ABUSE TRACKER

NEDERLAND
Tubantia

HEEL – De dood van tientallen jongens in zwakzinnigeninstelling Sint Joseph in Heel wordt toegeschreven aan één man, broeder Andreas. De doden vielen tussen 1952-1954.

Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van Dagblad De Limburger/Limburgs Dagblad naar een van de grootste misstanden ooit binnen katholieke jeugdinstellingen. Het Openbaar Ministerie presenteert op korte termijn het resultaat van een eigen studie naar het extreme sterftecijfer en de rol van broeder Andreas.

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NEDERLAND
PowNed

De dood van tientallen zwakzinnige jongens, tussen 1952 en 1954 in de instelling Sint Joseph in Heel, wordt in zijn geheel toegeschreven aan broeder Andreas. Dit blijkt vandaag uit onderzoek van De Limburger. Het Openbaar Ministerie (OM) zal binnen korte termijn de resultaten van eigen onderzoek openbaren.

De ‘broeder des doods’ was in zijn eentje verantwoordelijk voor de verzorging van de zeer ernstig gehandicapte jongens. De kinderen waren tot niet meer in staat dan eten en slapen. De manier waarop hij de jongens om het leven bracht en de motieven van de broeder blijven onbekend.

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NEDERLAND
ND

HEEL – Het hoge sterftecijfer onder gehandicapte jongens in het rooms-katholieke internaat St. Joseph in Heel is toe te schrijven aan het werk van één broeder, Andreas.

Dat schrijft het regionale dagblad De Limburger op basis van eigen onderzoek dat vandaag is gepubliceerd. Onduidelijk is nog of deze broeder de zwaar gehandicapte kinderen actief om het leven bracht of dat hij ze aan hun lot overliet.De zaak naar de dood van 34 jongens onder de achttien jaar tussen 1952 en …

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NEDERLAND
NRC Handelsblad

door Joep Dohmen

Informatie over de mogelijke moord in de jaren vijftig op 34 zwakzinnige kinderen door een broeder in het katholieke gesticht Sint Joseph in het Limburgse Heel is in 1990 niet naar buiten gebracht.

De twee auteurs van een gedenkboek bij het tachtigjarig bestaan van Sint Joseph waren destijds in het archief van het bisdom Roermond informatie tegengekomen over de mysterieuze dood van de kinderen, waarvoor een broeder verantwoordelijk zou zijn. De door Sint Joseph ingehuurde auteurs hielden de gegevens echter achter omdat ze “niet bewezen” waren, zegt Phil Janssen uit Venlo die het boek schreef met Adri Gorissen, journalist van Dagblad De Limburger. Ze meldden het wel aan de directie van Sint Joseph, aldus Janssen. Die deed er niets mee.

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NEDERLAND
Limburgs Dagblad

[Summary: The death of dozens of boys in the St. Joseph mental institution is attributed to Brother Andreas. The deaths occurred 1952-1954. According to research by Dagblad De Limburger this is one of the great evils committed in a Catholic youth organization. By 1954, his religious order held him responsible for the high mortality rate and he was transferred. He later joined a Trappist order in Belgium.]

De dood van tientallen jongens in zwakzinnigeninstelling Sint Joseph in Heel wordt toegeschreven aan één man, broeder Andreas. De doden vielen tussen 1952-1954.

Heel

Door Paul Bots, Hans Goossen en Niki van der Naald

Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van deze krant naar een van de grootste misstanden ooit binnen katholieke jeugdinstellingen. Het Openbaar Ministerie presenteert op korte termijn het resultaat van een eigen studie naar het extreme sterftecijfer en de rol van broeder Andreas.

Onduidelijk is of de ‘broeder des doods’ de zeer ernstig gehandicapte jongens – al dan niet om hen verder lijden te besparen – actief om het leven bracht of dat hij ze aan hun lot overliet. De in 1917 in Brunssum geboren broeder werkte in Heel met de groep ernstigst gehandicapte kinderen die niet meer konden dan eten en slapen. Hulp bij de behandeling kreeg hij niet.

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CANADA
The StarPhoenix

By Jeremy Warren, The StarPhoenix
June 25, 2012

There are survivors of residential schools and then there are their descendants, who often survived their own abuse and social problems that are the system’s legacy, said several people testifying at the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission event in Saskatoon.

Former residential school students gave public testimonies about their experiences alongside younger generations of aboriginal people who told their own stories of surviving dysfunctional families and social struggles. The “inter-generational effects,” as people called them, have done as much harm as residential schools, the commission heard during the four-day event.

Marcia Mirasty testified at Saturday’s commissioners’ sharing panel with her mother, a residential school survivor. The Flying Dust First Nation health director talked about family violence and neglect, sexual and substance abuse and other health problems that survivors and their families have faced.

“We have a generation of parents who don’t know how to parent,” Mirasty said after her testimony. “A lot of parenting skills were broken.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The 21st Century American Catholic

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Yesterday, a church official was convicted of the crime of endangering children. Msgr. William Lynn, of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, can serve from 3-l/2 to 7 years in prison.

The archdiocese released a statement apologizing to the victims and then saying that from now on they will work to make the church safe for all people. I don’t believe them.

Everything happens in a context. The only reason that the church officials want to make the church “safe” is that they got caught. They got caught covering up priests’ sins and crimes against children. So, what they really mean is that they will do everything possible not to get caught again. The pressure on the church is coming from the outside, from the world that bishops and the pope consider a place of secularism and sin, “the culture of death”–a world that ordinarily they ignore or condemn.

Inside the church, the context is different. Lynn was convicted of obeying his archbishop, Cardinal Bevilacqua. Obedience is built into the church structure. At ordination a priest promises obedience to his bishop, and a bishop promises obedience to the pope. When a Cardinal receives his red hat from the pope, he promises never to publicly express anything that will make the church look bad.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

Christine M. Flowers
Philadelphia Daily News
Email Christine M. Flowers

I’VE BEEN PRAYING a lot of rosaries lately, some for personal reasons and the rest for my church. I finger the beads with reverence, knowing that each prayer brings me closer to a resolution, if not absolution.

In my heart, I love my church with the same accepting reverence of a child. In my mind, I know that sins were committed, crimes concealed, and so the rosary helps me find that inner place of peace. It also helps me face the painful truths that children who accepted, with reverence, that priests were all good men were betrayed.

My task is a private one. Not so for those 12 Philadelphia jurors who sacrificed three months of their lives to sort out the truths hidden among horrific allegations of abuse. They were not obligated to find peace but, rather, justice. And they did a magnificent job Friday, when they rendered a verdict that was both fair and heart-wrenching.

They were not looking for vengeance, nor were they willing to execute other people’s vendettas. They listened to the law, listened to the facts, heard the cries of alleged victims and watched the faces of alleged perpetrators, and then came to a decision.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

[Trial Narrative and Resources – BishopAccountability.org]

By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer

The guilty verdict against Msgr. William J. Lynn – the first time a Catholic church supervisor has been found criminally liable for child-sex crimes by a priest – concluded one of the most unusual prosecutions in the history of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.

It took nine years, two grand juries, and changes in Pennsylvania law.

And it made odd partners of former District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham and successor Seth Williams, whose relationship soured when Williams, a former Abraham prosecutor, challenged her in the 2005 Democratic primary.

Ironically, both prosecutors had to fend off criticism over their religions.

Abraham was criticized because she is Jewish and was investigating the Catholic Church; Williams, campaigning for election in 2009, defended himself against suggestions he would go easy on the church because he is an active Catholic.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The New York Times

By ERIK ECKHOLM

Published: June 24, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — “It’s been a rough week” is how the Rev. Charles Zlock, pastor of the St. Mary of the Assumption Parish, started his 10 a.m. homily on Sunday.

It seemed like an obvious reference to the searing trial that ended Friday with the conviction of a senior Philadelphia archdiocese official, Msgr. William J. Lynn, on a charge of endangering children by placing a known pedophile in an unwary parish.

But the 120 worshipers attending St. Mary’s on Sunday, though upset by the case, were mostly heartsick for a different reason: After final services next Sunday, this handsome church in northwest Philadelphia, a center of life for nearby residents since 1849, is scheduled to close.

For the unsettled Roman Catholics in this 1.5 million-member archdiocese, the closing is one more blow in sweeping and bitterly contested cutbacks. Across the city, thousands are already incensed because church leaders have closed 27 cherished schools.

Even as it struggles with the revelations of sexual abuse and the failure of top officials to act, the Philadelphia Archdiocese, long considered an eminent stronghold of Catholic power and tradition, is being battered from several sides.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Verdict

[Trial Narrative and Resources – BishopAccountability.org]

Marci A. Hamilton

Survivors of Sexual Abuse Prevail in Pennsylvania: The Lynn and Sandusky Cases Show Us What Justice Looks Like

Remember this date: June 22, 2012. That was the day that Msgr. William Lynn and Jerry Sandusky were each taken from their separate courtrooms in Pennsylvania and escorted to jail, after each had been convicted by a jury of his peers of committing crimes against children. That is justice. …

Msgr. William Lynn: Convicted on 1 of 3 Counts

On the very same day the Sandusky verdict was read, the beleaguered jury in the trial of Msgr. William Lynn finally emerged—after 11 weeks of testimony and 12 ½ days of deliberations—to convict Lynn on a charge of the endangerment of children.

This was the first time anyone in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church had been criminally convicted for the role he played in the corrupt system that has covered up the sexual abuse of children around the globe. It took ten years—from the convening of the first grand jury to today—for prosecutors to fully examine how the Philadelphia Archdiocese had handled child predators among the clergy, but it was a busy ten years for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Their yeoman’s labors paid off in true justice, with Lynn being taken directly from the courtroom to jail.

The jury struggled with a conspiracy charge, partly because of the confusing instructions they received. There is also good reason to question the jury’s banker’s schedule in this case. The Sandusky jury deliberated for twenty hours in just two days. In contrast, there were weeks when the Lynn jury barely cracked 20 hours of deliberations.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

By Dan Geringer
Daily News Staff Writer

AFTER MONSIGNOR William J. Lynn became the first senior Catholic Church official convicted of covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests under his supervision, people attending Sunday’s evening Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul dealt with the ongoing scandal in different ways.

Rose Boyle, 22, a Temple student living in North Philadelphia, regularly attends Mass at the basilica, on the Ben Franklin Parkway at Logan Square. She said, “If you’re married and if saying, ‘I love you,’ to your wife is part of your marriage, and you hear about a guy who cheats on his wife, that doesn’t mean you stop saying, ‘I love you’ to your wife,” Boyle said.

“The institution of the Catholic Church is the way I express my love for God,” she said. “My relationship with the Catholic Church hasn’t changed because some people in the church did some wrong things. I’m not going to stop going to church and saying, ‘I love God.'”

David Sherrard, 56, of Seattle said, “I’m a confessed Christian. We’re all sinners. All of us need to ask for forgiveness, and to forgive.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

By Sean Carlin
Daily News Staff Writer

AFTER AN 11-week trial, Msgr. William J Lynn was convicted of one count of child endangerment, making him the first Catholic official in the nation to be held criminally liable for priest child-abuse. Lynn, 61, was secretary for clergy in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004.

The jury deadlocked on a child-abuse charge against his co-defendant, Rev. James J. Brennan, 48, who was charged with attempted rape of a 14-year-old boy in 1996.

Some of the highlights of the trial:

March 26: Trial begins with questions aimed at Lynn’s role in covering up sexual abuse in the church. Lynn and Brennan plead not guilty.

April 4: A 30-year-old man testifies that Brennan molested him during an overnight stay in 1996 when he was 14.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Dara McBride
Inquirer Staff Writer

“Abominable,” “shameful” and “sad” were a few of the words the parishioners of St. Joseph Church in Downingtown used Sunday to describe the conviction of their former pastor, Msgr. William J. Lynn, of child endangerment in the landmark clergy sex-abuse trial in Philadelphia.

On Friday, Lynn, 61, became the nation’s first Catholic church supervisor convicted for covering up abuse by a priest. He faces up to seven years in prison.

On the first Sunday after that dramatic outcome, cars packed St. Joseph’s two parking lots as usual. But inside, Masses were different. Some parishioners cried. Others expressed confusion over the verdict as they spoke with clergy afterward.

“He was the lovingest and most supportive man I’ve ever known. He was there in my hour of need, not just for me, but for my family,” Bernadette Louden said after the 10:30 a.m. Mass. Without providing details, she said Lynn had helped her when she became seriously ill.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

Daily News Editorial
Philadelphia Daily News

GUILTY AS charged (although only on one of three counts): Msgr. William J. Lynn.

Guilty but not charged: Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

In a watershed decision in Philadelphia on Friday, a jury convicted (for the first time ever!) a Catholic Church official of child endangerment for taking part in a cover-up of priest abuse.

In a breathtaking coincidence, eight hours later and a few hundred miles away, former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was found guilty of 43 counts of child sexual abuse. The swift decision, which followed a trial that got much more publicity than the Philadelphia proceedings, understandably dominated the rest of the day’s news cycle.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office managed to prove only one count against Lynn, the former archdiocesan secretary of clergy, to the jury’s satisfaction. Lynn was acquitted of another child-endangerment charge and a charge of conspiracy. (The jury deadlocked on both charges of abuse and conspiracy against the Rev. James J. Brennan.)

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Daily Times

Published: Monday, June 25, 2012

More than 10 painful years after the clerical sexual abuse scandal broke open wide with the child molestation conviction of a Boston priest, a U.S. Catholic church official who protected predator priests has finally been held accountable.

By doing nothing when he knew about pedophile priests while he was secretary of clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the Rev. Monsignor William Lynn allowed the abuse to continue. That was basically the message sent by a Philadelphia jury Friday when, after a 10-week trial, they found Lynn guilty of one felony count of endangering the welfare of children.

The 61-year-old monsignor, who formerly was parochial vicar at St. Katharine of Siena parish in the Wayne section of Radnor, served as secretary of clergy from 1992 to 2004, mostly under former Philadelphia Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

During the trial, jurors learned that Lynn had assembled a “secret file” of known or suspected pedophile priests that, in 1994, Bevliacqua — a canon and a civil attorney — ordered to be shredded. Prosecutors got to see the list after a copy of it was found this year in an archdiocesan safe.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CNN

From Susan Candiotti and Sarah Hoye, CNN

updated 5:26 AM EDT, Mon June 25, 2012

(CNN) — Attorneys for Monsignor William Lynn will return to court Monday to argue that the cleric, who was convicted of child endangerment, be put under house arrest rather than jailed until his sentencing in August.

Lynn was found guilty Friday of one count of child endangerment, the first time a U.S. church leader has been convicted of such a charge.

He was found not guilty on a second count of endangerment and on a charge of conspiring to protect a priest accused of abuse.

The jury was unable to bring a verdict against his co-defendant, the Rev. James Brennan, who was charged with the attempted rape of a 14-year-old altar boy and endangering the welfare of a child.

Lynn was taken into custody after the verdict Friday, when the judge revoked his bail. His lawyer, Jeffrey Lindy, criticized the decision not to let his client remain free on bond prior to sentencing, calling it “an unspeakable miscarriage of justice (for) a 61-year-old man with no prior record and long established ties to the community.”

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Keene Sentinel

Posted: Sunday, June 24, 2012

Friday’s conviction of former Penn State athletics coach Jerry Sandusky was about his sexual abuse of 10 young males during a 15-year period.

But by inference the charges against him also concerned the failure of a system under which more than a few people kept mum on suspicions of abuse during that time — a failure underscored by the virtual flood of abuse-reporting legislation across the country since the charges against the 67-year-old Sandusky were filed last fall.

The National Council of State Legislatures says that so far this year more than 100 bills have been filed in 30 states and the District of Columbia to toughen up rules for reporting suspected abuse of children. In 10 states, new laws have been enacted.

New Hampshire is not among those jurisdictions because, to its credit, its mandatory reporting statute has long been broadly inclusive. Whereas some states, such as Pennsylvania, required practitioners of only certain professions to speak up when they sensed something wrong — among them nurses, clergy members, day care workers, but not athletic coaches — the Granite State since 1979 has required any person who suspects child abuse to go to the authorities.

Now, laws are only as good as their enforcement, as in the conviction of a top-level Catholic church official in Pennsylvania, also Friday, of covering-up for pedophile priests over many years.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Marco Tosatti
Rome

Reliable sources inside the Vatican say it is very likely that there will be changes at the top of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith this month. The retirement of the current head of the Congregation, the American William Levada will be announced publicly some time around the feast of Ss. Peter and Paul. Levada has asked the Pope to be relieved from his office, since he wants to go back to the United States.

Gerhard Mueller is a man with a remarkable personality, who exerts a certain influence over Benedict XVI. Although not one of the Pope’s closest friends, he is certainly a significant figure from an academic point of view and this establishes a tie between them. He also played, and still plays, an important role in the creation and work of the German born foundation which is in charge of preparing and publishing Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s literary works.

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SALINA (KS)
The Kansas City Star

By ERIC ADLER and LAURA BAUER
The Kansas City Star

SALINA, Kan. — SALINA, Kan. From the time he was a small boy, Jesse Mactagone dreamed he would become a U.S. Army officer.

His mom had painted the wall behind his bed olive green. His bed sheets depicted fighter jets.

“He never wore anything but camouflage,” said his mother, Jennifer Mactagone. “He knows every tank, every single helicopter.”

So, at age 14, when the time arrived for Jesse to choose a high school, the Auburn, Calif., boy leaped at an offer from his grandfather, a U.S. Navy veteran, to pay $30,000 a year for him to attend St. John’s Military School in Salina.

Website images of spit-and-polish students and a message of “discipline” and “a structured campus life” that promoted “qualities such as personal graces, confidence, respect, high moral character, and leadership” seemed the perfect fit.

“We didn’t send him to St. John’s,” Jesse’s mother said. “He wanted to go.”

But now, as part of a federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, the Mactagones stand with a growing number of St. John’s families alleging their sons experienced the opposite of grace and character.

The Mactagones allege that Jesse was so severely physically abused and beaten, not at the hands of faculty, but by other students, that four days after he stepped on campus in August 2011, he needed to be rushed to the hospital. He was unable to walk with two broken legs, including a displaced femur.

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UNITED STATES
YouTube

Published on Jun 23, 2012 by bonnie richard

Child abuse by priest or nun in Louisiana.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

The Associated Press has confirmed that St. Louis native Greg Burke is leaving his Fox News post to help the Vatican with public relations. He’ll work with Rev. Federico Lombardi, who runs the Holy See’s press office and papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Vallis, who, like Burke, is a member of Opus Dei. . .

With a top Philadelphia Catholic official having been found guilty of endangering children, attention turns to the case against St. Louis native Robert Finn, now bishop of the Kansas City diocese. It’s set for trial in September and revolves around the same basic claim: that known and suspected child sex crimes were hidden by church staff. Finn should be worried, says SNAP’s Barbara Dorris. “The Philly case involved older and more complex evidence, and layers of church bureaucracy,” she explained. “The Finn case involves more recent and clear cut wrongdoing in a smaller diocese with fewer underlings who can be scapegoated”. .

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Levada is to resign from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, leaving Müller in pole position to substitute him. Meanwhile, the Vatican library is getting a new librarian and Bertone’s substitution appears imminent

ANDREA TORNIELLI
Vatican City

Two important (cardinal) appointments are expected in the Vatican before the beginning of the summer holidays. The most significant one is the nomination of Joseph Ratzinger’s second successor as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This is a delicate and crucial role not only because faith is at the heart of Benedict XVI’s pontificate, but also because this is the dicastery that deals with scorching dossiers on cases of sex abuse against minors and it also manages the dialogue process with the Society of St. Pius X. Seventy six year old American cardinal, William Levada, intends to retire to the U.S. After months of deliberation, the Pope is likely to choose the 64 year old Bishop of Regensburg, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, for the post of Prefect of the Congregation. Unless there are any last minute surprises (other candidates considered include an American prelate and a French cardinal) he is expected to take over from Levada in the next few months.

Another expected appointment is that of the Librarian of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. The post has been vacant since outgoing librarian Cardinal Raffaele Farina (who will turn 79 next September) presented his resignation recently. The man that seems tipped to win the post is 68 year old French archbishop, Jean-Louis Bruguès, a Dominican. But even in this case there could be last minute surprises as the Pope could choose a cardinal from the Roman Curia who is nearing the end of his mandate. Vatican Librarians traditionally keep their role well beyond the age of 75.

Next 2 December the Vatican Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, will turn 78. When Bertone reached resignation age three years ago, Benedict XVI sent him an affectionate letter asking him to stay on. In an interview with Italian daily newspaper La Stampa last March Bertone stated: “Serving the Holy Father is always a strong experience of pastoral charity because of the way he leads the Church with clear judgement and moderate firmness. Obviously, however, whether my service continues or ends depends on Benedict XVI’s decision.” Many believe that the Pope wants to keep Bertone by his side for at least another two years, that is, until Cardinal Bertone turns 80. The Pope chose him for the role of Secretary of State shortly after his appointment as Pope in 2005 – although the nomination was announced in June 2006 and the installation the following September.

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VATIKAN
Focus

Ein US-Journalist soll dem Vatikan nach dem „Vatileaks“-Skandal wieder zu einer guten Presse verhelfen. Der Rom-Korrespondent der konservativen Fox News, Greg Burke, wird Kommunikationsstratege des Vatikans.

Das bestätigten Burke und der Papst-Sprecher Federico Lombardi am Samstag der italienischen Nachrichtenagentur Ansa. Burke (52) erhält ein Büro im Führungsgremium des Vatikans. Er gehört zum konservativen Opus Dei und arbeitete früher als Korrespondent des US-Magazins „Time“. Seine neue Aufgabe wurde ihm Ende Mai angetragen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Jesus.de

Das konservative “Netzwerk katholischer Priester” hat Erzbischof Robert Zollitsch zu einem härteren Vorgehen gegen Reform-Priester aufgefordert.

So solle der Vorsitzende der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz die Reformforderungen von Priestern, auch geschiedene Wiederverheiratete zur Kommunion zuzulassen, «nicht zweideutig kommentieren», zitiert «Der Spiegel» die Forderungen des Netzwerks. Der Sprecher des Netzwerks, Guido Rodheudt, wirft Zollitsch laut «Spiegel» vor, zuzusehen, «wie die Eindeutigkeit der katholischen Botschaft ins Zwielicht gerate».

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

Berlin – Wir zwei Hungerstreikende, Christiane Kieburg und Katharina M., nutzten die CSD-Parade am 23.6. 2012 in Berlin, um mit Transparent und netzwerkB-Flyern auf unsere Forderung nach Abschaffung der Verjährungsfristen bei sexualisierter Gewalt gegen Kinder aufmerksam zu machen.

Am Startpunkt sprachen wir Klaus Wowereit (SPD) persönlich an und bekamen die momentan übliche SPD-Antwort:

„Wir haben keine Mehrheit“

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VATIKAN
Politaia

Das folgende Video mit Alfred Lambremont Webre und Rev. Kevin Annett befasst sich mit der öffentlichen Deklaration an Papst Ratzinger und dem Vatikan, in der ausgesagt wird, dass – sollten keine spezifischen Maßnahmen seitens des Papstes und des Vatikans bis 15. September 2012 ergriffen werden – “jeder bekannte römisch-katholische Priester oder Beamte, der einem Kind Schaden zugefügt hat oder dieselben gedeckt hat, öffentlich durch unser Netzwerk namentlich genannt wird, öffentlich festgenommen wird und aus seiner Kirche vertrieben wird.”

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

June 24, 2012

Posted by Paul Moses

At the same time the U.S. Catholic bishops are giving daily lessons on how important it is for government to respect individual conscience, the Philadelphia jury that convicted Monsignor William Lynn on Friday of child endangerment has offered a lesson on the role of conscience in the church.

In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, jury foreman Isa Logan spoke of how he told the other jurors about his military experience; he served two years in an artillery unit in Korea. “All I told them was, I’m a soldier, and if my commander tells me to do something that’s inhumane or against any kind of Army rules,” he would not, Logan said. “I’m a human being before I’m a soldier.”

Contrast that with Monsignor Lynn’s testimony, reported here by journalist Ralph Cipriano:

Lynn’s direct testimony ended in a flourish, when [defense lawyer Thomas] Bergstrom asked the monsignor why he didn’t just quit his job as secretary for clergy, as some critics have suggested.

It’s “not in my nature to do that,” Lynn said. He explained he had a “simple faith” that “the will of God works through the bishop as far as your assignments are concerned.” He said he preaches that belief to fellow priests. It was a belief that provoked classmates in the seminary to call him a fool, Lynn said with a smile. But the monsignor said he sincerely believed it, so how could he quit his job as secretary for the clergy under Cardinal Bevilacqua?

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Orlando R. Barone is a writer in Doylestown

The verdict on Msgr. William J. Lynn has been rendered; it is very big news, and yet that verdict is not the one that occupies me this day.

I was 11 as I looked out the window of my front porch toward the near-blackness of early morning. Mom stood at my side, and I held my cassock and surplice in hand. At 5 a.m. I kissed my mother and ran outside as Father’s car stopped to pick me up on the other side of Main Street. It was my week to serve as altar boy at the 5:30 Mass in the lovely little chapel at Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital just two blocks away. I can still see Mom’s trusting smile as I ventured into the wintry darkness and into Father’s waiting car.

Much has been lost by my church since the child-abuse horror broke into public consciousness a decade ago. None of these losses, except those occasioned by the beastly acts themselves, can match the loss of that trusting smile on the faces of Catholic mothers everywhere. The mothers of today’s 11-year-old sons and daughters have issued their own verdict, and it is ominous. They are far less apt to release their children from their safe embrace to enter the car of a parish priest.

Rocco Palmo, Philadelphia-based author of the Whispers in the Loggia website, the place to go for what’s happening in worldwide Catholicism, has said that “a very different church is going to emerge from this” latest turn in the sex-abuse scandal. He is speaking of the hierarchical American church of bishops and cardinals, chanceries and palaces — the mansion in Philadelphia is up for sale, a sure sign of some kind of change.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

June 24, 2012 by Susan Matthews

I just finished reading “Catholics have rendered a verdict” – an opinion piece in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer by Orlando R. Barone. He ends his thoughtful column with, “No bishop living today will see that trusting smile fully restored, but no living bishop can dodge the moral imperative to begin the healing. There will be more trials and more juries and more lengthy deliberations, but it is the mothers who will render the verdict that counts.”

This mother will need more than the weak statement issued in response to Msgr. Lynn’s verdict. Here it is:

“Archdiocese Reacts to Verdict In Trial of Monsignor Lynn, June 22, 2012

This has been a difficult time for all Catholics, especially victims of sexual abuse. The lessons of the last year have made our Church a more vigilant guardian of our people’s safety. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia is on a journey of reform and renewal that requires honesty and hope. We are committed to providing support and assistance to parishioners as they and the Church seek to more deeply understand sexual violence, and to create an environment that is safe and welcoming to all, including past victims.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia offers a heartfelt apology to all victims of clergy sexual abuse. Now and in the future, the Church will continue to take vigorous steps to ensure safe church environments for all the faithful in Philadelphia.”

We’ve heard these promises before. Healing and real protection can’t begin without truth. When will the Church admit that not only Bevilacqua but many other Cardinals have harmed children through their cover ups? When will the root causes of the cover up be addressed in open forums with the laity? I’m not talking about the hope and healing initiative on the parish level. I’m referring to the Vatican. Archbishop Chaput could be the best Archbishop ever but what happens when he is gone? A pervasive culture of clericalism persists throughout the institution. That culture will continue to allow this kind of cover up.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo

What, if anything, changes with the June 22nd conviction of Monsignor William J. Lynn for child endangerment? Legally, one can expect an appeal in order to prevent the former clergy secretary for the Philadelphia Archdiocese from serving the maximum sentence of seven years in jail. But, unlike previous cases, this trial was not of a clerical abuser but of a priest in charge of personnel appointments. The court finding substantiates Lynn’s culpable responsibility for knowing that such abuse was likely to occur, but endangering children nonetheless by assigning abusers to what we Catholics call “near occasions of sin.”

There is little doubt that since 2002 the bishops have legislated stricter guidelines that have had the effect of substantially reducing the instances of clerical pedophilia.

I would not agree with Dr. William Donohue of the Catholic League, however, that the conviction of the monsignor represents a “victory” over the church’s anti-Catholic enemies. Reading the transcript makes it hard to avoid the prosecutors’ insistence that the monsignor had “helped the archdiocese keep predators in ministry, and the public in the dark, by telling parishes their priests were being removed for health reasons and then sending the men to unsuspecting churches.” This may not be a conspiracy, (one of the charges on which Lynn was dismissed) but it is a crime.

To a reasonable observer, this case demonstrates that the courts will not afford clergymen a version of the Nazi’s Nuremburg defense that they “were only following orders.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The Vatican has hired American journalist Greg Burke to batten down the hatches after the recent media storm

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

Right in the midst of the storm which brewed up around the paedophilia scandal in spring 2010, Fr. Federico Lombardi, who succeeded Joaquín Navarro-Valls’ as head of the Holy See Press Office, gave an interview published on the BBC website, in which he stated he was a spokesman who depends on the Secretariat of State’s instructions. “The Secretariat of State decides the line to take and I try to communicate it as best as I can,” Lombardi had gone on to say, concluding: “No one has ever given me the task of co-ordinating of a Holy See media strategy.”

One of the core reasons for the media crisis that has marked certain phases of the current papacy is the lack of a united communicative leadership as well as the lack of involvement on the part of the person in charge of communication during decision making processes. It would be simplistic to blame the crisis solely and exclusively on journalists, which is what is happening in the Vatican on all levels.

The Holy See’s appointment of American journalist Greg Burke as “media advisor” shows that the Vatican Secretariat of State has finally taken the problem seriously after kicking itself in the stomach on a number of occasions over the past weeks. Burke is a distinguished professional who has worked as Rome correspondent for Time magazine and is currently employed by Fox News in the same role. One of the most notable media gaffs was the piloted disclosure of the reasons for the dismissal of the Vatican bank’s former head, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi: regardless of whether he deserved to go, the media coverage of his dismissal was morally and professionally destroying for this man who was only appointed to the position three years ago and in whom a great deal of trust had been placed. An unprecedented event in the recent history of the Holy See, made worse by his exposure to an unpleasant psychiatric assessment, the results of which were sent to Gotti Tedeschi’s superiors by a diligent professional who had been made to sit next to the Vatican bank’s former president as a celebration and covertly examine him.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Editorial

We arrive on this beginning of Summer Friday at a critical nexus for survivors of sexual abuse.

First, our thoughts go to the brave, dignified, and courageous survivors who testified and who have spoken out in interviews in the Penn State former coach Jerry Sandusky case which has gone to the jury amidst a report that an adopted son of Sandusky was willing to testify for the prosecution.

After nearly two weeks of deliberations, the jury in the Philadelphia case of Monsignor William Lynn, returned a verdict of endangerment of children.

Juxtaposed to these two major cases is the downbeat of dueling campaigns: the Bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom” and the Nuns Bus Tour.

Playing out against these backdrops this weekend and next in baskets in parishes across the depth and breadth of the United State is the Peter Pence collection.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

Judy Courtin says the rape of children by Catholic priests is best dealt with by a royal commission, writes Michael Short.

[WHO] Judy Courtin, lawyer researching sex crimes against children by Catholic clergy
[WHAT] Victims are being denied truth and justice by the church and the state
[HOW] A royal commission or full judicial inquiry is essential

WERE Jesus Christ to reappear today, the first thing he might do is walk into the golden, treasure-gorged edifice that is the Vatican and throw out not money merchants, as he did some 2000 years ago, but the very people purporting to represent him and his ideas.

The core idea, it seems to me, that this radical man so influentially ventilated is simple and beautiful: treat others as you would wish to be treated, for we are all equal and all deserve and owe decency and kindness.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Michael Short: Judy Courtin, thank you for your time, and welcome to The Zone.

Judy Courtin: Thank you, Michael, for inviting me.

MS: You are you a lawyer do a PHD on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. Can we begin, please Judy, with the size and scope of the issue?

JC: This is something we don’t know. This is one of the very important issues or questions that an inquiry, a properly constituted commission of inquiry, should be doing. So we don’t know the prevalence, we don’t know the incidence.

There is one known statistic coming out of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, which says that about 10 per cent of adults who were sexually assaulted as children will ever report to the police. The process called the Melbourne Response – that is, the process set up by the Melbourne Archdiocese to investigate complaints against Catholic clergy, reported about a year ago that about 450 complaints had been lodged since 1996.

Recently the Archdiocese said they had investigated about 330 complaints. Either way, if that represents that 10 per cent figure, that’s a lot; between 3,500 and 4,500. That is just the Melbourne Archdiocese. The Melbourne Archdiocese only deals with diocesan priests. They don’t deal with all the religious orders such as the Christian Brothers or Salesians, for example. And the Melbourne Archdiocese is just one geographical area. So, if we have a possible 3,500 to 4,500 victims just from diocesan priests, how many victims are there across the state?

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VATICAN CITY
RT

The Vatican has turned to a Fox News reporter for help to improve its relations with the media amid communications blunders and a leaks scandal. The Holy See hired the Channel’s Rome correspondent for the position of senior communications adviser.

­The TV journalist Greg Burke is also a member of the Opus Dei movement, described by Dan Brown in his “The Da Vinci Code” as a “secretive, powerful and murderous sect whose members whip themselves bloody.” The best-selling book portrays the sect as being at the root of an international Catholic conspiracy. Burk said he didn’t know what, if any, role his membership in Opus Dei played.

Burke, Fox’s Rome-based correspondent for Europe and the Middle East, will leave the channel and assume the new post of senior communications adviser to the Secretariat of State, the Vatican’s key department responsible for all political and diplomatic functions.

His role will be similar to that of a communications adviser in the White House.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

All over the face of the earth, there is a compelling hunger for justice and a persistent cry demanding respect for human rights. The Church hears the cry, responds with solemn pronouncements, and is a forceful advocate of human dignity. The Church, however, speaks not only with words but also with actions: it is called to proclaim the Good News with signs and symbols as well. Judicial proceedings within the Church are part of such signs and symbols ‑ so much so that it is important to look at how the Church deals with doctrinal disputes and then at the ideal of justice that modern jurisprudence has created. In doing so, we follow a venerable tradition: throughout its long history the Church has turned for legal wisdom to secular sources and it made ancient Roman law the very foundation of canon law.

On June 29, 1997, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith promulgated new procedural rules entitled ‘Regulations for the Examination of Doctrines.’ They have superseded the norms published in1971. The Explanatory Note issued by the Holy See stated: ‘After twenty‑five years of experience … it was decided to prepare new Regulations that might respond even better to the demands of the present day.’

By referring to ‘the demands of the present day’ ‑ demands of justice, obviously ‑ the document itself invites us to consider whether it meets them. The first part of this article will present the Regulations; the second part will compare them with the best principles of modern jurisprudence. Paul the Apostle wrote to the Philippians: ‘whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just … you must consider’ (Phil. 4:8).

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

Is it possible to get some kind of dispensation from the need for priests in the spiritual life of a Roman Catholic ? That you don’t need to ‘avail’ of the sacraments which can only be administered by an ordained priest, when it can be that all they are for you at times are triggers to earlier, more recent and it seems constant recalls of spiritual, emotional, psychological and sexual abuses ?

In the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, a dispensation is the suspension by competent authority of general rules of law in particular cases. Its object is to modify the hardship often arising from the rigorous application of general laws to particular cases, and its essence is to preserve the law by suspending its operation in such cases. When a person so abused seems incapable, though not for want of trying, to find any real peace in heart and soul in that practice of the faith that can often seem endless reminders and revelations of betrayal.

This in no way suggests or is meant to imply any kind of negative feeling towards, perception or judgement of all the really good men and women, priests and religious in the Catholic Church, past and present.

When the true spiritual welfare of the individual is at stake, which impacts everything else, is there anything in Church law that would allow a person to live as Catholic, even having faith to a degree in the sacramental aspects of the Church as being of benefit for others, without the requirement to avail of those sacraments ? Would it suffice to try to obey the commandments of God in seeking God with the all, and in and through that searching, learning to love neighbour as the self. In this being all the law and the prophets – the keys to the Kingdom within and around us.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Daily Times

Published: Sunday, June 24, 2012

By JEFF WOLFE
jwolfe@delcotimes.com
@delcoreporter

When a Philadelphia jury delivered a child endangerment conviction against Monsignor William Lynn on Friday, it may have been the end of a trial, but the beginning of other things for the victims and the Catholic church in the region.

“I think in regard to the whole process, when it comes to healing, I just don’t know that healing can come by way of a trial,” said Father James Olson, who is the president of Monsignor Bonner and Archbishop Prendergast High School in Upper Darby. “It can bring about a sense of closure and at best a sense of justice, but neither of those things can bring healing. I still pray for healing.”

Olson says first and foremost that he is praying for those who were abused.

“There has to be a lot of sorrow for the victims,” he said. “Sometimes in the middle of a trial, when you are thinking about results, and you focus so much on that, you begin to lose focus on the victims. That always has to be first in our minds and prayers.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
BishopAccountability.org

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. William J. Lynn, Edward V. Avery, and James J. Brennan : Trial Narrative and Resources

Note: This page is a work in progress. Please refresh your browser to view the latest additions and updates.

The trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn and Rev. James J. Brennan in Philadelphia was complex and lengthy, and its conclusion was a watershed event: the first conviction of a church official for child endangerment. During the trial, witnesses and exhibits provided the jury with information on 21 other accused priests whom Lynn had managed.

We have provided two resources for understanding the trial and the evidence that has been presented during it. On this page, we offer a day-by-day list of the witnesses, evidence, and courtroom discussions, with links to articles by journalists who were present at the trial and filed detailed accounts. The mainstays are John P. Martin and Joseph A. Slobodzian of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Maryclaire Dale and Joann Loviglio of the Associated Press, and Ralph Cipriano of the Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog sponsored by The Beasley Firm. Many other reporters covered the trial, and we have included selections of their work. We have emphasized the longer accounts. The men and women of the press deserve everyone’s sincere thanks for their dedicated and able reporting during this epic trial.

We also provide, on a separate webpage, a day-by-day outline of the topics and persons in the trial to complement the chronological narrative offered on this page. The outline of topics and persons is linked to the narrative below.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PhillyBurbs

Posted on June 24, 2012

by Hilary Bentman

Bucks County residents had a lot to say about the verdicts in two landmark Pennsylvania trials involving child sex abuse.

Justice was served in the Jerry Sandusky case, they said Saturday, a day after the former Penn State assistant football coach was convicted on 45 of 48 counts that he sexually assaulted 10 boys. But the mixed outcome in the priests’ trial, also announced Friday, didn’t make them so happy.

“Dude is a pig,” Huntingdon Valley resident Kate Lewyckyj said about Sandusky, who is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison. “Hope he goes to jail forever.”

In the priests’ trial, a jury agreed with prosecutors that Monsignor William Lynn, 61, helped keep predators in the priesthood by moving them to different parishes under the guise that the transfers were health related. …

Doylestown resident Carol Wilbur, a Catholic, said this kind of reasoning was reminiscent of the defense strategies used by some Nazis after World War II in their attempt to deflect responsibility for the Holocaust.

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VATICAN CITY
The Australian

POPE Benedict XVI has convened a special meeting of cardinals for advice on how to deal with the Vatican’s leaked documents scandal.

The pope was already scheduled to attend a regular meeting of the heads of Vatican offices on Saturday morning.

The Vatican press office said he added a second meeting later in the day with other cardinals – including Sydney archbishop George Pell – in a bid to try to ”restore a climate of serenity and trust” in the church.

The Vatican said over the coming days he will meet with still more cardinals gathering in Rome for a church feast day on Friday to ”continue the dialogue with the people who share the responsibility of the church’s governance with him”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

Ten years … Three grand jury reports … One trial … 11 weeks of testimony … More than 60 witnesses … A trial judge who gave so much favoritism to one side that she was actually described as “often mistaken for a member of the prosecution team.” … 13 days of jury deliberations.

What were the results of the charges against the two high-profile defendants in this months-long landmark Philadelphia criminal trial? Let’s look:

Msgr. William J. Lynn
– Conspiracy charge #1 (w/ ex-priest Edward Avery): Not guilty
– Conspiracy charge #2 (w/ Rev. Brennan): Dismissed, May 2012
– Endangering the welfare of a child #1 (re: Edward Avery): Guilty
– Endangering the welfare of a child #2 (re: Rev. Brennan): Not guilty

Rev. James J. Brennan
– Conspiracy charge (w/ Msgr. William J. Lynn): Dismissed, May 2012
– Attempted rape (a reduced charge): Deadlocked jury
– Endangering the welfare of a child: Deadlocked jury

In other words, of all the numerous charges sent to a jury, only one charge was returned as a guilty verdict, and it was against a senior priest who left his diocesan secretary position eight years ago.

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CANADA
Leader-Post

By Jason Warick, The StarPhoenix June 23, 2012

Twelve-year-old Chance Adrian sat onstage with 32 other relatives, listening to his grandfather, Ted Quewezance, tell the audience about his residential school experience.

“(Quewezance) has been talking about this for a long time. I thought it would be good to be here for him,” Chance said Friday following the morning session of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada hearings at Prairieland Park.

“I learned a lot. They were treated almost like animals. It was crazy.”

Residential school survivors are testifying before the commission this week as part of the TRC’s fourday national gathering in Saskatoon, which continues through the weekend. Survivors are generally accompanied by a spouse, friend or counsellor as they testify. Chance and the rest of his family, wearing colourful matching scarves, decided they all needed to be there.

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PHILIPPINES
YouTube

Published on Jun 20, 2012 by rapplerdotcom

Parañaque Bishop Jesse Mercado refuses to show Rappler his diocese’s financial records. “What for?” he tells Rappler’s Aries Rufo.

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PHILIPPINES
Rappler

by Paterno Esmaquel II

Posted on 06/23/2012

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – Can’t pay tuition?

St Andrew’s School (SAS), which is under the controversial Diocese of Parañaque, allegedly offers a solution that has sparked outrage from concerned alumni. This is for the school to “forcibly” demand collateral from parents that include game consoles and television sets, said SAS alumni in a public manifesto.

Through representative Eduardo Carabeo Jr, the alumni sent the statement in the wake of a Rappler exposé on Parañaque Bishop Jesse Mercado who is accused of fund misuse. (Read: Bishop accused of diverting millions.)

“We denounce the present SAS management’s decision in implementing a non-standing policy of forcing parents whose children have back accounts with the school, to produce ‘anything of considerable value’ such as certificate titles of land title (sic), jewelries, wristwatches, vehicle registration papers, even PlayStations, laptops, payroll-linked ATM cards, television sets, video cameras, etc, even those not owned by the parents themselves but even those of friends and relatives, to be posted as guarantee, as if SAS were already engaged in the business of pawnshops,” the alumni said.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By JENNIFER BAIN and JOSE MARTINEZ

A teenage boy faced off in court today with the rabbi he accused of molesting him when he was in first grade.

The 13-year-old boy testified that he was “scared” when Rabbi Joel Kolko glared at him and his dad on their way to synagogue – an encounter that now has the notorious Brooklyn rabbi on trial for allegedly violating an order of protection.

“When I crossed the street I turned around and saw him staring like this,” the boy said, as he crossed his arms. “Staring at me and my father. I said… ‘Why’s he looking at me?'”

Kolko escaped sex-offender status by pleading guilty in 2008 to misdemeanor child endangerment of the boy and a first-grade classmate at a Flatbush yeshiva. The boys had accused him of touching their private parts.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By JOSE MARTINEZ

Even a rabbi who’s been accused of being a pervert can live wherever he darn well pleases.

A defense lawyer for Rabbi Joel Kolko insisted yesterday that his client did no wrong when he had an up-close encounter near his Brooklyn home with a 13-year-old boy he was barred from contacting.

“Is there anything in that order that directs Mr. Kolko to turn and run in the opposite direction if he sees [the alleged victim]?” lawyer Jeffrey Schwartz asked a state court clerk who was testifying about the order of protection.

“No,” said associate court clerk Peter Montella.

The boy and his dad got the order of protection in 2008 after accusing the ultra-Orthodox rabbi of being a child molester — allegations from 2006 that did not stick.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Hella Winston
Jewish Week Correspondent

A 13-year-old boy who alleges he was molested by Rabbi Yehuda Kolko told a Brooklyn jury on Thursday that he felt “scared” when the rabbi — whom he identified from the stand — stared at him on the street on two occasions in late 2010.

Rabbi Kolko is currently on trial for violating an order of protection requiring him to refrain from having any contact with the boy. The order was part of a 2008 plea deal stemming from charges that Rabbi Kolko sexually abused the boy when he was a first grader in Kolko’s class (charges were also brought against the rabbi for allegedly abusing another boy).

Rabbi Kolko — who has been dogged by child molestation allegations for over 30 years — ultimately pleaded to lesser charges of child endangerment and received probation; he was not required to register as a sex offender.

The plea deal has drawn criticism from advocates and some observers because of the lack of jail time and/or mandatory sex offender registration. But the district attorney has defended the plea, claiming that neither family wanted their child to testify and noting that both signed a document consenting to the deal.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • Failedmessiah.com

He may finally go to prison.

Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, a haredi teacher and camp counselor with a long history of alleged child sexual abuse covering four decades, escaped a prison sentence in 2008 when Brooklyn’s ethically challenged District Attorney Charles Hynes gave Kolko what some observers say was the sweetheart plea deal of the decade.

Kolko, who allegedly fondled the genitals of two first graders while rubbing his erect penis against their clothed bodies, got 10 years probation and escaped sex offender registration because, Hynes claimed, neither of the victims’ families wanted their little boys to testify in court.

But that appears to have been a lie, as Hella Winston reminds us in The Jewish Week:

…The Jewish Week reported at the time [of the plea deal] that both families claimed they were willing to have their sons testify. The paper also obtained a letter to the district attorney, written by one of the fathers to the district attorney and dated one day after he signed off on the plea deal, that “[m]y son was ready to go to trial and we feel he would have done an excellent job and I am sorry to hear that [the case against] Joel Kolko will not proceed further.”…

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TENNESSEE
The Daily Times

Katie Forrester | Daily Times Correspondent

Charlie Jones was just 8 years old when he was the victim of sexual abuse by a family friend. It happened when his parents left him, his sister and a friend with their “brother” in the Jehovah’s Witnesses a few times.

“He’d take me to the other room and molest me back there,” Jones said. This abuse happened on at least two occasions that Jones can remember, and each time the other two children were told that Jones had misbehaved and was about to receive punishment.

Jones said that on one occasion his mother came back and the man cleaned him up and told his mother that he was punished for misbehaving to explain why Jones was crying. Jones said that he was punished by his unknowing mother on the way home for not behaving as he should have.

Parents didn’t know

“The issue was that my parents did not know he was a predator,” Jones said.

According to Jones, a major factor in cases such as his within the Jehovah’s Witnesses is the secrecy policy. Jones said that the written rule for bringing to light cases of sexual abuse states that for any accusation you must have two or more witnesses, including the victim. If both witnesses were victims of different attacks by the same person, then those testimonies would suffice as two witnesses.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By ZACH BRAZILLER

Family, friends and countless members of the city’s basketball community convened upon the Church of the Intercession in Morningside Heights to remember Ernie Lorch, the multimillionaire corporate attorney and controversial founder and director of powerhouse AAU program Riverside Church, at a memorial service Saturday morning.

Lorch passed away at the age of 80 May 14 at a Yonkers nursing home after batting diabetes and growing dementia, among other health issues. He was remembered on Saturday as a caring man who gave to others, who built Riverside Church from scratch into the nation’s top AAU program, who took inner-city youths around the world for basketball tournament.

“Mr. Ernie Lorch was the greatest man I ever knew because he taught me about life,” said NBA veteran and Riverside player Albert King, who had to hold back tears as he spoke. …

Lorch was also dogged for years by alleged sexual abuse. He turned Riverside Church into arguably the nation’s elite program before allegations of sexual abuse of a former player led to his resignation in 2002.

Lorch was also indicted by a Massachusetts grand jury for allegedly molesting a New York teenager in Amherst more than 30 years ago, but in November a Westchester judge ruled Lorch wasn’t competent to be extradited to stand trial.

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OREGON
Mail Tribune

June 24, 2012

By Sanne Specht
Mail Tribune

Officials of a local church are battling their insurance company over demands that sex offenders who come to worship be treated as if they had come to prey, rather than pray.

Chad McComas, pastor at Set Free Christian Fellowship in Medford, said his church disclosed to its insurance company that there were known sex offenders within its congregation. That honesty may spell the end of Set Free, a church he started in 1997.

On May 1, the insurance company, Church Mutual, sent a letter requiring McComas to disclose to his congregation the identity of any and all sex offenders, allow those offenders to attend only one predetermined service each week where they must report in and be assigned an escort who will accompany them at all times, and bar them from participating in any child or youth programs.

“Please respond by June 15, 2012. We will review your procedures. If you have not met all the requirements, we may no longer be able to continue your coverage,” the letter states.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

Inquirer Editorial

Outside their own circles, they’re mostly unknown — and certainly not referred to as Victim No. … But other child sex-abuse victims across Pennsylvania are just as entitled to justice as those whose accusations were heard in the sensational trials of a former college football coach and a high-ranking Catholic Church official.

Many of the other victims have also suffered in silence for decades, often unable to admit to themselves the horror of being abused as a child or teen. And if they did decide to come forward, it would likely be too late under the state’s criminal and civil statutes.

These other victims waited even as separate juries wrestled with the charges against former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, whose alleged victims now include an adopted son, and Archdiocese of Philadelphia Msgr. William Lynn — who on Friday became the first U.S. church official convicted in a child sex-abuse case.

Sandusky was found guilty late Friday on 45 counts of child sex abuse. Lynn was found guilty earlier on one count of child endangerment and acquitted on two other charges. The jury deadlocked on two child-abuse counts against the Rev. James J. Brennan.

For victims in yet unknown cases to get their day in court, Harrisburg lawmakers and Gov. Corbett must push aside special interests, including the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the insurance lobby, and carve a path to the courthouse.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Digital Journal

[Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. William J. Lynn, Edward V. Avery, and James J. Brennan – BishopAccountability.org]

By Yukio Strachan

Philadelphia- No top U.S. official of the Roman Catholic Church has been ever criminally convicted for child endangerment –– until now.

After 13 days of deliberations, a Philadelphia jury of seven men and five women found Monsignor William Lynn guilty on Friday (June 22) of one count of endangering the welfare of a child and acquitted of two other counts — one of conspiracy and a second endangerment charge.

The Washington Post writes that lead prosecutor Patrick Blessington, seemed angry at Lynn’s acquittals. So he wasted no time in asking that the priest be taken right to custody.

The 61-year-old Lynn, face reddened but stoic, slipped off his black clerical jacket before deputy sheriffs led him out of the courtroom and into custody, his family members weeping, Reuters said.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Herald

By Margery Eagan
Sunday, June 24, 2012

Just hours before a jury on Friday found former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky guilty of raping and sexually abusing boys as young as 9, a Philadelphia jury convicted a Catholic monsignor of allowing a known pedophile priest to continue his ministry with children — resulting in the sexual assault of a 10-year-old boy.

The parallels between the two cases and the church sex abuse crisis here just take your breath away.

One parallel: The predators were not strangers in trench coats but respected, supposedly upstanding members of powerful, all-male, insular and elite communities. “A saint,” is the word a local wrestling coach used to describe Sandusky, legendary for his charisma, charm and generosity to the disadvantaged children he helped and even adopted. Now one adopted son has accused Sandusky of abusing him, too.

How ironic that so many parents today, fearing strangers, won’t let our children play outside or walk anywhere alone. Yet we now know that attackers almost always turn out to be those both we and our children know and trust, those we may not suspect even after the abuse occurs.

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UNITED STATES
Goucester County Times

By Gloucester County Times Editorial Board

The region’s two biggest criminal cases, now concluded, have one appalling feature in common:

In this booking photo released early Saturday morning June 23, 2012 by the Centre County Correctional Facility in Bellefonte, Pa., former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky is shown. Sandusky was convicted on Friday, June 22, 2012, of sexually assaulting 10 boys over 15 years. (AP Photo/Centre County Correctional Facility)

They’re both about grown men, men in positions of authority, and abuse of little boys.

The lessons are writ large for parents, teachers and employers. This stuff happens, and it happens in places where it’s least likely to be suspected.

In church.

In a respected college football program.

In a typical American small town.

In Philadelphia, Monsignor William Lynn was convicted Friday of child endangerment for covering up abuse within the Philadelphia archdiocese from 1992 to 2004. A jury couldn’t agree on a verdict for colleague who was charged with trying to rape a 14-year-old boy. The trial came after several guilty pleas and dozens of claims from boys who said they were molested by trusted parish priests.

In central Pennsylvania, former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted Friday night on 45 counts of child sexual abuse involving 10 boys.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Monica Yant Kinney, Inquirer Columnist

One conviction is better than none. Don’t forget that.

It’s easy to focus on totals and percentages when tallying victory and defeat. Everyone loves a rout; a one-run shutout is still a big win.

Before last week, no high-ranking Catholic official anywhere had been held accountable for the sexual abuse of children by anointed representatives of God.

As of Friday, one has. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Msgr. William J. Lynn has a new title: third-degree felon guilty of endangering the welfare of a minor.

Thursday night, Lynn rested comfortably at home. Friday, the once-powerful church leader who speculated that a boy had “seduced” a priest left the Criminal Justice Center with a sheriff’s deputy escort to county jail.

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UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Michael D. Schaffer
Inquirer Staff Writer

The last decade has been a season of agony for the Catholic Church in the United States, a pilgrimage through purgatory made all the more painful by being self-inflicted.

Thousands of children have accused Catholic priests, seminarians, nuns, and brothers of molesting them. Victims have told stories of suffering intensified by official church neglect. The church has paid out billions of dollars in settlements. Most controversial of all, Catholic bishops have been accused of trying to hush it all up, shuffling offenders from one unsuspecting parish to another.

Now, Msgr. William J. Lynn, former secretary for clergy of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, has become the first high-ranking church official convicted for failing to protect children from the possibility of abuse. …

“It’s hugely significant and long overdue,” said Philip F. Lawler, editor of the online Catholic World News. “If bishops and their assistants in the chanceries had been accountable, they wouldn’t have to be held accountable by the courts.”

“It’s a major, major move forward for those of us trying to help victims,” said the Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, a canon lawyer formerly on the staff of the Vatican’s diplomatic mission in Washington.

An even higher-ranking church official than Lynn – Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., – has been charged criminally with failure to report abuse. Finn was indicted on the misdemeanor charge in October. His trial is scheduled for September.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KEYC

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Mild-mannered Bill Lynn proved a loyal, likable colleague as he climbed the ranks of the powerful Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

A jury on Friday found the meek monsignor too loyal for his own good, convicting him of a felony for refusing to challenge his cardinal and stop the cover-up of child sex abuse by priests.

Lynn’s conviction is the first for a U.S. church official and comes in a diocese now beset by layoffs, parish closures and a new round of soul searching over the long-running abuse scandal.

“Why does this stand out? Because he didn’t say no,” said Chris Walsh, a city pastor who leads the Association of Philadelphia Priests, an independent group formed last year to gather support and information for rank-and-file priests.

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VATICAN CITY
Slate

By Abby Ohlheiser| Posted Saturday, June 23, 2012

The Vatican will be getting some (much needed) PR help after hiring a Fox News correspondent as a senior communications adviser for the Church’s top administrative office, the Associated Press reported on Saturday.

The Fox News staffer, Greg Burke, is also a member of the conservative Catholic Opus Dei group. He will leave his job at Fox, where he is a Rome-based reporter. Before working for Fox, Burke was a Rome-based journalist for Time.

The recent, embarrassing Vatican leaks scandal is only the latest PR disaster to plague the Church since Pope Benedict XVI’s election, as the AP notes. Previous blunders include the Vatican’s response to the 2010 sex abuse scandal, the Pope’s remarks on Muslims and violence, and the rehabilitation of a Holocaust-denying bishop.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican, stung by communications blunders and mired in a leaks scandal, has hired an American journalist from Fox News and member of the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei to help improve its relations with the media.

The TV journalist, Greg Burke, and the Vatican on Saturday confirmed what a senior Church source had earlier told Reuters.

Burke, Fox’s Rome-based roving correspondent for Europe and the Middle East, will assume the new post of “senior communications adviser” to the Secretariat of State, the key department in the Vatican’s central bureaucracy. …

He will report directly to the Vatican’s deputy secretary of state, Archbishop Angelo Becciu, the third-ranking person in the Vatican hierarchy. Father Federico Lombardi will remain spokesman.

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VATICAN CITY
New York Magazine

By Caroline Bankoff

Since taking over at the Vatican in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI has had his share of public relations problems. Take, for example, those outrage-spurring statements about the founder of Islam being “evil and inhuman,” or the pardoning of that Holocaust-denying bishop, and, of course, the constant mismanaging of the Catholic church’s many child abuse scandals. More recently, they’ve been dealing with a papal butler’s decision to leak a host of embarrassing internal documents. Today, the Vatican announced that they’ll be taking on these and future issues with a new and improved communications strategy molded by Fox News’s now former Rome correspondent Greg Burke, who will become the Holy See’s senior communications adviser.

“I’m a bit nervous but very excited. Let’s just say it’s a challenge,” Burke said in a phone interview.

He defined his job, which he said he had been offered twice before, as: “You’re shaping the message, you’re molding the message, and you’re trying to make sure everyone remains on-message. And that’s tough.”

Burke is a member of Opus Dei, though he wouldn’t say whether he thought that had anything to do with his appointment, because Opus Dei is full of secrets. “Am I being hired because I’m in Opus Dei?” he asked. “It might come into play,” he said while noting that he was “also in Opus when he was hired by Time and Fox.” We’ll leave it to the world’s conspiracy theorists and remaining Da Vinci Code obsessives to figure out what that means.

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VATICAN CITY
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

VATICAN CITY • Greg Burke, a native St. Louisan who had been working for Fox News, will become the senior communications adviser at the Vatican, officials said Saturday.

The Vatican said Burke, who was the Fox correspondent in Rome, will help improve its communications strategy as it tries to cope with years of communications blunders and one of its most serious scandals in decades, officials said Saturday.

Burke, 52, defined the job, which he said he had been offered twice before, as being along the lines of the White House senior communications adviser: “You’re shaping the message, you’re molding the message, and you’re trying to make sure everyone remains on-message. And that’s tough.”

Burke is a member of the conservative Opus Dei movement. Pope John Paul II’s longtime spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, was also a member of Opus Dei and was known for the papal access he enjoyed and his ability to craft the messages John Paul wanted to get out.

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VATICAN CITY
MSNBC

By NICOLE WINFIELD, VICTOR L. SIMPSON

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has brought in the Fox News correspondent in Rome to help improve its communications strategy as it tries to cope with years of communications blunders and one of its most serious scandals in decades, The Associated Press learned Saturday.

Greg Burke, 52, will leave Fox to become a senior communications adviser in the Vatican’s secretariat of state, the Vatican and Burke told the AP.

“I’m a bit nervous but very excited. Let’s just say it’s a challenge,” Burke said in a phone interview.

He defined his job, which he said he had been offered twice before, as: “You’re shaping the message, you’re molding the message, and you’re trying to make sure everyone remains on-message. And that’s tough.”

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VATICAN CITY
Kerryman (Ireland)

Sunday June 24 2012

The Vatican has brought in the Fox News correspondent in Rome to help improve its communications strategy as it tries to cope with years of communications blunders and one of its most serious scandals in decades, officials said.

Greg Burke, 52, will leave Fox to become the senior communications adviser in the Vatican’s secretariat of state.

“I’m a bit nervous but very excited. Let’s just say it’s a challenge,” Burke said.

He defined his job, which he said he had been offered twice before, as being along the lines of the White House senior communications adviser: “You’re shaping the message, you’re moulding the message, and you’re trying to make sure everyone remains on-message. And that’s tough.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
American Thinker

Matt C. Abbott

I’m relieved yet saddened by the events of June 22, 2012.

Relieved because I believe justice has been served both in the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case and, in Philadelphia, the case resulting in the conviction of a senior Catholic Church official for child endangerment. Saddened for those whose lives have been damaged by abuse in these particular cases and in so many others.

From Reuters:

A jury found former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky guilty on 45 of 48 child sex abuse charges on Friday, ending a trial that rocked U.S. college football and renewed attention on pedophilia in America….

And from The Wall Street Journal:

A Philadelphia jury delivered a sharp rebuke of the Catholic Church’s handling of allegations of sexual abuse by its priests, convicting for the first time a senior church official of not taking steps that could have prevented further attacks.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Fehmarn Heiligenhafen

Philadelphia – In einem aufsehenerregenden Prozess ist ein hochrangiger Kirchenvertreter in den USA wegen seiner Rolle bei der Vertuschung sexuellen Missbrauchs verurteilt worden.

Monsignore William Lynn wurde am Freitag in Philadelphia schuldig gesprochen, Kinder gefährdet zu haben. Vom Vorwurf der Verschwörung sprach das Gericht den 61-Jährigen jedoch frei. Mit dem Richterspruch wurde erstmals ein in der Verwaltung tätiger Vertreter der katholischen Kirche in den USA in dem Skandal verurteilt.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
der Standard

Wegen seiner Rolle bei der Vertuschung – Erster Schuldspruch für katholische Kirche

Philadelphia – In einem aufsehenerregenden Prozess ist ein hochrangiger Kirchenvertreter in den USA wegen seiner Rolle bei der Vertuschung sexuellen Missbrauchs verurteilt worden. Monsignore William Lynn wurde am Freitag in Philadelphia schuldig gesprochen, Kinder gefährdet zu haben. Vom Vorwurf der Verschwörung sprach das Gericht den 61-Jährigen jedoch frei. Mit dem Richterspruch wurde erstmals ein in der Verwaltung tätiger Vertreter der katholischen Kirche in den USA in dem Skandal verurteilt.

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ALASKA
dradio

[mit Audio]

Von Michael Hollenbach

Sexueller Missbrauch durch Geistliche hat die katholische Kirche in den vergangenen Jahren sehr in Bedrängnis gebracht. So auch in der Diözese Fairbanks im US-Bundesstaat Alaska. Hier wurden mehr als 300 Kinder und Jugendliche von Kirchenangehörigen sexuell missbraucht.

Martin Schlüter ist zufällig auf den Skandal gestoßen. Nach dem Abitur war der Hamburger mit zwei Freunden drei Monate mit dem Fahrrad in Alaska unterwegs. Fasziniert von der unglaublichen Landschaft und der Gastfreundschaft der dort lebenden Eskimos ist der heute 34-Jährige dem Landstrich im hohen Norden verbunden geblieben. Als er mal wieder im Internet nachschaute, was es Neues in Alaska gibt, stieß er auf eine kleine Meldung über jahrzehntelange sexuelle Gewalt bei den Eskimos – ein Skandal, den das übrige Nordamerika kaum tangierte:

“Es ist so, dass in Amerika – vielleicht ähnlich wie in Australien mit den Aborigines – sich keiner so richtig dafür interessiert. Es gibt starke Vorurteile gegen die Ureinwohner, eine richtige Lobby oder eine Anteilnahme gibt es da nicht.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit

In der Debatte um die Verjährungsfristen für sexuelle Gewalttaten hat sich die SPD klar dafür ausgesprochen, die rechtliche Lage der Opfer zu verbessern. Die stellvertretende Fraktionsvorsitzende der SPD im Bundestag Christine Lambrecht sagte der ZEIT: „Die rechtliche Situation der Opfer ist unzumutbar. Wir brauchen deutlich längere Verjährungsfristen. Also 20 Jahre im Strafrecht und 30 Jahre im Zivilrecht.“ Der SPD-Gesetzesentwurf dafür sei bereits durch die erste Lesung, werde aber von der Regierungskoalition nicht weiter bearbeitet. „Wir wollen das in der nächsten Sitzungswoche im Rechtsausschuss thematisieren. Wenn das nicht geschieht, wollen wir eine Geschäftsordnungsdebatte im Bundestag erwirken.“ Die komplette Aufhebung der Verjährungsfristen sei zum aktuellen Zeitpunkt jedoch nicht durchsetzbar, betonte Lambrecht.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

by Edward Pentin Saturday, June 23, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI held a meeting this morning with heads of the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia and will be meeting six other cardinals later this evening.

Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said reason for the meetings is because the Holy Father wishes to “speed up” the conclusion of the “Vatileaks” scandal and to “restore serenity and trust” in the Curia.

“In regard to the situation created following the dissemination of confidential documents, the Holy Father deepens his reflections in continuous dialogue with the people who share with him the responsibility for the government of the Church,” Fr. Lombardi said in a statement.

He said the meeting this morning with the Heads of the Dicasteries “is usually devoted to issues surrounding the better coordination of the work of the Curia,” but which today is “particularly important and urgent for the effective witness to their harmony of purpose and the spirit which animates it.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Press Association

Pope Benedict XVI has convened a meeting of cardinals for advice on how to deal with the Vatican’s leaked documents scandal.

The Pope was already scheduled to attend a regular meeting of the heads of Vatican offices.

The Vatican press office said he added a second meeting later in the day with other cardinals in an attempt to try to “restore a climate of serenity and trust” in the Catholic Church.

Over the coming days he will meet with still more cardinals gathering in Rome, for a church feast day on Friday, to “continue the dialogue with the people who share the responsibility of the church’s governance with him”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
OpEd News

By
Joey Piscitelli

The very first conviction of a Roman Catholic Official for child endangerment in the USA has been decided in a Pennsylvania court jury trial on Friday June 22, 2012.

Monsignor William Lynn, 61 yrs. old, has been convicted by a 7 man, 5 woman jury, who decided he was guilty of transferring sex abusers, and covering up a list of at least 37 accused priests – and not alerting parents of their potential threat to children.

Evidence showed Monsignor Lynn willfully reassigned pedophile clergy to unsuspecting schools and parishes, without regard for safety; and with the intention of protecting the catholic church instead.

This unprecedented conviction will have far reaching impact on other cases in the US in the future, as no other catholic official in a high position of power has ever been tried and convicted in any court.

One of the most disturbing revelations brought up in the trial showed that Lynn had reportedly told some of the pedophile priests in the diocese that it was the fault of the child victims for enticing the priests into a sexual encounter. Another outrageous allegation was that Cardinal Bevilaqua had ordered the monsignor to destroy the list of sex abusers in the Diocese of Philadelphia, and to conceal the order.

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VATICAN CITY
U-T San Diego

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI convened a special meeting of cardinals Saturday for advice on how to deal with the Vatican’s leaked documents scandal – another sign of the damage the leaks have done to trust in the Holy See’s governance.

Benedict was already scheduled to attend a regular meeting of the heads of Vatican offices Saturday morning. The Vatican press office said he added a second meeting later in the day with other cardinals in a bid to try to “restore a climate of serenity and trust” in the church.

The Vatican said over the coming days he will meet with still more cardinals gathering in Rome for a church feast day on Friday to “continue the dialogue with the people who share the responsibility of the church’s governance with him.”

The Vatican has been scrambling to contain the damage after the leak of hundreds of Vatican documents exposed corruption, political infighting and power struggles at the highest level of the Catholic Church. The pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, is under arrest at the Vatican, accused of aggravated theft after the pope’s own documents were found in his Vatican City apartment.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
BishopAccountability.org

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. William J. Lynn, Edward V. Avery, and James J. Brennan : Trial Narrative and Resources

Note: This page is a work in progress. Please refresh your browser to view the latest additions and updates.

The trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn and Rev. James J. Brennan in Philadelphia was complex and lengthy, and its conclusion was a watershed event: the first conviction of a church official for child endangerment. During the trial, witnesses and exhibits provided the jury with information on 21 other accused priests whom Lynn had managed.

We have provided two resources for understanding the trial and the evidence that has been presented during it. On this page, we offer a day-by-day list of the witnesses, evidence, and courtroom discussions, with links to articles by journalists who were present at the trial and filed detailed accounts. The mainstays are John P. Martin and Joseph A. Slobodzian of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Maryclaire Dale and Joann Loviglio of the Associated Press, and Ralph Cipriano of the Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog sponsored by The Beasley Firm. Many other reporters covered the trial, and we have included selections of their work. We have emphasized the longer accounts. The men and women of the press deserve everyone’s sincere thanks for their dedicated and able reporting during this epic trial.

We also provide, on a separate webpage, a day-by-day outline of the topics and persons in the trial to complement the chronological narrative offered on this page. The outline of topics and persons is linked to the narrative below.

Our narrative begins with a table of contents providing single-line summaries of the trial week-by-week. Click on any week, and you jump down the webpage to that week, where resources (marked >), summaries of court events (marked •), and links to articles (marked -) are provided for each day.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Catholic priest’s child-endangerment conviction underscores limits of law in abuse scandal

By Associated Press, Saturday, June 23

NEW YORK — A decade after the clergy sex-abuse crisis erupted, the first Roman Catholic church official has been criminally convicted for failing to alert parishes or police about known predators.

Advocates for children said the verdict Friday against Monsignor William Lynn sends a critical message that diocesan officials who supervise priests must report offenders or face prosecution.

Lynn was secretary of the clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004. A jury in Philadelphia found him guilty of one count of child endangerment but acquitted him of conspiracy and a second child endangerment count.

Lynn was far from the only diocesan official in the United States who kept accused priests in parish assignments. Thousands of case files made public through lawsuits and civil investigations revealed that consistent inaction by church officials in the face of abuse claims in earlier years left a trail of victims in dioceses nationwide. About 16,000 claims have been made against Catholic clergy since 1950, according to studies commissioned by the U.S. bishops.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patch

By James Myers

By now most readers are familiar with the case against Monsignor William Lynn. Lynn was charged with several counts of endangering children and conspiracy for his alleged role in covering up instances of sexual abuse of children by priests in Archdiocese of Philadelphia. [See this timeline of the case put together by The New York Times.]

On Friday, Lynn, a former aide to Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, was found guilty of endangering children and became the first senior official of the Roman Catholic Church in America convicted of covering up sexual abuses by priests. Lynn was acquited of conspiracy and another count of endangerment by the jury.

Many local Catholics have struggled for years with their faith and loyalty to the church in the face of sexual abuse allegations and cover ups. While it is often the topic of discussion at the dinner table, around the water cooler or on social media sites like Facebook, it is rarely addressed at the altar.

Father Liam Murphy, who served at Saint Patrick’s Church in Norristown from 2004 to 2011 and is now stationed at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in West Grove, Pa., plans to do just that in his remarks to his parishoners at this week’s masses. He’s posted his thoughts, in which he takes church leadership to task for its silence on this issue, to his Facebook page:

Dear Friends:
This is a copy of my remarks made at Masses on the weekend of June 23-24:

“I would be remiss if I didn’t say something about the elephant in the room. Yes. As has been reported in the news, Msgr. Lynn was found guilty on Friday of child endangerment. For some, perhaps many, this verdict brings with it at least some small sense of justice rendered. No doubt, it makes clear that “I was just following orders,” is an unacceptable defense in the face of blatant evil.

Yet for many with whom I have spoken and with whom I agree, it is only a partial sense of justice. Because the other elephant in the room is the fact that those directly in charge, the bishops, have yet to claim or accept responsibility for their own horrific part in this painful scandal. Not a single bishop has acknowledged or apologized for his decision to put the image of the Church before the protection and care of sexual abuse victims of clergy. Nor have any bishops had the decency or courage to call their fellow bishops to accountability.

The result? Many Catholics, including fellow clerics, friends who are practicing Catholics and friends who have left a Church they find disingenuous, dismiss the bishops as inauthentic and unworthy of their attention.

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UNITED STATES
The Legal Examiner

Posted by Joe Saunders
June 23, 2012 1:36 PM

The Penn State football dynasty and the Roman Catholic Church both for decades have put their own prestige and privilege ahead of the safety of children. The criminal convictions last night are a measure of justice for children whose words were not believed in the face of denials by the these powerful institutions. In both of these cases it was not only the evil of the child predators that was at issue but the abuse of power by the institutions that allowed child rapes to go on for years.

I hope that these cases are just the first step in protecting children and in holding those responsibe for child abuse and the cover ups accountable. Monsignor William Lynn of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was the first upper level official of the Catholic Church to be held accountable for protecting child rapists and endangering children. From the evidence in that case it is clear that Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua who was Monsignor Lynn’s boss was probably even more culpable. Monsignor Lynn was the vicar for clergy under Cardinal Bevilacqua which means that he was authorized to act for and stand in the place of the Cardinal. Monsignor Lynn was the also the personnel manager of the Archdiocese.

The next significant criminal case pending is the child sex abuse cover up case against Bishop Robert Finn in Kansas City. This case against Bishop Finn is only the second criminal prosecution ever against a high level Catholic priest for covering up for another priest child sex abuser. In spite of this charge and the clear underlying evidence that Bishop Lynn failed or refused to follow Missouri law and report child abuse to law enforcement the Vatican still has not removed Bishop Lynn.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Lawyer Herald

By Tatjana Kulkarni
June 23, 2012

PHILADELPHIA. – The Archbishop’s top former aid former Msgr. William J. Lynn was convicted Friday of child endangerment. A jury of 12 found Lynn guilty of knowingly putting a priest alleged to be a child molester in charge of a youth project involving many children.

The 61-year-old was found guilty on one count of child endangerment. He was acquitted of conspiracy and a second count of endangerment. Never the less he could face up to seven years in prison. The sentencing is set for August 13. Msgr. Lynn is expected to file for appeal.

The ruling is truly a milestone since it is the first time a top member of the Roman Catholic Church has been convicted in a sex-abuse case in the history of the U.S.

The 10-week trial resulted from the U.S. district attorney crack-down on various reported sex-abuse incidences involving high-level priests in the archdiocese.

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NEW JERSEY
The Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse

Bill To Eliminate Civil Statute Of Limitations On Sex Abuse Cases Clears Judiciary Panel

NJToday.net
June 22, 2012

TRENTON – A bill sponsored by Senators Joseph F. Vitale and Nicholas P. Scutari that would hold accountable in civil court child sex offenders and organizations that fail to appropriately respond to employees who commit sex crimes against children was approved Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill, S-1651, would remove the statute of limitations on civil child sex abuse cases, expand who is potentially liable in these actions and provide that public entities would be liable.

“Expanding the statute of limitations on sexual abuse is imperative to providing justice for the victims of these heinous crimes,” said Vitale, D-Middlesex. “The scars of sexual abuse do not heal easily, but hopefully, with time, compassion, counseling and a measure of justice, many of the victims will be able to get on with their lives. While a statute of limitations may make sense in certain civil cases, when it comes to the difficulty that victims endure to speak out about and seek justice for sexual abuse, they should be given a little more leeway. This bill makes sure that sexual abuse victims receive the time and patience needed for them to face their abusers in court.”

“Considering the psychological scars and lifelong trauma of child molestation, many of the victims are not able to process or speak about the crime until long after it has been committed and often not without extensive therapy,” said Scutari, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The current two-year statute of limitations is quite prohibitive in allowing for these victims to seek damages against their abusers. This law will not constrict sexual abuse victims with a meaningless timeline and will provide them with the ability to continue to seek justice and bring closure to their past abuse.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Religion Dispatches

Post by Anthea Butler

Finally, after 10 weeks of testimony and 13 days of deliberation, a partial verdict was reached in the trial of Monsignor William J Lynn and Father Patrick Brennan. Monsignor Lynn was convicted of one count of endangering a child, while the charges against Father James J Brennan, accused of child endangerment, corruption of a minor, and attempted rape, resulted in a jury deadlock.

The outcome was mixed, but I agree with the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Ronnie Polaneczky, that whatever the outcome, the priest sex abuse jury did their job. As did the prosecutors. The determination of the Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams and his team of prosecutors may not have resulted in a sweeping conviction but it was nonetheless valuable. It put into the public mind the manner in which the church made its decisions to move priests around without worrying about impunity from outsiders, or the legal system.

That is a huge change. The scope of the decades of abuse is no longer hidden and platitudes, payouts, and random apology sessions by Pope Benedict will no longer suffice as penance.

I was in the courtroom for the closing arguments which highlighted the deep divides and opinions about the role of the Philadelphia hierarchy in the cases. It was patently clear that there were three other men who should have been present to answer to these charges: The “princes” of the church, Kroll, Bevilaqua, and Rigali. Their complicity in the cases of abuse in the archdiocese was on trial as well, and to this observer they were found wanting. It certainly appeared as though it was their direction that allowed these incidences to occur.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Voice from the Desert

Road to Recovery, Inc., the only non-profit charity in the United States that provides direct services of many kinds to clergy abuse survivors, stands with all victims of clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia as they absorb the news that Monsignor William Lynn has been found guilty of child endangerment. This verdict would not have been possible had brave victims not come forward to report sexual abuse to law enforcement.

District Attorney Seth Williams is to be thanked and congratulated for holding Msgr. Lynn and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia accountable for endangering the welfare of children. The Prosecution team, led by Assistant District Attorney Pat Blessington, was valiant in their presentation of a case that sent a message from Philadelphia all the way to the Vatican. Perhaps a cleansing of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, a necessary development, will now take place.

It is clear that indictments and convictions of Church officials could be entered in every diocese in the country. For too long, victims and their advocates have attempted to hold their abusers and enablers accountable, only to be dismissed and vilified by Church officials. The jury of peers in Philadelphia has sent a message to all citizens of the USA that the cover-up of clergy sexual abuse by the Catholic Church is over, will not be tolerated by law enforcement officials, and criminal charges will be filed against perpetrators and those who assign and protect them.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
dotCommonweal

June 22, 2012

Posted by Paul Moses

Many will be elated that Monsignor William Lynn has been found guilty of one count of child endangerment. I’m not. It’s a sad day for Lynn, and for the church. And yet, it’s a necessary one.

The Philadelphia jury, which acquitted Lynn on two other counts, worked extremely hard. I hope we’ll see interviews with some of the jurors that explain their decision.

Absent that, it’s a little difficult to interpret the verdict with the information available. Sometimes, juries just compromise – no favor to Lynn, since it only takes a conviction on one count to expose a defendant to prison time and change the course of his life. For a defendant, there is really no such thing as a “mixed verdict,” as this is being called.

The jurors’ questions during the long deliberation indicated that they were very troubled by the conspiracy charge, and the panel passed up the chance to convict Lynn of entering into an illicit agreement with his superiors. So – this is preliminary – it looks like a verdict that focuses on Lynn’s personal responsibility. To reach it, the jury had to reject the so-called “only-following-orders” defense – a weak defense in any case.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Statement by Christopher Anderson, Executive Director, MaleSurvivor, 917 524 8934 on June 22, 2012

MaleSurvivor applauds the jury for it’s courageous verdict and the tireless work of prosecutors and officials in the case against Monsignor Lynn.

This verdict sends a clear and unmistakable message to all institutions that harbor and enable molesters to thrive within their walls: Sexual abuse will not be tolerated in our communities any longer. This verdict also sends a powerful message to all survivors of sexual abuse: Your voices will be heard. Finally, instead of facing obstruction and defeat, those who have suffered in silence for far too long are beginning to feel empowered to come forward and speak openly about what was once an unspeakable shame. Not only does this help survivors heal, it also begins to help heal our society as well.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Boston Herald

[with video]

By John P. Martin and Joseph A. Slobodzian / The Philadelphia Inquirer
Saturday, June 23, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — A jury convicted Msgr. William J. Lynn of child endangerment Friday, finding that as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia secretary for clergy, he ignored credible warning signs about a priest who later sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy.

The verdict, after a three-month trial, marked the first time since the clergy sex-abuse scandal erupted a decade ago that a Catholic Church supervisor has been found criminally liable for child-sex crimes by a priest.

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina immediately revoked Lynn’s bail, and deputy sheriffs escorted the white-haired monsignor to a holding cell. Lynn faces up to seven years in prison, and prosecutors vowed to seek a term near the maximum.

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PHILIPPINES
Tempo

MANILA, Philippines – No, this is not about pedophile priests or bishops with mistresses and a love child or two. It’s about five parish priests, all belonging to the same Metro Manila diocese, whose battle cry is, “Thou shall not steal.”

They have serious allegations against their bishop – from mismanagement of the diocese’s funds, to the tune of millions and millions over the course of the last 10 years (out of the bishop’s reign of 15); mistreatment of priests and other inferiors, like shouting at them and humiliating them in public; and “his relationship with that woman,” allegedly his accountant and treasurer who holds, they say, the power of the purse.

The leader and oldest member of the group said parishioners have long suspected that the bishop has been hoarding proceeds from the second collection at the end of the mass. “That woman,” he added, has a lot of explaining to do, even if she comes from a well-off family and lives with her husband in a high-end subdivision not far from town.

Priests and parishioners want to know where the funds, principally sourced from the churches’ collections and the donations of generous souls, have gone – to heaven, that hot place below, or are they still on earth?

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Philly

[with video]

By Omari Fleming, Reporter

PHILADELPHIA –
It was a mixed verdict Friday in the landmark Philadelphia priest sex abuse case, but victims say it’s an important step forward for their rights.

Monsignor William Lynn was convicted of child endangerment, which could get him up to seven years in prison

It’s the first time a church official has been convicted of covering abuse allegations. He was acquitted of conspiracy charges.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PhillyBurbs

Posted on June 23, 2012

by Christian Menno

Bucks residents had plenty to say Friday following the landmark conviction of a Roman Catholic Church official charged with child endangerment and the hung-jury outcome of another priest with local ties accused of sexually abusing a minor.

A Philadelphia jury agreed with prosecutors that Monsignor William Lynn, 61, helped keep predators in the priesthood by moving them to different parishes under the guise that the transfers were health-related.

Lynn, 61, could face three-and-a-half to seven years in prison. He faced two counts of child endangerment charges and one count of conspiracy. Only one child endangerment charge was upheld by the jury Friday.

“Priests should be people you can trust,” said Dorothea Christian, 61, of Newtown Township on Friday. “To hear about these kinds of things is horrifying.”

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WISCONSIN
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: A Green Bay diocesan priest, Feeney has been accused of sexually abusing many children, male and female, throughout his career. At least 12 have come forward. He was moved among 18 parishes in the diocese within 30 years. In 1978 the parents of two young teenage brothers reported to diocesan officials and police that Feeney had molested their boys. The parents dropped the charges when the diocese told them the problem would be taken care of. In 1979 two mothers went to law enforcement officials with complaints about Feeney, but were persuaded by a prosecutor not to press charges. In 1983 Green Bay bishop Wycislo told Feeney that unless he found a job in another diocese he would face going to treatment, or prosecution. Feeney found work as a priest in San Diego, CA and Las Vegas, NV parishes, and in Nevada prisons. He was removed from ministry in 1986 after being accused of smuggling drug paraphernalia and women’s underwear into a Nevada prison in exchange for sex with prisoners. Feeney was arrested in 2002 for the 1978 sexual assaults of the two young brothers in Wisconsin. He was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Feeney was defrocked by the Vatican in 2005. He was released from prison to a Wisconsin halfway house in Nov. 2011, and is a registered sex offender.

Ordained: 1952

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ROME
Irish Examiner

By TP O’Mahony

Saturday, June 23, 2012

THE firing on May 24 of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the president of the Vatican Bank, because of a failure to “promote transparency”, must have sent a frisson of fear through the upper echelons of the Roman Curia, coming as it did three decades after another scandal involving the same institution.

The fall-out from the tragic events of 1982 still reverberate, and the police file on the death of Roberto Calvi, head of Banco Ambrosiano in Milan, is still open. It was that bank’s close links with the Vatican and its involvement in money laundering that led to a huge scandal.

To experienced Vatican watchers — mindful that in March this year the US State Department, for the first time, included the Vatican in the list of states deemed to be “vulnerable” to money laundering operations— it was surely a case of plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Just before the sacking of the head of the Vatican Bank, an Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, published His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI. The book, based on leaked documents from the papal apartments — the so-called “Vatileaks” controversy — contains a mixture of revelations, including some about clashes over the management of the Vatican Bank.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Bilgrimage

In Philadelphia today, the jury in the Philadelphia abuse trial found Msgr. William Lynn guilty of child endangerment. Brian Roewe reports on this story at National Catholic Reporter. Jerry Slevin, a Harvard-trained lawyer who has closely followed this trial, has sent the following powerful statement about the verdict:

A Philly jury, that included several Catholics, has found a former top aide to two prominent Philly Catholic Cardinals guilty of endangering children who were sexually assaulted by predatory priests as described here and here.

The Cardinals’ aide, Monsignor Lynn, offered as his main defense that he was only following the Cardinals’ orders pursuant to the Philadelphia Catholic Archdiocese’s massive child abuse cover-up program that continued for decades until as late as last year at least.

The Cardinals had very close ties to the Vatican. One of them, Cardinal Rigali, worked closely with the current pope in Rome for over a decade and was St. Louis mentor for New York’s Cardinal Dolan, head of the American bishops.

The trial revealed in detail a cover-up program that appears to be standard operating procedure in the Catholic Church worldwide.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Huffington Post

The Associated Press | June 23, 2012

One of the recurring themes in this case was: Who would believe a kid? The answer is: We here in Bellefonte, Pa., would believe a kid.” – Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly after retired Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted Friday of child sex abuse.
___

“Lynn was a smart, able manager who at any time could have called the police, warned parishes or threatened to blow the whistle. He was not a helpless good guy. The only helpless people in this ongoing catastrophe were the children, the many hundreds of boys and girls who were sodomized and terrorized by the men Lynn managed.” – Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, after Philadelphia Monsignor William Lynn was convicted Friday of one count of child endangerment and faces up to seven years in prison.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By George Jackson
Saturday, 23 June 2012

A pensioner priest could not eat or sleep after police informed him that he had been accused of indecently assaulting a 14-year-old girl, a court was told.

Fr Eugene Boland denies five charges of indecent assault between June 1990 and 1992 in the parochial house of St Joseph’s parish in the Galliagh area of Londonderry when he was the parish administrator.

The 66-year-old from Killyclogher Road in Omagh told Derry Crown Court yesterday: “I remember I could not sleep, I could not eat. I was horrified.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The New York Times

By JON HURDLE and ERIK ECKHOLM

PHILADELPHIA — Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former cardinal’s aide, was found guilty Friday of endangering children, becoming the first senior official of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States convicted of covering up sexual abuses by priests under his supervision.

The 12-member jury acquitted Monsignor Lynn, of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, of conspiracy and a second count of endangerment after a trial that prosecutors and victims rights groups called a turning point in the abuse scandals that have shaken the Catholic Church.

The single guilty verdict was widely seen as a victory for the district attorney’s office, which has been investigating the archdiocese aggressively since 2002, and it was hailed by victim advocates who have argued for years that senior church officials should be held accountable for concealing evidence and transferring predatory priests to unwary parishes. …

Victims advocates said that they hoped the conviction would embolden prosecutors in other states to investigate senior church officials, and predicted that it would lead to more victim lawsuits.

“The guilty verdict sends a strong and clear message that shielding and enabling predator priests is a heinous crime that threatens families, communities and children, and must be punished as such,” said Barbara Dorris, of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
PBS Newshour

[with video]

Transcript

JEFFREY BROWN: A jury convicted a U.S. church official for the first time for the handling and cover-up of sexual abuse claims.

Sixty-one-year-old Monsignor William Lynn of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was found guilty of child endangerment. Prosecutors said he recommended reassigning priests accused of abuse to unsuspecting parishes when he served as secretary of the clergy from 1992 to 2004. The jury acquitted him on one count of conspiracy and another of endangerment. He could face up to seven years in prison.

The jury could not agree on a verdict for his co-defendant, Rev. James Brennan. He was accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy in 1996.

After the verdict, district attorney Seth Williams had this to say.

SETH WILLIAMS, Philadelphia district attorney: What happened here was unspeakable. People who knew that these were predators were much more concerned with the institution than the victims of sexual assault. They failed to recognize that the church is its people.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian and Julie Zauzmer
Inquirer Staff Writers

In the end, jurors said, it was not about the Catholic Church or the prosecution’s carefully crafted litany of Philadelphia priests who over the years abused children and got away with it.

It was about two people and what they did, and what prosecutors proved beyond a reasonable doubt, said Isa Logan, foreman of the 12 Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jurors in the landmark Catholic Church sex-abuse trial.

Logan, 35, a muscular, 6-foot-6 Army veteran, bank worker, and deacon of a nondenominational West Philadelphia church, met with reporters Friday afternoon and, above the noise of traffic around City Hall, tried to give some insight into the jurors’ deliberations.

“We followed the court’s instructions and the evidence,” said Logan, a father of three who said he gained a new appreciation for the vulnerability of children.

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SAN JOSE (CA)
Ventura County Star

The Associated Press
Posted June 23, 2012

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) – Attorneys representing a California man charged with assaulting a priest who he claims raped him decades ago want a judge to declare a mistrial.

The attorneys have said that a prosecutor committed misconduct in handling the priest’s testimony. The defense attorneys accuse the prosecutor of knowingly allowing false testimony, known as “suborning perjury.”

Father Jerold Lindner denied under oath on the witness stand Wednesday that he molested William Lynch during a 1975 camping trip.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Times

Published: Saturday, June 23, 2012

A look at the week that was, the issues and people who made headlines, and a few darts and laurels for those who deserve them.

LAUREL: To the jury that took on the grueling Philly priest sex-abuse case. They heard 10 weeks of testimony, then deliberated 13 days before delivering a split verdict. It was a thankless task, but they performed their civic duty.

DART: To the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Monsignor William Lynn now becomes the first high-ranking church official to be convicted in connection with priest sexual abuse. He was convicted of one count of child endangerment, but was acquitted on another endangerment count as well as conspiracy. The jury was deadlocked on both charges against the Rev. James Brennan and a mistrial was declared. There are no winners in this case, only a terrible sadness.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

[2005 Grand Jury report – BishopAccountability.org]

By Robert Moran
Inquirer Staff Writer

Msgr. William J. Lynn was a top aide to Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, but little was known publicly about him when his name first surfaced amid the initial allegations of sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, as a church official investigating the claims.

In 2005, he suddenly became a central figure in a 418-page grand jury report accusing church leaders, including Bevilacqua, of failing to take appropriate actions when priests were accused of abuse. Lynn’s name was mentioned 652 times in the report.

He was found guilty Friday of one count of child endangerment, becoming the highest-ranking church official in the country to be convicted of such a crime.

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