ABUSE TRACKER

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Bilgrimage

Jerry Slevin continues to follow the trial of Philadelphia archdiocesan officials carefully, and has provided another statement responding to news that Archbishop Chaput convened archdiocesan priests yesterday and will hold a press conference tomorrow. What follows is Jerry’s posting:

ONGOING TRIAL: The Philly criminal trial of alleged predator priests, including Fr. Brennan, and their protector, Monsignor Lynn, former top aide to the Philadelphia Archdiocese’s Cardinal Rigali, has continued for its sixth week with no end in sight. The Philadelphia Inquirer has continued its play-by-play reporting of more obscene and bizarre episodes of priestly perversions and clerical cover-ups revealed at the trial and Inquirer news coverage of the trial is online here.

The Philadelphia Archdiocese has been the subject of almost a decade of periodic criminal grand jury investigations culminating in a 2005 grand jury report and a second 2011 grand jury report as discussed by me previously here.

NEW DEVELOPMENT: A new related development occurred yesterday afternoon in a suddenly scheduled, closed-door meeting of Archbishop Chaput with many of his Philadelphia Archdiocese (Philly AD) priests in attendance. Apparently, Chaput also has a press conference planned for tomorrow presumably to report on the matters discussed with his priests.

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IRELAND
Vatican Insider

Revelations by a BBC program that a boy abused by a priest gave a 1975 Irish Church Inquiry the names of several boys and girls being abused by the same priest have led to new calls for the resignation of Cardinal Brady, a notary at that inquiry. Many think he had an obligation then to inform the children’s parents, and blame him for not doing so

Gerard O’Connell
Rome

Ireland’s Cardinal Sean Brady has rejected new calls for his resignation following a BBC TV program which he accuses of “seriously misrepresenting” his role in a 1975 Church inquiry into the abuse of children by the late Father Brendan Smyth, a member of the Norbertine religious order, who abused very many children over forty years.

The BBC broadcast the program, “The shame of the Catholic Church” on May 1 in Northern Ireland and on May 2 in the UK.

It recalled how in 1975, the future cardinal, then a young priest, participated in a Church Inquiry that interviewed a 14 year-old boy, Brendan Boland, under oath of secrecy, without his parents being present. Based notes made by Brady then, the BBC revealed that the boy had not only described his own abuse by Smyth, but also gave the names and addresses of two other boys and two girls who suffered a similar fate.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

Blessed John Henry Newman, and Monday May 7th, 2012: -‘Towards an Assembly of the Irish Catholic Church’.

John Henry Newman, probably the greatest writer/theologian of the 1800’s, was made Cardinal, but only at the age of 78, and by the newly elected Pope Leo X111. His predecessor, Pius IX , and a lot of bishops in England, had regarded Newman with suspicion. Much of this suspicion related to his views on the role of the Catholic Faithful.

‘On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine’ , a famous article, was first published in July, 1859 in the Rambler. It was the immediate cause of great controversy both in Rome and in England. Newman did not withdraw his views, though he did not reprint the article. It can now be found, with notes, in www.fordham.edu/…/newman-faithful.htm.

In this long article, Newman shows how, in the course of the history of the Church, the laity protected and saved the Church, even from its bishops, in times of great peril. As a young Anglican Minister, Newman had done a long study of Arianism (-Arius and his many followers denied the Divinity of Christ-) in the 4th Century, and wrote how this was eventually defeated by the preaching and writings of St. Athanasius together with the fidelity of the faithful, when great numbers of the hierarchy had fallen into error.

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ITALY
AGI

13:35 03 MAG 2012

(AGI) Genoa – The preliminary hearings magistrate Roberta Bossi of the Court of Genoa has sentenced this morning Father Riccardo Seppia, former parish priest of the Spirito Santo parish of Sestri Ponente to 9 years and 6 mths in prison.

Father Riccardo Seppia will be prosecuted. He is sentenced for attempted sexual violence on minor, attempted prostitution of minors, attempted cession of drugs to minors and the detention of pedophile pornographic material. The preliminary hearings magistrate has almost entirely met the demand of public prosecutor Stefano Puppo for 11 years and 8 months in prison.

Father Riccardo Seppia has been acquitted for only one offence, the detention of pedophile pornographic material. The preliminary hearings magistrate has considered the attempted sexual violence as an offence that has been committed. Father Riccardo Seppia’s lawyer, Paolo Bonanni had asked for the acquittal of all charges except for the cession of drugs.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Patrick Roberts

Why do Irish media lynch mob want Cardinal Sean Brady to resign?– Brady acted in good faith at the time investigating a notorious pedophile priest

The harsh clamor for the resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady because of his alleged involvement in pedophile cover-up is a mistaken call.

Back in 1987 Brady was given a job to report to the-then Bishop of Cavan, Francis McKiernan on the findings of an ecclesiastical commission on the matter of Father Brendan Smyth, a known and notorious pedophile.

The BBC is now reporting that Brady was more than just a note taker as he claimed, but they do not dispute that he gave a full and complete account of the activities of Smyth to his superiors,

In other words all sides agree that Brady collected the information then passed it on to his superiors.

He acted correctly in that respect. Those higher up who ignored his report and allowed Smyth to keep on abusing did not obviously.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said today that Cardinal Seán Brady should consider his position as head of the Catholic church in Ireland.

A BBC TV documentary recently revealed that information on victims of paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth was given to a Church investigation, but then-priest Brady did not pass the information on to parents or civil authorities.

Cardinal Brady claims that he was just a notetaker in that inquiry.

“I think Cardinal Brady should reflect on his position and consider his position, but that’s a matter obviously for the church,” said Mr Martin.

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IRELAND
Longford Leader

Published on Thursday 3 May 2012

The Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois has leapt to the defence of under fire Cardinal Sean Brady, saying he would be “very saddened” if the Primate is forced to resign.

Bishop Colm O’Reilly said the County Cavan native had given outstanding service to the church since his appointment as Ireland’s chief cleric almost 15 years ago.

In an interview with longfordleader.ie this morning (Thursday), Bishop O’Reilly also hinted that the Vatican, and not Cardinal Brady may ultimately decide his fate.

“At the present time, I would be full of regret if he (Cardinal Brady) weren’t to lead the Bishops’ Conference in June as he has given such high quality leadership to the Church,” said Bishop O’Reilly.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Edel O’Connell

Thursday May 03 2012

BARNARDOS chief Fergus Finlay has broken his silence about sexual abuse he experienced as a child in a bid to call for greater accountability from the Catholic Church.

The chief executive of the children’s charity said the excuse that sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests was not dealt with properly in the past because it was “the culture of the time” is a “complete myth”.

Mr Finlay (62) broke his silence about his own sexual abuse, which he said happened in 1961 when he was 11 years old and involved an “elderly man” whom he describes as “very religious”.

He explained how he told his father about the abuse and his father “dealt with the issue” and ensured the man did not go on to abuse again.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY JENNIFER MANN • jmann@post-dispatch.com > 314-621-5804

ST. LOUIS COUNTY • A lawsuit against a dissolved North County church and its former pastor will proceed toward trial, but only on the claims of a husband who says his marriage counseling sessions were corrupted when the pastor started angling for an affair with his wife.

The pastor, Bill Little, has filed his own claims, of defamation and libel, and through his lawyer denied wrongdoing.

Cumulatively, filings in St. Louis County Circuit Court shed light on a fiery conflict that in 2010 did what prior allegations of misconduct against Little had not: forced him to retire after more than 50 years as pastor of the Christ Memorial Baptist Church of Cool Valley. The church then closed.

Darrell and Rhonda Pitt, of the St. Louis area, claim that in the 1980s Little used his position as a pastor and licensed psychologist to exploit their marriage and that church leaders allowed it to happen.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Amnesty International

Amnesty International has called on the Police Service of Northern Ireland to launch an investigation into the potential cover-up of criminal acts of child abuse detailed in the BBC programme This Week, broadcast in Northern Ireland on May 1 2012.

The programme uncovered fresh information about serious acts of sexual abuse of children, living in Northern Ireland and the republic of Ireland, by Fr Brendan Smyth, and suggested that a number of people within the Church hierarchy in Ireland may have failed to report those crimes to the State authorities in either jurisdiction. It is alleged that, as a result, the abuse of these and other children continued for a further period of years.

Amnesty International has called for the PSNI to investigate whether Church officials and others failed to report the alleged criminal offences against children in Northern Ireland to the relevant authorities in Northern Ireland.

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IRELAND/UNITED STATES
Irish Central

By
MOLLY MULDOON,
Irish Voice Reporter

Published Thursday, May 3, 2012

Catholic priests in Ireland face a huge task in re-establishing Irish society’s trust as a result of the child abuse scandal and will require strong leadership, according to an Irish American deacon currently studying in Ireland.

The son of an Irish emigrant, Shane Sullivan, 26, was ordained a deacon on Sunday, January 29 in Maynooth, Co. Kildare. A Minnesota native, he is to be ordained into the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Tuam on Sunday, June 3, in Tuam Cathedral, Co. Galway.

The January ceremony marked the last phase in the formation of Sullivan as a seminarian before his ordination into the priesthood in June.

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MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Eighteen new victims added their names to litigation against the Helena Diocese and Ursuline nuns for abuse they allege took place when they were children at Catholic parishes and boarding schools in Montana, according to a Tuesday news release from their Montana attorney, Vito de la Cruz.

The amended complaint adding the new victims was filed in Montana’s First Judicial District Court in Lewis and Clark County.

“Some of the students were day students and some boarded,” de la Cruz stated. “And some were abused not by priests, but by nuns who acted alone or in despicable cahoots with clergy.”

The amended complaint contends the priests and nuns used their positions as authority figures at schools and parishes to “molest, exploit and abuse children.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Published on Thursday 3 May 2012

THE BBC report this week into the role of Cardinal Sean Brady, head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in the 1975 investigation into paedophile priest Brendan Smith was profoundly disturbing, but should not come as a surprise.

In 2009 an independent report into child abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of Dublin concluded: “The Dublin Archdiocese’s preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid 1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The Archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the state”.

This, indeed, has been the pattern right across the world: in the USA, in Germany, in France, in Austria: wherever allegations of abuse have surfaced against priests the first instinct was to protect the church from scandal, and not young children from harm.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Lodi News-Sentinel

By Ross Farrow and Maggie Creamer/News-Sentinel Staff Writers

A 25-year-old man who says that convicted pedophile Oliver O’Grady sexually molested him in 1992 has sued O’Grady and the Stockton Diocese.

O’Grady, who is in an Irish jail after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography, was assigned to parishes in San Andreas and Hughson when the plaintiff was allegedly molested. He was a priest at Lodi’s St. Anne’s Catholic Church from 1971 to 1978.

In an unrelated case, O’Grady was convicted in 1993 of four counts of lewd and lascivious acts against two boys in San Andreas. He spent seven years at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione before being paroled in 2000. He was then deported to his native Ireland and has been defrocked as a priest.

The lawsuit alleges that O’Grady molested the plaintiff when he was 5 years old. The plaintiff said he was molested in the priest’s bedroom in the rectory while O’Grady was babysitting.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Thursday May 03 2012

NOTORIOUS paedophile priest Brendan Smyth abused 30 or more children in the years after Cardinal Sean Brady failed to report his crimes, a former RUC officer has revealed.

Pressure was growing on Dr Brady to resign today as Barnardo’s chief Fergus Finlay joined the calls for him to step down.

Dr Brady’s position is becoming increasingly untenable after new revelations about his failure to report child rape allegations or inform the parents of some of Smyth’s victims.

The cardinal admitted that there had been nothing to stop him going to civil authorities about accusations against the serial paedophile.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Independent.ie reporters

Thursday May 03 2012

A VICTIM of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth, who was abused after he was reported to Cardinal Sean Brady, today called for the All Ireland Primate to resign.

Sam Adair was abused after the then Fr Brady investigated Smyth, and fellow-victim Brendan Boland had given fives names and addresses of other abused children to the investigation.

He said that at the time of the inquiry Cardinal Brady was not just a note taker, but a skilled canon lawyer.

Speaking on RTE Radio’s Morning Ireland show, he called on the church to compensate Smyth’s victims.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Independent.ie reporters

Thursday May 03 2012

CARDINAL Sean Brady is under increasing pressure today as Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore and Fr Brian D’Arcy have commented on his position.

Anyone who did not properly deal with allegations of child abuse against one of Ireland’s most dangerous paedophiles should not hold a position of authority, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore has said.

As Cardinal Sean Brady faced down calls to resign over his role in a secret inquiry into Brendan Smyth, Mr Gilmore said it was his opinion that senior clerics who did not act at the time should resign.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Thursday May 03 2012

Almost two decades after playing a major role in the collapse of the 1993-4 Fianna Fail/Labour coalition, the crimes of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth continue to cast a long shadow over Irish life.

Now, not for the first time, Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland’s Catholics, finds himself forced to explain his role in the Church’s investigation into Fr Smyth’s crimes.

In 1975, the then Fr Sean Brady was called upon to assist in the investigation of allegations of sexual abuse made by several children against Fr Smyth. His role in the investigation was a relatively junior one. He first acted as a notetaker in the interview of one of Fr Smyth’s victims and subsequently interviewed a second child who had been identified as a victim of Fr Smyth in the first interview.

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IRELAND
Sunday World

Fr. Brian D’Arcy

FIFTY years ago when I first entered The Graan as a 17-year old novice, I tried to be the best I could be. I accepted that the ‘old’ Brian D’Arcy had to die and that I had to take a new name, Desmond Mary. I accepted that I had to leave my clothes to be locked up by the Novice Master and to put on instead borrowed clothes, habit and walk in sandalled feet as well.

I willingly got up in the middle of the night to pray and then went back to bed before getting up at 6am again. I took all those penances for granted. Silence was an essential part of life and I had to leave my family behind. I could not write to them; I could not speak to them if they came to church. I should not try to understand what was happening in the world. All of which was tough but I bought into it anyway. I knew it was what I had to do to be a priest.

Now I realise it was seriously damaging to me as a person. On one of those bleak days the Rector called me to his cell (room). The Rector had been in Africa and was very close to being made a bishop.

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BELGIE
Knack

(Belga) Het Centrum voor Arbitrage inzake seksueel misbruik heeft al 190 aanvragen voor herstelmaatregelen binnengekregen. Dat heeft Karine Lalieux (PS), voorzitster van de opvolgingscommissie rond seksueel misbruik van de Kamer woensdag gezegd.

Het Centrum werd in de nasleep van de bijzondere Kamercommissie Seksueel Misbruik opgericht, nadat de kerkelijke overheden in 2011 akkoord gingen om deel te nemen aan een pluridisciplinaire arbitrage om de verjaarde gevallen van seksueel misbruik en feiten van pedofilie binnen de Kerk te behandelen.

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SPAIN
The Olive Press

SPANISH bishops have expressed their ‘support’ for Sister Maria Gomez Valbuena, the nun at the centre of the stolen babies’ scandal.

Juan Antonio Martinez Camino claimed her convent was the victim of a ‘smear campaign.’ However he insisted the Church would ‘collaborate with the courts.’

Sister Maria – the first nun to be questioned as part of the investigation – refused to testify in court. The 87-year-old later issued a statement denying the accusations.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Cardinal Sean Brady vows to remain as former RUC officer says failures let abuse go on

A former RUC officer who was close to the Brendan Smyth investigation has said that the paedophile priest would have been stopped from ruining countless other lives had he been reported to the authorities in 1975.

Cardinal Sean Brady yesterday vowed he would not resign as the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland despite new claims that he failed to act on evidence he obtained about clerical child abuse.

The beleaguered Primate — Ireland’s most senior cleric— remained defiant that he would not step down as church leader after mounting pressure grew following further alleged ‘cover up’ revelations rocked the church.

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IRELAND
BBC News

Irish priest Father Brian D’Arcy has said he believes Cardinal Sean Brady was willing to offer his resignation two years ago but the Vatican refused.

Fr D’Arcy was responding to a BBC This World programme which found that the cardinal failed to pass details of sex abuse to police or parents.

It said that in 1975, Cardinal Brady had the names and address of children being abused by Fr Brendan Smyth.

Smyth, a paedophile, continued to attack children for a further 13 years.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Cardinal Brady’s resignation would signal an acceptance that priests answer to society and not just to the Church, says Malachi O’Doherty

Most of us, if we had been priests of Fr Sean Brady’s age in the 1970s, would have done as he did. The priest takes an oath of obedience to his bishop. Brady was assigned by his bishop to investigate a fellow cleric who was allegedly raping children and to report back.

He did everything that was expected of him by the only authority to which he had pledged himself answerable. He ascertained that the odious Brendan Smyth was, indeed, a paedophile priest making use of children for his sexual gratification. And he also spoke to two boys who had been abused in that way and he believed them. Then he swore them to secrecy.

All of this – in the practical, secular view of a later age – was what we would now call collusion in the cover-up of a vile crime. The manipulation of victims for the protection of an offender and of the institution to which that offender belonged.

But what was it in the mind of Sean Brady? It was the exercise of unquestioning obedience and loyalty. It was an outward expression of his faith in the power of the church to do the right thing.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Lindy McDowell
Wednesday, 2 May 2012

I wouldn’t presume to tell the Pope how he should go about his business or to advise the Vatican on matters theological.

But I do know that the censuring of Fr Brian D’Arcy the latest Irish priest to be disciplined by Rome (there are now six in total) is not the Church’s savviest move.

And that’s because I know Brian D’Arcy to be one of the finest, most honourable men to walk the planet.

He is a priest who totally, utterly connects with the people he serves. He understands life as it really is — not how church leaders might like it to be.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has described the revelations about further cases of child abuse at the hands of Brendan Smyth as “another horrific episode of failure by senior members of the Catholic Church to protect children”.

Mr Gilmore also told the Dáil that anyone who did not deal with the scale of the abuse revealed in this case should not hold a position of authority. However, he stressed that this was his own personal view.

Fianna Fáil’s Willie O’Dea asked Mr Gimore about the Government’s position on the future of Cardinal Séan Brady, who participated in investigation.

“As far as your question about the Government’s position in relation to Cardinal Brady is concerned, let me say this, I have always believed in the separation of church and state,” Mr Gilmore said.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

A prominent canon lawyer has said that he believes Cardinal Sean Brady’s position as Primate of all Ireland is untenable.

It follows allegations in a BBC documentary that information on victims of Fr Brendan Smyth was given to a Church investigation in 1975 but was not passed on to victims’ families or law enforcement authorities.

Cardinal Brady insists he was just a notetaker in the inquiry, and had no authority over Fr Smyth.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has urged him to “reflect” on the documentary.

Fr Tom Doyle, a renowned canon lawyer, also featured in the programme.

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IRELAND
BBC News

The head of Barnardo’s in Ireland has spoken publicly for the first time about being abused as a child.

Fergus Finlay says he felt he had to speak out while taking part in a debate about the BBC’s This World programme which found Cardinal Sean Brady failed to pass details of sex abuse by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth to police or parents in 1975.

Cardinal Brady said he accepted he was “part of an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society, and the Church, which thankfully is now a thing of the past”.

Mr Finlay said a changed culture was not a proper explanation.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Thursday, 3 May 2012

While the BBC has produced fresh evidence against Cardinal Sean Brady, head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in relation to the sex abuse carried out by notorious priest, Fr Brendan Smyth, the fundamental problem for the Primate is unchanged.

He may argue that he did nothing wrong and that his involvement in the interviewing of two victims of the priest were minimal and that he now regrets the culture of silence within the Church at that time. Yet many will feel that is a weak defence.

The Cardinal – who was then simply a priest – was given the names of children at risk from Fr Smyth and while he passed those on to superiors in the Church, neither the police nor the parents were informed.

Cardinal Brady may feel that it was not his role at that time to alert either, yet most right-minded people will regard it as shameful that a Christian organisation should continue to leave some of its most vulnerable flock – children – at risk from a paedophile.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, May 03, 2012

A prominent priest said today that he believes Cardinal Sean Brady was willing to offer his resignation two years ago, but the Vatican refused.

Father Brian D’Arcy said that if he was in Cardinal Sean Brady’s position now, he would find it difficult to continue – and has called on him to reflect.

It follows allegations in a BBC documentary that information on victims of Fr Brendan Smyth was given to a Church investigation, but was not passed on to parents or civil authorities by Cardinal Brady, who was then a priest.

Cardinal Brady says he was a notetaker in that inquiry and had no authority over Fr Smyth.

Fr D’Arcy said that the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland can’t simply step down and he believes Cardinal Brady may have tried in the past.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

CHARLIE TAYLOR

A man abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth in the years after he had been investigated by an inquiry team that include Cardinal Séan Brady has called on the Catholic primate to resign.

Sam Adair, a former resident of the Nazareth Lodge children’s home in Belfast, also called on the current primate to offer compensation to Smyth’s victims.

Pressure is growing on Cardinal Brady to step down following renewed allegations about his role in a church inquiry team investigating the Norbertine priest in 1975.

A BBC documentary broadcast on Tuesday evening revealed how, in 1975, when he was a priest in the diocese of Kilmore, Dr Brady was given the names and addresses of children who were abused by the serial child sex abuser Smyth.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said that it is his personal view that the Catholic Primate of all Ireland, Cardinal Seán Brady, should resign in the wake of the latest abuse scandal.

It follows claims in a BBC TV programme that information on victims of paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth was given to a Church investigation, which Seán Brady was a member of, but was not passed on to parents or law enforcement authorities.

Cardinal Brady said he was just a notetaker in that inquiry.

In the Dáil today, the Tánaiste said that whether it was the 1970s or today, anybody with information about the rape of a child had and has a duty to pass it on.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Thursday, 3 May 2012

Anyone who did not properly deal with allegations of child abuse against one of Ireland’s most dangerous paedophiles should not hold a position of authority, the deputy prime minister has said.

As Cardinal Sean Brady faced down calls to resign over his role in a secret inquiry into Brendan Smyth, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore said it was his opinion that senior clerics who did not act at the time should resign.

“It is my personal view that anybody who did not deal with the scale of the abuse that we have seen in this case should not hold a position of authority,” Mr Gilmore said.

The beleaguered Cardinal Sean Brady vowed to remain as Primate of All-Ireland on Wednesday after being forced for a second time in three years to account for his role in a 1975 Church inquiry into Smyth’s attacks on children.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

IRISH TIMES REPORTERS

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has today called on Cardinal Seán Brady to resign following renewed allegations concerning his role in an inquiry into allegations of clerical abuse by the paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth.

Speaking in the Dáil this morning, Mr Gilmore said he had always believed in the separation of Church and State.

“But is my own personal view that anybody who did not deal with the scale of the abuse we have seen in this case should not hold a position of authority,’’ he added.

The Tánaiste was replying to Fianna Fail TD Willie O’Dea, who said that every citizen had always had at least a moral obligation to report any abuse to the civil authorities.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, May 03, 2012

It seemed incredible in 1994 that the cover-up involving the paedophile activities of Fr Brendan Smyth had been going on for 19 years by the time it brought down the government of Albert Reynolds.

More than 17 years have passed and the public is presented with another facet of the cover-up, in which the safety of children was recklessly endangered by Church leaders who were more concerned about protecting their own institution from scandal than protecting vulnerable members of its flock.

For more than 37 years, Church figures have been passing the buck, and now it has come the full circle and has landed back on the desk of Cardinal Seán Brady. The latest controversy has been sparked by Tuesday night’s BBC documentary, This World: The Shame of the Catholic Church.

The programme provided details of the testimony of Brendan Boland, who was abused as an 11-year-old altar boy by Fr Brendan Smyth. The abuse went on for a couple of years before he reported it to a priest, who informed his parents and the Church authorities.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

Monsignor William J. Lynn doesn’t get excited when he’s told that archdiocese priests are sexually abusing altar boys.

He doesn’t loose his cool when he discovers that one priest has young boys living with him in the rectory, or that another priest has a farm where he keeps three young boys rotating through his bedroom.

That same monsignor doesn’t hit the panic button when he learns that one of his predator priests just busted out of the sex clinic, and is AWOL from the archdiocese, or that another predator priest who just molested a 13-year-old girl has fled the Commonwealth.

Nope, after six weeks of testimony, the monsignor comes across as a guy who doesn’t rattle easily, even when he’s getting grilled by a grand jury prosecutor who’s obviously gunning for him. But Wednesday at the archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse trial, we finally learned what gets a rise out of the monsignor, and by extension, his late boss, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

May 02, 2012|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

In 1996, the Rev. Michael C. Picard was accused of disobedience, and brought up on the ecclesiastical equivalent of a court-martial for besmirching the name of a fellow priest to prevent him from becoming an associate pastor at Picard’s growing Bucks County parish.

On Wednesday, the tables turned.

Picard sat in the witness box of a Philadelphia courtroom 15 feet from Msgr. William J. Lynn, whom he accused of falsifying the disobedience charge because Picard had tried to stop the reassignment of a problematic priest..

Through Picard’s words, and reams of internal correspondence from the secret archives of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington portrayed now-Msgr. Picard as a whistleblower. Lynn and church superiors, including the late Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, had retaliated against Picard in an effort to tamp down the threat of public scandal over the 1996 assignment of the Rev. Donald J. Mills to Picard’s St. Andrew parish in Newtown, the prosecutor said.

As secretary of clery from 1992 to 2004, Lynn was Bevilacqua’s designated investigator of allegations of sexual abuse against priests. Now 61, he is charged with conspiracy and endangering the welfare of children for enabling some priests to be transferred to other parishes despite accusations of improprieties.

Lynn, the highest-ranking church official criminally charged in the church sex-abuse scandal, has denied the charges. His attorneys have argued that he was thrust into the job without legal training and was often the first to stop what has been described as a revolving-door policy of reassigning

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MISSISSIPPI
WTVA

TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) — The director of the Family Resource Center in Tupelo supports a bill sent to the governor that requires health professionals, clergy and others to report suspected sexual abuse of children.

“Over 17,000 children were allegedly sexually abused last year,” said Christi Webb, who leads an agency that conducted more than 400 forensic interviews last year to determine if a child had been sexually abused.

But many more incidents go unreported, she said, because sometimes people who are in position to know what’s going on don’t come forward.

“I think when it comes to children, when it comes to sexual abuse, child abuse, I think confidentiality needs to be thrown completely out the window,” Webb continued.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

May 3, 2012 by Susan Matthews

Today, Archbishop Chaput held a meeting of Archdiocesan priests at Cardinal O’Hara High School. Many presume he shared the outcome of at least some of the investigations regarding the priest removals that occurred in the wake of the 2011 Grand Jury Report. I don’t think we’ll hear much more than speculation until Friday’s public announcement (0n an also undisclosed topic).

According to sources, he asked the priests to keep silent on today’s information. Because of their vow of obedience, they will most likely comply. If only Archbishop Chaput would direct them to police each other more thoroughly, to offer ministry and compassion to victims and to support the removal of the statute of limitations on child sex abuse in PA. Then, we might get somewhere. But priests are well-practiced at silence and the faithful are quite used to it.

Here are the possible outcomes for those who will not be returned to ministry.

– (not-so supervised) lives of prayer and penance

– laicization

With the latter, the District Attorney might have the opportunity to step in – if the statute of limitations has not run out on newly acquired evidence. That is a big “if.” Otherwise, those laicized priests are free to move right next door to you or me. That’s why this is a public safety issue and not just a Catholic issue.

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
WCNC

[with video]

by DAVE WAGNER / NewsChannel 36

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — He is a pastor who calls himself an “apostle,” but former members at Charlotte’s Church of Philadelphia call Clavon Leonard something much more sinister.

“I would describe him as barbaric,” said former church employee Talitha Williams.

For 18 months, the I-Team has investigated claims of abuse against Pastor Leonard. Three of Leonard’s former personal assistants said their service involved mind control, beatings and sexual abuse.

One former assistant said, “It would rip your flesh… blood would splat everywhere.”

Another assistant told the I-Team his punishment included, “smacking the face, punching in the chest, whipping with a belt, whipping with an extension cord.” He and other assistants said Pastor Leonard sadistically grabbed their private parts.

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IRELAND
Catholic News Service

By Sarah MacDonald
Catholic News Service

DUBLIN (CNS) — The primate of All Ireland has said he will not resign despite criticism of his role in a 1975 canonical inquiry into a pedophile priest, Norbertine Father Brendan Smyth.

In a statement issued in Armagh, Northern Ireland, May 2, Cardinal Sean Brady defended his involvement in the inquiry and accused the BBC documentary “The World: The Shame of the Catholic Church” of making a number of claims that overstated and misrepresented his role.

He also highlighted that no state or church guidelines existed in the 1970s in the Irish Republic to assist those responding to an allegation of abuse against a minor.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Fox 40

Sam Cohen
FOX40 News

STOCKTON—
A convicted pedophile, and former Catholic priest in the Stockton Diocese, is facing more allegations of sexual abuse.

Bishop Stephen Blaire released a statement Wednesday, stating the Diocese just learned of a civil complaint filed against Oliver O’Grady.

O’Grady was a priest at St. Andrew’s Parish in San Andreas in 1992, when the suit alleges the abuse happened.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

ANALYSIS: It is not the case that a canon lawyer and church notary in such an inquiry played only a minor or purely administrative role, writes PATSY McGARRY

IT JUST gets curiouser and curiouser. Just what was Cardinal (then Fr) Seán Brady’s role when he attended that inquiry with two other priests and 14-year-old Brendan Boland at the Dominican friary in Dundalk on March 29th, 1975?

According to a statement from the Catholic Communications Office, issued on March 16th, 2010, he was there “to conduct a canonical inquiry into an allegation of child sexual abuse which was made by a boy in Dundalk, concerning a Norbertine priest, Fr Brendan Smyth.”

In case there might be doubt, this was repeated in the very next sentences of that statement. It said that “because he held a doctorate in canon law, Fr Brady was asked to conduct this canonical inquiry”. So we were told twice by the communications office on March 16th, 2010, that Fr Brady’s role was “to conduct” this canonical inquiry.

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UNITED STATES
NECN

(NECN) – New developments have occurred in the on-going story of fallout from sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church.

In Philadelphia, the focus is on a trial of an accused priest and his supervisor, a monsignor. If the verdict comes back as guilty, it will mark the first time that the priest abuse convictions have reached the Catholic Church hierarchy.

In Boston, the top Jesuit official in the U.S. is under a shadow after resigning from the board of Boston College and several other schools because of his failure to supervise a priest who was abusing children.

Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org joins Broadside to weigh in on these latest developments.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Wall Street Journal

By JOHN W. MILLER

The Archbishop of Philadelphia met with hundreds of priests in a closed-door session Wednesday to discuss 27 suspended clerics under investigation for alleged sexual abuse or other misconduct, but didn’t disclose whether some or all of the suspended priests would return to active ministry.

A spokesman for Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said a final determination about the priests in question is still expected “in the first months of 2012.”

The turmoil surrounding the nation’s sixth largest archdiocese, with 500 priests and 1.5 million members, has become a symbol of the church’s struggles with child sex-abuse because it has dragged on for almost a decade and because it is the first case in which a church official faces criminal charges for covering up alleged abuse.

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IRELAND
Scotsman

Published on Thursday 3 May 2012

The leader of Ireland’s four million Catholics has said he will not resign after a documentary accused him of helping to cover up 1970s child abuse by a priest who went on to assault scores of other children.

Cardinal Sean Brady said the BBC documentary, broadcast in Northern Ireland on Tuesday, exaggerated his role in his 1975 interviews of two teenage boys abused by priest Brendan Smyth.

The clergyman yesterday said he gave his report as instructed to his bishop, who should have told Smyth’s religious order leaders. They, not he, had the power to act and failed to do so, he said.

“I feel betrayed that those who had the authority in the church to stop Brendan Smyth failed to act on the evidence I gave them. However, I also accept that I was part of an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society, and the church, which thankfully is now a thing of the past,” Cardinal Brady said.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Gary V. Murray TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
gmurray@telegram.com

WORCESTER — A prosecution witness testified today about a conversation she had in late 2010 with the woman who has accused the Rev. Charles Michael Abdelahad of physically abusing and sexually assaulting her during counseling sessions.

Mary Ann Kourey, a member of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral on Anna Street and the church’s former school director, said the woman approached her on a Sunday morning at the church in the fall of 2010 and asked to speak with her privately.

During the discussion that followed in Rev. Abdelahad’s office, the crying woman related to her that she had been beaten by Rev. Abdelahad during counseling sessions aimed at treating the woman’s eating disorder, according to Ms. Kourey.

Ms. Kourey testified that the woman also told her the priest, now on a leave of absence from his role as pastor, had bitten her, pulled her hair, struck her head against a wall and forced her to sit naked on his office floor “for obedience reasons.”

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STOCKTON (CA)
News 10

[with video]

Written by
Jonathan Mumm

STOCKTON, CA – His case was notorious, not just because of the sexual abuse he was convicted of, but because of his willingness to talk about his actions, both in a legal deposition and in a documentary film called Deliver Us From Evil.

Oliver O’Grady was convicted in 1993 of molesting two young brothers in Calaveras County and spent six years in prison. Upon his release, he was deported to Ireland, where he is once again behind bars, this time for possessing child pornography.

Now, a 25-year-old man is filing a lawsuit, claiming at the age of five he suffered sexual abuse from the defrocked priest.

Representatives of the group SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, gathered in front of the Diocese of Stockton building on San Joaquin Street in Stockton Wednesday to announce the filing of the lawsuit.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Main Line

UPDATE: Archbishop Charles Chaput will address the status of 23 suspended priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia during a Friday press conference, according to one Delaware County priest who attended this afternoon’s meeting at Cardinal O’Hara High School.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Hundreds of Roman Catholic priests have been called to a sudden meeting in Delaware County with their archbishop, as 23 priests suspended over sex-abuse allegations await their fate.

At the conclusion of the meet at Cardinal O’Hara High School, the priests filed out without commenting on what took place. It’s still not clear if they learned the fate of 23 suspended colleagues.

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CALIFORNIA
The Oakland Tribune

By Tracey Kaplan tkaplan@mercurynews.comcontracostatimes.com
Posted: 05/02/2012

The San Francisco man accused of beating up an elderly Los Gatos priest he says molested him when he was a child was not a berserk vigilante hellbent on revenge.

Instead, his lawyer asserts, Will Lynch suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and acted out of self-defense during a confrontation with the priest he contends physically tortured him and forced him to have sex with his brother more than three decades ago.

In a closely watched assault case, that ambitious defense will be used by Lynch’s attorneys to defend him against charges involving the Rev. Jerold Lindner, whom the Jesuits have acknowledged is on a list of molesters living at the Sacred Heart retirement and medical center in Los Gatos.

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IRELAND
BBC News

A victim of Ireland’s most notorious paedophile priest has said the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, should resign.

Brendan Boland was responding to a BBC This World programme which found Cardinal Brady failed to pass details of sex abuse to police or parents.

It found that in 1975, Cardinal Brady had the names and address of children being abused by Fr Brendan Smyth.

Smyth, a paedophile, continued to attack children for a further 13 years.

Cardinal Brady claimed the BBC exaggerated his authority at that time. He said he had “absolutely no authority over Smyth” and had felt betrayed that those in the Church who had the power to stop Smyth did not do so.

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STOCKTON (CA)
The Modesto Bee

Bee Staff Reports
local@modbee.com

Another civil lawsuit has been filed against the Stockton Diocese alleging sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, this time on behalf of a 25-year-old man who says he was molested by Oliver O’Grady in the early 1980s.

According to the complaint, filed Monday in San Joaquin Superior Court, the abuse happened in 1992 when the plaintiff was 5 to 6 years old and O’Grady was a priest at St. Andrew’s Parish in San Andreas. O’Grady was arrested there a year later and convicted of molesting two boys. He was deported to Ireland after his release in 2000, and has since been named in many lawsuits, including one pending in Stanislaus County.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
and David O’Reilly

Signaling an end to an investigation that stretched past a year, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput on Friday will announce the fates of parish priests suspended over allegations that they sexually abused or acted inappropriately around minors.

At least a dozen of the 27 affected priests are scheduled to learn the outcome of their cases in private meetings with Chaput on Thursday and Friday, according to a source familiar with the process but not authorized to publicly discuss it.

Insiders predict that only a few of those priests will be cleared of wrongdoing and restored to ministry, the source said. The ones who are not reinstated could be defrocked or choose to remain priests under a supervised life of prayer and penance.

The archbishop will disclose his decisions at a 2 p.m. news conference Friday at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Center City headquarters, church officials confirmed.

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STOCKTON (CA)
The Record

By Jennie Rodriguez-Moore
Record Staff Writer

May 03, 2012

STOCKTON – A new child sex-abuse lawsuit has been filed against the Catholic Diocese of Stockton and its highest-ranking official, Bishop Stephen Blaire, alleging abuse in 1992 by defrocked priest Oliver O’Grady.

Blaire became Stockton bishop in 1999.

An unidentified 25-year-old plaintiff was molested by the notorious O’Grady when he was 5 years old, according to the complaint. In 1992, O’Grady was assigned to St. Andrew’s Parish in San Andreas.

Blaire said he shared the complaint with Calaveras County law enforcement after obtaining a copy of court documents Wednesday.

Consultant Patrick Wall, a member of the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, announced the civil action in front of the diocese’s pastoral center at San Joaquin and Channel streets.

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IRELAND
TV3

Cardinal Sean Brady is coming under increasing pressure to stand down following allegations that he failed to report clerical child sexual abuse in the 1970’s.

Several groups who work with victims – including the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse, have called for his resignation.

A BBC documentary claimed that Cardinal Brady knew of children who were at risk of abuse by paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth, but failed to pass on the information.

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SPRINGFIELD (PA)
The New York Times

By JON HURDLE

Published: May 2, 2012

SPRINGFIELD, Pa. — Several hundred Roman Catholic priests from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia gathered Wednesday for a closed-door meeting with Archbishop Charles J. Chaput days before he has said he hopes to announce the results of an investigation into claims of sexual abuse against 27 priests.

Church officials declined to disclose the topic of Wednesday’s meeting at a Catholic high school in suburban Philadelphia, and priests said beforehand that they had not been told what would be discussed. But the archbishop scheduled an announcement for Friday afternoon.

Priests made no comment to reporters after the 90-minute meeting.

The meeting prompted speculation that the archbishop would announce whether the priests would be allowed to remain in ministry after being placed on administrative leave early last year.

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IERLAND
Nieuws (Nederland)

(Novum/AP) – DUBLIN – Het hoofd van de katholieke kerk in Ierland, kardinaal Sean Brady, treedt niet af. Dat heeft hij woensdag gezegd. Brady wordt er in een BBC-documentaire van beticht kindermisbruik dat in de jaren zeventig werd begaan door een pedofiele priester te hebben verdoezeld. Brady zei dat zijn rol bij het schandaal in de documentaire wordt overdreven.

Brady interviewde in 1975 twee jongens die waren misbruikt door een katholieke priester, Brendan Smyth. Volgens Brady heeft hij zijn rapport dat hij opstelde naar aanleiding van de interviews doorgespeeld aan zijn bisschop, die op zijn beurt de leidinggevenden van Smyth had moeten inlichten. “Ik voel me verraden dat diegenen die de leiding hadden binnen de kerk Brendan Smyth niet hebben gestopt met behulp van het bewijs dat ik ze gaf”, aldus Brady. “Ik zie echter in dat ik deel uitmaakte van een cultuur van eerbied en zwijgzaamheid in de samenleving en de kerk. Die cultuur behoort nu gelukkig tot het verleden.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Wheeling-CharlestonTruth.org

For immediate release: Wednesday, May 2

Statement by Barbara Dorris, SNAP Outreach Director (314.862.7688, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

Soon Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput will disclose the status of perhaps dozens of accused child molesting clerics. No matter what he specifically announces, we remain highly skeptical of church abuse processes.

We also believe that Chaput has recklessly kept kids in harm’s way by sitting on most of these decisions for months. At the outset, we said that citizens and Catholics need and deserve to know as soon as possible whether church officials consider each allegation credible. And we predicted that for public relations reasons, Chaput would wait and announce all the decision at once. How will he and his lawyers and staff feel if it turns out that a child was sexually assaulted by one of these clerics while Chaput delayed announcing that he was credibly accused’

(Chaput’s claim that to announce his decision about these priests might violate a court gag order is spurious.)

We’re skeptical because the so-called “reforms” made in Philly in recent months are virtually identical to the so-called reforms made by bishops across the US in 2002. Given the church hierarchy’s continuing horrific track record on abuse, we just can’t be reassured by or give real credence to the workings or findings of internal church abuse proceedings.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
WCF Courier

By DENNIS MAGEE, dennis.magee@wcfcourier.com | Posted: Wednesday, May 2, 2012

ST. LOUIS — Add the Archdiocese of St. Louis to the list of Roman Catholic organizations to warn its faithful about Ryan St. Anne Scott.

Officials issued a statement in mid-April about the alleged monk’s activities, citing concerns raised by the Diocese of Tucson in Arizona and the Diocese of La Crosse in Wisconsin.

In its warning, church officials noted Scott “has claimed at various times to be a priest, a bishop, a religious brother and an abbot and has variously identified himself as Ryan Patrick Scott, Randell Dean Stocks, Randell Dean, Ryan St. Ann, Brother Damien of St. Ann, Bishop Ryan Scott, Most Rev. and Lord Abbot Ryan St. Anne Scott and Ryan St. Anne Scott.”

Scott and his small band of followers lived briefly in the former Buchanan County home near Independence. Facing eviction, though, the group abandoned the property in January.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

What Cardinal Seán Brady previously said about “resigning”:

In December 2009 in the wake of the publication of the Murphy Report into child abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin, Cardinal Seán Brady was interviewed by RTÉ’s Northern editor Tommie Gorman:

Gorman asked: “If you personally – and let’s boil it down to how you personally would react – if you personally were made aware that through your lack of management skills or through other deficiencies that children had been abused because of that – that you had contributed in any way to that situation – what would you personally do?”

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

CAROL COULTER, Legal Affairs Editor

LAST WEEK Minister for Justice Alan Shatter published the Criminal Justice (Withholding of Information on Offences Against Children and Vulnerable Adults) Bill.

This creates a criminal offence of withholding information in relation to serious offences, including sexual offences, committed against a child or vulnerable person.

The Bill will make it mandatory for a person who has or receives such information to pass it on to the Garda, except in certain limited circumstances, including when the child requests the person not to.

In announcing the Bill the Minister said: “The primary purpose of this Bill is to close an existing loophole in our current law.”

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

GENEVIEVE CARBERY

FERGUS FINLAY: BARNARDOS CHIEF executive Fergus Finlay yesterday spoke about his own childhood physical and sexual abuse by a religious brother.

Mr Finlay said he had not set out to make “a revelation” but was tired of listening to the excuse that the culture had changed.

The head of the children’s charity was speaking in relation to Cardinal Brady’s response to the BBC documentary on the church’s handing of clerical sex abuse allegations.

“It is a complete myth to suggest that everything is excusable on the basis that the culture somehow changed. There has never been a time that abuse wasn’t abuse,” he said on Newstalk radio. “I was sexually abused in 1961 and I was physically abused in 1963; I was 11 and 13 respectively at the time.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW in Rome

VATICAN RESPONSE: SENIOR FIGURES in the Holy See yesterday were forthright in their defence of Cardinal Brady, rejecting calls for his resignation and arguing that he had acted correctly in 1975 when he took information from clerical sex abuse victim Brendan Boland.

Senior Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, referred The Irish Times to the statement issued yesterday by Cardinal Brady. In particular, he highlighted a statement made by the Vatican’s chief prosecutor, Msgr Charles Scicluna, to the makers of the BBC documentary, which was itself contained in Cardinal Brady’s statement.

In his statement Msgr Scicluna said that Fr Brady, now Cardinal Brady, “acted promptly and with determination to ensure the allegations being made by the children were believed and acted upon by his superiors”.

In his statement yesterday, Cardinal Brady said the above statement by Msgr Scicluna was made to the BBC Northern Ireland team six weeks before the broadcast of the programme but was “not acknowledged by them in any way”.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

VICTIMS’ RESPONSE: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has called on the PSNI to investigate whether there was a cover-up of criminal acts of child abuse in Northern Ireland in light of the BBC’s This Week documentary.

Amnesty has asked the PSNI “to investigate whether church officials and others failed to report the alleged criminal offences against children in Northern Ireland to the relevant authorities in Northern Ireland”.

Failure to report a crime is an offence under section 5 of the Criminal Law (Northern Ireland) Act 1967.

No such legislation existed in the Republic in 1975, when the church abuse inquiries dealt with in the programme took place.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor and CHARLIE TAYLOR

THE CATHOLIC primate, Cardinal Seán Brady, has said he is not contemplating resignation as a result of criticisms over how he handled sex abuse allegations against the paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth.

He said he would not stand down as primate following a BBC documentary that revealed how, in 1975, when he was a priest in the diocese of Kilmore, he was given the names and addresses of children who were abused by the serial child sex abuser Smyth.

This information, received from a Co Louth boy, Brendan Boland, who had been abused by Smyth, was not passed on to the parents of these children or to the Garda or police in the North.

Cardinal Brady, in an interview with The Irish Times yesterday and in comments to RTÉ, said he would not be resigning despite calls from a number of victims of abuse for him to stand down.

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MISSOURI
Portfolio

Cara McClain

Bishop Robert Finn reached out to the members of the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph as part of his annual request for charitable donations in November, one month after a Jackson County grand jury indicted him for failing to report a priest for child sexual abuse. In light of this, Finn’s staff has acknowledged that the scandal complicated the task of raising funds.

The request for donations is also known as the bishop’s annual appeal. Members of the diocese donated money with a goal of raising $2,150,000 to support various ministries within the diocese. While the appeal formally ended Dec. 11, parishes are still accepting donations.

Finn will dedicate the Chapel of St. Joseph on STA’s campus Feb. 2.

In the light of Finn’s indictment, many members were deliberating whether or not to donate to his appeal this year.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Republic

MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated Press
First Posted: May 02, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — Hundreds of Roman Catholic priests met Wednesday with their archbishop in suburban Philadelphia, but it’s not clear if they learned the fate of 23 colleagues suspended over child sex-abuse accusations.

The region’s 1.5 million Catholics await word on parish priests suspended after a second grand jury report last year again accused the archdiocese of leaving suspected predators in ministry. A former church official is now on trial for allegedly doing just that.

The archdiocese offered no immediate comment on the hastily called meeting Wednesday with Archbishop Charles Chaput, but scheduled a news conference for Friday. A gag order in the criminal trial has largely prevented the archdiocese from commenting this year on sex-abuse allegations.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

GERRY MORIARTY, DÉAGLÁN de BRÉADÚN and PATSY McGARRY

CARDINAL SEÁN Brady has criticised elements of a BBC documentary about clerical child sex abuse and complained that it “deliberately exaggerated” his role as a member of a 1975 church inquiry team charged with establishing the accuracy of abuse allegations.

The Catholic primate said he would not be standing down over the issue but acknowledged: “I was part of an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society, and the church, which thankfully is now a thing of the past.”

Asked about the controversy, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said it was a personal matter for Cardinal Brady to “reflect on the outcome of the programme”.

Of the revelations, he said: “That’s why we published the legislation for child guidelines to be put in law. That’s why we make preparations for a referendum in respect of the protection of rights of children.

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SPRINGFIELD (PA)
WPVI

[with video]

SPRINGFIELD, Pa. – May 2, 2012 (WPVI) — Philadelphia archbishop Charles Chaput will hold a news conference on Friday, presumably to announce the fate of nearly 2 dozen priests suspended in the wake of the child sex abuse scandal.

Chaput just wrapped up an emergency meeting with hundreds of priests at Cardinal O’Hara High School in Springfield, Delaware County.

The Philadelphia Archdiocese would not make an official comment about what was being discussed at the meeting.

The accused priests were put on administrative leave in February following a grand jury report claiming the archdiocese allowed priests accused of misconduct to remain at their posts.

Action News spoke by phone with two of the suspended priests, and they said they had not yet been told about the plans for their futures, if any, with the church.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

May. 02, 2012
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Recent Vatican investigations of religious women have created opportunities for growth through reflection and for dialogue with their bishops, two U.S. bishops said after discussing the matter with Vatican officials.

Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe, N.M., and Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., told Catholic News Service May 2 that they had discussed the Vatican visitation of U.S. communities of religious women and the more recent order to reform the Leadership Conference of Women Religious earlier the same day with officials from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

Archbishop Sheehan said that during the meeting, attended by bishops from Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming, who were making their “ad limina” visits to the Vatican, “the point that was made was that although some people were unhappy with the decision to make corrections” in the LCWR, it would be “an opportunity for dialogue” between the religious and the bishops.

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CANADA
National Catholic Reporter

by Isabella R. Moyer on May. 02, 2012 NCR Today

I received an email this morning from a friend in Ireland. She was spitting mad after watching the BBC’s “This World” last night. The program claimed that in 1975, Cardinal Seán Brady, the current primate of Ireland, had names and addresses of those being abused by Fr. Brendan Smyth but did not share these with either police or parents.

Brady was quick to issue a statement in his defence. While it contained a few sentences of sadness and regret, the bulk of the statement focused on deflecting the blame to others. His rationale included the fact that the present guidelines for reporting sexual abuse were not in place at the time. And even if they were, he would not have been considered a “designated person” according to present state guidelines and therefore not obligated to notify the legal authorities.

Here in Canada, the Western Catholic Reporter published a story this week called “Abuse crisis needs more talk.” Sr. Nuala Kenny is a pediatrician and was a member of the five-member commission that examined sexual abuse at the Mount Cashel Orphanage and in the St. John’s, Newfoundland, archdiocese in the late 1980s. She also helped develop the guidelines approved by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1992. These were the first national church guidelines in the world to deal with clergy sexual abuse.

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MALAYA
Malaya Business Insight

Published on Wednesday, 02 May 2012

Written by ALBERTO G. ROMUALDEZ .

‘Debates in Congress are generally informed by myths. For example, the reproductive health myth is that all “morning-after” pills are abortifacient.’

THE Talibanic tendencies of conservative Catholic bishops were recently affirmed by the Vatican when it effectively placed the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) under the supervision and control of an “Archbishop Delegate” assisted by two other bishops representing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The LCWR is the largest organization of women religious leaders in the United States with members comprising the representatives of over 80 percent of American Catholic nuns. Just like their Islamic Afghan counterparts, the American bishops are out to suppress the rights of women religious leaders to participate in serious religious discussions.

The Vatican action was taken after years of, sometimes acrimonious, disputes between bishops and the LCWR concerning administrative, doctrinal, and spiritual issues specially the distinction between social involvement and the need to preach correct doctrine. It came on the recommendation of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in its “Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR”, submitted to the Pope (himself a former head of the Congregation) early this year.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN • vhahn@post-dispatch.com

An outstate Missouri man has sued the Archdiocese of St. Louis, claiming he was molested by a priest decades ago.

Girard Wipke, of Auxvasse, Mo., sued the church in St. Louis Circuit Court earlier this week. He claims the Rev. Thomas Graham sexually assaulted him twice in 1966 when Wipke was in seventh grade.

The suit claims the church knew Graham had assaulted others before and after the alleged assaults on Wipke but the church did nothing about it.

In 2006, the Missouri Supreme Court overturned a sodomy conviction of Graham in another case, for which Graham had maintained his innocence. He had been convicted for allegedly engaging in oral sex with a teenager at the Old Cathedral downtown in the 1970s.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

. .Judge Lawrence Perlmuter will decide whether Thomas Marvin Hill violated his probation by moving to Richmond Heights from Chesterfield after a 2003 child abuse conviction. Hill was charged last week with molesting two more kids but news accounts omitted mention of his former job as dean of Gateway Academy, a school once run by the controversial and ultra conservative Legion of Christ. .

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

It is very timely that on the first year anniversary of Opus Dei Golden Cow Blessed John Paul II, revelations have hit Ireland that Cardinal Brady, the Catholic primate of all-Ireland failed to protect children from sexual abuse by a paedophile priest and he is being asked to resign…just like Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law who confessed in public to transferring 80 pedophile priests from one parish to another but John Paul II did not bother to meet any of these pedophile priests or their victims. Cardinal Law resigned as Archbishop of Boston but John Paul II papal farted at us Bostonians by taking him to glorify him in Rome. That is why Blessed John Paul II is the Patron Saint of Pedophiles, Pederasts Rapists-Priests. With Cardinal Brady at its head, Ireland is like the vast Catholic Church with Benedict Ratzinger & Marcial Maciel who are 2 criminal heads of the Mystical Body and Legion of Christ

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IRELAND
Telegraph (United Kingdom)

By Damian Thompson

10:02PM BST 02 May 2012

Paedophiles are cunning. It’s one of those things we’re always told but doesn’t sink in – until we’re confronted by the sort of detail revealed in last night’s BBC Two documentary This World: The Shame of the Catholic Church. Father Eugene Greene of Donegal liked to fiddle with altar boys, and he knew how to go about it. He’d invite one of them to drive his car. That’s pretty exciting when you’re 12 years old – and an honour, too, given that it’s Father’s car. “Both hands on the wheel!” said the priest. And then he’d reach over. I don’t think I need say any more.

There have been so many television exposés of Catholic clerical paedophilia that diminishing returns set in. Like doctors desensitised to suffering because it follows predictable patterns, we get used to the sight of middle-aged men choking back tears as they describe the residue of anger and shame left by their clerical abusers. That we’ve witnessed variants of this scene so often is, in itself, evidence of the depth and breadth of the Church’s paedophile undergrowth during the heyday of the abuse (at least of the abuse we know about), in the 1970s and 80s.

In the 21st century it takes an extremely well-made programme or one containing important new information to produce the degree of shock these crimes merit. The Shame of the Catholic Church ticked both boxes. In fact, what it told us about Cardinal Seán Brady, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, leaves us in little doubt that his position is hopelessly compromised.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily News

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Hundreds of Roman Catholic priests have been called to a sudden meeting in Delaware County with their archbishop, as 23 priests suspended over sex-abuse allegations await their fate.

Archbishop Charles Chaput (SHAP’-yoo) has said he hoped to announce the outcome of the latest priest-abuse investigations this spring.

The priests were suspended after a February 2011 grand jury report alleged that accused predators were still active in Philadelphia, despite a zero-tolerance policy among U.S. bishops.

The meeting is being held at Cardinal O’Hara High School in Marple — while a former official of the archdiocese is on trial downtown.

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IRELAND
Donegal Democrat

Published on Wednesday 2 May 2012

The extensive abuse of children in west Donegal by Father Eugene Greene was dealt with in an explosive documentary aired last night by the BBC.

The programme, “The shame of the Catholic Church” outlined how decades of clerical abuse and cover up left the Catholic Church in Ireland at breaking point.

Investigative journalist, Darragh MacIntyre, made claims on the programme in relation to Cardinal Sean Brady, the Primate of All Ireland, which have stunned the public.

The programme claimed that Cardinal Brady had the names and addresses of children who were being abused or were at risk of being abused by Ireland’s most notorious paedophile, Fr Brendan Smyth, but failed to ensure that they were protected.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Thomas C. Fox on May. 01, 2012

COMMENTARY

Some of our bishops are acting like bullies, abusing the authority of their offices in the name of enforcing orthodoxy.

Dealing with U.S. women religious, these bishops’ actions appear governed more by a desire to enforce obedience than to develop fidelity in our sisters.

Catholics see through this guise. They are upset, fed up with the likes of this behavior. They are speaking out. Soon they will be on the streets making their voices heard. You can count on it.

What the bully bishops claim to be matters of orthodoxy are really matters of pastoral style. They are the results of an unwillingness among our bishops to enter into sincere and mutually repectful dialogue with the women. None of the issues at hand has anything to do with the Creed. They stem from the actions of a small group of misdirected and fearful men determined to take catholic out of Catholic while judging, silencing and demeaning those who stand in their way.

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AUSTRALIA
Newscastle Herald

JOANNE MCCARTHY

03 May, 2012

A CATHOLIC priest shook his head and his family wept yesterday as a jury found him guilty of 23 lurid child sex offences.

A Sydney District Court jury took nearly two days to find the priest guilty of all 23 counts of indecent or sexual assault against boys as young as eight years old in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The priest, who cannot be named for legal reasons, shook his head in denial until he was led from the court for his first night in jail.

His parents and sisters, who had attended every day of the five-week trial, left the court in tears.

A man who was closely associated with the case was also in tears yesterday as he praised the efforts of investigating police.

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IRELAND
The Journal

BARNARDOS CEO FERGUS Finlay has revealed that he is a survivor of child abuse.

Finlay, a long-standing advocate of the rights of children, said that he had been both sexually and physically abused while a child in the early Sixties.

He was commenting amid ongoing controversy over the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady’s role in interviewing a victim of paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth during the 1970s.

Speaking on Newstalk’s The Right Hook, Finlay rejected the suggestion that Brady might have been prevented from acting on his knowledge of the abuse allegations because a different culture existed in Ireland when the interview took place.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Stern

Frau zu Guttenberg, in Deutschland wurde in den vergangenen Wochen viel über den Sexualmord an einer Elfjährigen aus Emden diskutiert. Ihre Kinder sind im gleichen Alter wie dieses Mädchen. Reden Sie mit Ihnen darüber?

Ich habe hier in den USA von diesem Fall nur wenig mitbekommen. Aber wenn hier in den Staaten ähnliche Sachen geschehen und meine Kinder das über die Nachrichten hören, muss man mit ihnen darüber reden. Präventive Erziehung ist ganz wichtig. Man muss Kindern ein Rüstzeug an die Hand geben, damit sie sich wehren können und wissen, wo ihre Rechte sind.

Wie meinen Sie das konkret?
Wir müssen unseren Kindern beständig beibringen, dass sie nein sagen können wenn es um sie geht, vor allem um den eigenen Körper. Man muss gebetsmühlenartig wiederholen, dass niemand sie zum Austausch von Zärtlichkeiten zwingen darf. Das fängt schon ganz harmlos dort an, wenn der alte Onkel dem Kind zum Abschied einen Kuss geben will, das Kind ihn aber nicht mag oder findet, dass er übel riecht.

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IRLAND
kath.net

Gesetzesvorschlag: Fünf Jahre Haft für alle, die Informationen über Kindesmissbrauch – und seien sie aus der Beichte – nicht der Polizei weiterleiten

Dublin (kath.net/LifeSiteNews.com) Der irische Justizminister Alan Shatter hat einen Gesetzesentwurf eingebracht, der beinhaltet, Priester mit einer fünfjährigen Gefängnisstrafe zu belegen, wenn sie zu Fällen von sexuellem Kindesmissbrauch, von denen sie in der Beichte erfahren, nicht vor der Polizei aussagen.

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IRLAND
Der Westen (Deutschland)

Der Kardinal der katholischen Kirche in Irland hat einen Rücktritt nach Ausstrahlung einer BBC-Dokumentation über seinen umstrittenen Umgang mit der Vertuschung von jahrzehntelangem Kindesmissbrauch durch einen Priester ausgeschlossen. Der Film habe seine Rolle bei der Befragung zweier missbrauchter Jungen im Jahr 1975 übertrieben dargestellt, sagte Sean Brady.

Dublin (dapd). Der Kardinal der katholischen Kirche in Irland hat einen Rücktritt nach Ausstrahlung einer BBC-Dokumentation über seinen umstrittenen Umgang mit der Vertuschung von jahrzehntelangem Kindesmissbrauch durch einen Priester ausgeschlossen. Der Film habe seine Rolle bei der Befragung zweier missbrauchter Jungen im Jahr 1975 übertrieben dargestellt, sagte Sean Brady.

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OSTERREICH
betroffen

Trotz bekannter Missbrauchsfälle durfte ein Pater mehrere Jahre am Gymnasium unterrichten. Kloster und Schulbehörde zeigten nicht an

Bregenz – Eintragungen über einen Missbrauchsfall verschwinden aus dem Personalakt, ein Gerichtsakt ist zwar in aller Munde, aber keiner hat ihn gesehen. Die Schadenersatzprozesse gegen das Kloster Mehrerau werfen immer mehr Fragen auf. Etwa jene, ob die Schulbehörde informiert wurde. Schließlich sind lehrende Patres des Privatgymnasiums mit Öffentlichkeitsrecht Gehaltsempfänger des Landesschulrats.
Pater Johannes, der seine pädophile Neigung und mehrere Übergriffe auf Schüler 2004 bei Polizeieinvernahmen eingestand, unterrichtete im katholischen Elitegymnasium Biologie und Chemie, obwohl er das Studium nie abgeschlossen hatte und obwohl sexuelle Übergriffe und seine Neigung zu körperlicher Gewalt seit 1967 bekannt waren. 1981 wurde er sogar zum Regens, Leiter des Internats, bestellt.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on May. 02, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — For a long time it was Opus Dei, and then, even before massive sex scandals exploded around their founder, it was the Legionaries of Christ. Today, at least in Italy, it now seems Communion and Liberation’s turn to be the conservative Catholic group generating the most controversy, the sexiest news headlines, and the greatest volume of conspiracy theories.

That’s likely a special source of heartburn for Pope Benedict XVI, for whom Communion and Liberation has always been his personal favorite among the new movements in the Catholic church.

It’s also a colossal case of bad timing, since a beatification cause for the group’s founder, the late Italian Fr. Luigi Giussani, was recently opened and endorsed by the bishops of Lombardy, the region where the cause is based.

Want an index of how hot the spotlight has been?

Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan, widely seen as a leading candidate to be the next pope and someone with a background in Communion and Liberation, obviously now feels compelled to distance himself. Scola told a group of reporters on April 26: “What do I know about Communion and Liberation? I deal with the church of God. If you want to know something about Communion and Liberation, go ask them.”

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BROOKLYN (NY)
Catholic News Agency

Brooklyn, N.Y., May 2, 2012 / 11:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI has named two new auxiliary bishops for the Diocese of Brooklyn, the apostolic nuncio to the U.S. announced May 2.

The bishops-designate are Msgr. Raymond Chappetto, 66, and Msgr. Paul Sanchez, 65.

“These two men are among the most respected priests in the Diocese of Brooklyn.” Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn said. “Fundamentally, they are parish priests at heart. Each is very attentive to the diverse needs of the people they serve.”

“I am also grateful for their assistance in my ministry as bishop.” The two future bishops also “consistently offer wise counsel and advice that has been indispensable in the administration of the diocese,” Bishop DiMarzio said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Washington Post

Trial evidence: Philadelphia-area pastor punished for raising concerns about predator priest

By Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — A jury in a Philadelphia clergy-abuse trial has heard about a pastor who was censured for raising concerns about a priest assigned to his parish.

Documents show the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua vowed not to tolerate “even the appearance of disobedience” from the pastor.

Monsignor Michael Picard was punished for complaining when the priest was assigned to his Newtown, Pa., parish in 1996. In disciplinary meetings with the cardinal, Picard said he had heard disturbing information about the priest.

Prosecutors say the subject of Picard’s concern was sent elsewhere. In 2005, the priest was accused of sexually assaulting a minor in 1982. The priest died in 2006.

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IRELAND
BBC News

The Catholic primate of all-Ireland has said that he will not resign as Church leader despite revelations in the BBC’s This World show.

It found Cardinal Sean Brady had names and addresses of those being abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

However, he did not pass on those details to police or parents.

Cardinal Brady said he accepted he was part of “an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society, and the Church”.

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IRELAND
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

‘Did you ever do anything like this before?’: Victim of child abusing priest tells of secret church investigation by Cardinal which swore him to silence

The leader of Ireland’s 4 million Catholics, Cardinal Sean Brady, is under renewed pressure after he was accused of failing to act on child abuse by a notorious paedophile priest in the 1970s.

Brady has already admitted he took notes of two children’s testimony of abuse in 1975 and gave the report to his bishop, not the police.

One of those children, now an adult, told the BBC he also alerted Brady to other children being abused by the same priest, Father Brendan Smyth, but Brady did not warn their parents of the danger.

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UNITED STATES
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

One of Fr Brendan Smyth’s victims said today that Cardinal Sean Brady is a flawed man for not speaking out in the past against the paedophile priest.

Helen McGonigle – an Attorney based in Connecticut in the United States – suffered abuse at the hands of Brendan Smyth in the late 1960s in Rhode Island.

She’s calling on the Cardinal to resign and she believes he should face prosecution for not passing on the allegations he was aware of in 1975 to the civil authorities.

Ms McGonigle sais that Cardinal Brady failed in his duty.

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IRELAND
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

Mark Dooley

With each passing day, the crisis in the Irish Catholic Church grows deeper. In a BBC This World documentary screened on BBC Northern Ireland last night, it was claimed that, in 1975, the Catholic Primate of Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, failed to inform parents that their children were being abused by the notorious paedophile priest, Brendan Smyth. Here is how one Irish newspaper reported the incident this morning:

‘In last night’s programme, Brendan Boland, who was abused by Smyth as a 12-year-old, claimed that information he gave to a Catholic Church inquiry team, which included Cardinal Brady, was not passed on to parents of the victims of the paedophile priest. Mr Boland from County Louth recounted how two of these victims, a boy from Belfast and a boy from Cavan, continued to be abused by the priest after the inquiry group, which comprised three priests, completed its work. The programme expands on information disclosed in 2010 about how the information compiled by the canonical inquiry in 1975, to which Mr Boland gave evidence, was not passed on to gardaí [police]. That disclosure led to calls for Cardinal Brady to resign’.

In response, a spokesman for the Cardinal said that ‘even according to today’s State and Church guidelines, Fr Brady [as he then was] would not be the person with responsibility for making a report to the civil authorities. That responsibility at the time rested with the only people who had the authority to stop Brendan Smyth, namely the Abbot of his Monastery’.

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IRELAND
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 May 2012

The leader of the Catholic church in Ireland was under renewed pressure to step down after a television programme alleged that he failed to hand over a list of children being abused by the country’s most notorious paedophile priest to the victims’ parents or the police.

Cardinal Seán Brady faces fresh allegations that he failed to act after one of the victims gave him a list in 1975 of other children being abused by Father Brendan Smyth, who was convicted in 1994 of dozens of offences over a 40-year period.

While the Vatican appeared to be rallying around Brady, organisations representing the victims of clerical sex abuse in Ireland said these new allegations made his position untenable.

The Irish justice minister, Alan Shatter, described the testimony of an abuse victim who claimed to have handed over a list of names and addresses of victims to Brady as “tragic and disturbing”.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, has vowed to stay on as he attempted to distance himself from a secret inquiry into one of the country’s most dangerous paedophiles.

Even though he was part of the 1975 investigation into allegations Fr Brendan Smyth had attacked at least five children, the Cardinal blamed superiors for failing to stop the priest abusing children over the next 20 years.

Rejecting growing demands for his resignation, he declared: “There’s no cloaking over or brushing under the carpet.

“We’re not hiding behind procedures. There was no desire on my part to cover up, it was to make sure that this abuse stopped.”

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IRELAND
The Independent (United Kingdom)

Police urged to probe priest abuse claims following Cardinal Sean Brady’s resignation refusal

Steven McCaffery

Wednesday 02 May 2012

Police should investigate the latest child sex abuse allegations to hit the Catholic Church, Amnesty International has said.

The human rights group said the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) should see if information on abuse was not acted upon.

This comes after Catholic Primate Cardinal Sean Brady defended himself against criticism, insisting he had passed on details of abuse to Church authorities, and claimed others had failed to act as he expected.

Amnesty’s Northern Ireland programme director Patrick Corrigan said: “The protection of the rights of children is one of the most precious responsibilities carried by the state.

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IRELAND
The New York Times

By DOUGLAS DALBY

Published: May 2, 2012

DUBLIN — The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, said Wednesday that he would not resign despite new accusations that he failed 35 years ago to alert the parents of victims of a serial pedophile priest, allowing the abuse to continue for more than a decade.

The cardinal’s statement blamed other members of the church hierarchy for failing to act to halt the priest, Brendan Smyth.

“With others, I feel betrayed that those who had the authority in the Church to stop Brendan Smyth failed to act on the evidence I gave them,” Cardinal Brady said in his statement. “However, I also accept that I was part of an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society, and the Church, which thankfully is now a thing of the past.”

Cardinal Brady resisted calls to step down two years ago over his role in a 1975 church investigation, saying his role had been confined to taking notes in interviews with a child who said he and others were being sexually abused by the priest, Brendan Smyth, a teacher, canon lawyer and bishop’s secretary. The cardinal maintains that his notes had been passed on to his superiors and it had been up to them to deal with the matter, given that in 1975, he had no major role in the church and no authority over Father Smyth.

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VATICAN CITY
Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey)

VATICAN CITY – Agence France-Presse

The Vatican on Wednesday said it was taking direct control of the Catholic charity Caritas Internationalis, following criticism that it has not done enough to promote a Christian message.

A decree signed by Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone said the charity network would come under the direct control of his secretariat and the “Cor Unum” Council which is in charge of the Roman Catholic Church’s charity work.

It said an “ecclesiastical assistant” and a “support commission” would also be put in place to ensure “the distinctive identity” of Caritas, while three members of the executive board would be appointed directly by the pope.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 2 May 2012 (VIS) – Made public today was a General Decree concerning the renewed juridical framework of Caritas Internationalis. The document, which bears the signature of Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone S.D.B., was approved by the Holy Father on 27 April, and comes into force from the moment of its publication.

The publication of the decree is being accompanied by an explanatory text in English, written by Msgr. Osvaldo Neves de Almeida, excerpts from which are given below.

“In its sixty-one years of existence, Caritas Internationalis has always been a privileged instrument of the Church’s charitable activity. Drawing upon its long experience of this worthy institution, and in particular the developments of recent years, the Holy See has sought to update the juridical status of Caritas Internationalis, in order the better to support its activity in the context of the modern world”.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on May. 02, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — After moving last year to block the re-election of the first laywoman to head Caritas Internationalis, the Rome-based confederation of Catholic charitable agencies around the world, over an alleged “lack of coordination” with papal aides, the Vatican today imposed sweeping new rules that effectively tightens its control over Caritas’ finances and global operations.

Among other points, the rules require the top officials of Caritas to make promises of loyalty before a Vatican official, including “Christian obedience” to church leaders.

Aside from its direct importance for Catholic charities, today’s Vatican move is also interesting for the recently decreed overhaul of the Leadership Conference for Women Religious in the United States, the country’s main umbrella group for superiors of women’s orders.

Like LCWR, Caritas Internationalis is a juridical person under church law recognized by the Vatican. The new rules are thus a further indication that the Vatican is in earnest about tightening its grip over groups that enjoy official status and, in some sense, represent the church.

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MISSOURI
Patch

By Jean Whitney

A Chesterfield man arrested on child molestation charges April 16 is slated to go before a judge Tuesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court, to likely determine whether he violated probation of a 2003 conviction.

Thomas M. Hill, 56, was serving lifetime probation from a January 2003 conviction on first-degree statutory sodomy with a 10-year-old girl.

Hill was arrested anew April 16 on six counts of first-degree child molestation with a previous conviction. The latest charges relate to incidents dating from 2006 to 2010.

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