ABUSE TRACKER

IDAHO
Standard Journal

JOYCE EDLEFSEN

Mailings by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints filled with revelations by imprisoned Warren Jeffs are going unopened in Madison and Fremont counties.

The polygamist sect, led by Jeffs, has included officials in the two counties on its mailing list. Using scripture-like language, the letters and packets of information proclaim Jeffs’ teachings and encourage recipients to buy books and other materials. Some of Jeffs’ revelations mentioned in the letters include messages that God will “send a full tidal wave of tsunami judgement,” and decries the sin of “outward abuse of women.” The letter also warns the President of the United States saying he “heedeth not the God over all.”

Fremont County Commission Chairman Skip Hurt says county officials have been receiving the documents, some via Priority Mail packaging, for several weeks.

Most of the packages have been thrown away without being opened, with the last batch arriving on the commissioners’ desks Monday.

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CANADA
Leader-Post

By Barb Pacholik, Leader-Post
January 11, 2012

An allegation that dates back decades has a 65-year old former Saskatchewan man before the court on a sex-related charge.

The charge against George Lyons Cargo, now of Neepawa, Man., is scheduled to return to Kamsack Provincial Court on Feb. 7. He’s accused of indecent assault on a female, an offence alleged to have occurred between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 1979 when the complainant was age seven. With subsequent changes to the Criminal Code, such an allegation today would result in a sexual assault charge.

According to a news release issued Tuesday by Kamsack RCMP, a 38-yearold woman came to police in July last year to report an incident alleged to have occurred at her residence in the Togo district in 1979. The woman had not previously disclosed the allegation to police.

At the time of the 1979 allegation, Cargo was residing in Canora.

As a minister in the United Church, Cargo has worked in several communities around Manitoba and Saskatchewan, including Canora and, in more recent years, Neepawa and area.

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NEW JERSEY
Shore News Today

Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Brian Cunniff

The news that more than 40 Catholic schools, including five high schools, in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia are in line for closure at the end of the current scholastic year has torn through the region over the last week.

With so many residents here at the Jersey Shore originally from the Philadelphia area, the news has affected many people locally, many of whom have a great chance to see their grammar and/or high schools merged with others or closed altogether.

It’s a stark reality in the current Catholic education system and the current Catholic Church in general – economics, declining enrollment in schools and attendance at mass, the changing demographics of many neighborhoods, lack of available priests, etc.

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UNITED STATES
NRP

[with audio]

[Supreme Court decision via BishopAccountability.org]

January 11, 2012

The U.S. Supreme Court for the first time has declared that the Constitution exempts ministers from the nation’s anti-discrimination laws. Wednesday’s decision was unanimous and groundbreaking — but it left unresolved some of the thorniest questions in determining who is a minister and who is not.

The court’s ruling came in the case of Cheryl Perich, a teacher at the Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Church and School in Michigan. In 2004, Perich took leave when she was diagnosed with narcolepsy. But when her doctor certified her to return to work, the school asked her to resign, so she threatened to sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“Their response was to fire me,” Perich said. “I can’t fathom how the Constitution would be interpreted in such a way as to deny me my civil rights as an elementary school teacher.”

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UNITED STATES
PhillyBurbs

By HARRY WOODRUFF

“That Sorry Decade” the 1960s! Columnist J.D. Mullane embraces minor changes in Catholic Church liturgy but laments a time of great changes in the 1960s and refers to that period as “That Sorry Decade.” He apparently did not experience that decade but must have heard about it from others of his conservative ideology. Conservatives don’t like change. Progressive means change.

Our society and culture were changed dramatically in the 60s and for the better when civil rights, gender equality, and a rejection of a failed war by American citizens forever altered the landscape of this great country.

History has shown that “real change” always brings upheaval as the “old” way of doing things is no longer acceptable nor possible. In the 60s decade, black and brown people refused to accept discrimination and demanded inclusion in the “American Dream.” Women became empowered and refused to accept their second-rate status in employment, education and other areas. Homosexuals began their quest to be treated equally in the “Land of the free and the home of the brave.” Young adults subject to the draft and other conscientious members of society protested the government’s reasons for and participation in the costly, disastrous war in Vietnam. The “Sexual Revolution” also emerged as young adults and others began to reject the puritanical societal and religious views on sexuality.

There were some “sorry” activities that were happening also; increased drug use and abuse, riots in the streets, subversive militant groups formed. Change was and is not always positive.

It was also a time when child sexual abuse was buried in the culture. A “sorry” time when allegations of child sexual abuse by priests were routinely resolved by moving the priest to a new parish often able to continue with their criminal behavior. Decisions that the Catholic Church deals with to this day.

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MUNCIE (IN)
The Star Press

Written by
DOUGLAS WALKER

MUNCIE — Matthew Kidd’s attorney failed in a bid to have a mistrial declared on Wednesday, when a second witness testified he had been subjected to groping and fondling by the Muncie pastor.

Kidd, 55, is charged with child molesting, sexual misconduct with a minor and vicarious sexual gratification over his alleged dealings with three teenage members of his then-Pentecostal church.

The pastor’s accusers are brothers, and defense attorney Steven Bruce has suggested their allegations are motivated by greed. The alleged victims — two of whom are now in their 20s — and their family are also pursuing a civil lawsuit targeting Kidd, his church and other defendants.

One of the brothers testified Tuesday. Chief Deputy Prosecutor Judi Calhoun called his two siblings to the stand Wednesday.

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IRELAND
Pannone

Catholic Priests requested to pay 60 euros a month into a fund to cover pay-outs for clerical abuse

It has been reported by the BBC that Catholic Priests in a diocese in the Republic of Ireland have been asked to pay into a fund. This request was made by Rev Dermot Clifford, the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly diocese in the Republic of Ireland. A fund already existed to cover clerical abuse, but this is dwindling.

Curates have been requested to pay 50 euros per month and Parish Priests have been asked to pay 60 euros into the fund, to allow compensation to victims of Clergy Abuse.

The diocese said the request had stemmed from a recent meeting of the diocese’s Council of Priests, where it was suggested that the Archbishop make an appeal to Priests asking them to help restore the abuse fund.

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CALIFORNIA
Sokolove Law

by Sokolove Law Staff on Jan 11 2012

Six brothers now in their 40s and 50s are suing a Catholic diocese in California over sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of a priest years ago in what may turn into a landmark child abuse lawsuit.

According to the Legal Intelligencer (subscription required) the brothers brought their request to the California Supreme Court. The brothers have filed an abuse lawsuit against the diocese that they say allegedly knew that the priest, Donald Broderson, had molested children in the past. While the molestations occurred in the 1970s, the brothers were only able to link the incidents to ongoing distress in 2006.

While abuse cases such as this are usually limited by a statute of limitations, California law allows for adults who have connected psychological problems to events childhood events to pursue a lawsuit in some cases.

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GERMANY
Vatican Insider

German weekly “Stern” has published the results of a survey, which have sparked much debate

Alessandro Alviani
Berlin

If Germans had to choose between the Dalai Lama and “their” Pope as a spiritual model from which to draw inspiration, they would choose the Tibetan spiritual leader without a doubt. This is according to the results of a survey carried out by the Forsa Institute for Social Research and Statistical Analysis, for weekly newspaper Stern, on newsstands from tomorrow, 12 January.

Just a third of federal citizens (32%) see Benedict XVI as a model; the Dalai Lama on the other hand is favoured by 69% of Germans and ranks third in the list of individuals Germans consider to be exemplary figures. The former South African President and leader of the anti-apartheid movement Nelson Mandela takes first position (82%), followed by former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt (74%).

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PAMELA DUNCAN

TRAINEE PRIESTS at Ireland’s national seminary in Maynooth are to be separated from the rest of the student body, according to an article in the current edition of the Irish Catholic.

This would see seminarians separated from the 8,000-strong student body of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. The report says that doors have been installed at the college, separating the seminarians’ living quarters from the rest of the campus; a new entrance to the seminary has been constructed to the rear of the building; and proposals that the trustees of the college create a separate dining room for the seminary community have been put forward.

Msgr Hugh Connolly, president of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, told the Irish Catholic that he was “trying to get the balance right between the need for the seminary to be a distinctive, prayerful community and ensure that the seminarians have all the benefits that the Maynooth campus has to offer.

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NEW YORK
Queens Ledger

by Margaret Markey

Details continue to unfold about the shocking scandals over allegations of child sexual abuse and coverup at Penn State University and at Syracuse University here in New York.

Shocking as these cases are, the rape and sexual abuse of children is sadly a national epidemic. The statistics about this national plague are startling:

• 20 percent of America’s children suffer sexual abuse, according to the National Institute of Justice;

• Of those, 56 percent suffer their abuse at the hands of family members or other people they trust and respect; and

• Only 10 percent of predators are ever exposed

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Blaine on January 11, 2012

A newly-revealed letter strongly suggests that Mother Teresa lobbied Jesuit officials to put an accused pedophile priest put back on the job quickly.

But Catholic officials refuse to answer a simple question: did Mother Teresa actually write that letter? It seems extremely like that she did. But church supervisors in the Vatican and at the Jesuit headquarters won’t answer any questions about the letter.

That raises another simple question: Why the rush to make Mother Teresa a saint?

Almost every day, new documents or evidence or testimony surfaces, shedding new light on the church hierarch’s on-going cover up of clergy sex crimes. Prudent leaders, who care about the feelings of their followers, would move slowly before praising officials who may have ignored, concealed or enabled horrific child sex crimes.

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UNITED STATES
ABC News

By Ariane de Vogue
@Arianedevogue

The government must stay out of hiring and firing decisions by a religious organization, even if a minister sues for employment discrimination, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.

Religious freedom groups praised the decision, and especially the fact that it came from a unanimous court.

“The fact that the court was unanimous underlines how essential a part of religious liberty is the principle that churches and synagogues get to select their religion teachers,” said Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice. “Government has no business deciding who should or should not carry out religious ministry, and we’re delighted the high court reached that conclusion.”

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UNITED STATES
The Kansas City Star

By DAVID G. SAVAGE
Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON The Supreme Court gave churches and religious schools a new shield against civil rights claims from their employees, ruling Wednesday that the principle of church-state separation bars bias suits from teachers who serve as “ministers” of the faith.

In a unanimous ruling, the high court for the first time held the Constitution includes a “ministerial exception” that protects churches and their schools from undue interference from the government and its courts.

The First Amendment protects the “free exercise” of religion, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said “the state infringes” on this religious freedom if it forces a church or its schools to accept or retain “an unwanted minister. … The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way.”

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Agency

Washington D.C., Jan 11, 2012 / 05:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Jan. 11 to uphold the “ministerial exception” that allows religious organizations to hire and fire ministers without interference from the government.

The decision marks a “big rejection of this administration’s treatment of religious liberty,” said Mark Rienzi, an attorney for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which helped represent Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church in the case.

Rienzi told CNA on Jan. 11 that the Hosanna-Tabor case is “easily the most important religious freedom case in the last 20 years.”

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UNITED STATES
America Magazine

Posted at: Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Author: Kevin Clarke

The U.S. bishops were more than pleased with today’s unanimous Supreme Court ruling in the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC. In a groundbreaking decision that had been anxiously anticipated by religious bodies across the country, the court held that a “ministerial exception” to antidiscrimination laws means that religious employees of a church cannot sue for employment discrimination. The notion of a “ministerial exception” had been developed in lower court decisions; the exception means that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion shields churches and their operations from the reach of protective federal laws when the issue involves employees of these institutions.

“The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important,” Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote for the court. “But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission.” Roberts said allowing anti-discrimination lawsuits against religious organizations could end up forcing churches to take religious leaders they no longer want.

“Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs,” Roberts said. “By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments.”

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UNITED STATES
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[Supreme Court decision via BishopAccountability.org]

WASHINGTON • In a groundbreaking case, the Supreme Court on Wednesday held for the first time that religious employees of a church cannot sue for employment discrimination.

But the court’s unanimous decision in a case from Michigan did not specify the distinction between a secular employee, who can take advantage of the government’s protection from discrimination and retaliation, and a religious employee, who can’t.

It was, nevertheless, the first time the high court has acknowledged the existence of a “ministerial exception” to anti-discrimination laws – a doctrine developed in lower court rulings. This doctrine says the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion shields churches and their operations from the reach of such protective laws when the issue involves employees of these institutions.

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UNITED STATES
The Telegraph

January 11, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) – Parents upset by the admission policy at a parochial school. Clergy and parishioners at odds over use of their building. A priest resisting a transfer to another parish.

It was once assumed that disagreements like these in the Roman Catholic Church would end one way: with the highest-ranking cleric getting the last word.

But that outcome is no longer a given as Catholics, emboldened following the clergy abuse scandals that erupted a decade ago this month, have sought another avenue of redress.

In recent years, clergy and lay people in the United States have increasingly turned to the church’s internal legal system to challenge a bishop’s or pastor’s decision about even the most workaday issues in Catholic life, according to canon lawyers in academia, dioceses and in private practice. Sometimes, the challengers even win.

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BOSTON (MA)
The New Civil Rights Movement

by David Badash on January 9, 2012

The rape victims of the Catholic Church’s pedophile priests are “professional victims,” and ”a pitiful bunch of malcontents” unable to move on, according to Bill Donohue, the head of the Catholic League.

Today, in response to this weekend’s “10th Anniversary Celebration & Conference: Confronting the Crimes & Cover-up of Sexual Abuse by the Boston Clergy,” the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue stated,

A whopping 75 people turned out for the conference, 25 of whom were the speakers. How embarrassing. It’s clear that the professional victims’ lobby is spent. Everyone else has moved on, but those who have an ideological, emotional or financial interest in continuing this saga cannot let go. What a pitiful bunch of malcontents.

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POLAND
U.S. Catholic

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

By Jonathan Luxmoore Catholic News Service

OXFORD, England (CNS) — A Polish priest testified that a man reported to him that he was sexually abused by the former rector of a parish in Kolobrzeg, Poland.

The testimony Jan. 6 from the unnamed priest is believed to be the first by one cleric against another accused of sexual abuse in Poland. The trial comes amid growing complaints about the church’s lack of response to abuse allegations against clergy.

The trial was scheduled to continue Jan. 12.

“The victim told me about his trauma,” the priest told the Regional Court in Koszalin in the trial of Father Zbigniew Ryckiewicz, former pastor of St. Wojciech Parish in Kolobrzeg, who is charged with abusing two juvenile male altar servers from 1998 to 2001.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Huffington Post UK

A former teacher at a top boarding school has been charged with a string of sexual offences against children, police have said.

Keith Ruby, 35, faces a total of 21 allegations involving two victims including sexual activity with a child, engaging in sexual activity and indecent assault, Avon and Somerset Police said.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that churches are entitled to make employment decisions without interference by the government. In doing so, the high court affirmed what is known as the doctrine of “ministerial exception,” the long-standing right of churches to be shielded from discrimination lawsuits brought by employees.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue spoke to this issue today:

This is a great victory for religious liberty and a huge defeat for the Obama administration. Last October, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in this case, the Obama administration’s lawyer proved to be such a secular zealot that she stunned even the more liberal members of the high court. Leondra R. Kruger made such an extremist argument that she even got Justice Elena Kagan to agree wholeheartedly with Justice Antonin Scalia.

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UNITED STATES
The Foundry

Thomas Messner

January 11, 2012 at 1:56 pm

Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision that resoundingly affirms the freedom of religious groups to choose their own ministers.

Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC involved a lawsuit brought by an employee against a church-operated school. The employee alleged that her employment was terminated in violation of a federal anti-discrimination law.

The question in this case was “whether the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment bar such an action when the employer is a religious group and the employee is one of the group’s ministers.”

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UNITED STATES
JTA

January 11, 2012

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of religious institutions to use “ministerial exception” to fire staff, but stopped short of setting its parameters.

A number of Jewish groups had closely watched Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a case in which a teacher alleged that a Michigan religious school had violated the American with Disabilities Act in firing her.

The school claimed that Cheryl Perich, who suffers from narcolepsy, was exempt from protection as a minister. Perich and the EEOC countered that most of her work involved secular teaching.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Broadcasting Network

In a surprising unanimous decision from the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday, all nine justices ruled the government has no right to tell a religious organization what ministerial employees it can hire and fire.

The case involved Cheryl Perich, a teacher fired by the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in Redford, Mich.

Perich sued the school after she was fired, claiming discrimination.

However, the justices all backed up what’s known as the “ministerial exemption,” which protects religious employers.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — Employees of religious organizations whose job duties reflect “a role in conveying the Church’s message and carrying out its mission” are barred by the First Amendment from suing over employment discrimination, said the Supreme Court in a unanimous opinion handed down Wednesday morning.

The decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was the first time the Supreme Court had endorsed the “ministerial exception” to discrimination protections that many courts of appeals have come to recognize over the past several decades.

“Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts on behalf of the entire Court. “By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments.”

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UNITED STATES
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Contact: Eric Harris or Molly Benoit
202.387.2800 | news@rac.org

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 11, 2012 – The United States Supreme Court unanimously overturned an earlier ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran School and Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and held that there is a “ministerial exception” from anti-discrimination laws. The Union for Reform Judaism filed an amicus brief in conjunction with the American Jewish Committee in favor of the petitioner, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School seeking a balanced approach between religious and other civil rights. In response to the decision Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, issued the following statement:

“We are encouraged by the Supreme Court’s robust interpretation of the ‘ministerial exception’ and the recognition of the right of religious institutions to determine who can act as their clergy. This decision marks the first time the Supreme Court has affirmed a wide range of federal Circuit Court opinions upholding the doctrine of the ‘ministerial exception. The Supreme Court’s acknowledgement that religious institutions are exempted from government regulations in their hiring and firing practices in regard to clergy is a favorable decision for ensuring religious autonomy in a limited manner that still maintains vital anti-discrimination laws that protect the rights of employees of all faiths and no faith.

The Court found that Ms. Perich, whose lawyers argued that she had been fired from the Hosanna-Tabor School in violation of anti-discrimination laws, was properly classified as a minister. The opinion stated that the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment ‘bar suits brought on behalf of ministers against their churches, claiming termination in violation of employment discrimination laws.’ We are gratified that the Court agreed with our position on those aspects of this case.

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UNITED STATES
Corporate Counsel

Tony Mauro
The National Law Journal

January 12, 2012

A surprisingly unanimous Supreme Court on Wednesday endorsed a “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws, asserting that under the First Amendment, government must keep its nose out of the hiring and firing of clergy.

“When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. for the Court in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v. EEOC. “The church must be free to choose who will guide it on its way.”

The ruling ends a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of Cindy Perich, a teacher and “commissioned minister” at a Lutheran school in Michigan. She claimed she had been fired in retaliation for threatening to file a lawsuit under the Americans With Disabilities Act. She disputed the school’s treatment of her after she was diagnosed with narcolepsy, and the school said she was fired for insubordination and failure to follow internal dispute resolution procedures.

All 12 federal appeals courts have long recognized some form of a ministerial exception, but the Supreme Court had not given its imprimatur until today. Religious groups celebrated the ruling, with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty proclaiming it as “the most important religious liberty case in 20 years.”

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UNITED STATES
Business Insurance

WASHINGTON—A religious school can claim a “ministerial exception” to a discrimination charge under the Americans with Disabilities Act for a teacher who also taught secular subjects, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday.

However, in its decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission et al., the nation’s highest court said the ministerial exception bars only employment discrimination lawsuits.

“We express no view on whether the exception bars other types of suits, including actions by employees alleging breach of contract or tortious conduct by their religious employers. There will be time enough to address the applicability of the exception to other circumstances if and when they arise,” Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
U.S. Supreme Court

[See also the 10/5/11 oral argument.]

The case before us is an employment discrimination suit brought on behalf of a minister, challenging her church’s decision to fire her. Today we hold only that the ministerial exception bars such a suit. We express no view on whether the exception bars other types of suits, including actions by employees alleging breach of contract or tortious conduct by their religious employers. There will be time enough to address the applicability of the exception to other circumstances if and when they arise.

* * *

The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important. But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission. When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us. The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.

[pp. 21-22]

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UNITED STATES
The Philly Post

By Chris Freind 1/11/2012

The message from headquarters was sent to field agents worldwide: “This is your mission, if you choose to accept it. Take one of the most powerful institutions in the history of mankind and change it so radically—in all the wrong ways—that in the span of 50 years, it will be a shell of its former self, relegated to a backwater shaped only by the sad ghosts of the past.”

Was this a Mission Impossible communiqué sent at the height of the Cold War to implode the Soviet Union? Or a message pertaining to another mammoth entity: the Roman Catholic Church? There is one critical difference. The Soviets fell due to outside forces. The Church, while admittedly having its fair share of outside “attackers,” is falling from within, and most of its decline is entirely of its own making.

The above message could well have come from St. Peter’s Basilica in 1965. The “field agents?” Cardinals, bishops and priests. The objective: Implement Vatican II.

The result? Disaster.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Three years after its announcement caused a mixture of anxiety, anger and resentment among many sisters, the results of a Vatican-initiated apostolic visitation of U.S. women religious have been quietly submitted to Rome.

News of the submission came in a press release from the visitation’s U.S. office Jan. 9.

According to Catholic News Service, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson, confirmed Jan. 10 that the Vatican’s congregation for religious life had received the reports and “is now studying them.”

Sr. Kieran Foley, the communications liaison for the visitation’s U.S. office, told NCR her office does not have a comment on the submission. The next steps for the investigation are “entirely up to the [Vatican] congregation,” she said.

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AUSTRIA
Austrian Independent

The number of people leaving the Catholic Church has decreased dramatically.

Official figures show that Austria’s dioceses recorded a 32 per cent decline in membership cancellations from 2010 to 2011. The year 2010 was dominated by intense public discussions about education practices at boarding schools run by the Church as hundreds of people came forward to say they were abused in a physical or sexual manner. Most of the incidents occurred in the 1960s and 1970s – too long ago to file charges against the offenders, according to Austria’s controversial legal regulations.

Calls for financial compensation and a decrease of paying members caused immense financial pressure on the Roman Catholic Church of Austria which is, at 5.4 million members, still the country’s strongest denomination. Overall, 58,603 left the Church last year. The number of annual membership cancellations climbed from 26,380 in 1981 to 44,304 in 1995 and 52,177 in 2004.

The strongest decline of membership cancellations was recorded by the Diocese of St. Pölten as 4,969 Lower Austrians left the Church in 2011, 36 per cent fewer than in the previous year. Tyrol’s Innsbruck Diocese and the Vorarlberg Diocese of Feldkirch recorded a 35 per cent decline each. Gurk-Klagenfurt Diocese in Carinthia and Linz Diocese in Upper Austria followed with 34 per cent each. The number of Catholic Church membership annulations dropped in all nine provinces of the country. Salzburg Diocese recorded the smallest decrease (minus 14 per cent).

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UNITED STATES
SFist

Like the Dali Lama, Mother Teresa enjoyed dancing on the dark side via the occasional bout of fame-mongering. But who wouldn’t fall prey to the siren song of celebrity and fortune? Unlike the Dali Lama, however, Mother Teresa (née Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhi) defended pedophilic priests. In fact, the Nobel Prize-winning nun — now on the fast track to sainthood from the Vatican — defended a Bay Area priest accused and convicted of sexual molestation back in the 1993, had him reinstated. And act that resulted in more horrifying sexual abuse.

In a page-turning cover story this week in SF Weekly, Peter Jamison reports:

… [D]ocuments obtained by SF Weekly suggest that Mother Teresa knew one of her favorite priests was removed from ministry for sexually abusing a Bay Area boy in 1993, and that she nevertheless urged his bosses to return him to work as soon as possible. The priest resumed active ministry, as well as his predatory habits. Eight additional complaints were lodged against him in the coming years by various families, leading to his eventual arrest on sex-abuse charges in 2005.
The priest was Donald McGuire, a former Jesuit who has been convicted of molesting boys in federal and state courts and is serving a 25-year federal prison sentence. McGuire, now 81 years old, taught at the University of San Francisco in the late 1970s, and held frequent spiritual retreats for families in San Francisco and Walnut Creek throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He also ministered extensively to the Missionaries of Charity during that time.

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CZECH REPUBLIC
Newser

By KAREL JANICEK | Associated Press

Churches were seized, priests jailed or executed and those allowed to lead religious services did so under the watchful eye of the secret police. More than 22 years after the fall of Communism, the Czech government agreed Wednesday to pay billions of dollars in compensation for property seized by the former totalitarian regime.

The deal at one point, however, threatened to topple the coalition government after a junior partner this week voiced anger at the thought of huge sums being paid to churches given the current economic gloom.

But in a country where indifference to religion is strong _ a legacy of the Soviet plan to create one of the most atheist states in their orbit _ the compensation plan _ to be spread over 30 years _ proved a win-win situation: The state no longer wanted to pay the priests’ salaries, and religious organizations expressed relief after previous failed attempts.

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UNITED STATES
San Francisco Weekly

By Peter Jamison
Wednesday, Jan 11 2012

The death of journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens last month gave those familiar with his work a chance to revisit one of his more controversial subjects: the Albanian nun Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known to the world as Mother Teresa. In his 1997 book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, Hitchens argued that the “Saint of Calcutta,” who founded and headed the international Missionaries of Charity order, enjoyed undeserved esteem.

Despite her humanitarian reputation and 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa had set up a worldwide system of “homes for the dying” that routinely failed to provide adequate care to patients, Hitchens argued — an appraisal shared by The Lancet, a respected medical journal. Mother Teresa also associated with, and took large sums of money from, disreputable figures such as American savings-and-loan swindler Charles Keating and the dictatorial Duvalier family of Haiti.

Notwithstanding these black marks on an otherwise sterling reputation, Mother Teresa — who died in 1997 and is now on the fast track to a formal proclamation of sainthood by the Vatican — was never known to have been touched by the scandal that would rock the Roman Catholic Church in the decade after her death: the systematic protection of child-molesting priests by church officials.

Yet documents obtained by SF Weekly suggest that Mother Teresa knew one of her favorite priests was removed from ministry for sexually abusing a Bay Area boy in 1993, and that she nevertheless urged his bosses to return him to work as soon as possible. The priest resumed active ministry, as well as his predatory habits. Eight additional complaints were lodged against him in the coming years by various families, leading to his eventual arrest on sex-abuse charges in 2005.

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NEDERLAND
Openbaar Ministerie

10 januari 2012 – Arrondissementsparket Utrecht

Het Openbaar Ministerie Utrecht en het Slachtofferloket Utrecht hebben vandaag KLOKK uitgenodigd voor een gesprek. Aanleiding is de suggestie vandaag in diverse media dat er geen onderzoek wordt gedaan naar het seksueel misbruik in de jaren ’80 door een pastoor. Ook zou het OM niet openstaan om recente zaken te onderzoeken.

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NEDERLAND
AD

De slachtoffers van misbruik binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk (RKK) die eind november een kort geding aanspanden tegen de Staat, zien daar van af.

Een geplande zitting op 16 januari gaat daarom niet door. Dat heeft advocaat Anneke Bierenbroodspot vandaag laten weten.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
Mercury News

The Associated Press
Posted: 01/11/2012

SAN DIEGO—A Roman Catholic priest accused of fondling a woman at his San Diego home has pleaded not guilty to sexual battery.

An attorney for Jose Davila entered pleas Tuesday to three misdemeanor counts. U-T San Diego (http://bit.ly/zPfxwa) says the priest didn’t attend his arraignment but about 50 supporters showed up.

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TEXAS
Reformatorisch Dagblad (Nederland)

WASHINGTON – De gevangenisregels zijn aangescherpt voor Warren Jeffs, leider van de Fundamentalistische Kerk van Jezus Christus van de Heiligen der Laatste Dagen. Hij overtrad onlangs het reglement omdat een telefoontje van hem was opgenomen en afgedraaid in zijn kerk. Jeffs is vorig jaar veroordeeld tot levenslang.

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IRELAND
Vatican Insider

The 72-year old Father Peter Kennedy of Ireland, accused of abusing 55 children, fled to South America eight years ago. The time for his extradition has come

GIACOMO GALEAZZI
Vatican City

His flight lasted eight years. The “Kennedy case” has long created confusion in public opinion, already shaken by what government reports have gradually revealed about pedophilia among Irish clergy. To evade justice, the 72-year-old Father Peter Kennedy (accused of sexually abusing 55 children in Ireland) had escaped to Brazil. Now the Brazilian authorities have ordered the extradition of the priest who was fired in 2003, in the middle of one of the major scandals of the Irish clergy. At 11 p.m. the evening of the notification of extradition, Father Kennedy was on a plane to London, where Irish officials were waiting for him. Eight years ago, one of his victims was granted compensation of €300,000 by the court. The boy had reported being raped by the priest when he was 13, after his family had moved to a home in County Sligo due to his father’s death from cancer.

Father Kennedy disappeared a few weeks after the trial ended, after which an additional 18 victims came forward, accusing him of various abuses dating back to 1980. Gradually, the police found more and more victims, and his position soon became very serious. At that time it was already believed that the priest had fled to Brazil and, in 2004, according to the Daily Mail, Interpol issued a “blue notice” against him, formally asking for his arrest and expatriation. Investigations revealed that Father Kennedy used a British passport to travel from London to Brazil, settling in Osasco, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, where he earned a living teaching English.

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UNITED STATES
Care2

by Paul Canning
January 10, 2012

Catholic League President Bill Donohue has called victims of priest abuse and their advocates and supporters a “pitiful bunch of malcontents” and “professional victims.”

He made the comments on the League’s website in response to a conference organized to mark a decade since the Boston Catholic Church abuse scandal emerged. The comments are illustrated with an image of a crying baby.

He also said that Catholics had “moved on” and were not “wallowing in negativity.”

Donohue has been criticized multiple times for comments seen as lacking any sensitivity towards the victims of abuse by the church.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Catholic San Francisco

January 11th, 2012
By George Raine

You would think it would be counterproductive for Father David Ghiorso, vocations director for the Archdiocese of San Francisco and pastor of St. Charles Parish in San Carlos, to say “no” more than “yes” to men who show an interest in the seminary, given the relatively thin ranks in the priesthood.

He said five men last year were somewhat easy calls: They were 55 and older, which would give them senior status after some seven years in the seminary. Others lacked, by Father Ghiorso’s standards, fire in the belly.

“They have to be people who are going to take charge,” said Father Ghiorso, who succeeded Bishop Thomas Daly as vocations director when, in May, then-Father Daly became auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of San Jose.

The seminary is very structured, Father Ghiorso said: “‘This is what you do and when you do it.’ When you get to a parish no one is going to be telling you what to do. You are going to take initiative.”

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

Michael Kelly

The national seminary at Maynooth is to clearly separate the seminary environment from the wider university community The Irish Catholic understands.

In a move that will be seen in some quarters as a nod to the past when seminary life was completely separated from the outside world, it is believed that the changes are part of the Apostolic Visitation’s attempt to ‘reform’ training structures for priests in Ireland.

Separation doors have already been installed on the main cloister to partition the seminarians’ living quarters from the rest of the campus to which only members of the seminary community now have keys.

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UNITED STATES
The Salt Lake Tribune

Lindsay Whitehurst

Well, more Warren Jeffs revelations came into the Utah Attorney General’s Office today. Here they are.

A few highlights:

– In a handwritten revelation dated 12/26, Jeffs signs himself as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Yep, you read that right. He left out the “Fundamentalist,” making it look like he considers himself the head of the all of Mormondom — even though the mainstream Mormon church, of course, renounced polygamy more than 100 years ago and has no connections to the FLDS. Or maybe he just needs a proofreader.

– Indecisiveness is apparently coming to the President of the United States. From a revelation dated 12/27:

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Aberdeen News

By Scott Waltman, swaltman@aberdeennews.com

Brown County commissioners are among the elected officials in South Dakota getting letters from an imprisoned sect leader and his supporters.

Commissioners said at their Tuesday meeting said that they’re regularly getting letters and packages from Warren Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

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NEDERLAND
Nieuws

(Novum) – De eerste slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik binnen de rooms-katholieke kerk hebben compensatie aangevraagd. Van de 61 mensen die tot nu toe in aanmerking komen voor een vergoeding hebben 41 slachtoffers de procedure doorlopen. Dat meldt het Meldpunt Misbruik RKK dinsdag.

Een compensatiecommissie gaat zich nu over de aanvragen buigen. De eerste resultaten worden begin februari verwacht. Afhankelijk van de ernst van het misbruik kunnen slachtoffers een vergoeding tussen de vijfduizend en honderdduizend euro krijgen.

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SPRINGFIELD (MA)
Iobserve

By Terence Hegarty

SPRINGFIELD – Questions from Hampden Superior Court Judge C. J. Moriarty regarding whether the Diocese of Springfield has the jurisdiction to have protesters removed from a closed Holyoke church dominated a 2 p.m. court proceeding Jan. 4.

However, Attorney John J. Egan, principal attorney for the diocese, argued before the judge that the case “has nothing to do with jurisdiction,” and asked Judge Moriarty to consider the diocese (as a corporation sole) as he would any other property owner. In that context, Egan said, Moriarty should only consider “whether or not the defendants are trespassing.”

“The question is, whether, under civil law, there are any rights to ownership,” Egan said.

Following an hour of hearing arguments from both Egan and attorneys Victor Anop and Peter Stasz, representing the Friends of Mater Dolorosa, Judge Moriarty adjourned the hearing, declaring that he would take the arguments “under advisement.”

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

The Vatican has acknowledged that it used Wikipedia to produce biographies of 22 new cardinals that were sent out to journalists.

The biographies were copied from the Italian version of the user-edited online encyclopedia, word for word in some cases, and without attribution.

One clue was that many new cardinals were described as being “Catholic”.

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CANADA
Leader-Post

REGINA — An allegation that dates back decades has a 65-year-old former Saskatchewan man before the court on a sex-related charge.

The charge against George Lyons Cargo, now of Neepawa, Man., is scheduled to return to Kamsack Provincial Court on Feb. 7. He’s accused of indecent assault on a female, an offence alleged to have occurred between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 1979 when the complainant was age 7. With subsequent changes to the Criminal Code, such an allegation today would result in a sexual assault charge.

According to a news release issued Tuesday by Kamsack RCMP, a 38-year-old woman came to police in July last year to report an incident alleged to have occurred at her residence in the Togo district in 1979. The woman had not previously disclosed the allegation to police.

At the time of the 1979 allegation, Cargo was residing in Canora.

As a minister in the United Church, Cargo has worked in several communities around Manitoba and Saskatchewan, including Canora and, in more recent years, Neepawa and area.

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LAWRENCE (KS)
6 News

By 6News Staff on January 10, 2012

Christopher Cormack was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 3 years probation Tuesday for indecent liberties with a child. He’ll also have to register as a sex offender

Cormack had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old church member starting in 1999, while serving as a youth group leader at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1245 New Hampshire.

Cormack was convicted of the crime in 2008, but granted a new trial in the case last year. The man, who now lives in Abilene, took a plea deal with prosecutors instead of going to trial a second time.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

FINTAN O’TOOLE

MARY RAFTERY was arguably the finest Irish journalist of the last 25 years and unarguably the most influential.

Because of her, there are two groups of people for whom Ireland will never be the same again. The Catholic hierarchy will never recover the authority it lost when she exposed its systematic covering up of child abuse and Irish children will never again be so utterly exposed to systematic exploitation by those in power.

At a time when the value and the values of professional journalism are being called into question, her work stands as one of the greatest examples anywhere of the capacity of a committed, skilled and eloquent reporter to change things for the better.

I remember vividly the first time I saw Mary, in 1975, when we were both 17-year-olds newly arrived in University College Dublin. I was waiting, along with the other awkward, uncertain freshers, for a class to begin in a huge lecture theatre when this small woman appeared at the podium to tell us about problems at the College of Music, where she also studied, and to ask for support for a protest.

Everybody shut up and listened, for she was like an adult among adolescents: serious, authoritative, able to communicate with precision and clarity.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE FUNERAL of journalist and broadcaster Mary Raftery (54) will take place tomorrow morning in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin.

She died at St Vincent’s hospital in Dublin yesterday morning following an illness. She is survived by her husband David Waddell, their son Ben, her mother Ita, sister Iseult and brothers Adrian and Iain. The funeral ceremony will take place at 11am.

An outstanding journalist of her generation, she produced some of the most powerful and influential current affairs programmes broadcast on RTÉ television.

As significant were her 1999 book Suffer the Little Children – The Inside Story of Ireland’s Industrial Schools , written with Eoin O’Sullivan of Trinity College Dublin, her opinion columns for this newspaper from 2003 and her play No Escape , based on the Ryan report, which was staged at Dublin’s Peacock Theatre in 2010.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

EOIN BURKE-KENNEDY

SENIOR FIGURES from the world of politics and journalism as well as abuse survivors and clerics have paid tribute to the late journalist and broadcaster Mary Raftery.

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore said the country owed Ms Raftery “a debt of gratitude” for exposing the physical and sexual abuse that had been suffered by children over decades at the hands of the State and church. Speaking on behalf of the Government, he said her work had “uncovered the truth, even when it was a truth that a lot of people did not want to hear”.

The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, said her work in exposing the cover-up behind clerical abuse had made the Catholic Church “a better place” for children. “Bringing the truth out is always a positive thing even though it may be a painful truth,” Dr Martin said.

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CANADA
Hamilton Spectator

Viewpoint: Halifax Chronicle-Herald (excerpt)

If you’re looking to gain some perspective on last week’s quick release of disgraced former bishop Raymond Lahey, we have just the man for you. His name is Philip Latimer and he hails from Inverness County. The 50-year-old man is suing the Roman Catholic Church over sexual abuse he says he suffered as a boy at the hands of a priest who has since died.

Latimer is a welder, not a lawyer, but his layman’s insights are no less astute. “I don’t call this a justice system. I call it a legal system,” he told The Chronicle Herald after Lahey was sentenced to time served and walked out of an Ottawa courtroom.

Most Nova Scotians would be hard-pressed to disagree with that analysis. The ex-bishop of Antigonish, who was nabbed at the Ottawa airport two years ago with a cache of pornographic images of young boys on his laptop, is already on parole because he was awarded a two-for-one credit on time spent in jail while awaiting sentencing.

Lahey was lucky he was charged before the Harper government did away with such credits. If the Ontario judge in this case had sent Lahey back to jail for a few more months, it might at least have struck a blow for the silent victims — the countless, nameless children who are harmed in the production of pornography. Disappointingly, he chose not to.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Mark Hilliard

Wednesday January 11 2012

ARCHBISHOP Diarmuid Martin led yesterday’s tributes to journalist Mary Raftery, who lost her battle to cancer at the age of 54.

Ms Raftery exposed child abuse in state- and church-run institutions through her two most famous documentaries, ‘States of Fear’ in 1999 and ‘Cardinal Secrets’ in 2002.

“Bringing the truth out is always a positive thing even though it may be a painful truth,” Archbishop Martin said. …

A funeral ceremony for Ms Raftery will take place at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin, at 11am tomorrow.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Charleston Daily Mail

by Jared Hunt
Daily Mail Capitol Reporter
Charleston Daily Mail

Children’s advocates want West Virginia lawmakers to toughen laws and invest $1 million in an effort to make sure scandals like the one that recently rocked Penn State University don’t happen here.

Representatives with Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia held a Tuesday morning breakfast meeting with about 80 legislators and government officials to encourage the state to take a more active role in preventing child abuse.

The arrest of former Penn State assistant football coach and children’s charity founder Jerry Sandusky on 40 counts of sexual abuse and assault against children last year shocked the nation.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel

Jan. 11, 2012

A childhood sexual abuse lawsuit against a Hales Corners-based religious order can go forward, the Supreme Court of South Dakota has ruled.

The Priests of the Sacred Heart runs a mission school for American Indians in South Dakota. Eight former students sued the order in 2010, alleging they had been molested while they were minors attending the school in the 1970s.

The order contended the civil lawsuit was improperly served and sought to have the case dismissed. A trial judge denied the motion, and the order appealed. Last month, South Dakota’s high court agreed that while the plaintiffs initially served someone who did not meet the statutory requirement for service on a business, they did successfully serve a director of the order within a 60-day extension.

The first summons was served on the executive director of child services at the school, St. Joseph’s Indian Mission School, but he was not a registered agent of the order. A month later, in July 2010, the plaintiffs served Father Stephen Huffstetter, the president of Priests of the Sacred Heart and one of its directors.

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MUNCIE (IN)
The Star Press

Written by
DOUGLAS WALKER

MUNCIE — A prosecutor on Tuesday described Matthew A. Kidd as a manipulative predator who abused the trust that came with his status as pastor of a Muncie church to sexually assault three teenagers who belonged to his congregation.

Kidd’s defense attorney, however, maintained that his client is the victim of a conspiracy with money at its root.

Delaware Circuit Court 3 jurors on Tuesday began hearing testimony in the trial of Kidd, 55, pastor of Freedom Point Apostolic Church.

The Delaware County man was charged three years ago this month with child molesting, sexual misconduct with a minor and vicarious sexual gratification. The alleged victims are brothers, two of them now in their early 20s.

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IRELAND
BBC News

Priests in a Catholic diocese in the Republic of Ireland are being asked to pay 60 euros a month into a fund to cover pay-outs for clerical abuse.

The request was made by the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Rev Dermot Clifford. The original fund was set up five years ago, but it is dwindling.

Parish priests have been asked to give 60 euros and curates, 50 euros.

Gary O’Sullivan, editor of the Irish Catholic newspaper, said the dioceses were running out of money.

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ARIZONA
East Valley Tribune

By Mike Sakal, Tribune

The case of an East Valley priest accused of molesting teenage boys is now being reviewed by a Vatican-based board in Rome which will ultimately decide whether to remove him from the priesthood.

The Diocese of Phoenix has completed its investigation into the Rev. Jack Spaulding, the former pastor at St. Timothy’s Catholic Community Church in Mesa, and forwarded the case onto the Doctrine of Faith after deeming that the allegations against Spaulding were credible. In part, the Diocese deems accusations of molestation credible if the priest served at the parish at the same time his accuser did.

In June, Spaulding, 68, resigned from St. Timothy’s and the Diocese of Phoenix suspended him after a diocesan review board deemed allegations of Spaulding having a sexual relationship with a teenage boy in 1984 and 1985 as credible. Spaulding served at St. Maria Goretti Church in Scottsdale at the time of the alleged incidents. But, the alleged victim, David Pain Jr. died in June, 2010, and the case was brought to the attention of the diocese by his father. It is believed to be the first such case brought against a priest on behalf of a deceased victim,

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IRELAND
National Catholic Register

by SIMON ROUGHNEEN
01/10/2012

DUBLIN — As Archbishop Charles Brown takes up his new post of papal nuncio to Ireland, he will face what some see as unprecedented difficulties for the Church in Ireland.

After the publication of a series of reports outlining gruesome cases of sexual abuse by priests in Ireland over recent decades, coupled with a falloff in Church attendance, and less quantifiably, a perceptible decline in religious belief and practice, it’s little wonder that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin predicted that his archdiocese faced its toughest challenge “since Catholic Emancipation,” the 1829 changes to British law that removed many of the discriminatory provisions against Catholics in the United Kingdom, of which Ireland was then a part.

Archbishop Martin was commenting on a drop in Mass attendance in Dublin to 14% and declining priest numbers, but the remarks were seen by many as appropriate to the wider Church in Ireland, which now operates within what Irish writer John Waters described to the Register as “the most anti-Catholic country in Europe.”

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

By Tenley Woodman / theater
Wednesday, January 11, 2012

It took Michael Mack decades to reconcile, but tonight the Cambridge playwright and poet will share the secret that has haunted him since childhood.

Mack’s one-man show “Conversations with My Molester: A Faith Journey,” at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, chronicles his struggles as a victim of abuse at the hands of a priest.

“One of the reasons I am doing this is because I lived with this secret for decades,” said Mack, 55. “The secret is like an illness. Address the problem of secrecy. Child sexual abuse is the last dark secret we have as a society.”

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

Roman Catholic priest Father Eric Dejaeger must appear in Nunavut Territorial court Jan.23 for arraignment on up to 39 criminal charges, most related to the sexual molestation of children, Justice Robert Kilpatrick said Jan. 9.

Crown prosecutor Paul Bychok and defence lawyer Andrew Mahar participated via a teleconference, and Dejaeger did not put in anappearance.

The list of allegations Dejaeger faces, which has swollen to nearly 40 counts, involves a long list of sex offences alleged to have occurred in Igloolik against children between 1978 and 1982.

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MISSOURI
Catholic League

The weekly St. Louis alternative newspaper, Riverfront Times, published an exchange today between reporter Nicholas Phillips and David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

Clohessy is quoted as saying the following about St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson: “Archbishop Carlson and his brother Catholic bishops have hired, hidden, transferred, defended and enabled child molesters. SNAP hasn’t. Carlson and his colleagues have ignored and concealed their crimes. SNAP hasn’t.”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

I will leave it to Archbishop Carlson’s lawyers to respond to Clohessy, but I cannot allow the SNAP director to lie about his own personal involvement in the cover-up of a known child molester.

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ALABAMA
Huffington Post

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Two longtime Alabama school board leaders are defending the panel’s decision in 1993 to reinstate an elementary school teacher who was accused of molesting a student, even though the teacher is now charged with more abuse.

School board President Lee Doebler and Vice President Steve Martin said students, parents and community leaders encouraged the Shelby County Board of Education to return 4th grade teacher Danny Acker to his Alabaster classroom, and the board agreed 5-0. Doebler and Martin are the only board members who remain from those days, and both said they did the best they could with the information they had.

“Looking back, given the evidence we had I would have made the same vote,” Doebler said. “I wish we had some evidence, but unfortunately, we didn’t.”

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MALTA
Times of Malta

The victims of clerical sex abuse are giving the Church until the end of February to reconsider its decision against compensating them financially or else they will take their case to court.

“We are giving the Church an ultimatum because we cannot remain abandoned any longer,” Lawrence Grech told The Sunday Times. Mr Grech, who spoke on behalf of the 11 men who were abused as boys at a Sta Venera orphanage, said the Church had also failed to provide the support it had promised.

Last September, the Church had ruled out financial compensation saying it had received legal advice that as an institution it did not have any responsibility for what was perpetrated by some individuals and “cannot take upon herself such responsibility”.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jan. 10, 2012
By Dennis Sadowski, Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON — A three-year study of U.S. women religious called for by the Vatican has been completed with the final comprehensive report recently sent to Rome.

No details of the findings in what the church calls an apostolic visitation were released by Mother Mary Clare Millea, superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the apostolic visitator appointed by the Vatican to undertake the study.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, confirmed Jan. 10 that reports had been received by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life “and is now studying them.”

“At this time, it is premature to expect comments from the congregation,” he said.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Sarah Stack

Tuesday January 10 2012

ARCHBISHOP Diarmuid Martin has led tributes to a groundbreaking journalist who lifted the lid on clerical and institutional abuse in Ireland.

Mary Raftery’s fearless investigations to uncover generations of abuse led to the setting up of several State inquiries which shocked the nation.

She died this morning at the age of 54 following an illness, and is survived by her husband, David Waddell, and their son, Ben.

Archbishop Martin said work by the late broadcaster and journalist contributed to the Church being a better place for children.

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IRELAND
The University Observer

Contributed by Kate Rothwell, Deputy Editor on Tuesday, 10 January 2012

I once asked Mary Raftery for tips on being a good journalist, and she said to always start your articles with a short sentence. So here it goes:

Former UCDSU Education Officer and UCD student Mary Raftery has passed away.

Student politician turned journalist, last September she spoke in an interview of her time in UCD, which she spent “doing a lot less engineering than I should have and getting a lot more involved with the Students’ Union and the student newspaper.”

She worked as a sub-editor and writer for the In Dublin magazine, before moving on to work for the current affairs publication Magill in 1984, and later for RTÉ until leaving in 2002.

The word that has been mentioned again and again in tributes to her is “relentless”. This relentlessness led to her producing and directing States of Fear, a documentary series that revealed the physical and sexual abuse suffered by children in Irish industrial schools and residential institutions.

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IRELAND
TV3

[with video]

Tributes have been paid to the journalist Mary Raftery, who has died at the age of fifty four. She was best known for her work in exposing child abuse.

Ms Raftery was best known for her ‘States of Fear’ documentary series, which revealed the extent of physical and sexual abuse suffered by children in Irish industrial schools and residential institutions.

The series led to the setting up of the tribunals into allegations of sexual and physical abuse in the Catholic diocese in Ireland.

Tributes have been led by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin who said that her exposés of clerical child sexual abuse has since made the Church a better place for children.

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CALIFORNIA
Record Seachlight

SACRAMENTO — A suspended Redding priest charged with seven felony counts of child molestation was released Monday night from Sacramento County jail after his $700,000 bail was posted.

The Rev. Uriel Ojeda, 32, had his bail reduced last week to $700,000 from $5 million.

Ojeda was arrested Nov. 30, 2011, after surrendering to law enforcement officials in Sacramento County after the diocese received a complaint from a parishioner’s family. His original bail was so high because prosecutors claimed he was a flight risk.

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MISSOURI
Riverfront Times

By Nicholas PhillipsTue., Jan. 10 2012

​Recently in both Kansas City and St. Louis, lawyers defending the Catholic Church against clerical sex abuse allegations have have tried to subpoena years worth of emails and records from their long-time adversary, SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests).

SNAP director David Clohessy often impugns the Church for failing to deal transparently with clerical sex abuse. Is it hypocritical for him to balk at releasing his group’s correspondence with victims, journalists and others?

Catholic League president Bill Donahue apparently thinks so, suggesting in the Post-Dispatch last week that:

Clohessy never tires of lecturing the Catholic Church on the need for transparency, yet when he is in the hot seat, he rebels.

Daily RFT asked Clohessy by e-mail for his reaction.

He roundly rejects any moral equivalence. Here’s what he wrote to us:

Transparency about criminals helps protect the vulnerable. Transparency about victims hurts the already-hurting.

When victims’ privacy is respected, more victims are able to speak up, protect others, expose predators and start healing. When victims’ privacy is violated, more victims stay silent, more predators walk free and more innocent people are assaulted.

Who benefits when the private e mails of a struggling teenager, who was sexually assaulted for years by her priest, are given to Archbishop Carlson and his lawyers? That’s not “transparency.” That’s a travesty. That’s brutality. That’s betrayal.

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IRELAND
RTE News

In 2009, Donal O’Donoghue met Mary Raftery – the woman behind the landmark RTÉ series States of Fear.

Interview first published in June 2009

The recently published Ryan Report was a shocking indictment of institutional child abuse in Ireland. But a decade earlier, the RTÉ TV series States of Fear opened a Pandora’s box. Donal O’Donoghue meets the woman behind the landmark programme, Mary Raftery.

There’s no assigned doorbell and the office is a largely empty space. But if Mary Raftery has yet to set up base in Dublin city centre, the award-winning documentary-maker and journalist anticipates the day the shelves will groan with the weight of files and history.

But right now the furnishings are meagre: a couple of chairs and a table bearing a laptop, a mobile phone and bottle of juice. Coincidentally, or maybe not, Raftery’s neighbours are Saffron Pictures, makers of the award-winning Whistleblower, a drama based on the Lourdes Hospital scandal. Ten years after making the TV series States of Fear, Raftery remains best-known as someone who blew the whistle on institutional child abuse in this country. She is still asking the hard questions.

Mary Raftery is a bright woman, curious, clever and precise. “Don’t hold me to that”, she says, when exact statistics are not immediately to hand, but she’s not afraid to point the finger.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

‘States of Fear’ documentary-maker and journalist Mary Raftery has died.

The 54-year-old was well known for her work on the ‘States of Fear’ documentary series that revealed the extent of physical and sexual abuse suffered by children in the Irish childcare system.

She also produced and directed the ‘Prime Time Investigates: Cardinal Secrets’ programme which led to the establishment of the Murphy Commission of Investigation into child sex abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese.

She passed away in Dublin this morning following an illness. She is survived by her husband David and her son Ben.

Colm O’Gorman of Amnesty International Ireland said Ms Raftery’s work transformed Ireland.

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IRELAND
BBC News

Journalist Mary Raftery who was instrumental in challenging the Irish state and Catholic Church on clerical child abuse has died.

She was best known for her 1999 ground-breaking “States of Fear” documentaries.

They revealed the extent of abuse suffered by children in Irish industrial schools and institutions managed by religious orders.

It led to taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologising on behalf of the state.

Her work also led to the setting up of the Ryan Commission, which reported in May 2009, and to the setting up of a confidential committee which heard the stories of victims of institutional abuse.

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IRELAND
The Journal

LEADERS FROM ACROSS the political spectrum have paid tribute to journalist and documentary-maker Mary Raftery, who has passed away aged 54.

Raftery was best known for her 1999 RTÉ documentary States of Fear, which examined the abuse suffered by children in church-run State schools. Its broadcast led to an official apology and the establishment of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said he was “very saddened” to learn of Raftery’s death. He said her work had “lifted the lid” on the physical and sexual abuse of children, with a “far-reaching” impact. “In these programmes, and in her other work, she uncovered the truth, even when it was a truth that a lot of people did not want to hear,” he said, adding:

This country owes her a huge debt of gratitude.

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TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade

BY DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

Gerald Robinson, the Toledo Catholic priest convicted in 2006 of the 1980 murder of a nun, was denied a new trial in a ruling Monday by Judge Gene Zmuda of Lucas County Common Pleas Court.

The 73-year-old priest is serving a 15-years-to-life sentence for killing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl on April 5 — Holy Saturday — in 1980.

His amended petition for post-conviction relief contends that police reports from 1980 that had been misfiled and discovered by chance in 2009 could have affected the 2006 trial and verdict.

Judge Zmuda rejected the argument, saying that the 136 documents did not contain anything that would have helped Robinson’s defense strategy or prove the priest’s innocence.

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
KRCR

[with video]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The former Redding Priest accused of molesting a girl under the age of 14 walked out of a Sacramento County Jail Monday night.

Father Uriel Ojeda walked out about 10:00 p.m. after supporters raised enough to pay his $700,000 bail.

Reporters on the ground told us there was an impromptu festival outside this afternoon where supporters were playing music and singing.

Prosecutors say the 32-year old confessed to a diocese investigator that he repeatedly molested a teenage girl under the age of 14. However, Ojeda’s defense attorney’s say that confession never happened.

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
KCRA

[with video]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The priest accused of sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl over two years was released from Sacramento County Jail just before 10 pm Monday on $700,000 bond.

Dozens of supporters of Father Uriel Ojeda waited for his release for about eight hours rallying outside the jail. Ojeda’s bail bondsman Paul Sherbenske said some helped make posting his bond possible by listing their homes as collateral.

Sherbenske said Ojeda will have to give up his passport and wear a GPS tracking device while he is out on bail.

Many of Ojeda’s supporters attend the parishes Ojeda served in Redding and Woodland and say he is innocent.

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
The Sacramento Bee

By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com

Published: Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012

Supporters of the Rev. Uriel Ojeda were rewarded for waiting in the darkness Monday as the Catholic priest posted bail and was released from the Sacramento County Main Jail.

More than 50 people prayed for and flew balloons to celebrate the release of the Sacramento diocesan priest who faces child molestation charges.

Ojeda, 32, is accused of seven counts of molesting a girl under the age of 14 while he served at parishes in Woodland and Redding. He had been jailed in lieu of $5 million bail until Sacramento Superior Court Judge Marjorie Koller last week lowered it to $700,000.

Defense attorney Jesse Ortiz initially expected Ojeda to be released by 5 p.m. By 6:30 p.m., Ojeda’s supporters scrambled to post the collateral that would ensure his freedom. At 9 p.m., supporters were told it could be another hour or two.

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
The Sacramento Bee

By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com

Published: Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012

Supporters of the Rev. Uriel Ojeda waited into the darkness Monday to see if the Catholic priest jailed on child molestation charges would be able to post bail.

More than 50 people sang songs in Spanish and flew balloons outside the Sacramento County Main Jail while Ojeda’s attorney and bail bondsmen worked on the details to gain what they expected would be the priest’s release.

Ojeda, 32, is accused of seven counts of molesting a girl under the age of 14 while he served at parishes in Woodland and Redding. He had been jailed in lieu of $5 million bail until Sacramento Superior Court Judge Marjorie Koller last week lowered it to $700,000.

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
News 10

[with video]

SACRAMENTO, CA – Dozens of people gathered outside the Sacramento County Jail late Monday, some waiting nearly seven hours, for the release of a Sacramento diocese priest.

Around 10 p.m., Father Uriel Ojeda, 32, was released from jail after posting bail. He has been in custody since Nov. 30 when he surrendered to police.

Sacramento Catholic Diocese Spokesman Kevin Eckery said Ojeda admitted to two church officials that he molested a 13-year-old girl.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Irish Archbishop asks priest to contribute to compensation for abuse victims – POLL

By
ANTOINETTE KELLY,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Not content to minister to the flock, an Irish archbishop has asked priests to pay over $900.00 each year into a fund that will be used to compensate Irish victims of clerical sex abuse.

According to a report in the Irish Independent this week, Archbishop Dermot Clifford has sent letters to all of the priests in the Cashel and Emly Archdiocese of County Tipperary and County Limerick asking them to pay between $60 and $75 dollars per month to a Clergy Contribution Fund.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Agency

By Benjamin Mann

Hamden, Conn., Jan 9, 2012 / 07:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A three-year survey of women’s religious life in the United States has concluded with the filing of a final report by the Vatican-appointed Apostolic Visitator Mother Mary Clare Millea.

“Although there are concerns in religious life that warrant support and attention, the enduring reality is one of fidelity, joy, and hope,” Mother Millea said in a Jan. 9 release announcing the submission of her findings to the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

Along with her comprehensive report on women’s religious communities, Mother Millea is presenting individual reports on nearly 400 religious institutes to the congregation’s secretary Archbishop Joseph Tobin. These reports are likely to be completed by the spring of 2012.

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CANADA
Cape Breton Post

By Nancy King Cape Breton Post
PORT HAWKESBURY — The case of Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh has attracted the attention of a group that advocates on behalf of people who say that they are survivors of sexual abuse.

The Atlantic chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests has been looking into the MacIntosh matter, and its regional head Dave Mantin says he has recently been in almost daily contact with some of the men who say they were abused as youngsters by MacIntosh.

Mantin said the network is helping some of the complainants in the MacIntosh case assess what legal options may now be available to them.

“In this particular case, I read about it in the newspaper and I thought it just doesn’t sound right, (the group’s involvement) is really out of more personal curiosity, I started investigating a little bit,” Mantin said.

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UNITED STATES
Catholics4Change

January 10, 2012 by Susan Matthews

The Catholic League used the clip art at left in a press release in regard to the Boston Victims’ Summit. To use such art in relation to the issue of clergy sex abuse is reprehensible. Regardless of what you think about the law suits, the media or the issue in general – the bottom line is that children were harmed. This artwork and the press release is not only highly inappropriate – it couldn’t be less Christ-like. The actual press release is no better.

I find it very disturbing that our Church leaders support an organization that would do this. Below is Archbishop Chaput’s testimonial from the Catholic League’s Web site.

“The Catholic League has the courage to speak up candidly and forcefully for the Church when circumstances call for fighting the good fight. The League should be on every Catholic’s short list of essential organizations to support.”

— Most Rev. Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Philadelphia

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

THE BRUNT of the impact of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia closing 49 of its schools will surely be felt by the teachers, students and parents of those schools closing – and most especially the high-school juniors who will be forced to find another school from which to graduate – and hopefully stay on course for college.

But the Archdiocese’s closure of 45 elementary schools and four high schools – affecting more than 22,000 students and 1,700 teachers – is a move that will affect the whole city. We’re a far cry from the era when 12 percent of schoolchildren were educated in Catholic schools, and the church and its affiliated schools dominated some communities. But despite the storm of changes that have buffeted the church in the last few generations, parochial schools are still deeply embedded in many city neighborhoods. Their absence will be felt by all.

In fact, this is another reckoning for education in the city. The disappearance of a quarter of the parochial-educational system is not insignificant, particularly with its enviable graduation rate (99.7 percent in Philadelphia) and college attainment (92.5 percent post-secondary-education enrollment).

This particular reckoning was long overdue; not just here, but across the country. A number of reports have documented the decline of Catholic education; one, from Education Next, maintains that while the general Catholic population in the United States has remained about the same since 1965, school population has plummeted, from 5.2 million to 2.3 million in 2006.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Patriot-News

By Patriot-News Op-Ed

Rep. Thomas P. Murt

Grand jury investigations into the recent child sex abuse scandals that have rocked Penn State and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia have placed the issue of child sex abuse onto the front burner in Pennsylvania — where it belongs.

I serve on the Child and Youth Committee and have listened to and read many hours of excruciatingly painful testimony from victims and their families describing the most heinous sexual abuse imaginable.

The institutional cover-ups and subsequent ill-treatment of victims have made these terrible situations even worse. It’s a sad day, indeed, when concern for institutional risk management trumps uncovering the truth.

I recently listened to testimony concerning two perpetrators who were Franciscan friars and who taught at Archbishop Ryan High School when I was on the faculty there. As a lifelong Catholic, a former parochial school teacher and a religious education instructor, I am filled with anguish over these incidents.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Keloland Television

By Derek Olson
Published: January 9, 2012

BELLE FOURCHE, SD – Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader Warren Jeffs has been behind bars since last August when he was sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting two young girls. But, as Butte County officials are discovering, incarceration isn’t silencing the controversial leader.

In early December, letters from Jeffs began arriving at the Butte County Courthouse. At first, they were handled like any other piece of mail.

“The first time they came, I did give them to my commissioners,” Butte County Auditor Elaine Jensen said.

The letters, which contain some dire jailhouse prophecies from Jeffs, were promptly rejected by the Butte County Commission. But, the packages continued to arrive.

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UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune

Lindsay Whitehurst

Yet another Warren Jeffs revelation from God came into the Utah Attorney General’s Office today. Read it here.

It’s dated Dec. 24, the day before Jeffs made two 15-minute phone addresses to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints congregation. He reportedly told the members that they had until the end of the year to be “re-baptized” by following increasingly strict new rules and paying tithings of thousands of dollars.

Those who didn’t ended up being told they were no longer worthy to attend church.

Those Christmas Day telephonic sermons earned Jeffs a 90-day suspension from his phone privileges this weekend. A Texas prison spokesman said he was punished for breaking a clearly posted rule to only call the 10 people on his approved visitor list. The five days he’s already been on suspension pending the investigation don’t count.

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CANADA
The Vancouver Sun

By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
January 10, 2012

Nearly a year after lawyers in the B.C. attorney-general’s minis-try learned the details of how a father from Bountiful delivered his 13-year-old daughter into a forced, polygamous marriage with the now-jailed prophet of a fundamentalist Mormon sect, Attorney-General Shirley Bond has instructed that a special prosecutor be appointed to look into the evidence.

Among the charges the prosecutor may consider are human trafficking, child sexual exploitation, sexual assault and procurement.

It’s welcome news. Still, one can’t help wonder why it’s taken so long.

The evidence has been kicking around since September 2008. That’s when a team leader in the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development got a fax from Texas following a raid on the compound built by Prophet Warren Jeffs.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

By Peggy Curran, The Gazette
January 10, 2012

The pope is dead. Will there be a new pope, and how will we even find out?

For 40 years, Jean-Gaston Tremblay – also known as Pope Gregory XVII and Jean-Grégoire de la Trinité – had been the spiritual leader of the Apostles of Infinite Love, a breakaway Catholic cult based in a “monastery” sequestered in the countryside near St. Jovite.

“There’s a big fence around the community, but it wasn’t clear whether that was to keep prying eyes out, or to keep people in,” says Info-Cult’s Mike Kropveld, who has been monitoring “les Apôtres de l’amour infini” for decades.

Tremblay was 83 when he died in a Ste. Agathe hospital on New Year’s Eve.

For much of his life, Tremblay had been the target of police probes, arising from allegations of forcible detention, mental, sexual and physical abuse of children, illegal confinement and kidnapping.

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CHILE
Cooperativa

José Andrés Murillo, uno de los denunciantes de los abusos cometidos por el sacerdote Fernando Karadima, instó a la Iglesia a apoyar a las víctimas de estos actos cometidos por religiosos.

A raíz del respaldo de la congregación del Verbo Divino al sacerdote filipino, Richard Joy Aguinaldo, declarado culpable de abuso sexual contra menores, Murillo aseveró que la solidaridad debe estar en las víctimas.

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CHILE
Emol

SANTIAGO.- La Cuarta Sala de la Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago confirmó el cierre definitivo de la investigación por abusos sexuales contra menores de edad cometidos por el sacerdote Fernando Karadima.

En fallo unánime (causa rol 3037-2010), los ministros de la Cuarta Sala del tribunal de alzada Juan Cristóbal Mera, María Soledad Melo y el abogado integrante Bernardo Lara ratificaron la resolución de la ministra en visita Jessica González, quien había decretado el sobreseimiento, aplicando la prescripción.

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IRELAND
RTE News

The death has taken place of journalist Mary Raftery. The 54-year-old died following an illness.

Ms Raftery was best known for her ‘States of Fear’ documentary series, which revealed the extent of physical and sexual abuse suffered by children in Irish industrial schools and residential institutions.

It led to the creation of the Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse.

In 2002, her ‘Cardinal Secrets’ programme for RTÉ’s Prime Time led to the setting up of the Murphy Commission of Investigation into clerical abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By INDEPENDENT.IE REPORTERS and SARAH STACK

Tuesday January 10 2012

JOURNALIST Mary Raftery (54) whose documentary ‘States of Fear’ exposed the extent of physical and sexual abuse of children in State run institutions, has died following an illness.

For the last 15 years she had been a fearless critic of both Church and State.

The 1999 documentary chronicled the horrific conditions of children who were cared for in Irish orphanages run by religious orders.

Her work led to the establishment of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and later the Residential Institutions Redress Board which provided compensation to victims of abuse in institutions run by 18 religious orders.

Colm O’Gorman, who founded the One in Four organisation for victims of sex abuse tweeted: “Very sad to hear about the death of Mary Raftery. One of our finest journalists & filmmakers. A courageous, principled, wonderful woman.”

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

EOIN BURKE-KENNEDY

Tributes have been paid to the late journalist and broadcaster Mary Raftery (54) who died in St Vincent’s hospital in Dublin today after an illness.

Abuse victim and campaigner Andrew Madden said Ms Raftery had been “instrumental” in helping many survivors expose the truth about what the Catholic Church and others knew about the sexual abuse of children by priests.

“Mary Raftery has contributed hugely to helping survivors receive some semblance of justice: The Ryan and Murphy reports are now part of the public record of this country and will remain there and continue to inform us for many years. For too many survivors, having those reports on the public record is the only justice they have ever received.”

“I will be forever grateful to Mary for all she has done to help shed a light where it wasn’t wanted,” he said.

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MUNCIE (IN)
The Star Press

MUNCIE — Nearly three years after charges were filed, testimony should begin today in the trial of a Muncie pastor accused of sexually abusing three teenager members of his congregation.

The trial of Matthew A. Kidd, now 55, pastor of Freedom Point Apostolic Church, began Monday with a full day of jury-selection proceedings in Delaware Circuit Court 3.

Kidd was charged in January 2009 with child molesting and sexual misconduct with a minor, both Class C felonies carrying a standard four-year prison term, and vicarious sexual gratification, a Class D felony with a standard 18-month sentence.

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Michael P. Mayko, Staff Writer

Updated 11:38 p.m., Monday, January 9, 2012

BRIDGEPORT — A federal judge set several deadlines and is mulling how to try the 20 federal lawsuits each seeking $20 million in damages brought by the alleged sexual abuse victims of Douglas Perlitz in Haiti.

The 20 cases, 17 of which were just filed last week, are in the process of being reassigned to U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall.

In meeting with the six plaintiff lawyers and 11 defense lawyers Monday, Hall mulled whether to try all the cases at once, separating the liability phase from the damage phases, or to take one of the cases to finish — as a test case.

Additionally, she asked U.S. Magistrate Judge William I. Garfinkle, who mediated settlements in the Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport sex abuse cases, to conduct preliminary discussions with the lawyers.

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