CANADA
Toronto Sun
By CP
VANCOUVER -- A woman who escaped from a breakaway fundamentalist Mormon commune says the group's leaders will be battling for control of the B.C. sect after the arrest Monday of so-called prophet Warren Jeffs in Las Vegas.
Jeffs will be prosecuted first in Utah, then in Arizona, on charges that he arranged marriages of underage girls to older men, authorities said yesterday.
Arizona officials filed charges first, but Utah prosecutors agreed to try Jeffs first because they believe they have a stronger case and more serious charges, including two counts of rape by accomplice, which accuse Jeffs of forcing a girl to marry an older man and submit to him sexually.
Debbie Palmer, who escaped from the commune, said in an interview that Winston Blackmore of Bountiful, B.C., will be assessing his options for taking power over the dissident Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
NEOSHO (MO)
Belleville News-Democrat
Associated Press
NEOSHO, Mo. - A pastor accused of repeatedly molesting a young girl from his church pleaded not guilty Wednesday in an expanding investigation of alleged ritual child abuse by five leaders of two affiliated church communities in rural southwest Missouri.
George Otis Johnston, 63, pastor of Grandview Valley Baptist Church North, is charged in Newton County with eight counts of statutory sodomy. He entered the plea during a brief arraignment.
Later Wednesday, prosecutors in neighboring McDonald County charged him with one felony count of child molestation. Johnston and four leaders of a reclusive church compound there are accused of repeatedly molesting and having sex with young girls from their flock.
The new charge relates to the same girl named as a victim in the first eight counts against Johnston. A probable cause statement alleges that Johnston repeatedly molested the girl at the McDonald County church over a period of five years, starting when she was 11 years old.
PHOENIX (AZ)
Jackson Hole Star-Tribune
By JACQUES BILLEAUD
Associated Press writer Thursday, August 31, 2006
PHOENIX -- The arrest of the fugitive leader of a polygamist sect marks the biggest milestone in battling plural marriages since a raid 53 years ago on polygamist communities in northern Arizona and southern Utah made it politically unattractive to crack down on the problem.
For decades, authorities had mostly turned a blind eye to polygamy in Colorado City, Ariz., and neighboring Hildale, Utah, until prosecutors began to put pressure about four years ago on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a sect that practices polygamy and broke away from the main Mormon church.
Authorities alleged that church leader Warren Jeffs had arranged marriages between underage girls and older men. Colorado City's financially troubled school district was taken over by the state of Arizona. And a church trust, estimated to be worth $100 million in property, came under scrutiny from the Utah judicial system.
Until pressure was put on Jeffs, the political costs of the 1953 raid and the geographic isolation of both communities from population centers were cited as reasons for so little attention being paid to the polygamy problems.
NEOSHO (MO)
Neosho Daily News
By John Ford / Daily News Associate Editor
Published: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 11:43 AM CDT
During his arraignment this morning, George Otis Johnston pleaded not guilty to eight felony statutory sodomy charges.
Johnston, 63, the pastor of Grandview Valley Baptist Church North in rural Granby, faces seven unclassified felony charges of first degree statutory sodomy and a Class C felony count of second degree statutory sodomy.
With defense attorney David Sims, Johnston appeared before Newton County Division II Associate Circuit Court Judge Greg Stremel this morning and entered the not guilty plea.
A preliminary hearing was set for 1:15 p.m. Sept. 18 in Stremel's courtroom. Immediately after the proceeding, Johnston left the courthouse with Sims and walked across the Neosho square to his attorney's law office.
NEOSHO (MO)
Neosho Daily News
By John Ford / Daily News Associate Editor
Published: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:12 PM CDT
George Otis Johnston was expected to be arraigned at 10 a.m. today.
Johnston is accused of seven unclassified felony counts of first degree statutory sodomy and a Class C felony charge of second degree statutory sodomy.
Johnston could enter one of two pleas today. First, if he pleads not guilty, then a preliminary hearing will be set and court proceedings will begin.
Or he could enter one of two guilty pleas: Either a direct guilty plea, at which time a sentencing hearing would be set, or an Alford plea. Although handled by the court like a guilty plea, an Alford plea is not an admission of guilt, but rather recognizes that the state has compiled enough evidence that a guilty conviction would be likely.
NEOSHO (MO)
The Morning Sun
By MARCUS KABEL
Associated Press Writer
NEOSHO, Mo. (AP) - Plying her with what he called "angel kisses" and assurances God had instructed him to "fulfill her needs as a woman," a pastor repeatedly molested a young girl at two reclusive southwest Missouri church communities for nearly a decade, prosecutors in two counties say.
And many other potential victims are expected to come forward as an investigation of what authorities consider a pattern of ritual child abuse by church leaders unfolds.
The Rev. George Otis Johnston, 63, pastor of Grandview Valley Baptist Church North, pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Newton County to eight counts of statutory sodomy. Later that day, McDonald County prosecutors charged him with one felony count of child molestation.
NEOSHO (MO)
News Leader
Marcus Kabel
The Associated Press
Neosho — A pastor accused of repeatedly molesting a young girl from his church pleaded not guilty Wednesday in an expanding investigation of alleged ritual child abuse by five leaders of two affiliated church communities in rural southwest Missouri.
George Otis Johnston, 63, pastor of Grandview Valley Baptist Church North, is charged in Newton County with eight counts of statutory sodomy. He entered the plea during a brief arraignment.
Later Wednesday, prosecutors in neighboring McDonald County charged him with one felony count of child molestation. Johnston and four leaders of a reclusive church compound there are accused of repeatedly molesting and having sex with young girls from their flock.
NEW YORK
The New York Times
By ANDY NEWMAN
Published: August 31, 2006
As the Roman Catholic Church struggles to repair itself and its image in the wake of the sex abuse scandals, one of the more confounding questions church leaders face is what to do with priests accused of abuse.
Some priests whose crimes fell within statutes of limitation are in jail. Some have been defrocked.
But others — because they are elderly, because of the nature of their offenses, or because they have had some success fighting the charges — cannot be defrocked under canon law. These priests occupy a sort of shadow world, stripped of most duties but still financially supported by the church and fairly free to move about, both angering the critics of the church and exposing the diocese to further liability.
Cardinal Edward M. Egan, head of the New York Archdiocese, is trying something new. Since June, he has offered seven priests that the archdiocese believes have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children a choice.
They can spend the rest of their lives in closely supervised housing, where, in addition to receiving regular therapy, they must fill out a daily log of their comings and goings. Or they can leave the priesthood and the lifetime security net that comes with it.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
Post-Dispatch
By Todd C. Frankel
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
08/30/2006
After serving a three-year term for molesting a teenager, the Rev. Bryan Kuchar was released from St. Louis County Jail early Wednesday morning.
Kuchar, 40, was moved to "a monitored environment at a facility outside the immediate St. Louis metropolitan area," said Tony Huenneke, a spokesman for the St. Louis Archdiocese.
Kuchar will reside at the undisclosed facility until the Vatican decides whether to grant the archdiocese's request to laicize, or defrock, Kuchar. The request, made in May 2004, has been met by silence.
Kuchar, who has maintained his innocence, has been fighting the move. His attorneys did not return calls Wednesday.
LOVELAND (CO)
The Daily Reporter-Herald
By Pamela Dickman
The Daily Reporter-Herald
A Loveland man who is a former Catholic priest was indicted in Jefferson County for allegedly sexually assaulting a teen in his parish in the mid-1990s.
Timothy Joseph Evans, 44, faces similar charges in Fort Collins, alleging he sexually assaulted a 17-year-old boy while serving as a priest at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton church.
Evans has not entered pleas to any of the charges.
He turned himself in at the Loveland Police Department on Monday night — the same day a grand jury indicted him in Jefferson County.
The indictment alleges sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust.
HILDALE (UT)
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 30, 2006
Filed at 11:00 a.m. ET
HILDALE, Utah (AP) -- In his two years as a fugitive, polygamist church leader Warren Jeffs never loosened his grip on his 10,000 congregants, and people close to the sect say his arrest this week won't change that.
''I think there's a structure in place that if Warren got caught they'll still carry out his word, and they'll figure out how to keep communicating with him,'' said Andrew Chatwin, a former church member who moved back to Hildale last year.
Jeffs, 50, was caught by chance when a Cadillac Escalade in which he was riding was pulled over by the Nevada Highway Patrol for having a temporary Colorado license tag that was hard to read, FBI and Nevada Highway Patrol officials said.
When Trooper Eddie Dutchover walked up to the vehicle, something seemed amiss. Jeffs said the group had stayed in Las Vegas for a night, but they had too much luggage, Dutchover told The Associated Press. Jeffs also offered a contact lens receipt from Florida with the name John Findley as identification, the trooper said.
COLORADO
Denver Post
By Kieran Nicholson
Denver Post Staff Writer
A former Catholic priest has been indicted by a Jefferson County grand jury on charges he sexually assaulted a teenage boy he was counseling.
Timothy Evans, 43, of Loveland is accused of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office announced Tuesday.
The assault allegedly took place between May 10, 1995, and May 10, 1997, when the boy was about 16, according to the indictment.
The parents of the teenager sent their son to Evans because the boy had been questioning his religious beliefs and had checked out a "satanic bible" from the library, according to court documents.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
KWMU
ST. LOUIS, MO (2006-08-30) A Catholic priest who was convicted of sexual abuse three years ago is scheduled to be released today (Wed.) from the St. Louis County Jail.
Bryan Kuchar was convicted of molesting a boy 11 years ago while serving at Assumption Church in St. Louis County.
The priest sex abuse victims' group SNAP had called on Kuchar to be kept locked away after his release. The group has also started a letter-writing campaign to contact members of the parishes where Kuchar has served, asking any other victims to come forward.
DARIEN (CT)
Hartford Courant
August 30, 2006
By Donna Porstner, Staff Writer
The priest who blew the whistle on his boss for allegedly stealing from their wealthy Darien parish resigned without warning yesterday.
Along with the church bookkeeper, the Rev. Michael Madden hired a private investigator earlier this year to look into the lavish spending habits of the former pastor. That led to an FBI investigation that is continuing.
The investigator found the former pastor of St. John Roman Catholic Church, the Rev. Michael Jude Fay, spent at least $200,000 on airline tickets, fancy dinners, limousine rides and gifts for himself and his boyfriend. Fay was forced to resign after the scandal broke.
An audit commissioned by the Bridgeport Diocese found Fay might have misspent up to $1.4 million in church funds.
GEORGIA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By GAYLE WHITE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/30/06
A year to the day after two longtime parishioners and staff members filed suit against Bishop Earl Paulk, the parties will appear before a DeKalb County judge on Thursday to try to move the case along.
Lawyers for the suit's plaintiffs hope to convince Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony that Paulk, who underwent major surgery in November, is able to be questioned.
The plaintiffs, Bobby and Mona Brewer — former leaders in Paulk's Chapel Hill Harvester Church, accuse Paulk of sexual misconduct, saying he coerced Mona Brewer into an affair that lasted 14 years. One of Paulk's lawyers has acknowledged that Paulk had a brief sexual relationship with Mona
Brewer, but said she was the initiator.
ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic
Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 30, 2006 12:00 AM
Authorities have dogged Warren Steed Jeffs and the fundamentalist church he controls for several years, targeting polygamy, fraud and corruption in the twin hamlets of Colorado City and Hildale on the Arizona-Utah line.
They struggled to obtain convictions against leaders, however, because women and children in the tight-knit group refused to testify.
With the arrest of Jeffs, officials are hopeful that victims of sexual abuse may feel safe to step forward. Jeffs, 50, was captured late Monday near Las Vegas. He was wanted in Arizona and Utah on felony charges in connection with arranged marriages involving minor girls. advertisement
The Vancouver Sun
Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, August 30, 2006
In B.C. and the U.S., the legal net is closing on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
ATTORNEYS-GENERAL
WALLY OPPAL, B.C.
Since his appointment more than a year ago, Oppal has repeatedly expressed his concern about sexual and physical abuse of women and children in Bountiful. Unlike his predecessors, he has indicated he would not shy away from a case that would test Canada's 115-year-old polygamy law. Encouraged by Jeffs's arrest, Oppal hopes witnesses will step forward from Bountiful.
TERRY GODDARD, ARIZ.
Under him, Arizona has investigated and reorganized the school district, worked with Utah to reform the FLDS's trust, thrown out FLDS police officers who did not enforce the law, and established helplines and shelters for victims. In addition to Jeffs, Arizona has charged eight other FLDS men with sexual offences and has five others in jail for contempt after they refused to testify before a grand jury.
ST. GEORGE (UT)
The Spectrum
By SCOTT NOWLING
snowling@thespectrum.com
ST. GEORGE - An international manhunt lasting more than a year and ranging from Canada to Mexico and throughout Colorado, Texas, Arizona and Southern Utah came to an end Monday night on Interstate 15 north of Las Vegas when Warren Steed Jeffs was arrested by a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper during a traffic stop.
The fugitive leader of a polygamist religious sect has been sought by local, state and national law enforcement agencies since June 2005 and was placed on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List in May 2006.
"The troopers did a great job," Patrick Kiernan, spokesman for the FBI's Salt Lake City field office, said.
Kiernan said that the FBI made Jeffs' capture a high priority locally and nationally even though a relatively small number of field offices were directly involved.
UTAH
The Spectrum
A sigh of relief can be aired by some members of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the FBI and legal teams of Utah and Arizona with the capture of Warren Steed Jeffs.
The 50-year-old polygamist leader has been on the run since Jan. 2005 to evade charges of sexual misconduct in both states for allegedly arranging marriages between underage girls and older men. In May, the fugitive was put on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted List with a $100,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
He was apprehended Monday night after a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper pulled over a red 2007 Cadillac Escalade traveling on Interstate 15 just north of Las Vegas. Jeffs was aboard and in the company of one of his wives, Naomi Jeffs, 32, and his brother, Issac Steed Jeffs, also 32.
In his possession were cell phones, laptop computers, wigs and more than $50,000 in cash. He seemed more than prepared to keep on fleeing with his tail between his legs, in disguise, completely the contrary to a religious leader's conviction of honesty.
LAS VEGAS (NV)
NorthJersey.com
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
By KEN RITTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAS VEGAS -- The charismatic leader of a polygamous Mormon splinter group was captured during a traffic stop three months after being put on the FBI's Most Wanted List and faces charges he arranged marriages between underage girls and older men.
Warren Steed Jeffs, 50, was arrested without incident just outside Las Vegas late Monday after more than a year on the run, the FBI said. No weapons were found, but the 2007 red Cadillac Escalade he was riding in contained more than $50,000 in cash, cellphones, laptop computers and wigs, authorities said.
Jeffs has led the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 2002 and is said to have at least 40 wives and nearly 60 children. Church dissidents say that underage marriages -- some involving girls as young as 13 -- escalated into the hundreds under his leadership, and that he broke apart families by casting out married men and reassigning their wives and children to others.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told KTAR-AM of Phoenix that Jeffs' arrest marks "the beginning of the end of ... the tyrannical rule of a small group of people over the practically 10,000 followers of the FLDS sect." He predicted it will lead more people to come forward with allegations of sexual abuse.
CANADA
Edmonton Sun
Daphne Bramham, CanWest News Service; Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, August 30, 2006
VANCOUVER - The arrest of fundamentalist Mormon leader Warren Jeffs Monday night near Las Vegas was a fluke.
Nevada Highway Patrol officers couldn't read the temporary licence on the maroon Cadillac Escalade so they pulled it over. Inside was the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), chowing down on a salad. Jeffs is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list along with Osama bin Laden.
In the SUV with Jeffs were his brother, Isaac Steve Jeffs, and one of Warren's wives, 33-year-old Naomi Jeffs, who at 17 became a plural wife to Warren's father, Rulon, the previous prophet who died in September 2002.
Warren Jeffs, 50, had been on the run for nearly two years. He's wanted for fleeing prosecution on sex charges in both Arizona and Utah related to his arranging and performing marriages between under-age girls and older men.
PINEVILLE (MO)
Neosho Daily News
By John Ford / Daily News Associate Editor
Published: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 10:11 PM CDT
PINEVILLE - A temporary order of protection remains in effect against a Newton County pastor accused of sexual abuse.
On Monday, McDonald County Associate Circuit Court Judge John LePage ruled a full order of protection would be granted for a 17-year-old Anderson teen accusing George Otis Johnson of sexually abusing her. The order would have remained in effect for a year.
However, LePage set the ruling aside after meeting with Johnston's attorney, Andy Wood of Neosho. Wood requested the order be set aside pending a 9 a.m., Sept. 18, adult abuse hearing.
LePage ruled the temporary order of protection would remain in effect until that hearing.
GOLDEN (CO)
KKTV
Associated Press
GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) -- Forty-three-year-old Timothy Joseph Evans is accused of sexually assaulting a teen at Spirit of Christ Parish in Arvada between 1995 and 1997. He's free on 25-thousand dollars bond.
Last year in Fort Collins, Evans was charged with sexually assaulting a child starting in 1998 at Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton parish. His attorney has said Evans denies those charges.
MADISON (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By TOM HEINEN
theinen@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Aug. 29, 2006
The latest effort to allow victims of clergy sexual abuse to sue churches in Wisconsin hit a roadblock on Tuesday, when a state appeals court upheld a Milwaukee County judge's decision to dismiss four cases.
Jeffrey Anderson, a Minnesota attorney representing the plaintiffs, said he would appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Three men who said that the late Father Siegfried Widera abused them in the 1970s and one man who said that former priest Franklyn Becker abused him in the 1980s tried a new legal tactic by filing lawsuits that accused the Archdiocese of Milwaukee of fraud, saying the archdiocese concealed the priests' histories of sexual abuse before the plaintiffs were molested. The lawsuits said that the limits on how soon a person must file a civil suit should not apply because the plaintiffs did not learn of the fraud until relatively recently.
The state Court of Appeals panel in Milwaukee, however, ruled that the normal statute of limitations applied.
That disappointed victims' advocates and attorneys, who had been heartened by a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision last year. Although that ruling went against the abuse accuser who filed it, a number of justices indicated in their written comments a willingness to reconsider the broader legal impediments to such lawsuits.
MADISON (WI)
St. Paul Pioneer Press
BY RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press
MADISON — In California, people who claim they were abused by former Milwaukee-area priest Siegfried Widera can sue the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for transferring him there in 1981 knowing he had a history of abuse.
Widera's accusers in Wisconsin cannot sue, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday, even though they have documents showing the archdiocese quietly transferred him from one parish to another after a 1973 conviction on sexual perversion with a teenager. It was after Widera's transfer to a church in Delavan when the abuse allegedly took place.
Advocates for victims of clergy abuse say the case illustrates how Wisconsin churches have been unfairly shielded from lawsuits while other states are allowing them to seek justice. They say they will appeal Tuesday's ruling to the state Supreme Court.
The District 1 Court of Appeals said three people who accused Widera of abuse between 1973 and 1976 while he was a priest in Delavan cannot sue the archdiocese for fraud and negligent supervision because the statute of limitations had expired. The court also tossed a similar suit brought by a man who claimed abuse by then-priest Franklyn Becker in a Milwaukee church in 1982.
COLORADO
Rocky Mountain News
By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News
August 30, 2006
A Jefferson County grand jury has indicted a former Catholic priest on a charge of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy who was in the midst of a spiritual crisis.
The indictment accuses Timothy Joseph Evans, 43, of sexual assault by a person in a position of trust. Evans allegedly had sexual contact with the boy sometime between 1995 and 1997 while Evans was serving as vicar at the Spirit of Christ parish in Arvada.
The charge is the second filed against Evans this year. In March, Larimer County prosecutors charged Evans with assaulting a young boy in 1998 at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Fort Collins. The status of that case was not available Tuesday night.
According to a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Denver, Evans was ordained in 1993. He was removed from his parish ministry in 2002 and removed from his priestly responsibilities in 2003.
JACKSON (TN)
The Jackson Sun
By TONYA SMITH-KING
tsmithking@jacksonsun.com
The Rev. Thomas Kirk has taken up the reins as pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Jackson and St. John's in Brownsville in the wake of the former pastor's resignation last week.
Kirk celebrated his first Mass as St. Mary's new pastor Saturday afternoon.
The former pastor, the Rev. Richard Mickey, had served at St. Mary's for a little more than two years. Mickey cited personal reasons and a pending lawsuit accusing him of sexual abuse when he resigned. Two brothers have accused Mickey of abusing them in 1980 when they were students at Bishop Byrne High School in Memphis. Mickey worked there as a counselor at the time. No trial date has been set.
Kirk comes to St. Mary's in Jackson from another St. Mary's - the Catholic church in Savannah - where he was pastor for six years. Before that, he worked for five different Catholic churches in Memphis over a 31-year period.
MADISON (WI)
Winona Daily News
By Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Four people who accused two Roman Catholic priests of abusing them in the 1970s and 1980s cannot sue the Archdiocese of Milwaukee because the statute of limitations has expired, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The District 1 Court of Appeals upheld a Milwaukee County judge's earlier ruling dismissing the lawsuits, which alleged fraud and negligent supervision against the archdiocese.
Advocates for victims of clergy abuse had hoped to use the case to validate their argument that statutes of limitations in fraud cases do not begin until the claims are discovered. A ruling in their favor could have led to new lawsuits in cases where church leaders quietly transferred priests who had committed sex offenses to new parishes.
Three John Does claimed they were sexually abused between 1973 and 1976 by a now-dead priest, Siegfried Widera. Another man alleged he was abused by then-priest Franklyn Becker in 1982.
LAKEWOOD (CO)
CBS 4
(AP) LAKEWOOD, Colo. A former Catholic priest already facing charges of sexual assault faces a new charge of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy whose family attended an Arvada church, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Timothy Joseph Evans, 43, of Loveland was indicted on a charge of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust.
Evans was released Monday on $25,000 bail, said Pam Russell, a spokeswoman for Jefferson County District Attorney Scott Storey.
Neither Evans nor his attorney in a separate case in Fort Collins immediately returned phone calls.
According to the indictment the alleged incident happened between 1995 and 1997 while Evans was assigned to Spirit of Christ Parish in Arvada. The teen's family attended that church, the indictment said.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic Online
By Jerry Filteau
8/29/2006
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) – A new Program of Priestly Formation has been issued for use in all U.S. Catholic seminaries.
It places more emphasis on the human formation of seminarians, and especially on formation for celibacy, than did the fourth edition of the program, which had been in effect since 1992.
The 98-page revised version of the program, the fifth edition, has been posted on the Web site of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, www.usccb.org.
The Program of Priestly Formation has governed seminary formation in the United States since the bishops issued the first edition in 1971.
The new version, reflecting the bishops' recent response to the scandal of clergy sexual abuse of minors, says explicitly for the first time that no seminary applicant is to be accepted if he has been involved in sexual abuse of minors.
It also incorporates stricter norms, adopted by the bishops in 1999, on evaluating an application for seminary admission from someone who previously left or was dismissed from a seminary or a formation program for religious life.
MADISON (WI)
Grand Forks Herald
RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. - Four people who accused two Roman Catholic priests of abusing them in the 1970s and 1980s cannot sue the Archdiocese of Milwaukee because the statute of limitations has expired, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The District 1 Court of Appeals upheld a Milwaukee County judge's earlier ruling dismissing the lawsuits, which alleged fraud and negligent supervision against the archdiocese.
Advocates for victims of clergy abuse had hoped to use the case to validate their argument that statutes of limitations in fraud cases do not begin until the claims are discovered. A ruling in their favor could have led to new lawsuits in cases where church leaders quietly transferred priests who had committed sex offenses to new parishes.
Three John Does claimed they were sexually abused between 1973 and 1976 by a now-dead priest, Siegfried Widera. Another man alleged he was abused by then-priest Franklyn Becker in 1982.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By MARK REITER
BLADE STAFF WRITER
An agreement was reached yesterday in Toledo Municipal Court to keep former priest Chet Warren from entering Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church.
The unusual court action resolves a civil complaint filed by the Toledo Diocese against Mr. Warren in December over concerns raised by some Blessed Sacrament parishioners.
The consent judgment, which was approved by Judge Robert Christiansen, forbids Mr. Warren from going into the church and neighboring parochial elementary school on Bellevue Road near Bowman Park.
It also says Mr. Warren could be found in contempt of the judgment and subject to a fine or other sanctions if he violates the agreement.
Mr. Warren, a former member of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, was barred from ministry over allegations of child abuse. At least eight women have accused Mr. Warren of abusing them when they were children.
IRELAND
RTE News
29 August 2006 15:13
The former Bishop of Galway, Dr Eamonn Casey, is not to be prosecuted following investigation by gardaí into allegations made against him by a Limerick-born woman.
The allegations of alleged sexual abuse are believed to date back to the time when he was serving as a priest in Limerick.
In a statement, the Catholic Communications Office said the Director of Public Prosecutions had decided not to proceed with the case against Dr Casey.
LAS VEGAS (NV)
Monterey Herald
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS - The fugitive leader of a polygamist Mormon sect has been arrested in southern Nevada.
Warren Steed Jeffs, 50, was taken into custody after he and two other people were pulled over late Monday by a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper on Interstate 15 just north of Las Vegas, FBI spokesman David Staretz said.
The leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was wanted in Utah and Arizona on suspicion of sexual misconduct for allegedly arranging marriages between underage girls and older men.
PENNSYLVANIA
PhillyBurbs
By ELIZABETH FISHER
Bucks County Courier Times
LOWER SOUTHAMPTON
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has forwarded the case of a local priest accused of sexual abuse of a minor to the Vatican for review. The archdiocese has concluded that one allegation is credible.
When the charge first surfaced in January, the Rev. James J. Brennan, associate pastor of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish in Feasterville, was relieved of his duties, pending an investigation by the archdiocesan review board.
The abuse against a minor allegedly happened eight years ago and is the only accusation against Brennan. The case was forwarded to civil authorities. The archdiocese did not release where Brennan was stationed when the alleged abuse occurred or which civil authorities are investigating.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MELODY McDONALD and TRACI SHURLEY
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITERs
FORT WORTH -- Terry Hornbuckle used to stand before thousands and preach the word of God.
On Monday, he stood silent in a Tarrant County courtroom and listened as one of the women he raped called him the devil.
"You are evil in every way," Kate Jones said defiantly. "You are truly pathetic in everyone's eyes."
Minutes after jurors sentenced Hornbuckle to 15 years in prison for drugging and raping her, Jones lambasted him in a three-page, double-spaced victim-impact statement, not only for what he did to her but also for sexually assaulting two other women.
In addition to that 15-year sentence, jurors sentenced Hornbuckle to 14 years in prison for raping Krystal Buchanan and 10 years in prison for raping a third woman, Jane Doe. Jones and Doe are pseudonyms.
KIRKWOOD (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Jeremy Kohler
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
08/28/2006
KIRKWOOD
The president of Vianney High School, accused in a lawsuit in February of molesting a student, has been removed from the school, he wrote in the school's September newsletter.
The Rev. Robert Osborne, 73, wrote that he regretted "unresolved legal matters" forced him to leave the school a year before he had planned to retire.
He said he would vigorously defend himself against the accusations and was confident that he would be vindicated. A trial is scheduled for April 30 in St. Louis County. Advertisement
A second Vianney student came forward after the suit to allege inappropriate behavior by Osborne. Kirkwood police have investigated the allegations, but no criminal charges have been filed.
CANADA
Novopress.info
By Brian Rushfeldt
A society’s greatest risk is raising a generation of citizens who do not know right from wrong, immoral from moral, good from evil. Disturbing trends indicate that Canada is heading in that very direction. Psychiatrists and sociologists are asking, “How can a mother drown her own children?” “How can a father rape his two-year old daughter?”
The answers are partly found in the human conscience. A seared or calloused conscience warps all sense of right and wrong, and gives one the sense of liberty to do whatever one chooses. Most of us, especially Christians, understand human nature well enough to know that an unrestrained mind can be exceedingly wicked.
One of our greatest concerns is the growing acceptance of pedophilia in North America and Europe. Sex with children would have been considered an abhorrent, perverted, exceedingly evil act just ten or fifteen years ago, but now it is being promoted as healthy and normal. Some university professors and psychologists are promoting “intergenerational sex” as a healthy and normal part of child development
MISSOURI
Neosho Daily News
By John Ford / Daily News Associate Editor
Published: Sunday, August 27, 2006 12:17 AM CDT
George Otis Johnston turned himself in to authorities Friday afternoon.
Johnston came to the Newton County Sheriff's Office around 2 p.m. Friday and turned himself in.
According to Chris Jennings, chief deputy for the Newton County Sheriff's Department, Johnston came with a bail bondsman and immediately posted 10 percent of a $100,000 bond and was released. Johnston then left the sheriff's office and entered a waiting pickup truck.
“He's not talking to us at all,” said Jennings.
TUCSON (AZ)
Arizona Daily Star
By Kim Smith
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.29.2006
A former therapist accused of having sex with a 16-year-old client has pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct and sexual conduct with a minor.
Richard E. Giberti, 44, entered the plea agreement on Monday, said Pima County Superior Court spokesman David Ricker.
The sexual-misconduct charge carries a potential sentence of four months to two years in prison. The charge of sexual conduct with a minor is punishable by anywhere from five years' probation to two years in prison. It also could result in lifetime probation. ...
Giberti was a businessman and pastor before he became a therapist.
He was a pastor of the Shining Light Assembly, a church in Maine, from 1990 to 1996. He provided therapy, including a weekly adolescent support group, at the church.
PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
An archdiocesan review board has determined that there is sufficient evidence to substantiate a sexual-abuse allegation against the Rev. James J. Brennan, and the priest has been removed from all duties, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced yesterday.
In January, Brennan was relieved of his assignment as parochial vicar of Assumption Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Feasterville, Bucks County, when the archdiocese received an allegation of sexual abuse that occurred eight years ago.
The allegation was reported to authorities, and Brennan, who was ordained in 1989, was partially stripped of his duties. Cardinal Justin Rigali has now referred the case to the Holy See.
GREEN BAY (WI)
Green Bay Press-Gazette
By Andy Nelesen
anelesen@greenbaypressgazette.com
A Brown County judge Monday refused to delay an abuse lawsuit against a former priest and the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay because a witness — a priest — has a hunting trip scheduled during part of the proceedings.
Diocese lawyers had asked Brown County Circuit Court Judge Mark Warpinski to adjourn the first phase of a trial in which David Schauer is seeking damages for being sexually abused by a priest while attending Ss. Peter and Paul Catholic School in Green Bay in fall 1988.
The trial is set to begin Oct. 9.
Father David Kiefer, the former vicar of priests for the diocese, is expected to be subpoenaed to testify during the first phase of the trial in which Schauer's lawyers will try to show that church officials intimidated Schauer and his parents in an effort to keep them from reporting the abuse in a timely matter.
According to court records, the Schauers claim that Kiefer offered to pay for David Schauer's counseling, but warned them not to discuss the situation because they could be sued for defamation of character.
FORT WORTH (TX)
NBC5i
FORT WORTH, Texas -- After finding former Arlington minister Terry Hornbuckle guilty of raping three women, a jury on Monday delivered a 15-year sentence.
On Wednesday, jurors found Hornbuckle guilty of raping three women.
Jurors sentenced Hornbuckle to 15 years for one of those rapes, 14 years for the second and 10 years for the third, all of which he will serve concurrently.
Hornbuckle showed no emotion once the sentence was delivered. He sat calmly drinking water and stood up for a brief moment before sitting back down
Hornbuckle's defense said the sex between Hornbuckle and the women was consentual.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
08/29/2006
Associated Press
A jury sentenced the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle to 15 years in prison Monday afternoon for sexually assaulting three women, including two who attended his Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington.
Hornbuckle, the 44-year-old founder of the church, was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine for each assault conviction.
Hornbuckle did not show any reaction as he was sentenced to 14 years for one sexual assault, 10 years for another and 15 years for the third. The sentences will run concurrently.
Hornbuckle attorney Mike Heiskell said his client was "depressed and down" about the sentence.
Jurors "carefully reviewed all the evidence, and we have to accept it," Heiskell said in a story in Monday's online edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
"This was what we expected from the beginning," said prosecutor Sean Colston. "We thought the evidence was strong and, apparently, the jury agreed with us."
VERMONT
WCAX
Burlington, Vermont - August 28, 2006
Nearly 27 years worth of paperwork on a priest, accused of child sexual abuse, has suddenly turned up. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington found the missing files -- documents the church had previously claimed didn't exist.
The files contain information about the Reverend George Paulin. He and the diocese are being sued by a former altar boy in Newport. He claims Paulin molested him during the 1970s. The found files have some questioning whether there was a church cover-up.
The files contained information about Paulin during the years 1971 through 1997.
Lawyers asked for the missing paperwork 2 years ago, but say the Diocese claimed the documents didn't exist.
Christ or Chaos
by Thomas A. Droleskey
The descent of the clergy into the abyss of moral perversion is, sadly, not a new phenomenon in the history of the Catholic Church. Our Lord has promised us that the jaws of Hell would never prevail against the Church. This does not mean, however, that the devil is not going to win a few battles in our own lives and in the lives of bishops and priests. Indeed, the devil attacks bishops and priests with particular fury, hoping that he can cause many to fall into his snares, thus scandalizing the faithful and causing some of those who are weak in their Faith to leave the true means of salvation, the Catholic Church.
Randy Engel's massive book, The Rite of Sodomy, is an exhaustive examination of the history of the devil's infiltration into the ranks of the Church's hierarchy and clergy. Saint Peter Damian was particularly unstinting in his condemnation of the vile crimes against the the Sixth and Ninth Commandments committed by bishops and priests in his own day. His prescriptions for dealing with the problem were very severe, causing a great deal of controversy. Pope Leo IX more or less confirmed the prescriptions, starting the process of weeding out the offenders and exhorting clerics to strive for the heights of personal sanctity. Clerical corruption remained, of course, for some time thereafter. The remnants of the pestilence were not fully eradicated, at least for a time, until the great saint of Assisi, Giovanni di Bernadone, otherwise known as Francis, helped to bring about a reform of the entire Church by his life of austere poverty, Eucharistic piety and deep devotion to the Mother of God, aided in no small measure by his learned contemporary, Father Dominic de Guzman.
KENYA
The New York Times
By REUTERS
Published: August 28, 2006
Filed at 9:57 a.m. ET
NAIROBI (Reuters) - A 70-year-old U.S. Catholic missionary was acquitted of sodomy by a Kenyan Court after no evidence was presented, a magistrate said on Monday.
Andre Hotchkiss was charged with committing an unnatural offence with a man in Nairobi's downtown Uhuru park in April.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By TRACI SHURLEY and MELODY MCDONALD
Star-Telegram Staff Writers
FORT WORTH -- Jurors in Terry Hornbuckle's sexual assault trial broke for lunch shortly before noon Monday, about three hours after they resumed their deliberations on his sentence.
The 44-year-old founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington faces up to 20 years in prison on each of three sexual assault charges.
The nine-woman, three-man jury convicted Hornbuckle last week of raping three women. They deliberated on his sentence almost three hours Thursday before breaking for the week.
Defense attorneys have asked for probation, and prosecutors have urged jurors to give Hornbuckle the maximum 20-year sentence on each charge.
DRACUT (MA)
Lowell Sun
By DEBBIE HOVANASIAN, Sun Correspondent
DRACUT -- The Rev. Robert L. Connors, new pastor of St. Marguerite D'Youville, has taken over a parish that has been through a lot of pain and turmoil resulting from the clergy sexual abuse crisis and parish reconfiguration -- and he knows it.
"I am sensitive to the enormous amount of pain these people have gone through," he said. "The crisis, the mergers, the parish closings ... struggling to become a community, with three parishes coming together."
PHILADELPHIA (PA)
6ABC
By Monica Malpass
PHILADELPHIA - August 28, 2006 - A priest in the Philadelphia Archdiocese has been removed after an investigation by Cardinal Justin Rigali found there appeared to be sexual abuse.
Rigali got a report in January that Reverend James Brennan allegedly sexually abused a minor 8 years ago.
Father Brennan was temporarily relieved of his duties at Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Feasterville, Bucks County pending a review.
ARLINGTON (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MARK AGEE
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
ARLINGTON - Renee Hornbuckle told the congregation Sunday that a series of guest speakers would help Agape Christian Fellowship through "this time of transition."
She gestured to a group of leaders from 30,000-member Potter's House church in Dallas and thanked them for coming.
"It's a pleasure and an honor to have people stand with us," Hornbuckle said.
About 400 people were at the Sunday service -- the first since the southeast Arlington church's founder and Renee's husband, Terry Hornbuckle, 44, was convicted of three counts of sexual assault last week. He was accused of raping three former congregants; his lawyers argued that the sex was consensual. A jury is deciding his sentence, which could range from probation to 20 years in prison.
The mood was joyous as the choir sang about how the church would march on.
SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union-Tribune
By Mark Sauer
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 27, 2006
Most of the 150 adults suing the Diocese of San Diego for alleged sexual abuse by priests decades ago have done so anonymously. Now attorneys for Bishop Robert Brom want their real names revealed.
In a motion filed last week, attorneys defending Brom and the Roman Catholic diocese are asking a judge, “in the interest of fairness,” to order that the real names of those bringing suit as simply “John Roe” or “Michael S.” be revealed in court documents.
Attorneys representing these plaintiffs are outraged by the motion, saying that Brom's attorneys already know the names for the purposes of locating potential witnesses and developing other pretrial discovery.
“I think their motivation is solely to intimidate and harass these victims,” said Irwin Zalkin, a Solana Beach plaintiffs attorney.
BURLINGTON (VT)
Burlington Free Press
By Sam Hemingway
Free Press Staff Writer
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington has found 27 years' worth of files on a priest accused of child sexual abuse, documents the church had previously said didn't exist.
Church lawyers, appearing at a hearing in Chittenden County Superior Court late last week, confirmed the discovery of the papers.
The diocese and the priest, the Rev. George Paulin, are facing a lawsuit brought by a former Newport altar boy who alleges Paulin molested him in the 1970s. The case is one of 23 pending cases filed by people alleging that as children they were molested by Vermont priests.
"They were misfiled in the parish file," diocesan attorney Tom McCormick said of the newly discovered papers. McCormick also said other documents thought to be missing were recently found in the desk of former Bishop Kenneth Angell, who retired last year.
CANADA
The Vancouver Sun
Chantal Eustace, Vancouver Sun
Published: Monday, August 28, 2006
WHITE ROCK - Even when she lived on a remote Gulf Island where no one locked their doors and everyone knew each other, Joanne Morrison felt nervous whenever her children stepped out the door.
Morrison felt trapped by her own childhood memories of sexual abuse and felt paranoid over the safety of her own kids.
"You move to an island in the middle of no place, thinking you can be far away from everything, but you're not, it's still there," said Morrison, 46, who now lives in White Rock where she owns a jewelry store.
Morrison was first molested by her priest when she was eight years old. The abuse lasted about three years, but the pain never went away, she said.
IRELAND
The Irish Times
Tim O'Brien in Roscrea
The major Garda operation around a house in Roscrea in which a man had barricaded himself since Wednesday afternoon, threatening to blow himself up, ended last night when the man walked calmly from his home along with his dog at 6.35pm.
Jim Hourigan, a retired electrician in his 50s, left the house after a statement by his solicitor was broadcast on evening news bulletins. He walked towards waiting gardaí and went voluntarily to Roscrea Garda station. He left a short time later and is believed to have sought hospital treatment immediately. The Garda Press Office was unable to say what, if any, charges might be brought against him. ...
Yesterday afternoon, solicitor Joe Burke of Dublin-based solicitors McCartan Burke read a statement to the media which said Mr Hourigan felt "compelled" to instigate his action to draw attention to personal difficulties. The statement said Mr Hourigan had suffered serious sexual assaults while training as a Christian Brother. One of the abuse perpetrators had been tried and imprisoned, but Mr Hourigan's civil proceedings "have been ongoing for a number of years and he has become increasingly frustrated by the delays in achieving justice".
"He has taken these actions in order to bring attention to his situation in the hope of achieving justice."
IRELAND
Irish Examiner
25 August 2006
By Brian Hutton
A 29-HOUR LONG siege in a small Co Tipperary town ended last night.
Jim Hourigan, a retired electrician in his 50s who threatened to blow himself up in Roscrea, walked from his home with his dog to the local garda station at around 6.40pm. ...
Earlier his solicitor, Joe Burke, of Dublin-based McCartan and Burke Solicitors, said his client resorted to the drastic action to bring attention to sex abuse claims.
“Our client was the subject of serious sexual assaults while training as a Christian Brother. One of the perpetrators of these assaults been convicted and imprisoned; our client has instigated civil proceedings seeking compensation,” he said.
It is understood that Mr Hourigan wished to have the claims publicised on television before he would give himself up.
A number of stations broadcast the statements on early evening news programmes.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
THE man at the centre of a 30-hour siege finally gave himself up last night, calmly walking out of the house he earlier said he rigged with gas explosives.
Jim Hourigan, who is in his mid 50s, had earlier issued a statement saying that he had been sexually abused while training as a Christian Brother.
At 6.30pm he walked out of his rented house on Rosemary Street in Roscrea, Co Tipperary and strolled coolly to the local garda station with his dog, Jerry, on a leash.
He was in the care of medics last night.
IRELAND
Evening Echo
25/08/2006 - 7:40:59 AM
The Co Tipperary town of Roscrea is returning to normal this morning following yesterday's stand-off involving a man who apparently threatened to blow up his house.
The incident began on Wednesday afternoon when the man in his 50s barricaded himself into the house with a number of gas cylinders. ...
In a statement issued through his solicitor, he claimed he was sexually abused while training as a Christian Brother and was protesting at the delay in civil proceedings which he instigated to seek compensation.
IRELAND
Irish Emigrant
Much of the centre of the Co. Tipperary town of Roscrea was a no-go area for about 29 hours as gardaí maintained a vigil outside the house of a man who had threatened to cause an explosion. Gardaí were called to the house in Rosemary Street at around 1:30pm on Wednesday but quickly retreated, saying they did not have the capability to deal with the situation. At the time it was reported that the man had doused himself with petrol and threatened to set himself alight. He was also said to have rigged up an explosive device made from a number of gas cylinders. Surrounding roads were quickly cordoned off by fire engines, garda vehicles and an ambulance, local businesses were ordered to close their premises, residents in the immediate vicinity were evacuated, specialist garda negotiators were flown in from Dublin and the army bomb disposal team was placed on standby. ...
Jimmy Woulfe of the Irish Examiner seemed to have a long telephone conversation with Mr Hourigan just before the end of the siege. This revealed that he had left school in Adare at the age of 13 to train as a Christian Brother. He blamed the subsequent abuse for ruining his life by driving him to alcoholism, which in turn led to the collapse of his business and the break up of his marriage.
KINGSTON TOWNSHIP (PA)
Times Leader
By DAVE JANOSKI djanoski@leader.net
Documents: Read the bishop's letter
KINGSTON TWP. – Monsignor J. Peter Crynes, whose resignation for unspecified allegations of “sexual misconduct” shocked parishioners at St. Therese’s Church three months ago, has admitted to “unchaste behavior” with “high school girls,” according to a letter from Bishop Joseph F. Martino mailed to parishioners this weekend.
Crynes’ case will be forwarded to the Vatican, which could permanently bar him from performing Mass and other priestly duties in public or remove him from the priesthood altogether.
Crynes, 64, was widely respected at St. Therese’s, one of the Scranton Diocese’s largest parishes, for urging parishioners to participate in volunteer work inside and outside of church. Many rallied to his defense when his resignation was announced in May and he quietly vacated the church rectory. Some criticized the diocese for offering scant details about the misconduct alleged by two unidentified women that it said occurred before Crynes came to St. Therese’s in 1994.
The bishop’s letter, received by parishioners Saturday, offered few new details, except for the fact that the females were in high school when the incidents allegedly occurred. It did not give their ages or the time and location of the alleged misconduct. The legal age of consent in Pennsylvania is 16.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, August 27, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER and DEBRA DENNIS / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – Terry Hornbuckle's flock called him "Bishop." To many now, the fallen minister is just another drug addict and convicted rapist.
Churches across the nation are led by pastors who have cheated on their wives, stolen money from their congregations and spent years in prison. Despite their crimes and sins, they have been "restored" to the ministry.
No one knows whether Mr. Hornbuckle, who will be a registered sex offender, will ever be called pastor again.
"You have examples of God restoring even the most reprobate believer," said David Kyle Foster.
He cited the story of King David, who was forgiven for the crimes of adultery and murder. But Dr. Foster, executive director of Mastering Life Ministries in Franklin, Tenn., said that modern believers might not be so forgiving, and in this case, rightfully so.
"God would have to write it on the wall that he's healed and should be restored," Dr. Foster said.
KENTUCKY
WHAS
Dozens of sexual abuse lawsuits filed against an order of catholic nuns based in Nelson County settled Thursday night.
By Saturday, checks arrived for 45 people who said they were abused as children by nuns at the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.
It was announced that the order of nuns will pay $1.5 million to settle allegations of sexual abuse at the old St. Thomas-St. Vincent orphanage in Anchorage.
As children back in the 1950's, the victims said their memory of days at the orphanage include beatings by nuns, boys sodomized. One plaintiff, Gail Ann Miller, said she remembers being raped at the hands of a priest.
The checks were for a little under $20,000 each, but according to victim Gladys Bambron, the real value is a feeling of vindication.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Renew America
Matt C. Abbott
August 27, 2006
The following slightly edited essay was provided to me by Lee Podles, author of a forthcoming book on the clergy sex abuse scandal. (Note: Contains graphic language.)
The Rev. Donald Osgood of New Hampshire:
A Shallow, Likeable Guy with a Taste for Young Men
By Lee Podles
Donald Matthew Osgood, born July 18, 1927, was the son of a Catholic mother and a non-Catholic father. He therefore needed a canonical indult to receive Holy Orders. Ecclesiastical bureaucrats dotted their i's and crossed their t's in this matter; but they showed less concern for his moral life and the effects he had on the laity.
Osgood was in the Navy until 1947, and then for two years studied at St Anselm's College, run by the Benedictines. Osgood entered the Benedictines in 1949 and made his novitiate at St, Vincent's Archabbey before returning to St. Anselm's. His attempt to become a Benedictine did not work out; Osgood decided to apply for the diocesan clergy in Manchester, New Hampshire. An official at the Abbey reported to Bishop Matthew Brady of Manchester that Osgood "manifested both the good and bad qualities that were observed in the novitiate." The bad qualities were that he "did not like to study" and enjoyed the "social life" at the abbey "to the detriment of his studies." But he spent "much time in training his musical ability and these efforts have shown much fruit." He was willing to work "and labored well and industriously as all sorts of jobs." All in all, Osgood was "industrious, energetic and not too pious" and "kindness itself."
Osgood was sent to St. Paul's Seminary in Ottawa. His file there indicated he was "polite, deferent...well-bred, well-mannered, very nice disposition." He was "cheerful, amiable, affable, sociable, and always ready to help and render service. He has given generously of his time for the music in the chapel." and was "an excellent organist." His grades were acceptable. The rector thought that Osgood had a "solid and sincere piety" and most importantly was "always docile, obedient and submissive."
CALIFORNIA
San Francisco Chronicle
John Coté, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, August 26, 2006
The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office has recommended criminal charges be filed against Santa Rosa Bishop Daniel Walsh for failing to timely report evidence of sexual abuse by a Sonoma priest who has since fled the country.
"Based upon our investigation, the evidence indicates that this case is worthy of district attorney review," Lt. Dave Edmonds said in a written statement released Friday. It is up to the Sonoma County district attorney's office to decide whether it can prove Walsh broke the law and whether there is "sufficient evidence and circumstances to sustain a conviction," Edmonds said.
District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua could not be reached for comment.
If prosecutors decide to charge Walsh, the case would appear to mark the first time a U.S. Catholic Church official has faced criminal prosecution for failing to properly report sexual abuse.
It would also be the first case where a U.S. bishop was charged in the sexual abuse scandal that has marred the Catholic Church for more than a decade and seen priests from Massachusetts to California face criminal prosecution, a victims' rights official said.
MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star
By KEVIN MURPHY
The Kansas City Star
A southwest Missouri minister who was charged Tuesday with eight counts of sodomy turned himself in early Friday afternoon to authorities in Newton County.
George Otis Johnston, 63, is accused in an investigation of alleged child sexual abuse at a church compound in rural Granby, Mo. He was released on bond Friday and will be arraigned Wednesday, county officials said.
Johnston, who could not be reached for comment, did not have a lawyer with him Friday, said Newton County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Jennings.
“He is not talking to us,” Jennings said. Johnston is charged with seven counts of first-degree statutory sodomy and one count of second-degree statutory sodomy.
Johnston is pastor at Grandview Valley Baptist Church North, which is located in a mobile home park at Granby where several families live.
CALIFORNIA
CBS 5
08/25/06 7:50 PDT
SANTA ROSA (BCN)
The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department said today that allegations that Santa Rosa Diocese Bishop Daniel Walsh failed to report alleged child abuse by a Sonoma priest within a time period mandated by state law is "worthy of district attorney review.''
The sheriff's department issued that statement late this afternoon in response to media inquiries about a report published today in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
The article quoted sheriff's Sgt. Dennis O'Leary as saying, "We think we have a strong enough case here for charges to be filed.'' O'Leary also said the final decision rests with the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office.
"We didn't make a value judgment on what the district attorney's office should do in a complicated case like this,'' Lt. Dave Edmonds said at an interview this afternoon. "I don't know if Sgt. O'Leary said that or what the context was,'' Edmonds said.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
Belleville News-Democrat
Associated Press
SANTA ROSA, Calif. - Sonoma County investigators said they have enough evidence to pursue criminal charges against a bishop who waited several days before reporting allegations of child sexual abuse by a fellow priest.
The delay by Santa Rosa Bishop Daniel Walsh may have allowed the Rev. Xavier Ochoa to flee to Mexico.
If prosecutors pursue the case, it would be the first time a U.S. bishop was charged with failing to disclose allegations of abuse. The final decision rests with the district attorney's office.
The sheriff's office said in a statement late Friday that it forwarded its investigation to the district attorney's office. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor did not return calls seeking comment.
Ochoa, 68, worked at St. Francis Solano Church in Sonoma before admitting misconduct in an April 28 meeting with Walsh and two other church officials. He was charged with 10 felony counts and one misdemeanor count of child sex abuse involving three boys.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
Contra Costa Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SANTA ROSA - Sonoma County sheriff's investigators have recommended criminal charges be filed against Santa Rosa Bishop Daniel Walsh for failing to report allegations of child sexual abuse by a fellow priest.
If prosecutors pursue the case, it would be the first time a U.S. bishop faced such charges.
"We think we have a strong enough case here for charges to be filed," Sgt. Dennis O'Leary said, adding that the final decision rests with the District Attorney's Office.
A spokeswoman for the prosecutor did not return a call seeking comment Friday.
Walsh has publicly apologized for failing to immediately report to authorities the admission made to him April 28 by the Rev. Xavier Ochoa. The three-day lag in notifying law enforcement gave Ochoa time to flee to Mexico, where authorities believe he remains.
FRESNO (CA)
The Fresno Bee
By John Ellis / The Fresno Bee
(Updated Saturday, August 26, 2006, 4:45 AM)
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno is paying $875,000 to settle a lawsuit by a woman who said she was sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest in the early 1960s, the woman's lawyer said.
David Drivon, the unidentified woman's Stockton-based lawyer, said Friday that the case is the first to be resolved from six lawsuits he filed on behalf of seven people in December 2003.
"I'm happy for the client because it was resolved reasonably and equitably and to the client's satisfaction," said Drivon, who for the past four years has focused solely on cases involving alleged clergy sexual abuse. "I hope to do the same for the rest of the cases."
The woman, who was named in the lawsuit as "Jane Roe," said she was abused for five years in the early 1960s by the Rev. James Collins while she attended St. Mary's Church in Buttonwillow. Collins also served as a priest in Avenal and Lemoore churches.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
The Press-Democrat
By MARTIN ESPINOZA,
LORI A. CARTER AND MARY CALLAHAN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Sonoma County sheriff's deputies believe there is enough evidence to bring criminal charges against Santa Rosa Bishop Daniel Walsh for failing to immediately report suspected child sex abuse by a Sonoma priest.
A report was presented to prosecutors Thursday, four months after detectives began an investigation of the Rev. Xavier Ochoa and 12 days after Walsh publicly apologized for failing to abide by the state's mandatory reporting law for suspected child abuse.
"We think we have a strong enough case here for charges to be filed," Sheriff's Sgt. Dennis O'Leary said, adding, however, that the final decision rests with the District Attorney's Office.
"Sometimes they agree, and sometimes they don't," he said.
Walsh was unavailable for comment, said a spokeswoman for the Santa Rosa Diocese.
If charges are filed, it is believed Walsh would be the highest-ranking official to face criminal penalties stemming from the sex scandal that has embroiled the Roman Catholic church for more than a decade.
The investigative report wasn't made public and O'Leary wouldn't discuss specifics. But he said it contains details of Ochoa's admissions to Walsh and other church officials and how they reacted.
OHIO
WTOV
A local advocacy group says the most appropriate action to take after the Steubenville Diocese confirms credible information in connection with a child abuse case at St. Sylvester's Catholic Church in Monroe County, would be for an apology in-person.
The organization, SNAP, which stands for The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, hand-delivered a multi-page letter to the Diocese of Steubenville, addressed to Bishop R. Daniel Conlon.
In the letter, Snap requests that Bishop Conlon personally go to the parishes where the credible accusations came from and apologize on behalf of the Catholic Church and make a public offer of assistance to anyone who witnessed, suspected or experienced abuse from the clergy.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By BOB RAY SANDERS
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
FORT WORTH — More than 12 years ago, Bishop Terry Hornbuckle was confronted about his womanizing by a group of clergy, a former minister of the bishop's church said Thursday.
Demetruis Carrier, 43, who was a member of Hornbuckle's Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington from 1990 to 1993, said he organized with three other ministers outside of the church whom Hornbuckle respected.
Hornbuckle was convicted this week of sexually assaulting three women. Jurors deciding Hornbuckle's punishment deliberated for about three hours Thursday before adjourning until Monday.
Carrier said he and his wife had left the church about a month earlier.
"After we left, we came across a lot of females wanting to tell their stories," Carrier said Thursday, as he waited outside the courtroom. "I called him and told him we needed to meet."
Carrier said he contacted the three other ministers who went with him to confront Hornbuckle about the alleged affairs.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By Melody McDonald and Traci SHURLEY
Star-Telegram Staff Writers
FORT WORTH -- There will be no more victims on the witness stand. No more fiery closing arguments. No more talk of sex, drugs and religion.
Jurors in the sexual assault trial of the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle have heard it all.
Now, the panel must decide whether Hornbuckle gets prison or probation for raping three women.
The nine-woman, three-man jury began deciding Hornbuckle's fate Thursday morning, deliberating for about three hours before adjourning for the week.
On Tuesday, jurors found Hornbuckle guilty of three charges of sexual assault after six days of deliberations.
MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By William C. Lhotka
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
08/25/2006
A girl and her parents sued a Lutheran minister Thursday, alleging sex abuse during the summer of 2004 in his office at the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Sappington.
The defendants in the six-count civil suit are the Rev. Chris Joseph Watson, the church at 9907 Sappington Road, and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in Kirkwood.
St. Louis County Circuit Judge Gary M. Gaertner Jr. allowed use of the pseudonym Mary Doe for the girl, and John and Jane Doe for her parents, as requested by their attorneys, Susan Carlson and Kenneth Chakes.
Besides the civil suit, Carlson said, the matter has been turned over to Sunset Hills police detectives for a criminal investigation. She said the victim was under the age of 14 when the sexual abuse took place.
KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal
By Peter Smith
psmith@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
An order of Catholic nuns based in Nelson County has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle lawsuits by 45 plaintiffs who alleged they were sexually abused at orphanages and schools.
The settlement ends the bulk of two years of litigation involving the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.
The plaintiffs said they were abused as children at orphanages and schools supervised by the nuns between the 1930s and 1970s. More than 20 of the plaintiffs accused a priest who was a longtime orphanage chaplain, and others accused several nuns and two laymen who were involved at the orphanage.
Attorneys Jennifer Kincaid Adams, representing the Sisters of Charity, and William McMurry, representing the plaintiffs, confirmed they had agreed to the settlement. McMurry added that it needs to be completed with delivery of the check, expected today.
CHICAGO (IL)
TomRoeser.com
Another story on Anne Burke vis-à-vis Catholic bishops in The Wanderer, the nation’s oldest national Catholic weekly.
By Thomas F. Roeser
CHICAGO-Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, in her second Wanderer interview, freely acknowledges that she is a traitor to her class. She is supposed to be the compleat Irish Catholic Democrat in this town and the nation: a friend of Eunice Kennedy, a liberal who like many pols enjoys fraternizing with well-known bishops and Cardinals. That’s how she was regarded when she was selected by a New York city p. r. firm, dominated by non-Catholic and secular Jewish executives retained by the nation’s Catholic bishops.
Burke is Establishment. They were right about that. It’s why she was made second in command of a blue-ribbon board that was to conduct a study of priestly pedophilia. But they were wrong about one thing: They thought she would lend her judge’s authority to a tame report that she would allow to be forgotten. Then she and her buddies on the Board were to be nice little deferential laypersons, accept a “well done” celebratory dinner and go back home. Then the bishops would be free to turn to more urgent matters-like the most recent semantic retranslation of the liturgy as soon as Catholics got used to the latest retranslation.
But things went wrong. First, as explained last week, Burke is un-bought and un-bossed, is a tough lawyer dating from when she ran a neighborhood law firm on the southwest side of a rough man’s city. Second, because she is a mother, concerned that nobody, least of all a priest, will make a pass at one of her kids. Third because she is politically perceptive, knowing how to handle pressure by a sanctimonious group including one armed with crosiers and miters. Fourth, because unlike modern wimpy liberals, she is the old-fashioned kind who can counter-punch easily.
And fifth, most important: When Republican Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma self-detonated into impotence she succeeded to the helm of theAbuse Tracker Review Board which changed the nature of the body dramatically.
CHICAGO (IL)
TomRoeser.com
[A front-page story in this week’s Wanderer, the nation’s oldest national Catholic newspaper].
By Thomas F. Roeser
CHICAGO-When Illinois Appellate Justice Anne Marie Burke was named to the “National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People” by the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the general attitude of authenticist Catholics in this, her hometown, was ho-hum. Eddie Burke’s wife would do the regular establishmentarian white-wash of the bishops, would issue a report that would merely slap their wrists. How wrong they were and how badly we misjudged her will be outlined in this and subsequent columns. For Justice Burke-now a member of the Illinois Supreme Court-has spent several hours in the past weeks in exclusive discussions with The Wanderer.
We talked about it in one of a series of meetings, on- and off-the-record. She understood why Chicagoans particularly thought she would go easy on the bishops. She appeared a very establishment lady: for one thing, the Lady-half of the Knights of Malta. For another, as part of the city’s first-ranking (topping even the Daleys in some people’s estimation) clout-heavy Irish Catholic Democratic family it would be expected that she’d protect the nation’s Catholic hierarchy. Beyond lineage, she had all the credentials: a friend of the Kennedys. Former board member of left-leaning DePaul University. Charter member of a circle of prominent liberal women close to the city’s premier newswoman, Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed, the feminist who carries a man’s first-name.
Her appointment by the bishops was regarded as superbly political because, in Chicago Democratic politics, the Burkes are equivalent to the Cabots in 19th century Boston-the Cabots who spoke only to the Lodges and the Lodges who spoke only to God. In today’s Chicago Irish Democratic lineage, the Burkes are the elite white wine and brie while the Daleys, technically a notch higher, have always been the corn beef and cabbage. (The Madigans, father Speaker of the House and daughter state attorney general, are, for some reason, thought of as on a lower rung).
CALIFORNIA
KGPE
Posted: 8/24/2006 8:11:47 PM
There is an apparent settlement in a sex abuse case against the Diocese of Fresno.
The suit was filed by an unidentified woman who claims she was sexually abused by a priest during her childhood.
According to sources, the woman will receive $875,000 part of her settlement with the Diocese.
Beginning in 2003, several cases were filed against the Diocese. At least six are still pending.
Many of them make disturbing allegations of sexual abuse and molestation against Valley priests.
BELLEVILLE (IL)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
08/25/2006
BELLEVILLE
The movie "Twist of Faith," an HBO documentary about sex abuse by clergy, will be shown from 6 to 9 p.m. today at Southwestern Illinois College in the second-floor theater.
The showing of the movie is sponsored by the Fellowship of Southern Illinois Laity, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, Voice of the Faithful St. Louis and the Southern Illinois Association of Priests.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By BOB RAY SANDERS
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
If every preacher who had sex with a church member went to jail, there would be a lot of empty pulpits Sunday morning.
And the sad thing is that there are often people in the congregation who say or do nothing — and, if they do speak up, find themselves ignored.
The case of the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, convicted this week in a Tarrant County court of sexually assaulting three women, has put the issue of ministerial misconduct front and center.
And now it turns out that Hornbuckle was confronted more than 12 years ago about his womanizing by a group of clergy, a former minister of his church said Thursday.
Demetruis Carrier, 43, a member of Hornbuckle’s Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington from 1990 to 1993, said he and three ministers from outside the church whom Hornbuckle respected spoke to Hornbuckle after Carrier and his wife had left the church and began to hear stories about the pastor.
CBS News
Aug. 24, 2006
(National Review Online) This column was written by Tom Hoopes.
John Karr isn’t a priest. He’s a teacher.
Most teachers are dedicated, hard-working people who wouldn’t dream of hurting a child. The same is true of priests.
If the suspect in the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey were a priest, there would be a fresh outcry about a decades-long cover-up in the Catholic Church. Commentators from Left and Right would rightly unite in decrying the crisis and the entrenched complacency that led to it. Catholic pundits would take a special relish in pointing out that they agree: The Church had better get its act together.
Any institution that has allowed children to be harmed by predators deserves to be taken to task for it. No institution should get a pass. And no profession should get a pass. Not preachers, not priests — not even teachers.
The Tidings
By Francis X. Maier
In most states --- including Colorado --- there's one big difference between sexual abuse in public and private institutions, with huge consequences for public school parents like my wife and me. The fact is, it's much easier --- and much more lucrative --- to sue the Catholic Church, or any church or private organization, than it is to sue the local public school district.
The reason is simple: Public school districts enjoy governmental immunity unless state law-makers say otherwise. And so far, the legislators in most states have kept that immunity in place. As a result, public school districts have a drastically reduced financial exposure with incidents of sexual abuse.
Under March 2006 Colorado law, and in many other states, my wife and I can recover a great deal more money, with much less effort, if our son Dan is abused by a priest at our local church than if he's raped by a teacher or coach at his school. Parents in states like ours have much less time to identify, report and legally pursue sexual abuse committed by a public school employee than if the same abuse is committed by the employee of a religious or private organization. The amount of money they can recover in damages is also sharply limited --- in Colorado, $150,000.
KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal
By Peter Smith
psmith@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
An order of Catholic nuns based in Nelson County has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle lawsuits by 45 plaintiffs who alleged they were sexually abused at orphanages and schools.
The settlement ends the bulk of two years of litigation involving the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.
The plaintiffs alleged they were abused as children at orphanages and schools supervised by the nuns between the 1930s and 1970s. More than 20 of the plaintiffs accused a priest who was a longtime orphanage chaplain, and others accused several nuns and two laymen.
Attorneys Jennifer Kincaid Adams, representing the Sisters of Charity, and William McMurry, representing the plaintiffs, confirmed they had agreed to the settlement. But McMurry added that it needs to be completed with delivery of the check from the order, scheduled for Friday.
MINEOLA (NY)
WNBC
MINEOLA, N.Y. -- A former priest who was given probation for molesting a teenager in the 1980s and who admitted last month he tried to lure another teenager for sex said he wants to withdraw his guilty plea.
Thomas Bender, 72, of Easton, Pa., pleaded guilty last month to charges of attempting to disseminate indecent material to a minor, attempted criminal sex act and attempted child endangerment, authorities said.
Bender is apparently taking advantage of an appellate court ruling last month that dismissed an indictment in a Westchester County case against a Manhattan lawyer who was accused of disseminating indecent material to a minor.
The court ruled that written communications without sexual pictures is not sexually explicit material.
Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice was looking for the maximum prison term of 24 years at Bender's sentencing Wednesday. Instead, Bender filed a motion through his Legal Aid attorney seeking to have the guilty plea vacated.
ARLINGTON (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MITCH MITCHELL
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
ARLINGTON -- Prosecutors spent most of Wednesday trying to persuade a jury to send the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle away to prison.
But at night, congregants at Agape Christian Fellowship heard that this is not the time to abandon their church.
The Rev. Johnny Green, pastor at Mount Nebo Church in Harlem, New York, said that Agape was a pretty church and that the devil wanted it for himself.
"I'm so sick and tired of fair-weather Christians," Green said. "People talking about they can't go down there because the preacher ain't right. You ain't right."
The crowd of more than 200 responded with applause and celebration throughout the three-hour service.
COLLEGEVILLE (MN)
St. Cloud Times
By Frank Lee fclee@stcloudtimes.com
Published: August 24. 2006 1:00AM
COLLEGEVILLE — A former St. John's Preparatory School student launched a Web site Wednesday to help molestation victims and challenged Catholic officials in a letter to defend delays in notifying potential victims.
"There are inaccuracies in Mr. (Pat) Marker's letter," said the Rev. William Skudlarek, abbey spokesman. "We will advise him of the inaccuracies in our response to him but will not engage in a media debate with him."
Marker said his Web site, www.behindthepinecurtain.com, is intended to help victims feel "validated."
"This Web site has the potential to heal," Marker said.
ROCHESTER (NY)
Democrat & Chronicle
(August 24, 2006) — GATES — The case of Gates priest Father John Steger has been moved to March 21 in Town Court.
Steger, 80, is facing sexual abuse charges that were filed in May.
“The next appearance is to decide the validity of the charges and the admissibility of any statement that the father gave to police,” said John Speranza, Steger’s lawyer, who said this must be done before a trial date is set.
OHIO
Cincinnati Enquirer
BY DAN HORN | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
The Ohio Supreme Court threw out more than 50 sexual-abuse lawsuits against Cincinnati priests Wednesday, saying the accusations are too old for Ohio's courts to consider.
Catholic Church officials and victims' groups expected the decision because the court ruled in June that accusers must sue by age 20.
The June ruling served notice that any lawsuit filed after the deadline would likely be dismissed.
"We knew this was coming," said Dan Frondorf, who claimed in one of the lawsuits he was abused. "We have no choice but to live with it."
The decision ends a four-year legal fight over dozens of cases involving allegations of abuse by priests.
Many of those claims date back years and, in some cases, decades.
MASSACHUSETTS
Eagle-Tribune
By Edward Mason
Eagle-Tribune
BOSTON - A children's advocate from North Andover is trying to make a campaign issue out of the Legislature's failure to give child abuse victims more time to report they've been assaulted.
Debbie Savoia wants House and Senate members to sign a "child protection pledge" saying they'll push for approval this year of a 12-year extension of the statute of limitations on reporting child abuse.
Reaction from candidates is mixed, with one saying he found the tone of the pledge language "insulting."
Savoia, vice president of Chelmsford-based Community Voices, said the election-year pledge request will put the heat on lawmakers to act.
"It's important to get it out there to people (information about the candidates) running for these offices," Savoia said. "It's going nowhere with the lawmakers we have."
SPOKANE (WA)
Spokesman Review
Staff reports
August 24, 2006
A three-day mediation between the Catholic Diocese of Spokane and lawyers for abuse victims ended late Wednesday with no resolution, but the talks will continue in Nevada at a later date, according to the diocese.
“I am extremely grateful for the hard work invested by so many people in this process,” Bishop William Skylstad said in a press release. “It is the result of months of effort on the part of victims, pastors, attorneys, and other individuals.”
In July, the two sides held a one-day mediation in Nevada, led by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Gregory Zive of Reno. The diocese did not say when the new round of mediation talks will begin.
MINEOLA (NY)
North Country Gazette
MINEOLA----Thomas Bender, 71, an ex-priest from Pennsylvania who pleaded guilty in March to six counts of felony attempted disseminating indecent material to minors in the first degree, has moved to vacate his guilty plea in light of a recent appellate court decision that narrowly defined the dissemination law as valid only if "sexual images" are used to "depict" sexual conduct.
"I hope this isn't the first case in our jurisdiction to fall victim to this appellate decision," said Nassau County district attorney Kathleen Rice. "We need this law to combat sexual predators and to keep our children safe."
Rice went on to say that "words can often times be more useful to predators than pictures. The defendants build relationships with their victims through long-term conversations and those conversations generally don't involve pictures."
OHIO
Dayton Daily News
By Tom Beyerlein
Staff Writer
Thursday, August 24, 2006
The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared away "the overwhelming majority" of civil legal claims against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati in the child sex-abuse scandal involving priests when it upheld lower-court rulings that the statute of limitations had expired in two Hamilton County cases, an archdiocesan spokesman said.
Dan Andriacco said the court's action clears all the cases under appeal and most lawsuits with large numbers of plaintiffs. A handful of lawsuits remain in area trial courts.
"It's never a completely joyous occasion for us when we're victorious in court in a child-abuse case," Andriacco said. "We're very aware that this continues to be a very painful experience for victims and, to a lesser extent, all Catholics."
The archdiocese covers 500,000 Catholics in 19 counties, including the Miami Valley.
Andriacco said the statute of limitations is important because it would be difficult for the courts to reach just decisions in old cases relying on dimming memories of witnesses.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MELODY McDONALD
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH — In the “free world,” the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle’s drug of choice was methamphetamine.
While awaiting trial in the Tarrant County Jail, however, Hornbuckle took whatever he could get his hands on.
Jail inmate Russell Wayne Eason testified Wednesday that he traded Seroquel, an antipsychotic medication he had been prescribed, with Hornbuckle for items such as coffee and sweets.
“I said, ‘These are 100 mg. They make you drowsy, woozy and disoriented,’ ” Eason said. “He said he had given them to some of his church members – he called them lady friends.”
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – A fourth woman testified that Arlington pastor Terry Hornbuckle drugged her and, as he did with a previous victim, used his status to persuade her to have sex.
The woman's testimony came during Wednesday's punishment phase of Mr. Hornbuckle's trial. Mr. Hornbuckle was convicted Tuesday of sexually assaulting three other women, two of them church members.
The prosecution and the defense rested Wednesday after the testimony of Mr. Hornbuckle's elderly mother, who asked the jury to be lenient. The jury could begin deliberating Mr. Hornbuckle's punishment today following closing arguments at 8:30 a.m. He could receive two to 20 years in prison or probation.
The fourth woman, using the pseudonym Rachel Johnson, traveled to San Antonio as a baby sitter for Mr. Hornbuckle, his wife and several church elders. Once there, she said, Mr. Hornbuckle told her in the hotel lobby that he "wanted to teach me how to have an orgasm."
FORT WORTH (TX)
NBC5i
FORT WORTH, Texas -- As the sentencing phase in the rape trial of former minister Terry Hornbuckle continued Wednesday, more scandalous allegations surfaced in the courtroom.
A jury on Wednesday found former Arlington minister Terry Hornbuckle guilty of raping three women. Now they must decide on a sentence.
To prove Hornbuckle deserves a long prison sentence, prosecutors called more witnesses to present damaging testimony.
Hornbuckle's former parole officer testified that Hornbuckle, once known as a bishop at his Agape Christian Fellowship, repeatedly violated parole by failing drug tests and avoiding his electronic monitor.
"He's just continuing to do whatever it is the bishop wants to do," prosecutor Betty Arvin said.
A former inmate testified that he sold drugs to Hornbuckle inside the Tarrant County Jail.
ALEXANDRIA (VA)
Gay.com
Associated Press
Thursday 24 August, 2006 10:58
A Maryland rabbi caught in an Internet watchdog group's nationally televised sex sting took the stand in his own defense Wednesday and denied that he intended to have sex with a 13-year-old boy.
David A Kaye, 55, of Rockville, was charged in US district court in Alexandria, in US state Virginia, with coercing and enticing a minor as well as traveling across state lines for illegal sexual contact.
The charges came after a November episode of Dateline NBC in which Kaye was one of 19 men who showed up at a Herndon, Virginia, home after engaging in sexually explicit online conversations with adults from a watchdog group called Perverted Justice who were pretending to be minors.
ALEXANDRIA (VA)
Washington Jewish Week
by Eric Fingerhut
Staff Writer
The local rabbi caught in a Dateline NBC sting of online sexual predators told a federal judge Tuesday that he believed he was going to be meeting a "young adult," despite his Internet chat partner's claims of being just 13 years old.
Testifying in his own defense at his trial on charges of "coercion and enticement" and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual contact with a minor, David Kaye, 55, said he believed the person he was supposed to meet had been lying about personal details and engaged in a "role play."
Kaye said such role playing was fairly typical over the dozen or so years he had been meeting men via America Online chat rooms. He pointed out that his own chat "profile" on AOL lied about his name, age and occupation, among other characteristics.
Going to the house of someone he met over the Internet also was not out of the ordinary, Kaye said, revealing that he had been hiding a "secret life" of engaging in "secret adult homosexual liaisons" for more than 30 years.
CYPRUS
Cyprus Mail
THE YOUTH claiming to have engaged in lewd acts with a Limassol cleric is now suing for sexual abuse, in the latest public scandal to rock the Church.
Nicos Polycarpou, 20, alleges that he and Archimandrite Isaac Macheriotis, of the Limassol bishopric, maintained relations of a homosexual nature. The affair is said to have begun three years ago, when Polycarpou was 17 and therefore still underage.
The lawsuit, filed in a Limassol court, demands compensation of up to £250,000 for alleged sexual exploitation of a minor.
Notice of the suit was served yesterday to the accused clergyman, who has 10 days to appoint legal counsel to represent him.
WASHBURN (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
08/24/2006
WASHBURN, MO.
Authorities Wednesday were seeking a second Ozarks pastor accused of sexually abusing children in his congregation, The Joplin Globe reported.
Newton County authorities believe the missing pastor's church is affiliated with Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, whose pastor, his wife and her brothers have been accused of sexually abusing girls from their congregation for years, the paper said.
Felony complaints including child molestation and sodomy were filed last week by the McDonald County prosecutor against the Rev. Raymond Lambert, pastor of Grand Valley Independent Baptist; his wife, Patty Lambert; and her brothers, Paul and Tom Epling.
Prosecutors allege that Lambert, 51, helped by his 49-year-old wife, repeatedly molested and had sex with two underage girls, "as part of a ritual or ceremony," according to the court filing.
MISSOURI
The Joplin Globe
Arrest warrants have been issued on the missing pastor of a church in Newton County affiliated with a McDonald County church whose pastor, pastor’s wife and two church members are facing child-sexual abuse allegations spanning four decades.
The Newton County sheriff today said authorities are seeking George O. Johnston, 63, on warrants charging him with eight counts of statutory sodomy. Johnston is the pastor of Grandview Valley Baptist Church North on Hebron Road in Newton County, which investigators believed is affiliated with Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church near Powell in McDonald County.
ARLINGTON (VA)
Catholic Herald
Special to the HERALD
(From the Issue of 8/24/06)
Support groups for victims and survivors of clergy sexual abuse, coordinated by Pat Mudd, victim assistance coordinator for the diocese, will be offered this fall. Beginning in September, these groups will meet on the first Monday of the month, unless that day falls on a holiday, and be offered in addition to the previously offered Masses and prayer services.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
The Press Democrat
By MARTIN ESPINOZA
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Even after fugitive priest Xavier Ochoa was stripped of his duties by Santa Rosa Bishop Daniel Walsh, Ochoa believed he had done nothing wrong and would be reinstated, says an attorney representing two Sonoma priests with knowledge of the sex abuse case.
"Ochoa was extremely upset and felt that the bishop had overreacted," attorney Dominic Sposeto wrote in statements delivered to Sonoma County sheriff's investigators and the District Attorney's Office.
Sposeto represents the Rev. Frank Epperson, who along with the bishop and other diocese officials are the focus of a criminal investigation into whether they violated state law by failing to immediately report suspicions of child sexual abuse by Ochoa.
Sposeto said he also represents the Rev. Michael Kelly, pastor of St. Francis Solano Church in Sonoma, where Ochoa led Latino parishioners. Kelly was informed of Ochoa's admissions before the diocese reported them to authorities, Sposeto said.
The documents present the lawyer's account of the church's dealings with Ochoa, as explained to him by Epperson, the associate pastor at St. Francis Solano. Sposeto says Epperson had no knowledge of sexual improprieties before Ochoa's admission to Walsh on April 28 at a meeting attended by Ochoa, Walsh, Epperson and Monsignor James Pulskamp, the diocese vicar general.
ALEXANDRIA (VA)
Advocate
A Maryland rabbi caught in an Internet watchdog group's nationally televised sex sting took the stand in his own defense Wednesday and denied that he intended to have sex with a 13-year-old boy. David A. Kaye, 55, of Rockville, Maryland, was charged in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, with coercing and enticing a minor as well as traveling across state lines for illegal sexual contact.
The charges came after a November episode of Dateline NBC in which Kaye was one of 19 men who showed up at a Herndon, Virginia, home after engaging in sexually explicit online conversations with adults from a watchdog group called Perverted Justice who were pretending to be minors. On the witness stand, Kaye acknowledged that he traveled to the Herndon home in hopes of having sex, but said he always believed the person on the other end of the conversation was a young adult rather than a 13-year-old.
During the online chats, Kaye makes several references to the chatter's youth and once tells him, "You are so, so young. I've never been with a young man like you, but I'd like to."
Kaye said he was only going along with what he assumed to be role playing by an adult male. "I was never there to meet a 13-year-old," Kaye said.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
11:14 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 23, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
A day after Terry Hornbuckle was convicted on three counts of sexual assault, the prosecution began the first full day of the trial's punishment phase by introducing evidence about the Arlington pastor's repeated bail violations.
From March 2005 to March 2006, Mr. Hornbuckle's bail was revoked four times. Prosecutors said he failed to provide a sample for a urine analysis once, saying said he couldn't come in to give the sample because of a doctor's appointment. His probation officer Jeremy Lee testified he later learned there was no appointment at the time the pastor gave him.
Mr. Hornbuckle also failed three drug tests, testing positive for methamphetamine each time. On two occasions, urine samples provided by the minister were too diluted to give an accurate test, but in both cases there were traces of meth in the sample.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH -- The Rev. Terry Hornbuckle didn't stop using methamphetamine even months after he was arrested on sexual assault charges, a probation officer testified Wednesday.
A jury convicted Hornbuckle, 44, of three counts of sexual assault Tuesday afternoon. Those same nine women and three men must now decide on a sentence. He could get probation or up to 20 years in prison.
His attorneys, Mike Heiskell and Leon Haley, have said they believe probation would be a fair sentence for Hornbuckle, the founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington.
Prosecutors Betty Arvin and Sean Colston started their case Wednesday by showing jurors the trouble Hornbuckle encountered while trying to follow the conditions of bond after his March 11, 2005, arrest.
Many of those conditions are the same as probation requirements, they said.
National
By DIANE R. PAWLOWSKI
When Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George met in January with 200 parishioners from St. Agatha Parish about his assignment there of a known priest sexual predator, the overseer of an afterschool program at the parish said she saw children knocking on the rectory’s back door last fall and then going in.
“I am hurting,” she is quoted as saying in press reports. “I pray God will forgive me for not speaking out earlier.”
Many others could repeat her words. Rectories are public venues frequented by volunteers, vendors and business people. Parishioners arrive for counseling, to arrange weddings or baptisms, or request copies of records. Volunteers, the lifeblood of both school and parish, drop off papers or attend meetings. Staff are not often alone. If one employee saw children visit, others saw the same thing.
Yet we don’t hear other admission. Where are other witnesses?
Sexual abuse by priests could not continue for decades without the active complicity of not only priests, bishops and cardinals but lay witnesses in schools and rectories where priests work and live.
CAMDEN (NJ)
WIS
(Camden) August 22, 2006 - John Morris is one of four men who sued the Diocese in Charleston. All four said they were molested by priests in the 1960s and 1970s.
In Morris' case, he named a priest named Lawrence Sheedy, who Morris says molested him at an orphanage in Charleston.
The other plaintiffs said they were abused by a different priest, James Nyhan, in 1978.
The diocese settled the suit, paying cash to the four plaintiffs and agreeing to set up a $12 million fund to pay for any additional abuse cases if they were filed.
Now, new cases have been filed. This time they were filed by two of the original plaintiffs, their wives and a plaintiff's mother. And they say the church is liable due to loss of companionship, technically called loss of consortium.
NEW BRITAIN (CT)
The Herald
By: Francine Maglione
08/23/2006
NEW BRITAIN - Armenian priest Krikoris Keshishian, 54, made an appearance in court Tuesday morning in his continuing battle against charges that he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl last year.
Judge Patrick J. Clifford said the case will be continued "for further pretrial."
Keshishian, of 21 Garry Drive, was first arrested on May 9 on charges of fourth-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to, or impairing the morals of, a minor. Police reported that Keshishian had inappropriately touched a 12-year-old parishioner of St. Stephen's Armenian Apostolic Church in May 2005.
In his defense, Keshishian claimed that the alleged touching happened by accident while he was attempting to catch the girl as she was falling off a table. However, once the arrest warrant was unsealed, a number of new accusations were brought to light, some including the friend of the 12-year-old girl.
ARKANSAS
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
BY CHRISTIE STORM
Posted on Wednesday, August 23, 2006
The Rev. Paul Worm has been removed as pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Fayetteville for alleged misconduct. The action was taken by the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock, which oversees all parishes in the state.
Worm had served the parish for seven years.
In a letter to parishioners dated Aug. 18, Monsignor J. Gaston Hebert, diocesan administrator, said Worm had been guilty of misconduct and his actions required immediate removal from the parish.
St. Joseph’s parish is now under the leadership of the Rev. Thomas Marks, who will serve as parish administrator. Marks said parents and parishioners were assured that Worm’s misconduct had nothing to do with pedophilia, but had no further comment on Worm’s removal other than to say it was an internal matter. He added that letters were also sent home with students of St. Joseph Catholic School informing parents of Worm’s removal.
JACKSON (TN)
Knoxville News Sentinel
By Associated Press
August 23, 2006
JACKSON, Tenn. — The Rev. Richard Mickey, a priest accused of sexually abusing two teenage brothers more than 25 years ago, has resigned as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
The Catholic Diocese of Memphis has found no wrongdoing by Mickey, but he is being sued by two brothers who accuse him of abusing them in 1980 when they were students at Bishop Byrne High School in Memphis.
Mickey told the St. Mary’s congregation Sunday that he was resigning as pastor for "personal reasons."
"Father Mickey is not involved in any pastoral or public ministry, effective immediately," John Geaney, a diocesan spokesman, said Monday. "He indicated his resignation is due to the responsibilities he has with several diocesan tasks as well as dealing with the civil trial."
ST. LOUIS (MO)
Post-Dispatch
08/23/2006
St. Louis archdiocesan officials said in a statement Tuesday that when the Rev. Bryan Kuchar, 40, is released from jail next week, he "will take up residence in a monitored environment at a facility located outside of the immediate St. Louis metropolitan area." A spokesman said he didn't know the name of the facility.
In 2003, a jury found Kuchar guilty of molesting a 14-year-old boy in 1995, while the priest was serving at Assumption Catholic Church in south St. Louis County. Kuchar will finish three consecutive one-year terms in St. Louis County jail next Wednesday.
The archdiocese said that while it "will make provision for (his) residence, Kuchar will receive no salary or stipend from the archdiocese."
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 23, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – Terry Hornbuckle bowed slightly and church members held hands as a judge announced Tuesday that the Arlington minister was guilty of sexually assaulting three women.
The Tarrant County jury's verdict ended more than 33 hours of deliberations spanning a week. Jurors began hearing testimony shortly afterward to determine whether Mr. Hornbuckle deserves probation or two to 20 years in prison for his crimes. The sentences will run concurrently.
"I think that the evidence was strong, and the defendant was guilty," prosecutor Sean Colston said after the verdict was announced. "That's what turned the case."
Mr. Colston said that anything less than the maximum sentence would be inappropriate for Mr. Hornbuckle, founder of Agape Christian Fellowship church. Two of his victims were church members, and one testified that she was a virgin when the minister drugged and raped her shortly after her 21st birthday.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MELODY McDONALD AND TRACI SHURLEY
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITERS
FORT WORTH -- Minutes after jurors found the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle guilty Tuesday afternoon of raping three women, he and his wife sat knee to knee facing each other in the courtroom.
Renee Hornbuckle touched her husband's hand, whispered in his ear and, at times, appeared to be offering words of encouragement.
It could be a long time before they share such a private moment again.
Hornbuckle -- the 44-year-old founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in southeast Arlington and the man everyone called "bishop" -- faces a sentence ranging from probation to 20 years in prison on each charge. The sentences will run concurrently.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By Bob Ray Sanders
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Terry Hornbuckle in court after hearing the verdict Tuesday.
More photosOn the one hand, the courtroom drama was just as I previously described it: a trashy soap opera with a plot full of drugs, sex, religion and celebrity.
On the other hand, however, the Terry Hornbuckle sexual assault trial was a textbook case of good lawyering on both sides, a patient and even-handed presiding judge and a jury that took its duties very, very seriously.
Hornbuckle was the once mighty bishop of Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington.
By the time both sides rested in the trial, his own defense team had called him everything but a child of God. His attorneys referred to him as a "sinner, adulterer, drug user and bad bishop."
DENVER (CO)
Denver Post
By Eric Gorski
Denver Post Staff Writer
A lawyer for 19 of the 30 people suing the Denver Roman Catholic Archdiocese for alleged clergy sexual abuse of minors said Tuesday that attempts to mediate his clients' claims have failed, in large part because the sides are far apart on money.
"We were led to believe that the Archdiocese of Denver set aside a 'substantial' pot of money for these cases," attorney Jeffrey Herman of Miami said in a statement announcing the impasse. "That is apparently not the case. Our clients made a good-faith effort to settle their lawsuits but have not been able (to) resolve these cases without going to court."
Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput announced in May that the archdiocese had hired mediator Richard Dana, a former state district judge, and committed an undisclosed "very large" sum of money in an attempt to negotiate lawsuit settlements by the end of October.
At the passage of a deadline Tuesday for plaintiffs to request mediation, achieving that goal appeared increasingly unlikely.
CULPEPER (VA)
Star Exponent
Liz Mitchell
Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
The case of Charles Shifflett, pastor of First Baptist Church of Culpeper, has been continued to Sept. 18 for legal reasons.
Scheduled for an arraignment Tuesday morning in Circuit Court, Shifflett’s lawyer Samuel Higginbotham II, of Orange, requested a two-week continuance to obtain a “bill of particulars” from the Commonwealth, which would outline facts of each charge against his client.
Shifflett, 54, faces seven charges of physical and sexual abuse against children for incidents that occurred at his former church, Cavalry Baptist, up to 20 years ago.
“Right now we cannot tell the particular facts for a particular charge,” Higginbotham said in court.
ILLINOIS
Madison County Record
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
By Steve Gonzalez - Mt. Vernon Bureau
The Fifth District Appellate Court affirmed former Madison County Circuit Judge Phillip Kardis' dismissal of a sexual assault complaint against the Catholic Diocese of Springfield, the Diocese of Belleville and two priests, Herman Niebrugge and Theodore Baumann.
The appellate court ruled on the basis that the case brought by Virginia Galloway in January 2004 was barred by the statute of repose governing personal injury child sexual abuse cases.
Galloway claimed that a third priest, Richard Niebrugge, had sexually abused her from the time she was 10-years-old in 1967 until his death in 1983.
The priests named as defendants in her suit became aware of the abuse while she was a minor and that they aided and abetted Niebrugge by failing to report it and helping him to cover it up, Galloway claimed.
PENNSYLVANIA
Delco Times
08/23/2006
There are those who might characterize Eileen McCafferty DiFranco as a publicity hound because she has not remained silent about celebrating Mass as a Roman Catholic priest. But the 54-year-old Philadelphia resident said it is only natural for her as a former teacher to want to educate the world about women such as herself who want to serve God as men in their religion do.
DiFranco brought her lesson to Delaware County last Sunday when she celebrated Mass in the chapel of The Garden Church, a United Methodist Community formerly known as the Trinity Lansdowne Methodist Church.
She was there at the invitation of the Rev. Bernie Callahan, pastor of the Old Catholic Church of the Beatitudes which, for two years, has rented space from The Garden Church. ...
"An excommunication is a decision made by fallible men who have made mistakes in the past, egregious mistakes in the present and who will make mistakes in the future," she said.
All human beings are fallible and, indeed, the men who have overseen the Roman Catholic Church for 2,000 years have made their fair share of mistakes, the most recent being the gross mishandling of hundreds of clerical sexual abuse cases throughout the country and the world.
SAN DIEGO (CA)
The Press-Enterprise
10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, August 22, 2006
By MICHAEL FISHER
The Press-Enterprise
Attorneys for the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego have asked a judge to order those claiming sexual abuse by clergy to reveal their identities in public court documents so that church leaders can adequately defend themselves in the first lawsuits headed for trial early next year.
Three of the five cases scheduled for trial in San Diego involve former Inland priests, including one lawsuit that alleges Monsignor Patrick J. O'Keeffe molested a teenage girl in Highland in 1972.
The motion, which could effect more than 800 of clergy abuse lawsuits pending in Southern California, drew angry reactions from victims' attorneys and advocates, who criticized the request as an intimidation tactic intended to shame accusers into dropping their litigation or to prevent others from coming forward.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
07:29 PM CDT on Tuesday, August 22, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – A Tarrant County jury on Tuesday convicted Arlington pastor Terry Hornbuckle on all counts of rape charges involving three young women, including two members of his church.
The jury deliberated nearly 34 hours before reaching the verdict, and was expected to begin the punishment phase Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Hornbuckle is facing two to 20 years in prison, but he could also be eligible for probation.
The prosecution spent six days building a case against Mr. Hornbuckle, founder of Agape Christian Fellowship church. The defense rested without calling a witness.
Prosecutors said Mr. Hornbuckle used his position as a respected and successful preacher to prey on women's weaknesses. In two cases, Mr. Hornbuckle was accused of drugging women before he raped them; the third woman said she was drugged but there was no rape at that time.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
08/22/2006
Associated Press
Jurors in Fort Worth today convicted an Arlington minister of sexually assaulting three women.
Now comes the punishment phase for the Reverend Terry Hornbuckle, who founded the Agape (uh-GAWP'-ay) Christian Fellowship.
Each sexual assault count carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
Two accusers are former church members. Allegations were raised that Hornbuckle drugged at least two of the women.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
08/22/2006
Associated Press
After almost five days of deliberations, jurors on Tuesday convicted the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle of sexually assaulting three women.
Defense attorneys for the founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington said that while he did commit adultery, he did not rape the women.
Though they didn't call any witnesses, Hornbuckle's attorneys entered into evidence a letter of support from NFL career rushing leader Emmitt Smith. The former Dallas Cowboys star had written to a Tarrant County grand jury that Hornbuckle was "an honest and trustworthy man" and a "true role model for our family." Smith wrote that Hornbuckle had done premarital counseling for him and his wife.
During the trial, the mother of one of the women Hornbuckle was convicted of assaulting told jurors that former Cowboy Deion Sanders urged her not to report the rape allegations. Loretta Sheppard testified that Sanders told her that he and T.D. Jakes, pastor of The Potter's House in Dallas, were working with Hornbuckle on his problems.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Review
by James Rygelski, Review Editor
Archbishop Raymond L. Burke has assigned Bryan M. Kuchar, a formerly active priest of the St. Louis Archdiocese scheduled for release from jail Aug. 30 after a sex-abuse conviction, to a temporary stay in a "secure and monitored residence" within the archdiocese.
The archdiocese continues its efforts to remove Kuchar from the priesthood through a laicization decree from the Vatican. By Church law, the archdiocese still has responsibility for Kuchar until there is a decision from the Vatican, archdiocesan officials said.
In a recent letter to Kuchar, Archbishop Burke reminded Kuchar of his vow of obedience to his bishop and ordered him not to perform any duties of a priest or to wear clerical garb after his release from jail. The archbishop also directed Kuchar not to speak to the media about his situation.
The archbishop’s recent letter to Kuchar told him that the archdiocese will not pay him a salary but will pay for health care until there is a decision from the Vatican on the laicization request.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By TRACI SHURLEY and MELODY McDONALD
Star-Telegram Staff Writers
FORT WORTH -- After four full days of deliberations, jurors in Terry Hornbuckle's sexual assault trial resumed their discussions Tuesday and still had not reached a verdict by midafternoon.
They have deliberated more than 30 hours on three charges of sexual assault involving three different women.
Defense attorneys for the charismatic Arlington pastor say he was an adulterer, but did not rape the women. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison on each charge.
As of Tuesday, jurors had sent out no fewer than 40 notes asking for evidence and portions of testimony.
State district Judge Scott Wisch, who is presiding over Hornbuckle’s case, and the attorneys for both sides say this is the longest they've seen a jury deliberate.
NORWICH (NY)
Press & Sun-Bulletin
By Jim Wright
jwright@pressconnects.com
NORWICH -- Chenango County Judge W. Howard Sullivan said he used the words despicable, disgusting and reprehensible to describe ex-pastor Lewis J. Lee as he sentenced Lee on Monday to 9 1/3 to 28 years in prison on seven counts of third-degree rape.
The sentence came almost three months after the one-time pastor admitted in court that he was intimate with a 15-year girl, who was a former church parishioner.
Marsha Thomsen, the girl's mother, also had harsh words for Lee, who also faces federal charges in connection with his flight through several states with the teenager. She called Lee a "conniving liar" as she addressed the Chenango court during Lee's sentencing, said Judge Sullivan during a telephone interview late Monday afternoon.
"I think I actually saw him wince when she said that," Sullivan said.
NORWICH (NY)
WSTM
NORWICH, N.Y. A 54-year-old former pastor is sentenced to nine to 28 years in prison for running off with a 15-year-old girl from his upstate congregation.
Lewis Lee pleaded guilty in June to seven counts of third-degree rape. He's scheduled to appear for sentencing in federal court next month on various charges. Authorities say any additional federal penalties will run concurrently with the time he'll serve in state prison.
Lee was arrested in April in Maryland on a federal warrant charging him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and a New York warrant for first-degree custodial interference.
ALEXANDRIA (VA)
NBC 4
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The prosecution has rested its case in the trial of a local rabbi busted in the Internet sex predator sting carried out by "Dateline NBC" in August 2005.
Rabbi David Kaye is accused of traveling from his Rockville, Md., home to Herndon, Va., to have sex with a 13-year-old boy named Conrad, who he met online. That 13-year-old turned out to be an adult setting up a sting.
Monday's testimony included X-rated online chats being read into the record. But the cornerstone of the prosecution's case was the "Dateline" video that shows the 56-year-old Kaye arriving at the Herndon home.
The sting operation was set up by a group known as Perverted Justice. Sean O'Connor, a 26-year-old member of the group took the stand Monday. He posed as the 13-year-old in the online chats.
TENNESSEE
Comercial Appeal
By James Dowd
Contact
August 22, 2006
A priest accused of molesting twin brothers more than a quarter-century ago has resigned as pastor of one of the largest parishes in the Catholic Diocese of Memphis, church leaders confirmed Monday.
On Sunday, Father Richard Mickey cited "personal reasons" in announcing his resignation from St. Mary's in Jackson, Tenn. He also resigned as pastor of St. John in Brownsville.
"Father Mickey is not involved in any pastoral or public ministry, effective immediately," said Father John Geaney, diocesan spokesman. "He indicated his resignation is due to the responsibilities he has with several diocesan tasks as well as dealing with the civil trial."
In 2004, twin brothers Blain and Blair Chambers alleged in a civil lawsuit that Mickey sexually abused them in 1980 when they were students at Bishop Byrne High School. Mickey, ordained in 1988, served as a counselor and teacher at the Whitehaven school at the time.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times
August 22, 2006
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH AND CATHLEEN FALSANI STAFF REPORTERS
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has suspended two priests from a Palatine parish amid allegations one of them sexually assaulted a 26-year-old man.
Palatine Police held the Rev. Juan P. Sanchez-Espinoza for 24 hours while they investigated the claims two weeks ago, but filed no charges.
The wife of the alleged victim, "John Doe," works at the parish, Misión San Juan Diego, which caters to Hispanic Catholics in the northwest suburbs. The Rev. Moises Marin is pastor.
Doe said the priests invited him for beers on Saturday night, Aug. 5.
JACKSON (TN)
Jackson Sun
The Rev. Richard Mickey, pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Jackson and St. John's Catholic Church in Brownsville, has resigned effective today, according to the Catholic Diocese of Memphis.
Mickey cited personal reasons and a pending civil suit that accuses him of sexual abuse as his reasons for resigning, according to the Rev. John Geaney, spokesperson for the diocese.
In the pending civil case, two brothers, Blain and Blair Chambers, say Mickey sexually abused them in 1980 when they were students at Bishop Byrne High School in Memphis. At that time, Mickey was working as a counselor at the school.
CLEVELAND (OH)
CFO.com
Marie Leone, CFO.com
August 21, 2006
A former treasurer and CFO of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland was indicted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last week for an alleged kickback scheme totaling $784,000, according to an FBI statement.
Joseph F. Smith, the former Cleveland finance chief who is now finance director of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus, Ohio was charged in 23 counts of conspiring to defraud the Cleveland diocese in an alleged plot that involved directing $17.5 million of church funds to companies controlled by Anton Zgoznik, who then redirected payments to Smith. ...
The Catholic Church's financial woes extend well beyond Cleveland and Columbus. Over the past few years, the Vatican's budget has been hit by rising labor costs, a falling dollar, expenses associated with increasing diplomatic missions, and lawsuit settlements stemming from clergy sexual-abuse scandals, according to the Associated Press.
CHICAGO (IL)
ABC 7
By Kevin Roy
August 21, 2006 (last updated 6:19 p.m.) - Two Roman Catholic priests have left a suburban church amid allegations of sexual assault against an adult. Both worked in the San Juan Diego Parish that serves Palatine and Arlington Heights.
One priest was accused of committing the assault while the other is accused of failing to report the case. No criminal charges have been filed in the case, but Palatine police said the investigation is ongoing. The men have been suspended from their duties during an internal investigation by the Chicago Archdiocese.
Father Juan Sanchez-Espinoza is accused of sexual assault against a 26-year-old man in a townhome on August 5. He is now on administrative leave and living at a private residence. Father Moises Marin was asked to voluntarily remove himself from the parish while the archdiocese conducts an internal investigation.
The Chicago Archdiocese released a statement: "The Archdiocese of Chicago has cooperated with the civil authorities who have advised the archdiocese that the accusation was thoroughly investigated and no criminal charges have been filed."
CHICAGO (IL)
Fox 28
The Archdiocese of Chicago says it's investigating an allegation of sexual assault that's resulted in the removal of two Roman Catholic priests from a suburban church.
One priest was asked to "voluntarily" go. The other was placed on administrative leave.
Palatine police say personnel at a nearby hospital reported on August 7th that a 26-year-old man there wished to make a criminal sexual assault report. The man told detectives he'd been sexually assaulted while visiting the Palatine home of two church officials.
Archdiocese spokeswoman Susan Burritt says only the priest placed on leave is accused of assaulting the man. The other priest was pastor of the church and so responsible for whatever happens in its rectory.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MELODY McDONALD and TRACI SHURLEY
Star-Telegram Staff Writers
FORT WORTH – Deliberations in the trial of the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle continued through Day 5 Monday with still no verdict – and plenty of questions – from the jury.
The jury of nine women and three men sent out at least 16 notes Monday asking for testimony, bringing the total to at least three dozen since deliberations began Aug. 15. The panel has deliberated 28½ hours.
In their last note of the day, jurors indicated that some were feeling "some pressure to reach a verdict" and wanted state District Judge Scott Wisch’s input.
"There is no pressure," Wisch said he told them. "Deliberate at your own pace."
Most of the notes Monday dealt with the second accuser, who is being identified by the pseudonym "Jane Doe," and requested specific testimony. So far, none of the notes has indicated that they are deadlocked or unable to reach a verdict.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
By JEFF MOSIER and LAURIE FOX / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – Jurors in pastor Terry Hornbuckle’s rape trial deliberated for a fourth full day Monday, but they still did not reach a verdict.
After 28 hours of deliberation, there was no evidence that the jury was deadlocked, state district Judge Scott Wisch said. The jury sent at least 14 notes to the judge Monday, but most were about testimony or evidence connected to the second of three alleged victims.
“We hate to be all this trouble,” Judge Wisch said, quoting the jury about the long wait.
He described the jurors as calm and methodical. Also, they appear to be getting along well, and some have even brought home-baked food to share with others jurors, Judge Wisch said.
AUSTRALIA
Catholic News
Victims of convicted child sex offender and former priest Gerald Ridsdale are planning to ask the Victorian Government for an exemption from the three year limit for launching legal proceedings in order to mount a class action against the Church.
The Ballarat Courier reports that one victim who cannot be identified says that victims would lobby the government to legislate changes to the Limitations of Actions Act for all sexual assault victims.
"We're going to be running a campaign to have the government exempt sexual assault victims from the Limitations of Actions Act, which would then enable victims of Ridsdale and others to claim compensation against the Catholic Church," he said.
SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican
Monday, August 21, 2006
By BILL ZAJAC
wzajac@repub.com
A former Catholic priest from Springfield says he has been exonerated of two accusations of sexual abuse, but an Episcopal Church leader disagrees, saying the priest escaped action by the church on a legal technicality.
The Rev. John R. Russell said he was cleared of two accusations - one by a former Holy Cross of Springfield parishioner and the other by a former parishioner in New Mexico - when the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande withdrew the accusations against him in June.
"I have been through hell for the past 2½ years," said Russell, adding that he lost his license to work as a priest, his job as a counselor in a public high school and is broke as a result of what he called false accusations.
WISCONSIN
Pioneer Press
BY KEVIN HARTER
Pioneer Press
The Roman Catholic Church has spent hundreds of millions of dollars settling lawsuits in accusations of priest sex abuse across the country. But a Wisconsin family's suit filed last week doesn't seek money. They want names.
That just may pose a tougher fight, legal experts say.
The lawsuit seeking the names of priests accused of child molestation — filed by the family of a Hudson funeral home director believed slain by a priest suspected of such a crime — faces an uphill battle. Not only has the Catholic Church been reluctant to divulge the names, there is no precedent.
"This will be a classic battle. … It will be fascinating. If successful, it will create new law," said Marci Hamilton, who teaches constitutional law at Yeshiva University's Cardozo Law School in New York City.
Filed two weeks ago in St. Croix County Circuit Court against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the lawsuit asks for the names and whereabouts of 5,000 clergy the bishops say have been accused of child molestation.
The Jamaica Observer
Tony Robinson
Sunday, August 20, 2006
"WITH devotion's visage, and pious action, we do sugar o'er the devil himself," said Polonius to Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Pious action indeed.
My good friend, Winston 'Bello' Bell has taken a bold move by penning a book titled Sex In The Church. Being of a curious nature whenever I see the word sex, I simply had to read it, and I was glad that I did, as it not only opened my eyes to the bright mind of Bell, but also verified what I have always thought and heard about what goes on in the church.
Now I am not knocking the church, for at its best it can be a wonderful institution, but like all organisations made up of men and women, it is subject to the frailties and weaknesses that befall both sexes. Just put the two together and you spell crosses, and crosses usually means sex. ...
More and more it's being revealed how many altar boys were sexually molested by priests, with countless lawsuits being filed in the USA and even a few murders too, as the now adult altar boys, riddled with guilt and shame and emotionally-scarred for life, took the law into their own hands and blew away the offenders. Even recently in New York, a man shot and killed a priest because he made sexual advances towards him.
So the church has always been a very sexually-charged institution, but if you listened to some of them, you wouldn't think so. Parsons, priests, fathers, reverends, deacons, call them what you may, are men of power that women look up to. Why, in many churches the parson is seen as next to God, in touch with the Almighty, and what he says goes. "Come my child, meet me in chambers later tonight and we'll discuss your problem."
AUSTRALIA
news.com.au
NIGEL HUNT
August 20, 2006 12:14am
THE first man charged as a result of a major police investigation into a group of men – which includes a prominent Adelaide legal identity and well-known lawyer – who allegedly abused street kids, has appeared in court.
The man, in his eighties, is a former deacon in a religious order linked to the Anglican Church. He has been charged with sexually abusing a male street kid 26 years ago.
The clergyman, whose identity is suppressed, appeared in Adelaide Magistrates Court on Friday charged with seven counts of indecent assault.
The charges relate to the alleged sexual abuse of a male between January 1980 and May 1983.
Appearing before Auxiliary Magistrate Greg Clark, he was not required to enter a plea.
SHANDON (OH)
Middletown Journal
By Mary Lolli
Staff Writer
SHANDON — It could take months, possibly years, for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati to conclude an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct involving David F. Reilly, the now-suspended pastor of St. Aloysius Catholic Church.
“All of this will take some time,” Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, told a large congregation of parishioners during a 4:30 p.m. Mass Saturday. “These types of investigations can take months, sometimes years, to complete.
“But it will not be a matter of weeks,” Pilarczyk said of the investigation into allegations that Reilly engaged in inappropriate behavior with a 13- or 14-year-old boy in the 1970s while associate pastor of Our Mother of Sorrows parish in Cincinnati.
TERRE HAUTE (IN)
The Tribune-Star
By Stephanie Salter
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE — In the dim light of a downtown coffee house, the years and troubles are undetectable. “John Doe CD” looks like any thirtysomething ducking in for a cup of joe on his way to or from work.
Outside in the bright light of day, his still boyish but worn face tells another story:
His first rehab program at age 15; three jail sentences for drug possession, including nearly a year for methamphetamine; a divorce; a child with another woman; and, these days, two different anti-depressants, intensive outpatient therapy at Hamilton Center and AA meetings every day — as ordered by a judge.
“It isn’t something that just happens and goes away,” he said.
“It comes back when you least expect it. It comes back in negative ways.”
TERRE HAUTE (IN)
The Tribune Star
By Stephanie Salter
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE — Patrick Noaker and Jay Mercer frequently cross one another’s path — albeit mostly in court files.
Noaker, a native of Wakarusa (near Elkhart), is a member of the St. Paul, Minn., firm of Jeff Anderson & Associates, P.A., a team of lawyers that has climbed to national prominence during the past two decades as advocates for plaintiffs in child sex abuse cases, many involving Catholic priests.
In June, a U.S. District Judge in Portland, Ore., ruled that Anderson’s firm could include the Vatican as a defendant in a sex abuse case involving a now-deceased priest. It was the first such decision in the United States.
Born in Indianapolis, Mercer is a partner at Wood Tuohy Gleason Mercer & Herrin, P.C., in the state capital. His areas of expertise are health-care law, employment and personnel law. He helped develop his firm’s policies for handling claims of sexual misconduct for institutional clients such as hospitals, schools, churches and summer camps.
Mercer is the lead counsel for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis on all cases involving allegations of abuse by archdiocesan priests or church employees. He has represented the Archdiocese since 1986.
ST. CLOUD (MN)
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
ST. CLOUD, MINN. -- A sexual abuse victim resigned in protest Friday from an external review board formed by St. John's Abbey in response to the clergy sexual abuse scandal.
On July 28, the abbey publicized allegations of sexual misconduct in the 1970s and 1980s that were made against three of its monks, one of whom has died. The allegations were first raised months or even years before they were made public.
"The delays in disclosure, and more so the delays in notifying potential victims where these men worked, was part of the reason why I felt I must resign," Pat Marker, a three-year-board member, told the St. Cloud Times. He was one of the first victims to go public with allegations of sexual abuse by a St. John's Abbey priest.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
By JEFF MOSIER and DEBRA DENNIS / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH The jury in the rape trial of pastor Terry Hornbuckle quit for the weekend after 21 hours of deliberation spread over four days.
The defense and prosecution said there is no indication that the nine-woman, three-man jury is deadlocked. The trial started 2 ½ weeks ago.
"Jury deliberations are jury deliberations. It's kind of hard to read anything into them," said prosecutor Sean Colston.
Defense attorneys Mike Heiskell and Leon Haley said they have never participated in a trial where the jury has taken this long to reach a verdict. But Mr. Haley said the longer the jury deliberates, the better it is for Mr. Hornbuckle.
"We're glad they've been out that long," Mr. Haley said. "It appears they are looking at all the evidence, and that makes us hopeful."
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By Traci Shurley and Melody McDonald
Star-Telegram Staff Writers
The Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, 44, has been on trial since Aug. 2 in state District Judge Scott Wisch's court. The jury deliberated for a fourth day Friday before breaking for the weekend.
The judge, two prosecutors and two defense attorneys said they have never had a jury deliberate this long without indicating that they were deadlocked or having some major difficulty.
Deliberations are scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. Monday.
Hornbuckle's defense attorneys presented no witnesses on his behalf. The attorneys told jurors that Hornbuckle had numerous affairs with women, including his three accusers, but that the sex was always consensual.
SHANDON (OH)
Dayton Daily News
By Staff Report
Dayton Daily News
SHANDON — Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk is to address parishioners at St. Aloysius Catholic Church today concerning allegations of sexual misconduct involving their pastor, Father David F. Reilly.
The archdiocese placed Reilly, 63, on administrative leave Thursday stemming from a report that he engaged in inappropriate behavior with "sexual overtones" involving a minor in the 1970s.
Archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco said administrative leave is the strongest step a diocesan bishop can take on his own, noting a priest on such a sanction may not celebrate the sacraments, engage in priestly ministry or present himself as a priest in any way.
An adult male reported to the archdiocese that Reilly engaged in inappropriate contact with him when the complainant was 13 or 14, Andriacco said.
CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer
BY DAN HORN | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati suspended a Butler County priest Friday because of an accusation that he acted inappropriately with a teenaged boy in the 1970s.
The Rev. David F. Reilly, pastor of St. Aloysius parish in Shandon, is accused of having improper contact with the boy while he was an associate pastor at Our Mother of Sorrows in Cincinnati.
Church officials said the accuser, now an adult, claims Reilly's behavior had "sexual overtones." They would not describe the accusation.
Reilly could not be reached Friday.
Church spokesman Dan Andriacco said the priest acknowledged contact with the boy but denied it was inappropriate.
BLANCO (TX)
KLTV
BLANCO, Texas A real estate peddler in San Antonio in the 1970s used clowns, balloons and radio jingles to lure customers to his lots.
But Samuel Green Junior, in the early 1980s, ditched the land business for a Russian Orthodox monastery in the Texas Hill Country.
Greene and his fellow monks lived undisturbed at Christ of the Hills until the late 1990s, where children were also seen on the grounds.
Greene in 2000 pleaded guilty to indecency with a child. He's serving ten years probation and is prohibited from being around children.
Now Greene -- at 62 -- has been charged with sexual assault of a child, organized criminal activity and sexual performance of a child dating to 1993. Other monks in his operation have also been accused of child sexual abuse.
CANADA
National Post
Trevor Wilhelm, CanWest News Service
Published: Saturday, August 19, 2006
LONDON, Ont. - In an unprecedented move, the London Diocese in Ontario will consider asking the Vatican to defrock all eight of its convicted pedophile priests.
The statement came yesterday on the heels of a news conference by London law firm Ledroit Beckett demanding the diocese defrock priests Barry Glendinning, Konnie Przybylski and John Harper, the latter having taken boys on weekend getaways to his parents' Windsor home.
In the past two decades, eight London Diocese priests have been convicted of sex crimes against children. The others are Charles Sylvestre, Gary Roy, Cameron MacLean, Robert Morrisey and Richard Boll.
"Bishop Fabbro is already reviewing other cases to see whether he should seek the laicization of other convicted priests," the diocese said in a written statement. "This action does not require a request from the individuals harmed by these men, but such a request would be appropriate."
WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By TOM HEINEN
theinen@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Aug. 18, 2006
The whereabouts of a priest who once served at a Wauwatosa parish remained unknown Friday, more than a month after he apparently fled house arrest in Rome as Italian authorities were preparing to extradite him to the United States to face sexual molestation charges in Arizona.
Interpol issued a warrant for the arrest of Father Joseph Henn and is actively searching for him in Europe, said Father Dave Bergner, the provincial superior, or head, of Salvatorian priests and brothers in the U.S. The order, of which Henn is a member, will tell authorities if it learns where he is, Bergner added.
Bergner, recently installed as provincial superior and facing his first full week on the job at his Milwaukee office after a month in Spain, got a baptism under fire.
On the one hand, there was additional controversy Thursday as local leaders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests sent him an e-mail that was sharply critical of the order and tried unsuccessfully to contact him at the door of the order's west side offices. They said they telephoned him and rang the doorbell. Bergner said that he heard no bell and believed SNAP leaders had changed their minds.
SHANDON (OH)
Hamilton Journal News
By Mary Lolli
Staff Writer
SHANDON — Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk plans to address parishioners at St. Aloysius Catholic Church today concerning allegations of sexual misconduct involving church pastor Father David F. Reilly.
Reilly was placed on administrative leave Thursday by the Cincinnati Archdiocese as a result of a report that he engaged in inappropriate behavior with “sexual overtones” with a minor in the 1970s.
Archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco said the administrative leave is the strongest step a diocesan bishop can take on his own.
“A priest on administrative leave may not celebrate the sacraments, engage in priestly ministry or present himself as a priest in any way,” Andriacco said.
ST. CLOUD (MN)
WCCO
(AP) St. Cloud, Minn. A sexual abuse victim resigned in protest Friday from an external review board formed by St. John's Abbey in response to the clergy sexual abuse scandal.
Last month, the abbey publicized allegations of sexual misconduct in the 1970s and 1980s that were made against three of its monks, one of whom has died. The allegations were first raised months or even years before the abbey made them public July 28.
"The delays in disclosure, and more so the delays in notifying potential victims where these men worked, was part of the reason why I felt I must resign," Marker told the St. Cloud Times.
The nine-member review board meets monthly and reports to Abbot John Klassen on key issues ranging from assessment and supervision of offenders to assistance for victims.
Marker, 41, an Internet consultant from Mount Vernon, Wash., had flown to Minnesota for monthly meetings since he joined the board three years ago. He is a St. John's clergy molestation victim himself.
SHANDON (OH)
The Cincinnati Post
By Mary Lolli
Hamilton JournalNews
SHANDON, Ohio - Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk plans to address parishioners at St. Aloysius Catholic Church today concerning allegations of sexual misconduct involving church pastor the Rev. David F. Reilly.
Reilly was placed on administrative leave Thursday by the Cincinnati Archdiocese as a result of a report that he engaged in inappropriate behavior with "sexual overtones" with a minor in the 1970s.
Archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco said the administrative leave is the strongest step a bishop can take on his own.
"A priest on administrative leave may not celebrate the sacraments, engage in priestly ministry or present himself as a priest in any way," Andriacco said.
MARGATE (FL)
Miami Herald
By AMY SHERMAN
asherman@MiamiHerald.com
Margate police have launched an investigation into alleged ''financial irregularities'' by a church secretary who provided evidence in a sexual abuse case against her former boss, retired Rev. Neil Doherty.
Detectives started the probe after police met with Roberto Diaz, a lawyer for the Archdiocese of Miami, according to a police report. Diaz told police that an audit at St. Vincent Catholic Church in Margate revealed misappropriation of money between 2003 and 2006.
The police report does not identify former secretary Theresa Gerstner -- who the church placed on paid leave July 31. However, Archdiocese spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta confirmed that the probe centers on Gerstner.
Margate police spokesman Detective Chip Kolenda said he had no additional information on the matter.
CANADA
The Chronicle Herald
LONDON, Ont. (CP) — Four victims of sexual abuse have gone public and demanded that the Roman Catholic diocese of London defrock three priests who have been convicted of sexual crimes.
The male victims of John Harper, Barry Glendinning, and Konnie Przybylski say Bishop Ronald Fabbro should promise to never again employ those priests or other priests convicted of sexual abuse.
Twenty-four-year-old Trevor Kannawin, 44-year-old Ed Swales, 57-year-old Don Bannon and 52-year-old Anthony Devlin have requested the three priests be defrocked in light of the events surrounding another priest Charles Sylvestre, who pleaded guilty to sexual assault.
"Essentially what I think it mostly comes down to is setting an example for future people that may be in the same mindset, people who may be tempted to abuse another child," Kannawin said.
"They’ve got to know if (they) do this, this is what’s going to happen."
CHICAGO (IL)
Renew America
Matt C. Abbott
Few would dispute that the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin exercised great influence in the Catholic Church in the U.S. Sadly, however, that influence was not for the good of the Church. The following are pertinent excerpts from Randy Engel's new book The Rite of Sodomy.
Chapter 15
The Special Case of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin
Introduction
This segment on Joseph Cardinal Bernardin was originally incorporated into the previous chapter on homosexual members of the American hierarchy. However, because of his extraordinary influence on AmChurch, I decided Cardinal Bernardin deserved a chapter all his own.
To do real justice to Cardinal Bernardin and his entourage of clerical homosexuals and pederasts and ancillary hangers-on who made up the Chicago-Washington, D. C. Homosexual/Pederast Axis would require more than one full size book.
FAIRBANKS (AK)
Anchorage Daily News
Published: August 19, 2006
Last Modified: August 19, 2006 at 01:34 AM
A lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks that involves claims of sexual abuse against a now dead priest can go forward, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled Friday.
Eight men sued the diocese and the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus in 2003, asserting they were sexually abused years ago as children by a Jesuit priest, the Rev. Jules Convert, and that the church knew of his behavior and hid it by moving him from parish to parish.
Convert worked in Alaska from 1942 to 1978. He died in 1985. Most of the men were altar boys in St. Marys, Kaltag or Unalakleet, while one lived in a Holy Cross orphanage overseen by Convert.
CANADA
CBC News
Last Updated: Friday, August 18, 2006 | 9:56 PM NT
CBC News
Four victims of sexual abuse called on the head of the Roman Catholic diocese of London to defrock three Ontario priests convicted of sexual crimes.
In a public appeal Friday, victims of John Harper, Barry Glendinning, and Konstanty Przybylski said Bishop Ronald Fabbro should remove all those convicted of sexual abuse from the priesthood in light of the church's decision regarding the Father Charles Sylvestre case.
Earlier this month, the bishop said he would seek to have Sylvestre defrocked for indecently assaulting 47 young girls.
Father Charles Sylvestre pleaded guilty earlier this month to abusing children in the diocese of London.
The retired priest pleaded guilty in August to 47 of 61 sex abuse charges.
FORT WORTH (TX)
WFAA
12:47 PM CDT on Friday, August 18, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER and DEBRA DENNIS / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – The jury in the Terry Hornbuckle trial sent out at least four notes Friday morning while trying to decide whether the Arlington pastor is guilty of sexual assault.
Two notes asked for definitions of legal terms, one for "rape" and the other for "burden of proof." Another note requested testimony about whether one alleged victim continued attending Agape Christian Fellowship after her first sexual encounter with the church's minister.
The jury broke for lunch at 11:30 a.m. They have now spent 17 hours deliberating in the case.
Hornbuckle, 44, is on trial on charges that he sexually assaulted three women. The accusers testified that Agape's founder also drugged them.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By TRACI SHURLEY
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH -- Jurors in an Arlington pastor's sexual assault trial sought details Friday afternoon about the moments after an alleged assault of a former parishioner at a Euless apartment.
The panel asked the judge whether accuser Krystal Buchanan had testified that the lights were on or off before the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle climbed off her and began masturbating.
It was the jury's first note of the afternoon, and sixth of the day.
On Friday morning, jurors sent out a flurry of notes in the span of about an hour. All were related to Buchanan or accuser Jane Doe.
CANADA
CD98.9
Posted by Newsroom on 2006/8/18 13:30:47
Four victims of sexual abuse have gone public this morning and have demanded that the Roman Catholic diocese of London defrock three priests who have been convicted of sexual crimes. The male victims of John Harper, Barry Glendinning, and Konnie Przybylski say Bishop Ronald Fabbro should promise to never again employ those priests or other priests convicted of sexual abuse. Among them Twenty-four-year-old Trevor Kannawin, who was a victim of Przybylski have requested the three priests be defrocked in light of the events surrounding another priest who pleaded guilty to sexual assault.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Review
The St. Louis Archdiocese has issued a statement regarding the petition by Gary Wolken, a former priest of the archdiocese, for early parole from a 15-year sentence imposed in 2003 for child sexual abuse.
Wolken pleaded guilty to two counts of sodomy and six counts of child molestation. The archdiocese’s statement reads in part:
IRELAND
One in Four
The Irish Times
A former curate of the Diocese of Ferns has been charged with 35 counts of indecent assault. James Doyle, who held the post of curate at Clonard Church in Co Wexford from 1979 to 1990 met with members of the local gardaí at Wexford Garda station earlier this week.
He was later arrested and charged with 35 counts of indecent assault under section 62 of the 1861 Offences against the Person Act.
The assaults are alleged to have been perpetrated upon two young boys in Wexford between 1981 and 1986.
Some 34 of the counts relate to assaults alleged to have been carried out on one of the boys while he was aged between eight and 13 years.
INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
Journal Gazette
By Ashley M. Heher
Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS – An attorney representing several men who claim they were sexually abused as teenagers by a former Indiana priest asked eight county prosecutors Thursday to file criminal charges against the man.
Minnesota attorney Patrick Noaker, who’s filed 13 civil cases against Harry Monroe, called the former priest a “serial predator.”
Noaker mailed a 130-page report detailing the abuse allegations to prosecutors in Kosciusko, Brown, Floyd, Marion, Parke, Perry, Vigo and Sullivan counties on Tuesday. He said he hopes the information will prompt the filing of criminal charges against Monroe.
The report, which was drafted by a former FBI agent, says Monroe could still face criminal charges for the alleged abuse in the 1980s.
CANADA
CD98.9
A London law firm will call for a public inquiry into the case of an Ontario priest recently convicted of sex offences. The law firm, Ledroit Beckett, will also say three Ontario priests convicted of sex-related crimes should be removed from the priesthood. 83-year-old Reverend Charles Sylvestre, who formerly served in Port Dover, pleaded guilty last week to 47 counts of indecent assault.
CANADA
The Windsor Star
Trevor Wilhelm, Windsor Star
Published: Friday, August 18, 2006
Victims of a confessed pedophile priest want the London diocese to pay part of the cost of an inquiry examining why, for decades, the church turned a blind eye to his abuse of young girls.
At a news conference in London today, the law firm Ledroit Beckett was to call for an inquiry on behalf of several victims of Rev. Charles Sylvestre. It will also demand three other convicted priests be defrocked.
"They need to be accountable, as far as I'm concerned," said Mary Beth Studnicka, 41, of Tecumseh, who became Sylvestre's victim at the age of 10. "They let us all down and justice won't be served until everyone takes responsibility for their actions. It's time."
AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser
SEAN FEWSTER, COURT REPORTER
August 18, 2006 03:01pm
A FORMER deacon affiliated with the Anglican Church appeared in court today charged with sex offences.
The 82-year-old, who cannot be identified, has yet to plead to seven counts of indecent assault allegedly committed between January 1980 and May 1983.
Police will allege the charges relate to the abuse of a male street kid - claims that arose during an inquiry into sexual abuse within the Anglican Church.
CHICAGO (IL)
Belleville News-Democrat
Associated Press
CHICAGO - A Cook County judge on Thursday sealed hundreds of pages of state documents related to child sex abuse allegations against a Chicago priest.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services had asked the criminal judge if its documents were relevant in the case against the Rev. Daniel McCormack. DCFS officials had expressed concern about revealing sensitive information about juveniles if the documents were made more widely available.
In his ruling Thursday, Judge Thomas Sumner put a protective seal on the papers - prohibiting anyone not directly involved in the case from seeing them.
McCormack is charged with five counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in the alleged fondling of five boys at Our Lady of the Westside School and St. Agatha Catholic Church and Our Lady of the Westside School, Presentation Campus.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
Published August 18, 2006
A Cook County judge on Thursday sealed records from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services pertaining to child sex abuse allegations against Rev. Daniel McCormack.
Because the documents contain sensitive information about juveniles, DCFS officials had asked Criminal Court Judge Thomas Sumner to determine if the documents were relevant.
Sumner chose to put a protective seal on the information barring access by anyone not directly involved in the case.
McCormack has been charged with five counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection with the alleged fondling of five boys at St. Agatha Catholic Church and Our Lady of the Westside School, Presentation Campus, both on the city's West Side.
CHICAGO (IL)
NBC 5
CHICAGO -- A Cook County judge has sealed hundreds of pages of state documents related to child sex abuse allegations against a Chicago priest.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services had asked the criminal judge if its documents were relevant in the case against the Rev. Daniel McCormack.
DCFS officials had expressed concern about revealing sensitive information about juveniles if the documents were made more widely available.
PINEVILLE (MO)
Neosho Daily News
By John Ford / Daily News Associate Editor
Published: Thursday, August 17, 2006 4:58 PM CDT
PINEVILLE - A McDonald County church pastor, his wife and two deacons accused of child sexual abuse are expected to turn themselves in to authorities Monday afternoon.
Gregg Sweeten, chief deputy with the McDonald County Sheriff's Department, said Wednesday an agreement had been reached with the group's attorney, Robert Evenson, that Raymond Lambert, pastor of the Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, his wife and two deacons would turn themselves over to the sheriff's department sometime Monday afternoon.
Lambert, 51, his wife, Patty, 49, and deacons Tom Epling, 51, and Paul Epling, 53, are accused of child abuse charges stemming from incidents which allegedly occurred between 1977 and 2004.
INDIANA
WISH
By Mike Corbin
News 8 @ 6:00
An attorney representing more than a dozen Indiana men says a former priest remains a sexual predator and must still pay for his actions. Former Catholic Priest Harry Monroe is about 58-years-old now, but his accusers' attorney says he should pay for what they claim happened more than 20 years ago.
"Father Harry Monroe is a serial predator who needs to be in jail," said the accusers' attorney Patrick Noaker.
Attorney Patrick Noaker is working on 13 lawsuits against Monroe. They allege he repeatedly raped young boys in Indiana from 1975 to 1984.
INDIANA
WTWO
( Air Date: 8/17/2006 )
A Vigo County man is suing a former local priest and accusing him of sexual abuse. The announcement came Thursday afternoon from an attorney representing SNAP - The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Attorney Patrick Noaker says his client was molested by Father Harry Monroe in the 1980s. The abuse allegedly occured while Monroe served at St. Patrick`s Catholic Parish in Terre Haute.
IOWA
Des Moines Register
SHIRLEY RAGSDALE
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
August 17, 2006
An Iowa survivor of sexual abuse by a nun will take part in a news conference today calling for reforms to prevent abuse by clergy.
Steve Theisen of Hudson will participate in a SNAP press conference at 2:30 outside the Leadership Conference for Women Religious national assembly convening in Atlanta.
The Leadership Conference is a canonically approved organization that serves as a support system and corporate voice for leaders of orders of Catholic sisters in the United States. The conference has about 1,000 members who represent about 95 percent of the 73,000 women religious in the nation.
Theisen, Iowa director for the Survivors Network for those Abused by
Priests, will join six clergy abuse victims in the demonstration. Theisen's claim that he was sexually abused by a Dubuque area nun was found credible in a diocesan investigation, but was rejected by the sexual abuse committee of the Dubuque Archdiocese.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Carlos Sadovi
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 17, 2006, 12:26 PM CDT
A Cook County judge this morning ordered the sealing of Illinois Department of Children and Family Services records pertaining to child sex abuse allegations against Rev. Daniel McCormack.
Because the documents contain sensitive information about juveniles, DCFS officials wrote to Criminal Court Judge Thomas Sumner asking for a protective seal on them to prevent their access by anyone not directly involved in the case.
McCormack has been charged with five counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection with the alleged fondling of five boys at St. Agatha Catholic Church and Our Lady of the Westside School, Presentation Campus, both on the city's West Side.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, including the two most recent lodged against him in May. Conviction on each count carries a penalty ranging from probation to seven years in prison.
WINCHESTER (MA)
Woburn Advocate
By Lydia Crafts/ Staff Writer
Thursday, August 17, 2006 - Updated: 01:58 PM EST
WINCHESTER - Four years after organizing amid a tempest of sexual abuse scandals, the Catholic reform group Voice of the Faithful is still going strong.
Its newly elected president, Mary Pat Fox, said Monday that VOTF will continue to make clerical and lay responsibility the cornerstone of its work within the Catholic Church. Her comments came at a meeting of Winchester Voice of the Faithful, one of VOTF’s most active chapters, which meets weekly at St. Eulalia’s Church in Winchester.
VOTF formed during the nadir of the sexual abuse scandals of 2002, with the intention of dealing head-on with the corruption that had infected the church. The group holds as its three primary goals to support abuse victims, support priests of integrity and shape structural change within the church.
ATLANTA (GA)
Macon Telegraph
DOUG GROSS
Associated Press
ATLANTA - A group whose members say they have suffered abuse at the hands of priests and nuns is asking a national association of Catholic sisters to let them address the group and to cast more light on what they call an underreported problem - sexual abuse by nuns.
Members of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests protested briefly Thursday outside the Hyatt Regency Atlanta hotel, where the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is holding its annual assembly.
The network wants a chance to speak to the roughly 800 nuns attending the six-day assembly and for the conference to do more to find and help those who have been sexually abused by nuns.
Mary Guentner, of Milwaukee, says she was sexually abused by a nun who was her teacher at a Catholic high school.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
05:35 PM CDT on Thursday, August 17, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER and DEBRA DENNIS / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – The jury in the rape trial of pastor Terry Hornbuckle has deliberated for 14½ hours but did not reach a verdict Thursday.
Jurors will continue their deliberations at 9 a.m. Friday. Mr. Hornbuckle, 44, is on trial on charges that he sexually assaulted three women. The alleged victims testified that the founder of Agape Christian Fellowship church in Arlington also drugged them.
Terry Hornbuckle Mr. Hornbuckle faces two to 20 years in prison, but he could also receive probation.
Prosecutor Betty Arvin said there’s no way to know how long the jurors will take to agree on a verdict.
“We’re still very hopeful,” she said. “They’re just going through the case methodically.”
Ms. Arvin said the alleged victims are “holding up as well as possible.”
Mike Heiskell, one of Mr. Hornbuckle’s attorneys, said his client is patiently awaiting a verdict.
OHIO
The Marietta Times
By Diana DeCola, ddecola@mariettatimes.com
Area Catholic officials are urging parishioners to come forward with information about any other potential abuses by a former Lowell pastor and a church volunteer at St. Sylvester Church in Woodsfield.
On Friday, the Diocese of Steubenville released information pertaining to the abuse of a minor child at St. Sylvester Church by Monsignor Robert Brown, former pastor of St. Sylvester Church in Woodsfield, and Paul Ditto, former volunteer at St. Sylvester Church. Brown had also served at Our Lady of Mercy in Lowell.
Officials at Our Lady of Mercy in Lowell declined to comment on the matter, but Father David Gaydosik, of St. Sylvester Church, said the parish is opening its arms to anyone else who may have experienced similar abuse or who may just be suffering from the shock of the news.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, August 17, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – A jury will return to the Tarrant County Courthouse today to continue deliberating the fate of Arlington minister and rape suspect Terry Hornbuckle.
The jury met for 45 minutes on Tuesday and all day Wednesday without deciding whether Mr. Hornbuckle was guilty of sexually assaulting three women. Testimony in the two-week trial ended Tuesday when the defense rested without calling any witnesses.
Defense attorney Leon Haley said the long deliberation is a sign that the jury is taking its responsibility seriously.
"This is what they are supposed to be doing," he said.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By TRACI SHURLEY and MELODY McDONALD
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITERS
FORT WORTH -- For seven days, jurors in the sexual assault trial of the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle listened to attorneys ask questions.
On Wednesday, they had a few of their own.
During their daylong deliberation, the nine-woman, three-man panel sent out eight notes, asking to review testimony and evidence.
Among other things, they wanted phone records, a list of prescription drugs found in Hornbuckle's Cadillac Escalade and a photo of the apartment where one of his accusers said she was raped.
Jurors are considering three separate charges of sexual assault against Hornbuckle, 44, founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in southeast Arlington. If convicted, he faces a sentence ranging from probation to 20 years in prison on each charge.
MADISON (WI)
Duluth News Tribune
RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. - A former Episcopalian pastor and convicted sex offender was fired for using his position as an employment specialist with the Department of Workforce Development to develop personal relationships with several troubled young men, state records show.
William J. Smith's behavior fit the concept of "grooming," in which sex offenders gain potential victims' trust to reduce their resistance to sexual contact, DWD officials said in a confidential May 17 letter in which they explained their decision to fire Smith.
Details of the case surfaced Wednesday as part of a discrimination complaint Smith filed with the state's Equal Rights Division protesting his firing. In an interview, Smith denied any wrongdoing while employed at the agency.
Smith, 55, who was convicted in 1989 of two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a 15-year-old altar boy, was allowed to work at the Jefferson County jobs center for the agency from June 2004 until May despite his criminal record.
Department of Workforce Development spokeswoman Rose Lynch acknowledged Wednesday the department did not conduct a background check or even bother to check the state-run sex offender registry before hiring Smith.
PINEVILLE (MO)
Neosho Daily News
By John Ford / Daily News Associate Editor
Published: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 5:25 PM CDT
PINEVILLE - Sexual abuse charges spanning four decades were filed Tuesday against a McDonald County pastor, his wife, and two church deacons.
The charges were filed by Steve Geeding, McDonald County prosecutor, and Daniel Bagley, the county's assistant prosecutor.
Raymond Lambert, 51, pastor of the Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, located in Washburn, has been charged with one count of first degree child molestation, four counts of second degree child molestation and three counts of statutory sodomy in the second degree for events which happened between Feb. 15, 1995, and April 4, 2004.
Lambert's wife, Patty Lambert, 49, faces a count of second degree child molestation and a count of first degree endangerment of a child in a ritual or ceremony which took place on April 3, 2004.
Tom Epling, 51, was charged with five counts of first degree statutory sodomy for events happening between July 16, 1977, and July 15, 1982.
And Paul Epling, 53, faces two counts of first degree statutory rape and five counts of first degree statutory sodomy for events which happened between Nov. 7, 1978, and July 15, 1983.
WINCHESTER (MA)
Melrose Free Press
Thursday, August 17, 2006
The Winchester Area Voice of the Faithful, which serves Melrose, welcomes Skip Shea to its meeting on Monday, Aug. 28, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Eulalia's Parish, 50 Ridge St., Winchester. Admission is free and all are welcome to attend.
Shea is a survivor of clergy sexual abuse who has authored a collection of poetry entitled, "Catholic: Surviving Abuse and Other Dead End Roads," published by Katherine James Books. Shea's collection has been performed in a one-man stage production. Shea will read from his poetry, which traces a life of tragedy from enduring sexual abuse at the hands of priests at a parish in the Diocese of Worcester, to the death of his 16-year-old daughter. Shea's poetry moves from despair to hope and healing.
PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Duluth News Tribune
By SUSAN SNYDER
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia will report a local woman to the Vatican for participating in an unsanctioned ordination ceremony in Pittsburgh last month.
In a statement published on the archdiocese's Web site, Cardinal Justin Rigali said he would notify the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome of the actions by Eileen McCafferty DiFranco, 54, of Mount Airy. He called the ceremony in which she participated "clearly and simply invalid." ...
She criticized the church for threatening action against her and alluded to sexual abuse by clergy.
"The men get as many chances as they need, even though their actions caused spiritual death for untold numbers of children. For us women, it's one strike and you're out. Shame on them," she said.
"Let the bishop without sin be the first to discuss excommunication, censure, whatever you want to call it."
ST. LOUIS (MO)
KWMU
AP/KWMU
ST. LOUIS, MO (2006-08-15) A Catholic priest serving 15 years for sexual abuse will be considered for early release today in Bonne Terre, Missouri. But the sex abuse victims group SNAP wants Gary Wolken to stay put.
He was sentenced three years ago after pleading guilty to two charges related to sexually abusing a boy. The state says the earliest he could be released is January 23rd, 2008.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch wrote the parole board that the victim has suffered greatly from the abuse.
MOBILE (AL)
Press-Register
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Staff Report
A Santa Fe, N.M., psychiatrist has been ordered to turn over his medical records on a client who claims she was sexually abused as an adult by a Mobile priest.
George Greer, who works at the Life Healing Center of Santa Fe, must appear for a Friday deposition in a case brought by Linda Ledet against the Archdiocese of Mobile, according to published reports.
"We are aware of it," the Very Rev. Michael L. Farmer, chancellor of the archdiocese, said Wednesday regarding the deposition.
FORT WORTH (TX)
WFAA
12:26 PM CDT on Wednesday, August 16, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH — A Tarrant County jury continued its deliberations Wednesday morning in the rape trial of Arlington pastor Terry Hornbuckle.
The jury deliberated about 45 minutes Tuesday afternoon and returned at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Jurors asked to review several pieces of evidence during the morning related to the first accuser who testified against the pastor. They requested Mr. Hornbuckle's cell phone records and those of one of his accusers who testified that the pastor drugged and raped her in a Euless apartment, and also asked for recordings of cell phone messages left by Mr. Hornbuckle for the woman following the alleged assault.
HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Press
By Craig Malisow
Article Published Aug 17, 2006
Oh, could he sing.
At St. Francis de Sales, where he sang in choir, they called him Pavarotti. He performed at church concerts and weddings, and even with Houston Grand Opera.
A dark-skinned Costa Rican with a goatee and eyes set widely apart, German Rojas Moreno was everyone's friend. He was a doctor back home, he said. In Houston, he worked at a health clinic where he treated some of the boys who sang in the choir. And, he opened his home to them. It was just an apartment, but it was a boy's dream: big-screen TV, Xbox, pool table. During the school year, they spent weekends there, and in the summer, they were there nearly every day.
According to the boys, who are now men, Moreno was playful, boisterous. He'd jokingly put them in a headlock, challenge them in soccer. The boys, who filed police reports about Moreno, say he tried to show them new games, too, like the one where you masturbate and see who can last the longest. And he always wanted to show them the videos in the closet, the ones with the men, they say.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
The Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, 44, the founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington, is on trial in state district Judge Scott Wisch's court, accused of raping three women, including two from his congregation.
If convicted, he could be sentenced to probation or to as much as 20 years in prison for each charge.
Star-Telegram reporter Traci Shurley will offer tidbits from the trial each day.
Wednesday, Aug. 16
The Rev. Terry Hornbuckle had some interesting reading material at his defense table Tuesday.
A book titled Bad Girls of the Bible was seen among the law books and legal pads. Internet book seller Amazon.com lists several books with the same title, all of the self-help variety.
They claim to allow readers to learn from the mistakes of the less than virtuous female characters of the Bible.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Centre Daily
By MELODY McDONALD and TRACI SHURLEY
Star-Telegram Staff Writers
FORT WORTH - Jurors deliberating the fate of an Arlington pastor accused of sexual assault have sent out two notes to the judge asking to review evidence.
Among the items they requested are all of the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle's cell phone records, as well as those of Krystal Buchanan, a former church member who testified that the pastor drugged and raped her in a Euless apartment.
Jurors also sought recordings of cell-phone messages that Hornbuckle left for Buchanan after the alleged assault.
The jury resumed its deliberations about 9 a.m. after 45 minutes of work on Tuesday. It seemed clear that, as of midmorning, they were still considering the first of three sexual-assault charges against Hornbuckle.
WISCONSIN
Catholic Online
8/15/2006
Catholic News Service
SUPERIOR, Wis. (CNS) – A lawsuit brought against the U.S. Catholic bishops by relatives of a man believed to have been killed by a priest "will only hurt the positive progress we have made" to end clergy sex abuse of minors, said Bishop Raphael M. Fliss of Superior.
The suit was filed in a Wisconsin court Aug. 8 against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and against its member bishops as individuals. It does not ask for monetary damages.
It asks for a court injunction to have the bishops release the names and addresses of priests and church personnel who at the least have had accusations of child sex abuse against them deemed credible. It also asks the bishops to release documents that it says could be evidence of a failure by the bishops to report suspected child abuse to law enforcement authorities and documents that could be evidence that child sex abuse took place.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 16, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – The defense and the prosecution in the trial of Terry Hornbuckle agreed that the Arlington minister was a sinner.
A jury now must decide whether his sin was adultery or rape. In their closing statements Tuesday, the defense told the jury that Mr. Hornbuckle only violated God's law, while the prosecution argued that it was man's law that the minister broke.
Deliberations will continue this morning on the three charges of sexual assault against Mr. Hornbuckle. The defense has argued that any sex was consensual.
"He is a predator, plain and simple," prosecutor Sean Colston said during his closing argument Tuesday.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MELODY McDONALD and TRACI SHURLEY
Star-Telegram Staff Writers
FORT WORTH -- Drug addict. Liar. Cheat. Sinner.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle is all these things.
But is the charismatic Arlington preacher a rapist?
A jury of nine women and three men began deliberating that question Tuesday afternoon. They worked about 45 minutes before breaking for the evening.
They will return this morning to continue deliberations.
PHOENIX (AZ)
KOLD
PHOENIX The former vicar general of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix will be allowed to have a jury hear his trial for sexual misconduct.
Monsignor Dale Fushek is accused of having sexually related discussions during confessions with teenagers.
Fushek also is accused of exposing himself to teens as he got into a hot tub.
Typically, defendants accused of petty offenses don't have a right to a jury trial in Arizona.
SCOTLAND
Scotsman
MICHAEL HOWIE
VICTIMS of abuse by nuns at Catholic children's homes in Scotland have been awarded state compensation totalling more than £60,000.
The awards have been made to 18 former residents at orphanages run by the Congregation of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock and are likely to open the floodgates for criminal-injuries payments to scores of others.
The victims come from all over Scotland and suffered a catalogue of abuse in the homes during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
About 100 people who attended the homes have applied to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) for payouts.
Further payouts are now expected to the remaining claimants over the next few months.
The decision to award money to the first applicants - who have received between £1,000 and £7,500 - is a major boost in a wider legal campaign for justice led by the former residents, who have taken the Roman Catholic order to the Court of Session to seek damages and an acknowledgment of guilt.
OREGON
The Oregonian
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
JEFF MAPES
Lou Beres, longtime leader of the Oregon Christian Coalition, told police that he had sexually touched three underage girls years ago, according to a newly released report from the Gresham Police Department.
Beres denied allegations of sexual molestation when they first came to light in The Oregonian last October. Gresham police last fall investigated allegations Beres had molested underage family members, but Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Shrunk said the allegations occurred so long ago that Beres couldn't face charges under the statute of limitations.
In March, Beres, 70, was sued in Multnomah County Circuit Court for $2.1 million by a relative who said he molested her repeatedly between 1963 and 1966.
OREGON
KGW
08/16/2006
Associated Press
The longtime leader of the Oregon Christian Coalition admitted in a newly released police report that he had sexually touched three underage girls years ago, despite denials to a newspaper.
Lou Beres denied sexual molestation allegations when The Oregonian first reported them last October.
But a Gresham Police Department report released as part of a lawsuit said Beres "readily admitted sexually touching" one girl when she was 13 or 14 years old. He also acknowledged sexually touching a 16- or 17-year-old friend of his daughter's in 1976 or 1977.
Last fall, Gresham police investigated allegations Beres had molested underage family members.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
Times-Standard
As you may have read, Bishop Daniel F. Walsh of the Santa Rosa diocese has apologized for waiting days to notify authorities about sexual abuse allegations against a priest, who then fled to Mexico.
According to reports, Walsh -- whose diocese includes the North Coast -- admitted to putting “caution” before “doing the right thing” in handling the allegations against priest Xavier Ochoa. Church officials say Ochoa admitted April 28 to sexually abusing a 12-year-old altar boy, but the allegations were not reported to Child Protective Services until May 1. Ochoa disappeared the next day.
”I made an error in judgment by waiting to report Rev. Ochoa's admission,” Walsh wrote in the statement. “I should have acted immediately, and not delayed. For this I am deeply sorry.”
So, we imagine, are the 12-year-old, his family, friends and an angry community.
Ochoa, 68, was charged June 22 with 10 felony counts and one misdemeanor count of child sex abuse involving three alleged victims. A warrant was issued for his arrest.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
CBS 5
(AP) SANTA ROSA, Calif. A Northern California bishop is speaking out today about his role in a priest abuse sexual abuse scandal.
Bishop Daniel Walsh of Santa Rosa could soon face criminal charges for failing to promptly report admissions of sexual abuse by a fellow priest. And that hesitation provided the priest in question -- Reverend Xavier Ochoa (ex-'AY-vee-uhr oh-CHOH-uh) -- time to flee prosecution.
Walsh of Santa Rosa tells The Associated Press in an interview today that he never intended to protect Ochoa.
MADISON (WI)
WKOW
Tue 08/15/2006 -
The lawsuit was filed last Tuesday, by a Cross Plains family who says all bishops need to be held accountable for their role in the church sex abuse scandal. That family lost a loved one, when he was shot to death by a Catholic priest in Hudson.
Madison Diocese Attorney Don Heaney represents Bishop Morlino, one of almost 200 bishops across the country named in this suit. It asks that the Catholic Church release the names of 5,000 clergy named in a study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who may have been involved in sexual abuse.
Heaney says Bishop Morlino has not yet been served with papers, and that the suit has little to do with the Madison Diocese.
MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By William C. Lhotka
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
08/15/2006
From August 1997 to July 2000, a Roman Catholic priest admitted, he repeatedly sexually abused a boy while he was a baby sitter for the child in Ballwin. The boy was 5 and in kindergarten when the abuse began and 8 when it ended.
Now the priest, the Rev. Gary P. Wolken, 40, is seeking early release from a 15-year prison sentence that a judge has imposed. A parole hearing is scheduled for today at the prison in Bonne Terre where Wolken is incarcerated.
Opposing an early release are family members, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests - a victims' group that passed out leaflets in Clayton on Tuesday - and St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch.
Until the Rev. Thomas Graham was sentenced last year to a jury-recommended 20 years in prison for sodomizing a youth in the late 1970s, Wolken's prison sentence was the longest in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
Contra Costa Times
By Kim Curtis
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SANTA ROSA - A Roman Catholic bishop who could be the first criminally charged for failing to promptly report sexual abuse said Tuesday that he never tried to protect a fellow priest who is believed to have fled to Mexico.
Bishop Daniel Walsh called the Rev. Xavier Ochoa an "unsympathetic character," whom he immediately stripped of his duties as a priest when Ochoa admitted three incidents of abuse.
"If something wrong has been done, I have no problem doing the right thing," Walsh told the Associated Press during an interview Tuesday at his diocesan office. "I have no problem turning him in."
Investigators are looking into whether Walsh failed to promptly report the abuse after he placed Ochoa on leave April 28. Walsh didn't share what he learned with anyone until phoning his lawyer the following day, a Saturday.
MESA (AZ)
East Valley Tribune
By Gary Grado, Tribune
August 15, 2006
A judge has granted a Mesa monsignor the right to a jury trial on seven sexually related misdemeanor offenses, overruling a lower court's decision.
Defendants in petty offenses don't have a right to jury trials in Arizona unless certain legal guidelines are met, including whether the offense carries "additional severe, direct, uniformly applied, statutory consequences," wrote Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Douglas Rayes.
Monsignor Dale Fushek met that guideline since he faces the possibility of registering as a sex offender if he is convicted on the five counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, assault and indecent exposure for which he is charged, Rayes reasoned.
JACKSONVILLE (FL)
First Coast News
By Kristin Smith
First Coast News
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- The former pastor accused of molesting children from his church was arraigned on new charges Tuesday morning.
Police arrested Dr. Robert Gray back in May.
More than 20 women have come forward saying Dr. Gray, the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church for 38 years, molested them.
Gray says he's not guilty.
He was arraigned on new charges Tuesday, including one stemming from a man who recently stepped forward.
UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph & Argus
By Steve Wright
A pensioner claims he was sexually abused by a teacher at a Catholic school in Bradford 75 years ago.
The 86-year-old Bradford man said he was indecently assaulted by a member of the same Christian Brotherhood at the centre of sexual abuse allegations at a Catholic children's home in East Yorkshire.
More than 140 men are pursuing a civil claim for compensation against the De La Salle Order of Christian Brotherhood, which ran the St William's children's home in Market Weighton, and the Diocese of Middlesbrough, which owned it, over sexual abuse allegations between 1962 and 1992.
The claimants include seven men from Bradford, three of whom have come forward since the Telegraph & Argus revealed the compensation fight last week.
CLAYTON (MO)
Belleville News-Democrat
CHERYL WITTENAUER
Associated Press
CLAYTON, Mo. - A Roman Catholic priest serving a 15-year prison sentence for sexually abusing a boy will be considered for early release at a parole hearing Wednesday in Bonne Terre, but a victim's rights group wants him to stay behind bars.
The Rev. Gary Wolken, 40, is seeking early release from a sentence imposed in 2003, after pleading guilty to two counts of statutory sodomy and six of child molestation.
The closed hearing will be at the prison in Bonne Terre, where Wolken has been incarcerated since February 2005. He is expected to attend the hearing. Wolken's attorney, Martin Hadican, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Wolken has been in four facilities over his three-and-a-half year incarceration. The earliest he could be released is Jan. 23, 2008, Missouri Corrections Department spokesman Brian Hauswirth said.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests opposes early release and wants him defrocked. Wolken, who was sexually abused as a child, according to the trial judge, apologized in court for his crimes.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By TRACI SHURLEY
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Defense attorneys for Arlington pastor Terry Hornbuckle rested their case about 10:15 Tuesday morning without calling any witnesses.
Jurors are expected to hear closing arguments in his sexual assault trial beginning at 1 p.m.
Hornbuckle's attorney, Mike Heiskell, said he had advised Hornbuckle that his testimony was not necessary at this point in the trial, and Hornbuckle agreed with that advice.
Jurors in the case will begin deliberating after closing arguments. However, the trial will recess at 5 p.m. regardless of whether a verdict has been reached. Some jurors have prior commitments today.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
10:44 AM CDT on Tuesday, August 15, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
The defense attorneys for Terry Hornbuckle rested Tuesday morning without calling a single witness in the Arlington pastor's rape trial.
Terry Hornbuckle When asked by the judge, Mr. Hornbuckle confirmed he was satisfied with his attorneys' work on the case, and agreed not to testify on his own behalf.
"He indicated that he was satisfied with our trial strategy," said Mike Heiskell, one of the defense attorneys.
The prosecution rested Friday afternoon following six days of testimony.
Both sides are expected to begin their final arguments around 1 p.m. Tuesday, and should go to the jury shortly afterward. Due to juror commitments, deliberations will end for the day at 5 p.m. and resume Wednesday morning.
MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe
August 15, 2006
LEGISLATIVE LEADERS are considering an unusual formal session next month because they dropped the ball two weeks ago, failing to pass a bond authorization bill that is needed before January. They should not compound the error by allowing the session to stray beyond the few issues that are genuinely urgent.
Senate President Robert Travaglini and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi would do well to remember the atmosphere in 1995 when lawmakers approved rules shortening the formal sessions. They were there. The reform was passed under enormous public pressure. Two legislators were under criminal investigations. The Globe Spotlight Team had reported on legislators partying at resorts with special-interest agents. Lawmakers had given themselves a controversial pay raise. Late-night sessions, often with lame-duck legislators, regularly approved special-interest benefits that were uncovered only later. ...
Some legislators would also like to take up other matters that died with the formal sessions two weeks ago. Bills to affirm the state's commitment to early childhood education, to extend the statute of limitations for sexual abuse, and to tighten the requirements for teenage drivers, for instance, all deserve passage, but they are not urgent enough to bring the Legislature back. They should wait until next year.
BAHAMAS
The Nassau Guardian
By Barrington Brennen
"Could this be happening in my church?" asked a concerned Christian mother, who suspected her pastor was molesting a few choir members. The unfortunate truth is that the commission of sexual improprieties by people in a position of trust is all too common today, and it is creating a giant wound in our communities. What can we do about it? How can we prevent this from happening? Persons in a position of trust and power are pastors/clergymen and other spiritual leaders, politicians, medical doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers, CEO's, police officers, military personnel, teachers, athletic coaches, nurses, counsellors, psychologists, social workers, massage therapists, parents, bus and taxi drivers, among others. For what ever reason, a few individuals from all of these professions and more, violate the trust of individuals by attempting to, or actually having sexual relationships with them. As a result, emotional wounds are oozing from shameful experiences, thus creating a world of confused, troubled, angry, and sick people.
RIVERSIDE (CA)
The Press-Enterprise
All Saints Episcopal Church in Riverside will host one of six workshops conducted in September and October by the Diocese of Los Angeles to address guidelines for preventing sexual misconduct.
The Riverside workshop is scheduled from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 9 at the church, 3847 Terracina Drive. A Spanish-language workshop is scheduled from 8 a.m. to noon Sept. 30 at the Cathedral Center of St. Paul, 840 Echo Park Ave., Los Angeles.
The series of workshops, called "Making the Church a Safe Place," will offer guidelines in child abuse prevention, detection and child-abuse reporting requirements. The classes are intended for Episcopal clergy, lay employees and volunteers.
BATH TOWNSHIP (OH)
Beacon Journal
By Colette M. Jenkins
Beacon Journal religion writer
The Rev. William Meyer isn't quite sure what he is going to say to his congregation on Sunday about its former pastor, who is facing federal charges of buying child pornography and who has told investigators that he has fondled girls during the past 37 years.
But Meyer is determined to make sure his church responds appropriately, if there are any victims at Ghent Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Bath Township.
``The time frame that he has indicated certainly overlaps his time here at Ghent, but I don't have any hard facts,'' Meyer said.
``We're still sorting things out and I don't know what we're dealing with. But I can assure you that we will not blame, shame or attempt to silence anyone who has been harmed.''
CANADA
Toronto Sun
Tue, August 15, 2006
By CP
TORONTO -- Victims will be allowed to testify about the alleged abuse they suffered when the Cornwall public inquiry resumes next month.
In a unanimous decision, a three-member Ontario Divisional Court panel of judges rejected an application Monday by Rev. Charles MacDonald, who sought a gag order on victims expected to begin testifying Sept. 11.
'GOOD NEWS'
"This is certainly good news and we are all pleased with the decision," said Peter Engelmann, lead counsel for the inquiry.
"We are pleased at how quickly it happened."
The application, originally filed by MacDonald in March, was heard Monday morning at Osgoode Hall in Toronto.
An attorney representing the priest spent about two hours outlining reasons why a May 1 decision by inquiry commissioner Normand Glaude allowing victims to testify openly about abuse should be reversed.
INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
Indianapolis Star
By Robert King
robert.king@indystar.com
A national advocate for the victims of priest sexual abuse criticized the Archdiocese of Indianapolis on Monday for an "immoral" strategy of using technicalities to fend off lawsuits.
David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the Indianapolis Archdiocese is "particularly mean-spirited" in its use of "legal hardball."
Specifically, Clohessy cited the archdiocese's use of the statute of limitations, which requires plaintiffs, most of whom say they were abused as children, to sue before they turn 20.
Clohessy also said the archdiocese is wrong to use the First Amendment to argue the church can't be sued or that the church is not liable for priests from religious orders.
"Our position is fight fair, don't fight dirty," Clohessy said. "Fight on the merits, not on the technicalities."
AUSTRALIA
Catholic News
Following the sentence of former priest Gerard Ridsdale to four more years jail for sexual abuse of 10 boys from 1970 to 1987, Ballarat Bishop Peter Connors has accepted the judge's criticism of the Church and has offered assistance to victims.
Judge Bill White has criticised the Church for allowing Ridsdale to continue to prey on boys as young as six-years-old by moving him from parish to parish after complaints were lodged against him, the Ballarat Courier reports.
"I came to the diocese nine years ago, so therefore everything that happened with Ridsdale happened before I was here," Bishop Peter Connors said.
INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
Indianapolis Star
By Robert King
robert.king@indystar.com
The Archdiocese of Indianapolis' use of "legal hardball'' while defending itself against lawsuits from alleged victims of priest sexual abuse is a "moral outrage," the leader of a national victim's network said today.
David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, speaking at a news conference this morning on the sidewalk in front of the archdiocesan headquarters, criticized the archdiocese's reliance on technical defenses in sex abuse cases.
In particular, Clohessy cited the church's use of the statute of limitations, arguments that the First Amendment precludes the church from being sued and arguments that the church is not responsible for the acts of a priest from a religious order.
Clohessy said the archdiocese's approach was "mean-spirited" and contrary to what Jesus would have them do.
INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
WISH
Aug 14, 2006 05:36 PM EDT
A call to catholic leaders in Indianapolis Monday to admit the alleged role of the church in covering up the actions of a priest accused of abuse. Abuse survivors held a news conference outside the office of the Archdiocese on behalf of a woman who's suing the church. She says Father Germain Belen abused her in Terre Haute more than three decades ago.
Members of SNAP, Survivor Network of Those Abused by Priests, are accusing Catholic leaders of withholding information by manipulating the legal system.
"If church officials honestly believe Father Belen is innocent, then by all means defend him. Our position is though, fight fair, don't fight dirty," said David Clohessy, SNAPAbuse Tracker Director.
SWAZILAND
The Swazi Observer
By Timothy Simelane
PRIME Minister Themba Dlamini has called upon the church to expose bogus pastors who hide behind the cloak of the pulpit when, in fact, they are sex pests and a greedy lot.
Dlamini was speaking at Edladleni area, outside Mankayane, during a thanksgiving ceremony held in honour of Reverend Kaizer Fakudze and his wife, Elizabeth.
He said Fakudze had been a role model in that in the many years of ministry, he embraced a positive character.
May I appeal to the church to do an introspection and condemn those who are hiding behind the pulpit, pretending to be pastors yet they are not. I am referring to the current cases of abuse which have recently dominated our media headlines in the country.
His Majesty’s government is concerned about such behaviour because it is against God, erodes and betrays the very peace and trust that the church should promote in the country, he stated.
The Premier said Christians should heed warnings of apostle Paul that sin should not be found among Christians.
PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer
By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer
Responding to criticism that they are quietly stifling efforts to expand child sex-abuse laws, Pennsylvania's Catholic bishops say their passive approach does not mean they are against the legislation.
The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia issued statements Friday in response to allegations by activists that church leaders are failing to support legislation that they claim to support.
Legislation in Harrisburg would extend the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution of the abuse of minor, expand the definition of who must report abuse, and expose employers and supervisors who knowingly facilitate abuse to criminal prosecution.
Another bill would create a one-year "window" for people to file civil suits against their abusers after the statute of limitations has passed.
AUSTRALIA
Catholic News
A former Victorian detective is seeking an apology over a "forced" resignation for his investigations into a pedophile priest while victims of another convicted pedophile Gerald Ridsdale greeted with disbelief his latest sentence of only four more years jail for 35 additional sexual offences.
The ABC reports that a former Mildura senior detective, Denis Ryan, who says he was forced to resign because of investigations into a pedophile priest, is still hoping he will get an apology from the police command.
Mr Ryan was the investigating officer into allegations of sodomy, sexual assault and gross indecency against Msgr John Day in the 1960s and 70s but says he was harassed into resigning by senior police.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
Sonoma News
The diocese of Santa Rosa released this statement from Bishop Daniel Walsh on Saturday.
A candid message from Bishop Walsh
"When I came to the Diocese of Santa Rosa in 2000, it was beset with controversy over the misdeeds of my predecessor and those of a number of priests who put themselves above the people, the Church and the law.
"In working to set our Church on the right path, I was guided by three central precepts: a need for honesty, for decisive action, and for steadfastly doing the right thing regardless of personal cost. Consistently following these precepts has aided me, and the faithful of this Diocese, to begin to overcome the past. With the Rev. Xavier Ochoa's admission of his deplorable acts, we have now taken a giant step backward towards our troubled past.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
The Press Democrat
By PRESS DEMOCRAT STAFF
In June, 10 felony sex abuse charges were filed against Rev. Xavier Ochoa, a Sonoma priest who authorities believe has fled the country. Since then, a number of victims have come forward with their stories, urging the prosecution not only of Ochoa, but also of several church officials who learned of the abuse and delayed in reporting it.
At the center of the controversy is Santa Rosa Bishop Daniel Walsh said it didn't occur to him to immediately report to police that priest Xavier Ochoa had admitted sexual misconduct with young boys, as required by law. Walsh has told The Press Democrat that his first concern was to remove Ochoa from any contact with children and said he was not focused on making a report. Victims say that delay may have allowed Ochoa time to leave the country before being arrested.
Follow the story of Ochoa, the Diocese and Bishop Walsh as reported by The Press Democrat:
May 24, 2006: Diocese: No evidence of abuse
June 22, 2006: Parishioners stunned by accusations
June 23, 2006: Arrest warrant issued
SANTA ROSA (CA)
The Press Democrat
“A Candid Message From Bishop Walsh”
My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
When I came to the Diocese of Santa Rosa in 2000, it was beset with controversy over the misdeeds of my predecessor and those of a number of priests who put themselves above the people, the Church and the law.
In working to set our Church on the right path, I was guided by three central precepts: a need for honesty, for decisive action, and for steadfastly doing the right thing regardless of personal cost. Consistently following these precepts has aided me, and the faithful of this Diocese, to begin to overcome the past. With the Rev. Xavier Ochoa’s admission of his deplorable acts, we have now taken a giant step backward towards our troubled past.
You, the parishioners and the priests of this diocese, have worked hard, made sacrifices, and prayed steadfastly for our healing and renewal. We have made great strides in dealing with and combating sexual abuse by church personnel. I cannot let this hard work be spoiled by the actions of one bad priest. And I will not allow my own error to interfere with the path we have taken, and on which we must remain, to create a church community in which we can take pride.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
The Press Democrat
By MARTIN ESPINOZA
AND RAQUEL MARIA DILLON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Catholic Bishop Daniel Walsh apologized to parishioners Saturday for his delay in reporting alleged sexual abuse by fugitive priest Xavier Ochoa.
In a one-page statement, Walsh said he had put "caution" before "doing the right thing."
"I made an error in judgment by waiting to report Rev. Ochoa's admission," Walsh wrote. "I should have acted immediately, and not delayed. For this I am deeply sorry."
Walsh and other church officials first learned of sexual improprieties committed by Ochoa on April28, but did not notify Child Protective Services until three days later. A day later, church officials reported Ochoa to the Sheriff's Department, delays that have placed the bishop and church officials under criminal investigation.
In his statement, Walsh acknowledged that his public admission could bring criminal charges for violating state mandatory reporting laws for suspected child sexual abuse.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
The Press Democrat
By MARTIN ESPINOZA
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Catholic Bishop Daniel Walsh today will end nearly two months of silence on fugitive priest Xavier Ochoa by issuing a statement about his own role in reporting evidence of child sex abuse.
The statement comes as Sonoma County Sheriff's detectives are completing a criminal investigation into whether the church's delay in reporting evidence of child abuse violated state law.
The Santa Rosa diocese on Friday would not release the contents of the statement until after parishioners have a chance to read it. The statement will be sent to all parishes and included in weekend bulletins.
Church spokeswoman Deirdre Frontzak said only that it was a "statement concerning (Walsh's) reporting in the Ochoa matter."
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By BOB RAY SANDERS
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
As a rule, three messages out of dozens critical of my columns usually don't cause me undue concern -- unless they are extremely threatening.
Even then, I generally dismiss them without much thought, although I generally offer a courtesy response to the readers, assuming they leave their names.
But after a recent column about the trial of Terry Hornbuckle, an Arlington minister accused of raping three women, three letters did stand out, demanding my careful consideration.
All three were presumably from women -- although one had a first name that could be male -- who addressed the same issue. Each was upset with one word I had used to describe this preacher of a megachurch who admittedly has committed mega-sins.
SOUTH AFRICA
Mail & Guardian
It is an obvious truth that paedophile priests are not confined to the Catholic Church. But it is equally obvious from the Mail & Guardian’s information that the Catholic Church in South Africa has a significant problem in this explosive area -- and that is failing to confront it.
Whether the perverse policy of priestly celibacy is a factor is a moot point. What is clear is that paedophiles are drawn to hierarchical institutions in which adults enjoy unusual power over children -- reformatories, boarding schools, orphanages and the church. It is in these, typically, that abuse occurs. What makes such abuse particularly heinous is that it involves the exploitation of society’s most vulnerable. Because children are ignorant of their rights or afraid to speak up, it sometimes continues unpunished for years.
For this reason, it is imperative that priestly sex crimes are treated with the utmost seriousness when they surface. Yet the first impulse of the Catholic hierarchy seems to be to shield members of the priesthood and protect the church’s reputation. How else is one to understand Cardinal Wilfred Napier’s statement, in a letter, that it is “not in the interests of Catholics” for allegations to be made public? Why did he tell complainants that they were wrong to record and circulate a priest’s confession? Is he seriously suggesting that the media are fanning the embers of a non-existent problem? His cold and legalistic offer of psychological therapy to a victim, on condition that she sign away further claims against the church, strongly suggests a desire to shut her up.
BLANCO (TX)
Monsters and Critics
BLANCO, TX, United States (UPI) -- The state of Texas is moving to seize a monastery that was the scene of alleged child molestation and money laundering.
The state this week filed a seizure notice against the Christ of the Hills Monastery near Blanco on the grounds the 105-acre property was the site of repeated crimes.
The founder of the monastery, Samuel Greene, was one of five residents arrested late last month for allegedly carrying out repeated molestations.
Not only that, but the supposedly weeping painting of the Virgin Mary that drew scores of visitors and thousands of dollars in donations in the 1980s turned out to be a fraud and was seized by state agents.
Greene told the San Antonio Express-News he disagreed with the seizure order.
SPOKANE (WA)
Corvallis Gazette-Times
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — An attorney representing people who allege they were sexually abused by priests says Catholics in Eastern Washington can settle their church’s sex-abuse crisis and bankruptcy for $60 million — half of which he suggests could come from parishioners.
Bishop William Skylstad already has $30 million at his disposal from asset sales, insurance settlements and pledges from Catholic Charities and related organizations.
The remaining $30 million could be raised through what those involved in negotiations are calling the “latte-a-day’’ plan.
“We’re not asking for anything that can’t be done,’’ said attorney Tim Kosnoff, who represents multiple sex-abuse victims.
JAMAICA
The Jamaica Observer
By Brandon Allwood Sunday Observer writer
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Vital elements of a landmark piece of legislation that would have proven useful in the infamous Church Dayton scandal, in which a 13-year-old girl was allegedly sexually abused by three teenaged boys in front of a deacon, are yet to be established.
Two years after Parliament passed the Child Care and Protection Act (CCPA) to address the neglect and abuse of children in Jamaica, policy-makers have still not come up with the necessary regulations, including establishment of a Children's Registry.
"...If the registry had been put in place, we would have been able to charge the adults that witnessed the event (sexual abuse) but failed to report it," said Tania Chambers, legal consultant at the Jamaica Coalition on the Rights of the Child (JCRC).
Under Section 6 of the Act, any person who has knowledge of, or suspects that a child is being abused must report it to the Children's Registry. Failure to report offences against children, according to the law, will result in a $500,000 fine or six months in jail.
NEW MEXICO
Renew America
Matt C. Abbott
August 12, 2006
It seems Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe is not allowing weddings to take place at an indult Latin Mass location.
Catholic blogger Domenico Bettinelli writes:
It's amazing to me the lengths some people go to persecute those who have an attachment to the Tridentine Mass. If it's not your cup of tea, fine. If you think it's an archaic relic that's going to die out, then let it. Why persecute it? Do these people not know Church history? The more Christians are persecuted and oppressed, the stronger they become. ...
One thing is clear: Sheehan does not have a good track record. From Randy Engel's The Rite of Sodomy:
Another close friend of Bernardin was Father Michael J. Sheehan, one of Bernardin's four Assistant Secretaries at theAbuse Tracker Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference. Father Sheehan had the reputation of being Bernardin's 'hatchet man.' His main task was to fire the employees inherited from the old National Catholic Welfare Conference and replace them with more politically and morally 'progressive' clerics and laymen. Sheehan later became the Archbishop of Santa Fe, a proverbial dumping ground for clerical pederasts on the run.
Readers may recall that Sheehan was the Rector of Holy Trinity Seminary in Dallas which accepted the notorious Rudolph 'Rudy' Kos as a candidate for the priesthood despite the fact that Kos was a divorced man and known pederast who had sexually abused his own brothers. The former rector of the seminary had warned Sheehan against Kos, but he was ignored.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
CBS 5
08/12/06 6:25 PDT
SANTA ROSA (BCN)
Santa Rosa's Roman Catholic Bishop Daniel Walsh admitted in a letter to Catholic parishioners today that he made a mistake by not immediately reporting Rev. Francisco Xavier Ochoa's admissions of sexual misconduct with three underage boys.
Ochoa, 67, the assistant pastor of St. Francis Solano Parish in Sonoma, admitted to Walsh on April 28 that he kissed a 12-year-old boy during a strip tease incident in his apartment earlier that month and that he had sexual contact with two other boys, now adults, years before.
Walsh suspended Ochoa that day but the diocese did not inform Sonoma County Child Protective Services about the incident until May 1. Ochoa disappeared after May 2 and is believed to be in Mexico.
The Sonoma County district attorney's office has charged Ochoa with 10 felony counts of committing lewd acts with underage boys. The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department also is investigating whether Walsh and other priests who were aware of Ochoa's behavior broke state law by not reporting it immediately.
SANTA ROSA (CA)
Marin Independent Journal
Staff Report
SANTA ROSA - A Roman Catholic church official apologized Saturday for waiting several days to notify authorities about sexual abuse allegations against a priest, a delay that might have allowed the priest to flee to Mexico.
Bishop Daniel Walsh of the Santa Rosa diocese said in a statement to parishioners he put "caution" before "doing the right thing" in handling the allegations against priest Xavier Ochoa.
Church officials say Ochoa admitted April 28 to sexually abusing a 12-year-old altar boy, but the allegations were not reported to Child Protective Services until May 1, and Ochoa disappeared the next day.
"I made an error in judgment by waiting to report Rev. Ochoas admission,"
Walsh wrote in the statement, distributed at Saturday Mass throughout the diocese, which stretches from Santa Rosa to the Oregon border.
KENTUCKY
Washington Post
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 13, 2006; Page A03
Promised anonymity in an $84 million settlement with a Kentucky Roman Catholic diocese, men and women sexually abused by its priests are opposing a state judge's order to reveal their identities and details of the alleged crimes to prosecutors.
The dispute, prompted by the judge's view that egregious cases of abuse may warrant criminal charges, raises complex privacy questions, and highlights the delicate balance between victims' rights and the responsibility of legal authorities to punish lawbreakers.
Stanley M. Chesley, a Cincinnati attorney for more than 300 men and women abused by priests in Kentucky as long ago as the 1950s, said the order from Special Judge John Potter came "out of the clear blue," several months after Potter approved the settlement. Chesley called the ruling "very callous, very broad and very frightening."
SANTA ROSA (CA)
Napa Valley Register
By DAVID RYAN, Register Staff Writer
Sunday, August 13, 2006 1:15 AM PDT
Bishop Daniel Walsh of the Santa Rosa Diocese of the Catholic Church issued an apology to parishioners in Napa this weekend for waiting four days to notify authorities when a Sonoma priest admitted to Walsh he had had sexual relations with young boys.
Under the law, Walsh was required to notify authorities as soon as he knew. During the delay, the priest, Xavier Ochoa, is believed to have fled to Mexico. No victims have come forward from Napa County.
"As the district attorney reviews the actions of all involved in this horrible situation, my admission of failing to report the case immediately could cause me to be charged with a misdemeanor having the potential penalty of six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine," Walsh wrote in a message to parishioners. "If I am found guilty for not taking immediate action, I will accept whatever punishment is imposed."
Late last month, Walsh told the Press Democrat he delayed notifying authorities to make sure Ochoa "didn't function as a priest, so he didn't have access to kids."
SANTA ROSA (CA)
Leading the Charge
2006/8
SANTA ROSA, Calif. - A Roman Catholic bishop apologized Saturday for waiting several days to notify authorities about sexual abuse allegations against a priest, a delay that may have allowed the priest to flee to Mexico.
Church officials say Ochoa admitted April 28 to sexually abusing a 12-year-old altar boy, but the allegations were not reported to Child Protective Services until May 1, and Ochoa disappeared the next day.
Ochoa, 68, was charged June 22 with 10 felony counts and one misdemeanor count of child sex abuse involving three boys he allegedly abused. A warrant was issued for his arrest.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By DARREN BARBEE
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
Fort Worth's Roman Catholic diocese dropped its fight Friday over the release of details about sexual-abuse allegations against seven priests and revealed that one of those clerics had been performing priestly duties until he was ordered to stop this week.
The Rev. Philip Magaldi has been forbidden to perform services or present himself as a cleric, Bishop Kevin Vann said.
Although the Fort Worth Diocese won't appeal a court order to release the files, attorneys for Magaldi and other accused clerics may do so. The documents are part of a sexual-abuse lawsuit settled last year and apparently have been heavily edited by a state district judge.
At a news conference to announce his decision on the appeal, Vann said he was saddened by what he has read in the files, which comprise more than 700 pages. Judged by the church's current standards, Vann said, "We could have acted more promptly, forthrightly, and with greater compassion to those who came forward with allegations."
ROME
AGI
(AGI) - Rome, Aug 11 - Father Marco Agostini, 43, committed suicide this morning hanging himself in his mother's house, in via del Pergolato 105 in Rome. The priest was arrested some months ago charged with sexually abusing some children in his parish.
ROME
AGI
(AGI) - Rome, Aug. 11 - "I am not a paedophile." This is one of the phrases found written on a piece of paper by don Marco Agostino who ended his life this morning in Rome by hanging himself with a bed sheet on the terrace of the home in which he was confined to house arrest, on Via del Pergolato in Rome. On the same piece of paper, the priest asks forgiveness for his action to his elderly mother and everyone dear to him.
STEUBENVILLE (OH)
WTOV
Diocese of Steubenville officials said Friday they received "a credible allegation" of abuse of a minor by a former priest.
In a news release, the diocese stated that a child may have been abused by Msgr. Robert Brown, a former pastor of St. Sylvester Church in Woodsfield, and by Mr. Paul Ditto, a former volunteer at the same church.
BLANCO (TX)
Express-News
Zeke MacCormack
Express-News Staff Writer
BLANCO — The state is trying to seize Christ of the Hills Monastery, claiming in court filings that the religious enclave is "contraband" because it was used in the commission of money laundering, theft, fraud and child molestation offenses.
A notice of seizure was filed Wednesday on the 105-acre parcel outside Blanco that's owned by Ecumenical Monks Inc.
The founder and spiritual leader of the monastery, Samuel A. Greene Jr., took issue Thursday with it being called contraband, saying, "I don't believe it is."
A nonprofit formed in 1972, Ecumenical Monks Inc. lists its president as William E. Hughes, also known as Father Vasili, and Greene as secretary-treasurer.
The monastery followed Eastern Orthodox traditions but has not been affiliated with any denomination since 1999, when an autonomous U.S.-based branch of the Russian Orthodox Church cut its ties with the monks there.
BOSTON (MA)
Lansing State Journal
Associated Press
For the first time in almost three years, Cardinal Sean O'Malley met with representatives of Voice of the Faithful, a Roman Catholic lay reform group in Boston that was founded in response to the clergy sex abuse crisis.
The organization, which now has chapters nationwide, has been shunned by many bishops who believe the group is trying to undermine church leaders. Some prelates, including O'Malley's predecessor as Boston archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Law, banned local chapters from meeting on church property.
Neither the archdiocese nor the reform group revealed details of the Aug. 4 meeting. However, the archdiocese said in a statement that it was "a helpful conversation about important issues and the continued renewal of parish life."
WISCONSIN
Bishop Accountability
The lawsuit filed by the family of Dan O'Connell that names all American bishops can be found at this link. Mr. O'Connell allegedly was shot to death by the Rev. Ryan Erickson.
FORT WORTH (TX)
NBC5i
The final witnesses testified Friday in the rape trial of former Arlington minister Terry Hornbuckle.
Among them was a former employee of Hornbuckle's Agape Christian Fellowship who said Hornbuckle told her to lie to a grand jury during an investigation in 2005.
She also said Hornbuckle threatened her when she refused his request.
A total of three women have testified that Hornbuckle raped them, but his lawyers insist the sex was consensual.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
08:27 PM CDT on Friday, August 11, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – Retired Dallas Cowboys star Emmitt Smith described pastor and rape defendant Terry Hornbuckle as an "honest and trustworthy man" of high integrity, according to a letter presented to jurors Friday.
The letter, sent to a Tarrant County grand jury in February 2005, said the former running back had known Mr. Hornbuckle for a decade and that the minister counseled him and his wife before they married.
"He has been a blessing to us, and he has been a blessing to others as well," said Mr. Smith, who retired as the NFL's all-time leading rusher.
FORT WORTH (TX)
KGBT
FORT WORTH, Texas N-F-L career rushing leader Emmitt Smith's name came up today during the rape trial of an Arlington pastor, whom Smith was quoted as calling an "honest and trustworthy man."
A letter written by Smith was introduced by the defense Friday in the trial of Terry Hornbuckle, founder of Agape Christian Fellowship of Arlington.
Hornbuckle is being tried on three charges of sexual assault. Two of the accusers are former church members, and two said the megachurch minister drugged them.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MELODY McDONALD
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
FORT WORTH -- When the sexual assault allegations came out against the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, plenty of people had the popular minister's back.
Lisa Fuller was not one of them.
The 37-year-old woman, who worked as Hornbuckle's executive assistant, said she refused to obey Hornbuckle's orders to lie to the grand jury.
"I was intimidated by him, but the truth was the truth," Fuller told jurors Friday. "I wasn't going to run the risk of perjuring myself for him."
Fuller was the first witness to testify Friday on the sixth day of Hornbuckle's sexual assault trial. The 44-year-old founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington is accused of raping three women -- including two who said Hornbuckle drugged them first.
WASHINGTON
Spokesman-Review
John Stucke
Staff writer
August 11, 2006
An attorney representing people who were sexually abused by priests said Catholics in Eastern Washington can settle their church’s sex abuse crisis and bankruptcy for $60 million – half of which he suggests could come from the pockets of parishioners.
Bishop William Skylstad already has $30 million at his disposal from asset sales, insurance settlements and pledges from the likes of Catholic Charities. The rest, another $30 million, could be raised through what those involved in negotiations are calling the “latte-a-day” plan.
“We’re not asking for anything that can’t be done,” said attorney Tim Kosnoff, who represents many sex abuse victims.
Attorneys representing various parties in the bankruptcy are known to be considering the plan following the Bankruptcy Court’s rejection of an earlier settlement agreement proposed by Skylstad.
SALISBURY (MD)
WJZ
(AP) SALISBURY, Md. A pastor has been acquitted of all charges of having a sexual relationship with an underage girl in his congregation.
A Wicomico County Circuit Court jury found 30-year-old Joshua Lawson, of Salisbury, not guilty of sexual abuse of a minor and engaging in a perverted practice.
The decision came after a two-day trial and about 30 minutes of deliberation.
ODENTON (MD)
The Capital
By ERIC HARTLEY, Staff Writer
A minister from Odenton testified yesterday that he confessed to molesting a 10-year-old boy even though he's innocent because he believed an apology would end his "nightmare."
The Rev. Enoch J. Hill, 28, said a county police detective told him all the boy and his mother wanted was an apology. He said he believed that meant he wouldn't be arrested.
"He's basically saying, 'I know this is what you did, and all you need to do is write an apology letter and this will be over,' " he said of the April 17 interrogation, during which he admitted repeatedly fondling the boy.
Arguing that the officer's conduct was misleading, the Rev. Hill's lawyer asked the judge to bar the confession from evidence at the upcoming trial.
But Detective Patrick McLaughlin said he never promised the Rev. Hill he wouldn't be criminally charged.
SALISBURY (MD)
The DailyTimes
By Ben Penserga
Staff Writer
SALISBURY -- A Salisbury pastor accused of having a sexual relationship with an underage girl in his congregation was acquitted of all charges Friday in Wicomico County Circuit Court.
A jury found Joshua Lawson, 30, of Salisbury not guilty of sexual abuse of a minor and engaging in a perverted practice following a two-day trial. The decision came after about 30 minutes of deliberation.
"We were surprised how quickly it came, but we were not surprised about the verdict," said Lawson's attorney, Stephanie Shipley.
Lawson, pastor of New Life the Apostolic Church, was charged by police in February with allegedly having sex with a then 16-year-old girl for several months starting in August 2005.
For nearly three hours Thursday, the teenager -- now 17 -- testified Lawson allegedly made sexual advances toward her Aug. 4, 2005, while she baby-sat his two children while his wife was out of town. The alleged victim said encounter started a relationship in which the two reportedly had sex 15 to 20 times during the next few months through fake baby-sitting assignments.
UNITED KINGDOM
This is Bradford
By Steve Wright
Four Bradford men who claim they were sexually abused as boys at a Catholic care home have launched a legal fight for compensation.
They are among 140 men who are bringing a civil claim over sexual abuse allegations at the St William's children's home in Market Weighton, East Yorkshire, between 1962 and 1992.
Solicitors in West Yorkshire are pursuing the claim on their behalf against the De La Salle Order of Christian Brotherhood, which ran the home, and the Diocese of Middlesbrough, which owned it.
Those involved in the claim were aged between 13 and 16 at the time of the alleged abuse by staff at the home.
BATON ROUGE (LA)
KATC
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Two more men have sued the Baton Rouge diocese and former priest Christopher Springer, claiming they were sexually molested while altar boys in the 1970s.
The names of the latest two men to make claims against Springer were not provided in the lawsuit. Of the 11 men, including the latest two, who have sued Springer and the diocese, only one man, Patrick Myers, has been named.
The attorney for the altar boys, Felecia Peavy of Houston, said six of the men have settled their lawsuits with the diocese and the other five are working toward settlements with the diocese.
The settlements are confidential and no terms have been disclosed.
FORT WORTH (TX)
CBS 11
Raquel Eatmon
Reporting
(CBS 11 News) The bishop of the Fort Worth Catholic Diocese issued a public apology Friday morning to those who have suffered sexual abuse and said the diocese would not appeal Tarrant County’s request to release portions of the personnel files of seven priests accused of sexual abuse of minors.
“It is a sin — and a crime,” Bishop Kevin Vann said at a news conference at The Catholic Center in Fort Worth. “In fact, such abuse is doubly painful for those of you who have suffered it. For it not only took your innocence and your childhood; in some cases it destroyed your Faith.”
On July 25, Tarrant County District Judge Len Wade issued the ruling for the diocese to release the personnel files.
Diocesan officials said the request raised privacy concerns. Vann said the judge discussed those concerns with the diocese and they agreed to release the files.
AUSTRALIA
The Courier
Saturday, 12 August 2006
A COUNTY Court Judge has criticised the Catholic Church for failing to take action against paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.
Yesterday, Ridsdale was convicted and sentenced to 13 years' jail, with a non-parole period of seven years, for sexually abusing 10 boys between 1970 and 1987.
The sentence, the second the former priest has received for child sex crimes, extends his earliest release date by four years to 2013.
Judge Bill White, in sentencing Ridsdale, described the 72-year-old's conduct as "appalling" and said he had plummeted "to the depths of evil hypocrisy".
AUSTRALIA
The Border Mail
THE Catholic Church has come under attack by a judge and the victims of a pedophile priest who had indecently assaulted young boys at a wedding, a funeral and even during confessions.
Gerald Francis Ridsdale, already in Ararat Prison for similar offences, stood silent as he was sentenced by the Ballarat Court over sexual abuse of boys aged as young as six between 1970 and 1987 in Victoria’s western district.
The court heard the 72-year-old had committed the offences following a wedding, a funeral mass, during confessions, holidays, on a fishing trip and at his victims’ homes.
His victims included altar boys and students in Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh and Warrnambool.
NEW ZEALAND
Stuff
12 August 2006
A woman who sued Catholic nuns for $550,000 claiming they were negligent in caring for her and thus caused her physical and emotional abuse has lost her case.
In the High Court at Wellington, Justice Marion Frater has rejected claims that the woman, whose name is suppressed, was sexually abused by a priest while at St Joseph's Orphanage Upper Hutt. She had also claimed a nun slapped the side of her head so hard that her eardrum burst.
Some discipline and control at the orphanage was "borderline – and certainly unacceptable by today's standards", but at the time it was seen as an excellent standard of care, Justice Frater said.
However, she said she did not believe the woman, 46, a mother of two living in Australia, had deliberately made up allegations about her time in Catholic care in the 1960s and 70s.
CANADA
The Peach Arch News
By Ken MacInnis
Black Press
Aug 11 2006
Joanne Morrison wasn’t shocked to see Charles Sylvestre still wearing the collar.
When he faced his accusers in an Ontario court last week, the man who bribed her with a closet full of candy so he could fondle her four decades ago was still dressed as a man of the cloth.
Sylvestre, an 83-year-old retired Roman Catholic priest, pled guilty Aug. 4 to 47 counts of indecent assault on young girls, including Morrison, who has lived in White Rock since 1992.
“It was beautiful,” she said of the irony that unfolded at court.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
Bishop Kevin Vann of the Fort Worth Catholic Diocese said Friday that he would not appeal a court order requiring release of records about seven priests accused of sexual abuse. But the records remain sealed while the clergymen and their representatives decide whether to appeal. Their decision could come as early as Monday. The Fort Worth Diocese originally surrendered the documents in litigation with accusers of an eighth priest, but it persuaded Judge Len Wade to shield the material from the public. The Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram later argued successfully that the sealing violated Texas litigation rules. In announcing his decision not to appeal, Bishop Vann apologized to abuse victims and said he hoped to promote healing and justice.
DARIEN (CT)
The New York Times
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
Published: August 11, 2006
DARIEN, Conn., Aug. 10 — One of the two whistleblowers who helped expose a financial scandal at St. John Roman Catholic Church here that led to the ouster of its longtime pastor has resigned as the parish’s bookkeeper, her lawyer said on Thursday.
“She basically had enough,” said the lawyer, Mickey Sherman, citing what he called aggravation that the episode created for her and hostility from her superiors as she tried to continue on the job.
Mr. Sherman said that the bookkeeper, Bethany D’Erario, resigned “in the last few days” and that a letter from her explaining her decision would appear in the parish’s upcoming bulletin. He said she did not receive any settlement and has no plans to sue.
AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
By Shelley Hodgson
August 11, 2006 12:00am
PEDOPHILE priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale could spend as little as four extra years behind bars on fresh child sex abuse charges.
Ridsdale, who was due for release in 2009, was today handed a new jail term of 13 years with a minimum of seven years in the County Court in Ballarat.
However the sentence now means the earliest he will be eligible for parole is August 2013.
Effective from today, the sentence relates to 24 counts of indecent assault, seven counts of gross indecency and four counts of buggery committed between 1970 and 1987 while Ridsdale was a priest in western Victoria.
Victims were outraged at what they said was a lenient sentence.
AUSTRALIA
ABC
A former Victorian priest, in prison for the sexual assault of young boys, has been given more jail time.
Gerald Francis Ridsdale, 72, was sentenced to 18 years' jail in 1993.
Since then 10 more victims have come forward resulting in 35 new charges of indecent assault, gross indecency and sexual assault.
All offences occurred in the 1970s and 80s in parts of western Victoria.
In the County Court in Ballarat today Ridsdale was sentenced to an extra 13 years' jail, but with overlap with his current sentence it will result in only four extra years in prison.
KEARNEY (NE)
Press & Dakotan
KEARNEY, Neb. (AP) -- A Roman Catholic priest from Elm Creek has been found guilty of exposing himself to a Kearney woman.
The Rev. Mark Maresh, 41, pleaded no contest in Buffalo County Court on Aug. 1. The charge was public indecency, a misdemeanor. He faces sentencing in October.
Maresh was a priest at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Elm Creek. He also served St. John Capistran in Amherst and Holy Rosary in Overton.
Bishop William Dendinger of Grand Island said Thursday that Maresh remained at St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Md. The residential treatment center helps priests suffering depression or other psychological and emotional problems.
TANZANIA
IOL
August 11 2006 at 08:24AM
Dar es Salaam - A Tanzanian court has jailed a Roman Catholic priest for 30 years for having sex with a 17-year-old boy.
It was the first time a priest has been convicted of a sex crime in the east African country, where having intercourse with an under-age companion and a member of the same sex are illegal.
The court rejected pleas from a defence lawyer that Sixtus Kimaro, 38, should be pardoned because he was also a young man.
"That is not a valid excuse for something that is not accepted in society. The clergy must be held in high esteem and so he should have been responsible for his actions," magistrate Pellagia Khaday said on Wednesday.
TANZANIA
BBC News
A Roman Catholic priest in Tanzania, Fr Sixtus Kimaro has been jailed for 30 years after being convicted of sex offences against a 17-year-old boy.
In the first such case reported in Tanzania, Fr Kimaro was found guilty of having sex with the boy over two years.
He was also ordered to pay the boy 2m shillings ($1,554) in compensation.
SOUTH AFRICA
Mail & Guardian
Pearlie Joubert
11 August 2006 07:59
The president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference, Cardinal Wilfred Napier, offered to pay for psychological therapy for a woman allegedly raped by a Catholic priest when she was a child. There was a sting in the tail, however. If she accepted, she would forfeit her right to make any future claims against the church.
“The offer is in full and final settlement of all or any claims that you may consider you may have against the Archidiocese. Your signed, written acceptance of these conditions, unconditionally, must be received in this office,” Napier wrote. The Mail & Guardian has a copy of the letter.
Sam (not her real name) said a church “protocol committee” was formed in 1997 to handle her case, but “I am still waiting for them to advise me of their findings”.
Napier said this week that the priest in question was “rehabilitated in the United Kingdom during a seven or eight-week course”.
SOUTH AFRICA
The Herald
By Piet Van Niekerk
TWO daughters of the Summerstrand pastor facing a charge of raping his adoptive daughter, testified yesterday that they discovered secret videotapes in their father‘s study showing their adoptive sister naked in the bath.
Earlier in the Port Elizabeth High Court yesterday, one of the daughters also read out a love letter she had found torn up in a plastic bag three weeks after her father‘s arrest.
The letter is a passionate plea to the teenage adoptive daughter to come back to him after she left him for a young boyfriend.
The daughters, who may not be named, testified that they had found two holes in the ceiling of their bathroom before finding two video cameras in the ceiling. They followed the wires to their father‘s study, where they found video tapes.
SALISBURY (MD)
The Daily Times
By Ben Penserga
Staff Writer
SALISBURY -- The alleged victim of a Salisbury pastor accused of having an improper relationship with an underage member of his congregation testified Thursday they had sex several times over the span of a few months.
The Wicomico County Circuit Court trial of Joshua W. Lawson, 30, on charges of sex abuse of a minor and a handful of other sexually related charges began Thursday with the alleged victim testifying the two began having a sexual relationship on Aug. 4, 2005.
Lawson -- pastor of the New Life the Apostolic Church on Mount Hermon Road -- was charged in February in connection with allegations he had been having sex with a 16-year-old girl.
For several hours Thursday, the girl -- now 17 -- told the court of their alleged relationship, which allegedly began in August after Lawson reportedly made advances toward her one night while she was baby-sitting his two children.
NEW JERSEY
The Times
Friday, August 11, 2006
The New Jersey Supreme Court's decision earlier this week in the American Boychoir School child molestation case will continue the painful saga of an abuse case that stretches back to the 1970s. But it also will correct a flaw in an old state law that basically let institutions where abuse took place off the hook.
The outcome of the decision should mean that charitable institutions, including schools and churches, will have to take more responsibility when it comes to hiring and monitoring its employees as it pertains to their conduct with children. And as burdensome as that may be, it serves the greater good -- the welfare of helpless children, who become the prey of molesters.
In a 5-1 ruling, the state's high court said that John Hardwicke of White Hall, Md., will have his day in court in his suit against the school where he was a student from 1970 to 1971. It was during that time, according to the lawsuit, that Hardwicke was repeatedly abused by the school's choirmaster, Donald Hanson. A trial judge, however, had dismissed Hardwicke's suit, citing the state's immunity laws that protect schools, churches and other charitable institutions.
BATON ROUGE (LA)
The Advocate
By ADRIAN ANGELETTE
Advocate staff writer
Published: Aug 11, 2006
Two more men have sued the Baton Rouge diocese and former priest Christopher Springer, claiming they were sexually molested while altar boys in the 1970s.
The names of the latest two men to make claims against Springer were not provided in the lawsuit. Of the 11 men, including the latest two, who have sued Springer and the diocese, only one man, Patrick Myers, has been named.
The attorney for the altar boys, Felecia Peavy of Houston, said six of the men have settled their lawsuits with the diocese and the other five are working toward settlements with the diocese.
The settlements are confidential and no terms have been disclosed.
“We can’t believe how many people have been harmed,” Peavy said Thursday. “One is too many, but 11 is just a travesty.”
Few details about the latest two men to file suit against the diocese and Springer are available.
Peavy said that one of the men, who claims to have been abused while he was an altar boy at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Maringouin, now lives in New York City. The lawsuit claims that “Springer sexually abused and exploited” the former altar boy at the rectory of St. Mary’s of False River Catholic Church in the summer of 1975.
AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
August 11, 2006 - 4:06PM
The Catholic Church has come under attack by a judge and the victims of a Victorian paedophile priest who indecently assaulted young boys at a wedding, a funeral and even during confessions.
Gerald Francis Ridsdale, already in Ararat Prison for similar offences, stood silent with head bowed and eyes closed as he was sentenced by the County Court, in Ballarat, over the sexual abuse of boys aged as young as six between 1970 and 1987 in Victoria's western district.
The court heard the 72-year-old had committed the offences following a wedding, a funeral mass, during confessions, holidays, on a fishing trip and at his victims' homes.
His victims included altar boys and students in Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh, Horsham, Edenhope, Mortlake and Warrnambool. ...
Judge White also criticised the Catholic Church for its lack of action on complaints against Ridsdale, for constantly moving him from parish to parish, and for its failure to show adequate compassion to his victims.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Yuxing Zheng, Globe Correspondent | August 11, 2006
For much of his life, Joseph O'Keefe has lived and breathed politics. At any given time, he could recite the players, and he has spent his adult life working his way through the ranks of government: as a legislative aide, a respected policy director for Councilor at Large Michael F. Flaherty, and spokesman for the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. Last year, he was promoted to chief of staff there.
But O'Keefe, 42, is set to say goodbye to political friends and the city where he grew up. Later this month, the West Roxbury native will move to California to begin training in the novitiate, the first step in the Jesuit formation that would allow him to become a priest. ...
The recent clergy sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church left O'Keefe feeling hurt and worried. It forced him to question the management of the church, but ultimately, not his faith.
``Instead of pondering on the negative -- I still believed in my faith -- but maybe it's a chance for me to do something about it," he said.
CALIFORNIA
The Santa Barbara Independent
by Martha Sadler
More than 14 years after the whispers became public accusations of child sexual abuse by Santa Barbaran Franciscan friars, a settlement has finally been reached that will open church documents to the public. Unlike the sealed and secret terms of most settlements involving large amounts of money, plaintiffs in this case insisted on the right to disclose evidence of three decades of molestation, including the testimony of the abusive priests, their protectors, and the now-adult victims. The settlement also awards $28,450,000 to the 25 plaintiffs.
The lawsuit centered on eight priests who molested students at St. Anthony’s Seminary High School and the Santa Barbara Boys Choir, or took advantage of underage parishioners at the Santa Barbara Mission. They are Fathers Robert Van Handel, Mario Cimmarrusti, Gus Crumm, Dave Johnson, David Carriere, Chis Berbena, and Brother Berard Connolly, and Brother Sam Cabot. Besides the perpetrators, two additional priests, Father Xavier Harris and Father Gino Piccoli, acknowledged as part of the settlement that they failed to act on reports of abuse.
Santa Barbara attorney Tim Hale, who represented 13 of the plaintiffs, said that if his clients sacrificed anything in the settlement, it was the opportunity to confront their abusers, as well as the other priests who kept it secret. “I know there are clients who would have liked to see this battle fought all the way through trial, but that would have been terribly, terribly traumatic for others,” said Hale.
CHICAGO (IL)
WREX
CHICAGO (AP) -- The associate pastor of a Chicago church is accused of sexually assaulting two 16-year-old girls after each went to his home to pray.
Twenty-eight-year-old William Sherrod Junior today was ordered held in lieu of 300-thousand dollars bail.
Sherrod, an associate pastor of the Living Faith Community Church, is charged with two counts each of criminal sexual assault and criminal sexual abuse stemming from the two cases.
Cook County state's attorney spokeswoman Marcy Jensen says one girl was assaulted between January and May of this year. The second girl was assaulted in June.
IOWA
KTIV
A retired Sioux City bishop is being sued for allegedly sexually abusing 13 students at an Iowa City Catholic high school in the 1950s and 1960s.
The lawsuit was filed today in Scott County. It names Sioux City Bishop Lawrence Soens, Regina Catholic High School and the Davenport Roman Catholic Diocese.
The accusers say Soens abused them from 1959 through 1967 while he was the school's principal. Soens retired as bishop in 1998 and has been named in more than a dozen sexual abuse cases.
Diocese officials say they had no reason to suspect Soens was molesting students and they deny any liability in the case.
WISCONSIN
Barron News-Shield
By:Eric Quade 08/10/2006
A civil lawsuit filed yesterday against close to 200 bishops demands the Catholic Church divulge the names and addresses of alleged child molesters within its ranks.
The family of the late Daniel O'Connell, former owner of the Hudson funeral home where he and Barron native James Ellison where fatally shot, alleges the bishops are withholding information regarding the whereabouts of clergy suspected of sexual abuses.
The O'Connell and Ellison families met with church officials earlier this year and discussed ways to keep sexually abusive individuals out of the priesthood.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
BY TRACI SHURLEY
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH -- After Kate Jones met an Arlington pastor at a fitness club, he told her that God had brought him into her troubled life to show her that she could trust a man, the 34-year-old single mother testified Thursday.
Instead, the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle proved all her fears by drugging and raping her in her home, she told the jury.
"Y'all needed to know what he really is," she said, looking at the jury. "And I needed to come up here and say that."
Hornbuckle, 44, is the founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington.
He is accused of using his power and influence to sexually assault three women, two of whom are former members of his church. His trial is in its fifth day.
FORT WORTH (TX)
NBC5i
FORT WORTH, Texas -- A third alleged rape victim confronted former Arlington minister Terry Hornbuckle in court Thursday.
The woman testified that Hornbuckle introduced himself as "Terry Lee," saying he worked for the Dallas Cowboys counseling NFL rookies, and that he been a pro football player himself.
The woman said she met Hornbuckle at a Bedford health club and that she gave him her telephone number, which he repeatedly called.
She also said Hornbuckle went to her house in his Cadillac Escalade, even though she had told him she was uncomfortable with men being at her house.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
03:24 PM CDT on Thursday, August 10, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH - A third accuser in pastor Terry Hornbuckle's trial told the jury Thursday afternoon that she smoked what she believed was methamphetamine before he drugged and raped her.
Terry Hornbuckle The woman, who used the pseudonym Kate Jones while on the stand, said she met Hornbuckle at a health club. She said that Mr. Hornbuckle, who used a fake name and claimed to be a counselor for Dallas Cowboys rookies, convinced her to let him come over.
The woman said she was a single mother of a 2-year-old at the time of the alleged incidents. She said she rarely invited men to her home because of trust issues, and also because her stepfather tried to molest her as a child.
"He told me that God brought him into my life to teach me how to trust men," she said, describing a conversation she had with Mr. Hornbuckle while smoking methamphetamine in a "glass crack pipe."
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
STAR-TELEGRAM ARCHIVES
The Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, 44, the founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington, is on trial in state district Judge Scott Wisch's court, accused of raping three women, including two from his congregation.
If convicted, he could be sentenced to probation or to as much as 20 years in prison for each charge.
The trial resumed at 9 a.m. Tuesday after a four-day break.
AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
Russell Robinson
MP Russell Savage yesterday called on police command to vindicate a former officer he said was hounded from the force after investigating a high-ranking pedophile priest.
Mr Savage told State Parliament failure of police at the time to prosecute Monsignor John Day has left many more victims.
"Today I grieve for the victims of Monsignor John Day and for former Sen-Det Denis Ryan, who was the investigating officer into the sad events that occurred in Mildura in 1972," he said.
"The motto of Victoria Police is to protect the innocent and to pursue crooks, villains, pedophiles and other undesirables in our community.
SEVIERVILLE (TN)
The Mountain Press
SEVIERVILLE - A man who allegedly fled the state and tried to fake his own death after being charged with rape of a child and statutory rape could face his first trial Oct. 5.
Kevin Allen Gentry fled the state in 2004 after he was charged with three counts of statutory rape, and before a grand jury returned a sealed indictment charging him with rape of a child. ...
Also Tuesday, Vance ruled that the prosecution can't mention claims Gentry allegedly made about being a Satanic priest unless they directly relate to the crime.
TANZANIA
IPP
2006-08-10 08:52:07
By Rose Mirondo
A Roman Catholic Priest, Sixtus Kimaro, was yesterday sentenced to 30 years in jail for sodomy.
Kimaro, 38, was further ordered by Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s court in Dar es Salaam to pay 2m/- in compensation to the 17-year youth he was found guilty of sodomising.
In passing the sentence, Principal Resident Magistrate Pellagia Khaday, noted that the long jail sentence was intended to be a deterrent to potential offenders.
In her judgement, Khaday said the prosecution had proved in court beyond doubt that the youth (name withheld) was indeed sodomised.
The magistrate said it had been proved that Kimaro had unnatural sexual intercourse with the youth, who is still considered a minor in law and, therefore, incapable informed consent.
ST. LOUIS PARK (MN)
St. Cloud Times
By Frank Lee fclee@stcloudtimes.com
Published: August 10. 2006 1:00AM
ST. LOUIS PARK — St. John's Abbey officials say the claims made Wednesday by a national advocacy group for clergy molestation victims are inaccurate.
The group calls the abbey's eventual disclosure July 28 of allegations of sexual misconduct from the 1970s and 1980s "begrudging" and "reprehensible."
"Our fear is that during these inexcusable delays by the abbey, other kids may have been hurt and were certainly put at risk," said David Clohessy of St. Louis, Mo.
Clohessy is the national director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, which had a news conference Wednesday outside a Catholic high school in St. Louis Park.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
09:24 PM CDT on Wednesday, August 9, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – A second woman who has accused pastor Terry Hornbuckle of rape told a jury Wednesday that the minister exploited his authority and her emotional vulnerability to seduce her.
The 25-year-old, using the pseudonym Jane Doe, said that Mr. Hornbuckle went to her home four or five times to counsel her about her relationship troubles, family problems and low self-esteem. She said most times, he would initiate sex and she would eventually give in to his advances.
"It honestly seemed easier," Ms. Doe said, fighting through tears that started before she began testifying. "I was scared. I was afraid."
Mr. Hornbuckle, 44, founder of Agape Christian Fellowship church in Arlington, is on trial on charges of sexually assaulting three women. The first accuser testified last week at the beginning of what is expected to be a two- or three-week trial.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MELODY McDONALD
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
Editor's note: An earlier version of this report misstated the amount of time between Jane Doe's first visit to Terry Hornbuckle's church and the beginning of their counseling sessions.
FORT WORTH — The goodbye note she found on her computer was devastating.
Jane Doe’s boyfriend, the “love of her life,” was gone. He had packed his belongings and, without warning, just left.
Distraught, Doe testified, she called the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, her pastor and a man who she believed could guide her through this troubled time.
But instead of giving her spiritual guidance, Doe told jurors Wednesday, Hornbuckle took advantage of her vulnerable state. He had sex with her numerous times during two months in 2003, she said.
FORT WORTH (TX)
CBS 11
Mary Stewart
Reporting
(CBS 11 News) FORT WORTH Two women testified they had sex with Arlington minister Terry Hornbuckle. A 25-year-old woman, who goes by the synonym ‘Jane Doe’, testified Wednesday afternoon she had a two-month affair with Hornbuckle.
The woman was a member of Hornbuckle’s Agape Christian Fellowship Church in Arlington.
‘Jane Doe’ said the affair began after Hornbuckle came to her apartment one night... bringing a bottle of wine.
During testimony in the sexual assault trial prosecutor Leon Haley asked the woman, “You did not see it as inappropriate for a married man to be at your house at 9:30 at night?" She responded, “No.”
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MELODY McDONALD
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
FORT WORTH -- The goodbye note she found on her computer was devastating.
Jane Doe's boyfriend, the "love of her life," was gone. He had packed his belongings and, without warning, just left.
Distraught, Doe testified, she called the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, her pastor and a man who she believed could guide her through this troubled time.
But instead of giving her spiritual guidance, Doe told jurors Wednesday, Hornbuckle took advantage of her vulnerable state. He had sex with her numerous times during two months in 2003, she said.
CANADA
Catholic Online
8/10/2006
The Catholic Register (www.catholicregister.org)
CHATHAM, Ont. (The Catholic Register) – London Bishop Ronald Fabbro has pledged to seek the laicization of a priest convicted of 47 counts of indecent assault, as well as revise the diocese’s policy on how to deal with clergy sexual abuse.
The bishop made these promises at Mass Aug. 6, the Feast of the Transfiguration, in a moving homily to the congregation at St. Ursula’s Church here, one of the parishes where Father Charles Sylvestre committed his crimes against young girls.
Father Sylvestre, 83, pleaded guilty on Aug. 3 to 47 charges involving girls aged nine to 14. The assaults took place between 1954 and 1985 in parishes in Chatham, Windsor, Pain Court, Sarnia and London. Sentencing is still to come.
In canon law, a priest can only be laicized by the Vatican upon appeal by the local bishop.
“I sincerely apologize to the victims and their families for the abuse they endured at the hands of Father Sylvestre, and for suffering the consequences of that abuse over the years,” Bishop Fabbro told the congregation.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Carlos Sadovi
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 10, 2006
An associate pastor of a Near North Side church was ordered held on bond Wednesday in the sexual assault of two 16-year-old girls.
William T. Sherrod Jr., 28, an associate pastor of the Living Faith Community Church, appeared before Cook County Criminal Court Judge Laura Sullivan who ordered him held on $300,000 bail, said Marcy Jensen, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state's attorney's office.
Sherrod, of the 2800 block of West Shakespeare Avenue, is charged with two counts of criminal sexual assault and criminal sexual abuse, Jensen said.
Sherrod served in an unpaid position with the Living Faith Community Church, 1000 N. Sedgwick St., which is part of the evangelical Moody Church, said Hutz Hertzberg, executive pastor of the Moody Church.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times
August 10, 2006
BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN Staff Reporter
William Sherrod, a 28-year-old associate pastor at a Cabrini-Green church, invited two girls he had been mentoring to join him for prayers at different times at his Northwest Side residence.
Then, he molested them, prosecutors said.
Sherrod, who also serves as the director of the Moody Church-affiliated Kids' Club at the Cabrini-Green public housing complex, was charged with two counts of criminal sexual assault and two counts of criminal sexual abuse for the attacks that occurred between Jan. 23 and June 29, said Marcy Jensen, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state's attorney's office.
DAVENPORT (IA)
WOI
DAVENPORT, Iowa A retired Sioux City bishop is being sued for allegedly sexually abusing 13 students at an Iowa City Catholic high school in the 1950s and 1960s.
The lawsuit was filed today in Scott County. It names Sioux City Bishop Lawrence Soens, Regina Catholic High School and the Davenport Roman Catholic Diocese.
The accusers say Soens abused them from 1959 through 1967 while he was the school's principal. Soens retired as bishop in 1998 and has been named in more than a dozen sexual abuse cases.
Diocese officials say they had no reason to suspect Soens was molesting students and they deny any liability in the case.
IOWA
Iowa City Press-Citizen
By Mike McWilliams
Iowa City Press-Citizen
Former Regina High School principal Lawrence Soens has been sued again on claims that he allegedly sexually abused 13 former students.
Filed Tuesday in Scott County District Court, the lawsuit seeks damages from Soens, Regina High School and the Catholic Diocese of Davenport. The men allege that they were sexually abused by Soens while he served as Regina's principal from 1958 to 1967.
Soens previously has been named in two sexual abuse lawsuits, each filed by former Regina High School students, but has denied all accusations through his attorneys. Soens also served as Bishop of the Sioux City Diocese from 1983 to 1998.
Davenport lawyer Craig Levien, who represents the plaintiffs, said a total of 16 claims have been filed stemming from Soens' alleged conduct. One has been settled out of court and the rest, including the 13 plaintiffs in the latest lawsuit, are pending in Scott County District Court.
"They've chosen not to mediate so the victims really have no choice other than proceed with a lawsuit," Levien said.
SOUTH CAROLINA
WIS
(Columbia) August 9, 2006 - Tuesday, WIS aired an interview with a Midlands man who took legal action against the Catholic Church. The church has responded to allegations of sexual misconduct by church personnel, and now WIS is looking into what they're doing to safeguard their congregations.
The Catholic Church in South Carolina has a policy designed to deal with claims of sexual misconduct by church personnel. It's 30 pages long.
Right up front, church leaders say they are "adamant" that abuse of children will not be tolerated. The policy has been in place since 2003, before John Morris and three other men filed a class action lawsuit against the Diocese of Charleston, which oversees all parishes in the state.
CALIFORNIA
KSBY
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
By: Carina Corral
Many people who said they were molested at a Santa Barbara seminary by Franciscan friars, dropped their cases after reaching a settlement with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
In March, a settlement was thought to be reached, but victims and the Catholic Church had to go back for another round of talks to iron out some differences.
A final agreement was reached last week, and the Los Angeles Diocese awarded 26 victims more than $28 million.
Most said the sexual abuse happened at St. Anthony's Seminary and the Santa Barbara Mission between 1964 and 1987.
A father of one victim says his son was molested at St. Anthony's Seminary for three years. He also provided details on the settlement, and explained how the money will go toward helping victims of the Catholic Church.
SPRINGFIELD (IL)
Renew America
Matt C. Abbott
August 9, 2006
Stephen Brady, founder and president of Roman Catholic Faithful, has issued the following (slightly edited) press release, dated Aug. 9, 2006.
On August 2, 2006, Bishop George Lucas of the Springfield diocese in Illinois held a press conference releasing the results of his 18-month investigation of clergy misconduct within the diocese. A complete copy of the report is available at www.dio.org.
What is most noticeable in this report by the diocese is that the Bishop never uses the words homosexual or sin. The problem of homosexual clergy is never addressed.
The first paragraph of the report contained the following:
A Diocese of Good Priests
...the probe revealed former Bishop Daniel Ryan engaged in improper sexual conduct and used his office to conceal his activities. The investigation found a culture of secrecy fostered under Bishop Ryan's leadership which discouraged faithful priests from coming forward with information about misconduct. The actions of Bishop Ryan no doubt were harmful and seriously eroded the trust of parishioners and the community at large...
ASHLAND (NH)
Boston.com
August 9, 2006
ASHLAND, N.H. --A state legislator has appealed the merger of three Roman Catholic parishes to the Vatican, linking the merger to a loss of respect for the state's two bishops because of the priest sex abuse scandal.
Fran Wendelboe, a parishioner at St. Agnes Church in Ashland, wrote that Bishop John McCormack and Auxiliary Bishop Francis Christian of the Diocese of Manchester "are widely held in contempt" because of the scandal. Their staying in office has led to a dramatic drop in donations, hurting parishes, the Diocese of Manchester and New Hampshire Catholic Charities, she wrote.
The diocese disagrees with Wendelboe's "statement of facts regarding the ministry of Bishop McCormack and Bishop Christian," spokesman Patrick McGee told The Citizen of Laconia.
McCormack has announced that St. Agnes, St. Timothy's in Bristol and St. Matthew's in Plymouth will be combined into a new parish, Holy Trinity in Plymouth. The changes, and others around the state, were prompted largely by a statewide shortage of priests, he has said.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
MAEVE SHEEHAN
THIRTY-EIGHT Dublin parishes harboured paedophile priests who preyed on children, according to figures collated by the victim support group, One in Four.
The figures show that paedophile priests operated right across the capital. The map of paedophilia is by no meansexhaustive, as it is based on testimonies provided to the One in Four organisation by victims of paedophile priests, who came forward in their hundreds since the publication of the Ferns inquiry report last year.
However, the figures give a startling indication of the extent of clerical sex abuse in Dublin, which is now being investigated by the Government-appointed Commission of Inquiry into clerical sex abuse in the capital, and into the hierarchy's handling of complaints.
The Commission, which started informal interviews with clerics, expert witnesses and victims a fortnight ago, is expected to reveal abuse on a scale that greatly surpasses the shocking findings of the Ferns inquiry.
BOSTON (MA)
MetroWest Daily News
By Jim O'Sullivan/ State House News Service
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
BOSTON -- Two state senators are formally pressuring Senate President Robert Travaglini to convene a formal session and finalize legislation extending the criminal statute of limitations in cases involving alleged sexual abuse of children.
In a letter circulated to their colleagues yesterday, Sens. James Timilty, D-Walpole, and Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, asked Travaglini "to reconvene the Senate in formal session to enact this important legislation forthwith."
The House and Senate generally agree on a bill (H 5234) extending from 15 to 27 years the reporting period for victims of underage sexual abuse, falling short of the cap removal sought by activists and the state attorney general, but appeasing some who say abuse victims need more time to bring cases forward.
Under the bills, more sex offenders would have to wear global positioning system monitoring devices, steps would be taken to ensure sex offenders are registered with the state prior to their release from prison, and sex offenders who intentionally fail to register would face new penalties.
FORT WORTH (TX)
WFAA
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – Former Dallas Cowboys star Deion Sanders urged a woman not to report allegations that Arlington pastor Terry Hornbuckle raped her daughter, the mother testified in court Tuesday.
Loretta Sheppard, 46, told the jury in Mr. Hornbuckle's rape and drug trial that Mr. Sanders said he and pastor T.D. Jakes of The Potter's House in Dallas were working with Mr. Hornbuckle on his problems.
"Hold off on doing anything," Mrs. Sheppard said, quoting the retired cornerback.
She said he also told her that Mr. Hornbuckle, founder of Agape Christian Fellowship, was suicidal and "very sorry for what he did."
Prosecutor Betty Arvin said the testimony helped explain why the 23-year-old accuser and her family didn't immediately go to the police. The accuser – the first of three in this trial – testified last week that she was also worried that no one would believe her accusations against the prominent, politically connected pastor.
TRENTON (NJ)
The New York Times
By LAURA MANSNERUS
Published: August 9, 2006
TRENTON, Aug. 8 — The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a man who attended a boarding school in Princeton 35 years ago may pursue his lawsuit claiming that he was repeatedly abused sexually by staff members at the school.
The justices said the American Boychoir School could be held liable for the actions of its employees, including a choirmaster who was described in the suit as an incorrigible pedophile, under a law that holds parents, guardians and other caretakers responsible in instances of sexual abuse committed by others.
The plaintiff, John W. Hardwicke Jr., said he was eager to tell his story to a jury. “For five years, we fought just to get the right to sue a school that had uncounted numbers of pedophiles,” he said.
Mr. Hardwicke’s lawyer, Keith Smith, said the ruling would help other sex abuse victims who have filed suits against boarding schools.
NEW JERSEY
The Jersey Journal
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
JOURNAL STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
Journal staff writer
A state law protecting nonprofit organizations from negligence lawsuits does not apply to all sex abuse cases, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled yesterday, dealing a blow to a music school being sued by a former student who claimed he was sexually abused.
The high court's decision stems from sex abuse claims involving administrators at the prestigious American Boychoir School in Princeton.
The ruling allows John W. Hardwicke Jr. to continue suing the music school. Hardwicke alleges that he was repeatedly molested by the school's music director and three other employees from 1969 to 1971, when he attended the school.
The decision also said that employers can be held responsible for claims against their employees even if workers' actions are outside the scope of their employment, a ruling that may have far-reaching effects for employers statewide.
NEW JERSEY
The Trentonian
The high court’s decision stems from sex abuse claims involving administrators at the prestigious American Boychoir School in Princeton.
The ruling allows John W. Hardwicke Jr. to continue suing the music school. Hardwicke alleges that he was repeatedly molested by the school’s music director and three other employees from 1969 to 1971, when he attended the school.
The decision also said that employers can be held responsible for claims against their employees even if workers’ actions are outside the scope of their employment, a ruling that may have far-reaching effects for employers statewide.
Since January 2001, Hardwicke has been fighting for the right to sue the school, contending that a state law protecting nonprofits from negligence lawsuits doesn’t apply to sex abuse cases.
"The rule before this decision had said that charities weren’t responsible for the intentional acts of their employees,’’ said Hardwicke attorney Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford University Law School and himself a Boychoir School alumnus who claims he was sexually abused.
TRENTON (NJ)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Beth DeFalco
Associated Press
TRENTON - A New Jersey law that protects nonprofit organizations from negligence lawsuits does not apply to all sex-abuse cases, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday, dealing a blow to a music school sued by a former student who said he had been sexually abused.
The ruling allows John W. Hardwicke Jr. to continue suing the prestigious American Boychoir School in Princeton Township. Hardwicke, who lives in Maryland, alleges that the school's music director and three other employees repeatedly molested him from 1969 to 1971, when he attended the school.
The 5-1 decision also said employers could be held responsible for child-abuse claims against their employees even if the workers' actions were outside the scope of their employment, a ruling that may have far-reaching effects. ...
Attorneys for victims of clergy abuse said the ruling would put a stop to charities' attempts to abuse the act.
"The statute was originally designed to protect charitable institutions from slip-and-fall lawsuits. But when your actions are grossly negligent and intentional, you can't hide behind the Charitable Immunity Act for that," said Gregory Gianforcaro, who has represented dozens of clergy-abuse victims in New Jersey.
TRENTON (NJ)
Courier Post
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
By GREGORY J. VOLPE
Gannett State Bureau
TRENTON
State law does not shield nonprofits from liability for staff members who sexually abuse children, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The court ruled that the American Boychoir School in Princeton does not get protection from the state's Charitable Immunity Act because it applies only to negligence claims.
John W. Hardwicke Jr. sued the school and several employees in 2001, claiming the music director, Donald Hanson, other employees and students abused him when he was a child attending the school in the early 1970s. Hanson now lives in Canada and no longer works at the school.
Writing the 5-1 majority opinion, Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz said state law "immunizes simple negligence only, and not "other forms of aggravated wrongful conduct, such as malice or fraud.' "
NEW JERSEY
Star-Ledger
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG
Star-Ledger Staff
In a sweeping ruling that expands the ability of victims of childhood molestation to sue institutions that allowed it, the New Jersey Supreme Court yesterday cleared the way for a trial against Princeton's prestigious American Boychoir School.
The 5-1 ruling allows John Hardwicke of White Hall, Md., to proceed with his lawsuit claiming he was repeatedly abused by the school's choirmaster when he was an eighth-grade boarding student from 1970 to 1971.
Settling an unresolved question of law, the justices ruled that schools and other employers can be held responsible for child molestation committed by their employees. They left it for a jury to decide after a trial whether the choir school is liable for the abuse Hardwicke said he endured on a daily basis from former choirmaster Donald Hanson.
Hardwicke, now 49, said he was "thrilled" with the ruling, and advo cates for other victims of childhood sexual abuse said it bolsters their chances of obtaining justice.
"It's like a light shining out from the Supreme Court in Trenton across the whole state of New Jersey saying kids who were sexually abused have a right to bring an action against the institutions that allowed it to happen," said Hardwicke. He has been waiting since January 2001 for his day in court.
AUSTRALIA
Daily Mercury
09.08.2006
A FORMER Anglican priest who lived in Mackay has been jailed for at least two years in South Australia for molesting an altar boy.
Ray Ayles, 61, father of three adult children, was arrested in Mackay in June, 2004, and was extradited to Adelaide to face charges of molesting a boy between the ages of 12 and 14 in the early 1970s.
In the South Australian District Court in Adelaide yesterday, Mr Ayles was convicted of three charges of indecent assault.
OHIO
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
James F. McCarty
Plain Dealer Reporter
A priest in Warrensville Heights who accused two women of hooking him in a blackmail scheme now has criminal problems of his own.
A Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted the Rev. Tom Carolan last month on a theft charge.
Police and prosecutors say he paid his blackmailers with money stolen from St. Jude Parish on Richmond Road.
Carolan, 74, pleaded not guilty to the charge Tuesday in Common Pleas Court.
Defense lawyer Ian Friedman said he would work with prosecutors to resolve the case.
CLEVELAND (OH)
WKYC
CLEVELAND (AP) -- A Cleveland area priest targeted in an alleged extortion scheme has been charged with stealing from his church to pay off the accused blackmailers.
The Rev. Tom Carolan pleaded not guilty to a theft charge yesterday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.
Three suburban Cleveland residents are scheduled for trial September 20th on charges of theft, extortion and forgery in connection with the priest's case.
The priest told police the three demanded money in exchange for their silence about him having sex with a woman.
Investigators accuse Carolan of stealing between $500 and $5,000 from his church's accounts to pay the three.
PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer
Read the letter to Cardinal Rigali
In a blistering letter to Cardinal Justin Rigali, two former city prosecutors have accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of failing to seriously address the problem of sexual abuse by priests, thus continuing to endanger parish children.
The two lawyers, who helped conduct the district attorney's grand jury investigation into clergy sexual abuse, accused the archdiocese of "demonstrating an all-too-familiar pattern: offering assurances and the appearance of action while failing to take steps needed to prevent sexual abuse."
"Surely, when you consult your conscience rather than lawyers or public relations advisers, you must know that the problem of sexual predators in the priesthood is not fixed in Philadelphia," Mariana Sorensen and Maureen McCartney wrote in the July 26 letter, which they described as representing their own private views and not necessarily those of the District Attorney's Office.
In a written response, the archdiocese countered that it had taken many steps to address the problem, including supporting legislation to remove the statute of limitations on future sexual abuse and creating a Web site listing priests who have been removed or punished for molesting young people.
SOUTH CAROLINA
WIS
(Lugoff) August 8, 2006 - The Catholic Diocese of Charleston has agreed to settle a case brought by four men who say as boys they were sexually molested. One of those men lives in the Midlands and he shared his story with WIS.
Long before he moved his family to Lugoff, and long before he worked in the medical field or served in the military, John Morris had a secret. One known only to him and a Low Country priest, "What Father did, he took advantage of my youth and my naiiveness."
Morris says while living at a Catholic orphanage in Charleston in 1967 and 1968, he was repeatedly sexually molested by Father Lawrence Sheedy, "And because he was my priest, unfortunately I allowed it."
In court documents filed as part of a class action lawsuit, Morris says Sheedy gave him beer and performed sexual acts on him. Morris was 13 years old when the incidents began. He says the encounters took place at least once a week. A court document says Morris never said "no" to Sheedy because "he never knew that 'no' was a word to say to a priest and that he thought that what Sheedy was doing was an expression of Sheedy's love."
ST. PAUL (MN)
Pioneer Press
BY KEVIN HARTER
Pioneer Press
RICHARD MARSHALL, Pioneer Press
Family members of a Hudson, Wis., man killed by a priest are fed up with what they see as inaction by the Catholic Church and angry that their requests for reform have been ignored. So they're taking the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops to court.
Nearly 200 bishops were named in a civil lawsuit Tuesday by the family of Dan O'Connell, one of two men shot to death at his family's Hudson funeral home in 2002.
The family filed the unprecedented lawsuit, which asks for the names and locations of some 5,000 clergy accused of molesting children, so they can publicize the list. They say the list is known only to the church.
The litigation is unique because of its scope and because others may join to make it a national class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, said Jeff Anderson, the attorney for Dan O'Connell's family,
"The bishops and the USCCB have established a policy of harboring and protecting suspected child molesting agents, thereby endangering numerous children throughout the United States," the complaint said.
The Rev. Philip Heslin, spokesman for the Superior (Wis.) Diocese, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
WISCONSIN
Duluth News Tribune
BY JOHN HARTZELL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MILWAUKEE - The family of a man believed to have been killed by a Roman Catholic priest filed a civil suit Tuesday against almost 200 bishops across the country, seeking the disclosure of the names and locations of clergy accused of molesting children.
The suit was filed in St. Croix County, Wis., where a judge ruled in October that there was probable cause that the Rev. Ryan Erickson shot Daniel O'Connell and James Ellison at the O'Connell family's Hudson, Wis., funeral home.
In the suit, O'Connell's parents and three siblings asked for all documents from the bishops and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops regarding molestation to be released to law enforcement.
"The bishops and the USCCB have established a policy of harboring and protecting suspected child molesting agents, thereby endangering numerous children throughout the United States," their complaint said.
SANTA FE (NM)
The New Mexican
By Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican
August 9, 2006
A Santa Fe psychiatrist has been ordered to turn over his medical records for a client who claims she was sexually abused by a priest in Mobile, Ala.
George Greer, who works with the Life Healing Center of Santa Fe, on Tuesday declined comment on the subpoena, which was issued last week.
Greer must appear for an Aug. 18 deposition at Eldorado Hotel in a case brought by Linda Ledet against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile and bring his records of his treatment of Ledet.
Ledet, an Alabama lawyer, artist and former parishioner at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Mobile, claims that beginning in 1997, the Rev. Paul Zoghby tried to sexually assault her and threatened to destroy her family if she didn't keep quiet.
Ledet, 48, says the archdiocese broke its 2002 agreement with her to pay for her counseling, to send Zoghby for counseling and to put him where he couldn't harm others.
UNITED KINGDOM
Leeds Today
Campaigners supporting the victims of a paedophile priest say that his superiors must have known about his criminal past when they allowed him to work with
children again. PAUL ROBINSON reports
A paedophile priest who preyed on young boys while working at a West Yorkshire school for the deaf already had a conviction for child abuse when he was given his job.
Father Neil Gallanagh, 75, pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court last year to indecently assaulting two teenage pupils at St John's School for the Deaf, in Boston Spa, near Wetherby.
St John's School.
Now it has emerged that, more than a decade before he was made resident chaplain at St John's, he attacked a nine-year-old boy during his time as a priest in Northern Ireland.
Gallanagh was fined £30 and promised to seek medical treatment after admitting carrying out the indecent assault on a day trip to the Isle of Man in June 1960.
TRENTON (NJ)
WNBC
TRENTON, N.J. -- A state law protecting nonprofit organizations from negligence lawsuits does not apply to all sex abuse cases, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, dealing a blow to a music school being sued by a former student who claimed he was sexually abused.
The high court's decision stems from sex abuse claims involving administrators at the prestigious American Boychoir School in Princeton.
The ruling allows John W. Hardwicke Jr. to continue suing the music school. Hardwicke alleges that he was repeatedly molested by the school's music director and three other employees from 1969 to 1971, when he attended the school.
The decision also said that employers can be held responsible for claims against their employees even if workers' actions are outside the scope of their employment, a ruling that may have far-reaching effects for employers statewide. ...
Attorneys for victims of clergy abuse hailed the ruling, saying it puts a stop to charities that try to abuse the act, which was designed to stop frivolous negligence lawsuits.
TRENTON (NJ)
The New York Times
By LAURA MANSNERUS
Published: August 9, 2006
TRENTON, Aug. 8 — The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a man who attended a boarding school in Princeton 35 years ago may pursue his lawsuit claiming that he was repeatedly sexual abused by staff members at the school.
The justices said the American Boychoir School could be held liable for the actions of its employees, including a choirmaster who was described in the suit as an incorrigible pedophile, under a law that holds parents, guardians and other caretakers responsible in instances of sexual abuse committed by others.
The plaintiff, John W. Hardwicke Jr., said he was eager to tell his story to a jury. “For five years, we fought just to get the right to sue a school that had uncounted numbers of pedophiles,” he said. ...
The case brought heightened attention to sexual abuse of children at a time when the scandals involving pedophile priests in the Roman Catholic Church were unfolding. After emotional testimony in legislative hearings from people who were abused as children by clergy and teachers, New Jersey this year carved out an exception to the rule that charities and other nonprofit institutions cannot be sued for negligent hiring and supervision.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
THE DEFENDANT
Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, 44, founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in southeast Arlington, is accused of drugging and raping several women. Hornbuckle, who is married with three children, is being held in the Tarrant County Jail without bond because he repeatedly violated the conditions of his bail, including failing at least two drug tests.
THE PROSECUTORS
Sean Colston and Betty Arvin, senior prosecutors in the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office, are trying Hornbuckle on three charges of sexual assault involving three women - two of whom were former members of Hornbuckle’s church. Hornbuckle faces anywhere from probation to 20 years in prison on each charge if convicted.
THE DEFENSE ATTORNEYS
Veteran defense attorneys Mike Heiskell and Leon Haley are arguing that Hornbuckle is guilty only of being an unfaithful husband, father and servant of God. They say Hornbuckle had consensual sex with the woman who are accusing him of rape.
WISCONSIN
Reuters
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The family of a man murdered by a pedophile priest filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Roman Catholic church demanding it disclose the names of all of its U.S. clergy accused of sexual abuse.
The lawsuit was filed in Wisconsin's St. Croix County, where a judge last year ruled Dan O'Connell was murdered by Rev. Ryan Erickson. The civil suit calls for the disclosure of the names of all accused clergy in the U.S. church but seeks no monetary damages.
A St. Croix county judge ruled last October that Erickson, a 31-year-old parish priest in Hudson, Wisconsin, likely murdered funeral director O'Connell and his intern James Ellison out of fear that O'Connell was about to expose his past sexual abuse. Erickson hanged himself after being questioned by police.
The lawsuit said church authorities were aware of Erickson's violent past and erratic behavior.
"The suit asks the judge to compel disclosure of all the names of proven, admitted and credibly accused Catholic clergy," said David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who joined O'Connell's family in announcing the lawsuit in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
MILWAUKEE (WI)
WCCO
(AP) Milwaukee, Wis. The family of a man believed to have been killed by a Roman Catholic priest in Hudson filed a civil lawsuit Tuesday against nearly 200 bishops and other church officials, asking them to disclose the names of abusive priests.
The lawsuit against bishops throughout the country and the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops was filed in St. Croix County Circuit Court by relatives of Daniel O'Connell. He was shot and killed Feb. 5, 2002, at the O'Connell Family Funeral Home in Hudson along with an employee, James Ellison.
"We're finishing a job Dan started," said Janet O'Connell, Daniel O'Connell's mother.
St. Croix County Circuit Judge Eric Lundell ruled last October that there was probable cause that the Rev. Ryan Erickson shot the two men. Erickson hanged himself in December 2004 in Hurley, just days after police questioned him in the slayings.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
01:40 PM CDT on Tuesday, August 8, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH - A woman testified Tuesday morning that she considered killing Arlington pastor Terry Hornbuckle after her daughter accused him of rape.
Loretta Sheppard, 46, said her first thought was about "going home to get a gun to kill him." She said her daughter and sister convinced her not to take any action.
Mrs. Sheppard testified that Mr. Hornbuckle preached a sermon a few days later to his Agape Christian Fellowship congregation about the growing number of molestation cases. He told church-goers that if anyone molested his daughter, he would kill them, she said.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By TRACI SHURLEY
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Former football star Deion Sanders called the mother of one of Arlington Pastor Terry Hornbuckle's accuser's on Aug. 7, 2004, and asked her to "hold off on doing anything" against Hornbuckle, the woman testified Tuesday.
Loretta Sheppard, whose 23-year-old daughter, Krystal Buchanan, accused Hornbuckle of drugging and raping her July 31, 2004, said Sanders told her that he and Bishop T.D. Jakes of Dallas talked with Hornbuckle on the evening of Aug. 6.
Prosecutor Betty Arvin read Sheppard's previous testimony before the grand jury. In that testimony, Sheppard said Sanders told her that Hornbuckle "said that he was very sorry about what he did, and that he was suicidal." Sheppard said Sanders told her that he and Jakes were getting Hornbuckle help.
Sheppard said she was sitting in her sister’s car when she learned that the spiritual leader she had revered for eight years had drugged and raped her daughter.
Northern Ireland
Belfast Telegraph
By Sarah Brett
08 August 2006
Campaigners against clerical sex abuse today called on people in the North West to come forward with information about a paedophile priest once based in the Derry Diocese.
Father Neil Gallanagh worked in the parish of Craigbane in Claudy before the Catholic Church gave him a job in a school for deaf children in England, where he went on to abuse boys.
Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors (MACSAS) have appealed for information about Gallanagh's time in Derry in their bid to build a stronger case for an inquiry into the church's handling of the case 40 years ago.
They have been trying to uncover the history of Gallanagh (75), who was convicted of sexually abusing a nine year old boy in 1960 while on a day trip to the Isle of Man from his base in Claudy.
MILWAUKEE (WI)
TMJ4
MILWAUKEE - A group dedicated to exposing abusive Catholic priests is about to announce a bold legal move.
The Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP) holds a news conference in Milwaukee to announce a civil lawsuit against all U.S. Catholic bishops.
The suit will be filed by the family of Dan O'Connell, a Hudson man who, according to a judge, was murdered by Fr. Ryan Erickson. Fr. Erickson committed suicide after he was questioned about the murders of O'Connell and another man.
The judge's ruling said that before his murder, O'Connell had confronted Fr. Erickson with suspicions that the priest was molesting children.
ST. PAUL (MN)
Yahoo News
Tuesday August 8, 10:25 am ET
ST. PAUL, Minn., Aug. 8 /PRNewswire/ --
What: At a news conference, the family of a man who was murdered by a
Catholic priest will disclose and discuss the unprecedented
civil lawsuit they are filing against nearly 200 bishops and
other church officials. Among other reforms, the family seeks to
prevent future clergy sex abuse by forcing the church hierarchy
to disclose the names of all proven, admitted, and credibly
accused abusive priests.
When: TODAY, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2:45 p.m.
Where: At the law office of Jeff Anderson, FirstAbuse Tracker Bank Bldg.,
227 Minnesota Street, in downtown St. Paul.
Who: Six relatives of Dan O'Connell of Hudson, WI (including his
parents). O'Connell is one of two Wisconsin men who were shot
and killed by Fr. Ryan Erikson.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MELODY McDONALD
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
The Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, 44, the founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington, is on trial in state district Judge Scott Wisch's court, accused of raping three women, including two from his congregation.
If convicted, he could be sentenced to probation or to as much as 20 years in prison for each charge.
The trial resumes at 9 a.m. Tuesday after a four-day break.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By Bob Ray Sanders
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
STAR-TELEGRAM/RALPH LAUER
Defense attorney Mike Heiskell, left, talks with the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, who is accused of sexually assaulting three women.It's the best soap opera in town, featuring religion, drugs and sex. If it were televised, its ratings surely would compete with those of daytime melodramas on the major networks.
But the trial of the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, who is accused of sexually assaulting three women, will be seen only by those who can fit in the courtroom of state District Judge Scott Wisch.
Dozens of people were turned away on the first day of testimony Wednesday, and many would-be spectators and media representatives lined the walls outside Wisch's 372nd District Court when they were unable to get inside.
Those who did get to some of the nonreserved seats -- there are some seats set aside for media and family -- were reluctant to leave even during short breaks for fear of losing their places.
"No pushing! No shoving!" warned a bailiff as a herd of people pushed through the doors for the beginning of the afternoon session.
AUSTRALIA
Sunshine Coast Daily
08.08.2006
By RAE WILSON
A BUDDHIST monk ordained at the Chenrezig Institute at Eudlo was committed to stand trial yesterday over allegations he indecently touched two young girls.
Peter Jeffrey Wiltshire is accused of indecently dealing with two girls, both aged under 10, three times within the institute grounds on November 18 last year.
The 55-year-old clergyman allegedly put his hand down the top of one of the girls and then touched her bottom in the Garden of Enlightenment.
He also is accused of putting his hand down the top of the second girl.
AUSTRALIA
ABC
The Anglican Church says it hopes the jailing of a former Adelaide priest for sex abuse will help the healing process for his victims.
Raymond Ayles, 61, has been sentenced to four years in prison for abusing a 14-year-old altar boy.
Archbishop Jeffrey Driver says the diocese is continuing to work to regain the trust of the community.
JERICHO (NY)
Newsday
BY ANN GIVENS AND ALFONSO A. CASTILLO
Newsday Staff Writers
August 8, 2006
A Jericho woman filed a lawsuit against her one-time therapist yesterday, saying that he forced her to have sex with him many times during a five-year period - and then pay for each incident as a "therapy session."
The 39-year-old woman, who was not named to protect her privacy, was already a survivor of sexual abuse in 1998 when she sought counseling from Stephen Parrish. According to the suit, he claimed to be a psychologist affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Plainview.
Two years later, Parrish began forcing her to have sex, got her pregnant, then counseled her to have an abortion, the lawsuit says. In the end, Parish turned out not even to be a licensed psychologist, the lawsuit said.
"She was taking it because of her vulnerabilities," said Ken Mollins, of Melville, the woman's lawyer. "She was told that what he was doing was going to help her."
SOUTH AFRICA
The Heald
By Piet Van Niekerk
A TEENAGER from Summerstrand broke down in tears as she was asked to identify herself and other women in an album of hard-core pornography handed in as evidence in a string of charges ranging from rape, indecent assault, drug abuse and the making of child pornography against a well-known Summerstrand church pastor, who is her stepfather.
The teenager, who may not be named, testified in the High Court against the man who became her adoptive stepfather after she was taken from her parents at the age of six because of their substance abuse.
The dark-haired girl – dressed in jeans, a white top and black jacket – was calm throughout her testimony for the State, until she was asked to identify the girls in pictures printed from a data CD allegedly made by the pastor. The evidence remained sealed by the prosecuting team until the court hearing started yesterday morning to protect the girls in the pictures.
AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now
COLIN JAMES, LEGAL AFFAIRS EDITOR
August 08, 2006 01:03pm
AN Anglican priest who wanted to marry his 14-year-old male victim has been sentenced to four years in prison for indecent assault.
Raymond Frederick Ayles, 61, had been found guilty in the District Court of sexually abusing the boy between 1973 and 1975.
During his trial, Judge Andrea Simpson heard the victim’s parents had intercepted a love letter Ayles sent to their son but were told by church officials not to report the matter to police because the "church would take care of it".
CANADA
Toronto Sun
Tue, August 8, 2006
The past two weeks have produced a distressing flurry of news about sexual abuse and misconduct:
Peter Whitmore, a pedophile who has been in and out of jail since 1993, was charged again with abducting two prairie boys in a dramatic manhunt that ended in a 10-hour standoff.
A 21-year-old Kingston man was accused of using e-mail and instant messaging to lure more than 100 girls in at least two countries into performing sex acts in front of a camera.
A retired Chatham priest pleaded guilty to sex-related charges involving dozens of girls, decades ago.
A former Parkhill teacher pleaded guilty to using a computer to lure a young pupil, about to enter high school, to an encounter in which he sexually exploited her.
The first two stories have received a lot of attention, but the latter two are just as troubling, as they expose abuse (in one case, many years ago) by someone in a position of trust.
In a report to the Crown in the case of Chatham serial abuser Rev. Charles Sylvestre, psychologist and violence prevention expert Peter Jaffe outlined what, increasingly, are being understood to be common reactions by such victims, even many years or decades after the crime occurs.
PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
Two former city prosecutors whose open letter to Cardinal Justin Rigali accuses the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia of failing to protect parish children could well have quoted 18th-century statesman Edmund Burke.
Burke's famous prescription for "the triumph of evil" - "that good men do nothing" - is far too applicable to the ongoing legacy of sexual abuse of children by priests.
It's outrageous that a year soon will have passed since the shocking grand jury report on priests' sexual abuse of Philadelphia children without legal reforms from Harrisburg.
The former prosecutors, Mariana Sorensen and Maureen McCartney, played key roles in drafting the grand jury report. They wrote to the cardinal urging action on the legislative reforms, as well as needed disclosure by church officials about other suspected abusers in parishes.
UNITED KINGDOM
Leeds Today
A paedophile priest's abuse of young boys at a school for the deaf 30 years ago has triggered a massive compensation claim against the Catholic Church in Leeds. PAUL ROBINSON reports
HE held a position of trust with vulnerable youngsters looking for kindness as they grew up in an intimidating world of silence.
But behind Father Neil Gallanagh's respectable facade lay a desire for twisted sexual kicks which spelt grave danger for children in his care during the 1970s.
The indignities they suffered at his hands at St John's School for the Deaf, in Boston Spa, near Wetherby, Leeds, would remain a secret for three long decades.
Last year, though, the law finally caught up with Gallanagh when a number of his victims – now grown men in their 40s – found the courage to expose his evil actions.
SOUTH AFRICA
The Star
August 07, 2006 Edition 1
Tonight Reporter
Tomorrow is investigative television night when it comes to SABC3 and e.tv.
While the latter is doing updates on some of 3rd Degree's (8pm) more controversial topics, SABC3's Special Assignment, at 9.30pm, is focusing on homeless boys, living on the streets of Cape Town, who have become the prey of paedophiles.
Next week a British priest goes on trial in Cape Town on charges of indecent assault. His alleged victim is a 10-year-old boy - an orphan who had been placed in one of the city's shelters for homeless children.
This is not an isolated case.
SPRINGFIELD (IL)
Catholic Online
8/7/2006
Catholic News Service
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Retired Springfield Bishop Daniel L. Ryan "engaged in improper sexual conduct and used his office to conceal his activities" when he headed the diocese, said an investigative report released by the diocese Aug. 2.
It said Bishop Ryan, Springfield's bishop from 1984 to 1999, fostered "a culture of secrecy ... that discouraged faithful priests from coming forward with information about misconduct" by other clergy in the diocese.
The investigation did not address sexual abuse of minors by church personnel, for which the diocese has a separate process. But it found evidence of other misconduct in a few parishes and of inappropriate use of church-owned computers.
The report recommended policies and procedures for dealing with criminal and noncriminal misconduct by clergy, holding parishes to tighter standards of financial accountability and creating a model policy throughout the diocese for computer and Internet use.
Renew America
Brian Mershon Brian Mershon
August 7, 2006
From the August 10 edition of The Wanderer
Since the official May 19 statement from the Holy See suspending Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ, from all public ministry, more information has become available to shed light on the case from additional sources. The following letter and interview, a new charge of sexual abuse against Fr. Maciel, is an exclusive to The Wanderer.
Francisco Gonzalez-Parga, a former priest and seminarian with the Legionaries of Christ for 20 years, wrote an open letter to Fr. Juan Pedro Oriol, LC, and Messrs. Jorge Suarez Huizare and Arturo Lucke Gracian, after reading an article in which Fr. Oriol referred to the now-suspended Fr. Maciel as "a good, integral, and loyal man." The public letter appeared on July 6, in the El Informador, a Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, newspaper. It was in response to an article headlined "Discover the Truth," in the Mexican newspaper the Mural.
In an interview with The Wanderer, Gonzalez-Parga said the reason he has come public now is that he thought it was necessary due to "the obstinacy and lack of integrity of the Legionaries in their reactions to the sentence issued from the Vatican" and because of "their efforts to cover up the truth and to protect Fr. Maciel," he said. "I thought it was necessary to put an end to that."
Gonzalez-Parga said he was initially sexually abused by Fr. Maciel when he was 15 years old, and that he "cannot number" the actual instances. He also named a dozen ex-priests, seminarians and/or men who have worked for, or who still work for, the Legion whom he knows were also sexually abused by Fr. Maciel.
AUSTRALIA
ABC
The jail term of a former Wimmera Catholic priest in prison for sexually assaulting young boys is likely to be extended.
Gerald Frances Ridsdale, 72, appeared in the County Court in Ballarat yesterday, and pleaded guilty to 35 charges of indecent assault and sexual assault.
The charges are in addition to a raft of similar ones Ridsdale was found guilty of in 1994, when he was jailed for 18 years.
They date back to the 1970s and 80s, when he worked as a priest in much of western Victoria, including Ballarat, Mortlake, Warrnambool, Edenhope and Horsham.
NEW YORK
New York Daily News
BY BARBARA ROSS and ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
The divorce case that brought down one of the leaders of the Catholic Church in New York is still roiling in the courts - but Msgr. Eugene Clark has apparently made peace with his new role in life.
Clark resigned in disgrace from his post as rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral a year ago, accused of carrying on an affair with a church secretary 33 years his junior. He denied the claim - but when a videotape emerged of them leaving a Hamptons motel after 5-1/2 hours inside, he stepped down and moved out of the cathedral rectory.
Today, the 80-year-old priest lives in his quiet East Hampton home, entertaining his family in his sparkling backyard pool and staying out of the spotlight.
"Let's keep it that way," Clark said recently, declining to speak to a reporter at his home.
His alleged lover, secretary Laura DeFilippo, 47, is similarly mum - living in an apartment in White Plains as she tries to negotiate a final divorce settlement with her husband, Philip, 47.
AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph
August 07, 2006 12:00
A FORMER Ballarat Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting 10 young boys.
Gerald Francis Ridsdale, already serving time in Ararat prison for sexual assault, today faced the County Court in Ballarat to answer 35 charges relating to incidents involving boys between 1970 and 1987.
The court was told the 72-year-old committed the offences following a wedding, a funeral, mass, during confessions, on fishing trips, and at his victims' homes.
Ridsdale, who is serving an 18-year jail term for similar offences, faces a maximum of another 15 years behind bars.
He stood with his head bowed while crown prosecutor Tim Doherty detailed his offences, which included 24 counts of indecent assault with a male under the age of 16, four counts of buggery, and seven counts of gross indecency.
AUSTRALIA
The Age
Staff reporter
August 7, 2006 - 2:33PM
Victoria's most notorious pedophile, former Catholic priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale, has pleaded guilty in court today to 35 counts of child sexual abuse.
Ridsdale, 72, of Ararat Prison, admitted to 24 counts of indecent assault, seven of gross indecency and four of buggery in Ballarat County Court today.
The court heard the charges relate to assaults against 10 male victims in towns across western Victoria between 1972 and 1987.
The incidents occurred in Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh, Horsham, Edenhope, Mortlake and Warrnambool while Ridsdale was a Catholic priest.
AUSTRALIA
ABC
A former priest from the Wimmera region in western Victoria has pleaded guilty to 35 charges relating to indecent sexual assault against 10 young boys.
Gerald Francis Ridsdale, 72, has appeared in the County Court in Ballarat today on 24 charges of indecent assault, seven charges of gross indecency and four charges of buggery.
The charges relate to Ridsdale's abuse of boys in Baccus Marsh, Ballarat, Warrnambool, Edenhope, Horsham and Mortlake in the 70s and 80s when he was working as a Catholic priest.
In one case he told an 11-year-old boy, who was training as an altar boy, the abuse was acceptable because "he was closest to God" and "knew what to do".
UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post
Kate O'Hara
THE Catholic Church is being sued by victims of a former priest who they claim abused them when they were residents of a home for the deaf.
Eight men in their 40s who claim Father Neil Gallanagh abused them are taking part in a group action against him. If successful, they could be awarded up to £50,000 each, bringing the total payout to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
A writ has been delivered to the Leeds Diocese and the case is expected to go to court by next summer.
This writ follows Gallanagh's conviction in 2005, when he admitted indecently assaulting two pupils of St John's Catholic School for the Deaf, in Boston Spa, between 1975 and 1980.
Instead of being jailed, Gallanagh, 76, resident chaplain at the home, walked free and was given a six-month suspended sentence at Leeds Crown Court.
CANADA
London Free Press
Mon, August 7, 2006
By FREE PRESS STAFF
Excerpts from Bishop Ronald Fabbro's homily at St. Ursula's Catholic Church in Chatham:
My homily today comes in the aftermath of the guilty plea of Father Charles Sylvestre to many counts of sexual assault spanning many years . . .
I acknowledge that it may be difficult for victims to hear people like me speak on the subject of priestly abuse. In their pain and anger, what I say can seem insincere, defensive and self-serving. I am here to tell you that I am saying what I mean, and that I mean what I say . . .
I sincerely apologize to the victims and their families, for the abuse they endured at the hands of Father Sylvestre, and for suffering the consequences of that abuse over the years. I apologize, as well, for the failure of the church to protect the victims and their families from Father Sylvestre.
CANADA
London Free Press
Mon, August 7, 2006
By JENNIFER O'BRIEN, FREE PRESS REPORTER
The Free Press sat down with Bishop Ronald Fabbro after yesterday's apology for a followup interview. Highlights:
QI interviewed you when you first were appointed bishop and was asked by the diocese not to bring up the issue of sexual abuse. Today, you made a sincere and outspoken apology. What changed between then and now?
This case is unique in that the number of victims who are now coming forward over such a lengthy period of time. I thought it was important to take this opportunity to make a strong commitment that I, as a bishop, and us, as a diocese, do our utmost to make sure that it not happen again.
CANADA
London Free Press
By JENNIFER O'BRIEN, FREE PRESS REPORTER
CHATHAM -- In an unprecedented apology, Catholic Bishop Ronald Fabbro said yesterday he will petition to have a priest defrocked for sexually abusing at least 47 girls over four decades.
The vow came as Fabbro apologized before several of Charles Sylvestre's victims during yesterday's mass at St. Ursula's church, where some of the abuses occurred.
"This conduct over many years warrants Father Sylvestre's dismissal as a priest," Fabbro said.
"As the Bishop of the diocese of London, I will petition Rome for the laicization of Father Sylvestre."
CALIFORNIA
Ventura County Star
By Jean Ortiz, jortiz@VenturaCountyStar.com
August 7, 2006
They packed the church pews Sunday, clutching digital cameras, eager to glimpse an old friend now considered the highest-ranking American in the Roman Catholic Church.
Cardinal William J. Levada came with gold vestments, a miter and a warm smile to greet the congregation at St. Jude's Catholic Church in Westlake Village, returning more than 30 years after he lent a hand to the then-upstart church.
"I come with a great sense of gratitude," he said, noting how the experience helped shape him as a priest.
Levada, who also taught theology at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo decades ago, is settling into his new position as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the church's principal defender of all moral and theological doctrine. He also acts as the chief prosecutor against those who have violated church values, including clergy involved in the sexual abuse scandal.
CANADA
580 CFRA
Josh Pringle
Monday, August 7, 2006
The Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese of London has apologized for the sexual abuse of at least 47 girls over four decades.
Ronald Fabbro told the victims he will petition to have retired priest Charles Sylvestre defrocked.
Fabbro told reporters "this conduct over many years warrants Father Sylvestre's dismissal as a priest."
CANADA
The Chronicle Herald
By The Canadian Press
CHATHAM, Ont. — A Roman Catholic bishop will petition to have a retired priest defrocked for sexually abusing at least 47 girls over four decades.
Ronald Fabbro, bishop of the diocese of London, made the vow as he apologized before several of Charles Sylvestre’s victims during Sunday mass at St. Ursula’s Church, where some of the abuses occurred.
"This conduct over many years warrants Father Sylvestre’s dismissal as a priest," Fabbro said.
"As the bishop of the diocese of London, I will petition Rome for the laicization of Father Sylvestre."
One of Sylvestre’s victims bolted from the church, finding the moment too difficult.
CANADA
CD98.9
Ronald Fabbro, bishop of the diocese of London, has apologized to some of the women who were sexually abused by a Catholic priest when they were young girls. And Fabbro promised to petition to have Charles Sylvestre, who is now retired, defroked. Some of Sylvestre's victims were in the church yesterday to hear Fabbro's apology.
COLLEGEVILLE (MN)
St. Cloud Times
By David Unze and Frank Lee dunze@stcloudtimes.com, fclee@stcloudtimes.com
Published: August 06. 2006 12:44AM
COLLEGEVILLE — A member of the St. John's monastic community continued to work at St. John's Preparatory School for five years after he was accused of sexual misconduct.
The allegations against the Rev. Michael Bik were made in 1997 and included accusations of incidents with two teen-age boys in the 1970s, before he joined St. John's Abbey and before his ordination.
"With respect to Bik, if it came to us today we would have handled it differently," Abbot John Klassen said.
Bik — and the Revs. Bruce Wollmering and Robert Blumeyer — were named in a July 28 statement by the abbey concerning alleged sexual misconduct from the 1970s and 1980s. Bik stopped working at the school in 2002.
"It was at that time we said it is inappropriate for Michael to continue to be working in that situation," Klassen said.
ROME
Los Angeles Times
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
August 6, 2006
Gabriel Montalvo, 76, a Colombian archbishop and longtime Vatican envoy to trouble spots who retired last year as ambassador to the United States, died of lung cancer Wednesday at a hospice in Rome.
Montalvo entered the papal state's diplomatic service in 1957 and specialized in church relations with Communist governments in Eastern Europe. He served in a series of ambassadorial assignments to such tumultuous places as Nicaragua, Libya and Serbia.
In 1993, he was appointed president of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, where Vatican diplomats are trained. He held the job five years, then Pope John Paul II named him apostolic nuncio to the United States.
In his final ambassadorial job, Montalvo ordained bishops and acted as the pope's eyes and ears on matters of church importance, including the U.S. clerical sex-abuse scandal.
UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
The trial of a Colorado City polygamist who took his 16-year-old stepdaughter as a plural wife ended with a short stint in jail, probation and a lifetime listing as a sex offender.
But an Arizona judge said last week the outcome in Kelly Fischer's case has no bearing on how seven other men facing identical charges may fare in court.
Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steven F. Conn, who sentenced Fischer Wednesday, said there are differences in the remaining cases - including an allegation by one victim that she was forced to have sex - that will make each trial different.
"There may be other defendants in these cases that will go to trial and not even be found guilty," Conn said, as well as others who will "be found guilty and have different circumstances about their cases that are going to justify having them treated in different ways."
UNITED KINGDOM
The Observer
Antony Barnett and Ali Beach
Sunday August 6, 2006
The Observer
The Roman Catholic Church covered up the criminal past of a paedophile priest and gave him a job in a school for deaf children where he went on to sexually assault vulnerable young boys, an Observer investigation can reveal.
The church is now facing a massive compensation claim from the victims of the priest, Father Neil Gallanagh, who accuse the authorities of 'wilful neglect'. Child abuse campaigners are calling for a public inquiry into the case, which they claim led to a 'reign of sexual terror' for some boys at the school .
Last year Gallanagh, 75, pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting two pupils of St John's Roman Catholic School for the Deaf in Wetherby, West Yorkshire. The school was under the control of the diocese of Leeds, which employed Gallanagh. A further 11 charges against him of indecently assaulting five other boys aged under 16, including an 11-year-old, were left on file.
TRENTON (NJ)
The Trentonian
A controversial priest who was relieved of his duties in Trenton in 2002 for alleged sexual abuse of minors died Tuesday in his native Spain.
Monsignor Manuel Fernandez, 71, served as a priest in Trenton from 1971 to 2002; as rector at Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption, 151 N. Warren St., Trenton, from 1998 to 2002; as administrator at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, 540 N. Olden Ave., Trenton, from 1999 to 2002, and as pastor at St. Joseph’s in 2002.
The allegation surrounding Fernandez stemmed from 1982, charging he "engaged in inappropriate conduct with an adolescent female," according to the Diocese of Trenton.
After the Diocese received the complaint, an investigation was launched by the Diocesan Response Team, and they recommended the removal of Fernandez.
LOUISVILLE (KY)
Portsmouth Herald
By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Attorney Stan Chesley promised confidentiality to more than 350 people who said they were sexually abused by priests. Then a judge ordered him to reveal their names, along with contact information and a description of the abuse.
Unless the judge and attorneys reach a compromise, the Kentucky Court of Appeals will decide whether a promise of confidentiality trumps the need for prosecutors to get information on an alleged crime -- and whether a judge can order an attorney to reveal the identities of clients in a civil lawsuit.
Special Judge John Potter suspended his ruling this past week for 60 days to allow time for an appeal or resolution to the dispute.
The dispute is unprecedented among the numerous sex abuse lawsuits filed against the Roman Catholic church in North America, say the attorneys, the judge and outside observers.
"I don't know of any judge anywhere that has done this," said David Clohessy, national director of The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a nationwide support group. "Victims come forward because they can remain anonymous. He's jeopardizing that."
CANADA
London Free Press
By JANE SIMS, FREE PRESS JUSTICE REPORTER
An unprecedented public apology for a priest's sexual sins, expected today in a Chatham church, should have been made to the victims first, not a parish traumatized by Charles Sylvestre's abuse of little girls, one victim says.
The memories at St. Ursula's parish are too painful and raw for Lynn Petcoff, 41, of London to return to her childhood spiritual home.
Petcoff is one of 11 women who asked the court to have her name removed from a court-ordered publication ban in the case.
She said yesterday she'd be surprised if any of the 47 women Sylvestre abused attend the mass today to hear Bishop Ronald Fabbro, head of the Roman Catholic diocese of London.
"I can't go. I can't go back there," she said.
CANADA
London Free Press
Sat, August 5, 2006
By DANIELA SIMUNAC, FREE PRESS REPORTER
Three Southwestern Ontario, women, including Irene Deschenes, above, tell of how their lives have been devastated by their former priest, Charles Sylvestre. Page A12
Western Ontario's Catholic bishop will be met by a rally in support of victims when he arrives in Chatham tomorrow to formally apologize for the abuses of a now-retired priest.
Charles Sylvestre, 83, pleaded guilty in Chatham Thursday to sexually abusing dozens of young girls across the region between the early 1950s and the early 1980s.
The case resumes Sept. 22.
Bishop Ronald Fabbro of the Roman Catholic Diocese of London, who in a statement Thursday said "the abuse of minors has been a scourge in the Diocese of London that must end," is to preach a Sunday mass at St. Ursula's church where he will formally apologize for the diocese.
CANADA
London Free Press
By JANE SIMS, FREE PRESS JUSTICE REPORTER
In many ways, Lou-Ann Soontiens was Charles Sylvestre's perfect victim.
Abandoned by her mother at six months old, she was raised by her devoutly Catholic grandfather.
His wife -- her step-grandmother -- saw her as worthless and stupid and nothing more than a monthly social services cheque.
But Sylvestre made her feel special. And she confided to the priest about everything.
AUSTRALIA
ABC
The Anglican Church has issued a formal apology to a woman whose sexual abuse claims led to the resignation of then governor-general Dr Peter Hollingworth.
Beth Heinrich was sexually abused as a teenager by Reverend Donald Shearman in the central-west New South Wales town of Forbes in the 1950s.
Dr Hollingworth was accused of ignoring Ms Heinrich's requests for help when he was Archbishop of Brisbane in 1995.
The Anglican Bishop of Bathurst, Richard Hurford, says the Church apologises unreservedly for Reverend Shearman's unethical behaviour.
AUSTRALIA
The Age
August 5, 2006 - 1:22PM
A woman whose sexual abuse claims led to the resignation of former governor-general Peter Hollingworth finally has received an apology from the Anglican church.
Beth Heinrich was abused as a teenage schoolgirl by Reverend Donald Shearman in the central western NSW town of Forbes in the 1950s.
Half a century later, the Diocese of Bathurst has apologised.
LOUISVILLE (KY)
WHAS
03:46 PM EDT on Friday, August 4, 2006
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- The state Court of Appeals may have to decide whether hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have to reveal their identity to prosecutors.
Special Judge John Potter ruled previously that state law requires victims of sexual abuse to cooperate with authorities and give details of the alleged crime, including their identity when necessary.
Attorneys of the victims argue that the victims were promised anonymity when they came forward to detail abuse by priests from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington. Over 350 victims were awarded an 84 (M) million dollar settlement earlier this year.
Potter suspended his ruling this week for 60 days to allow time for an appeal or a resolution to the dispute.
LOUISVILLE (KY)
Lexington Herald-Leader
By Brett Barrouquere
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOUISVILLE - Attorney Stan Chesley promised confidentiality to more than 350 victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests.
Then a judge ordered him to turn over to prosecutors not only their names, but how to contact them and a description of the abuse.
The conflicting promise and order have set up a legal battle.
Unless the judge and attorneys reach a compromise, the Kentucky Court of Appeals will decide whether a promise of confidentiality trumps the need for prosecutors to get information on an alleged crime -- and whether a judge can order an attorney to reveal the identities of clients in a civil lawsuit.
Special Judge John Potter suspended his ruling this week for 60 days to allow time for an appeal or resolution to the dispute.
ALASKA
KTVA
Associated Press
A former Anchorage Catholic priest will pay part of a 1.4 million dollar settlement to be split between five men who say he sexually abused them as minors more than two decades ago.
Attorneys say the suit against Frank Murphy, the Anchorage Archdiocese, the Boston Archdiocese and the Missionary Society of Saint James the Apostle was agreed upon last week.
John Manly, an attorney for the plaintiffs, says they received an apology from Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Megan Tench, Globe Staff | August 5, 2006
Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley met yesterday with local leaders of Voice of the Faithful, the first sit-down meeting he has had with the lay group since they were banned from meeting in parishes in 2002.
O'Malley and the Rev. Richard Erikson, vicar general and moderator of the curia, met with four representatives of the Voice of the Faithful, including Dorothy Kennedy, the group's spokeswoman.
``It was a good meeting," said Kennedy, who was reached by telephone moments after the meeting, which lasted an hour and a half. Kennedy declined to comment on what was discussed and whether future meetings were planned.
Last week, O'Malley's office downplayed the significance of the meeting and said the cardinal has not decided to revise the Boston Archdiocese's policy toward the group, including a ban imposed on the group by Cardinal Bernard F. Law.
Leaders of the group, which was formed in Wellesley at the height of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in February 2002, said the meeting symbolized O'Malley's willingness to talk with an organization that has been demonized by some in the church.
Voice of the Faithful, which says it has 30,000 members across the country, has had a three-point agenda since its founding: Support victims of abuse, support ``priests of integrity," and its most controversial goal, ``to shape structural change within the church."
CANADA
London Free Press
Sat, August 5, 2006
By JANE SIMS, FREE PRESS JUSTICE REPORTER
For 50 years, she's coped with "a profound sense of loss and sadness."
At age 10, she was abused by Charles Sylvestre.
He fondled her breasts, exposed his penis and talked to her about her vagina.
He solicited her in confession.
She tried to suppress the memory of what she describes as "a degrading, vile sexual act on my body, too repulsive to mention, as I sat on his bed.
"Part of me died," she said.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Monterey County Herald
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - Lawyers sparred in court Friday over access to decades of records held by the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese, a dispute whose outcome could affect hundreds of pending molestation cases involving current and former Southern California priests.
The documents, personnel files and other materials at issue are being sought in the first three of nearly 600 sexual-abuse lawsuits filed against the archdiocese. The trials are scheduled to begin in November.
Donald Woods, an archdiocese attorney, told Superior Court Judge Haley J. Fromholz that lawyers representing accusers wanted the court's blessing to go ''fishing'' through 75 years of church archives, including everything from bishops' desk calendars to archdiocese newspapers and parish bulletins.
''This is absurd,'' Woods said at one point, asking how years of church newspapers could be relevant to the cases. He argued that records sought by the attorneys should be connected to alleged abuse issues, but ''they are using this as a hook to say every record'' should be disclosed, a request so vast it could involve information on a host of priests, teachers and other employees.
CANADA
CD98.9
A civil lawsuit has been launched against the St.Clair Catholic District School Board after a former priest who served in Port Dover at one time pleaded guilty to 47 counts of sexual abuse. Twenty-two of Charles Sylvestre's victims are also suing ten other groups for 88-million dollars in total.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
08:52 AM CDT on Friday, August 4, 2006
FORT WORTH – At first, I mistook Terry Hornbuckle for one of the lawyers. He has that look: smooth and confident, meticulously dressed, an elegant note of masculine gracefulness in the way he walks.
He doesn't share the slightly seedy, downtrodden appearance of other criminal defendants who have been residing in jail for a while. You get the feeling that after court adjourns for the day, he might put in an appearance at the Petroleum Club, instead of being locked up in a cell with all those crooks and creeps.
Looking at him, I started getting just an inkling of how impossible it might seem to call this man out in public, to come forth with an ugly story about drugs and lies and rape. How hard was it to challenge what even the prosecution concedes is "the handsome, charming, public face of Terry Lee Hornbuckle"?
FORT WORTH (TX)
WFAA
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, August 4, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – In a barrage of accusatory questions, an attorney for Arlington pastor Terry Hornbuckle suggested that one of his accusers was a flirt who could have made up a rape charge to get a multimillion-dollar settlement.
Attorney Mike Heiskell spent Thursday in court trying to discredit the woman, also asking her whether she purchased drugs in Deep Ellum and ingested them so she would later test positive for a date rape drug.
"You set him up, didn't you?" Mr. Heiskell demanded.
CANADA
London Free Press
By JANE SIMS, FREE PRESS JUSTICE REPORTER
CHATHAM -- He wore his priest's collar to win trust and respect in Roman Catholic parishes across the region.
The collar gave him an exalted place in the communities. The collar, many believed, also meant he was just a step away from God.
Yesterday, Charles Henry Sylvestre, 83, of Belle River, was wearing the collar again -- but this time in a criminal court, under the watchful eyes of his 47 sexual abuse victims.
Balancing himself against the table beside his lawyer, Andrew Bradie of Windsor, Sylvestre stood for 25 minutes as the court clerk read out the 47 counts of indecent assault.
PENNSYLVANIA
Times Leader
The victims of sexual abuse were abused yet once again, and by people who were actually in a position to lend a hand. As the Times Leader investigation continues to unfold, no doubt diocesan officials will continue to badger editors and reporters as the truth comes out – church hierarchy were more concerned about protecting pedophile priests than children. …
There should be no statute of limitations when the rights of children have been violated by those who lived much of their adult lives perched on a pedestal heightened by the trust of innocent and vulnerable believers.
As horrific as sexual abuse by priests may be, the perpetrators might merit a more forgiving place if only their superiors had the courage to do the right thing. For a few, counseling and close supervision might have been enough to prevent future abuses. Others clearly required something more intensive — a mental hospital or a prison.
ARIZONA
KLTV
An Arizona judge has sentenced a polygamist to 45 days in county jail for having sex with a teenager he took as his third wife.
The sentence disappointed authorities in Kingman, Arizona, who had hoped a harsher punishment for defendant Kelly Fischer would discourage others in the church from taking teenage wives.
Fischer was the first of seven members of the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints (FLDS) to be tried for plural marriages to minors.
SOUTH AFRICA
iafrica.com
Thu, 03 Aug 2006
A church youth leader (29) was on Thursday sentenced to three years house arrest by the Parow Magistrate's Court for indecently assaulting his two young female cousins.
They had been molested over a period of seven years.
The man appeared before magistrate Caryn Lehmann who said her main concern was his emotional need to be involved with youth, and his failure to address the problem.
The youth leader denied the incidents, and claimed he had "merely played housey-housey" with his cousins.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Tidings
The Office of Victims Assistance Ministry of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was created in April 2002 to deal with allegations of past or current sexual abuse by clergy, religious, and any lay person working or volunteering for the archdiocese. The office was charged with creating a safe and compassionate environment for victims to come forward, while ensuring that civil authorities are notified and victims are provided counseling and other assistance in the healing process.
Cardinal Roger Mahony mandated that a policy of "zero tolerance" be implemented throughout the archdiocese. Any person, whether clergy or lay, found to be engaging in inappropriate sexual misconduct with a minor is reported to authorities and can never work or volunteer for the archdiocese again.
Victims Assistance Ministry provides assistance to parishes and schools dealing with issues of sexual abuse of minors by church or school personnel, coaches or volunteers, and in family systems where abuse continues as a society-wide problem.
NEW ZEALAND
Newswire.co.nz
1:07 PM, 04 Aug 2006
A man who sexually abused young boys - some of whom he met through a church youth group - has been jailed for more than six years.
Robin James Hurd, 32, was sentenced in the Wellington District Court today on 13 charges including three of sexual violation to which he had earlier pleaded guilty.
Hurd's lawyer Greg King said Hurd had co-operated fully with the police and told them of two further complainants they knew nothing about.
CANADA
Canadian Christianity
By Peter Biggs
AS CHRISTIAN denominations and the federal government continue to work on a settlement with former students of Canadian residential schools, court hearings are about to begin across the country. The first one begins in Ontario in late August.
All parties agree that widespread abuse took place in residential schools from the opening of the first school in 1879 until they ended in 1986. The residential school program was established in the belief that aboriginal culture was unable to adapt to a rapidly modernizing and largely western European dominated society.
The assimilation process assumed that native children should be reprogrammed into mainstream Canadian society by adopting Christianity and speaking English or French. Students were discouraged from using their first language or practicing native traditions, indeed they were punished for doing so.
Following a long and tortuous process, a Royal Commission heard from numerous victims of abuse in 1991. Eight years later, the federal government issued an official public apology and set up an initial healing fund for victims.
CANADA
London Free Press
By KATE DUBINSKI, FREE PRESS REPORTER
One of London's largest law firms and a well-known survivor of sexual abuse are teaming up to work with victims who want to talk about their experiences.
Harrison Pensa LLP and John Swales, whose family successfully sued the Roman Catholic church over sexual abuse, have formed the Sexual Abuse Services Group.
"There is an absence of support for victims -- the gulf is just remarkable," said Dave Williams, Harrison Pensa's managing partner.
"People who have brain injuries, are paraplegic, there are a lot of groups and umbrella organizations that support these people. There doesn't seem to be much help on a co-ordinated level for sexual abuse victims."
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Mark Shanahan, Globe Staff | August 4, 2006
Walter V. Robinson, a Boston Globe newsroom veteran who in 2003 helped the newspaper win a Pulitzer Prize for a series of stories exposing sexual abuse by clergy in the Catholic Church, said yesterday he is leaving the newspaper to become a professor of journalism at his alma mater, Northeastern University.
Robinson, who has held more than a dozen jobs at the Globe in a career that has spanned 34 years, expects to begin his teaching duties in January. Globe editor Martin Baron said Robinson will continue to maintain a relationship with the paper, sharing his investigative expertise with the staff and periodically writing stories.
``You could say I'm the subject of that wacky country song, `How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away,' " Robinson, 60, quipped yesterday. ``I've had 15 or 16 jobs at the Globe, and I haven't had a lousy one yet."
CLEVELAND (OH)
Family News in Focus
by Steve Jordahl
A Cleveland man is being charged with multiple counts of raping nine boys with disabilities. His excuse? It’s a ritual of his religion.
Phillip Distasio told the court, “I’m a pedophile. I’ve been a pedophile for 20 years. The only reason I’m charged with rape is that no one believes a child can consent to have sex.” Armed with an ordination from an online church, he is claiming the charges are a violation of his religious freedom. Daniel Weiss is with Focus on the Family Action.
“That’s really the story of pornography. It warps a person to the point where they no longer have any sense of reason.”
Dr. Judith Reisman of the Institute for Media Education says a pedophile’s break with reality is shocking.
SOUTH AFRICA
Cape Times
August 4, 2006
A church youth leader, 29, was sentenced to three years' house arrest by the Parow Magistrate's Court yesterday for indecently assaulting his two young female cousins.
They had been molested over a period of seven years.
The man appeared before magistrate Caryn Lehmann, who said her main concern was his emotional need to be involved with youth, and his failure to address the problem.
The youth leader denied the incidents, and claimed he had "merely played housey-housey" with his cousins.
Lehmann said house arrest was not intended as a convenience for an offender, to keep him out of jail.
CANADA
CBC News
Last Updated Fri, 04 Aug 2006 09:19:58 EDT
CBC News
The Roman Catholic Diocese of London, Ont., has apologized for its failure to protect 47 women who were sexually abused by a former parish priest.
The apology follows 83-year-old Charles Henry Sylvestre's guilty plea Thursday to 47 charges stemming from sexual assaults against young females between 1954 and 1990.
In a one-page press release, Archbishop Ronald Fabbro said he sincerely apologizes "to the victims and their families for the abuse that they endured at the hands of Father Sylvestre, and for suffering the consequences of that abuse over the years."
He also apologized "for the failure of the Church to protect the victims and their families from Father Sylvestre."
LOS ANGELES (CA)
World Faith News
LOS ANGELES- California United Methodists have reached an out-of-court agreement to resolve a sexual abuse lawsuit stemming from the actions of a former pastor during the 1970s.
The denomination's two regional bodies in California, joined by two congregations, have agreed to pay plaintiffs $6.7 million to end the suit. It was brought by three men who claimed their former pastor, Gary Carson-Hull, abused them in the 1970s when he was associate pastor at Los Altos United Methodist Church in Long Beach.
Carson-Hull was immediately dismissed from the ministry when the parents of one of the plaintiffs complained to the church's senior pastor in 1979. The suits were brought after the California legislature reopened the state's statute of limitations for these kinds of cases in 2003.
According to officials of the conferences, insurance will pay most of the $6.7 million settlement costs.
CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times
By Louis Sahagun, Times Staff Writer
August 4, 2006
California United Methodists agreed Thursday to settle a lawsuit involving allegations of sexual abuse by a former associate pastor three decades ago for $6.7 million, church officials said.
The out-of-court settlement, which will come primarily from insurance, resolves a lawsuit brought by three men who alleged that Gary Carson-Hull abused them when he was an associate pastor at Los Altos United Methodist Church in Long Beach, officials said.
"He was working as a youth pastor at the time," said church spokesman Grant Hagiya. "We dismissed him and revoked all ministerial privileges after a parent complained in 1979."
UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News
More than 100 former pupils of a Catholic children's home are suing for damages over alleged physical and sexual abuse suffered while in care.
Action is being taken by 140 men against the organisations responsible for running St William's Community Home in Market Weighton, East Yorkshire.
If the claims are successful, damages could run into millions of pounds.
Former principal James Carragher was jailed for 14 years in 2004 for abusing boys in his care over a 20-year period.
CANADA
The Hamilton Spectator
Chatham (Aug 4, 2006)
A retired southwestern Ontario priest admitted in court that he sexually abused dozens of young girls between 1954 and 1985. Charles Sylvestre, who pleaded guilty to 47 of 61 sex abuse charges, will be sentenced Oct. 6.
All the victims were between nine and 14 at the time of the assaults. Sylvestre used candy to lure young girls to sit on his lap while he fondled their breasts and genitalia. The assaults occurred when he was a priest with various parishes in Chatham, Pain Court, Sarnia, London and Windsor.
Defence lawyer Andrew Bradie said Sylvestre, 83, doesn't even remember some of his offences, although "he acknowledges what happened."
SPRINGFIELD (IL)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Kevin McDermott
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
08/03/2006
SPRINGFIELD, ILL.
A St. Louis-based watchdog group is pressing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield to reveal more details about an internal investigation that found new cases of sexual and financial misconduct in the church.
"We like the fact that they have admitted this. It's a start," said Judy Jones of St. Louis, a member of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, at a news conference in front of the Springfield Diocese headquarters on Thursday. "We want to know what else they're going to do."
Specifically, the group wants names and details regarding several priests who, the church says, were found to have engaged in noncriminal sexual or financial misconduct.
On Wednesday, the diocese released an internal investigation that concluded that there had been a "culture of secrecy" that had spawned distrust in the diocese, which encompasses 28 south-central Illinois counties, including Madison, Jersey, Greene, Macoupin, Montgomery, Bond and Calhoun.
FLORIDA
Miami Herald
By AMY SHERMAN
asherman@MiamiHerald.com
The Rev. Neil Doherty got prescriptions from one or more South Florida doctors to obtain pills that he used to drug his victims before he raped them, several alleged victims told investigators, according to criminal and civil court records.
One alleged victim also said Doherty would use the names of dead priests to obtain prescriptions. ''As with many of these allegations, what we see here is a pattern . . . that Doherty almost refined over the years,'' said Jeffrey Herman, a lawyer representing several of Doherty's alleged victims in civil suits against the Archdiocese of Miami.
Doherty, the former priest at St. Vincent Catholic Church in Margate, has been charged with sexually abusing a boy -- starting when he was 10 years old -- and continuing for several years beginning in the 1990s. If convicted, he could face life in prison. Doherty's attorney has denied the allegations.
In court records, some of his alleged victims say Doherty would ply them with drugs and alcohol and they would fall asleep. When they awoke, they found that they had been raped, according to several of their statements, which have been obtained by The Miami Herald.
CANADA
Globe and Mail
Chatham -- A retired Southwestern Ontario priest pleaded guilty yesterday to sexually abusing dozens of young girls between 1954 and 1985.
Charles Sylvestre pleaded guilty to 47 of 61 sex-abuse charges and is to be sentenced Oct. 6. After the plea was entered, the diocese of London issued an apology, expressing deep regret to the victims.
In court statements, the victims detailed how the priest used candy to lure young girls to sit on his lap while he fondled their breasts and genitals.
CANADA
Calgary Sun
Fri, August 4, 2006
By CP
CHATHAM, Ont. -- A retired southwestern Ontario priest admitted in court yesterday he sexually abused dozens of young girls be-tween 1954 and 1985.
Charles Sylvestre, who pleaded guilty to 47 of 61 sex abuse charges, will be sentenced Oct. 6.
In court statements, the victims detailed how Sylvestre used candy to lure young girls to sit on his lap while he fondled them.
CANADA
CD98.9
A retired 83-year-old priest who admitted to sexually abusing dozens of young girls for decades and the Roman Catholic Diocese of London are being sued by the priest's victims. Charles Sylvestre, who once served in Port Dover, pleaded guilty in Chatham to 47 of 61 sex abuse charges. A civil lawsuit has been launched by 22 of Sylvestre's victims. Lawyer Barbara Legate says the suit totals 88 million dollars and names several groups, including three former bishops at the diocese as well as Sylvestre.
CANADA
The Star Phoenix
CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, August 04, 2006
CHATHAM, Ont. (CNS) -- A retired Roman Catholic priest, who lives near Windsor, Ont., has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 47 girls over a span of 34 years during his service in parishes in southern Ontario.
It is potentially the largest clergy sexual abuse case involving female victims in North America, a lawyer representing some of the victims said Thursday.
Many of the victims, now all women, were in a packed Chatham courtroom Thursday morning when Charles Henry Sylvestre, 83, entered his guilty pleas to 47 charges of indecent assault.
Several observers in the courtroom, including family members of the victims, wept as the court clerk read out the charges and Sylvestre responded in a calm, quiet voice.
The women ranged in age from nine to 14 years old at the time the assaults took place in parishes in Windsor, Chatham, Pain Court, Sarnia and London between 1952 and 1986.
ALASKA
Anchorage Daily News
By JULIA O'MALLEY
Anchorage Daily News
Published: August 4, 2006
Last Modified: August 4, 2006 at 02:08 AM
Five men who say they were abused as minors by Frank Murphy, a former Anchorage Catholic priest, will share a settlement of close to $1.4 million, according to John Manly, one of their attorneys.
"What this settlement means is the archdiocese acknowledges Father Murphy did it," said Manly, who is based in California. "He grievously harmed these men when they were children.''
The suit was filed last year against Murphy, the Anchorage Archdiocese, the Boston Archdiocese and the Missionary Society of St. James the Apostle. The parties came to an agreement last week, and Archbishop Roger Schwietz apologized to the men, Manly said.
Jim Gorski, lawyer for the Anchorage Archdiocese, confirmed an agreement had been reached but had few other comments.
CANADA
Montreal Gazette
LEE PALSER and TREVOR WILHELM, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, August 04, 2006
Lawsuits were filed yesterday on behalf of victims of retired priest Charles Sylvestre in what could be the start of North America's largest clergy sexual abuse case involving girls.
Sylvestre, 83, a retired Roman Catholic priest living in Belle River, Ont., pleaded guilty yesterday to sexually abusing 47 girls over a 34-year span in parishes in southwestern Ontario.
Many of the victims, now adults, were in a packed Chatham courtroom yesterday morning when Sylvestre entered his guilty pleas to 47 charges of indecent assault.
Several observers in the courtroom, including family members of the victims, wept as the court clerk read out the charges and Sylvestre responded in a calm, quiet voice.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston.com
August 3, 2006
BOSTON --Walter V. Robinson, who helped lead The Boston Globe to a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the clergy sex abuse scandal in Boston, will leave his full-time position at the Globe to teach journalism.
Letters from Robinson and Globe Editor Martin Baron that were distributed Thursday to the newspaper's staff said Robinson will remain a part-time consultant to Baron.
In January, Robinson, 60, plans to begin teaching reporting techniques at Northeastern University in Boston, with a focus on investigative reporting.
CANADA
Canada.com
By Lee Palser, The Windsor Star
Published: Thursday, August 03, 2006 Article tools
A retired Roman Catholic priest, who lives in Belle River, Ontario, has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 47 girls over a span of 34 years during his service in parishes from Windsor to London.
Many of the victims, now all women, were in a packed Chatham courtroom Thursday morning when Charles Henry Sylvestre, 83, entered his guilty pleas to 47 charges of indecent assault.
Several observers in the courtroom, including family members of the victims, wept as the court clerk read out the charges and Sylvestre responded in a calm, quiet voice.
The women ranged in age from nine to 14 years old at the time the assaults took place in parishes in Windsor, Chatham, Pain Court, Sarnia and London between 1952 and 1986.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
01:22 PM CDT on Thursday, August 3, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH - An attorney representing Terry Hornbuckle spent most of Thursday morning probing for discrepancies in the testimony of the first witness in the Arlington minister's rape trial.
A 23-year-old former church member, who accused Mr. Hornbuckle of rape, testified Thursday that she told the defendant to stop when he was attempting to have sex with her.
Terry Hornbuckle She said she remembered telling Mr. Hornbuckle: "No. I'm ready to go. Stop."
Mike Heiskell, one of the defense attorneys, noted that the woman's earlier grand jury testimony was different.
"I'm going to be honest," she told the grand jury. "Not one time did I say 'no.'"
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MELODY McDONALD
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
FORT WORTH – The 23-year-old woman who accused the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle of drugging and raping her in a Euless apartment two years ago returned to the witness stand Thursday morning, where she is undergoing exhaustive cross-examination by Hornbuckle’s attorney.
Mike Heiskell, who is defending Hornbuckle with Leon Haley, is attempting to attack Krystal Buchanan’s credibility and is questioning her motivation – pointing to a civil suit she filed against Hornbuckle and his multi-million dollar megachurch after the alleged sexual assault.
Buchanan, a former member of Agape Christian Fellowship, testified Wednesday that she met Hornbuckle at a Wendy’s restaurant July 31, 2004, on the pretext of receiving money for her 21st Birthday and a motivational tape or CD. She told jurors that Hornbuckle claimed he had left his checkbook at his "homeboy’s" apartment and asked her to go with him to get it.
Buchanan said Hornbuckle drove her to an apartment, where he gave her some punch that made her pass out. When she awoke, she was naked and Hornbuckle was getting off of her.
TEXAS
MySA.com
Web Posted: 08/03/2006 01:28 PM CDT
James Muñoz
KENS 5 Eyewitness News
A 55-year-old former Catholic priest was sentenced today for having child pornography on his computer.
Jerzy Sieczynski who was suspended by the Catholic Archdiocese could spend the next few years in prison.
A judge sentenced Sieczynski to three years in prison. The former priest will have to serve at least a year before he is eligible for parole.
Sieczynski was arrested in 2004 after a service technician found hundreds of pornographic images of children on his personal computer. At that time, he was on probation for a 2003 charge of indecent exposure, that misdemeanor charge is still pending in court.
SAN ANTONIO (TX)
KSAT
SAN ANTONIO -- A priest was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday for possessing child pornography.
The Rev. Jerzy Sieczynski applied for probation as punishment but District Judge Sid Harle rejected his request.
Harle told Sieczynski, who faced a maximum of 10 years in prison, that he had performed good works as a priest, but that the clergy are held to a higher standard.
Sieczynski pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing child pornography.
ITALY
Catholic World News
Aug. 03 (CWNews.com) - An American priest who faces child-molestation charges in Arizona has gone into hiding, after a court in Italy, where he has been living since 2003, authorized his extradition.
Father Joseph Henn had been living at the Rome headquarters of his Salvatoran Order, supposedly under house arrest, when he was discovered missing.
Father Henn was indicted in 2003 on 13 counts of sexual abuse of minor boys. His lawyers had aggressively fought against efforts to have him returned to Arizona for trial.
DECATUR (IL)
Herald & Review
By MIKE FRAZIER - H&R Staff Writer
DECATUR - A priest who formerly served Holy Family Parish in Decatur will be barred from the ministry, according to a report on clergy misconduct released Wednesday by the Catholic Diocese of Springfield.
Monsignor Eugene Costa was severely beaten in a Springfield park in December 2004 by two young men after he allegedly propositioned them for sex, according to the report.
Costa was removed from public ministry by Bishop George Lucas and has undergone a psychological evaluation and follow-up treatment. Lucas is taking the necessary steps within canon law to bar Costa permanently from ministry, the report stated.
Two Springfield teenagers were sentenced in July 2005 to 30 months in prison for beating Costa, who served as pastor of Holy Family Parish from 1987 to 1993.
SPRINGFIELD (IL)
State Journal-Register
By DAVE BAKKE
STAFF WRITER
Published Thursday, August 03, 2006
Bishop George Lucas on Wednesday addressed allegations of priest misconduct in what he said is an effort to put the Catholic Diocese of Springfield's stormy past behind it - for himself, his priests and the more than 160,000 Catholics in the diocese.
Lucas and Springfield attorney Bill Roberts, hired 18 months ago by the diocese to head an investigation into clergy misconduct, presented the results at a news conference.
The investigation confirmed serious, but not criminal, misconduct by eight priests in the diocese, four of whom were named in the report.
They are Msgrs. Eugene Costa, John Renken and Kenneth Steffen and Lucas' predecessor, Bishop Daniel Ryan. Costa, Renken and Steffen all held leadership positions under Ry-an and were pastors of parishes in the Springfield area.
SPRINGFIELD (IL)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Kevin McDermott
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
08/02/2006
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- An internal investigation of the Catholic diocese that includes Madison County acknowledged today that ``a culture of secrecy’’ has protected diocese priests who engaged in sexual and financial misconduct in recent years.
However, in presenting the report to the media, Springfield Diocese officials and the investigator they hired declined to reveal who some of those priests were, exactly what they did, where they are now -- or even how much the diocese paid for the internal investigation.
Among the few findings in the report that haven’t been previously revealed is that diocesan computers were used ``to access inappropriate sites and were otherwise employed in a manner inconsistent with the mission of the church.’’
CLEVELAND (OH)
Houston Chronicle
The Associated Press
CLEVELAND — A man accused of sexually assaulting nine boys with physical or mental disabilities told a judge that having sex with children is a sacred ritual protected by civil rights laws.
Phillip Distasio, who said he is the leader of a church called Arcadian Fields Ministries, represented himself at his pretrial hearing Wednesday. He is charged with 74 counts including rape, pandering obscenity to minors and corrupting another with drugs.
"I'm a pedophile. I've been a pedophile for 20 years," he said in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Wednesday. "The only reason I'm charged with rape is that no one believes a child can consent to sex. The role of my ministry is to get these cases out of the courtrooms."
Distasio said some of his congregants are among the victims in this case. Distacio, of Rocky River, is accused of molesting two disabled boys he tutored at his home and raping seven autistic boys at a Cleveland school for special-needs students where he was a teacher's aide. All but one of the victims were under 13.
ROME
ANSA
(ANSA) - Rome, August 3 - An American priest who is wanted in the United States on child molestation charges has gone missing while under house arrest in Rome.
Father Joseph Henn, who was indicted in 2003 for allegedly molesting three boys in Phoenix, Arizona in 1976-80, fled his lodgings near the Vatican a fortnight ago. On July 27, Italy's Supreme Court gave the green light to an American extradition request for the 57-year-old priest .
Henn had resisted extradition, arguing that he was innocent and that he feared for his life if sent to jail in Arizona .
CANADA
CBC News
Last Updated: Thursday, August 3, 2006 | 9:51 AM ET
A retired Roman Catholic priest facing sexual abuse charges was to appear in a Chatham, Ont., court Thursday.
Charles Sylvestre, 83, of Belle River faces 61 charges involving 47 alleged victims. The counts include indecent assault, sexual assault and sexual intercourse with a female under 14 years of age.
All of the alleged incidents occurred between 1954 and 1990, and cover parishes throughout southwestern Ontario, including Windsor, London, Sarnia, Chatham-Kent and Pain Court.
MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
Pamela Miller, Star Tribune
Last update: August 02, 2006 – 8:21 PM
The names of three priests accused of sexual misconduct, primarily in the 1970s and '80s, have been released by St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., abbey officials said Wednesday.
The abbey's external review board, created in 2003 in response to sex-abuse allegations, included the names in its annual report to Abbot John Klassen, said the Rev. William Skudlarek, Klassen's executive assistant.
The abbey has released about 13 other names in recent years, Skudlarek said. The newly named:
• The Rev. Robert Blumeyer, accused posthumously last year of having had a sexual relationship with a young man from 1969 to 1979, when he was assistant pastor at St. Bartholomew Parish in Wayzata. Blumeyer, who was associated with the abbey, died in 1983 at age 61.
• The Rev. Michael Bik, 57, accused in 1997 of sexual contact with two teenagers in the 1970s, before he joined the abbey and before his ordination. Bik taught theology and worked in campus ministry at St. John's Preparatory School until 2002.
• The Rev. Bruce Wollmering, 65, a retired St. John's psychology teacher and counselor, accused in 2004 of sexual misconduct with a student in the 1980s.
BLANCO (TX)
KEYE
Leslie Coons
Reporting
(CBS 42) BLANCO COUNTY There are new allegations swirling around an already troubled Hill Country monastery.
The man who's looking after the grounds at Christ of the Hills Monastery in Blanco County spoke exclusively with CBS 42. The focus of the conversation was how his faith and trust in the monks he once defended is now broken.
The incident has to do with the weeping icon--something the monastery has been known for since it first reportedly wept tears back in the mid 80's.
For more than a decade the monks have claimed the weeping icon was a miracle of God. Pilgrims would flock to see the statue and make donations to the monastery.
As the investigation into alleged criminal sexual activity escalated and the four monks who lived there were taken into custody, another investigation proceeded as well.
CBS 42’s Leslie Coons saw what happened when U.S. postal inspectors carried out their own warrants and reportedly seized the icon. The focus of that investigation is postal fraud.
NEW ZEALAND
Catholic News
Peculiarities of the extradition rules between New Zealand and Australia intended to make the process easier have prevented two St John of God clergymen on sex abuse charges from being extradited across the Tasman.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Br Rodger Moloney, 71, faces 28 charges, including sodomy, for allegedly assaulting 12 boys between 1971 and 1977 at a Christchurch boarding school for the disadvantaged and Fr Raymond Garchow, 58, faces four charges, dating from between 1971 and 1980.
The men who deny the charges won an appeal against extradition in April, when a Federal Court judge, Rodney Madgwick, decided their trial was likely to be unjust, mainly because of the time that had elapsed since the alleged offences occurred.
NEW ZEALAND
Sydney Morning Herald
Tim Dick
August 3, 2006
IF NEW ZEALAND was Zimbabwe, the two members of the St John of God religious order wanted on charges of sexually assaulting 13 Christchurch schoolboys might have been extradited by now.
Instead, efforts to have Brother Rodger Moloney, 71, and Father Raymond Garchow, 58, brought to trial in New Zealand are being stymied by a peculiar side-effect of Australia's extradition rules. The latest round in a long battle was fought yesterday.
Moloney faces 28 charges, including sodomy, for allegedly assaulting 12 boys between 1971 and 1977 at a Christchurch boarding school for the disadvantaged. Garchow faces four charges, dating from between 1971 and 1980.
The pair deny the charges, which were brought after the St John of God order agreed to pay $3 million in compensation over similar complaints in Victoria.
FORT WORTH (TX)
CBS 11
Mary Stewart
Reporting
(CBS 11 News) FORT WORTH Testimony in the trial of Terry Hornbuckle began Wednesday. The Arlington preacher is accused of sexually assaulting several women, including members of his church.
A 23-year-old Arlington woman took the stand Wednesday and said that Bishop Hornbuckle had drugged her, and raped her, after she passed out.
Defense attorneys say that Hornbuckle may be guilty of cheating on his wife, but that he is not guilty of sexual assault.
In court, Hornbuckle was described as a ‘prosperity’ preacher who liked the fine things in life. He led the Agape Christian Fellowship Church.
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, August 3, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH – The prosecution and defense agreed that Terry Hornbuckle lived a double life. But in their opening statements Wednesday in the Arlington pastor's rape trial, they disagreed whether his behavior was criminal.
Prosecutor Betty Arvin said the handsome, charismatic minister used his position of trust to lure women into private meetings to drug and rape them. Two of his three accusers were members of Mr. Hornbuckle's Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington.
"He prayed with them and then he preyed on them," Ms. Arvin said.
Defense attorney Mike Heiskell said that his client was a bishop behind the pulpit and a playboy behind closed doors. Mr. Hornbuckle cheated on his wife but didn't commit a crime, his attorney said.
"He was unfaithful to his wife. He was unfaithful to his children. He was unfaithful to his God," Mr. Heiskell said to the jury. He also said that Mr. Hornbuckle rented an apartment in Euless for his trysts with women.
CANADA
Globe and Mail
EVA SALINAS
VANCOUVER -- An extensive four-year search that took the RCMP across the Pacific has ended in the arrest of a B.C. man accused of sexually assaulting young residential-school students in the 1960s.
Gordon Irvin Kinney, 65, was arrested Tuesday in Thailand, at a residence about 80 kilometres southeast of Bangkok, the RCMP confirmed yesterday.
"We've spent the last four years chasing after this guy and we've gone literally to the other side of the world to get him. It shows the RCMP's determination to put this matter to rest," said Corporal Mike Pacholuk with the major crimes unit.
A Canada-wide arrest warrant was issued for the man in 2002, after he was charged with seven counts of gross indecency and indecent assault, which were related to his term as dormitory supervisor at St. Mary's Indian Residential School near Mission.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By MELODY McDONALD
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
FORT WORTH -- By all accounts, there was a different, darker side to the Rev. Terry Hornbuckle when he stepped down from the pulpit of his Arlington church.
Prosecutors say he was a sexual predator who used power, influence and date-rape drugs to take advantage of trusting women.
Defense attorneys call him a playboy who is guilty only of being unfaithful to his wife, his children and his God.
Before a packed courtroom Wednesday morning, both sides outlined their cases for jurors in the trial of Hornbuckle, the founder of Agape Christian Fellowship in southeast Arlington and a man everyone called "Bishop."
UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post
Yesterday, the Yorkshire Post revealed a former Catholic children's care home is facing a huge sexual abuse compensation case. Today, one of its former residents talks to Rob Waugh.
GIVEN up by his mother when he was a baby, classified as emotionally disturbed when he was only six, shunted from children's home to children's home, Graham Baverstock never stood much of a chance in life.
Never settling anywhere, his traumatic passage through the child care system eventually brought him to the St William's Community Home in 1973.
It was run by the Catholic De La Salle Brothers, and Graham should have been able to expect the kind of Christian love so badly needed by a damaged 15-year-old boy. Instead, like so many others who passed through the doors of the Market Weighton home, he was seen as little more than fodder for a regime under which brutality and sexual abuse became commonplace.
Now an embittered 48-year-old man, Graham has waived his right to anonymity to talk about his experiences at the home and the devastating effect they have had on his life.
PHOENIX (AZ)
Reuters
By David Schwartz
PHOENIX (Reuters) - A fugitive Catholic priest ordered back to Phoenix from Rome to face child sex charges has vanished, authorities in Arizona said on Wednesday.
The Rev. Joseph Henn, 57, could not be found at the headquarters of his religious order in the Italian capital when authorities arrived with an extradition order issued by the Italian Supreme Court, Arizona prosecutors said.
Henn, accused of molesting three boys from 1979-1981, had been under house arrest for the last year at the Society of the Divine Savior and was trying to block his return to Phoenix when he disappeared about two weeks ago, they said.
"Joseph Henn has consistently thumbed his nose at lawful authority," Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said. "This latest act of defiance underscores his disrespect for the law. He can run, but he can't hide. He will be apprehended and justice will be done."
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Cambridge Chronicle
By Erin Smith/ Chronicle Staff
Thursday, August 3, 2006
If Blessed Sacrament parishioners had known their spiritual father and convicted pedophile had confessed his guilt to another priest, they might not have begged the court for leniency.
A judge sentenced former Cambridge priest Paul Hurley to four years in prison last week for raping a teenage boy at the former Blessed Sacrament church in the 1980s.
Judge Hiller Zobel delayed sentencing for two days after prosecutors submitted an affidavit from a fellow priest, Rev. Charles Higgins, who claimed that Hurley admitted to him in November 2001 that he sexually assaulted the victim.
Zobel agreed to consider Higgins’ statement in imposing sentencing, citing that the tone of the some of the letters in support of Hurley might have been different if they had known about his alleged confession.
More than 50 Hurley supporters had written letters to the judge, pleading for leniency during sentencing. One letter called Hurley’s conviction a "crucifixion by the press," according to prosecutors.
SPRINGFIELD (IL)
Belleville News-Democrat
Associated Press
SPRINGFIELD - An investigative committee said Wednesday it found some "serious misconduct" by a few priests within the Springfield Catholic Diocese that includes Madison County but no criminal activity after an 18-month probe.
The five-member panel of church members and the former federal prosecutor who headed the group's investigation released its findings and recommendations for preventing future problems at a news conference.
The problems centered around former diocese Bishop Daniel Ryan, who the probe found engaged in improper sexual conduct and used his position to hide that behavior.
The committee also discovered evidence of financial mismanagement and inappropriate use of church computers. Church officials are seeking severe punishment of one former priest and investigating two others for misconduct, but stressed none of the wrongdoing involves abuse of minors.
CANADA
CD98.9
A retired priest that once worked in a Port Dover church is facing sex abuse charges is due in a Chatham court today.
Belle River's Charles Sylvestre faces a total of 61 counts of sexual abuse from 47 women.
SAN DIEGO (CA)
KUSI
A group of San Diegans who claim they were molested and abused by Roman Catholic Priests are demanding the Church turn over the names of alleged perpetrators.
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or "SNAP" delivered the request in a letter to Bishop Robert Brom Tuesday. Brom has so far refused to do so.
The group is also demanding the release of names of people who have been "credibly accused".
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By ANTHONY SPANGLER
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - The two faces of Terry Hornbuckle were the focus of attorneys’ opening statements today in the Arlington minister’s sexual assault trial.
Prosecutors portray Hornbuckle as a self-proclaimed bishop who “prayed with women, then preyed upon them,” using his position in the church, and occasionally date-rape drugs, to gain the women’s trust and have sex with them.
But his defense attorney, Mike Heiskell, described his client as a prosperity minister who became “too full of himself” and had an insatiable sexual appetite that led to consensual relationships with his accusers.
“Behind closed doors, he called himself a lover, a playboy,” Heiskell said of Hornbuckle. “He is guilty of being an unfaithful husband, and unfaithful father, and an unfaithful servant of God.”
FORT WORTH (TX)
NBC 5i
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Court documents list additional allegations against a former Arlington minister who goes on trial Wednesday for sexual assault. The documents reveal that at least 18 women claim improprieties against Terry Hornbuckle, who was known to his followers as a bishop.
The judge has slapped a gag order on all participants in the criminal case and many court documents are sealed, but a public document that prosecutors filed last month lists 50 extraneous offenses against Hornbuckle that the state intends to introduce at trial.
Hornbuckle faces six counts of sexual assault against five women. Three have filed civil lawsuits.
"They put their trust in the bishop of their church, and that trust was abused in the grossest possible sense," one plaintiff's lawyer, G. Lee Finley, said.
PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News
By MICHAEL HINKELMAN
hinkelm@phillynews.com 215-854-2656
A dozen people who are suing the Archdiocese of Philadelphia yestersday asked a federal judge to turn aside the archdiocese's request to dismiss a class-action lawsuit filed against it and its current and former top leaders.
The lawsuit alleges that the archdiocese and its officials violated federal racketeering and conspiracy laws when they allegedly covered up cases of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests.
The new court filing by the plaintiffs said their lawsuit should not be dismissed unless it "appeared" that they could not prove any facts to support their claims for damages.
A Philadelphia grand jury report last year blasted the archdiocese and its leaders, accusing them of hiding and enabling the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by 63 Catholic clergy here over several decades.
The grand jury did not charge anybody because a state statute of limitations barred filing criminal charges.
ARIZONA
KVOA
PHOENIX A Catholic priest has fled from Italian authorities just days before his extradition to Arizona to face 13 counts of child molestation.
Joseph J. Henn was indicted by a grand jury in July 2003 as part a Maricopa County Attorney's Office major investigation into decades of sexual misconduct by clergy in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix.
The 57-year-old Henn is accused of molesting three boys between 1979 and 1981 when he was a priest at St. Mark's Catholic Parish in Phoenix from 1978 until 1982.
SOUTH AFRICA
Sunday Times
Wednesday August 02, 2006 09:43 - (SA)
Rape charges against a Durban Roman Catholic priest have been withdrawn on humanitarian grounds, the Mercury website reports today.
His doctor told the Durban Regional Court yesterday the 75-year-old cleric was very ill, suffering from dementia and could not appear, let alone defend himself against the charges. A 38-year-old woman, who lives abroad, claimed the priest raped when she was a child.
Prosecutor Val Lotan handed in a report compiled by a district surgeon who visited the priest this week.
His finding was that the priest could not attend his trial nor defend himself against the charges. Lotan said that the state would withdraw the charges on humanitarian grounds in light of the two doctors' reports.
INDIA
India News
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006
Kochi - Three people, including a woman, were arrested Wednesday for forcibly taking a now-sacked senior Sabarimala temple priest to the house of a woman and photographing the two together in a state of undress.
A woman, Shobha John, and her two associates were arrested for blackmailing and extortion demands on the thantri (priest) Kantaru Mohanaru last month.
According to Arun Kumar Sinha, south zone inspector general of police, Mohanaru, who was sacked as priest last month, was ‘forcibly brought to her flat here and made to strip’.
‘He was photographed along with another woman. Investigations are on and we expect to come out with more details on whether any others were involved,’ Sinha told IANS.
SPRINGFIELD (IL)
State-Journal Register
By DAVE BAKKE
STAFF WRITER
Published Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Bishop George Lucas and Springfield attorney Bill Roberts will hold a news conference this afternoon to discuss the long-awaited results of an 18-month investigation into allegations of clergy misconduct in the Catholic Diocese of Springfield.
A press release issued Tuesday by the diocese stated: "Results of the investigation have been turned over to a panel composed of volunteers representing a cross-section of community leadership. The panel has now completed its report and will announce the results of their work, along with their recommendations ...."
Diocesan spokeswoman Kathy Sass said she could make no other comment regarding the substance of today's news conference.
The investigation was launched Feb. 17, 2005, in the aftermath of the beating of Monsignor Eugene Costa, then chancellor of the diocese and pastor of two Springfield-area parishes.
BOSTON (MA)
TheBostonChannel.com
BOSTON -- State lawmakers ended the formal portion of their two-year session at midnight on Monday without taking final action to overhaul the state's welfare rules or several other anticipated proposals. ...
Legislators on Monday were also were working on hammering out differences between legislation cracking down on sex offenders and easing the statute of limitations on reporting child sex abuse crimes; changing the rules for teen drivers; and updating child labor laws.
The legislation on sex abuse crimes would give childhood victims until they are 43 years old to report sexual crimes. Currently, the law gives victims 15 years to report a sex-abuse crime after the victim's 16th birthday.
MASSACHUSETTS
The Republican
By DAN RING
dring@repub.com
BOSTON - Gov. W. Mitt Romney yesterday urged the state Legislature to return to a formal session, saying lawmakers failed to complete a bill that authorizes the administration to borrow money and numerous capital programs and projects will be halted.
"We have projects under way that are going to have to be stopped," Romney said during a Statehouse press conference. ...
Before finishing their formal sessions for the year at midnight Monday, legislators left several other major bills on the table, including welfare reform, boosting training and supervision for young drivers, extending the statute of limitations for child sex-abuse claims by 12 years, and requiring the state Department of Public Health to set specific nurse-to-patient ratios.
Sen. Stanley C. Rosenberg, president pro tempore, said yesterday it's possible legislators could adopt a special order to convene again in a formal session later this year to act on certain items.
BRIDGEPORT (CT)
The Connecticut Post
DANIEL TEPFER dtepfer@ctpost.com
BRIDGEPORT — The Roman Catholic Diocese on Monday agreed to pay a settlement to a former local man who claimed he was sexually abused by a priest while attending Notre Dame High School in Fairfield in the late 1970s.
The terms of the settlement, negotiated with U.S. Magistrate William I. Garfinkel, were not disclosed.
Lawrence Freeman, who now lives in Washington state, claimed he was abused on numerous occasions by the Rev. James Gildea, who worked as a guidance counselor and teacher at the Catholic high school. Gildea died in 1986.
Freeman is represented by Cindy Robinson of Tremont and Sheldon.
ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic
Michael Clancy
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 2, 2006 12:00 AM
A Catholic priest has dodged justice for a second time, fleeing Italian authorities to avoid facing 13 felony counts of child molestation in Maricopa County Superior Court.
The Rev. Joseph Henn, who had been living under house arrest at the Rome headquarters of his religious order, the Salvatorians, disappeared days before an Italian court ordered his extradition to the United States, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said Tuesday.
"Henn has consistently thumbed his nose at lawful authority," he said. "This latest act of defiance underscores his disrespect for the law." advertisement
He is one of almost 30 priests who resided in the Phoenix Diocese to be accused of sexual misconduct with children, and he was on track to be one of the last to be brought to stand trial.
AUSTIN (TX)
News 8
Updated: 8/1/2006 5:34 PM
By: News 8 Austin Staff
The Minister of Education at Great Hills Baptist Church is facing a charge of sexual assault to a child.
Jerry Dale Carver, 51, was arrested at his home Monday night. Police say he picked up a 15-year-old boy at a bus stop at Parmer and Metric on July 25.
Police say when Carver engaged in inappropriate conversation and physical contact, the boy tried to get out of the car. But investigators say Carver drove him to a park called The Quarries off of MoPac in Northwest Austin, where he sexually assaulted the boy then drove him home.
FORT MYERS (FL)
NBC 2
FORT MYERS: Police arrested a Fort Myers pastor Monday night for allegedly sexually assaulting three young boys from his parish. Fifty three year old Russell Brown, who worked at the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, is charged with three felony counts of lewd and lascivious behavior.
In a letter to his parish, Brown resigned from his church after 20 years, but didn't give a reason.
"A little while later, then you got an announcement that he had done some unjustified things to little kids," said Nikki Preston, Antioch church member.
Many church members couldn't believe the news.
FLORIDA
The News-Press
Originally posted on August 01, 2006
Fort Myers police arrested a former pastor late Monday on sexual molestation charges, police officials said this morning.
Russell Lee Brown, 53, was a pastor at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church until he resigned in May after 20 years, according to court records. Brown, 2 Kingsman Circle, Fort Myers was charged with three counts of lewd and lascivious battery, police said.
Detectives are investigating at least six allegations of sexual molestation that occurred between 1999 and 2005. The victims who came forward were 10 and 11 when the alleged crimes occurred.
AUSTIN (TX)
American-Statesman
By Claire Osborn
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
The minister of education at Austin's Great Hills Baptist Church has been accused by police of luring a 15-year-old boy into his car at a bus stop and sexually assaulting him.
Austin police said Jerry Dale Carver, 51, was arrested Monday at his home and charged with sexual assault of a child in connection with the July 25 incident. The second-degree felony carries a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison.
Carver was released from the Travis County Jail on Monday night on $20,000 bail and could not be reached for comment. Carver told police that the teenager got into his vehicle willingly and initiated sexual contact with him, an arrest affidavit said.
Carver's arrest marks the second time that a leader at the 5,000-member Northwest Austin church has been accused of sexually assaulting a teen. In 1999, youth minister Charles Richard "Rick" Willits was sentenced to 15 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy he met at church. Willits is eligible for parole in April, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
COLUMBIA (MO)
Columbia Daily Tribune
By SARA AGNEW of the Tribune’s staff
Published Tuesday, August 1, 2006
A former Columbia minister has been charged with sexually abusing a 15-year-old local girl who attended his worship services.
The Rev. Roberto Edgar Lopez, 36, was arrested yesterday in Monett on suspicion of one count of statutory sodomy and one count of statutory rape. He remained in the Lawrence County Jail today on a bond of $100,000, awaiting transfer to the Boone County Jail.
Columbia police began investigating Lopez after the girl’s mother contacted authorities July 25 about suspicious instant messages she discovered on her home computer, indicating her daughter might be having a sexual relationship with Lopez.
AUSTIN (TX)
KEYE
(CBS 42) AUSTIN Jerry Dale Carver is not the first pastor at Great Hills Baptist Church to be accused of sexual assault.
In June 1998, Austin police arrested youth minister Rick Willits and accused him of assaulting a 14-year-old boy. The boy, who was a member of Willits' youth group, said he was molested in 1995 and 1996.
UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post
Exclusive
Rob Waugh
A FORMER Catholic children's home is facing one of the biggest sexual abuse compensation claims of its kind the country has seen, with 140 men suing for damages likely to run into millions of pounds.
The organisations responsible for running the St William's Community Home in Market Weighton, East Yorkshire, are being held responsible for allowing a brutal regime to run unchecked for nearly 30 years, during which time countless acts of severe sexual and physical abuse were inflicted on some of the region's most deprived and damaged children.
It is understood to be the country's biggest child abuse case centring on a single location. Many of the claimants' cases involve alleged rape which can carry compensation of upwards of £50,000.
AUSTRALIA
ABC
A South Australian man is suing the Catholic Church claiming he was subjected to sexual abuse as a child inside the church's confessional box.
The man, now in his late 40s, claims he suffers from increasing flashbacks from being sexually abused by a Catholic Monsignor at a parish in the state's mid-north more than 30 years ago.
The Monsignor has died since.
In his District Court statement of claim, the man says the Monsignor sexually assaulted him each week as he gave confession, estimating the total number of incidents at about 1,000.
BRIDGEPORT (CT)
NBC 30
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- The Bridgeport Diocese has agreed to pay a settlement to a former Bridgeport man who said he was sexually abused by a priest while a high school student in the late 1970s.
Terms of the settlement, which were negotiated with U.S. Magistrate William Garfinkel, were not disclosed.
Lawrence Freeman is now 43 years old and lives in Washington state. He said he was abused on numerous occasions by the Rev. James Gildea, who was a guidance counselor and teacher at Notre Dame High School in Fairfield from 1976 to 1979.
Gildea died in 1986.
HAVERTOWN (PA)
The Christian Science Monitor
By Mary Beth McCauley | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
HAVERTOWN, PA. – Kevin Gallagher bounds down the rectory stairs at 8:25 - cutting it close as always - a few steps away from ready for weekday morning Mass. He's every Irish mother's son - dark hair thinning and freshly combed, ruddy face scrubbed and shaven, polo shirt neatly tucked in over a frame beginning to show his love of cooking.
He jokes with staff, and yells a greeting out the open window, pulling himself into his vestments. Double-checking the Scripture passage, he finally gives the nod that it's time to begin.
In the 31-years since Fr. Gallagher was born, the number of Roman Catholic priests in the U.S. has dropped sharply, from about 59,000 to fewer than 44,000 today. ...
Gallagher was ordained into a post-scandal church, one far different from the church that nurtured him. "You just need to be professional, and that's something we've lacked." High school girls don't answer rectory phones in the evening any more, nor do priests chaperone youth service trips alone. Office doors often remain open when there's a visitor, and, if not for the aesthetics of it, Gallagher would have his solid door replaced with glass. "Am I afraid of being accused falsely? Yes. But it doesn't overwhelm me. You can't be afraid of [ministering to] children."
On a personal level, the scandal has been heartbreaking, says Gallagher, who recalls being awoken just prior to his ordination with news that a trusted high school principal of his had been accused. "The pastor knocked on my door and said he didn't want me to hear this on the radio." The release in 2005 of a damning grand jury report on sexual abuse in the archdiocese of Philadelphia brought a two-inch-high stack of mail to St. Denis, some angry, some supportive. The three priests serving the parish resolved together to remain visible and outspoken.
SOUTH AFRICA
IOL
Tania Broughton
August 02 2006 at 07:58AM
A woman who claimed a Durban Roman Catholic priest raped her when she was a child will never have her day in court after the state withdrew the charges against the now elderly cleric on Tuesday on "humanitarian grounds".
His alleged victim, who is 38 and lives abroad, told The Mercury: "I need some time to digest this."
She had been preparing to come to South Africa to give evidence in the trial which should have begun in the Durban regional court on Tuesday, with the priest pleading to the charges.
But the priest, who is now 75, did not appear in court. Instead his doctor told Magistrate Trevor Levitt that he was very ill, suffering from dementia and could not appear, let alone defend himself against the charges. When the priest, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was first arrested in 2004, he appeared fit and healthy.
The Kansas City Star
By EUGENE CULLEN KENNEDY
Religion News Service
More than two years ago, Wilton Gregory, the then-president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, claimed the clergy sex abuse scandal was “history.” Gregory was saying, in effect, that Catholics didn’t have to worry about it anymore and it was safe for their children to become altar servers again.
That statement was meant to reassure Catholics (it did not) and end all the talk about the scandal and shield the bishops from further attacks and lawsuits (it didn’t do that either). A new book, Sex, Priests and Secret Codes, reveals the long history not just of clergy sex abuse but of church officials’ desire to deny it and dismiss it from our attention.
Why don’t these church officials want you to hear of — much less read — this book written by the Rev. Thomas Doyle, psychotherapist Richard Sipe and Patrick Wall, a tracker of sexually abusive priests?
Sipe, trained in dealing with the mental health of the clergy and a frequent “expert witness” at trials of accused sex abusers, told me that this annotated history of the problem was prompted by the responses from church officials at legal depositions.
“The church has the best records of the history and development of sex abuse up until this time and yet, time and time again, officials deny that they knew that such a general problem ever existed or that they knew anything about a particular problem in their own diocese,” he said.
BRIDGEPORT (CT)
Newsday
August 1, 2006, 8:11 AM EDT
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) _ The Bridgeport Diocese has agreed to pay a settlement to a former Bridgeport man who said he was sexually abused by a priest while a high school student in the late 1970s.
Terms of the settlement, which was negotiated with U.S. Magistrate William I. Garfinkel, were not disclosed.
Lawrence Freeman, 43, now lives in Washington state. He said he was abused on numerous occasions by the Rev. James Gildea, who was a guidance counselor and teacher at Notre Dame High School in Fairfield from 1976 to 1979.
Gildea died in 1986.
James Stapleton, the lawyer who represents the diocese, said the diocese does not admit liability.
WFAA
12:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, August 1, 2006
By REESE DUNKLIN / The Dallas Morning News
A fugitive Catholic priest who lived a block from the Vatican vanished days before Italian authorities ordered his return to the U.S. to face charges he sexually abused young boys.
The Rev. Joseph Henn was one of seven priests that The Dallas Morning News found in Rome in 2004 as part of yearlong investigation into how accused clerics moved from country to country to escape justice, often with the Catholic Church's help.
Father Henn had refused to return to Phoenix, where he is wanted on charges of abusing three boys in the 1980s. He spent the last year under house arrest at his religious order's world headquarters in Rome while the Italian government considered a U.S. extradition request.
The priest disappeared about two weeks ago while awaiting a ruling from the Italian Supreme Court, said his American superiors in the Society of the Divine Savior religious order. Under terms of his house arrest, he could venture out only to visit his doctor or lawyer, according to Catholic News Service, which reported the court's ruling last Friday.
ALBANY (NY)
Albany Times Union
By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Staff writer
First published: Tuesday, August 1, 2006
ALBANY -- Prosecutors have withdrawn contempt charges against a longtime critic of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, who was arrested for allegedly violating a restraining order while protesting outside the Catholic Church of the Holy Cross in April, according to the man's attorney.
Mark Lyman, local director of the group SNAP -- Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests -- was charged on Palm Sunday with criminal contempt after police said he was protesting closer than 100 feet to the church's entrances and exits, allegedly in violation of the court order.
But in a letter from Albany County District Attorney David Soares to City Court Judge Rachel Kretser, Soares said his office was dropping the charges because Lyman's truck was actually in the designated protesting area.
The letter was dated July 18 and made available by Lyman's attorney, John Aretakis, who received a copy. Rachel McEneny, a spokeswoman for Soares, confirmed it was legitimate.
ARLINGTON (TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
By MARK AGEE
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
ARLINGTON — There were two months of “he said, she said,” then 15 months of silence forced by a judge’s gag order.
But beginning Wednesday, the silence will be broken and 12 jurors will have to decide who the real Terry Hornbuckle is.
Is he the rising star minister who started with a Bible study group that met in an abandoned Dairy Queen and went on to build it into a 2,500-member church in south Arlington with a ministry worth millions?
Or is he a serial predator who used his power and influence to bed young female congregants by slipping drugs into some of their drinks?
Testimony is expected to begin Wednesday morning in state District Judge Scott Wisch’s court. The trial is expected to take two to three weeks.
TEXAS
American-Statesman
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Four monks from Christ of the Hills Monastery near Blanco pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of sexual assault of a child and organized criminal activity.
At their court appearance in Johnson City, three monks — Walter Paul Christley, 45, Hugh Brian Fallon, 40, and William Edward Hughes, 55 — requested additional time to hire lawyers or obtain court-appointed lawyers, Blanco County District Attorney Sam Oatman said. A fourth, monastery founder Samuel Alexander Greene, 61, who was released on personal recognizance because of health problems, waived his right to an arraignment but also pleaded not guilty, Oatman said.
The fifth man charged after a raid on the monastery last week, Jonathan Irving Hitt, 45, is serving a 10-year sentence for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old novice monk. Hitt has not entered a plea on the new charges, Oatman said.
JOHNSON CITY (TX)
Boston Herald
By Associated Press
Monday, July 31, 2006 - Updated: 03:16 PM EST
JOHNSON CITY, Texas - Four monks pleaded not guilty to charges alleging a boy was sexually assaulted at a Texas monastery that draws thousands of visitors every year, officials said Monday.
Authorities raided the Christ of the Hills Monastery last week in search of “instruments of child abuse,” Blanco County District Attorney Sam Oatman said.
The four monks, plus another serving a 10-year prison sentence for indecency with a minor, were arrested and indicted after a young man claimed he had been assaulted at the monastery beginning in 1993, when he was in his teens. Oatman said another accuser has come forward, and others could follow.
Three of the monks appeared in court in shackles and orange corrections jumpsuits Monday and entered not guilty pleas to charges of sexual assault of a child and organized criminal activity. Monastery founder Samuel Greene, 61, who is ill, was not in court but has pleaded not guilty, Oatman said.
JOHNSON CITY (TX)
San Antonio Express-News
Web Posted: 07/31/2006 11:27 PM CDT
Zeke MacCormack
San Antonio Express-News
JOHNSON CITY — Four monks from a monastery near Blanco pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of sexually assaulting a novice monk in the 1990s and engaging in organized crime related to the alleged assaults.
Appearing in court, their black robes replaced with orange jail jumpsuits, were William E. Hughes, Walter P. Christley and Hugh B. Fallon.
Samuel A. Greene Jr., who established the Christ of the Hills monastery in 1981, waived arraignment and entered a not guilty plea through his attorney.
Greene, 61, who is the monastery's spiritual leader and is known as "Father Benedict," also faces a charge of sexual performance by a minor. Freed on a personal recognizance bond because of ill health, he declined comment.
MISSOURI
Missourian
By DARLA CAMERON
A minister who used to serve in Columbia was arrested Monday on suspicion of sexually abusing a 15-year-old worshipper Monday.
The Rev. Roberto Edger Lopez, 36, faces one count of second-degree statutory sodomy and one count of second-degree statutory rape. He is accused of being sexually involved with a 15-year-old girl who attended Horeb United Methodist Church, a Spanish-language church that Lopez helped found two years ago. Lopez, who is originally from Mexico City, was the sole minister at Horeb until he was relocated to another Spanish-language church in Monett in late June.
On July 25, the girl’s parents reported to Columbia police that they suspected abuse after they said they found online instant messages from the man to the girl, according to the Police Department. An investigating officer found that the messages, sent from two personal computers in the girl’s home, were sexual in nature.
SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union-Tribune
The surname of Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles was misspelled “Mahoney” in a story yesterday about the sexual-abuse scandal involving Roman Catholic priests.
MARGATE (FL)
Sun-Sentinel
By Jon Burstein
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted August 1 2006
A Margate church secretary poised to offer damaging testimony against a retired priest charged with molesting a boy was placed on paid administrative leave Monday by the parish's pastor.
Archdiocese of Miami officials said Theresa Gerstner was put on leave after a review of St. Vincent Catholic Church's financial records "produced information that could be identified as inappropriate spending of parish funds by [her]." Gerstner, who has worked at St. Vincent's for the past 20 years, has not been cooperating with an internal investigation, said Mary Ross Agosta, an Archdiocese spokeswoman.
The action comes two weeks after the public release of a sworn statement Gerstner gave to the Broward Sheriff's Office in the criminal case against the Rev. Neil Doherty. Doherty, 63, accused of molesting a boy over a seven-year span, faces eight counts of sexual battery and other charges. Doherty, a former priest at St. Vincent's, has pleaded not guilty and is free on a $70,000 bond.
Gerstner told a sheriff's detective that she read a journal kept by Doherty in which he detailed how he preyed on boys. She said Doherty surrounded himself with boys and, while she never saw any illicit behavior, she sensed something was wrong.
FLORIDA
Miami Herald
By AMY SHERMAN
asherman@MiamiHerald.com
A longtime secretary at a Margate church who told investigators that the Archdiocese of Miami knew for decades about allegations that a parish priest had been abusing young boys was placed on leave by the Archdiocese Monday.
An Archdiocese spokesman says it placed Theresa Gerstner on paid leave because of ''irregularities'' in finances at St. Vincent Catholic Church and her failure to cooperate with an audit.
But the 59-year-old secretary, who has worked at the church at 6350 NW 18th St. in Margate for 20 years, says the move is payback for her statements to investigators -- a charge the archdiocese denies.
''The legal term would be retaliation,'' said Gerstner's attorney, Mark Vieth, who describes his client as a religious woman who attends church daily. ``She has given a lot of her life to this church. . . . It seems obvious the actions of the diocese as to Theresa Gerstner are related to her recent testimony to the state attorney.''
Gerstner denied the allegations that she misspent church money. ''I feel betrayed,'' said Gerstner, who lives in Boca Raton. I've been a loyal employee.''
ROCHESTER (NY)
WCAX
ROCHESTER, N.Y. A priest takes a plea bargain in a sex-abuse case.
The Reverend Dennis Sewar was originally charged with a misdemeanor of third-degree sexual abuse. He pleaded guilty yesterday in Rochester City Court to attempted endangering the welfare of a child, also a misdemeanor.
City Court Judge John Elliott sentenced the 55-year-old Roman Catholic priest to one year of probation but warned him that he could face 90 days in jail if he violates conditions of his probation.
ROCHESTER (NY)
Democrat & Chronicle
Michael Zeigler
Staff writer
(August 1, 2006) — A Roman Catholic priest accused of fondling a 14-year-old boy was allowed to plead guilty Monday to a non-sexual charge.
The Rev. Dennis R. Sewar, 55, who was charged with a misdemeanor of third-degree sexual abuse, pleaded guilty to attempted endangering the welfare of a child, also a misdemeanor.
Rochester City Court Judge John E. Elliott sentenced Sewar to one year of probation but warned him that he could face 90 days in jail if he violates conditions of his probation.
Sewar was charged last year with touching the boy's clothed genitals in 1999 in the rectory of a Rochester church. The charge to which he pleaded guilty alleged that he attempted to endanger the child's mental, moral or physical welfare.
INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
Fort Wayne News-Sentinel
By Ken Kusmer
Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS – The 12th Indiana lawsuit to accuse former Catholic priest Harry Monroe of preying sexually on boys alleges he abused the same teenage victim more than 50 times until the Archdiocese of Indianapolis transferred him.
The complaint filed Monday in Marion Superior Court in Indianapolis alleged the abuse began in 1975 when the boy was 13 and Monroe was a new priest posted to St. Monica’s Catholic Church on Indianapolis’ northwest side. The abuse allegedly continued over four years while Monroe took subsequent postings at two other parishes in other parts of the city.
The abuse occurred in rectories at all three parishes, at a house on Lake Tippecanoe in Kosciusko County, about 40 miles northwest of Fort Wayne, and in getaways to Brown County, said the man’s attorney, Patrick Noaker of St. Paul, Minn.
It ended when the archdiocese transferred Monroe to a parish in Terre Haute, about an hour west of Indianapolis, Noaker said.
CANADA
CD98.9
A former Port Dover priest has been named in a civil suit. Charles Sylvestre faces 61 counts of sexual abuse from 47 alleged victims from across Ontario.
London lawyer Aaron Lealess says a number of the women are seeking compensation. The charges against the 83-year-old Sylvestre of Belle River include indecent assault, sexual assault, and sexual intercourse with a female under 14 years old.