ABUSE TRACKER

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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UNITED KINGDOM
Western Daily Press

The monks running a West private school at the centre of an abuse scandal will hand over its running to an independent group of governors, it emerged yesterday.

The Benedictine monks could lose control of the running of the £26,000-a-year Downside School in Somerset after a review of practices in the wake of the jailing last week of Richard White, known as “Father Nicholas” to the 1,500 students.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

The death has taken place in Dublin of renowned journalist and broadcaster Mary Raftery.

She died at St Vincent’s hospital in Dublin in the early hours of this morning after an illness. She was 54.

Probably the outstanding journalist of her generation, Ms Raftery produced some of the most powerful and influential programmes ever broadcast on RTÉ television.

She was best known for the 1999 States of Fear documentary series that revealed the extent of physical and sexual abuse suffered by children in industrial schools managed by religious orders on behalf of the State.

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UNITED STATES
The Pilot

By Mark Pattison

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who was appointed Jan. 6 to the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI, has used his pulpit, be it in New York or Milwaukee, to promote and defend the Catholic faith.

Ordained to the priesthood in 1976, Cardinal-designate Dolan was secretary to the apostolic nunciature in Washington for five years before serving as rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome. In 2001, then-Msgr. Dolan was ordained to the episcopate when he was appointed auxiliary bishop in his native St. Louis. One year and five days later, he was appointed archbishop of Milwaukee. …

As a panelist for a 2004 EWTN-sponsored “town hall” meeting, Cardinal-designate Dolan said the clergy sex abuse crisis was “a societal problem, not a Catholic problem.” At the time, he was chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry.

The Milwaukee Archdiocese in 2006 reached an out-of-court, $16.9 million settlement with victims of clerical sexual abuse. Then-Archbishop Dolan said the payout would mean “sacrifices in operations and ministries” but going to trial could have been worse in terms of archdiocesan financial liability, “to say nothing about the bad PR.” The archdiocese in 2011 filed for bankruptcy protection due to unresolved abuse claims, the largest U.S. diocese to have done so.

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CHILE
The Santiago Times

Written by Juan Francisco Veloso Olguin

Philippine priest Richard Joey Aguinaldo found guilty on two counts, but avoids jail sentence.

A Catholic priest found guilty of abusing a young child and attempting to abuse another has been given a 4-year, 200-day probation sentence, avoiding jail altogether.

District Attorney Mauricio González, during part of the oral trial court of Colina, revealed the probation sentence on Sunday of Philippine priest Richard Joey Aguinaldo after he was found guilty of molestation.

Aguinaldo moved to Chile in 1991 as part of a Catholic congregation and worked in schools for many years, reaching the rank of dean in the Liceo Alemán del Verbo Divino in the southern city of Los Ángeles in 1993.

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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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ALABAMA
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

Monday, January 09, 2012

ALABASTER, Ala. (ABP) – Residents of a Birmingham suburb expressed shock at sexual abuse charges filed against a popular school teacher who faced similar allegations, but avoided arrest, 20 years ago while he was youth minister at a Baptist church.

Police in Alabaster, Ala., arrested Daniel Montague Acker Jr., 49, Jan. 4 and charged him with three counts of first-degree child sexual abuse. A fourth charge involving a second victim was added Jan. 6.

Police said Acker admitted to molesting at least 21 female students during his 25-year tenure as a teacher at three public schools.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Bill White

5:01 p.m. EST, January 9, 2012

The alleged child sex abuse victims of Hall of Fame baseball writer Bill Conlin weren’t the only ones who came forward in the wake of the Penn State scandal.

The day one of my columns on this subject appeared, I got a phone call from a man in his 80s. He told me about his being abused when he was a young teenager — and said this was the first time he had told that story to anyone. Even his wife didn’t know about it.

If the scandal at Penn State has any positive result, it will be the way in which it has helped lift the curtain of silence from the subject of child sex abuse and emboldened more victims to finally speak up about what happened to them. I suspect the Conlin accusations have had a similar effect.

U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary Unfortunately, one thing many of these victims had in common was that they never would have the opportunity to confront their abusers in court, because Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations was protecting their tormentors. Conlin’s celebrity made the claims of his alleged victims newsworthy enough to warrant stories even without legal filings to back them up, but the court system ordinarily provides the only avenue to pursue the closure of publicly naming and punishing the people who prey on children.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Jan. 09, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As Bishop Robert W. Finn of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese began visiting parishes yesterday (Jan. 8) as part of an agreement to avoid criminal charges for failing to report suspected child abuse, about 60 area Catholics rallied in his support.

The agreement, between the bishop and Clay County, Mo., prosecutor Daniel White, allowed Finn to avoid criminal charges for child endangerment in that county in regards to the case of diocesan priest Fr. Shawn Ratigan, who was arrested on charges of child pornography last May.

As part of the agreement, Finn agreed to meet with diocesan parishes in that county to outline diocesan reporting procedures for suspected child abuse. Finn also agreed to monthly meetings with White to discuss all reported suspicions of abuse in the county, and to appoint a new director of child and youth protection.

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
The Sacramento Bee

By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com

About 50 people have gathered outside the downtown jail in Sacramento awaiting the bail release of the Rev. Uriel Ojeda, the Catholic priest who has been accused of molesting a girl under 14 years old.

Ojeda’s attorney, Jesse Ortiz, said that the reverend is scheduled to be released on bond sometime before 5 p.m. today.

Supporters of the 32-year-old Ojeda hoisted balloons and sang songs while they waited for him to walk out of the front door of the jail at 651 I St.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
National Catholic Reporter

Jan. 09, 2012
By Zoe Ryan

Before, during, and after Our Lady of Good Counsel in New Orleans closed in 2008, parishioners were sad. And angry. And dedicated: They kept vigil in the church for three months until police officers forced them out.

But now, the disappointment is eroding to appreciation.

The New Orleans archdiocese announced last month that the Center of Jesus the Lord, a charismatic Catholic community, would move into the empty church building of Our Lady of Good Counsel, located in the Garden District. Although it will not be a parish and cannot offer parish programs, the community will use the space for Mass and other charitable activities.

“We’re very pleased,” said Barbara Fortier, the parish council president of the former Our Lady of Good Counsel and a parishioner there for 26 years. “It’s been a difficult couple of years, but we’ve been very prayerful and very appreciative and thankful for [New Orleans] Archbishop [Gregory] Aymond’s compassion and his willingness to have a dialogue with us.”

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SOUTH DAKOTA
SNAP Wisconsin

Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director

CONTACT: 414.336.8575.

It is being reported today that the Supreme Court of South Dakota has decided to allow a child sexual assault lawsuit involving the Priests of the Sacred Heart to move forward. The suit was filed on behalf of eight Native American children who report that they were sexually assaulted as children at St. Joseph’s Indian Mission School. The Priests of the Sacred Heart had attempted to have the case dismissed claiming the plaintiffs had not followed proper process serving procedures.

St. Joseph’s Indian Mission School in South Dakota is operated by the Priests of the Sacred Heart, a religious order of priests and brothers based in Hales Corners Wisconsin. The order operates Sacred Heart School of Theology, the largest seminary in the United States that trains men over the age of 30 for the priesthood.

The lawsuit names the Priests of the Sacred Heart and members of their community including Father William Pitcavage, Father Thomas Lind, and Brother Matthew Miles as defendants. Pitcavage, who had been elected the Order’s Vice Provincial, and Lind were both removed from ministry following reports of sexual assault at the boarding school.

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TEXAS
CBS News

(AP) HOUSTON — Texas corrections officials have decided that imprisoned polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs will be without phone privileges for 90 days as punishment for making calls that were put on speakerphone — presumably so he could preach to his followers

Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Monday the 56-year-old was found to have broken the rules multiple times.

A prison system investigation found Jeffs made at least two calls over the inmate phone system on Christmas Day that wound up as sermons to followers of his Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

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TEXAS
CNN

From Dave Alsup, CNN
updated 4:26 PM EST, Mon January 9, 2012

(CNN) — Texas prison officials have found polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs guilty of “a major disciplinary infraction” following an investigation into whether he violated policy by — among other things — preaching a Christmas day sermon from prison, a state spokeswoman said Monday.

Jeffs’ phone privileges have been suspended for 90 days, added Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons.

While refusing to elaborate on the content of the conversations, Lyons said that Jeffs was found guilty of making conference calls on several occasions. “It was obvious to us he was talking to a group of people,” she said.

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CHILE
La Tercera

La cuarta sala de la Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago confirmó el sobreseimiento a favor del Sacerdote Fernando Karadima, acusado de cometer abusos sexuales contra menores de edad.

Con este sobreseimiento se confirma el cierre del caso, porque los ilícitos están prescritos ya que ocurrieron entre 1980 y 1995.

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
CantonRep

YOUNGSTOWN —

The Catholic Diocese of Youngstown has been found compliant with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People during its annual compliance audit.

The charter was developed in 2002 in response to the sexual-abuse crises in the Church. It was revised in 2005 and 2011.

The on-site audit was conducted in October by Stonebridge Business Partners, an independent firm based in Rochester, N.Y.

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TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade

Gerald Robinson, the Toledo Catholic priest convicted of murdering a nun, was denied a petition for 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 in an Ohio prison after being convicted in May, 2006, for the 1980 murder of St. Margaret Ann Pahl. He contended in an amended petition for post-conviction relief that police reports from

the 1980 investigation that were misfiled and discovered by chance in 2009 could have helped his case in 2006.In Monday’s ruling, Judge Zmuda rejected that claim, saying the 136 documents would have added nothing of significance to the trial.

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TOLEDO (OH)
Northwest Ohio

by Elizabeth Reed

TOLEDO — More than five years after a Roman Catholic priest was convicted of killing a nun at Mercy Hospital, a Lucas County Common Pleas Court judge has denied his request for a new trial.

The Associated Press reports Judge Gene Zmuda turned down Rev. Gerald Robinson’s appeal on Monday due to lack of revelant information. But Rev. Robinson’s attorneys say the 136 documents provided contain police reports that were only discovered after his trial.

Rev. Robinson, 73, was found guilty of killing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl more than 30 years after the murder. He is serving 15 years to life in prison after jurors convicted him in May 2006.

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TOLEDO (OH)
The Sacramento Bee

By JOHN SEEWER
Associated Press

TOLEDO, Ohio — A Roman Catholic priest convicted of killing a nun in a hospital chapel in Ohio has lost his bid for a new trial.

A judge in Toledo turned down the priest’s appeal Monday.

Attorneys for the Rev. Gerald Robinson had argued that police reports discovered after his trial could have changed the outcome. But the judge ruled that the reports didn’t contain any relevant information.

It has been more than five years since jurors convicted Robinson of killing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl in 1980 at Mercy Hospital in Toledo, where both worked.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Huffington Post UK

After more than 200 years, Roman Catholic monks could lose control of the running one of the country’s most prestigious private schools following a series of sex abuse scandals.

Downside School in Somerset is currently conducting a “major review” of the governance arrangements after Richard White, a former monk and teacher at the school, was jailed for abusing two boys there in the 1980s.

White, who was known as “Father Nicholas” to the 1,500 students at the school, was jailed for five years, having been sheltered from prosecution by the church for more than two decades, despite admitting his crimes to monastic staff.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A Somerset school hit by allegations of historical sexual offences is considering taking itself out of the control of the Roman Catholic clergy.

Downside Abbey said it was undertaking a “major review” and that “significant changes” would be announced soon.

Last week Richard David White, 66, a monk who taught there, was jailed for five years for child sex offences.

White, of Hyde, Fordingbridge, Hampshire, was sentenced at Taunton Crown Court.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Rutland & Stamford Mercury

Published on Monday 9 January 2012

Roman Catholic monks could lose control of running one of the country’s most prestigious private schools, based in Somerset, after more than 200 years following a series of sex abuse scandals, it has been reported.

Benedictine monks will hand control of affairs at the £26,000-a-year Downside School in Somerset to an independent governing body following a review of practices in the wake of the jailing last week of Richard White, 66, for abusing two boys there in the late 1980s, according to The Times.

Police have now confirmed two other men have received cautions as part of an investigation into historic sexual abuse at the school. A spokesman for the school confirmed that “a major review of the school’s governance” was taking place at Downside and that “significant changes will be announced soon”.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Monday, January 09, 2012

The Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Dermot Clifford, has confirmed that he has written to priests in his diocese asking them to contribute to costs associated with child protection.

It follows a newspaper report that clergy in Tipperary and Limerick were being asked to pay up to €720 euro each per year to compensate victims of clerical sex abuse.

In a statement issued this afternoon, Archbishop Clifford did not clarify whether the funds will be used to settle compensation claims.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

EOIN BURKE-KENNEDY

The Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Dr Dermot Clifford, has written to priests and curates in his diocese asking them to contribute to a fund established to compensate victims of clerical child abuse.

In a statement today, the archbishop confirmed he had written to all 85 clerics in the 46 Tipperary and Limerick parishes, requesting voluntary contributions to the “clergy contribution fund”.

The fund was established five years ago to help the diocese cope with mounting debts incurred as a result of child protection issues.

Dr Clifford said the initiative came from the most recent meeting of the diocese’s council of priests at which it was proposed that the archbishop make a renewed appeal to the priests of the diocese for the restoration of the fund.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE ARCHBISHOP in the Munster diocese of Cashel and Emly has asked priests to consider making voluntary contributions to a fund which covers the diocese’s cost for child protection issues.

Dermot Clifford has asked parish priests to pay €60 per month into a Clergy Contribution Fund, in order to cover debts incurred by the diocese in child protection issues. Curates are also asked to contribute €50 per month.

In a statement this evening, the diocese said the request had stemmed from a recent meeting of the diocese’s Council of Priests, where it was proposed that the Archbishop make a renewed appeal to priests asking them to help restore the fund.

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GREECE
MSNBC

By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS

ATHENS, Greece — Greek disability groups expressed anger Monday at a government decision to expand a list of state-recognized disability categories to include pedophiles, exhibitionists and kleptomaniacs.

The National Confederation of Disabled People called the action “incomprehensible,” and said pedophiles are now awarded a higher government disability pay than some people who have received organ transplants.

The Labor Ministry said categories added to the expanded list — that also includes pyromaniacs, compulsive gamblers, fetishists and sadomasochists — were included for purposes of medical assessment and used as a gauge for allocating financial assistance.

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CANADA
Metro Ottawa

JESSICA SMITH
METRO OTTAWA

Published: January 08, 2012

The Archbishop of St. John’s issued a statement to the parishes in his province, voicing his “sadness, disappointment and anger” concerning former Bishop of Antigonish Raymond Lahey’s conviction for importing child pornography.

The short statement, distributed to parishes on Sunday, spoke against pornography as a whole.

“Pornography is an all-too-common obsession and addiction,” said Archbishop Martin Currie.

Lahey told an Ottawa court that the child pornography on his computer came from an “indiscriminate” addiction to porn.

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CANADA
Catholic Culture

January 09, 2012

Archbishop Martin Currie of St. John’s, Newfoundland, has written to the Catholics of the region, revealing that Bishop Raymond Lahey is seeking to be laicized after his conviction on child-pornography charges.

“Let us draw whatever good we can from this event,” said Archbishop Currie. Noting that the habitual use of pornography is “an all-too-common obsession and addiction,” he urged all Catholics to take a stand “against all that harms or degrades human beings.”

Archbishop Currie sought to reassure people that the St. John’s archdiocese “is committed to establishing safe and supportive communities” for all vulnerable people, an screening all those who work for the Church.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By: LaVerne Wagner, Duluth News Tribune

I read the Dec. 18 column about the 100th anniversary of the St. Scholastica Order of the Benedictines. Certainly the Sisters’ work has provided all of us with better health care, education and countless social services. Surely, their work continues to do so.

I personally have worked with Catholic nuns throughout the United States on disasters; they lead efforts to assist those who can’t fend for themselves. Mother Teresa inspired many of us to work with sick and poor and to trust that God will protect us and our health.

I struggle, however, with the dark past the sisters both at St. Scholastica and all over the world have in the failing to protect children. Nuns for many years were charged with the education and safety of children attending Catholic schools. As we now know, tens of thousands of children both in the U.S. and abroad were abused, molested and raped while under the care of nuns. These are facts, not allegations. Nuns have said many times they were silenced by their bishops and told to look the other way. Some nuns say they did not have the power to stop abuse.

As a victim of this abuse, I can tell you I have really tried to understand that predicament.

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CALIFORNIA
Metropolitan News-Enterprise

By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer

The Court of Appeal for this district Friday upheld a judgment rejecting a claim against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno over alleged child molestation more than three decades ago.

Div. Eight said jurors at the 2009 trial in Fresno Superior Court were correctly instructed that they could not find the church liable unless it knew that Monsignor Anthony Herdegen before the plaintiffs were molested, and that such knowledge could not be inferred from “innocuous or ambiguous” evidence.

Jurors unanimously agreed that Herdegen, then a priest at St. John’s Catholic Church in Wasco, molested brothers George and Howard Santillan. Evidence showed that George Santillan was abused from 1959, when he was 10 years old, until 1965, and that his brother was molested from 1960, when he was six, until 1973.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
WHIO

The Associated Press

CLEVELAND —

The Roman Catholic bishop of Cleveland says the sale of 26 closed churches has netted more than $19 million that will be allocated to other parishes.

The buyers include non-Catholic congregations, a drug-rehab center and charter schools.

Bishop Richard Lennon reported on the sales in a weekend newsletter distributed at churches and at a news conference Monday.

He says about $5 million of the sale proceeds went to closing expenses and to pay shuttered parishes’ debts. Nearly $8 million went to other parishes and charity.

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LAKEWOOD (OH)
WTAM

(Lakewood) – The Roman Catholic bishop of Cleveland says the sale of 26 closed churches has netted more than $19 million that will be allocated to other parishes.

The buyers include non-catholic congregations, a drug-rehab center and charter schools.

Bishop Richard Lennon reported on the sales at a news conference Monday.

He says about $5 million of the sale proceeds went to closing expenses and to pay shuttered parishes’ debts. Nearly $8 million went to other parishes and charity.

Fourteen parishes are still for sale. Some sales were put on hold by parishioner appeals to the Vatican to keep churches open.

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MISSOURI
Bilgrimage

[SNAP court documents]

William D. Lindsey

At the end of a posting last Thursday, I noted the situation now facing the group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) in Missouri, where subpoenas have been issued in both Kansas City and St. Louis, demanding that the group’s leaders turn over private communications between themselves and survivors of childhood sexual abuse. This weekend, the Kansas City Star published a strong editorial about the situation, which characterizes a recent ruling of Jackson Co. judge Ann Mesle demanding that SNAP turn over to the court private communications with abuse survivors as “harmful and wrong.” The Star editorial notes that the Missouri Press Association has filed an amicus brief regarding Mesle’s court order, which maintains that “[i]t would chill future news gathering. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that news gathering is protected under the First Amendment.”

Here’s a rough chronology of this developing situation, with links to valuable commentary:

At National Catholic Reporter, Joshua McElwee has reported on the situation in Kansas City from the end of December, when Judge Mesle ordered SNAP to be deposed on 2 January, and to disclose communications sought by the defendant’s attorneys as he did so. As McElwee noted following the 2 January deposition, David Clohessy of SNAP refused to hand over some of the requested communications as he deposed, and SNAP now faces penalties for resisting the court order.

The Kansas City developments were followed immediately by a similar court order in St. Louis, involving a now 19-year old abuse victim who has been assisted by SNAP official Barbara Dorris. McElwee reports on this situation several days ago, indicating that Dorris has now received a subpoena almost identical to the one issued to Clohessy in Kansas City and demanding the same unprecedented access to SNAP’s private communications going back almost 25 years.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

And for those continuing to follow the controversy His Eminence Cardinal Francis George, the past president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, recently ignited when he compared his gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to the Ku Klux Klan, there’s the following:

As always, Jamie Manson provides incisive, theologically perceptive analysis at National Catholic Reporter. Her thesis (and this dovetails with what I’ve just posted about the movement of angry Anglicans back across the Tiber): in rebranding itself to appeal to the right-wing fringes, the Catholic church is, at present, negating its mission to those on the margins. …

And as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes with an editorial statement today, even as the USCCB lobbies against what it claims is a war to diminish Catholic freedom in the U.S., the Catholic bishops have just mounted another conspicuously ugly attack against survivors of clerical sexual abuse by targeting SNAP leaders David Clohessy and Barbara Dorris. The bishops’ lawyers are playing hardball games with SNAP, trying to force it to reveal privileged communications with victims of clerical sexual abuse–though the bishops themselves have never revealed a single scrap of their own files about abuse cases except under serious court and legal duress.

Catholics who support the bishops and who have not ever intended to make room in their hearts and in the Catholic community for survivors of abuse are gleeful that David Clohessy and SNAP are refusing to adhere to a court order to open files that contain confidential information about abuse victims. What must not be lost sight of in the midst of these legal games is that they’re designed to smear SNAP, to damage its credibility, and to make any and all victims of clerical sexual abuse anywhere in the U.S. afraid to come forward with claims.

It’s about, in other words, protecting the church’s assets and tamping down lawsuits by survivors. It’s about using the church’s huge bank accounts and overweening power to threaten and intimidate groups who advocate for survivors of sexual abuse.

What it is conspicuously not about is loving, welcoming, and healing survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

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BOSTON (MA)
Catholic League

Over the weekend, lawyers, columnists, reporters, psychiatrists, and activists attended the “10th Anniversary Celebration & Conference” in Boston; it marked the 10th anniversary of media reports on the Boston clergy sexual abuse scandal.

Commenting on the outcome is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:

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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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Updated January 8, 2012

Under the image of the Divine Mercy, the favorite of Blessed John Paul II (who refused to glorify the Jesuit’s image of the Sacred Heart devotion) Catholics are gathering to pray for Bishop Finn,the Golden Cow of the Opus Dei, hoping to dissuade the secular courts and secular judges from prosecuting him. This latest move of fanatic Catholics – led by the insane campaigns of Catholic League’s Pied Piper Bill Donohue – demonstrates how Catholics are complicit to the most heinous crimes against children in the 20th century when they defend the Popes – John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger, the Princes of the Church like Bernie Law and Roger Mahony, who openly covered-up thousands of pedophile priests – the JP2 Army – during the longest papacy of John Paul II. So now Catholics in their blind faith for priests and Bishops (who they believe can reincarnate Jesus – but they cannot reincarnate dead cats and dead dogs)are openly defending Opus Dei Bishop Finn who has neither compassion nor compunction for children who are helpless victims of pedophile priests.

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NEW JERSEY
The Jersey Journal

By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal

Mark Crawford says he felt like a prisoner.

Crawford grew up on Lexington Avenue in Bayonne, blocks from St. Andrew the Apostle Church, where his family worshipped. When he was in seventh grade, the congregation welcomed a new priest: the Rev. Ken Martin.

Martin quickly befriended Crawford’s large, devoutly Catholic family, according to Crawford.

“He took a very keen interest in me,” he said. “Showered me with gifts.”

The relationship grew. Martin was a railroad enthusiast and had a large model train in the rectory, which fascinated the train-obsessed Crawford. With Crawford’s parents’ permission, the two went on a month-long trip — partly by train — to Colorado in August 1976 when he was 13 years old. …

Like Crawford, Rennar — whose legal name is Keith Brennan — was also raised in a “devoutly Catholic” household, he said.

The family, who lived on Neptune Avenue in Jersey City, attended nearby St. Paul’s. Rennar joined the church’s folk group in his early teens. The musical director was a 17-year-old named Keith Pecklers.

“He pretty much singled me out at some point,” Rennar said. The abuse began in 1976, when Rennar was 14 and Pecklers had just turned 18, he said. It went on for about a year, until Rennar confided in the church deacon, Tom Stamford, Rennar said. …

Pecklers, now a prominent Jesuit scholar, did not respond to an email requesting comment. As with Martin, The Jersey Journal attempted to contact Stamford, to no avail.

The Archdiocese of Newark declined to comment on Crawford’s and Rennar’s allegations.

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