• Catholic church and abuse victims' lawyers talk settlement
[Boston Archdiocese] - Roman Catholic Church (RCC). ~ $75,000 average. 100 survivors.
The Eagle-Tribune,
www.ecnnews. com/cgi-bin/15/ etstory.pl?- sec-HHNews+ fn-fn-ma.church abuse-2005 1231-fn ;
By Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press, January 01, 2006
BOSTON (MA), (AP) -- The Boston Archdiocese has offered to settle another round of sexual abuse claims for less per person than it paid in hundreds of cases two years ago.
The offer was for $5,000 to $200,000 per claim, depending on the severity of the abuse, according to lawyers for both the plaintiffs and the archdiocese.
The Boston Globe, quoting unidentified plaintiffs' lawyers, reported yesterday that the payout would total about $7.5 million for about 100 plaintiffs. That would amount to an average payout of about $75,000 if everyone were paid. The 2003 settlements, $85 million to 554 people, averaged $153,000.
Carmen Durso, who represents 33 plaintiffs, said that as part of the settlement offer, some of the alleged victims -- those considered to have the weaker of the cases -- would have to prove to an arbitrator that the abuse took place and some could face cross-examination by church lawyers.
Victims who were awarded settlements in 2003 also went before arbitrators, but they were not subject to cross-examination.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 07:26 AM]
(This is the only entry in the Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker,
www.ncrnews.org/abuse ,
for January 01, 2006.)
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker,
www.ncrnews.org/abuse ,
Sun January 01, 2006
Abuse Chronology:
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont120.htm
For good teachings to be heeded, a big clean-up is needed.
• New West priest says he is dying of AIDS
[Forshaw] - Anglican. Dying of AIDS.
Anglican Journal,
http://anglican journal.com/ 132/01/canada 05.html ,
by STAFF, January 2006 issue.
CANADA: A gay Anglican priest from the diocese of New Westminster has gone public that he's dying of AIDS and urged Health Canada to grant him and four others access to two new drugs that could save their lives.
Rev. Michael Forshaw, 64, of St. Paul's Anglican church in Vancouver, was granted permission to speak out by his bishop, Michael Ingham.
Mr. Forshaw joined B.C. artist Tiko Kerr in urging Health Canada to release two antiretroviral drugs - TMC114 and TMC125 - under the Special Access Program, intended to provide access to drugs unavailable in Canada on "compassionate" grounds.
Health Canada has announced that it would expedite approval of the special trial on the two drugs, the Vancouver Sun reported. Earlier, Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh refused to give approval to the program "because the drugs are deemed too experimental and, taken together, might pose a health risk to the dying men," said the Vancouver Sun.
Mr. Forshaw is believed to be the first gay Anglican priest in Canada to admit that he's dying of AIDS.
[January 2006]
Abuse Chronology:
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont120.htm
For good teachings to be heeded, a big clean-up is needed. #### Clergy Sex AbuseTracker,
www.ncrnews.org/abuse,
Mon January 02, 2006 edition follows:-
• Priest charged
[1969-74 Gibbs] - Anglican. 3 charges.
Anglican Journal,
http://anglican journal.com/ 132/01/ canada21. html ,
STAFF, ~ January 02, 2006
CANADA -- The East Algoma division of the Ontario Provincial Police, based in Elliot Lake, Ont., on Oct. 24 charged a former Anglican priest, Kenneth Graham Gibbs, 72, with three counts of sexual assault.
The alleged incidents "occurred between 1969 and 1974 in Elliot Lake," said an OPP statement and are related to "a historical sexual assault investigation." Det. Sgt. Randy Gaynor, of the East Algoma detachment, said he could not comment further.
Mr. Gibbs was ordained in 1961. He served parishes in the diocese of Algoma, worked in Nipigon, Ont., from 1961 to 1966, Chapleau, Ont., from 1966 to 1971, Elliot Lake from 1971 to 1980 and North Bay, Ont., in 1980. In 1981, he moved to the diocese of Ottawa and worked at Centre 454, a service centre for homeless or indigent men. He became the centre's director in 1987 and retired in 1998. #
[Boston Archdiocese] - RCC. Cut-price compo. 554 + 100 complainants.
The Day,
Published on Jan/2/2006
BOSTON (MA) -- The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is trying to settle a suit by alleged sex abuse victims on the cheap. The archdiocese, which has been hobbled financially since settling another sex-abuse suit in 2003, is offering the plaintiffs about half as much money as it paid the litigants in the earlier case.
In settling the 2003 case, the archdiocese distributed $85 million to 554 alleged victims, or a median of $155,000. Now, according to the litigants' lawyers, the archdiocese has offered to settle the case with 100 plaintiffs for $7.5 million. That would amount to a median settlement of $75,000.
[? 1970s-80s Nash] - RCC. Boys.
Duluth News Tribune,
By MARY PEMBERTON, Associated Press, ~ January 02, 2006
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A priest accused of sexually abusing boys more than two decades ago has been dismissed from the priesthood, the Catholic Diocese of Juneau said Sunday.
The dismissal of Michael Patrick Nash stems from an investigation that began in late 2002, when a former Juneau resident claimed that he had been abused by Nash in the early 1980s.
"I am relieved we are coming to a sense of resolution and some conclusion to what all around has been a tragic affair," Bishop Michael Warfel said Sunday.
The diocese decided that Joel Post, who now lives in Duluth, Minn., had "suffered grave harm at the hands of Mr. Nash" and agreed to pay him $175,740 to settle his claims.
After the allegations became public, a number of other men came forward and made similar claims, according to the diocese.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 07:49 AM]
[Anglican Church] - $CAN 1.9bn. No compo from RCC. Myriads of indigenous children.
Anglican Journal,
By MARITES N. SISON, STAFF WRITER, ~ January 02, 2006
CANADA -- The Anglican Church of Canada is renegotiating the terms of the 2003 residential schools agreement that it signed with the federal government following an announcement Nov. 23 of a new $1.9 billion compensation package that will be offered to tens of thousands of aboriginal Canadians who attended Indian residential schools.
In its renegotiations, the Anglican church has invoked the "most favoured nation" clause in its agreement that states that if the federal government reaches more favourable terms with another denomination involved in the residential schools, Anglicans can ask for the same terms.
Under the terms of the new agreement in principle, signed by the government and legal counsel for former students and churches and announced by Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, the Roman Catholic church agrees to fund healing and reconciliation programs, but "is not required to pay any compensation," noted Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.
[2005 Clark, DeFilippo] - RCC. Still on payroll. Woman.
New York Post,
By DAN MANGAN, January 1, 2006
NEW YORK -- An ironclad contract is keeping the Catholic church from firing the sexy secretary who was caught visiting a hot-sheets hotel with the former top priest at St. Patrick's Cathedral, The Post has learned.
The four year-deal that pays Laura DeFilippo around $100,000 yearly was negotiated by her former boss, Monsignor Eugene Clark.
DeFilippo is still getting paid even though she hasn't gone into work since the scandal broke last summer over her Hamptons visit with Clark.
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker,
www.ncrnews.org/abuse,
Mon January 02, 2006
Abuse Chronology:
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont120.htm
For good teachings to be heeded, a big clean-up is needed. #### Clergy Sex AbuseTracker,
www.ncrnews.org/abuse,
Tue January 03, 2006 edition follows:-
• Fugitive priest returned to Phoenix from California
[Briceno] - RCC. 11 charges. Male and female
KVOA,
http://kvoa. com/Global/ story.asp?S= 4312431&nav= HMO6 ,
~ January 03, 2006
PHOENIX (AZ) -- Fugitive priest Joseph Briceno was returned to Arizona today.
Briceno had earlier waived extradition after he was captured last month in Mexico near the border with Calexico, California.
The Maricopa County sheriff's office says Briceno was flown this morning to Arizona after being jailed in El Centro, California.
Briceno had been hiding out in Mexico before he was caught.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 04:51 PM]
[Emphasis added.]
- RCC.
Newsday,
By MARK JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer, 4:42 PM EST, January 3, 2006
ALBANY, N.Y. -- The state's highest court heard arguments Tuesday involving sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests to determine whether the victims in those cases waited too long to seek damages under state law.
A ruling in favor of the victims could force dioceses across the state to face numerous suits that were dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired.
Nationwide, "hundreds and hundreds" of cases have been dismissed for the same reasons and many more never get filed, said David Clohessy, National Director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests - also known as SNAP - a national support group for clergy abuse victims.
[Churches and Governments] - Taken from parents, forbidden language, beaten, sexually abused, cruelties. Indigenous children.
The Guardian (UK),
By Anne McIlroy, Tuesday January 3, 2006
The Canadian government has offered a cash settlement for indigenous people forced into residential schools as children, Anne McIlroy reports. CANADA -- They were plucked from their families as young children and sent to live in church-run schools where they were forbidden to speak their own languages. The idea was to prepare indigenous children for life in white society.
Many were beaten, sexually abused and subjected to daily cruelties throughout their traumatic childhoods. It was, in the words of Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, "the single most disgraceful, harmful and racist act" in Canada's history.
[? 1980s-90s Buzanowski] - RCC. Boy.
Appleton Post-Crescent,
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers, January 03, 2006
GREEN BAY (WI) -- David Schauer is relieved to have 2005 over with.
The 28-year-old Green Bay native took the witness stand July 26 to tell the world how a former Catholic priest molested him as a fifth-grader. Schauer took the stand a second time on Sept. 16 to tell a Brown County judge how the assaults by Donald Buzanowski wreaked havoc with his life.
Schauer, who is a semester away from a nursing degree, is looking to 2006 as a year to reinvent himself -- without the pressure forced on him by pains of the past. The criminal case was 15 years in the making.
"I'm looking forward to starting my career," Schauer said in a phone interview from his home in Marshfield. "My wife graduated in December and is starting a job as a fourth-grade teacher.
"We're trying to get our life squared away and on track while still certainly dealing with the things we need to."
[1970s-80s Wiebler] - RCC. Multiple lawsuits.
Quad-City Times,
By Dustin Lemmon, ~ January 03, 2006
IOWA -- A national organization representing victims of clergy sexual abuse is asking three Catholic bishops to reach out to abuse victims and help them monitor the whereabouts of a priest who is an admitted abuser.
The letters concern Rev. William Wiebler, who has admitted molesting several minors during the 1970s and 1980s. Wiebler left the Quad-City area in the 1980s and moved to Mississippi. He recently has been living in the St. Louis area.
Recently an official with the Diocese of Davenport traveled to St. Louis to try to find Wiebler, but failed to find him at his residence and the place where he works. Wiebler never has been convicted of abusing a child, but has been the subject of multiple lawsuits from victims.
[1960s] - RCC. Several boys.
The New York Times,
By ANDY NEWMAN, January 3, 2006
NEW YORK -- Several men say they were abused by Roman Catholic priests when they were boys in the 1960's. They say they suffered profound psychological damage as a result.
In 2002, they learn from news accounts that for years, senior church officials took elaborate steps to cover up for sexually abusive priests. Appalled, they sue the church.
But under New York's statute of limitations, they are too late, by several decades.
However, the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, will hear arguments today for the first time in cases seeking to allow old claims like these against the church to proceed.
A ruling for the plaintiffs could open the door for dozens of suits against the church that have been blocked by New York's statute of limitations, one of the strictest in the nation. The statute requires negligence suits against institutions to be filed within three years, or before the plaintiff turns 21, whichever is later.
• Priest Sex Abuse Case Goes To Highest Court
[1960s Quinn] - RCC. Boy.
Fox 23,
www.fox23news. com/news/state/ story.aspx? content_id= 31496CCF- 6EFF-47F1- 8C81-E5AF2 BAEEF8E ,
Jan/03/06
ALBANY (NY), AP -- The state's highest court hears arguments Tuesday in the case of a Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing a Utica teenager more than 30 years ago.
The outcome could set the standard for dozens of similar cases statewide.
The issue is whether someone can bring an abuse lawsuit against a priest long after the statute of limitations has expired and whether the Syracuse Diocese acted in a way that led the alleged victim to keep silent for many years.
Two lower courts dismissed John Zumpano's $150 million lawsuit against the Reverend James Quinn. The lawsuit accuses Quinn of sexually abusing Zumpano while he was a student at St. Agnes Church in Utica during the 1960s. Quinn has denied the allegations.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 07:25 AM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker,
www.ncrnews.org/abuse ,
Tue January 03, 2006
Abuse Chronology:
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont120.htm
For good teachings to be heeded, a big clean-up is needed. #### Clergy Sex AbuseTracker,
www.ncrnews.org/abuse,
Wed January 04, 2006 edition follows:-
• Ex Avondale priest returns to face charges
[Briceno] - RCC. 11 charges. Male and female.
East Valley View,
www.westvalley view.com/main. asp?SectionID=2& SubSectionID= 1&ArticleID=20317 , by John Machay, ~ January 04, 2006
AVONDALE (AZ) -- A former Avondale priest accused of sexual misconduct with children has returned to Arizona to face the consequences of his alleged actions, authorities said.
Father Joseph Cervantez Briceno, the onetime pastor of St. William Church in Avondale, was extradited Tuesday from El Centro, Calif., where he's been jailed since his Dec. 16 arrest, said Lt. Paul Chagolla, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.
Sheriff's deputies escorted the 59-year-old priest aboard MCSO's fixed wing plane, which landed in Phoenix at about noon, Chagolla said.
Shortly after his arrival, Briceno made an initial appearance in a Fourth Avenue Jail courtroom, where bail was set at $250,000 cash, said Bill FitzGerald, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.
He's also been ordered to surrender his passport and, should he be bailed out, wear a Global Positioning System monitoring device so authorities can keep track of his whereabouts, FitzGerald said.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 03:09 PM]
[2001-05 Tendler] - Judaist. Father of eight "messiah" "sex therapy". Women.
The Jewish Week,
by Gary Rosenblatt - Editor and Publisher, ~ January 04, 2006
NEW YORK -- Three years ago Mordechai Tendler, a controversial Modern Orthodox rabbi, met with nine leading haredi rabbis in his community of Monsey, N.Y., who challenged him on a number of his halachic rulings and on allegations that he had acted improperly with women.
Since then, Rabbi Tendler has said publicly that he was exonerated by the rabbinical panel, which he has described as a bet din, or religious court.
This week a statement signed in May by seven of the rabbis became public through the Internet and in selected mailings, asserting that Rabbi Tendler's assessment of the meeting was "an outright lie," and urging people not to seek his advice on halachic matters on marriage, divorce, conversion or family harmony. (One of the original nine rabbis moved to Israel and another said he agreed with the others but wanted to remain private.)
There has been little harmony in Rabbi Tendler's community for some time now, particularly since he was expelled last March by the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), the largest Orthodox rabbinic association, for "conduct inappropriate to an Orthodox rabbi."
- RCC. Twice the estimate.
Irish Independent,
by Kathy Donaghy, ~ January 04, 2006
IRELAND -- THE high-powered Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is set to re-examine the controversial Church/State deal to cover compensation claims by victims of abuse in residential institutions. Committee Chairman Michael Noonan told the Irish Independent the deal would have to be looked at again in the context of the final bill being in the region of €1.3bn - twice what the Department of Education said it would cost.
The Government agreed a €128m deal with the religious institutions in 2002 to cover the payouts to abuse victims.
Mr Noonan pointed out that when the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) John Purcell said it was going to cost as much as €1bn, he was heavily criticised.
"It lookes as if it's going to exceed that now and reach €1.3bn," said the Limerick East Fine Gael TD for Limerick east. "I think we need to get back into that issue.
[Griffith] - Unnamed Church.
Grenada Broadcasting Network,
~ January 04, 2006
GRENADA -- Police in Baltimore in the United States want regional law enforcement officers to help them investigate allegations of sexual abuse against Trinidadian pastor Gerald Griffith.
A senior police officer from the Baltimore Police Department says contact has already been made with the police in Grenada and Barbados, and Trinidad is next on the list.
He said the Baltimore police will be linking up with Law enforcement officers in all the Caribbean islands where Pastor Gerald Griffith has held crusades.
When he was arrested the pastor was planning crusades for Barbados and St. Lucia.
These have since been cancelled. Griffith is out on bail on the condition that he does not leave Baltimore County or try to contact the alleged victims in the matter.
[Emphasis added]
[Vatican] - RCC.
Houston Voice,
By DYANA BAGBY, Friday, December 30, 2005
EDITORS' NOTE: As 2005 draws to a close, many media outlets will announce their selections for person of the year. In past years, Houston Voice editors have selected a Story of the Year instead.
This year, the Story of the Year was, in our view, the extraordinary efforts of one individual to not only put a halt to the acceptance of gay people legally and within the mainstream culture, but to roll back such acceptance to an earlier, less tolerant and more discriminatory time.
Presiding over what some describe as the "strongest bully pulpit in the world," Pope Benedict XVI, just eight months into his tenure, has unilaterally targeted gay men and lesbians as moral threats to society.
From banning gay priests to publicly lobbying against same-sex marriage rights in Spain and Italy, Pope Benedict XVI appears to be taking a swift approach to excluding gay people from equal rights across the globe. ...
In November 2002, in the midst of the church sex abuse crisis, the Vatican press office announced that the Congregation for Catholic Education was drafting guidelines for accepting candidates for the priesthood that would address the question of whether gays should be barred. However, the document reportedly had been in the works well before then.
Gay Catholics and others have criticized the Vatican for blaming gay priests for the child sex abuse scandal, which they argued had nothing to do with homosexuality.
[Briceno] - RCC. 11 charges. Male and female.
Arizona Daily Star,
~ January 4, 2006
PHOENIX (AZ) -- A fugitive priest who was captured in
Mexico last month and returned to the United States is now back in Arizona to face sex-related charges.
Joseph Briceno was booked Tuesday into the Maricopa County jail after being flown in from California, where he has been held since his arrest, a sheriff's spokesman said. Briceno waived extradition.
Briceno was indicted in Arizona in 2003 on six counts of sexual conduct with a minor, one count of attempted sexual conduct with a minor and one count of sexual abuse.
[Bolding added.]
[New York RC officials] - RC. Dozens of complainants.
The New York Times,
By ANDY NEWMAN, Published: January 4, 2006
ALBANY (NY) , Jan. 3 - Lawyers for dozens of men and women who say they were molested by Roman Catholic priests asked the state's highest court on Tuesday to compel church officials to answer the charges even though they date back decades.
The lawyers, appearing for more than an hour before the State Court of Appeals, said that Catholic Church officials in New York shuffled priests from parish to parish to keep their serial abuse hidden, falsely assured some victims that abusive priests had been removed from the ministry, and paid off other abuse victims to keep them quiet.
All of this, the lawyers said, was aimed at staving off lawsuits until the statute of limitations had expired. Such a scheme, the lawyers said, should disqualify the church from invoking the statute now.
[2005 Portland (Oregon) Archdiocese] - RCC. Tried to sideline property.
Catholic News Service,
By Ed Langlois, ~ January 04, 2006
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Despite a court ruling that could significantly boost the amount the Portland Archdiocese must pay for sex-abuse settlements, archdiocesan leaders said the local church and its work will endure.
"The archdiocese is committed to continuing its religious and charitable mission to Catholics and others, including thousands of schoolchildren, its parishioners, and the poor and dispossessed, as it has for its 157-year history in Oregon, no matter what obstacles confront it," said an archdiocesan statement issued after the Dec. 30 decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris.
In a ruling that asserted the primacy of secular law over church law in the matter of bankruptcy, Perris said the archdiocese is the owner of parish and school properties.
That means parish and school real estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars can be tallied when the court decides how much claimants will be paid. The archdiocese has 124 parishes, 40 of them with elementary schools, and three archdiocesan high schools.
[< 2002 Eremito] - RCC. Boys.
Yahoo! News,
Jan. 4, 2006
NEW YORK / PRNewswire/ -- Concerned about a suspended and allegedly abusive priest who recently resurfaced as a chaplain in Philadelphia, clergy molestation victims are writing to New York's top Catholic official urging him to warn neighbors and prospective employers about the cleric and reach out to any of his victims "who may still be suffering in shame, isolation and self-blame."
They're also hoping that outreach efforts may turn up more recent victims who could criminally prosecute the priest.
Leaders of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are worried about Father Anthony J. Eremito, a New York Archdiocese priest who apparently was recently hired by Odyssey Hospice in Philadelphia. Eremito was suspended from active ministry in 2002 because of credible allegations of molesting boys.
[1980 Robinson] - RCC. Stabbing of Sister Margaret Pahl.
Beacon Journal,
Associated Press, ~ January 04, 2006
TOLEDO, Ohio - Prosecutors who have accused a priest of stabbing a nun to death in 1980 now say the killing was not premeditated, according to a court filing.
A motion filed in Lucas County Court dropped the words "with prior calculation and design" from a grand jury's indictment. The filing also would reduce the original aggravated murder charge to murder.
The Rev. Gerald Robinson is accused of strangling and stabbing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl in a 1980 Easter weekend killing that investigators have described as ritualistic.
The priest and the nun worked together at a hospital.
[1970s-80s some seminaries] - RCC. Homosexual culture.
Arlington Catholic Herald,
By Russell Shaw, Herald Columnist, (From the issue of Jan/5/06)
UNITED STATES: The Church asks of homosexuals who wish to be priests what it also asks of heterosexuals -- along with much else, that is, the willingness and demonstrated ability to live chaste, celibate lives. As will become clear once the current shouting dies down, that is the basic message of the new Vatican document on admitting homosexuals to the seminary which stirred up so much noisy comment when it was released late last month.
Naturally the media weren't much help. Two headlines in The Washington Post and The Washington Times on the same day (Nov. 30) illustrate that. Here's the Post: "Bishop Says Edict Allows Some Gay Priests." And the Times: "Vatican Bars All Gays as Priests." Take your pick. If media covered the weather like that, people would be understandably upset. But this — so it sometimes seems -- is only religion, so what difference does it make?
The key passage in the document from the Congregation for Catholic Education says this: "The Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called 'gay culture.'" ...
This is not to deny what was said last year by the all-lay National Review Board created by the bishops to monitor their response to the sex abuse crisis: As the numbers show, the vast majority of abuse cases involved homosexual behavior.
Moreover, in the 1970s and 1980s a "gay subculture" had come to exist in some seminaries, and it's important to find out whether that problem has been corrected. But the notion that this is only an investigative process aimed at rooting out gay seminarians and faculty is simplistic at best. In many ways, it should be understood on the model of a secular academic accreditation process.
- RCC.
Irish Independent,
by Fergus Black, ~ January 04, 2006
IRELAND -- A CHARITY set up by former inmates to defend the reputation of industrial schools admitted yesterday that a majority of its members had succumbed to "financial lure" by claiming compensation for abuse.
More than 100 former residents from the schools formed the Let Our Voices Emerge (Love) group two years ago, claiming the State compensation awards scheme for abuse victims left carers from the institutions open to massive fraudulent allegations.
But last night, a co-founder of the charity claimed 80pc of its members had "given in" at the last minute by claiming compensation from the Residential Institutions Redress Board.
It was set up to make fair and reasonable awards to persons who, as children, were abused while resident in industrial schools, reformatories and other institutions subject to State regulation or inspection.
[Bishop Soens] - RCC.
Quad-City Times,
By The Associated Press, ~ January 04, 2006
DES MOINES (IA), (AP) -- A group representing clergy sex abuse victims delivered a letter to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Des Moines on Tuesday asking church officials to take stronger action against abusers.
Diocese spokeswoman Anne Marie Cox said Bishop Joseph L. Charron was not in the building to meet with the group. She said Chancellor Tom Chapman accepted the letter and he assured them that the letter would be given to Charron.
The letter asks Charron to warn local families about Bishop Emeritus Lawrence Soens of the Sioux City diocese.
- RCC. 37 boys, 5 girls.
Newday,
BY CAROL EISENBERG, STAFF CORRESPONDENT, January 4, 2006
ALBANY (NY) -- For the 37 men and five women who say they were molested by Roman Catholic priests as children and teenagers in Brooklyn and Queens, it was their last best hope.
For the church, it was a last effort to quash a novel legal argument that could energize other expired cases of priest sex abuse and mean huge financial liability.
Both sides squared off yesterday before the state's highest court over whether New York's strict statutes of limitation should be waived to allow days in court for several dozen adults who were abused, in some cases, decades ago.
A ruling in favor of the victims would likely force dioceses across the state, including Rockville Centre and the Archdiocese of New York, to face numerous suits that were dismissed because of time bars.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 08:09 AM]
- RCC. 500, now 200 new claims.
WHDH,
January 04, 2006
BOSTON (MA), (AP) -- When the clergy sex abuse scandal erupted here four years ago, Bill Garrity was not among the more than 500 people who sued the archdiocese and settled claims in 2003.
However, Garrity -- who said he was abused by a parish priest as a 12-year-old altar boy -- is among a group of about 200 alleged victims with new claims against the archdiocese.
Lawyers representing 172 alleged victims met Tuesday to discuss a counter offer for the archdiocese, which has offered $7.5 million to about 100 of the latest plaintiffs.
"I didn't want to be dragged through what everybody else was dragged through," said Garrity, now 46, of the first round of lawsuits. "I didn't want to be standing out in front of a church or a rectory. I just hoped it would go away, and it didn't."
[Boston Archdiocese] - RCC. 100 of 200 offered $US 7.5m.
Hartford Courant,
By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press, January 4, 2006
BOSTON (MA) -- The sexual-abuse scandal in the Boston Archdiocese has not gone away. Instead, it has offered $7.5 million to about 100 people in a group of about 200 with new claims of sexual abuse.
But lawyers for the most recent plaintiffs denounced the offer as "demeaning" and say the archdiocese is treating them differently from the victims who participated in an $85 million global settlement in September 2003.
The archdiocese's proposal for the latest claims would provide settlements ranging from $5,000 to $200,000. The average would be $75,000. In 2003, the 554 plaintiffs received settlements ranging from $80,000 to $300,000 each, with an average of about $155,000.
The archdiocese said its financial condition has deteriorated since the 2003 settlement and it cannot afford to pay the new round of plaintiffs as much.
[1963-70 Quinn] - RCC. Boy.
The Observer-Dispatch,
by Rocco LaDuca, Tuesday, Jan 3, 2006
ALBANY (NY) -- The New York state Court of Appeals heard arguments today whether the statute of limitations should not shield Catholic priest the Rev. James Quinn from allegations he sexually abused a young parishioner in Utica more than 30 years ago.
Utica attorney Frank Policelli argued Quinn's case should be reinstated for trial because Quinn and the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse had concealed the alleged abuse of John Zumpano between 1963 to 1970.
That prevented Zumpano from realizing he could "take action against the wrongful acts," Policelli argued.
Mark Schulte, the attorney for the diocese, argued, however, there were no allegations of specific "subsequent acts of wrongdoing" that prevented Zumpano from taking action.
• Bishop addresses morals out on
- RCC tells us.
Courier & Press,
www.courier press.com/ ecp/news/ article/0, 1626,ECP_ 734_4361 681,00.html ,
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, 461-0783, elliottp@courierpress.com , January 4, 2006
EVANSVILLE (IN) -- Evansville Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger cautioned against "lapses in morals," whether they come in the form of child abuse, lax discipline against abusive clergy or children's access to pornography.
Addressing Rotarians on Tuesday, the Roman Catholic bishop also lauded the gradual decay of the "code of silence" that allowed a public airing of decades of sexual abuse at the hands of members of the clergy.
"I can tell you, dear friends, we have learned a lot as bishops," said Gettelfinger.
He said new instances of abuse "virtually dropped to zero" last year, but said he does not expect a total end.
[RECAPITULATION: ... we have learned a lot as bishops ...
RECAP. ENDS.]
[GUIDELINES:
"... if one blind person leads another, both will fall into a pit." (Bible, Matthew's gospel 15:14, New Jerusalem Bible)
" ... the Spirit of truth ... will lead you to the complete truth, ... and he will reveal to you the things to come." (John 16:13).
"... you were not to keep company, not even eating with such a person, if any person who is called a brother be a person who has unmarried sex, or is covetous, or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner. ... Remove the wicked from among yourselves."
(1 Corinthians 5:9-13)
"Withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us. ... But if anyone is not obedient to our word through this letter, keep this one marked not to associate with him, in order that he might become ashamed."
(2 Thess. 3: 6 and 14)
GUIDELINES END.]
[COMMENT: Supposedly the Church leaders will be led to the complete truth, and can know "the things to come," but tell the public that they could not know and foretell that child seducers will repeat, and repeat, unless there is a serious check to them. The Church leaders kept company with and kept associating with wicked clergy. The leaders did not "remove the wicked." Yes, the "blind leading the blind" indeed!
COMMENT ENDS.]
[2005-06 Syracuse and Brooklyn Dioceses] - RCC.
NBC 3,
~ January 4, 2006
ALBANY, N.Y. -- The state Court of Appeals will determine whether the dioceses of Syracuse and Brooklyn can avoid lawsuits because those alleging the abuse waited too long to seek damages.
A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs could force dioceses across the state to face numerous suits that were dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired.
In one case argued yesterday before the court, John Zumpano said the abuse he suffered while in parochial school in Utica from 1963 to 1970 rendered him mentally incapable of bringing a suit before time ran out to do so.
- RCC and other non-profits.
The Boston Globe,
By Frank Phillips | January 4, 2006
BOSTON (MA) -- Support is growing on Beacon Hill for legislation to lift charitable immunity protections for the Catholic Church and other nonprofit organizations in sexual abuse cases involving minors.
More than 60 lawmakers have signed onto a bill that, in civil cases involving such abuse, would eliminate the current $20,000 limit on liability for churches and other nonprofit organizations. That charitable immunity limit, supporters say, has discouraged sexual abuse victims from coming forward and has sharply limited payments in other cases.
Two other bills would restructure the complicated laws governing the statute of limitations in criminal and civil cases involving sex crimes against juveniles. Current laws lay out various limitations based on the number of years that elapse after a sexual crime is allegedly committed.
The House is also slated this month to take up a fourth bill, sponsored by Senator Marian Walsh, a West Roxbury Democrat, that would force the Archdiocese of Boston and other religious organizations to file public financial disclosure reports with the attorney general's office. In November, the Senate approved the measure, which is strongly opposed by several religious and nonprofit organizations. Governor Mitt Romney has expressed his support.
[Boston Archdiocese] - RCC. $US 75,000 each to ~ 100.
Leading the Charge,
Staff and agencies, By Belinda Yu, 8:20 PM ET, Tue Jan 3, 2006, January 04, 2006
BOSTON (MA) -- Lawyers for victims of sexual abuse by priests rejected on Tuesday a settlement offer by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston that they called "demeaning," "cruel," and "immoral."
The archdiocese has offered average payments of $75,000 per person to settle claims from about 100 people who say they were sexually abused during a pedophile priest scandal that surfaced in Boston in 2002 and spread to other U.S. parishes.
"Every part of the proposal is unacceptable," Carmen Durso, a lawyer representing 33 plaintiffs, told a news conference.
In a 2003 settlement with 540 victims of sexual abuse, the Boston archdiocese paid an average award of $153,000, or a total of about $85 million.
[2005-06 Brooklyn and Syracuse Dioceses] - RCC.
Law.com ,
by John Caher, New York Law Journal, Jan-04-2006
ALBANY (NY) -- The emotion-laden issue of clergy sexual abuse faced the cold calculation of the law Tuesday when New York's Court of Appeals heard pivotal arguments on whether the statute of limitations should be equitably tolled to give dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of victims their day in court.
Zumpano v. Quinn, 1, and Estate of Boyle v. Smith, 2, could expose Roman Catholic dioceses to liability for acts that occurred decades ago.
But the cases could also significantly weaken the statute of limitations in myriad other tort actions if the court were to find that an allegation of coverup, especially when related to harm done to children, automatically triggers the equitable estoppel exception to the time bar.
Both cases involve plaintiffs who claim they were abused by priests as far back as 1960. A key question is whether the dioceses involved, Brooklyn and Syracuse, were complicit in perpetuating the sexual abuse of minors and effectively concealed their complicity from the victims, and whether concealment alone is enough to implicate a rule that says a wrongdoer should not be permitted "to take refuge behind the shield of his own wrong" (see General Stencils v. Chiappa, 18 NY2d 125, 1966).
[1960s-70s priests of Syracuse Diocese and Brooklyn Archdioces] - RCC. ~ 13 priests. Children.
Democrat & Chronicle,
by Yancey Roy, Albany bureau, January 4, 2006
ALBANY (NY) -- Judges on New York's highest court Tuesday sounded skeptical about allowing a former Utica-area resident to sue a Roman Catholic diocese over allegations of sexual abuse that occurred more than three decades ago.
The state Court of Appeals heard arguments that the statute of limitations prohibited such lawsuits. The Utica-based lawsuit, filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, had been combined with allegations against 13 priests in the Archdiocese of Brooklyn.
In most such lawsuits, the time limit for filing a case can be one or three years, or 10 years if the wrongful action triggered insanity.
In each case argued Tuesday, lawyers for the alleged victims said the church should not benefit from its own wrongdoing. That is, the church shouldn't be allowed to conceal abuse for decades and then be protected by a statute of limitations. But the seven-judge panel pointed out that, for better or worse, that's the nature of the law.
[Bishop Soens] - RCC. 10 claims.
Des Moines Register,
By SHIRLEY RAGSDALE, REGISTER RELIGION EDITOR, January 4, 2006
DES MOINES (IA) -- A half-dozen clergy sexual-abuse survivors and family members demonstrated outside the Des Moines Diocese headquarters Tuesday, asking that a retired Sioux City bishop be sanctioned by other Iowa bishops.
Carrying signs asking, "Why the double standards for bishops?," the group is asking that action be taken against Bishop Lawrence Soens. The group had staged similar "sidewalk press conferences" in two other Iowa Catholic dioceses last month.
Soens "remains a cleric in good standing despite the fact that there have been 10 claims of child sexual abuse filed against him in the Davenport Diocese," said Steve Theisen, Iowa director of the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests.
Soens, who retired in 1998, has denied the allegations, which stem from a period when he was a priest in the Davenport Diocese.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 07:34 AM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker,
www.ncrnews.org/abuse,
Wed January 04, 2006
Abuse Chronology:
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont120.htm
For good teachings to be heeded, a big clean-up is needed.
• [Catholic headquarters challenged on celibacy, under-stating clergy sex abuse, bankruptcy tactics, Limbo, and recent downgrading of the Bible]
Sent by Campaign for Optional Celibacy (Perth, Western Australia),
"Petition for Optional Married Clergy, and discussion,"
to Pope Benedict XVI, St Peter's, Vatican City, January 4, 2006
PERTH:
Your Holiness,
Enclosed are two signatures on a form "Petition for Optional Married Clergy" 16 Apr 2004 edition, received about December 28th, 2005. The signatures are from C.B.Machin of PO Box 1002, Fremantle 6959, and W.D.Heaphy of PO Box 1578, 151 Marine Ter, Fremantle. Isn't it a joy that some people can see the light? I had previously sent a few signatures. Do you have more that have come in separately?
The early Church's married clergy policy was adopted following the Lord, as were its exhortations "better to marry than to burn," "every man should have his own wife," and "the bishop should be the husband of one wife," to reduce the dangerous occasions of sin.
In Australia during the Television Mass a few weeks ago, the priest in his homily said that about 2 per cent of Catholic clergy had seduced children. Someone has stated that his figure was of priests actually
convicted of child sex abuse.
In 2002 the then-Cardinal Ratzinger (that is, you, your Holiness, in 2005 to become Pope Benedict XVI) had said the percentage was less than 1 per cent. -- see Reuters, "Catholic Priests Abused 10,600 Children -- Study," www.reuters.com/ newsArticle.jhtml? type=domestic News&story ID=4457831 , by Deborah Zabarenko, Feb 27, 2004.
The same newsitem reported that the John Jay study of those elements of the Catholic Church in the United States that had agreed to take part (which omitted the sizeable religious orders clergy) had a 4 per cent accused rate (4,392 priests), with complaints from 10,667 children. The Archdiocese of Boston announced it had 7% of its clergy accused. The two studies closely examined the records of nearly every diocese in the United States. The figures are from CHURCH records. Every Catholic bishop in the world is expected to give regular reports to the Pope at the Vatican, and there are regular
face-to-face ad limina visits. So, all these priests' sins were supposed to be reported, and if so, were KNOWN TO the Vatican. How then could you and another Vatican spokesperson in recent years say it was a much lower figure? Please don't tell me the non-US figures are less!
The same pattern of attempted deception is seen at the local level. A 2003 news report includes: "Although church officials' early predictions suggested that only 1 or 2 percent of Michigan priests would be caught in the scandal, a tally by the Free Press shows that about 5 percent of active diocesan priests statewide were removed from their jobs since January 2002." -- Detroit Free Press, "Few priests face expulsion; Dioceses withhold full punishment for sex abuse," www.freep.com/ news/ mich/cath14_ 20030414.htmwww. freep.com/news/ mich/cath14_ 20030414.htm , By Patricia Montemurri, montemurri@ freepress.com , Apr 14, 2003. The same issue listed the names of the 38 priests removed in the period stated.
A newspaper could add the figures up, but the Church office couldn't?
In 2005 the Republic of Ireland held an inquiry into the Ferns Diocese. Ten per cent, i.e., 21 priests, had been committing sexual sins with children. -- L'express, "High noon for Catholic church," www.lexpress. mu/display_article_ sup.php?news_ id=53741 , ~ November 08, 2005
I urge you to read this report or even obtain a copy of the original. Might I add that this has been exposed in a country where the prime minister has been criticised for discussing government proposals with Church leaders before they are made public. In other words, it is NOT an anti-clerical, pro-Communist, or pro-Masonic government. The Government of Ireland has found that hundreds of priests are accused, and intends to audit the Dublin Archdiocese. Certain people want the whole country, plus Northern Ireland, audited. What do you think the attitude of future politicians will be towards Catholicism?
If you read enough of the Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker on the website of the
National Catholic Reporter, USA, www.ncrnews. org/abuse , you will find that, after the news media and the police stopped covering up for pervert clergy around 2002, the Church authorities in the US have developed a well-tried method for keeping priest conviction figures low. If an offer of money does not cause the survivor to withdraw his/her complaint, and s/he continues with the prosecution or the court case for damages, and the Statute of Limitations does not cause the case/s to be dismissed, the Church lawyers and leaders go into conferences to offer compensation. This works in some jurisdictions.
However, where it does not work, the nearer it gets to court, the more likely it is that the Archdiocese or Diocese will apply for protection under the Bankruptcy Act. All cases are then frozen. This gives more chance for some of the witnesses to get older and more forgetful, for documents to disappear, for prosecutors to lose their jobs, or even for some survivors to be gathered to their fathers (and mothers) and so be unable to give evidence in the court.
There is another classification: Priests about whom the Church judges the accusations are credible. This figure, which with the addition of the convicted priests was the one quoted in the Jay report to the US hierarchy on the US Church, is being added to nearly every month, with more accusations, both old and current, surfacing in courts and news media reports. Wifeless clergy are even using the internet to ensnare juveniles for sex!
Then we read that one diocese divided up its assets among all the parishes, which had to set up incorporated bodies to be legal entities, around the time courts were ordering the diocese to pay compensation, for lack of selectivity in recruiting, lack of supervision and sanctions, and partly because it transferred child-seducers here and there, the diocese said it had very little money and assets. (The legal work had been quite costly, of course.) This tactic disgusted some news reporters who had kept some respect for the Church before this. It was quite dishonest, because every priest swears obedience to his Church superiors, so if a bishop has to pay compensation to sex abuse victims, he has only to order the parish clergy to send money, or to leave the buildings and land so they can be sold, and it must be done.
Anyway, a U.S. judge in December has ruled the tactic null and void. But the news of the attempt might make Grand Juries and Judges even more censorious. It's a shame really, because in the New Testament we have the example of the tax-collector, called by Jesus, who offered to refund his ill-gotten gains, fourfold I think it was, was it not? (Bible, Luke 19:8)
Church lawyers' tactics are quite unlike the actions of the Teacher from Galilee, aren't they? Did any of the Apostles declare themselves insolvent?
Threats of excommunication if the secrecy code is broken about sex-abuse carried out in conjunction with the Sacrament of Reconciliation/Confession, and the denials and tampering with the facts about "Crime of Solicitation," Crimen Sollicitationis, 1962, can be accessed from: www.multiline. com.au/~johnm/ethics/ crimineextracts.htm .
But there's more! Other religions are doing similar things. The Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker at www.ncrnews. org/abuse , and its "copy" on www.multiline. com.au/~johnm/ethics/ ethcont119.htm , tell a very sad story.
And, might I ask: We were taught about the urgent necessity to baptise babies, and about the abode of the unbaptised, Limbo. But theologians said recently it was not a doctrine, but only a theory! It was described in a priest's letter to the Perth Catholic paper The Record of December 15, pages 6 and 7, as a "cruel theory." But I ask you, didn't it replace an even CRUELLER theory of Saints Augustine and Fulgentius? They consigned the babies to Hell!!! A reference given below will help you un-learn Limbo.
Here is a question. This petition form lists various New Testament texts. But in recent months the Catholic hierarchy of England and Wales, and Scotland, publicly stated that the Bible was not to be taken literally. Catholic authorities in Western Australia concurred. So, please tell me whether the Petition ought to be reworded. Also, should the Liturgy in the Mass and the Sacraments be greatly
re-written?
I look forward to your assistance.
Enc.: Petition (2 signatures).
Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker from Faith Purification Programme, 1 page each of Dec 17 and Jan 2
SEE:New York Times, "Vatican considers consigning Limbo to oblivion", www.nytimes. com/2005/12/27/ international/europe/ 27cnd-limbo. html?hp , Dec 27, 2005.
Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, USA), "Victim advocates critical of decree on gay priests,"
http://telegram. com/apps/pbcs. dll/article?AID=/ 20051130/NEWS/ 511300715/1116/ NEWSREWIND , by Kathleen A. Shaw, November 30, 2005 (a long article claiming that there are many FEMALE victims of clergy seductions, too).
[FOLLOW-UP: No reply has yet been received. - FPP, Feb 5, 06 ENDS.]
[Jan 4, 06]
#### Clergy Sex AbuseTracker,
www.ncrnews.org/abuse,
Thu January 05, 2006 edition follows:-
• Bend pastor arraigned in sex abuse case
[? 2000s Hall] - Church of New Beginnings. Girl.
KGW,
www.kgw.com/ news-local/stories/ kgw_010506_ news_pastor_ sex.49ffe 39c.html ,
Associated Press, 09:56 AM PST, Thursday, January 5, 2006
BEND, Ore. -- A pastor accused of sexually abusing a girl has been ordered to stay away from his church and children other than his own.
Jeremy Hall, 34, of Sisters was arraigned Wednesday on charges of unlawful sexual penetration and sex abuse involving a child under 14, according to a document filed by the Deschutes County District Attorney's Office.
Hall was pastor at Christ's Church of New Beginnings, which meets in Sisters Elementary School, when the girl came forward, a church board member told The Bulletin newspaper. Hall has temporarily stepped down, the paper reported.
Deschutes County Judge Barbara Haslinger told Hall at Wednesday's arraignment that he could no longer go to the church.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 05:43 PM]
[2000 Jones] - Refuge Temple. Teenager.
News 10 Now,
By News 10 Now Staff, 3:47 PM, Jan/5/2006
SYRACUSE (NY) -- A former Syracuse pastor will have to wait at least until next month to find out his fate. Jaree Jones was back in court Thursday morning.
Jones, a former pastor of the Refuge Temple, faces rape and criminal sexual act charges here in Syracuse. Authorities say he sexually attacked a teen several times following youth group sessions after church. Jones was arrested last month on an outstanding warrant in Connecticut for sexual abuse in Waterbury in 2000.
• Dublin Design: Poised to Break Out
[Letterfrack reform school (Christian Brothers)] - RCC. 100 deaths, physical and sex abuse.
The New York Times,
www.nytimes.com/ 2006/01/05/ garden/05irish.html? adxnnl=1&adxnnlx= 1136470158-atQXBV OXLRlxJrGM4I7vtg ;
By VIRGINIA GARDINER, Published: January 5, 2006
DUBLIN, Ireland -- LETTERFRACK, a bleak and boggy village in western Ireland, was once best known for a reform school run by the Christian Brothers that was rife with physical and sexual abuse. Some 100 boys died there in its 87 years of operation, before it finally closed in 1974 - a dismal record even by the standards of church-run Irish reformatories.
Thirteen years later, when the Letterfrack Furniture College opened, it could not afford a new building, and instead took up residence in the prisonlike, seemingly haunted reform school. It was an odd start for an institution intended to reverse the depressed town's fortunes, and for several years the college operated on a meager budget with a skeletal staff, offering vocational training in furniture design and production to local students.
But now Letterfrack is becoming famous for the furniture college, which as of 2002 has a stylish modern campus designed by the celebrated Dublin architecture firm O'Donnell & Tuomey. The school, now known for the exceptional quality of its graduates' wood furniture, attracts applicants from all over Ireland and Europe.
[2003-04 Rahim] - Muslim. "Director of diversity". Rape. Girl.
Boston Herald,
By Laura Crimaldi and Maggie Mulvihill, Thursday, January 5, 2006
BOSTON (MA) -- Among the 20 Department of Correction employees on paid leave is a 38-year-old administrator accused of raping a teenage girl at a state-funded youth shelter where he held a second job as an overnight "awake counselor."
Ibrahim Rahim, the DOC's director of diversity, was placed on paid leave from his $62,790-a-year job Sept. 30 after allegations he sexually assaulted the girl in 2003 and 2004 while she was at the Survival Shelter in Weymouth.
Rahim of Brockton strongly denies the charges, his lawyer said.
The 16-year-old alleged victim, in an interview with the Herald, said she is still frightened of Rahim, who also has worked as a DOC Muslim chaplain. "He would come into my room when the other staff went to sleep," she said. "I would do anything to get out of that room."
[Carman, Forster, Goltz, McElliott, Peters, Roach, Schmitz, Schwartz] - RCC. Children.
WQAD,
~ January 05, 2006
DES MOINES, Iowa -- The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dubuque says 20 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of children have been filed in recent months involving eight priests.
The annual report by the archdiocese summarizes activities involving allegations of abuse in the past year and names the priests.
The report says lawsuits have been filed in recent months against the archdiocese in connection with the Reverends Albert Carman, Albert Forster, William Goltz, Patrick McElliott, John Peters, William Roach, John Schmitz and William Schwartz.
Six of the men are dead.
The archdiocese says other allegations have been made but have not been made public for various reasons.
[Tendler] - Ultra-Orthodox Judaist. "Sex therapy".
Forward,
By Rukhl Schaechter, January 6, 2006
NEW YORK -- An ultra-Orthodox rabbinical court in Monsey, N.Y., has waded into the battle over a beleaguered rabbi facing allegations of sexual harassment.
Rabbi Benzion Y. Wosner, head of the Shevet Levi rabbinical court in Monsey, issued a ruling last week (dated Hanukkah 2005) stating that Rabbi Mordecai Tendler, the spiritual leader of a synagogue in nearby New Hempstead, is unfit to serve as an Orthodox rabbi. The ruling was widely distributed to the rabbis and congregants of the local Orthodox synagogues, including Tendler's synagogue, Kehillat New Hempstead. Tendler did not return phone calls from the Forward.
The ruling comes just one week after Adina Marmelstein, a former congregant of Tendler's synagogue, filed a civil lawsuit in Manhattan against Tendler, the scion of a prominent rabbinical family, accusing him of giving her "sex therapy" when she went to him for counseling. Tendler was expelled from the Rabbinical Council of America, a Modern Orthodox organization, in March 2005, after a yearlong investigation of allegations that he sexually harassed women who came to him for spiritual guidance.
- Episcopalian parish tied. Parish owns assets.
Philadelphia Inquirer,
By David O'Reilly, ~ January 05, 2006
PENNSYLVANIA -- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has rejected a Philadelphia parish's attempt to quit the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, but ruled that the parish - not the diocese - holds title to its assets.
In a decision released last week, the high court affirmed two lower court rulings that St. James the Less parish in East Falls cannot leave the diocese unilaterally.
But the Supreme Court also reversed portions of the decisions of the lower courts and said that St. James' antebellum church buildings and other assets belong to the parish, which holds them "in trust" for the diocese.
Attorney Valerie Munson, who argued the case for St. James, said Tuesday that much of the case was narrowly decided and had implications only for the parish. The court noted that the parish's founding charter of 1846 made clear that it was a part of the diocese and the National Episcopal Church, the predecessor of the Episcopal Church USA. ...
Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering calls from sex-abuse victims and the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office to establish a one-year "window" of opportunity to file lawsuits for assaults committed years ago.
"This case gives us some indication of what the [Pennsylvania] court is thinking" about parish property, said Munson, who specializes in church property law.
(Last week an Oregon bankruptcy judge ruled that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, not individual parishes, owns all parish assets.)
• House of the Accused
- RCC.
[Salesians of Don Bosco] - 5 out of 8 leaders accused.
[Dabbene, Billante, Presenti + 2] - Children molested.
San Francisco Weekly,
www.sfweekly. com/issues/ 2006-01-04/ news/feature. html ,
By Ron Russell, Wednesday, January 4, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO (CA) -- The Salesians of St. John Bosco is a Roman Catholic order of priests and lay brothers that prides itself on being "an international organization of men dedicated full time to the service of young people."
Secured behind heavy iron gates, the center of its activities for the western United States is a three-story red brick "provincial house" at 1100 Franklin St., on the same hill as the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption and around the corner from the offices of the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
A block in the other direction is Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory, with its nearly 1,200 high school students.
For decades, the Salesians have helped run parishes and schools at the city's landmark Saints Peter and Paul Church in North Beach, Corpus Christi Church in the Outer Mission, and Salesian High School in the East Bay.
But another distinction of the order's presence on Franklin Street is perhaps less well known: Five of the eight Salesians listed in a recent personnel directory as holding positions of responsibility at the provincial house are also accused child molesters.
One of them, Father Bernard Dabbene, who once held a prominent post as former San Francisco Archbishop William J. Levada's chief liaison to parishes in the archdiocese, is a convicted sex offender who struck a plea bargain with prosecutors to avoid going to jail.
The list does not include a defrocked former lay brother, Salvatore Billante, who served four years in prison for molesting a child and was later indicted on a whopping 181 counts of sex abuse. His post-prison charges were dropped in 2003 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a California law extending the statute of limitation for such crimes was unconstitutional.
"Rarely if ever have there been so many accused priests clustered at the heart of a single religious order," says David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, a victim advocate group. Although largely ignored by news media, SNAP's protests in recent months outside schools and churches run by the order, and in front of archdiocese headquarters, have sought to draw attention to what Clohessy claims is the Salesians' "abysmal record" in dealing with their accused clerics.
Father David Purdy, the superior at the provincial house -- the headquarters for the order's activities in the United States west of the Mississippi River -- vehemently disagrees, saying that the Salesians adhere to "a child safe policy" and that the order's priests and lay brothers do "exemplary work" ministering to young people. The order's attorney, Steve McFeely, likewise says that the Salesians have gotten a bum rap and that "a number" of the half-dozen or more lawsuits against the order stemming from alleged misconduct by clerics attached to the San Francisco provincial "have no merit."
Several of those lawsuits, including one involving allegations against an associate pastor of Saints Peter and Paul Church and another against a priest who once worked at the Vatican Press Office -- and both of whom have proclaimed their innocence -- are wending their way toward jury trials in Bay Area courts.
Regardless of how they are adjudicated, however, the cases involving these and other accused priests at the provincial house, as revealed by court documents and interviews with current and former Salesian officials and alleged victims, suggest an inability or unwillingness on the part of the order's leaders to fully investigate abuse cases brought to their attention.
For example, in one case involving Father Richard Presenti, court documents reveal that even after Presenti admitted to molesting a former student, neither Purdy nor his predecessor, Father Nick Reina, bothered to ask Presenti if he had ever abused anyone else.
Three men have filed lawsuits claiming that Presenti abused them as teenagers. Although court records show that Presenti admitted in 2003 that he had molested one of the men, he remained the provincial's treasurer, entrusted with directing the order's financial affairs, until last July, when he stepped aside. #
[Baccellieri] - RCC. Secret payoffs. 3 males.
San Francisco Weekly,
By Ron Russell, Wednesday, January 4, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO (CA) -- In April 2004, when questioned under oath by lawyers for victims sexually abused by priests, San Francisco's former archbishop, William J. Levada, was asked about Father Joseph Baccellieri, a parish priest accused of child molestation whom Levada removed from ministry in 1992 while archbishop of Portland. Levada restored Baccellieri to his post two years later.
"I believe there was some allegation that occurred while I was there," he said, when asked about Baccellieri's circumstances. A lawyer for the archbishop quickly interrupted to prevent Levada from saying anything more about the priest.
A few months later, in a letter from Levada defending his decision to place Baccellieri back in ministry despite knowing that he had molested -- published in the archdiocesan newspaper Catholic San Francisco -- Levada wrote: "With regard to Father Baccellieri, I removed him from ministry in 1992 when I received an allegation of sexual abuse back in the 1970s."
But Levada wasn't telling all that he knew.
SF Weekly has learned that in 1993 -- the year before the archbishop's controversial decision to restore Baccellieri to his priestly duties -- Levada knew about allegations that the priest had abused not one but three male victims, and that Levada authorized secret payments to each of them after they threatened to make the allegations public in a lawsuit.
• Bishop will meet with parishioners
[2002, 2004 Erickson] - RCC. Boy molested. Unheeded complaint. 2 shot. Suicided.
KSTP,
www.kstp.com/
article/stories/ S13176.html? cat=1 ,
~ January 05, 2006
HUDSON, Wis. (AP) - A bishop has agreed to meet Jan. 15 with parishioners of St. Patrick's Catholic Church to discuss issues involving a former priest who a judge has ruled likely killed two Hudson funeral home workers nearly four years ago.
Some church members have publicly wondered whether the killings could have been prevented had the diocese acted when parishioners complained about the late Rev. Ryan Erickson, who hanged himself about a year ago after being questioned by police in the slayings.
"There is certainly anger, but I am hopeful that we can express the anger in ways that are constructive rather than destructive and helpful rather than hurtful," said the Rev. John Parr, St. Patrick's pastor. "At least that's my prayer."
• Former Lubbock Chaplain Fired After Abuse Allegations
[1980 Eremito] - RCC. Boy/s.
KAMC 28,
www.kamc28. com/news/ default.asp ?mode=shownews &id=1221 ,
~ January 05, 2006
PHILADELPHIA (PA) -- A former chaplain at Covenant Medical Center, suspended in 2002 after allegations of sexual abuse, was back to work in Pennsylvania on Wednesday ... until KAMC-28 contacted his employer.
Father Anthony Eremito, a priest under the New York Catholic Diocese, worked at Covenant Medical Center from the late 1990's until 2002. That's when he was formally suspended from the church, and from his job as chaplain, because of allegations of sexual abuse against him.
Father John Bambrick, now a priest himself in New Jersey, claims Eremito abused him when he was just 15-years-old.
"I was molested by Eremito in 1980," Bambrick told KAMC-28 on Wednesday. "Those of us who are survivors have the responsibility to other children to continue to be advocates on their behalf."
• Don't let Michigan courts bury priest sex abuse cases
- RCC.
The Detroit News,
www.detnews. com/apps/pbcs. dll/article? AID=/20060105/ OPINION01/6010 50321&SearchID= 7323163 4622165 ;
by Justin C. Ravitz, ~ January 05, 2006
MICHIGAN -- Four years ago a Massachusetts judge ruled Catholic Church documents about clergy sex abuse were relevant to public safety and authorized their release. A month later, a Boston Globe series launched the on-going scandal about the church's cover-ups of horrific child sex crimes committed by Catholic clergy.
In response, judges and lawmakers from coast to coast have issued rulings and enacted laws slowly to bring sorely needed sunlight to these deeply held secrets.
But Michigan judges, by providing a stilted interpretation of the state's statute of limitation laws, have kept the cover-up of clergy sex crimes shrouded in secrecy.
Pedophiles protected While professing concern for child victims, who are now adults, Michigan appellate judges have stepped in to take cases from trial judges and summarily barred all lawsuits. Because of judicial intervention, Michigan victims have not been allowed to take a single deposition of pedophile priests or the church officials who employ them.
As a result, dozens of Michigan Catholic clergy have been suspended from active ministry, but escaped any accountability to their victims or the public. While victims have had the courage to offer to testify under oath, their abusers have managed -- due to church stonewalling and the extraordinary intervention of appellate judges -- to avoid interrogation. We do not know where dangerous pedophiles live; how many other children they have harmed; or what evidence the church may be hiding. By keeping us in the dark on these vital questions, Michigan kids remain at risk.
Last month, just 27 days after the Michigan Court of Appeals dismissed a case brought by Timothy Hassett, The News reported that Hassett's alleged predator, C. Richard Kelly Jr., had been "permanently removed from priestly ministry" due to allegations "of sexual misconduct with a boy in the early years of his ministry in Redford."
Case halted prematurely Hassett's case against the Archdiocese of Detroit was stopped in its tracks, prematurely, before Kelly or any church officials could be questioned under oath.
The elected judges who stopped these lawsuits claim the "fraudulent concealment" law in Michigan does not apply. Yet that law makes clear that whenever a defendant conceals his or her identity and/or the existence of a claim from a would-be plaintiff, the statute of limitations is not activated until the victim discovers or should have discovered the concealment.
Countless victims in Michigan, as elsewhere, never suspected the church was protecting rapists and leaving them, defenseless kids, in harm's way. Until the revelations from Boston, the role of church leaders in covering up crimes by failing to report known sex offenders to the police -- instead, transferring them from parish to parish to avoid scandal -- was something few could have even imagined.
Don't condone concealment But here in Michigan, the judicial die is cast. While attorneys will go to the Michigan Supreme Court for relief for Hassett and others, that relief is not likely to occur.
This court previously refused to review a case involving two victims of Jason Sigler, an ex-priest who pleaded guilty in 2003 to sexually abusing these two youngsters and others, and is serving a seven- to 15-year prison sentence in Michigan. These two victims were abused after church officials documented he had committed sexual crimes and sent him to a "treatment center" in New Mexico, where he abused many other kids.
Sigler was not captured and prosecuted in Michigan until one of his many Michigan victims saw on "60 Minutes" that New Mexico church officials paid $13 million to 17 victims. There was no doubt that Sigler abused these men as children and that the church placed him in parishes where he committed these crimes after knowing of his predatory, pedophilic history.
But their lawsuit, like Hassett's, was taken from the trial court by the Court of Appeals and dismissed. The Michigan Supreme Court did not even find the issues, which have attracted so much attention nationally, sufficiently important to warrant review.
Shred of hope remains As hopeless as all this sounds, there is a shred of hope. Legislators in California and Illinois have effectively reformed statute of limitations laws and removed all doubt about the right of adult victims to sue institutions responsible for their abuse as children. Lawmakers in Ohio and New York are close to doing likewise. At least a dozen other states are considering such reforms. And it can happen here.
For many victims of these horrific sex crimes, each day is a struggle. Their road to recovery is a long and difficult odyssey. Our lawmakers cannot, of course, restore the stolen childhoods and shattered trust of these once-innocent children. But our legislators can make that road a little less arduous.
Justin C. Ravitz, a former Detroit Recorder's Court judge, is a Southfield trial attorney who has handled several sex abuse cases in the Michigan courts. Send e-mail to letters@detnews.com
• Anti-Gay Baptist Priest Arrested For Soliciting Male Prostitute
[2006 Latham] - Baptist. Oral sex bid.
GCN,
www.gcn.ie/ content/templates/ newsupdate. aspx?articleid= 419&zoneid=9 , January 05, 2006
OKLAHOMA CITY (OK) -- Rev. Lonnie Latham, a member of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee, has been arrested and charged with offering to engage in an act of lewdness.
Latham was arrested by Oklahoma City police after asking an undercover officer posing as a male prostitute to join him in his hotel room for oral sex. He was booked into an Oklahoma County jail and released on $500 bail.
The arrest took place in the parking lot of the Habana Inn, where locals have complained about male prostitutes flagging down cars.
[Eremito] - RCC.
Philadelphia Inquirer,
By David O'Reilly, ~ January 05, 2006
PHILADELPHIA (PA) -- A local hospice provider yesterday dismissed a Catholic priest it had hired as a bereavement counselor, saying it did not know he was an accused sex abuser.
Odyssey HealthCare of Philadelphia Inc., based in Blue Bell, said it immediately removed the Rev. Anthony J. Eremito, who is about 63, after learning that he had been suspended from ministry nearly four years ago by the Archdiocese of New York.
"He was in our employment for about three months as a bereavement counselor or coordinator," said Brad Bickham, general counsel for Odyssey's parent company, based in Dallas.
Bickham said Odyssey had conducted standard background checks on Eremito before hiring him but found no evidence of wrongdoing "because he was never criminally charged" with sex abuse.
"Unfortunately, this kind of conduct is not easily ascertainable," Bickham said.
[2006 Latham] - Baptist. Oral sex bid.
ChannelOklahoma.com ,
~ January 05, 2006
OKLAHOMA CITY (OK) -- An executive committee member of the Southern Baptist Convention was arrested on a lewdness charge for propositioning a plainclothes policeman outside a hotel, police said.
Lonnie Latham, senior pastor at South Tulsa Baptist Church, was booked into Oklahoma County Jail Tuesday night on a misdemeanor charge of offering to engage in an act of lewdness, police Capt. Jeffrey Becker said. Latham was released on $500 bail Wednesday afternoon.
Latham, who has spoken out against homosexuality, asked the officer to join him in his hotel room for oral sex. Latham was arrested and his 2005 Mercedes automobile was impounded, Becker said.
Calls to Latham at his church were not immediately returned Wednesday.
["Bishop" Hornbuckle] - Agape Christian Fellowship. 5 women.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
By NATHANIEL JONES, ~ January 05, 2006
FORT WORTH (TX) -- An arrest warrant for an Arlington minister accused of sexually assaulting five women was issued last week after he failed a drug test, according to court documents.
Bishop Terry Hornbuckle was arrested Dec. 29 at his Grapevine home because the failed drug test violated conditions of the $1.005 million bail set 10 days earlier by state District Judge Scott Wisch.
It was the third time Hornbuckle, 43, has been arrested for drug violations since March 11, when he was indicted on four of the six sexual assault charges and a drug possession charge.
Hornbuckle was being held late Wednesday without bail in the Tarrant County Jail.
[1980 Robinson] - RCC. Nun stabbed to death.
The Plain Dealer
Associated Press, Thursday, January 05, 2006
TOLEDO (OH) -- Prosecutors who have accused a priest of stabbing a nun to death in 1980 now say the killing was not premeditated, according to a court filing.
A motion filed in Lucas County Court dropped the words "with prior calculation and design" from a grand jury's indictment. The filing also would reduce the original aggravated murder charge to murder.
The Rev. Gerald Robinson is accused of strangling and stabbing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl in a 1980 Easter weekend killing that investigators have described as ritualistic. The priest and the nun worked together at a hospital.
- RCC.
Ohio News Network,
~ January 05, 2006
CLEVELAND (OH) -- The city's Roman Catholic bishop, who will celebrate 25 years in that post on Friday, has asked the Vatican to consider appointing his replacement.
Bishop Anthony Pilla declined to reveal the reasons for his retirement request, saying a letter he had written to the Vatican was private.
The date of his retirement is at the discretion of the Vatican, said Pilla, who is awaiting a response from Pope Benedict XVI and his staff. ...
He has spent the past few years dealing with the clergy sex-abuse scandal and coping with health problems. Pilla had a quadruple bypass operation in November 1997, then was diagnosed the next month with a life-threatening staph infection. He also had prostate surgery in fall 1999.
[? 2000s Hall] - Church of New Beginnings. Girl.
KGW,
Associated Press, Jan/05/2006
OREGON -- A pastor accused of sexually abusing a girl has been ordered to stay away from his church and children other than his own.
Jeremy Hall, 34, of Sisters was arraigned Wednesday on charges of unlawful sexual penetration and sex abuse involving a child under 14, according to a document filed by the Deschutes County District Attorney's Office.
Hall was pastor at Christ's Church of New Beginnings, which meets in Sisters Elementary School, when the girl came forward, a church board member told The Bulletin newspaper. Hall has temporarily stepped down, the paper reported.
- RCC.
Republican,
By BILL ZAJAC, wzajac@repub.com , Thursday, January 05, 2006
SPRINGFIELD (MA) -- For the third time in three years, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield has been found to be in full compliance with the U.S. bishops' policy to prevent abuse of minors, the diocese announced yesterday.
The diocese also announced that Patricia Finn McManamy has been hired as the diocesan director of counseling, prevention and victim services, replacing Laura Failla Reilly, who resigned in the summer.
The diocese was notified recently that the Gavin Group of Boston determined it was in compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, the policy created by U.S. bishops several years ago to prevent abuse of minors.
- RCC.
Quad-City Times,
By Deirdre Cox Baker, January 05, 2006
NASHVILLE (TN) -- THE Rev. David Choby has stepped into some rarified company in the Diocese of Nashville, Tenn., and his journey to the top was helped by spiritual development in Davenport.
Choby was named bishop of the diocese Dec. 20 before an enthusiastic crowd of 200 supporters. He is the 11th bishop of Nashville, and the third who came via St. Ambrose University, Davenport, and its seminary program.
"I really loved Davenport, I was crazy about it," said Choby, 58, a 1969 graduate in philosophy. He also is one of several priests to have been educated in Iowa before leading parishes in their native Tennessee. ...
But the church has done a lot to address the sexual abuse problem, and Choby noted other faiths and organizations are now contacting Catholic institutions for information and assistance on the issue.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 08:02 AM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker,
www.ncrnews.org/abuse,
Thu January 05, 2006
Abuse Chronology:
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont120.htm
For good teachings to be heeded, a big clean-up is needed.
• Property ruling concern
The Record (W. Australian R.C. newspaper),
"The world in brief," p 9, January 5, 2006
UNITED STATES: A federal judge ruled December 30 that it is the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, not its individual parishes, that owns all parish properties. In a statement released by spokesman Bud Bunce, the archdiocese expressed disappointment. "We feel strongly that this decision is not supported by the facts or the law and believe it infringes on the archdioceses right and the parishioners' rights to freely exercise their religion," the statement said.
At stake in the decision is the property of 124 parishes, including 40 parish elementary schools and three archdiocesan high schools, whose combined worth may be as much as half a billion dollars.
About 130 claimants seeking damages for alleged sexual abuse by priests in the Portland Archdiocese have asked to have the parish and school properties included among archdiocesan assets available for settling their claims.
The archdiocese has argued that under church law each parish owns its own property and the archdiocese only holds those properties in trust for the parishes. #
[COMMENT: It is sad to ponder that while Boston Archdiocese was saying publicly and in a Church tribunal that it had the right to close and sell parishes, the Portland Archdiocese was arguing the opposite in a civil court. The Vatican later ruled in favour of the Boston argument (reported January 14.) "Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive."
COMMENT ENDS.]
[Jan 5, 06]
Abuse Chronology:
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont120.htm
For good teachings to be heeded, a big clean-up is needed. #### Clergy Sex AbuseTracker,
www.ncrnews.org/abuse,
Fri January 06, 2006 edition follows:-
• Reward fund being converted to help abused children
[2002, 2004 Erickson] - RCC. Boy molested. 2 shot. Suicided.
Duluth News Tribune,
www.duluth superior.com/ mld/duluth superior/news/ politics/1356 5429.htm ,
Associated Press, ~ January 06, 2006
HUDSON, Wis. - Unclaimed reward money in the slayings of two funeral home workers nearly four years ago will be converted to a civic fund to help groups that assist abused children, the widow of one of the victims said.
"We all have a responsibility to do the right thing. To stand up. I want to help prevent child abuse. And Dan would have supported this wholeheartedly," Jennie O'Connell said.
Her husband, Dan, 39, and James Ellison, 22, were fatally shot at the O'Connell Family Funeral Home on Feb. 5, 2002.
In October, St. Croix County Circuit Judge Eric Lundell ruled there was probable cause that the late Rev. Ryan Erickson of St. Patrick's Catholic Church killed the men and that he had molested at least one teenage boy.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 05:19 PM]
[Whitehorse Diocese] - RCC. Indigenous boarders.
CBC News,
Last updated 12:18 PM CST, Jan 6 2006
CANADA -- Yukon's Catholics are welcoming the news that the church has appointed a new bishop to the diocese, saying it's a sign the troubled diocese has begun to turn things around.
Pope Benedict appointed Gary Gordon, a priest from Chilliwack, B.C. as the bishop of the Whitehorse diocese on Thursday. The bishop oversees about 8,000 Catholics in 20 parishes and missions throughout the Yukon and Northern B.C.
"I am a little bit taken aback by the appointment of the Holy Father," Gordon said Thursday. "It sort of comes out of the blue, so it will just be a matter of getting up there and getting the lay of the land."
Gordon replaces Bishop Thomas Lobsinger, who was killed in a plane crash in 2000. The position has remained vacant since, though the bishop for Fort Smith has held the job from a distance for three years.
At the time of Lobsinger's death, the church in Yukon was on the brink of bankruptcy because of a number of sexual abuse claims filed by former residential school students. A priest in the diocese says that likely contributed to keeping the position vacant.
- RCC.
The Catholic Telegraph,
January 06, 2006
CINCINNATI (OH) -- Last summer, in a survey conducted by The Catholic Telegraph, a number of readers suggested that Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk offer area Catholics an annual update on both the temporal and spiritual affairs of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Accordingly, he sat down recently with editor Tricia Hempel to discuss such matters. ...
How do you think local priests are doing in light of the sex abuse crisis so prominent in the headlines in the past three years? Do they talk to you about their feelings?
I have been having a series of personal interviews with priests, and that is one of the questions I put to them: Has the crisis affected your ministry? The answer has been spotty: Not everyone is saying it hasn't and not everyone is saying it has. It depends on the parish circumstances and the personal circumstances of each priest; if one of your best friends is on leave, it takes on a different color.
[Emerson] - RCC.
WFTV,
POSTED: 2:54 pm EST, January 6, 2006
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. -- A Roman Catholic priest accused of sexual misconduct in Orlando, Fla., has resigned his position with a northwestern Indiana church.
The Rev. Richard Emerson resigned from Notre Dame Parish in Michigan City more than a year after accusations were first made against him, the Rev. Brian Chadwick, Diocese of Gary spokesman, said Thursday. The news was also delivered to diocesan priests through a letter from Bishop Dale J. Melczek.
"It doesn't mean he's confessing his guilt," the Rev. James McGrogan of Sacred Heart Mission parish in Michigan City, told the Post-Tribune of Merrillville.
Emerson in December 2004 was removed from public ministry, which means he can no longer practice priestly duties such as conducting Mass.
[1980s Monsignor Kavanagh] - RCC. Male.
New York Newsday,
January 6, 2006
NEW YORK (AP) -- A priest accused of sexual abuse will be tried by a church tribunal following a ruling by the Vatican, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York announced Friday.
Msgr. Charles M. Kavanagh, once a leading figure in the church hierarchy, was suspended in May 2002 after he was accused of molesting a former seminarian. He has vehemently denied the charges.
Following an internal investigation by the archdiocese, the case was referred to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which determines how to proceed.
The Congregation found the allegations merit a trial.
"I am absolutely delighted that the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith has granted my request for a full and fair trial," Kavanagh said in a statement. "I am fully confident that once I have a chance to present my case, I will be completely vindicated and will return to the ministry that I love."
[Los Angeles Archdiocese] - RCC. > 500 plaintiffs.
NBC 4,
POSTED 2:38 pm PST, January 6, 2006
LOS ANGELES (CA) -- Any settlement of lawsuits pending against the Los Angeles Archdiocese should include the release of church documents on priests accused of sexual abuse, a victims' advocacy group said Friday.
More than 500 alleged victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have filed lawsuits against the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
After several years of negotiations, lawyers close to the litigation told the Los Angeles Times newspaper that about 45 lawsuits are now moving toward settlement.
"We hope that victims in these cases hang tough and insist on the disclosure of secret church documents, so Catholics and citizens can learn which church officials actively put kids at risk by keeping known predators in parishes," said Mary Grant, western regional director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
- Churches and non-profits.
Trenton Times,
By KRYSTAL KNAPP, Friday, January 06, 2006
TRENTON (NJ) -- Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey signed a bill yesterday that allows victims of childhood sex abuse to sue churches, schools and other nonprofit organizations for their employees' misconduct.
The new law, described by some state legislators as one of the most important bills they have ever considered, removes the long-standing state shield for charities known as charitable immunity in cases of sex abuse.
The state statute of limitations still applies. Suits must be filed within two years of the victim's 18th birthday or within two years of the incident's discovery.
New Jersey is the 48th state to allow victims of childhood sex abuse to sue nonprofit groups for the actions of their staff. The only other states that give charities total protection from civil lawsuits are Alabama and Tennessee.
[Grammond, 2005 Portland (Oregon) Archdiocese] - RCC. £30m paid, £80m sought. Tried to sideline assets.
The Tablet (British RC periodical),
~ January 06, 2006
PORTLAND (OR) -- The bankrupt Archdiocese of Portland has suffered a serious blow in its struggle to keep parishes and schools from being closed to pay for massive clerical sex-abuse damages.
A federal court ruled on 30 December that the parishes of western Oregon are not separate entities, but belong to the archdiocese. Parochial assets, which total an estimated $500 million (£290 million), can therefore be sold to pay for settlements being sought by plaintiffs.
The archdiocese, which sought bankruptcy protection last year, has already paid out £30 million over 130 previous claims; this week a trial opened with alleged victims of a single priest, Fr Maurice Grammond, now dead, seeking £80 million.
[Cimmarrusti (Franciscan)] - RCC. Told 2 priests. Boy.
Los Angeles Times,
From Associated Press, January 06, 2006
OAKLAND (CA) -- The civil trial of a former priest accused of child sex abuse will go ahead as planned in Northern California, rather than moving to Southern California, where the alleged abuse occurred, a judge ruled.
An Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that the case against Mario Cimmarrusti, a former instructor at St. Anthony's Seminary in Santa Barbara, was already far enough along in Northern California and therefore should proceed to trial March 6.
The alleged victim, referred t
