränderung der Akte eines verstorbenen
Täters). Z.T. hatte diese Personengruppe zusätzlich anwaltliche Begleitung bzw. ein
Anwalt rief vereinzelt im Namen eines Klienten an.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on April 27, 2012

It is one thing to punish a priest for his crimes and misdeeds he committed while wearing the collar. It is quite another to wash your hands of him, knowing full well what he has done and will likely continue to do, and consider the matter resolved. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia acted irresponsibly with their handling of Fr. David Sicoli in the past. They are acting negligently with regard to Sicoli now.

Sicoli, who was known to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to have molested at least 12 boys during his career as a priest, was quietly defrocked from the church in 2008. Today, he lives across the street from the largest playground in Sea Isle City, NJ. The Archdiocese has unleashed him on a new hunting ground in a new state. This is outrageous.

We call on Archbishop Chaput to use all of his resources to warn parents and parishioners in New Jersey of the crimes that Sicoli committed in Philadelphia. He should also provide a dossier on Sicoli to Diocese of Camden Bishop Joseph Galante, and Bishop Galante should take every possible step to ensure that Sicoli has not victimized any more children in his diocese.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Berger’s Beat

April 27, 2012 11:10 am | Author: Jerry Berger

The one-time U.S. head of the Jesuits, Fr. Bradley Schaeffer, has resigned as a board member of Loyola University in Chicago under pressure because of his role in a child sex abuse case. It involves Fr. Donald McGuire who was Mother Teresa’s confessor and who is now in prison for sexually violating kids in Wisconsin. McGuire’s also accused of molesting in St. Charles, MO in 1999.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

TENNESSEE
Times-News

By Kacie Breeding

Published April 27th, 2012

A former Kingsport priest convicted last July of raping an altar boy three decades ago is now scheduled for a June 15 hearing in which he is seeking to have his convictions overturned.

William Casey, 78, 740 Shakerag Road, Greeneville, is seeking a “new trial, arrest of judgment or judgment of acquittal,” in a motion filed Dec. 22, 2011. A hearing on the motion was originally set for March 5, but Matthew Spivey, who along with Rick Spivey represented Casey at trial, was unavailable. The new date was not immediately set at that time.

Casey was sentenced last November to 15 to 20 years on first-degree criminal sexual conduct and two concurrent 20-year terms on two aggravated rape counts. His convictions stemmed from allegations he sexually abused a young altar boy shortly after becoming priest of St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in Kingsport in the 1970s.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on April 27, 2012

On Monday, here at the St. Louis County courthouse, arguments in a previously-undisclosed sexual exploitation lawsuit will be heard. The case is against a minister, ex- psychologist, ex-St. Louis Cardinals’ consultant and ex-KMOX radio talk show host, Rev. William L. Little.

Little (a.k.a. Billy Lee Little) is being sued (for at least the second time) for inappropriate sexual misconduct against a woman he was counseling. A similar case against him in the 1990s led to his psychologist’s license being suspended and to a financial settlement.

For 17 years, Little had a counseling show on KMOX and reportedly “became the first sports psychologist employed by a major league baseball team when he worked for the St. Louis Cardinals (1978-1982).” For 50 years, he headed Christ Memorial Baptist Church in Cool Valley (which dissolved in 2010).

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
BBC News

Father Brian D’Arcy has said he will continue to speak out on controversial issues affecting the Catholic Church despite being rebuked by the Vatican.

As a newspaper columnist and a broadcaster, Fr D’Arcy has been a vocal critic of church policy on clerical sex abuse, celibacy and contraception.

As part of the disciplinary action, he must now get prior approval to cover topics dealing with church doctrine.

But he said the church has not ordered him to change any of his work since.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Herald

By Niall O’Connor

Friday April 27 2012

OUTSPOKEN Fr Brian D’Arcy has spoken of his “disappointment” after being censured by the Vatican for more than a year.

It has emerged that the popular newspaper columnist has been disciplined by Catholic bosses over the contents of a number of his articles.

The high-profile priest has admitted that he has been living with the censure for 14 months — meaning all his articles must be submitted to the Vatican for approval.

Fr D’Arcy, who has previously revealed that he was abused by a priest, has been vocal in his criticism of the Catholic Church and its handling of the child sex-abuse scandal.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Herald

Friday April 27 2012

Bono once told Father Brian D’Arcy: “You’re the last one standing.”

Now Pope Benedict is trying to cut him off at the knees.

After everything the Catholic Church has been found guilty of, you’d have thought it would be open to a bit of self-criticism — but instead it has been revealed that the Vatican is censoring Fr D’Arcy’s writings as if they were some 21st Century version of the Da Vinci Code.

Measured

Earlier this week, DJ Ray D’Arcy caused a stir by declaring that the Church has “in many ways, f**ked up this country”.

His namesake uses much more measured language, but the authorities in Rome seem to think that Fr Brian’s message is basically the same.

He has used his newspaper columns to insist that the Church should allow married priests, accept homosexuality and too confess that it broke most of the Ten Commandments by protecting so many paedophiles in dog collars.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Apr. 27, 2012 All Things Catholic

By far, the biggest Vatican story at the moment in the American media market is an announced overhaul of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main umbrella group for superiors of the roughly 400 women’s orders in the States. The move has been presented by the Vatican as a “reform” but styled as a “crackdown” in most press coverage.

As is by now well known, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s powerful doctrinal watchdog agency, has faulted LCWR for silence on issues such as abortion and euthanasia, a climate of “corporate dissent” on matters such as homosexuality and women’s ordination, and the inroads of “radical feminism.” The congregation appointed Archbishop James Peter Sartain of Seattle as its delegate to oversee reform, with power to do things like reviewing documents before publication and signing off on speakers for LCWR meetings.

The story has become a cause célèbre, primarily because of the deep fault lines it seems to encapsulate: men vs. women, family values vs. women’s issues (especially in a domestic political season in which an alleged “war on women” is in the air), Rome vs. America, left vs. right, authority vs. dissent, the hierarchy vs. the grassroots, and so on. Depending on where one stands vis-à-vis those divides, it’s easy to see LCWR as either a hero or a scapegoat.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Irish Central

By
PATRICK COUNIHAN,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Friday, April 27, 2012

Celebrity priest Fr Brian D’Arcy is the latest member of the Catholic clergy in Ireland to be censored by the Vatican.

Reports on the BBC website, and in the Tablet news magazine, claim that D’Arcy’s Sunday World newspaper columns are vetted by a church censor on a weekly basis.

D’Arcy has a huge following among young people and was portrayed in the past as “Father Brian Trendy” by famed comedian Dermot Morgan.

The reports state that D’Arcy sometime outspoken views on the Catholic church have been the target of the Holy See’s main theological watchdog.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CHILE
La Tercera

Víctima de Karadima responde a Medina: “Una vez más demuestra la crueldad que lo caracteriza”

por Angélica Baeza Palavecino – 27/04/2012

Juan Carlos Cruz, una de las víctimas de Fernando Karadima, se mostró impactado y dolido ante las declaraciones del cardenal Jorge Medina, quien comparó a una persona homosexual con un niño que nació sin brazo.

“Las declaraciones de Medina lo único que hacen es demostrar esa mentalidad retrógrada y ofensiva, que no colabora a lo que los católicos esperamos de nuestra Iglesia”, dijo a La Tercera.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Catholics4Change

April 27, 2012 by Susan Matthews

Click here to read: “The Inquisition: Vatican issues a knuckle-rap to the nuns,” by Cokie Roberts and Steven V. Roberts, phillyburbs.com, April 26, 2012

Excerpt: “The nuns’ silence on gay marriage must be particularly galling to their new inquisitor. Archbishop Sartain has thrown the full force of his office behind a proposed ballot initiative to overturn Washington state’s new marriage equality law. His 2010 appointment to the Seattle archdiocese provoked protest from victims of pedophilia, because only a year earlier, Sartain had ordained a molester — later convicted of his crimes — despite warnings from other priests.”

Editor’s note: After being cited in Amnesty International’s report of human rights violators, this move takes “you know what.” They realize they are losing moral authority over the faithful and hope to force women’s religious orders to further their agenda. And it’s an agenda far removed from what I learned in religion class. It’s a power play – pure and simple.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Editorial

There has been a great deal of ink, broadcast air, and cyberspace focused in the past week on the Vatican’s move against the women religious in the United States as they are organized in the Leadership Conference of Religious Women (LCRW).

There is great feeling both nostalgic and immediate expressed in the support of the vowed religious women in all approaches: the men are from Mars, women are from Venus theme, the walk with the underprivileged, the marginalized, and the poor versus the disconnected mansion men, or the social justice versus the hard right guide to sexuality.

We do not raise our voice to condemn, hurt, or deflate the sisters for God knows we have seen, know and sympathize with their plight because of the courage of the survivors of sexual abuse who have informed the Church and the society at large of the dealings of the hierarchy.

It is because of the survivors and the families of those who committed suicide that we raise our voice in the midst of the discussion about the nuns.

We raise it to ask the sisters as they pray, reflect, gather and seek to dialogue in their current crisis to come clean with the sexual abuse by nuns and do right by the survivors and their families.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

VATICAN CITY
Brisbane Times

Tom Kington, Rome
April 28, 2012

VATICAN employees who have been leaking embarrassing letters about corruption and nepotism in the tiny city state are to be hunted down by a crack squad of cardinals led by a senior member of the religious group Opus Dei.

Irritated by the anonymous release of documents to the press this year, Pope Benedict has named Cardinal Julian Herranz, 82, to lead a three-man team which will haul in members of staff for questioning and rifle through files until they catch the perpetrators of what has been dubbed ”Vatileaks”.

A statement on the front page of the Vatican’s daily newspaper warned the team had a full ”pontifical mandate” to ”shed complete light” on whistleblowers, who have lifted the lid on alleged theft and false accounting.

Cardinal Herranz was a long-time personal secretary to Josemaria Escriva, the canonised founder of Opus Dei, which has been accused of excessive secrecy for its strict control over members and undue influence within the Vatican. Cardinal Herranz has insisted that Opus Dei has ”no hidden agenda” and is only interested in ”the message of Christ”.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

April 27, 2012 by Susan Matthews

Click here to read: “At trial, following a defrocked priest’s 25-year trial,” by John P. Martin, The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 26, 2012

Excerpt: “He lives across the street from the largest playground in Sea Isle City,” Dougherty replied. The exchange underscored a point prosecutors have been trying to make in their endangerment case against Msgr. William J. Lynn: that he and other leaders at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia waited so long to act on proof or suspicions of misconduct that child sex abusers escaped civil or criminal consequences.

Editor’s note: This isn’t a “Catholic” issue, this is a public safety issue. This is why all Pennsylvania citizens need to tell their state reps and senators that they demand the statute of limitations be removed for child sex abuse. Don’t accept any excuses. There is no statute of limitations for murder in PA. Child sex abuse is soul murder.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IERLAND
RKnieuws (Nederland)

DUBLIN (RKnieuws.net) – De Ierse priesters zullen voortaan het biechtgeheim niet meer kunnen inroepen in gevallen van seksueel misbruik. De regering wil de wet op de bescherming van minderjarigen verstrengen. In dat kader wil de regering tot vijf jaar celstraf voorzien voor priesters die nalaten gevallen van seksueel misbruik te melden.

De Kerk herhaalt dat de schending van het biechtgeheim onduldbaar is.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

As this work week ends, another outstanding piece from Jerry Slevin, commenting on the ongoing trial in the archdiocese of Philadelphia, the current political strategy of the Vatican and U.S. Catholic bishops, and the mandate to “reform” American religious women–and how these pieces fit together. This is a rich and detailed posting, and I’m grateful to Jerry for providing this information to all of us who are trying to understand how these various pieces interlock. What follows is Jerry’s posting:

The nauseating selected stories oozing out of the Philadelphia Archdiocese sexual swamp are being issued almost daily from a courtroom near Constitution Hall. The stories, only a fraction of those many uncovered so far, just keep coming, as reported regularly in detail at the Philly.com website.

An aerial view of the swamp is available at my previous posting at the Bilgrimage site, and in this Wikipedia article tracking the abuse story in the Philadelphia archdiocese and in the related links cited there.

The Vatican has faced similar deluges of negative publicity before, for example, in Ireland, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Chile, and even Boston and Los Angeles. But never before has a case apparently carried such implications for the papacy. The steady stream of clerical filth exposed at the current Philly trial has flowed through the leadership periods of three important Cardinals, with extensive papal connections, especially the last one, Cardinal Justin Rigali.

Rigali’s ties to the Vatican are and continue to be extensive. He served several popes closely in Rome and continues on major papal curial committees. Yesterday, a new and important special committee was set up in Rome under the powerful Cardinal Herranz to investigate the unprecedented recent leaks of embarrassing Vatican documents, so-called “Vatileaks,” as reported by Reuters. Cardinal Rigali, along with Pope John Paul II, in 1991 was one of the three co-consecrators of Herranz as bishop and still serves with him on a major Vatican committee. Herranz is one of two Opus Dei Cardinals and has recently served on the committee that just directed the unexpected investigation of American nuns discussed below.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

Father Brian D’Arcy, one of Ireland’s best known priests, has been censured by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in the Vatican.

It is understood that his column must now run past a Church censor.

According to The Tablet, which reported the story, the action against Fr D’Arcy was taken by the CDF last year after an anonymous complaint.

The disciplining of Fr D’Arcy brings the number of Irish priests silenced by Rome to five.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

JOANNE MCCARTHY

27 Apr, 2012

Former Newcastle Anglican Dean Graeme Lawrence and Cardiff priest Graeme Sturt suffered distress after “unseemly” sexual allegations against them at a professional standards hearing, but lost a NSW Supreme Court case to have findings against them quashed.

Justice John Sackar today found a professional standards board, headed by a retired NSW magistrate, had not acted with bias when it stripped the priests of their holy orders in December 2010 after public hearings of lurid sexual allegations against them.

The judge found the public airing of group sex allegations involving priests were, “if true or untrue”, distressing for Fathers Lawrence and Sturt and had “no doubt been distressing and potentially damaging to others”.

“There also is no doubt that these events have arguably impacted upon the reputation of the Anglican Church of Australia.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
Big Pond News

Friday, April 27, 2012

Two Anglican priests have lost their challenge to moves to strip them of their holy orders after findings of sexual misconduct involving a teenage boy in 1984.

The suspended rector of Cardiff, the reverend Graeme Leslie Sturt, 60, and the retired dean of Newcastle, Graeme Russell Lawrence, 68, challenged moves to ban them from officiating or acting in any manner as priest and cease to have any rights attached to the position.

Justice John Sackar on Friday first rejected a claim the NSW Supreme Court could not adjudicate on their grievances and then went on to dismiss their claim.

The challenge related to findings and recommendations made in December 2010 by the Newcastle Diocese Professional Standards Board (PSB).

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

VENICE (FL)
News-Press

Written by
Lindsay Downey
Special to news-press.com

The Diocese of Venice has rejected a St. Leo Catholic Church former pastor’s resignation from the priesthood as it moves forward with a trial that accuses him of violations of obedience, celibacy and financial responsibility.

“No priest is able to renounce the Sacrament of Holy Orders or depart from the clerical state under his own volition,” the diocese Thursday said in a statement.

The Rev. Stan Strycharz submitted his resignation to the diocese April 20, three days before the start of his trial under canon law, or mandates of the Catholic Church, diocese spokesman Billy Atwell said.

The former pastor of the Bonita Springs church has not appeared at his trial as requested by the diocese and dismissed a canonical advocate appointed to defend him, Atwell said.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Catholic News Agency

Dublin, Ireland, Apr 27, 2012 / 12:03 am (CNA).- Dublin’s Auxiliary Bishop Raymond W. Field says priests must maintain the confidentiality of the confessional, which may be threatened by a proposed law requiring mandatory reporting of abuse.

“The seal of the confessional is inviolable as far as I am concerned, and that’s the end of the matter,” Bishop Field said in comments reported by the Irish Independent newspaper on April 26.

Remarks made the previous day by Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter suggested that priests could be bound by requirements of the sex abuse reporting bill. Due to be introduced in the legislature later this year, the bill threatens up to ten years in jail for those who fail to report sex crimes.

“I would expect that if there was someone going to confession who was a serial sex abuser, I don’t know how anyone could live with their conscience if they didn’t refer that to the gardai (police),” said Shatter. He noted that existing laws already require reporting of other crimes without exempting priests.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Breaking News

27/04/2012

A Catholic priest is calling the censure of Father Brian D’Arcy by the Vatican “completely unacceptable”.

Father D’Arcy is well known for expressing views contrary to the Church’s teachings and is a regular contributor to TV and radio programmes.

In a statement yesterday, Father D’Arcy confirmed that his writings on morality have been screened for over a year now by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees Catholic Church doctrine.

Father Peter McVerry – who has worked with Dublin’s homeless for the past 30 years – said that unfortunately, such measures are becoming commonplace.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MALTA
The Malta Independent

Another charge sheet error has led to four accused people, who included three policemen, being acquitted yesterday in a case which involved all four of them assaulting a French student.

Earlier this month, an appeals court acquitted another accused, a priest, of raping a boy who was in his care, because according to the charge sheet the crime had been committed in Marfa, when in fact it occurred in Sta Venera.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The jury in the clergy abuse case has now heard the very disturbing case of Father David Sicoli, who allegedly abused nearly a dozen boys over decades, starting shortly after he was ordained in 1975. This evidence is alleged to show a pattern of conduct of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of protecting predator priests.

Evidence from the church’s secret archives shows three boys came forward in 1977 and alleged abuse and misconduct by Father David Sicoli, then in his first assignment.

Another priest found the allegations to be credible, but Sicoli remained in ministry and over the next 25 years he was the subject of countless allegations by other priests, nuns, school staff and parishioners.

A nun wrote that ‘the poor man needs help’ and begged the archdiocese to not let him get involved with youth activities to try to keep him from hurting anyone else.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Friday April 27 2012

Editorial

The news that Father Brian D’Arcy, one of the best-known and most popular priests in the country, has been censured by the Vatican and that his newspaper and magazine articles are now effectively censored in advance of publication by the church authorities will come as a shock to many lay Catholics.

For the past two decades, as the Catholic Church suffered one hammer blow after another as the full extent of the clerical child sex abuse scandal gradually emerged, Fr D’Arcy held out hope for many ordinary believers that the church would one day emerge strengthened from its ordeal.

That is why the action that has been taken against Fr D’Arcy will be so disheartening for so many. They will wonder why the Vatican apparently found it impossible to accommodate a priest who patently had the church’s best interests at heart and who pointed the way toward a possible future.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW GUINEA/AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Verity Edwards
From:The Australian
April 24, 2012

A CATHOLIC order of nuns that allegedly removed up to 10 children of mixed race from their families in New Guinea in the 1960s has denied doing so without permission.

New Guinean-born Elizabeth Canny came forward last week and said she had been about eight when taken from her family by the Australian Union of the Sisters of Mercy and flown to Adelaide.

Mrs Canny, who is about 62 but does not know her birth date, wants the government and the Catholic Church to provide answers as to why children were taken from New Guinea and brought to Australia and how widespread the practice was.

Mrs Canny first contacted the Catholic Church in 2008 and was told the Australian Union of the Sisters of Mercy, which authorised the adoption, no longer existed.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK
The Post-Standard

By Elizabeth Doran / The Post-Standard

Jamesville, NY — The rectory of St. Mary’s Church in Jamesville and its contents were auctioned this week despite the objections of former St. Mary’s parishioners

The rectory, assessed at $118,000, sold for $89,000 plus $8,900 in commission for a total of $97,900, said Amy Bush, manager of Brzostek’s real estate division. There were 17 bidders for the property; Bush would not disclose the buyer. She did say the home needs repairs.

The 2,652-square-foot rectory, at 6437 E. Seneca Turnpike, Jamesville, is a house away from the closed church.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Deric Henderson

Friday April 27 2012

WELL known priest and journalist Fr Brian D’Arcy, who has been censured by the Vatican, today broke his silence to reveal his distress over the disciplinary action.

The broadcaster and newspaper columnist, declared: “Personally I’ve been living with the pain of censure for 14 months and will have to live with it for the rest of my priestly life.

“In these difficult times, it is the price one has to pay when one is committed to the truth, which is the duty of both the priest and the journalist.”

The priest, from Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 2 and Radio Ulster and who writes a religious column for Sunday World newspaper, was censured by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Garry O’Sullivan and Mark Hilliard

Friday April 27 2012

ONE of the country’s most-popular priests has been censored for the last 14 months, it emerged last night.

Fr Brian D’Arcy, a regular broadcaster who has written a popular column in a Sunday newspaper for more than 30 years, has had to submit his writings for clearance for more than a year.

The Passionist priest said last night he was “disappointed” that there wasn’t more respect for freedom of speech in the church. However, Vatican sources insist Irish clerics are not being targeted.

Earlier this month, Fr Tony Flannery had to stop contributing to the Redemptorist Order magazine ‘Reality’ after his column was cancelled on orders from Rome.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
San Francisco Chronicle

Brian Cahill

Friday, April 27, 2012

Led by Cardinal William Levada, the former archbishop of San Francisco, the Vatican has initiated a crackdown to control the activities of the largest leadership group of American Catholic nuns. If it were not so tragic and destructive, it would be the height of irony that the leaders of the Catholic Church, who are big fans of religious liberty when it serves their interests, now attempt to curtail the freedom and the good work of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

This group represents 80 percent of Catholic sisters in the United States. These are women who do so much of the heavy lifting in our church, especially in education, health care and social services.

The bishops worry that the conference’s positions on homosexuality and the ordination of women will “give scandal,” a mystifying position given that these same bishops have presided over the most serious church scandal in the past 500 years, where thousands of children were molested and hundreds of cases have been ignored or covered up.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Sarah O’Leary

“Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? — New American Standard Bible, ©1995

Growing up in born-again bastion of Wheaton, Illinois, my childhood friends celebrated every type of Christianity. Among the largely Catholic population there were Covenants, Evangelical Frees, Methodists, Lutherans and non-denominational religionists who attended a variety of Christian churches. I found it most extraordinary that many of them actually read the Bible! What kind of craziness is that? Catholics I knew didn’t read the Bible. The priest and selected laymen read parts of it on Sunday for us. Other important stuff was picked out and fed to us by nuns in Sunday school. But actually read it on our own? No way. I’ve never been in a Catholic Church that even had Bibles in the pews, let alone in our hands.

As an adult, I think I now understand why actually reading the word of God on our own wasn’t encouraged in my Catholic Church, or most anyone else’s. It was the same reason, I believe, the mass was in Latin for so long. If we truly understood what was going on, we might have actually learned something. We might have empowered our selves. We might have interpreted the Scriptures on our own, prioritizing God’s edicts in a way that the Church might not support. How could we be blind followers if we studied the same Bible as our moral leaders? Isn’t that like standing next to the magician when he’s performing a trick? It made sense that the Church try to keep us ignorant and in fear (thus solely dependant on the Church for spiritual survival), rather than educated and potentially empowered.

Today’s current state of my Catholic Church’s dis-grace has reached a hell-hot fever pitch. As reported in the Huffington Post, we have the Bishop in Peoria, IL preaching politics against the President from the pulpit, risking the Church’s tax exempt status and a bishop in Seattle who is trying to overturn gay marriage, while many in his flock (including men of the cloth) opening rebel against him. And, rather than focus on things such as world hunger or disease, the Vatican is trying to reel in a group of “radical” U.S. nuns who comprise 80% of all nuns in the U.S.

At risk of posing a question of the logically obvious: Why doesn’t my Catholic Church get its own house in order first? et the plank/log/boulder/semi truck/elephant out of its own eye before it tries to remove a speck from another’s eye? Maybe you’ve heard about the Philadelphia bishop in the middle of the current pedophilia scandal. Or the now almost countless scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church involving priests raping young boys and girls? Or the cover ups of these events by our blessed priests, bishops and higher ups executed around the world to avoid “harming” their precious church? What part of that is the work of true followers of Jesus? None of it. Not one damned bit of it. With millions around the world suffering, starving and in need of spiritual guidance, is homosexuality and birth control the best we can do?

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Bishop John McCarthy

By Bishop John, April 27, 2012

An outspoken Australian bishop is generating a lot of interest in the discussion of the need for changes in the Church’s administrative structure and how it operates, deals with conflict and handles dialogue. I am referring to Bishop Geoffrey Robinson who was removed from office by the Holy See over a year ago for publicly expressing his views that the Church needed to confront and resolve views on certain areas like the shortage of priests and conduct a thorough review on the Church’s overall positions on human sexuality. The Vatican then removed him from office! Nevertheless, Bishop Robinson continues to challenge the Church to face some really very difficult issues.

Bishop Robinson is now on a lecture tour. Speaking in Chicago to a very mixed audience, including about 150 priests, Bishop Robinson stated that the roots of the decades long clergy sex abuse scandal lie not in any set of rules or practices, but are found deep in the culture of the Church itself-

The “major fault” of the Church in the scandal, Robinson said, is that it “refuses to look at any teaching, law, practice or even attitude of the Church itself as in any way contributing to the crisis. In studying abuse, we must be free to follow the argument wherever it leads rather than impose in advance the limitations that our study must not demand change in any teaching or law.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Slidell Sentry

Another view By Cokie and Steven Roberts

Really? Women religious in America will now have a bishop grading their morals?

Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Given the sex-abuse scandals — in which many Roman Catholic bishops looked the other way at best and moved child molesters from parish to parish, perpetrating evil, at worst — you would think that a ruler rap on the hierarchical knuckles would be in order. “Sister” should have stepped in years ago. Instead, the Vatican has assigned a bishop to crack down on the nuns.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, aka the Inquisition, has appointed Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain to review and revamp the plans, programs and pronouncements of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization of the superiors of religious orders that represents about 57,000 U.S. nuns. What sins have these religious women committed that brought on the wrath of Rome?

Here’s one, according to the Vatican document: “While there’s been a great deal of work on the part of LCWR promoting issues of social justice in harmony with the Church’s social doctrine, it is silent on the right to life from conception to natural death.” Oh, no — while these women are ministering to some poor pregnant girl and giving her the wherewithal to get health care and food for her baby, they are not loudly attacking abortion?

Another transgression: “The Church’s Biblical views of family life and human sexuality are not part of the LCWR agenda in a way that promotes Church teaching.” Translation: The nuns aren’t condemning gay marriage as they make their rounds to hospitals and social-service agencies where gay clients and their children await their care.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

WACO (TX)
WFAA

by BRETT SHIPP
WFAA

WACO, Texas – Homestead Heritage, just outside of Waco, has been revered as a model of Christian values. But is it a Utopian commune, or as some suggest, a extreme group of believers putting children at risk?

Videos posted on the Homestead Heritage web site present to the public the wholesome image, bolstering its perception as a beloved staple of the community for two decades. The estimated 1,000 members, crafting a pristine portrait of communal bliss.

But many who have left the church and its 500-acre, gated compound, paint a much different picture. One of a secretive and tightly-controlled religious environment.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

For more than two hours Thursday, the jury in Courtroom 304 got to hear the defendant, Monsignor William J. Lynn, testify candidly about his bumbling pursuit of a sexually abusive priest on the loose from the archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Only it wasn’t the real monsignor up on the witness stand, just a man who gets paid to play him in court. As he has done several times previously, Assistant District Attorney Anthony Pomeranz took the witness stand Thursday to read another volume of Lynn’s 2002 grand jury testimony to the jury in the archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse trial.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington once again reprised his role as the grand jury prosecutor, asking the questions, while Pomeranz read Lynn’s answers into the record. In the past, this prosecutorial play-acting could be dull, as the monsignor pontificated about Catholic tradition and archdiocese protocol, tossing around words like canonical, laicization and Catholocity.

But the play acting turned serious Thursday as the grand jury testimony focused on what Lynn did and, far more damaging, what he failed to do while pursuing sex abusers in collars. Sadly for the monsignor, the testimony that Pomeranz read into the record did not follow the defense script in this trial, which has been to paint the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua as the man with the ultimate power in the archdiocese, and thus, the real villain of the story.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Lez Get Real

Posted by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on April 26, 2012.

The Roman Catholic Church has been waging a war against women lately, thinking that their push to enforce absolute conformity will rebuild their problems. This has to do with what they are trying to get away from- the child sexual abuse scandal.

On Wednesday, a young man told a jury about how he was sexually assaulted as an altar boy by two priests in Philadelphia. The young man turned to drugs beginning at age 11 in order to try and deal with the abuse. He has tried drug treatment almost two dozen times in order to deal with the addictions to painkillers, heroin and other drugs. He was the son of a police officer.

According to the young man, parish priest Edward Avery raped him twice after Mass back in 1999. At the time, he was ten. He is testifying in the trial of Monsignor William Lynn, a former secretary for clergy at the Philadelphia archdiocese. Avery has pled guilty to the crimes leveled against him, but that has not been told to the jurors. Defense lawyers did not cross-examine the accuser. Prior to the trial, the lawyers attacked his account of the attacks. Defense lawyers may have chosen to not cross-examine due to the fact that the judge threatened to allow the jury to find out about Avery’s plea.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CHICAGO (IL)
Southtown Star

April 26, 2012

Two men filed separate lawsuits in Cook County Circuit Court Thursday claiming Chicago Catholic priests molested them as children.

While the suits make allegations against different priests, they make similar claims against the Archdiocese, which is named as a defendant along with Cardinal Francis George. Both suits accuse the church of not notifying children’s parents and authorities about prior sexual abuse accusations against the priests.

An Archdiocese spokeswoman said she hasn’t seen Thursday’s suits and could not comment, but she said the Archdiocese acknowledges substantiated sexual abuse allegations against the two priests.

One suit focuses on the Rev. John Curran, who died in 2000 after more than 50 years serving the church. It claims Curran “fraternized with groups of children” and lured children to his room at St. Christina Parish in the city’s Mount Greenwood section, where he served from 1980 to 1993.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

For weeks, jurors at the Philadelphia clergy sex-abuse trial have sat through a meticulous paper case, hearing painstaking recitations of every complaint, memo, or interview related to priests suspected, but not charged, with abusing minors over the last half-century.

Time and again, one question has been left dangling: Where are these priests now?

On Thursday, a prosecutor and an investigator sought to answer that at the start of their presentation on the Rev. David Sicoli, a former pastor who was transferred eight times in 25 years amid a trail of complaints about his infatuation and misconduct with teen boys.

Sicoli was removed from ministry in 2004 and defrocked four years later. Church officials ultimately logged at least 11 credible claims against him.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Mark Hilliard and Fionnan Sheahan

Friday April 27 2012

JUSTICE Minister Alan Shatter remained under pressure last night to apologise for supporting the RTE programme that defamed Fr Kevin Reynolds.

Mr Shatter made a public statement the morning after the RTE ‘Prime Time Investigates’ programme last year, which falsely accused the Galway priest of rape and of fathering a daughter with a Kenyan woman.

The minister said at the time he had watched the programme with a “sense of revulsion” at the unspeakable catalogue of abuse against children it had revealed.

Mr Shatter also contacted Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan about the programme — saying that people were entitled to be reassured that everything was being done to counteract this “evil”.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Friday April 27 2012

FATHER Brian D’Arcy was the inspiration for the character that would eventually become comedian Dermot Morgan’s Fr Trendy, which later morphed into Fr Ted.

The recent clampdowns on him and other Irish liberal priests can only be described as ‘Ted-esque’ such is their bizarre nature and timing.

But there is nothing ‘Ted-esque’ about Fr D’Arcy, perhaps Ireland’s best-known priest, a celebrity in his own right.

Fr D’Arcy is an intelligent, articulate man and priest, who knows his people and whom his flock know as a warm, caring, loving and, above all, honest and courageous figure.

This is a priest who physically got sick when he read the Murphy Report on abuse.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

RHODE ISLAND
Turn to 10

Jamie Wilkinson accuses his uncle, a defrocked priest, of sexual misconduct more than 30 years ago.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 26, 2012

Yesterday, Fr. Bradley Schaeffer stepped down from his position on the Board of Trustees at Brebeuf Jesuit in Indianapolis. We are glad that this cleric has been removed from his position of honor.

Due to his involvement in covering up the crimes of Fr. Donald McGuire, it would have been preferable had Fr. Schaeffer never been elevated to this position in the first place. We look forward to the day when church officials will remove those who are complicit in child sex crimes and cover-ups due to their own moral obligations instead of public pressure.

We suspect that, since Fr. Schaeffer concealed the crimes of Fr. McGuire, we expect that he has done the same with other Jesuit abusers. We urge anyone who may have been abused at Brebeuf – whether by a clergyman, staff, or even another student – to immediately come forward and make a report to police. We hope that the removal of Fr. Schaeffer will encourage those who may have been afraid of reporting these crimes in the past to come forward today.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

[the judge’s order]

By MARK MORRIS

A judge overseeing a civil case against a Roman Catholic priest and the local diocese has formally ordered a victims advocacy group to turn over decades of information about its work.

In her written order filed this week, Jackson County Circuit Judge Ann Mesle directed the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and its national director, David Clohessy, to produce records going back more than 20 years.

The written order elaborates on directions she gave from the bench at a hearing last week, when she heard arguments from lawyers representing the Rev. Michael Tierney and the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph to compel the production of such documents.

The records also would be available for use in four other cases pending against Tierney, who has denied any wrongdoing, and possibly in cases against other priests in the Kansas City area and in Clinton, Mo.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

ONE OF Ireland’s best known priests Fr Brian D’Arcy has been censured by the Vatican over four articles he wrote for the Sunday World newspaper in 2010.

Fr D’Arcy is the fifth Irish Catholic priest known to have been censured by the Vatican recently. The others are Redemptorist priests Fr Tony Flannery and Fr Gerard Moloney, Marist priest Fr Sean Fagan and Capuchin priest Fr Owen O’Sullivan.

The four articles by Fr D’Arcy concerned how the Vatican dealt with the issue of women priests; why US Catholics were leaving the church; why the church must take responsibility for clerical child sex abuse; and homosexuality.

The Vatican is also understood to have complained about headlines on some of the articles, which would have been written by editorial staff at the Sunday World.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Evening News

By Elaine Quijano

(CBS News) It could be a pivotal case for prosecutors in the nationwide scandal of child sex-abuse by Roman Catholic priests.

Five weeks of testimony concluded Thursday in the Philadelphia trial of a senior clergyman who allegedly chose to protect the church, instead of the children.

It’s the first time in the U.S. that a senior official with the Catholic Church has faced charges in the church’s child sexual abuse crisis.

CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano reports that Monsignor William Lynn is accused of endangering children by helping reassign priests suspected of child sex abuse to jobs where they continued to prey on boys and girls. Lynn was in charge of Philadelphia’s priests from 1992 to 2004.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CHILE
mdz

Mariano Cepeda llegó a El Bosque a los 18 años, cuando la iglesia aún no terminaba de construirse. Durante las siguientes 6 décadas hizo la limpieza, trabajó en la cocina, fue sacristán y desde esos cargos conoció a un Karadima muy distinto al que se impuso, durante años, como prócer de la Iglesia, como imán de las vocaciones capaz de llevar al seminario a 50 jóvenes de buenas familias.

-Todo el tiempo el padre Karadima andaba agarrándole el poto a los jóvenes- contó Cepeda a CIPER.

-Eran agarrones como con ansia. Uno los veía caminando por los pasillos de la parroquia y al cura se le iba la mano. Todos los empleados sabíamos que el padre era homosexual. Me acuerdo que a una cocinera le daba mucha vergüenza ver eso. Yo le decía que desgraciadamente esa era su tendencia. Hoy creo que es una enfermedad que él tiene. Piensa que como es sacerdote está autorizado a hacer lo que quiere, que para él nada es pecado.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

April 26, 2012

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has filed a new round of motions in its bankruptcy case in an effort to throw out certain claims filed by individuals who say they were molested as children by clergy or others associated with the archdiocese.

The motions were filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court court this week. The legal basis for the objections are not known because the motions themselves are sealed under a broad court order that requires attorneys to file anything that mentions the names of victims under seal. Attorneys on both sides have declined to comment on requests for general information about the claims. A status hearing to discuss the possibility of releasing redacted motions is scheduled for Wednesday.

It is a second round of claims objections aimed at limiting the number of victim-survivors who would qualify for any settlement that results from the bankruptcy. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley issued a split decision in the prior round, rejecting a claim in which the victim had a prior settlement agreement with the archdiocese; and sending to the federal district court two others the archdiocese claimed were beyond the statute of limitations, saying that would have to be decided at trial. Appeals are pending in all of the rulings.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
ABC Newcastle

The Director of Public Prosecutions has lodged documents appealing a sentence given to a former Hunter Valley Anglican Church worker who admitted sexually abusing 20 boys.

Former youth worker James Michael Brown abused the boys between the 1970s and 1990s, mainly at Kurri Kurri.

He admitted giving boys as young as eight alcohol before abusing them.

Last month he was sentenced to 10 years jail with six years non-parole.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Apr. 26, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

When the Vatican put the largest organization representing U.S. women religious into church receivership, saying it needed to submit to the control of an archbishop and reform its statutes, a major criticism cited was the group’s annual assemblies, which were said to have presented viewpoints that were “a serious source of scandal.”

Despite that concern, this year’s assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, planned for August, is to go forward with Vatican support, NCR has learned.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Independent.ie reporters

Thursday April 26 2012

HIGH-PROFILE priest and broadcaster Brian D’Arcy has become the latest Irish cleric to be censured by the Vatican.

The popular BBC Radio Two contributor, author and Sunday World columnist was disciplined after concerns were raised about some of his published work.

It is understood the action by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) means the Co Fermanagh priest, regarded as liberal within the Catholic church, must now submit his writings and broadcasts to an official censor.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

RHODE ISLAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 26, 2012

Shame on Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin. He got a credible report of sexual abuse by Fr. Timothy Gordon and kept it secret, just like bishops have done for decades.

Remember ten years ago, when bishops pledged to be “open” about child sex cases? Here is an example of another promise by Catholic prelates broken. Why? So the reputation of church officials might be protected. Shame on every single Rhode Island Catholic employee who knew about this allegation and kept quiet.

The only reason this has surfaced is because of the bravery of James Wilkinson. We commend him for his courage and his compassion. Because he acted responsibly, kids are safer now.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

FALMOUTH (ME)
Bangor Daily News

By Seth Koenig, BDN Staff

Posted April 26, 2012

FALMOUTH, Maine — Two men stood outside the official Falmouth home of Catholic Bishop Richard Malone Thursday morning to protest what they described as Malone’s refusal to publish an updated database of priests and church employees “credibly accused” of sex crimes against children.

The duo, Paul Kendrick and Harvey Paul, represented the Ignatius Group, a loosely knit nationwide network of supporters of victims of the alleged sexual abuses. Kendrick, who spoke to members of the media at the Twin Ponds Drive site Thursday, said he and other group members have demonstrated outside Catholic Church properties repeatedly over the years seeking the creation of a church-run database similar to the state of Maine’s sex offender registry.

Kendrick used the example of Father John Audibert, a Catholic priest who 10 years ago admitted sexually abusing a teenage boy, to illustrate his point. He said the whereabouts of Audibert since his removal from active ministry in 2002 has not been kept public, and that he remains a threat to young people wherever he is.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRLAND
Radio Vatikan

Die irische Regierung plant eine Verschärfung der Anzeigepflicht für Kindesmissbrauch. Ein gemeinsamer Gesetzentwurf des Justiz- und des Familienministeriums sieht vor, das Unterlassen entsprechender Hinweise mit bis zu fünf Jahren Haft zu bestrafen, wie irische Medien am Donnerstag berichten. Priester sollten sich dabei nicht auf das Beichtgeheimnis berufen dürfen, betonten Justizminister Alan Shatter und Familienministerin Frances Fitzgerald bei der Vorstellung des Textes am Mittwochabend. Die Untersuchungsberichte über sexuellen Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche hätten gezeigt, dass das betreffende Gesetz verschärft werden müsse, erklärte Shatter. Es sei nicht hinnehmbar, dass über solche Vergehen „ein Mantel des Schweigens“ gebreitet werde.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

OSTERREICH
voralberg

[mit Video]

Im Prozess eines 58-Jährigen gegen das Kloster Mehrerau am Landesgericht Feldkirch haben Rechtsvertreter des Klosters die Missbrauchsvorwürfe des ehemaligen Schülers angezweifelt. Die beiden Zivilprozesse wurden vertagt.

Am Landesgericht Feldkirch wurden am Donnerstag gleich zwei Klagen gegen das Kloster Mehrerau verhandelt. Zwei ehemalige Internats-Zöglinge gehen zivilrechtlich gegen das Kloster vor, weil sie Schadenersatz für jahrelange und schwere sexuelle Misshandlung verlangen. Beide Zivilprozesse wurden vertagt.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

Judy Courtin

Victorian victims of clergy sex crimes and their families have been fighting for justice for years – some for decades. The previous Labor state government did nothing for them.

The Baillieu government, despite being dragged kicking and screaming all the way, has succumbed to mounting public pressure and announced a parliamentary inquiry into the way in which religious and other organisations handle sexual abuse complaints.

The announcement came initially as a relief for victims and their families and, being a first for Australia, it has been applauded. But the applause should not go the government, but to the victims, their families and the many workers behind the scenes who have been pushing for justice in this area for years.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

Tom Kington in Rome
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 April 2012

Vatican staffers who have been leaking embarrassing letters about corruption and nepotism inside the tiny city state are to be hunted down by a crack squad of cardinals led by a senior member of the religious group Opus Dei.

Irritated by the anonymous release of documents to the press this year, Pope Benedict has named Cardinal Julian Herranz, 82, to lead a three-man team which will haul in staffers for questioning and rifle through files until they catch the perpetrators of what has been dubbed “Vatileaks”.

A short statement printed on Thursday on the front page of the Vatican’s daily newspaper warned the team had a full “pontifical mandate” to “shed complete light” on the whistle blowers, who have lifted the lid on alleged theft and false accounting.

Herranz was a long-time personal secretary to Josemaría Escrivá , the now canonised founder of Opus Dei, which has been accused of excessive secrecy, strict control over members and undue influence within the Vatican – a reputation pushed by Dan Brown’s thriller The Da Vinci Code.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

Fresh off approving a sweeping overhaul of America’s main umbrella group for the leaders of women’s religious orders, Pope Benedict XVI this week turned to getting his own house in order by creating a panel of three veteran cardinals to investigate the tawdry recent Vatican leaks scandal.

The Vatican announced yesterday that Benedict has created a new Commission of Cardinals “to undertake an authoritative investigation” and “to throw light on these episodes,” which it characterized as “recent leaks of reserved and confidential documents on television, in newspapers and in other communications media.”

The commission is led by Spanish Cardinal Julián Herranz, 82, formerly the president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. It also includes Slovakian Cardinal Jozef Tomko, 88, a former prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and Italian Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, 81, who resigned in 2006 as the archbishop of Palermo.

Because Herranz is a member of Opus Dei, Italy’s most influential daily, Corriere della Sera, ran the news under a headline proclaiming, “A detective of Opus Dei against the ravens in the Vatican.” (“Ravens” has become standard argot for the leakers, and has roughly the same sense in Italian as “snakes” in English.)

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Christianity Today

But how we answer the restoration question is paramount to our theology.

Second, we must extend the gospel to child sex abusers. This is a monumental task. A 2011 Slate report titled, “Are molesters really the most hated people in prison?” answered, simply, “Yes. Convicts who have committed crimes against children, especially sexual abuse, are hated, harassed, and abused.” Even Christians instinctively feel that child abusers should “rot in jail” when they imagine a fellow Christian fondling a child or masturbating to such images. So when we begin preaching that such “monsters” are known and loved by Christ, it will horrify the watching world. And even us.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic

Thursday, April 26, 2012

By Bryan Cones

It’s deja vu all over again: About 150 years ago the Vatican’s first response to the “modern world” of democratic reform and theological renewal was to silence and shame any Catholic who spoke positively about either. So we got the Syllabus of Errors in its various incarnations and the condemnation of “modernism” and anyone who espoused modern approaches to scriptural interpretation or the “new theology” of the early and mid 20th century. Big names there: Congar, DeLubac, Jungmann, Murray–all ordered to silence on this topic or that.

Until, of course, the Second Vatican Council undid all that nonsense and brought the church–at least theologically–into the late 19th century (still 100 years behind the rest of the world). All those silenced became heroes, the bright lights of the renewal.

Now here we are at the beginning of the 21st, and once again the Vatican (and presumably the pope) is choosing the former path: condemnation and silencing, first of American women religious, and now of the Redemptorist leader of the Irish Association of Catholic Priests, Father Tony Flannery. His crime? Raising questions and organizing pastors around issues of concern, including the church’s sexual teaching and the new English translations of the Mass, and lining up with victims of abuse in the ravaged Irish church.

To be honest, this smells a bit of desperation on the part of the Vatican. The Association of Catholic Priests counts 20 percent of Irish clergy on its roster; an American counterpart is now in the works. Irish Catholics are voting with their feet, with Sunday Mass attendance having plummetted to levels seen in the rest of Europe. On this side of the Atlantic, four Catholics leave the church for every one who joins, even as the U.S. bishops double down on deeply partisan political involvement in this year’s presidential election.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK
Observer-Dispatch

By ROCCO LaDUCA
Observer-Dispatch

Posted Apr 26, 2012

UTICA —

The sentencing of a New York Mills priest accused of stealing more than $87,000 from the church was postponed one more time Thursday.

The Rev. Valentine Krul, 61, of Forestport, has already been serving time behind bars in the Oneida County jail since late January after he pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny for stealing from the Church of the Sacred Heart and St. Mary Our Lady of Czestochowa in New York Mills between October 2008 and January 2011.

On Thursday, Krul was supposed to be formally sentenced by Oneida County Court Judge Barry M. Donalty to 6 months in jail, as well as 5 years of probation.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY and SARAH McDONALD

The Passionist congregation has confirmed that 14 months ago the Vatican acted against Fr Brian D’Arcy on articles he had written.

Fr Pat Duffy, provincial superior of the Passionist congregation in Ireland said in a statement this afternoon that “last year concerns were expressed to Fr Ottaviano D’Egidio, C.P. – the Passionist Superior General (in Rome) – by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) about some aspects of Fr Brian D’Arcy’s writings”

He continued that “since then Fr Brian has been co-operating to ensure he can make a contribution to journalism in Ireland. Fr Brian remains a priest in good standing.”

Fr Duffy’s statement follows an article in the current issue of the UK Catholic weekly the Tablet, which reported that Fr D’Arcy, a columnist with a popular Irish tabloid The Sunday World, a regular contributor to BBC Radio 2’s Pause for Thought, as well as to RTE and a best selling author “has been told he must submit his writings and broadcasts to an approved church censor.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the reaction to Vatican efforts to reform the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR):

Most Catholics identify with their parish, not their diocese; they have even less interest in Church matters beyond the diocesan level. This explains why they are non-plussed by Vatican efforts to reform the LCWR. Some liberal Catholics, as well as liberal non-Catholics, are predictably unhappy with the proceedings, and more than a few show clear signs of a nervous breakdown. What is most perplexing is the way non-Catholics have shoved their way into this internal matter.

Jim Wallis is perhaps the most prominent non-Catholic to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. The former Marxist-turned-Protestant activist runs an organization and a magazine that is heavily funded by atheist billionaire George Soros. His reaction to the Vatican initiative was striking in one respect: he claims that the bishops do not speak for the Catholic Church. “Quite honestly,” he writes, “do most of us believe, or even most Catholics believe, that the bishops are the only ‘authentic teachers of faith and morals?’”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Larne Times

Published on Wednesday 25 April 2012

High-profile priest and broadcaster Brian D’Arcy has become the latest Irish cleric to be censured by the Vatican.

The popular BBC Radio Two contributor, author and newspaper columnist was disciplined after concerns were raised about some of his published work.

It is understood the action by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) means the Co Fermanagh priest, regarded as liberal within the Catholic church, must now submit his writings and broadcasts to an official censor.

The 67-year-old member of the Passionist Order has spoken out against mandatory celibacy for priests and has been a fierce critic of the church’s handling of child abuse scandals in Ireland.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Inside Ireland

By Ciarán Hanna

A British Catholic weekly journal has reported that six Irish Catholic priests are being silenced by the Vatican.

The Tablet newspaper, which has been published since 1840, is reporting that five Priests have been censured from speaking to the Press.

The Vatican based Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, CDF, has warned Fr Tony Flannery, one of the leaders of the Association of Catholic Press,to stop writing for a magazine while the paper’s editor, Fr Gerard Moloney, is being investigated by the CDF.

The other priests include Fr Sean Fagan.

A supporter of Fr. Fagan wrote in a blog:

“ The silencing of Sean, after a lifetime of service to the Church, was even more painful because if any word of this action demanded by the CDF got into the media, he would be immediately be prohibited from exercising his priestly faculties.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

RHODE ISLAND
Patch

By Rob Borkowski

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence has announced Rev. Timothy Gorton of Precious Blood Parish in Woonsocket has been removed from his duties after a recent allegation of sexual misconduct 30 years ago.

“The Diocese of Providence takes very seriously allegations of sexual abuse by a member of the Church. When allegations of misconduct by Rev. Timothy Gorton were received by the Diocese, allegations that date from approximately 30 years ago, law enforcement officials were notified immediately,” reads the Diocese’s statement.

The Woonsocket Call, which has interviewed the victim, Gorton’s nephew, reports there are no charges from the reported incidents from the Narragansett Police Department. The incidents occurred in Narragansett and Cumberland.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.