References cont. (72) — Clergy Child Molesters

• Baptist pastor destroyed diary pages, called girl liar [1994-95]
   BRISBANE, Queensland, AUSTRALIA: The Courier-Mail, Brisbane, "Pastor called me a liar, says sex abuse victim," www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,8908177%255E3102,00.html , by Tony Keim, for Mar 09 2004
   A Baptist Church pastor destroyed five pages taken from a 14-year-old girl's diary that documented sexual abuse inflicted upon her by a parishioner, a Brisbane jury was told yesterday.
   Sandgate Baptist pastor Douglas Ray Ensbey shredded or guillotined pages from an exercise book kept by the girl, the Brisbane District Court was told.
   The pages detailed how married father of three Mark Boyce had fondled her breasts and touched her genitals and forced her to touch his in 1994 and 1995. The girl, now aged 23, cannot be identified because she is a sex assault victim.
   Yesterday, she testified that Ensbey confronted her about the accusations and entries in her diary and accused her of lying about the attacks.
   "(Ensbey) would call me a liar. He said I was lying about the incident (and) the whole sexual abuse," she said.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 09:37 PM (This is the first of the Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse , for Monday, March 08, 2004.)

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   INCOMPLETE LINKS: Refer back to "References 61" for methods of obtaining omitted URLs. • Baptist pastor denies ruining 'sex diary' [1994]
   The Australian, "Pastor denies ruining 'sex diary'," www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8908392%255E2702,00.html , By Kevin Meade, March 09 2004
   AUSTRALIA: A Baptist pastor shredded the pages of a diary kept by a 14-year-old girl who was sexually molested by one of his parishioners, a jury was told yesterday.
   Douglas Ensbey, the senior pastor at a church in Brisbane's northern suburbs, also told a meeting of elders he had been advised by the church's governing body, the Baptist Union, that the sexual abuse allegations could be handled within the church and there was no need to inform police, the jury was told.
   Mr Ensbey, 53, pleaded not guilty in the Brisbane District Court to a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice by destroying or rendering illegible allegations of sexual abuse in the girl's diary notes between May 1995 and July 1996. He also pleaded not guilty to an alternative charge of destroying evidence that might be required in judicial proceedings.
   The girl, who is now 23 and cannot be identified, told the court she and her parents attended Sunday services at Sandgate Baptist Church from 1991 to 1995.
   She said Mark Boyce, a fellow parishioner and a friend of the family, had molested her on a regular basis for about 11 months, starting in 1994. Boyce later pleaded guilty and in 2001 was convicted of indecently dealing with the girl.
• Victims group walks away from talks with church
   MILWAUKEE (WI): Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, www.jsonline.com/news/metro/mar04/213197.asp , By TOM HELD theld@journalsentinel.com Posted: March 8, 2004
   Negotiators representing victims sexually abused by Catholic priests in the Milwaukee Archdiocese walked away from a mediation session with church officials Monday, frustrated by the church refusal to release names of offending priests. Leaders of the group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said the talks "collapsed" over the issue, but Archbishop Timothy Dolan said he was ready to continue discussions any time.
   Late Monday, neither side appeared to have a clear idea of whether the mediation sessions involving the survivors group would continue after the disagreement.
   "We're in kind of a position of shock, disappointment, frustration - all those emotions," said Jerry Topczewski, Dolan's administrative assistant and delegate for communications. "You can't negotiate with yourself."
   Topczewski said the independent mediation would continue for people who were sexually abused as minors by a priest or other member of the archdiocese. They are encouraged to report abuse or pursue counseling and compensation by calling the archdiocese.
   Dolan launched the mediation in November, when he also established a $4 million settlement fund for people who were abused as minors.
• Church recoils from remarks [1955-77]
   The Dallas Morning News, www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/030904dnnatchurchabuse.9acc4.html , Associated Press 08:25 PM CST on Monday, March 8, 2004
   ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Roman Catholic Church officials are distancing themselves from comments by a retired Jesuit official who suggested that a priest's alleged abuse of Native Alaskan boys wouldn't have much effect because their culture was "fairly loose" on sexual matters.
   The Rev. William "Lom" Loyens, 77, who holds a doctorate in cultural anthropology, commented in a deposition that is part of a lawsuit brought by eight men who say they were abused as boys in western Alaska villages.
   The men contend that the Rev. Jules Convert, a Jesuit village priest, fondled them between 1955 and 1977 as they slept, or in one case, watched a movie.
   Father Loyens, retired in Spokane, Wash., was called as a witness by an attorney for the Northern Alaska Diocese and was deposed at law offices in Spokane on Jan. 6. The transcript was released to The Associated Press by attorney Kenneth Roosa, who represents the men.
   Father Loyens, who was in charge of Jesuits in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska from 1976 to 1980, said in the deposition that he had no indication or suspicion that Father Convert might have acted inappropriately.
   Catholic officials said Father Loyens' statement did not reflect church views.
• Pastor of Herkimer church removed from ministry [1960s]
   HERKIMER (NY): The Evening Telegram, www.herkimertelegram.com/articles/2004/03/08/news/news01.txt , By JERRY BLAIR-Telegram Staff Writer, March 8, 2004
   The pastor of a Roman Catholic church in Herkimer was removed from ministry after an allegation of sexual abuse dating back more than 30 years was confirmed by the Albany Diocese, Bishop Howard J. Hubbard announced Sunday.
   The Rev. Robert Shinos, 68, has served as pastor of the Sts. Anthony and Joseph parish since 1977. He had been under investigation by the Diocesan Review Board since the abuse allegation was received in January 2004.
   The incident cited in connection with his removal took place in the 1960s and allegedly involved a minor. According to a statement issued by diocese officials, the review board "determined there was reasonable cause to believe an allegation of sexual abuse against Father Shinos."
   Parishioners of Sts. Anthony and Joseph parish were informed of Hubbard's decision by a diocese representative during Mass on Sunday. The Albany diocese will be working closely with parish leaders to ensure there is appropriate coverage for Masses and other sacraments until a new pastor is appointed.
   Ordained in 1963, Shinos had previously served at St. Bernard's in Cohoes and St. Patrick's in Watervliet. Parishioners in Herkimer reportedly had no idea he was the subject of a diocese investigation before being informed Sunday that he was no longer there.
• Man Sues South Side Priest [1970s]
   CHICAGO (IL): NBC 5 www.nbc5.com/news/2906065/detail.html?z=dp&dpswid=2265994&dppid=65193
   A 42-year-old man filed a lawsuit Monday against a south side priest for allegedly sexually abusing him in the 1970s, while he was a teenager.
   Attorneys representing the victim, identified only as "John Doe," filed the suit against the Rev. John Calicott and his order, the Catholic Bishops of Chicago, for alleged sexual abuse he suffered while he was a pupil at St. Ailbe's Catholic Elementary School in 1975 and 1976. This comes as Calicott is asking the Vatican to reinstate him as pastor of Holy Angels Parish on Chicago's south side, despite other allegations of sexual misconduct.
   "Father Calicott may have some good qualities but he has one quality that is apparently a very bad quality, and that's being a sexual predator on children," said Larry Rogers, the attorney who filed the lawsuit. "He should not be allowed around children."
   NBC5 reported in January that Calicott was back in the classroom periodically at Holy Angels Parish -- at times teaching sex education, among other topics, to seventh-graders -- despite his earlier removal from the parish for the original allegations, reported Mary Ann Ahern. Since those reports, the archdiocese removed Calicott one more time while his request to be reinstated is reviewed in Rome.
   The lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, charged that the CBC was responsible because it did not supervise Calicott during his tenure at St. Alibe's and that both the order and Calicott inflicted emotional distress on the alleged victim.
   In 1995, Calicott was removed from Holy Angels Church in Bronzeville because of the allegations, reinstated under one set of rules in the mid-1990s, but was suspended again after the bishops' Dallas convention in 2002, according to news reports.
   "I would be happy to have Father John teach any class anywhere on any topic to any level of child," said Calicott's mentor, the Rev. Robert Miller.
• Alleged victim speaks out
   ALBANY (NY): Capital News 9 www.capitalnews9.com/content/headlines/?ArID=63073&SecID=33 , By Jessica Schneider 6:22 PM, March/8/2004
   A alleged victim of clergy sexual abuse is crying foul after a priest he accused of abusing him was exonerated by a Review Board.
   Timothy Sawicki said, "I was floored. I was devastated, and I was really hurt. I didn't feel as though the Diocese is living up to their word. They talk about being transparent, wanting to help victims, never heard a word from them."
   That was Sawicki's reaction to Father Donald Ophals' reinstatement at St. Francis DeSales Parish in Troy. Ophals was back at the altar on Sunday after being cleared of all sexual abuse allegations by a Diocese Review Board. Sawicki said though he did meet with Review Board investigator Thomas Martin, he was never asked about any abuse concerning Ophals. The only talk, he said, was about another priest, Father Allan Jupin, who is now on leave from a parish in Niskayuna.
   Sawicki said, "There was no follow-up with the meeting from Martin. That's the point. We met with Martin. The topic of Ophals and Douglas never really came up. They knew there were others like John had said, and they didn't even bother to check into that. I never got a single call."
   The Albany Diocese said Sawicki and attorney John Aretakis had every opportunity to provide information about Father Ophals' alleged abuse. The Diocese issued a statement saying Sawicki was interviewed last March and should have brought up his allegations against Father Ophals then.
• Church policy must enforce zero tolerance
   UNITED STATES: Port Huron Times Herald, www.thetimesherald.com/news/stories/20040308/opinion/36553.html , Mar 8 2004
   As bad as the Catholic Church's child-abuse scandal has been, new revelations show its scope is worse than we thought. The release of two reports on priest misconduct make that clear.
   Commissioned by Catholic bishops, the studies conclude 4,392 priests victimized 10,667 children from 1950 to 2002. Even then, the authors said the number of victims probably was low. They conceded some victims would never come forward.
   The reports further damage the church's image. They tell a troubling story of widespread abuse in which criminal priests made up about 4% of those who served the church during that period.
   The revelations, horrible as they are, also speak to an essential standard: zero tolerance for sexual misconduct by priests and any other authority figures. Moreover, they confirm the importance of full disclosure.
   The church's past policy of treating sexual-abuse matters internally harmed the victims and helped priest misconduct continue. In too many instances, accused priests simply were transferred to new parishes without their misconduct officially addressed or corrected.
   Now that church leaders finally have been forced to confront this terrible legacy, there is hope victims can be helped and offending priests confronted.
   One promising example is the canonical trial of Marine City priest James Wysocki. Accused of abusing a minor during the early years of his priesthood, the accusations exceed Michigan's statute of limitations.
• Baptist pastor shredded sex abuse evidence, court told [1995]
   AUSTRALIA: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, "Court hears pastor shredded sex abuse evidence," www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1061464.htm
   A Brisbane court has heard a Baptist Church pastor allegedly shredded a teenager's diary, which contained notes about sexual abuse by a member of the congregation.
   Douglas Roy Ensbey, 52, has pleaded not guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice and destroying evidence.
   The District Court heard the 14-year-old girl was sexually abused in 1995 for 11 months by a fellow church-goer at the Baptist Church at Sandgate, in Brisbane's north.
   A senior pastor, Ensbey became aware of the matter and approached the family.
   The girl told the court Ensbey called her a liar and said the matter was better dealt with by the church than the police.
• Albany diocese clears two priests, removes another after investigation
   New York Newsday, www.nynewsday.com/news/local/ny-bc-ny--churchabuse-alban0307mar07,0,6644628.story?coll=nyc-regionhome-headlines , 10:39 PM EST, March 7, 2004
   ALBANY, N.Y. -- The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany on Sunday said two priests had been cleared of allegations that they sexually abused minors, and a third was removed from ministry.
   Bishop Howard Hubbard celebrated Mass at Saint Francis DeSales Church in Troy on Sunday to welcome back the Rev. Donald Ophals. The parish priest had taken a leave of absence while the Diocesan Review Board investigated a claim that he had sexually abused a minor in the 1970s.
   The Rev. Louis Douglas, a retired priest living in Delaware, also was cleared by the review board, the diocese announced.
   In a lawsuit filed by attorney John Aretakis, Timothy Sawicki accused the priests of abusing him as a teenager in the 1970s. The lawsuit was dismissed by a state Supreme Court judge in January. Sawicki said in a statement Sunday that he was discouraged by the diocese's decision.
   "I need to say that I have been left out of this entire process," Sawicki said in a statement to Capital News 9 in Albany. "The bishop never contacted me, nor did anyone from the misconduct panel about these two priests."
• Herkimer priest removed [1960s]
   HERKIMER (NY): Observer-Dispatch, http://www.uticaod.com/archive/2004/03/08/news/27708.html , By SHAWN ANDERSON, March 8 2004
   A Roman Catholic priest who's served in Herkimer since 1977 was removed permanently from the ministry last week, based on an allegation of sexually abusing a minor more than 30 years ago.
   The Rev. Robert Shinos, the 68-year-old pastor of the Church of Saints Anthony & Joseph on South Main Street, was relieved from his duties after an investigation by the Diocese Review Board, said Kenneth Doyle of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
   "The allegation was verified," Doyle said.
   The alleged abuse took place in the 1960s in Albany between Shinos and a minor, Doyle said. The accuser came forward in January and the Diocese Review Board, which investigates sexual abuse claims against ministers in the Albany Diocese, found it reasonable to believe the abuse occurred, Doyle said.
   Shinos couldn't be reached. Police have not charged Shinos with any crime, said Doyle.
   Many details of the incident won't be released to protect the accuser, said Doyle, diocese chancellor for public information.
• Ex-Oblate priest accused [1967]
   SAN ANTONIO (TX): Express-News, www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA08.01B.priest_accused.436b88ed.html , by Dane Schiller Web Posted: March/08/2004
   After a church report that 20 area priests have been accused of sexually abusing minors in the past five decades, a man who grew up in San Antonio is pushing ahead with a $20 million lawsuit claiming that in 1967 he was raped by the then-pastor at St. Timothy Church.
   The lawsuit names the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate order and Father Alfredo Prado, 73, who has drawn attention for being dismissed from the Oblates and for celebrating Mass with the San Antonio followers of a purported visionary in Costa Rica.
   Neither the church nor Prado, who served at St. Timothy's from 1965 to 1968 and again in 1971, will say why he was removed from the Oblates.
   The lawsuit's plaintiff, Ricardo Salinas, 50, who lives in California, where the lawsuit was filed in state court, said he was regularly counseled by Prado when he was a 14-year-old student at Jeremiah Rhodes Middle School in San Antonio.
   After an argument with his father, Salinas said he again sought Prado's help.
   In an interview with the San Antonio Express-News, Salinas reiterated the allegations he makes in the lawsuit.
• Vermont diocese settles lawsuit [~ 1970; $120,000]
   Boston Globe www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2004/03/08/vermont_diocese_settles_lawsuit , Associated Press, March/8/2004
   BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Vermont's Catholic Church has paid $120,000 to settle a lawsuit accusing a priest of child sexual abuse.
   In return, Michael Bernier, a 46-year-old California investment firm executive, has dropped his court case against the Diocese of Burlington and the Rev. James McShane, who worked as director of the state church's Office of Youth Ministry and chaplain for the Vermont Boy Scouts and Catholic Camp Holy Cross in Colchester. McShane resigned as a Rutland pastor last year.
   Bernier says he was a 12-year-old parochial school student in St. Albans when McShane repeatedly "sexually abused, sexually exploited, and sexually assaulted" him around 1970.
   Bernier filed charges against McShane and the diocese a year and a half ago. Defense lawyers have tried for months to dismiss the case.
   Bernier sought and eventually won permission to review more than 50 years of Vermont church files on all clergy misconduct but decided to settle rather than wait for pending court motions to be decided.
   "Besides what happened to me, I didn't need to be revictimized by them dragging their feet and trying to wear me down," Bernier said.
• Local priest cleared
   ALBANY (NY) Troy Record www.troyrecord.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11086815&BRD=1170&PAG=461&dept_id=7021&rfi=6
   A Troy priest is one of two who have been cleared of sexual abuse charges by the Diocesan Review Board. Another priest has been removed from ministry.
   The Diocesan Review Board, a panel that investigates sexual abuse complaints against diocesan priests, found there was no evidence to support an allegation against Rev. Donald Ophals, pastor of St. Francis de Sales parish in Troy, and Rev. Louis Douglas, a retired priest now living in Delaware, according to a release from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
   Albany Diocese Bishop Howard Hubbard has, however, removed from ministry Rev. Robert S. Shinos, pastor of St. Anthony-St. Joseph parish in Herkimer. The Review Board determined there was reasonable cause to believe an allegation of sexual abuse against Shinos. Hubbard was at the Mass at St. Francis de Sales parish Sunday to announce the news to parishioners that Ophals had been cleared.
• Keeping the collar through the crisis
   Baltimore Sun, www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.catholics08mar08,0,5437531.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines , By The Rev. James Martin, March 8, 2004
   NEW YORK - Lately, being a Catholic has grown increasingly difficult. So has being a priest.
   The recent release of the long-awaited report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church made for especially grim reading. The first independent investigation of abuse in the American church, supervised by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, concluded that 4 percent of U.S. priests - that is, 4,392 clergy members - were accused of abuse between 1950 and 2002. In the ordination class of 1970, one of every 10 priests faced at least one accusation.
   While the data represent only those accused (the number of substantiated claims is lower) and are difficult to compare with other populations (the Catholic Church is the only major organization or profession to release such figures), the extent of the crimes is nonetheless appalling.
   Since the crisis exploded in January 2002, I often have been asked how I can represent an institution that is so obviously flawed. It is a fair challenge, recalling the Rev. Andrew Greeley's trenchant observation that the question today is not why so many Catholics leave the church, but why they stay.
   I stay in the priesthood for a host of reasons.
   The first is that I freely made a vow to God to remain a priest for the rest of my life.
   (The Rev. James Martin is a Jesuit priest and associate editor of America, a national Catholic magazine.)
• 'Terrible history' likely to haunt Church's future
   UNITED STATES The Charlotte Observer www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/8132595.htm , By TOM FEENEY, Newhouse News Service
   Can a grim accounting of 52 years' worth of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests bring to an end the darkest period in the history of the Catholic Church in America? The U.S. Conference of Bishops says it can. When it released two reports putting at 4,392 the number of priests accused of sexually abusing minors between 1950 and 2002, the conference president, Illinois Bishop Wilton Gregory, proclaimed, "The terrible history recorded here today is history."
   But Church observers are not so sure. Many of them agree there are likely to be fewer incidents of sexual abuse by priests in the future, because of both broad cultural changes and specific preventive measures adopted by the bishops in recent years. But others caution that not even eradicating abuse will be enough to keep the "terrible history" from coloring the Church's future.
   The accounting of past abuse compiled by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice from data reported by the Church indicates that more abusive priests were ordained in the 1960s than any other decade and that the largest number of abuse cases occurred in the 1970s. "Men ordained around 1970 were at higher risk for abuse since they were ordained during the tumultuous years of Vatican II and were coping like everyone else with the wackiness of the 1970s," said Thomas Plante, a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University in California.
   Reported incidents have fallen sharply since the mid-1980s -- a fact the bishops seized on to make the case that the Church's steps toward preventing abuse have been successful. "Along with the pain and anguish we feel in reviewing the past, we can also discern signs that the actions we have taken over the last 15 years have had a significant effect," Gregory said.
• New Lexington bishop outgoing, outspoken
   The Courier-Journal www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/03/08ky/A1-gainer0308-14938.html , By PETER SMITH, psmith@courier-journal.com , March 8 2004
   LEXINGTON, Ky. - Just four months after being selected to lead the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lexington, Ron Gainer went to his first national conference of bishops and was told by veteran colleagues, "Congratulations. This used to be a lot more fun."
   Becoming bishop at the height of the church's sexual-abuse scandal and replacing a bishop who resigned over abuse allegations, Gainer might have been tempted to lie low.
   Instead, since his ordination as bishop in early 2003, the Pennsylvania native has returned an accused priest to work, ordered a serial offender to stay at a treatment center indefinitely and excommunicated a priest who joined a splinter church.
   And although some critics say bishops should be the last to offer moral guidance these days, Gainer has been speaking out against such things as same-sex marriage, abortion and for-profit prisons.
• Support builds for abuse victims [1974-75]
   NEW JERSEY The Star-Ledger, www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-5/107873711599840.xml , BY ANA M. ALAYA Monday, March 08, 2004
   Mark Goebel says he was 12 the first time the "monster" raped him. It was 1974.
   For two years, the Morris County man said, he was sexually abused by a teacher and forced to have sex with other boys at a boarding school in Princeton. For more than two decades, he kept it secret.
   "I didn't even know how to share an experience like that with someone, how to get beyond the fear, the flashbacks, especially when I was hoping to put myself in a loving sexual relationship with another person," Goebel said.
   Today, Goebel goes to group therapy.
   And so do a lot of other men, venturing into territory that has been familiar for women, but rarely visited by men: group sessions with others who have been raped or abused.
   "The recent exposure has begun to break the isolation," said Mark Crawford of Woodbridge, a board member for the national group MaleSurvivor, one of the most respected support groups for male victims of sex abuse.
• Cleared priests return to fold
   ALBANY (NY) Albany Times Union www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=226457&category=REGION&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=3/8/2004 , By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Monday, March 8, 2004
   Two priests have been cleared of allegations they sexually abused minors in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany -- and one priest was removed from ministry -- following an investigation into separate claims announced Sunday. The news prompted tears of thanksgiving from the Rev. Donald Ophals, the 30-year pastor of Troy's St. Francis de Sales Church, who was restored to his post at an 11 a.m. Mass celebrated by Bishop Howard Hubbard.
   It produced outrage from Mark Furnish, director of the Capital District chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests [SNAP], who railed against the diocesan review board that he said cleared the priests without ever talking to the victim, who learned of the latest move on the news.
   Returning accused priests to the community was announced "in a pep rally atmosphere at Mass," Furnish said. But nothing is known about what went into the decision, he said.
!!!: The laughing corpse; priest may have faked death
   IRELAND Irish Independent, "Sex abuse priest on the run may have faked his death," www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=27&si=1141168&issue_id=10553 ,
   Police suspect that an Irish-born priest accused of abusing altar boys may have faked his own death to escape extradition to Britain.
   Father Christopher Clonan fled from Coventry to Australia when the allegations first became public in 1992. The scandal, which related to events in the 1970s, rocked the Catholic Church in England.
   In 1998 it was announced he had died suddenly while visiting his family in a suburb of Melbourne, and in January this year the Church paid record compensation to one of his victims.
   But now police suspect that the priest may have faked his own death to escape extradition, and West Midlands detectives are seeking authority to travel to Australia to investigate exactly what happened to him.
   They are unconvinced by a death certificate and pictures taken of him lying in his coffin which were sent to Britain by Fr Clonan's family. One legal source close to the case said it was the only time he had ever seen a corpse laughing.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 06:15 AM
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Monday, March 08, 2004
##### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Tuesday, March 09, 2004 edition follows:-
• New Springfield bishop named
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) Republican http://masslive.com/springfield/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1078825908320714.xml , By BILL ZAJAC, wzajac@repub.com , March/09/2004
   Exactly four weeks after the Most Rev. Thomas L. Dupre resigned as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield amid sexual abuse allegations, an auxiliary bishop from the Archdiocese of New York was named by the Vatican today to replace him.
   The Most Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell was introduced at a news conference this morning as the eighth bishop of the 133-year-old diocese, which has 129 parishes, 14 missions and 275,000 Catholics throughout Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire counties.
   McDonnell, 66, who has experience in dealing with at least one other church crisis related to sexual abuse allegations, is a New York City native. Born in the Bronx, he was ordained in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan in 1963 and was installed as an auxiliary bishop on Dec. 12, 2001.
   McDonnell will be installed as bishop on April 1 in a ceremony at St. Michael's Cathedral.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 07:39 PM
• Pope Replaces U.S. Bishop Accused of Rape
   Reuters www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=4530598§ion=news
   ROME (Reuters) - Pope John Paul II Tuesday chose a new bishop for the U.S. diocese of Springfield in Massachusetts to replace Thomas Dupre, who resigned after two men accused him of raping them.
   The pope named 66-year-old Timothy McDonnell, former auxiliary bishop in New York, to replace Dupre, whose resignation in February marked the latest chapter in a widespread sexual abuse scandal that erupted more than two years ago.
   If indicted over the accusations, experts say 70-year-old Dupre would be the highest-ranking U.S. church figure to face criminal charges in the scandal.
• Former Fitchburg pastor facing abuse suit [1993-04, 2003]
   LEOMINSTER (MA) Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise www.sentinelandenterprise.com/Stories/0,1413,106~4992~2006110,00.html , By Matt O'Brien
   A man has sued former Fitchburg pastor Rev. Peter Inzerillo for allegedly abusing him when he was a teenager.
   In a lawsuit filed last week in Worcester Superior Court, the man described only as "John Doe" said he "felt immediately nauseous" when Inzerillo allegedly brushed his hand up his leg last year, triggering memories of sexual abuse he said he suffered beginning in 1993.
   "John Doe repressed the incidents of abuse and was unable to discover the causal connections between his (psychological injuries), and the acts of Fr. Inzerillo, until he saw Fr. Inzerillo approximately one year ago," the lawsuit states. "Fr. Inzerillo sat close to John Doe and intentionally brushed his hand up against his leg."
   The accuser's lawyer, Lynnfield attorney Joseph Dever, filed the lawsuit, which asks for $76,500 in damages, but did not return calls for comment Monday.
   Dever wrote that the alleged abuse of his client continued until 1994, the same year Inzerillo faced an unrelated lawsuit stemming from alleged sexual misconduct in the mid-1980s.
   Inzerillo was vocational director for the Worcester Diocese until 1994, when decade-old allegations by Edward Gagne of Spencer caused the diocese to temporarily remove the priest from his duties, according to diocesan spokesman Ray Delisle and court records.
• Healing begins with openness
   UNITED STATES The Saginaw News www.mlive.com/news/sanews/index.ssf?/base/news-0/107884748170950.xml , Tuesday, March 09, 2004
   In this Lenten season of healing and hope, the Catholic Church has taken an important step forward by pinning down sexual abuse allegations since 1952. Its national report is part of a process of altering a culture that quieted molestation as a secret shame for victims and their families. The real shame is on those who have hurt children, and on those who have knowingly shifted problem priests or other church officials to trusting parishes and schools. Last week's release of child sex abuse claims in the church -- from the national figures down to the 11-county Catholic Diocese of Saginaw -- goes some distance to opening the past, when pervasive silence and deference allowed mistreatment of minors to persist.
   Today's response shows an evolution that means better protection for the most vulnerable.
   The report cited 10,667 abuse claims nationally, more than half by children between 11 and 14. About 4 percent of American clerics who served during that period were accused -- 4,392 of the 109,694 priests and others under vows. Of the abuse claims, more than 10 percent were unsubstantiated and about 20 percent were not investigated because the accused was dead or inactive when the claims were made. Nationally, the church has removed about 700 allegedly abusive priests and deacons in the past two years, the Boston Globe reported.
• Diocese assigns replacement for pastor removed from ministry [1980s]
   HERKIMER (NY): The Evening Telegram, www.herkimertelegram.com/articles/2004/03/09/news/news02.txt , By JERRY BLAIR, March 9, 20040
   The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany said Monday that a pastor has been selected to replace the Rev. Robert Shinos at Sts. Anthony and Joseph parish.
   According to diocese officials, the Rev. Anthony Ligato was recently assigned to the Herkimer church. Scheduled to take up office there March 21, he had previously served as pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Stamford. An announcement was made Sunday that Shinos had been removed from ministry by Bishop Howard J. Hubbard following the investigation of a sexual abuse allegation by a diocese review board. The revelation shocked many parishioners at Sts. Anthony and Joseph, who were completely unaware that an allegation had been made.
   Diocese officials said Ligato will also serve as pastor of Holy Family Church in Little Falls. The church's former pastor, the Rev. Charles Celeste, is currently on a continuing leave of absence. He was granted leave by the diocese last year after being accused of involvement in a sexual relationship with a male college student in the 1980s.
• The Catholic sex-abuse scandal is not history
   FortWayne.com ; www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/8143877.htm , BY LEO SANDON, Knight Ridder Newspapers
   UNITED STATES (KRT) - The scandal in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church has moved to a new stage: statistical analysis of the scope and nature of priestly sexual abuse and of the causes and context of the crisis. On Feb. 27 two reports were released: a research study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a report by the blue-ribbon National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sponsored both studies.
   The statistical study disclosed that, at minimum, 4 percent of all priests serving from 1950 through 2002 - at least 4,392 priests - had been accused of abusing a total of 10,667 children. More than 63 percent of the victims were abused more than once, almost 30 percent by the same priest over two to four years. Priests in 95 percent of the nation's Catholic dioceses and in 60 percent of its religious orders were accused. It's noteworthy that a relatively small number of priests, 149, were involved in 27 percent of the allegations, while more than half of the accused priests had only a single allegation. Church officials, alas, never reported most of the allegations to police, and 95 percent of the priests never were criminally indicted.
   The report of the National Review Board is an interesting read. All 145 pages of it. These loyal but not uncritical Catholic laypersons provide rigorous analysis and candid judgment. Among their recommendations: further study and analysis; enhanced screening, "formation" (that is, training) and oversight of seminarians; increased sensitivity and effective response to allegations of sexual abuse; greater accountability of bishops; and improved interaction with civil authorities.
• Springfield bishop faces hard task of regaining Catholics' trust
   Providence Journal www.projo.com/ap/ma/1078864604.htm , By ADAM GORLICK, Associated Press Writer
   SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - Growing up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood mixed with Irish, German and Jewish families making their homes in the Bronx, Timothy McDonnell never questioned his calling to be a priest.
   There was that longing to help others and a deep devotion to serve his faith that pushed him into the seminary when he was 19.
   Nearly 40 years after he was ordained at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, McDonnell, 66, now faces what may be his hardest task as a clergyman: restoring his fellow Catholics' faith and confidence in the leadership of the Springfield Diocese, which was shaken last month by allegations that recently retired Bishop Thomas Dupre molested two boys in the 1970s.
   "I hope to be a reconciler," McDonnell said Tuesday during his first Mass at St. Michael's Cathedral, hours after the Vatican announced he would be the eighth bishop of the Springfield Diocese.
   Although he said it's too soon to say exactly how he will help heal the diocese, the role of reconciler is one he's played before.
• Alaska Native sex abuse claim draws outcry [1960s - 70s]
   ANCHORAGE (AK) Native Times http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=4016 , by Sam Lewin, March/9/2004
   A spokesman for the leading organization representing Alaska Natives says he is "deeply troubled" over a statement implying that sexual abuse is prevalent and perhaps even accepted in Native villages.
   The Rev. William "Lom" Loyens created a stir when he made the comments in a lawsuit brought by eight men who claim they were abused as boys in western Alaska villages. Loyens, 77, was questioned whether sexual abuse of Native boys would have an impact on the child later in life.
   According to the Associated Press, Loyens responded that the Athabascan Indian and Yupik Eskimo cultures were "fairly loose" on sexual matters and that he personally knew of a mother in a Native village who played with her baby son's testicles, "and the little boy was enjoying this immensely."
   Asked how that applied to a priest accused of molesting boys ages six to 12, Loyens replied that, 30 or 40 years ago, "that would be less impressive than it would be for, say, somebody in Fairbanks or Spokane."
   Plaintiffs' attorney John Manly then asked: "So basically, it wouldn't have, in your view, much of an impact?"
   "That's what I'm inclined to say in terms of the anthropological background," Loyens replied.
• Newly named Worcester bishop wants to reach out to youth
   Providence Journal www.projo.com/ap/ma/1078869430.htm , By RICHARD C. LEWIS, Associated Press Writer
   WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) - The Most Rev. Robert McManus, named the new bishop of Worcester on Tuesday, said he wants to help restore the faith of Catholics in their church.
   McManus, 52, an auxiliary bishop from Providence, R.I., was named by the Vatican to succeed Bishop Daniel Patrick Reilly, who is retiring at age 75.
   McManus said he wants to help restore the confidence of Catholics, who have endured two years of scandal since the clergy sex abuse crisis erupted in Boston in 2002.
   "I will do all I possibly can to heal the wounds that have in recent years afflicted the body of Christ, the church," he said.
   McManus said he will encourage pastors to reach out to young parishioners - something he said many priests have been reluctant to do because of the sex abuse scandal. He said when he first became a priest, he coached youth basketball and went on skiing trips with young parishioners.
   "How can we cultivate parishes if you don't (energize) the vitality of young men? I think that's crazy," McManus said at a news conference held at the Worcester chancery's library, where he was introduced by Reilly, whose retirement became effective Tuesday.
• Sexual Abuse by Educators
   UNITED STATES Education Week www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=26Abuse.h23 , By Caroline Hendrie
   A draft report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education concludes that far too little is known about the prevalence of sexual misconduct by teachers or other school employees, but estimates that millions of children are being affected by it during their school-age years.
   Written in response to a requirement in the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the report by a university-based expert on schoolhouse sexual misconduct concludes that the issue "is woefully understudied" and that solid national data on its prevalence are sorely needed.
   Yet despite the limitations of the existing research base, the scope of the problem appears to far exceed the priest abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, said Charol Shakeshaft, the Hofstra University scholar who prepared the report.
   The best data available suggest that nearly 10 percent of American students are targets of unwanted sexual attention by public school employees-ranging from sexual comments to rape-at some point during their school-age years, Ms. Shakeshaft said.
   "So we think the Catholic Church has a problem?" she said.
• Priests and Sexual Abuse Ignite a Stage in Chicago
   The New York Times www.nytimes.com/2004/03/10/theater/10CARD.html?ex=1079499600&en=dc6cc9ed8d120e79&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE , By STEPHEN KINZER, Published: March 10, 2004
   CHICAGO (IL) March 9 - A searing new play that opened here last week offers a vivid look at how Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston reacted to the sex abuse scandal in his archdiocese.
   Most of the dialogue in this play, "Sin: A Cardinal Deposed," is taken from testimony that Cardinal Law gave in pretrial depositions in 2002 and 2003. The rest is from letters and public statements by Roman Catholic priests, doctors, victims of abuse and their parents.
   At Sunday's performance, at the Bailiwick Repertory Company, more than a dozen people in the audience wore badges identifying them as "survivors" of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. News about this play has flashed through the network of victims' groups, and some people have flown to Chicago to see it.
   Many in Sunday's audience were visibly moved, some to tears. "You guys touched me to the depths of my soul," one woman said during a question-and-answer session with actors after the show.
   Those who staged the play were just as emotional. "We've all had sleepless nights, where the information you're dealing with puts you on a downward swirl to hell," said David Zak, the director. Several actors nodded in agreement, and one, James Sherman, who plays Cardinal Law, added, "Sleeping till 3 a.m. was a good night."
• New Springfield bishop seeks to heal diocese in wake of scandal
   Union Tribune www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20040309-1359-springfieldbishop.html , By Trudy Tynan, ASSOCIATED PRESS, 1:59 p.m. March 9, 2004
   SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - An auxiliary bishop for the New York Archdiocese who helped the church weather a molestation scandal in 1990 was named Tuesday to the head Springfield Diocese, where the former Roman Catholic bishop is being investigated on abuse charges. The Vatican announced Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell will take over for Bishop Thomas Dupre, who stepped down last month amid charges that he molested two boys in the 1970s while working as a parish priest.
   As he was introduced to church workers, McDonell recalled the words of Mother Teresa: "There's nothing so bad that God can't bring a greater good out of it - if we let Him."
   "I promise my life as shepherd and pastor here in Springfield to 'letting Him,'" McDonnell said.
   In addition to McDonell's appointment, the Vatican also named new bishops Tuesday for Worcester, Mass., and Ogdensburg, N.Y.; along with a coadjutor bishop for Kansas City-Saint Joseph, Mo.
• Pope appoints Reilly successor; and highest consultative position held by a woman in the Church
   WORCESTER (MA) Telegram & Gazette www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040309/BREAKING/40309007/1025 , By Telegram & Gazette staff, March 9, 2004
   Bishop Robert J. McManus, auxiliary bishop of Providence, was appointed this morning the fifth bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester, succeeding retiring Bishop Daniel P. Reilly.
   The diocese was set to introduce Bishop McManus, 52, at a press conference this morning.
   He will be installed on May 14 at the Cathedral of St. Paul.
   Bishop Reilly submitted his resignation in May after turning 75.
   The appointment of Bishop McManus came on the same day that Pope John Paul II named four new bishops in the U.S. and chose a female Harvard professor to lead a pontifical academy - the highest consultative position held by a woman in the church.
   Besides Worcester, the Vatican said new bishops were named in Springfield; and Ogdensburg, N.Y.; and a coadjutor bishop was named in Kansas City-Saint Joseph.
• Pope makes five U.S. appointments, including senior position for Harvard prof
   Boston Herald http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=1316 , By Associated Press, Tuesday, March 9, 2004
   VATICAN CITY - An auxiliary bishop from Rhode Island was named Tuesday to succeed retiring Worcester, Mass., Bishop Daniel Patrick Reilly. Reilly turned 75 in May, the normal retirement age for bishops.
   Bishop Robert J. McManus, the auxiliary bishop of Providence since December 1998, was appointed to replace Reilly as leader of the 355,000-member diocese. McManus, 52, is to be installed on May 14, the diocese said.
   "It is not easy to leave the Diocese of Providence after almost 26 years of serving God's people here as a priest and bishop. This is my home," McManus said in a statement. "Yet, with tranquility of spirit that comes from believing that 'for those who love God, everything works together for the good,' I look forward to serving the Diocese of Worcester as its fifth bishop."
   The Most Rev. Robert Mulvee, the bishop of the Providence diocese, issued a statement congratulating McManus, and said he would be missed in his native Rhode Island.
• Pope makes five U.S. appointments, including senior position for Harvard prof
   Telegram & Gazette www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040309/APN/403090658&cachetime=5 , The Associated Press, March 9, 2004
   VATICAN CITY- Worcester, Mass., Bishop Daniel Patrick Reilly retired and the pope on Tuesday named the auxiliary bishop from Rhode Island to succeed him.
   Reilly turned 75 in May, the normal retirement age for bishops. The Vatican announced that 52-year-old Bishop Robert Joseph McManus, auxiliary bishop of Providence, R.I., diocese was named to succeed him.
   McManus has been auxiliary bishop since December 1998. The appointment came on the same day that Pope John Paul II issued a slew of U.S. appointments. In total, four new bishops were named and a female Harvard professor was chosen to lead a pontifical academy - the highest consultative position held by a woman in the church.
   Besides Worcester, the Vatican said new bishops were named in Springfield, Mass; and Ogdensburg, N.Y.; and a coadjutor bishop was named in Kansas City-Saint Joseph.
   Also, the pope chose Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard University to lead the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which produces research to help the Church establish policy.
   [COMMENT: Is this the same Mary Ann Glendon who excused the RCC's sex abuse record in 2002 or 2003? Use the On-Site Search Engine at the foot of this webpage to find out. COMMENT ENDS.]
• New York auxiliary bishop McDonnell named bishop of Springfield Diocese
   VATICAN CITY: WTNH, www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=1697534&nav=3YeXLOHJ , 7:27 AM, Mar. 9, 2004
   The Rev. Timothy Anthony McDonnell was named bishop of Springfield on Tuesday, less than a month after Bishop Thomas Dupre stepped down from the Massachusetts diocese amid accusations that he molested two boys in the 1970s.
   McDonnell, 66, had been an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of New York, where he was born.
   He was ordained in 1963 in his hometown, going on to serve as a parish priest before moving to numerous senior positions within the New York archdiocese from the 1970s through the 1990s. In 2001, McDonnell was named auxiliary bishop of New York.
   Dupre left his post on Feb. 11, citing health reasons. His resignation came the day after The Republican newspaper of Springfield confronted him with allegations that he had molested two boys in the 1970s when he was a parish priest.
• Bishop to be named today
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) Republican http://masslive.com/news/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1078825908320714.xml , By BILL ZAJAC, wzajac@repub.com , March/09/2004
   Exactly four weeks after the Most Rev. Thomas L. Dupre resigned as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield amid sexual abuse allegations, an auxiliary bishop from the Archdiocese of New York will be named by the Vatican today to replace him.
   The Most Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell will be introduced at a news conference as the eighth bishop of the 133-year-old diocese, which has 129 parishes, 14 missions and 275,000 Catholics throughout Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire counties.
   Springfield diocesan officials refused to confirm, deny or comment on the appointment.
   McDonnell, 66, who has experience in dealing with at least one other church crisis related to sexual abuse allegations, is a New York City native. Born in the Bronx, he was ordained in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan in 1963 and was installed as an auxiliary bishop on Dec. 12, 2001.
   The appointment is being made with almost lightning speed by Vatican standards.
• Counselor who was Fellowship Church pastor accused of sex abuse, dismissed [? 2003 or 2004]
   MOBILE (AL) Mobile Register "Board fires counselor accused of sex abuse," www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/107882740775630.xml , By MONIQUE CURET, March/09/04
   The Mobile County school board on Monday fired a middle school counselor who is charged with sexually abusing a male student.
   Stanley Porter -- who worked at Calloway-Smith Middle School in Mobile and also is pastor of Fellowship Church in Eight Mile -- surrendered to police in May and was charged with second-degree sexual abuse along with two counts of second-degree sodomy.
   The criminal case against Porter is awaiting action by a grand jury, according to Nicki Patterson, Mobile County's chief assistant district attorney.
   Porter, a tenured employee who earned a salary of $41,159 per year, had been on paid administrative leave, officials said.
• Catholics react to survey
   OKLAHOMA The Oklahoma Daily www.oudaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/03/09/404d3b0890871 , by Emily Crownover, March 09, 2004
   Catholic OU students say the outcome of a recent survey on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has not dampened their spirits. They said their perspective comes from looking at the situation from a larger standpoint.
   Stephen Pitts, president of the St. Thomas More Catholic Campus Ministry and math and computer science senior, said none of the estimated 1,500 Catholic students have fallen away from the church since the survey was released.
   The John Jay College of Criminal Justice survey looks at sexual abuse from Catholic priests found since 1950.
   "I'm very appreciative that they did the survey," said Pitts. "It's the first step in rebuilding trust."
   The Rev. Bill Pruett said he has not noticed any change in attendance at St. Thomas More University Parish. He said he thinks the survey results need to be kept in perspective since the Catholic Church is the only organization that has ever released any hard statistical information about sexual abuse.
• Abuse record of ex-chaplain, now teacher, unearthed [2003]
   FLORIDA Palm Beach Post "Abuse allegations against teacher unearthed in '03," www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/auto/epaper/editions/tuesday/martin_stlucie_04d424ea0587805600c9.html , By Rani Gupta, Tuesday, March 9, 2004
   Martin County school officials said Monday they had learned about allegations of sexual abuse connected with a former Martin County High teacher last year, several months before the ex-priest was charged in a separate case with abusing a 6-year-old New York boy.
   Barry Ryan, 56, went on sick leave from his job as a media specialist in April 2003, around the time a reporter for The Mobile Register in Alabama called school district officials about a Mobile County District Attorney's Office investigation into several priests, including Ryan.
   Ryan, who lives in the Palm Pointe neighborhood of Palm City, was arrested Thursday in New York and charged with sodomy after he signed a confession admitting he abused the boy in a private Long Island home between May and October 2003 during visits to New York, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Friday.
   Martin school officials said the reporter's calls were their first indication of the Mobile investigation, which resulted from the district attorney's request for information about Mobile-area priests who had been accused of some kind of sex abuse. Ryan served as an Air Force chaplain in Alabama from 1993 to 1995 and was discharged by the Air Force in 1995.
• Retired priest cleared of sex abuse charges
   WILMINGTON (DE) The News Journal www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2004/03/09retiredpriestcl.html , By VICTOR GRETO, March/09/2004
   A Catholic Church review board in Albany, N.Y., has cleared a retired priest living in Wilmington of allegations that he sexually abused a minor during the late 1970s.
   The Rev. Louis E. Douglas moved to Wilmington in 1996 after retiring from the Albany, N.Y., diocese three years earlier. He was accused in a civil lawsuit in New York last year, along with three other Albany diocesan priests, of sexually molesting, abusing and preying upon a boy between 1975 and 1979. The lawsuit was dismissed by a Supreme Court judge in New York in January.
   Douglas, reached at his home in Wilmington, confirmed he had been cleared by the Diocesan Review Board in Albany. "I'm not in any position to say anything else at this time," he said.
   Douglas had celebrated Masses at the Wilmington parishes of St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Elizabeth, Christ Our King and St. Patrick's after his retirement, but he was suspended from doing so after the allegations surfaced in May.
• Church lobbied to stop office having power to call witnesses, evidence
   CONNECTICUT Hartford Courant "Support Grows For Subpoena Power," www.ctnow.com/news/local/hc-subpoena0309.artmar09,1,3126358.story?coll=hc-headlines-local , By CHRISTOPHER KEATING, Capitol Bureau Chief, March 9, 2004
   As the scandals surrounding Gov. John G. Rowland's administration have unfolded, federal prosecutors, the state attorney general and a special House inquiry committee all have issued subpoenas in an attempt to learn the truth and potentially uncover wrongdoing.
   The only investigative agency that has not done so is the chief state's attorney's office.
   That's because the office lacks subpoena power - something Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano wants the legislature to change. Connecticut, Morano said, "is one of the few, if not the only" state where the top prosecutor has no such power. ...
   One of the reasons the bill failed last year was the opposition of the Catholic Church - one of the most powerful and effective lobbying forces at the state Capitol.
   Church officials rejected suggestions by some legislators that they feared the subpoena power could lead to a widespread investigation into sexual abuse by priests. Instead, they said they were concerned the legislation could breach the confidential relationship between priests and parishioners at confession, as well as lead to subpoenas for confidential records regarding church social workers and their clients.
   The church's chief lobbyist in Connecticut, Marie Hilliard, could not be reached for comment Monday.
• Walsh set on indefinite jail sentence for Porter
   FALL RIVER (MA) The Herald News www.heraldnews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11091206&BRD=1710&PAG=461&dept_id=99784&rfi=6 , By GREGG M. MILIOTE , March/09/2004
   District Attorney Paul Walsh Monday said the upcoming probable cause hearing aimed at keeping former priest James Porter incarcerated indefinitely is "absolutely the most important case in my office."
   Walsh also noted that indicted priest Donald Bowen's slow-moving case has not changed his outlook on the matter and said the numerous delays are more about his need to be "very thorough about sifting through 30-plus years worth of material" and not about a lack of evidence to try the case.
   A Superior Court judge has successfully obtained a special session for the week of April 5 to exclusively hear the Porter probable cause hearing, which is expected to take several full days in court to complete.
   Porter, 69, pleaded guilty in 1993 to 41 counts of sexual assault against 26 juvenile victims.
   The former Diocese of Fall River priest was to be released from prison on Jan. 30 of this year, but has instead been temporarily remanded to the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater until Walsh's petition to classify Porter as a sexually dangerous person is concluded.
• DA: Abuse figures don't add up
   FALL RIVER (MA) The Herald News www.heraldnews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11091205&BRD=1710&PAG=461&dept_id=99784&rfi=6 , By GREGG M. MILIOTE , Herald News Staff Reporter March/09/2004
   The battle that heated up 18 months ago between the Bristol County District Attorney's Office and the Diocese of Fall River over the release of the names of priests alleged to have sexually molested area youngsters is entering a second round after a recent church report contradicted information previously supplied to District Attorney Paul Walsh.
   Late last month, the diocese released its "A Time to Heal" report documenting 216 allegations of sexual abuse of juveniles by 32 priests in the diocese during the past 50 years.
   In September 2002, however, former Fall River Bishop Sean P. O'Malley -- currently Boston's archbishop -- revealed to Walsh the names of only 23 priests accused of sexual misconduct.
   In an exclusive interview at The Herald News Monday, Walsh expressed his anger and frustration with the discrepancy between the two figures.
   "I believe in giving people a chance to reasonably explain an unreasonable issue," Walsh said. "But my track record with the diocese is horrible and I seriously doubt there is any reasonable explanation for this."
• Lawyer: Hubbard probe 'dangerous'
   TROY (NY) Troy Record www.troyrecord.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11091688&BRD=1170&PAG=461&dept_id=7021&rfi=6 , By Robert Cristo , March/09/2004
   Investigators hired by the Albany Diocesan Review Board to look into allegations of sexual misconduct against Bishop Howard Hubbard refused to interview an elderly person who may have shed light on the death of Rev. John Minkler.
   The interview was supposed to occur in Minkler's 11th-floor office at the Stratton Veterans Affairs Hospital in Albany, but private investigators representing Mary Jo White walked away from the table after realizing the elderly person wanted attorney John Aretakis in the room.
   Minkler was found dead in his Watervliet home just days after signing an affidavit stating he did not write a letter that allegedly linked Hubbard to sexual relations with two other priests.
   Aretakis' client requested anonymity, and asked to be identified only as an "elderly person." His client was called by investigators for the interview last Tuesday, according to Aretakis.
   A videotape supplied by Aretakis shows the attorney and his client in the office with investigator Frank Citera and Rev. Sennen SanFratello, a priest at the Veterans Affairs Hospital, arguing with Aretakis over the legal ramifications of the attorney being in the room.
• Slidell man claims abuse by priest
   SLIDELL (LA) Times-Picayune http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1078822875259670.xml , By Bruce Nolan, Tuesday March 09, 2004
   A Slidell man's campaign to be compensated for a priest's alleged sexual assault on him years ago opens a window into the difficult confrontations that continue between sex abuse victims and church officials, even as the Catholic Church insists it is trying to put victims first.
   Rick Monsour, an unemployed musician and businessman, said he told officials at the Archdiocese of New Orleans two years ago that the Rev. Carl Davidson tried to force himself sexually on Monsour as a 17-year-old high school student.
   The Archdiocese of New Orleans quietly relieved Davidson of his duties soon after hearing complaints from Monsour and from a second man who said he had been assaulted sexually by Davidson.
   They also required Monsour to submit to an evaluation by a psychologist as a condition of getting church-paid counseling or negotiating civil damages.
   "We need to have the assessment to know what to do for him; I don't think that's unfair," said the Rev. William Maestri, the archdiocese's spokesman.
• Zero tolerance for lax church leaders
   UNITED STATES Valley Morning Star www.valleystar.com/editorial_more.php?id=52316_0_28_0_M
   Perhaps now that the Roman Catholic Church's study from its own appointed review board has reiterated criticisms made by abuse victims and others outside the church, the current group of archbishops and bishops will begin to make substantive and heartfelt changes instead of responding to the accusations, in large measure, as a public relations concern.
   The review board's national report, released Feb. 27 amid a flurry of media attention, explained that 4 percent of priests (a total of 4,392) in ministry over the past 50 years were accused of raping or molesting 10,667 minors. The numbers are based on the dioceses' self-reports, and the church did not provide the names of abusers or victims. Therefore, the numbers of predator-priests and victims could be much higher than the official figures.
   For instance, the Diocese of Brownsville reported that seven priests abused 12 people since 1965, but the number of victims could be higher since abuse often goes unreported. Also, the failure to disclose the names of those priests or victims involved makes it difficult to verify cases or to determine whether all incidents have been disclosed.
   Nevertheless, the independent study, produced by John Jay College, deserves careful attention.
   "The number of incidents of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, at least over the past 50 years, is significant and disturbing," the report concluded. "This is a failing not simply on the part of the priests who sexually abused minors but also on the part of those bishops and other church leaders who did not act effectively to preclude that abuse in the first instance or respond appropriately when it occurred."
• Priest sex-abuse suit dismissed
   LOUISVILLE (KY) The Courier-Journal www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/03/09ky/B3-cath0309-3097.html , March 9, 2004
   A Jefferson Circuit judge has dismissed one of the remaining sexual-abuse lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Louisville, while another judge upheld a December ruling dismissing a different lawsuit against the Roman Catholic body.
   Judge Lisabeth Hughes Abramson on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Andre Azerot, who said he was molested by the Rev. Joseph Herp in the 1980s. Abramson said Azerot filed the lawsuit too late under Kentucky's statute of limitations because he did not make his claims within a year after he became an adult.
   Abramson also rejected Azerot's contention that the archdiocese had covered up abuse by Herp and that therefore the time limit should be waived. The judge said Azerot had enough evidence to pursue the claim years ago even if the archdiocese did conceal information.
   And even if the time limit began with the first news report about sexual abuse in the archdiocese in April 2002, the lawsuit was filed in May 2003, more than a year after that, Abramson said.
• Church, abuse victims talks stall
   MILWAUKEE (WI) Post-Crescent www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_15114550.shtml , The Associated Press
   Talks broke down Monday between the Milwaukee Roman Catholic Archdiocese and a group of clergy sexual abuse victims over releasing the names of suspected abusive priests and compensation for victims.
   Representatives from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests in Milwaukee said Monday they were disappointed by the church's rejection of the group's requests for documents. They said the church also made a final offer of $2.8 million for about 70 victims.
   "For us, this has always been about protecting children, exposing the truth and helping victims heal," SNAP spokesman Peter Isely said. "For this archdiocese, it's apparently about money, and nothing else."
   Archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said SNAP representatives walked out of the talks Monday.
• Ex-Holy Angels priest sued for alleged abuse [1975-76]
   CHICAGO (IL) Chicago Sun-Times www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-calico09.html , BY CATHLEEN FALSANI, Religion Reporter, March 9, 2004
   A 42-year-old man filed a lawsuit Monday against the Rev. John Calicott, a suspended Roman Catholic priest, and the Archdiocese of Chicago, alleging that the priest sexually abused him when he was a student at St. Ailbe parish in the 1970s.
   The man, who filed the lawsuit under the name "John Doe," said Calicott, now 56, sexually abused him on multiple occasions in 1975 and 1976, according to the suit. He's seeking in excess of $50,000 in damages for emotional distress.
   Doe is one of two men who complained in 1994 to archdiocesan officials about the alleged abuse, prompting the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin to remove Calicott from ministry at Holy Angels parish, where he had been pastor since 1992. Calicott was an assistant priest at St. Ailbe at the time of the alleged abuse.
   In 1995, after Calicott was sent for treatment to the St. Luke Institute in Maryland, a center that specializes in treating clergy sex abusers, and at the behest of Holy Angels parishioners who begged for his return, Bernardin reinstated Calicott at Holy Angels, saying he did not believe the priest was a threat to children.
• Donations down, diocese cuts jobs
   ST. PETERSBURG (FL) St. Petersburg Times www.sptimes.com/2004/03/09/Tampabay/Donations_down__dioce.shtml , By SHARON TUBBS, Times Staff Writer Published March 9, 2004
   After three years of declining contributions, the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg is planning to substantially cut administrative jobs in an attempt to preserve programs.
   A severance package has been offered to all of the diocese's 120 full- and part-time employees at its pastoral center in St. Petersburg. The diocese has 75 parishes and 380,000 parishioners in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties.
   The administrative employees have until 5 p.m. Wednesday to decide whether to take the offer, which was initially made last month.
   Church leaders have no set goal for reducing employees, said the Rev. Alan Weber, vicar general and Bishop Robert N. Lynch's second in command. He said the diocese would rather cut jobs and rework staff responsibilities than cut into support programs.
   Weber attributed the drop in contributions to a sluggish economy. He said it is difficult to gauge the effect of the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the church nationally.
• 3rd man accuses priest of sex abuse [1970s]
   CHICAGO (IL) Chicago Tribune www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0403090277mar09,1,4294268.story?coll=chi-newslocalchicago-hed , By James Janega, March 9, 2004
   Days after two men publicly accused Rev. John Calicott of sexually abusing them as minors, a third alleged victim filed a civil suit Monday against the South Side priest and the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.
   All three men say they took action because they are angry over Calicott's recent statements of denial and at the archdiocese's handling of the Calicott case.
   Calicott was removed from ministry at Holy Angels Parish on the South Side in the mid-1990s over abuse allegations from two men. One of them, 40-year-old David Lasley, spoke publicly last week about the accusations, saying the priest had repeatedly assaulted him over two years in the 1970s.
   The other man is the 42-year-old Chicago businessman who filed suit Monday as John Doe, according to his attorney, Larry Rogers Sr.
   Fred Arceneaux, 40, also came forward last week to say that Calicott had abused him, but said he had not previously reported his allegations.
• Head of Catholic clergy abuse watchdog office visits Lexington
   The Courier-Journal http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KY_CHURCH_ABUSE_KYOL-?SITE=KYLOU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
   LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- The woman who oversees the watchdog office for clergy sexual abuse set up by Roman Catholic bishops visited Lexington to assure parishioners that accusations against priests will be closely monitored in the future.
   Kathleen McChesney's talk at the Cathedral of Christ the King came less than two weeks after a national victims' advocacy group asked her to take action regarding three Kentucky priests who have not been permanently removed from the ministry despite abuse claims against them.
   The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests sent a letter to McChesney's Office of Child and Youth Protection and the lay National Review Board asking that they declare the dioceses where the priests serve in violation of the charter adopted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It requires permanent removal from ministry for any substantiated claim of sexual abuse of a minor.
   McChesney said she hasn't yet reviewed the SNAP request but promised to work with each diocese to address the concerns.
• Convicted, but teaching at Xaverian. Had kid tape and disc porn, Feds say
   NEW YORK New York Post "Teach Had Kid Porn, Feds Say," www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/20286.htm , By KATI CORNELL SMITH, March 9, 2004
   A veteran teacher was charged with kiddie-porn possession after a search of his Staten Island home turned up more than 60 tapes and DVDs depicting children having sex with adults, the feds said yesterday.
   Anthony Cotronio, 59, also had "hard-core" images on his computer, prosecutors charged. His lawyer told a federal judge that the educator has resigned from Xaverian Catholic HS in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where he taught math for four years after a 28-year career as a public-school teacher.
   Cotronio was released on $100,000 bail and ordered to stay away from children - and the Internet.
   The charges were not Cotronio's first brush with the law involving pedophilia.
   In 1998, he was arrested for trading $150 and five used child-porn videos for six new tapes, including "Little Ones in Love," "Family Sex" and "Teaching Lolita Sex."
• Bust teacher on porn
   NEW YORK New York Daily News www.nydailynews.com/front/story/171813p-149853c.html , By AUSTIN FENNER, CELESTE KATZ and JOHN MARZULLI
   A convicted pervert who somehow got a job teaching math at Brooklyn's prestigious Xaverian High School was busted yesterday for ordering "extraordinarily violent" kiddie porn, prosecutors said.
   School officials were scrambling to explain how Anthony Cotroneo - who was bounced from city school classrooms after a 1999 kiddie porn conviction - wound up at Xaverian and got an after-school gig running the drama club at a public grammar school.
   "Everyone spoke highly of him," said Salvatore Ferrera, president of Xaverian, a Catholic boys' school in Bay Ridge.
   "Parents complimented the fact that he put in extra time," added Ferrera, whose highly regarded school commands $8,000 annual tuition.
   Education Department officials were stunned to learn Cotroneo was running an after-school drama club at Public School 204 in Brooklyn.
• Oh Brother
   PHILADELPHIA (PA) Philadelphia Weekly www.philadelphiaweekly.com/article.asp?ArtID=6924 , By MIKE NEWALL (mnewall@philadelphiaweekly.com)
   It's the first Friday morning of Lent and the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul is all but empty. Sunlight filters through the stained-glass windows, illuminating in ghostly light two workmen who polish the marble and wood of the high altar. A few faithful sit in the pews.
   It's two hours before the daily 12:05 mass when Betty enters through a side door. A thin 70-year-old with a narrow face and darting eyes, Betty attended St. Anthony's Parish in Ambler for most of her life. But St. Anthony's, "God bless it," burned down four years ago.
   Betty, who asked that her last name not be used, now lives at 17th and Race streets, just across from the basilica. She was on her way to buy groceries when she decided to stop in, say hello to the workmen and maybe say a rosary.
   She says she hasn't heard the two reports on sex abuse and the Catholic Church that were released this morning. The reports were commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at the height of the scandal that rocked the American Church two years ago.
   The findings are startling: nearly 11,000 children molested from 1950 through 2003. More than 4,000 abusive priests. Close to three-quarters of a billion dollars spent by the Church in response to the abuse claims. The reports detail how bishops often covered up allegations of abuse and allowed known abusers continued access to children.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 06:22 AM
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Tuesday, March 09, 2004
• Police cut Wesley principal's net porn to one charge.
   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , Perth, "Net porn case cut to one charge," page 32, Tuesday March 9 2004
   PERTH:
   Police have watered down their case against former Wesley College headmaster John Bednall, accused of accessing pornographic websites on a school computer, after court orders to specify the criminal allegations in fine detail proved too hard.
   Mr Bednall, 57, of Mosman Park, originally faced a charge of accessing hundreds of pornographic websites while heading the exclusive South Perth high school.
   But police prosecutor Sgt Glenn Lloyd told Perth Magistrate's Court yesterday that only one allegation of accessing explicit material would now be made.
   The charge of using his work computer to obtain an objectionable article comes under the Censorship Act.
   Mr Bednall resigned from his job after the allegations surfaced.
   A four-day hearing is expected to be held next month.
   [COMMENT: Does this help? Bible, Luke 16:8, second sentence. COMMENT ENDS.]
March 9 2004
##### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Wednesday, March 10, 2004 edition follows:-
• Investigation has support of Cardinal Egan
   ALBANY (NY) Troy Record, www.troyrecord.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11097049&BRD=1170&PAG=461&dept_id=7021&rfi=6 , By James V. Franco, March/10/2004
   Cardinal Edward Egan, in town for the annual Catholic Conference of New York lobby day, said he supports Bishop Howard Hubbard and the ongoing efforts to clear Hubbard's name of allegations of homosexual behavior.
   "A very important person was asked to look into this in a very official and a very systematic matter, and that is under way right now," Egan said of the investigation into the allegations against Hubbard. "So I am going to join you and wait to find out just exactly what the outcome is.
   "In the meantime, I am going to assure you the good bishop of Albany is a man we support, for whom we pray and, especially, do we pray for the people of God in the diocese of Albany."
   He would not directly comment about the cost of hiring former U.S. attorney Mary Jo White at $770 an hour, plus staff and expenses, to investigate the allegations.
   "I don't know about the money, but I do know there is a very appropriate effort being made to see to it this matter be clarified to the satisfaction of everyone," Egan told a throng of reporters. "I hope that is appreciated and admired by everyone."
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 06:21 PM
• Crisis obscures story of North Americans' vibrant faith
   UNITED STATES National Catholic Reporter http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/031204/031204f.htm ,
   By JOHN L. ALLEN JR. Denver/Los Angeles/Vancouver, Canada/Jersey City, N.J.
   In telling any story, the journalistic challenge is more than getting the facts right. It's choosing the right context within which those facts are set, so that people don't miss the forest for the trees.
   As I've moved across North America the past two weeks, speaking at Catholic seminaries and colleges, attending major Catholic gatherings and meeting with local Catholic leaders, this point has been brought home to me time and again. The major Catholic story over this time has been the John Jay report on the sex abuse crisis, documenting just how systemic the failures were in priestly conduct and episcopal oversight.
   The numbers are rolled out elsewhere in this issue of NCR: 4,392 accused priests and 10,667 alleged victims, totals that some experts believe still underestimate the true scope of the problem.
   Yet as I move around, what seems clear is that the crisis, as unmistakable as it is, is not the whole story in the North American Catholic church. From Denver to Los Angeles to Vancouver to Jersey City, there is also a vibrancy in the North American church, a pastoral dynamism that has little to do with debates in the bishops' conference or on the editorial pages of The New York Times. Children are being educated, the poor are being fed, adult faith is being formed, small faith groups are meeting, and in general people are excited about their Catholic faith, even as they are humbled and dismayed by the latest revelations about the human failures of their church.
   Only someone dependent upon the TV and the newspapers for their perceptions of the Catholic church could believe the whole story of Catholicism today is crisis and upheaval. There is also a clearly discernible élan about the church in this part of the world that would be the envy of most European Catholics.
   That health, however, tends not to make headlines.
• Sin: A Cardinal Deposed
   CHICAGO (IL) Windy City Times www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=4345 , Playwright: Michael Murphy; At: Bailiwick Repertory, 1229 W. Belmont; Phone: (773) 883-1090; $22-$25; Runs through: April 11
   The great thing about Sin: A Cardinal Deposed, now in its world premiere at the Bailiwick, is that it shies away from taking a strict black or white position on a deeply disturbing subject: the wave of pedophilia accorded to Catholic priests over the past several years. While playwright Michael Murphy certainly doesn't present Boston Cardinal Bernard F. Law in a very sympathetic light, he does give the man dignity, while demonstrating how good intentions gone awry can also be the seeds of evil. In the end, allowing something to happen can often be nearly as bad as the thing itself.
   David Zak has directed a thought-provoking, serious, and troubling look at Law, whose ability to obfuscate while testifying in his own defense in the recent-and infamous-case involving hundreds of priests and their victims is extraordinary. Also extraordinary, and portrayed with chilling and telling detail, is the Cardinal's ability to live in a world of denial. Over and over again-and court testimony bears this out-the Cardinal had the opportunity to intervene and stop the sexual abuse of minors by priests under his supervision ... but didn't. Instead, he preferred to "delegate" (a word he liked to use) responsibility and to turn his back on credible reports from many sources, including victims and their families. Sin: A Cardinal Deposed, though, paints a portrait of a deeply conflicted man, one who wanted to be a good and compassionate "shepherd" to those who served under him, and one who, at the same time, allowed abuse to go on for years without doing much to stop it.
   Bailiwick's thoughtful and thought-provoking production is a study in pared-down intensity. A minimalist set, simple lighting, and the barest of props and costumes allows the sometimes shocking testimony culled from Law's deposition to ring through with compelling clarity. James Sherman portrays Law in all of his shades of gray and admirably creates a sympathetic rendering of a man who could easily be played as a monster. Sherman's portrayal shows the Cardinal's frustration with himself, and hints at the shame that might accompany his inability to act. Zak directs a mostly deft ensemble (especially Sherman and Naomi Landman in a variety of portrayals, all pitch perfect) and handles the proceedings with a minimum of histrionics (the climactic second act speech by a suitably outraged attorney could be toned down a notch, despite its justification).
• DA wants names
   FALL RIVER (MA) The Sun Chronicle www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2004/03/10/city/city21.txt , Mar 10 2004
   Bristol County District Attorney Paul Walsh is pressing the Fall River Diocese for information about priests accused of sexual abuse who were not on a list given to him 1 1/2 years ago.
   Walsh has sent a letter to Bishop George Coleman of Fall River asking why 32 priests are listed in the diocesan report released two weeks ago as part of a national accounting of abusive priests, but only 23 priests were reported to his office in 2002.
   "We wanted everything," Walsh said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
   He had sought information on abusive priests at the time from Bishop Sean O'Malley, who is now archbishop of Boston.
   "They assured us they gave us everything," Walsh said. "We asked about any allegations against any priests at any time."
   If the diocese does not provide the information he is requesting, Walsh said he could summons diocesan officials to appear before a grand jury, a move he would consider taking.
• The Boston reaction
   BOSTON (MA) National Catholic Reporter http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/031204/031204e.php , By CHUCK COLBERT, Boston
   They billed it as an "Accountability March," and walked 1.4 miles from outside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston's South End neighborhood to Beacon Hill. On the front steps of the statehouse Sunday, Feb. 29, nearly 200 protestors demanded that Republican Gov. Mitt Romney form an independent task force to oversee the Massachusetts Catholic bishops' handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal in all four of the commonwealth's dioceses.
   Advocates and survivors circulated a petition, "Let's Keep Children Safe," which they will present to the governor, asking him to "enable experts to supervise the bishops' response" to "sex abuse allegations" and "to monitor" the bishops actions necessary "to contain these dangerous men."
   For his part, Romney's press spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman said: "We would be happy to take a look and consider their request."
   Anne Barrett Doyle of the Coalition of Catholics and Survivors told the gathering, "The Catholic bishops are sitting on the longest list of unregistered sex offenders than probably any other institution in this state," she said. "My concern is about a very real public safety issue."
   Nothing less than "secular intervention" is required, said Ann Hagan Webb, New England co-coordinator of New England Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, before the march. "We need to know the names, see the faces, and we need to know where they [predator priests] are," she said. "They could be living next door to you and our children could be playing in their backyards," she added.
• Vatican's quick action on Springfield Bishop pleases one local clergyman
   ADAMS (MA) North Adams Transcript www.thetranscript.com/cda/article/print/0,1674,103%257E9054%257E2008408,00.html , By Karen Gardner, Wednesday, March 10, 2004
   News of the Vatican's rapid replacement of Bishop Thomas Dupre with Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell comes as a welcome surprise to at least one area priest.
   The Rev. Daniel J. Boyle, pastor of the Notre Dame and St. Thomas parishes of Adams, called the Vatican's quick decision to name McDonnell as the eighth bishop of the Springfield Diocese "amazing."
   "It's wonderful," said Boyle. "It's certainly needed."
   Less than a month ago, Dupre stepped down as the diocese's bishop following accusations that he molested two boys in the 1970s. A grand jury is looking into possible criminal charges against Dupre.
   Boyle said that when Bishop Sean P. O'Malley was named as Boston's archbishop in July 2003, it had taken eight months for the Vatican to appoint him to the position.
   "And it also took eight months for Palm Beach, Florida, which had two consecutive bishops accused of child sexual abuse, to have them replaced," Boyle said.
   O'Malley was appointed bishop in Palm Beach, Fla., in 2002. There, two bishops resigned in five years due to allegations related to the sex abuse crisis. For McDonnell to be appointed in less than a month is notable, said Boyle.
   "They put Springfield on the fast track," he said. "I didn't realize there was a track that fast in the Vatican."
• The accounting begins
   UNITED STATES National Catholic Reporter http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/031204/031204b.htm , March 12, 2004
   "We are a sinful church. We are naked. Our anger, our pain, our anguish, our shame and our vulnerability are clear to the whole world. ... I'm prepared to take the responsibility, and that's something I have to live with."
   Those were the words of then-Archbishop Alphonsus Penney of Newfoundland, Canada, in 1990 on announcing his resignation after a committee that he had appointed to look into sexual abuse in his archdiocese returned a scathing assessment of his handling of the matter.
   Penney did not have Vatican approval to resign. He just did so because he had come to realize that he had terribly mishandled reports of sexual abuse of children. He had failed his people as a spiritual leader. And he stepped down.
   The Penney incident, in the wake of the week's reports here on sex abuse, is instructive in a host of ways. First, it was a bishop taking responsibility, without any qualifiers or excuses, for what happened on his watch.
   Nowhere did he blame the press or an oversexed culture or the reforms of Vatican II or his lack of understanding of the problem or a lack of communication with his fellow prelates or the lack of understanding of sexual abuse by the social sciences of that era. People had been hurt; he had been a large reason the hurt continued. He apologized and he stepped aside.
   After he resigned, he sat for a detailed interview (NCR, Aug. 10, 1990) and recounted the insights he had gained during the ordeal, not least of which was the support of people appreciative of the way he sacrificed his career for the integrity of the church.
• Celibacy visible representation of closed clerical structure incapable of, unwilling to, police itself.
   WASHINGTON (DC): National Catholic Reporter, " 'Painfully candid' report," http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/031204/031204a.php , By JOE FEUERHERD, Washington
   Asked his view of the causes of the clergy sex abuse crisis, the bishop, tongue firmly in cheek, told members of the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People: "If you're conservative, homosexuality is the problem; if you're liberal, celibacy is the problem. So tell me who you are, and I'll tell you what the problem is."
   It's not so simple anymore, though the central findings of the review board's 145-page report are straightforward: Over the past half-century, 10,667 children were abused by 4,392 clerics because the church failed to weed out candidates unfit for the priesthood while too many bishops put other priorities, such as "fear of scandal," ahead of protecting minors.
   Yet the report is nothing if not nuanced, exploring numerous explanations for the crisis beyond homosexuality and celibacy.
   As the anonymous bishop, quoted in the report, knows, those who blamed gay priests for clergy sex abuse used "homosexuality" as shorthand for a broader set of concerns, including the "culture of dissent" in the post-Vatican II church and the resulting "crisis of fidelity."
   Likewise, those who argued that "celibacy" was a contributing factor to clergy sex abuse didn't simply mean that unmarried men are more likely to abuse children than those with wives; celibacy, instead, is the visible representation of what many church progressives see as a closed clerical structure incapable of policing itself or unwilling to do so.
• Board got rare look at hierarchical ways
   UNITED STATES National Catholic Reporter http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/031204/031204c.htm , By JASON BERRY [Author, journalist], March 12, 2004
   Three days before the National Review Board released its report, attorney Pamela D. Hayes left her Fifth Avenue law office in midtown Manhattan for Washington and the final leg of work with her 11 colleagues. As the board's sole African-American, Hayes carried an idea of church nurtured by childhood memories of a close-knit parish in Harlem. As a member of the National Black Catholic Congress, she had met Wilton Gregory when he was a young auxiliary bishop in Chicago. Gregory moved up to become bishop of Belleville, Ill., and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. She was impressed with his poise during the 2002 media debacle ignited by the Boston scandal. When Gregory asked her to join the National Review Board, she said yes.
   Most members of the board, appointed by the U.S. bishops to investigate the clergy sex abuse crisis, were veterans of boardroom meetings, power lunches and upper-crust functions. William Burleigh and Ray Siegfried are wealthy; Anne Burke, a Chicago judge, is married to a powerful alderman. Dr. Paul McHugh is a prominent psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins. Bob Bennett, who guided the research committee on which Hayes worked, has a lucrative practice in a Washington firm doing white-collar defense work. Petra Miaz is chief justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court. Leon Panetta, a former Congressman from California and chief of staff to President Clinton, runs an institute in Monterrey designed to get young people active in the political process.
   Pamela Hayes brought a different set of experiences to the work. In the early 1990s she managed day-to-day prosecutions of child abuse and sexual crimes for the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. Today she is a solo practitioner balancing civil casework and defending clients accused of murder, drug dealing and sexual offenses. Although she has a weekend home in upscale Sag Harbor, Pam Hayes was the least typical "establishment Catholic" on the blue-ribbon board. A pivotal experience in her life was participating in support group meetings with a bishop and close friend who was addicted to drugs.
   As the board's deliberations went through twists and turns, Hayes brooded over what she was learning about certain bishops and the power structure. At the news conference at the National Press Club Feb. 27, the board presented an image of unity. Internally, however, the narrow dimensions of the board's mandate left at least two members, Hayes and Panetta, skeptical about the report's laying the groundwork for a genuine reform agenda.
• Steps in bishops' forced march toward accountability
   UNITED STATES National Catholic Reporter http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/031204/031204d.php , By THOMAS DOYLE [Co-writer of 1985 Church report on the abuse], March 12, 2004
   Do the revelations of the Gavin audit, the John Jay study and the National Review Board report mark a significant turning point in the Catholic church's long-term "dark night of the soul"? I believe they do, but not in the way some would hope. This is another spike on the moral and spiritual graph tracking the decades-long clergy abuse scandal. It marks another step in stripping off the cover of clerical secrecy, fear and deception that has characterized the scandal in the United States and in a growing number of other countries.
   The revelations of the three reports do not mark the end of the "crisis," nor even the beginning of the end. In the first place, it's not a temporary "crisis" that can be quickly dealt with by reports, public apologies and the widespread dismissal of any cleric ever accused of a sexual impropriety. The scandals of the past 20 years have exposed a number of frightening and harsh realities. They have shown that there is something wrong with mandatory celibacy and that the ongoing blind defensiveness of the institutional leadership is making the problem worse rather than better.
   The scandals have shown that the hierarchical leadership lacks the ability to adequately face and respond to a complex problem that it does not fully comprehend. The Gavin audit of diocesan compliance with the bishops' child protection policies (findings released in January) and the John Jay study focused on the perpetrators. They have not come close to facing two much deeper issues: why the institutional leadership failed to extend compassionate pastoral care to the victims from the very beginning, and why the bishops have avoided honestly confronting their own part in causing the cover-up and stonewalling.
   These three reports will succeed in making sure that the spotlight stays on this issue because there is still little lasting light in the long dark tunnel. The John Jay study and the National Review Board report have been criticized by survivor groups and others and rightly so. There are more than a few unanswered questions about the methodology of the John Jay study and the Gavin self-report. The review board report has generated just as much scrutiny.
• Abuse reports mark beginning, not end
   UNITED STATES National Catholic Reporter http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/031204/031204q.php , March 12 2004
   Two days after the National Review Board released its "Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States" along with the report it commissioned from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on the scope of the sex abuse crisis, two ads appeared in The New York Times.
   One, from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was headlined, "Promise to Protect. Pledge to Heal." The text of the ad was tightly focused on two areas: what the bishops, through the review board, had done to reveal the scope of the problem, and what safeguards have been put into place to prevent such a crisis from occurring again. It had a ring of finality about it, and echoed what conference president Bishop Wilton Gregory had said at a news conference immediately after the documents had been released: "The terrible history recorded here today is history."
   The other ad, sponsored by the lay group Voice of the Faithful was headlined, "Our Trust Has Been Violated. But Not Our Faith." Its main feature was a box containing "petitions for reform." The group is seeking signatures on the petitions that ask:
   That Pope John Paul II "meet with an international delegation of victims/survivors of clergy sexual abuse"; That the pope hold responsible those bishops "who knowingly transferred sexually abusive clergy" and accept or call for resignations "where appropriate"; That each U.S. bishop disclose details of their oversight in transferring abusive clergy and clergy who have credible allegations against them.
• Family suing church claiming sexual abuse [1993-99]
   INDIANAPOLIS (IN) WTHR, www.wthr.com/global/story.asp?s=1702821&ClientType=Printable , by Steve Jefferson/Eyewitness News, March 10 2004
   Father Jonathan Lovill Stewart faces allegations he sexually abused a 10-year-old Catholic boy.
   The boy's mother hired Eric Koch to represent them in their Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
   "Beginning at the age of seven and continuing several years thereafter he was sexually abused." Koch calls the mother and son Jane and John Doe to protect their identity.
   In a complaint obtained by Channel 13, Jane Doe says Father Stewart "molested her son between 1993 and 1999."
   The mother also claims her son experienced "severe psychological pain, suffering, and anguish requiring counseling treatment."
   "He's in individual counseling, family counseling," says Koch. "He is suffering severe emotional trauma over this."
   Stewart served as priest under the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
   The Archdiocese issued a statement about the allegations, saying Father Stewart is on "administrative leave and is not assigned to any ministry at this time."
• Lawsuit accuses priest of abuse [1993-99]
   INDIANAPOLIS (IN) Indianapolis Star www.indystar.com/articles/8/128145-3798-093.html , By Tom Spalding, Tom.spalding@indystar.com , March 10, 2004
   A 17-year-old Greene County boy contends that a Catholic priest molested him over six years starting in 1993, while the Archdiocese of Indianapolis said it was surprised by the duration of the alleged abuse.
   The diocese was aware of the allegations when they surfaced two years ago and were deemed credible.
   But officials thought the accused acts by Father Jonathan L. Stewart, 40, occurred in 1993. The lawsuit said he abused the boy up until 1999.
   "This is the first we have heard of abuse occurring in 1999. Our records indicate the last incident of sexual abuse occurred in 1993," said Susan Borcherts, a diocese spokeswoman.
   Stewart has been on leave from all public ministry since the allegations arose in February 2001. A church investigation continues. Stewart has denied the allegations.
   The archdiocese reported last month that its research had shown no minors had been abused in the past decade. Officials said they didn't know about the timing until they read the lawsuit, filed by his mother.
• Jesuit writer accused of abusing local boy is barred from ministry
   TOLEDO (OH) Toledo Blade www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2004103100131 , By DAVID YONKE, BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
   John Gallen is a Jesuit priest and an internationally known scholar and author who has traveled the world leading seminars on Catholic liturgy and worship.
   The jet-setting, charismatic cleric also is accused of having a sinister side - as a child molester.
   Father Gallen has been barred from ministry following allegations that he sexually abused a 16-year-old Sylvania boy in 1980 at St. Joseph Church on South Main Street.
   The victim, now 40 and living in Kenosha, Wis., received a $50,000 settlement from the Jesuits in 1994, but he continued to pursue his case with the Catholic church until last month. That is when he learned that Father Gallen, though technically still a priest, has been barred from performing any priestly functions, according to a letter from the Milwaukee archdiocese obtained by The Blade. "It's all about protecting children. I want to make sure that Mr. Gallen is not a threat to children any more," said Kevin, who asked that his last name not be published.
• Prosecutors to ask Porter not be freed
   FALL RIVER (MA) Boston Herald http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=2543 , By Marie Szaniszlo Wednesday, March 10, 2004
   Bristol County prosecutors are due in court next month to try to block the release of former priest and convicted child molester James Porter by asking a judge to commit him to a hospital until he is no longer a danger to children.
   "I believe in my bones he'll molest again when he's released," District Attorney Paul Walsh said yesterday. "A fellow that's as driven as (Porter) is to molest, in my opinion, will always pose a danger to children."
   At an April 5 hearing in Taunton, prosecutors will ask a Superior Court judge to classify Porter as a sexually dangerous person and commit him indefinitely to the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater.
• Victims' group vexed over failure to see bishop
   TOLEDO (OH) Toledo Blade www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040310/NEWS10/103100133/-1/NEWS , March 10, 2004
   Members of a victims' advocacy group yesterday expressed frustration over their inability to meet with Toledo Bishop Leonard Blair.
   At a news conference outside the Catholic Center in downtown Toledo, Barbara Blaine, founder and national president of SNAP; her sisters, Marian Blaine and Marcia Holtz, and Claudia Vercellotti, the local group's co-coordinator, said they have traded 14 letters with the bishop since November trying to iron out details for a face-to-face meeting.
   At one point last month, Bishop Blair and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests tentatively scheduled a meeting for yesterday afternoon.
   But that session fell through when the diocese requested that an "independent facilitator" attend the talks.
   The letters between SNAP and the bishop's office also have disputed such points as when and where the meeting would take place, which individuals would be allowed to attend, and whether the media would be present.
• Editor's Desk: Rock the Boat
   UNITED STATES Arlington Catholic Herald www.catholicherald.com/eddesk/04ed/ed040311.htm , By Michael F. Flach, Herald Editor, (From the issue of March/11/04)
   The National Review Board's "Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church" was released on the same day as the John Jay Study. The report provides an honest, in-depth analysis of the sexual abuse crisis that has scandalized the Church in the U.S. since it first surfaced in Boston in January 2002. In varying degrees, bishops, priests, diocesan lawyers, therapists, psychiatrists and the Vatican all are held accountable in the eyes of the board.
   The report makes for interesting reading and undoubtedly will be examined and discussed in detail for years to come. (The entire text can be found at www.nccbuscc.org.) But the section on the "Selection and Assignment of Bishops" contains some especially bold, and perhaps unpopular, recommendations.
   "Many have expressed concern that the pool of available bishops has been limited too narrowly to those priests who have held positions at the Vatican, in seminaries and within the diocesan hierarchy," the report says. "The process needs greater lay involvement, both in putting forth the names of priests who might be considered for the episcopacy and in vetting those who have been put forward, to ensure that a wide net is cast when selecting bishops."
   The report says that some bishops had little experience as parish pastors and therefore may have lacked the ability to understand and relate to the problems and concerns of the laity. Others relied on a management mind-set rather than a pastoral mind-set and thus allowed the administrative demands of their dioceses to pre-empt the human demands of their parishioners.
• Cunningham is named bishop of Ogdensburg
   OGDENSBURG (NY) Buffalo News www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20040310/1057364.asp , By JAY TOKASZ, March/10/2004
   As Western New York Catholics continue their wait for a new bishop, Pope John Paul II on Tuesday selected the Diocese of Buffalo's highest-ranking administrator to serve as the head of the Diocese of Ogdensburg.
   Monsignor Robert C. Cunningham, who grew up in Kenmore and has long been viewed as a possible candidate for bishop, was appointed to lead the state's most rural diocese.
   He would become the 13th bishop of the Ogdensburg Diocese, and the fourth with roots in Buffalo.
   The sprawling Diocese of Ogdensburg covers most of the counties north of the Thruway to the Canadian border and from Watertown on the west to Plattsburgh on the east. It has about 128,000 Catholics in 119 parishes served by 92 active diocesan priests. ...
   Like most dioceses, Ogdensburg wasn't immune from the clergy sex abuse scandal.
   Barbarito removed four priests, including two in active ministry, in July 2002 due to allegations of sexual abuse of minors. Church officials also named the removed priests - something that both Mansell and Cunningham refused to do in Buffalo, drawing criticism from molestation victims and their advocates.
• Diocese welcomes bishop
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) Republican www.masslive.com/news/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1078913790186620.xml , By BILL ZAJAC wzajac@repub.com , March/10/2004
   Saying he sees himself as a reconciler, the eighth bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield was introduced yesterday to a welcoming flock still shell-shocked from a sex abuse scandal that forced his predecessor to resign.
   During a whirlwind several hours that included a press conference, a reception with diocesan personnel and the celebration of his first Mass in Springfield, the Most. Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell didn't address specific issues related to the clergy sexual abuse scandal or possible pending criminal charges against his predecessor, the Most Rev. Thomas L. Dupre. Rather, the 66-year-old current auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York described himself as a "what you see is what you get" kind of guy, a New York Yankees fan and a pastoral shepherd.
   He also demonstrated an ease with people as he shook hands and chatted with dozens of people before returning late yesterday to New York. He expects to return several times before moving here permanently upon his installation April 1.
   Although he didn't mention Dupre by name, McDonnell's first homily at a noon Mass at the Holy Spirit Chapel at St. Michael's Cathedral seemed to address the Springfield Diocese's current situation.
   "Our God is a God who wants to forgive the wrongdoer, but forgiveness has to be asked, and it has to be sought," said McDonnell, who then referred to the scriptural reading that reminds people to practice what they preach.
• New bishop had cleaned up Covenant House
   SPRINGFIELD (MA): Republican, "Bishop a 'healer' and 'fixer' " www.masslive.com/news/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1078913836186620.xml , By STEPHANIE BARRY, sbarry@repub.com , March/10/2004
   In the spring of 1990, New York City's most hallowed haven for runaway boys was looking for a savior of its own.
   The Catholic-run Covenant House's reputation was in tatters after its founder and president, the Rev. Bruce Ritter, resigned following allegations of sexual and financial indiscretions. Then-Monsignor Timothy A. McDonnell - dispatched there by the New York Archdiocese's cardinal - was like a balm to the agency's beleaguered staff, according to a longtime leader.
   "(McDonnell) is a very affable guy. He was the one who kind of moved around the building and assured everyone that everything would get straightened out," James J. Harnett, chief operating officer at Covenant House, said yesterday.
   Called a healer by some and a fixer by others, McDonnell will no doubt be called upon to be both as the newest leader of a Springfield diocese still roiled by sexual abuse allegations against the former bishop.
• Just a parish priest? He could be the guy
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) Republican www.masslive.com/editorials/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1078913777186620.xml , March/10/2004
   The Most Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell seems properly cast to become the bishop of the 133-year-old Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield.
   Even though he has served as an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of New York for the past two years and served as the archdiocese's chief legal officer, he still describes him as a parish priest.
   Those close to him describe him as a good man, a caring pastor and a fixer.
   These traits will serve him well when he attempts to restore the credibility of the Springfield Diocese.
   In 1990, he was assigned to take over operations of Covenant House after the founder and director of the Manhattan-based agency for troubled youths was accused of child molestation.
   This experience will serve him well in his role as a humble healer.
• Time to hear whole flock
   BOSTON (MA) Boston Globe www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/03/10/time_to_hear_whole_flock , By Eileen McNamara, Globe Columnist, March/10/2004
   Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley has asked Catholics to face the reality that declining attendance will force him to shutter scores of the 357 churches in the Boston Archdiocese, but he has not asked himself to confront the reason so many of those pews are empty.
   It is easier to blame "changing demographics" than clueless leadership for the exodus, but willful blindness will not stop the hemorrhaging. It will accelerate it.
   The chancery only recently acknowledged what parishioners have long known, that the sexual abuse scandal precipitated a dramatic drop in church attendance among the 2 million Catholics in the Boston Archdiocese. Five of every six area Catholics stay home from Mass in any given week. The hierarchy has not begun, however, to calculate the fresh round of losses being triggered by its precipitous church closing process and its aggressive campaign against same-sex couples.
• Bishop welcomed
   WORCESTER (MA) Telegram & Gazette www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040310/NEWS/403100486/1020/OPINION , March 10, 2004
   The Diocese of Worcester yesterday welcomed Bishop Robert J. McManus, selected to be installed as the fifth bishop of Worcester in May.
   Bishop McManus, 53, auxiliary bishop of Providence, will replace Bishop Daniel P. Reilly, who sought retirement after he turned 75 last year.
   The appointment comes at a time of transition for Catholics statewide. Bishop Sean P. O'Malley became head of the Boston Diocese in July after Cardinal Bernard Law was forced out under fire for his handling of sexually abusive priests. Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell was named to head the Springfield Diocese after Bishop Thomas Dupre was accused of child molestation.
   Bishop McManus, who has had no connection with the church scandals or with discredited policies regarding allegations of abuse, should be able to accelerate the healing process here.
   He also must confront dwindling attendance, the shortage of priests, parish closings and other perennial challenges.
• McManus to head diocese
   WORCESTER (MA) Telegram & Gazette http://telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040310/NEWS/403100337/1025 ,
   Kathleen A. Shaw, T&G STAFF, kshaw@telegram.com , March 10, 2004
   Auxiliary Bishop Robert J. McManus of Providence yesterday was named the fifth bishop of the Diocese of Worcester by Pope John Paul II, who also accepted the resignation of Bishop Daniel P. Reilly.
   The bishop's seat in Worcester is now vacant - or sede vacante - until the diocesan consultors elect an interim administrator within the next week. The new bishop will be installed May 14.
   The pope's appointment of Bishop McManus came with the appointment of Auxiliary Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell of New York to replace Bishop Thomas Dupre of Springfield. Bishop Dupre recently retired after allegations surfaced that he sexually abused two boys in the 1970s.
   Bishop-elect McManus said at a morning press conference that he does not know all the details of the sexual abuse scandal in the Worcester Diocese. He declined to give specific details on how he will resolve the local issues. He said he intends to build on what his predecessors have done.
   Bishop McManus was a non-voting member of the Child Protection Board in the Providence Diocese, serving mainly as a liaison between the board and priests.
   He added, however, that the diocese needs to reach out to young people to revitalize parishes and restore trust. Some priests have been reluctant to reach out to young people since allegations of priest sexual abuse erupted, he said.
   He wasted no time, however, in calling the church scandal "shocking" and said "the mishandling of this dreadful situation by some church leaders has brought shame and ridicule on the Catholic Church in our beloved country.
   "While this is a deplorable chapter in the life of the Catholic Church in the United States, it is not the whole story. The Catholic Church in the United States has much to be proud of," Bishop McManus said.
   David Clohessy, national director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said yesterday that little is known about Bishop McManus and his record on handling sexual abuse issues.
• Adonai Christian Academy teacher charged
   ASHEVILLE (NC) Citizen-Times "Teacher charged with sex abuse of student," http://cgi.citizen-times.com/cgi-bin/story/buncombe_news/51265 , By Clarke Morrison and Lynde Hedgpeth Tonya Maxwell, Staff writers, March 9, 2004 10:39 p.m.
   A parent's call to police led detectives Tuesday to charge a private school teacher with sexually abusing a student over the past two years.
   Asheville Police Capt. Tom Aardema said detectives believed they were just getting started in the investigation of Thomas Edward Scott.
   The 54-year-old Candler resident is charged with 27 sex offenses involving the Adonai Christian Academy student.
   Those include taking indecent liberties with a child, first-degree sex offense with a child, statutory rape by a defendant six or more years older than the victim and sexual activity between school personnel and a student.
   Police would not say where they believe the boy was sexually abused. They also would not comment on what prompted the boy's parent to call authorities a week ago.
   Four detectives and two assistant district attorneys are working the case, Aardema said. Police held a news conference Tuesday on the investigation, an unusual event given the allegations involve one child.
• Bishop McManus appointed to lead Worcester diocese
   PROVIDENCE (RI) Providence Journal www.projo.com/religion/content/projo_20040310_mcmanus10.21ef7b.html , BY RICHARD C. DUJARDIN, Journal Religion Writer, 01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, March 10, 2004
   Ending months and even years of conjecture as to where he might wind up, the man serving as the number-two Catholic bishop of Providence was officially appointed by Pope John Paul II yesterday to lead the 350,000 Catholics of the Diocese of Worcester.
   Bishop Robert J. McManus, a 52-year-old Providence native and moral theologian, related yesterday that he first learned of the appointment March 1, after returning from a morning meeting in Woonsocket with members of the fraternal group, L'Union St. Jean Baptiste, and discovering a voice-mail message telling him to call the papal nuncio in Washington.
   According to a joint announcement from the two dioceses, Bishop McManus will be installed as the fifth bishop of the Diocese of Worcester on May 14.
   "With all honesty, I am very much at peace," said Bishop McManus. "I never invested a lot of emotional energy into wondering where I was going to go. I sincerely believe it's God's will and I'll be in the place that God wants me to go."
   Bishop McManus, who has been the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence's auxiliary bishop since his ordination as a bishop in February 1999, had been seen by many as the diocese's chief moral theologian since his return in the 1980s from studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Whenever there were possible openings in various dioceses in the last couple years -- be they be in Fall River, Worcester, Ogdensburg, N.Y., or Helena, Mont. -- Bishop McManus' name invariably came up as a candidate.
• Near-miss in Martin [2003]
   FLORIDA Palm Beach Post www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/auto/epaper/editions/wednesday/opinion_04e4a8260587907100ce.html , Palm Beach Post Editorial, Wednesday, March 10, 2004
   Chalk it up to sheer luck.
   The Martin County School District learned of sexual abuse allegations against an ex-priest working as a teacher at about the time that he resigned. Barry Ryan, 56, who worked as a media specialist at Martin County High School, left the district on sick leave April 21, 2003, shortly before a story appeared in the The Mobile (Ala.) Register about an Alabama criminal investigation into several priests, including Ryan. He was not charged.
   School officials talked to Ryan, a Palm City resident, but didn't take any action against him because he had decided to resign for health reasons. He took leave until his retirement in October. Last week, he was charged in a separate case with abusing a 6-year-old New York boy after he signed a confession admitting that he abused the boy in a Long Island home between May and October during visits to New York. He pleaded innocent at his arraignment last week.
   The school district had conducted routine background checks on Ryan before he started teaching at Martin County High in 1998. The checks revealed nothing. Deana Newson, the district's human resources director, said the school received no complaints about Ryan; in fact, he was named Teacher of the Year in 2002.
   She met with him after a reporter from the Register called to ask about him, and he said he had never been charged with or convicted of a crime. Law enforcement officials never contacted the district, which didn't investigate further because Ryan had stopped teaching.
• Ruling Leaves Diocese Potentially Liable
   NORWICH (CT) Hartford Courant www.ctnow.com/news/local/hc-priestsuit0310.artmar10,1,4706193.story?coll=hc-headlines-local , By LYNNE TUOHY, Courant Staff Writer, March 10, 2004
   A Superior Court judge has refused to release the Norwich Diocese and its former bishop, Daniel P. Reilly, from potential liability for alleged sexual abuse by a priest, in a strongly worded ruling that could represent a legal sea change in how such cases are handled.
   The ruling by Judge Jonathan Silbert runs counter to a long line of precedents, but Silbert said that recent revelations about the scope of the church's sex scandal justify the departure.
   The diocese maintains that any priest who sexually assaults a minor has "abandoned" the employer's business. Nearly half a dozen cases, including a 1995 ruling by U.S. District Judge Alfred V. Covello, have adopted this theory and released the church and its leaders from liability.
   "The number of reported allegations of sexual assaults by priests has risen so dramatically that one must wonder whether Judge Covello, and particularly those judges who followed [his ruling], would be so quick to conclude that there could not possibly be a factual dispute over whether such molestation could take place within the scope of a priest's employment," Silbert wrote.
   Silbert denied the church's motion to strike an element of Michael Nelligan's lawsuit alleging the diocese and Reilly knew of former priest Bruno Primavera's propensity for sexually abusing minors and should be held liable for his conduct.
   Silbert stressed that "a contemporary court cannot ignore" findings of a national study released last month by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that, between 1950 and 2002, 4,392 priests - or 4 percent of the clergy - had sexual abuse allegations lodged against them.
• Five religious-order priests accused in Denver since '50s
   COLORADO Denver Post www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~11741~2007316,00.html , By Eric Gorski, Denver Post Religion Writer
   At least five Roman Catholic religious-order priests have been accused of sexually abusing minors in the Denver Archdiocese over the past five decades, with allegations against three of the priests judged to be credible by their superiors.
   Two of the substantiated cases involved the Jesuits, the largest order in Denver, and the other involved a Capuchin. The unfounded allegations were brought against a Jesuit and a Vincentian priest.
   That information, provided to The Denver Post in a survey of religious orders that have priests working in the 24-county northern Colorado diocese, provides the most detailed picture yet of the scope of clergy sexual abuse in the state's flagship Catholic diocese.
   Fourteen of the 15 religious orders in the archdiocese responded to the newspaper's inquiries. Many had compiled the data as part of an unprecedented national canvass of clergy sex abuse dating to 1950.
• New bishops chosen for two dioceses
   MASSACHUSETTS Boston Globe www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/03/10/new_bishops_chosen_for_two_dioceses , By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff, March/10/2004
   Pope John Paul II yesterday appointed new bishops to oversee the Roman Catholic dioceses of Springfield and Worcester, completing the replacement of all four Massachusetts Catholic bishops since the start of the sexual abuse crisis. The ailing pontiff moved with unusual speed in Springfield, naming a bishop with experience cleaning up an abuse-tarnished child-care agency in New York to oversee an abuse-tarnished diocese in western Massachusetts.
   The pope named Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell, an auxiliary bishop in New York, to head the Diocese of Springfield, and Bishop Robert J. McManus, an auxiliary bishop in Providence, to head the Diocese of Worcester.
   Installation of the new bishops this spring will result in a remarkable transformation of church leadership in this heavily Catholic state, wrought by an unprecedented scandal that led to grand jury investigations in Boston and Springfield.
   Over the last 15 months, Archbishop Bernard F. Law of Boston resigned after being accused of failing to remove abusive priests from ministry; Bishop Sean P. O'Malley was brought to Boston to succeed Law; Bishop Thomas L. Dupre of Springfield resigned and is facing possible criminal charges after being accused of abuse; and Bishop Daniel P. Reilly of Worcester retired.
• Discrepancy in abuse lists is explained
   FALL RIVER (MA) The Herald News www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11096086&BRD=1710&PAG=461&dept_id=99784&rfi=6 , GREGG M. MILIOTE , Herald News Staff Reporter, March/10/2004
   The Diocese of Fall River on Tuesday issued a broader explanation regarding the nine-person discrepancy between the list of 23 priests alleged to have molested children given to the District Attorney's Office in late 2002 and its own recent report stating 32 priests in the diocese were accused of sexual misconduct.
   Late last month, the diocese released its "A Time to Heal" report documenting 216 allegations of sexual abuse of minors by 32 priests over the past 50 years.
   On Monday, Bristol County District Attorney Paul Walsh questioned why he wasn't given all 32 names in September 2002, especially since former Bishop Sean P. O'Malley assured him that the list was complete.
   Upon learning of the new 32-priest list, Walsh, frustrated over the discrepancy, wrote a letter to Bishop George W. Coleman asking for answers.
   Although diocesan officials had little to say Monday afternoon, the diocese did issue a lengthier statement Tuesday attempting to explain the nine-priest difference in the two lists.
• Guest Opinion: Money alone can't repair clerical sexual abuse
   UNITED STATES Tucson Citizen www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=opinion&story_id=030104b5_guestassault , By ROBERT KAFES,
   Soul murder is the crime of dominating, controlling and invading another person. Survivors of soul murder often remain possessed. Their souls grieve. They are in bondage - until they receive specialized psychological help.
   Children are taught to obey and idealize clergy, and the authority of a priest is alluring. "I didn't realize priests had genitals until I was sexually assaulted," said one survivor.
   Since priests have a unique relationship with God, youngsters who are sexually abused by priests can experience that assault as a rape by God or by an angel or messenger of God. In a child's mind, there may be no distinction between a perverse human being and seduction by God Almighty.
   Now that we know how damaging abuse by clerics can be, it is obvious that reparation from anything less than those highest in the Church hierarchy will be experienced as hollow and insincere.
   Bishops throughout the country must be more effective in providing personal empathic response to survivors and their families. They should hear directly from survivors and their families. Money alone cannot repair sexual trauma and the loss of faith. It simply is not enough.
   Sexual violation is an abuse of power. But priests also betray a sacred trust. The youth's identity is stained and desecrated, and the aftermath can be cataclysmic and lifelong. Compounding the child's confusion is the possibility that sexual stimulation can feel really good. So the child or adolescent is at a loss to know what to feel.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 02:52 AM
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Wednesday, March 10, 2004
##### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Thursday, March 11, 2004 edition follows:-
• Blindly ceding souls, money, to the hierarchy
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) Religious News Online, "On the Appointment of Bishop Timothy McDonnell," www.sweenytod.com/rno/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=779 , by Warren Mason
   It is a time of cautious optimism as Catholics welcome Bishop Timothy McDonnell to the Springfield, Massachusetts's Diocese.
   It would be naive and indeed dangerous for the heretofore all to complacent Catholic laity to assume that the appointment of Bishop McDonnell automatically brings fresh thought or real change.
   While we may hope for both, there is no real certainty that we'll get either.
   The problems that plague the Catholic Church were not caused by one man and won't be resolved by his replacement alone.
   It needs to be remembered that this bishop is in many ways cut from the same cloth as his predecessor, beholden to no one but the Pope, who has little or nothing to do with the day-to-day functions of each diocese.
   As well meaning as Bishop McDonnell may be, like his predecessor, he is in practice accountable to no one.
   In fact there are no structures in place to make him accountable to the laity he serves; no system of checks and balances to prevent bishops from exercising their power recklessly and callously with concern for no one but there fraternal brethren.
   While most in the Catholic hierarchy have lost the moral bearing and credibility to get this church righted, it is imperative that the Catholic laity steps out of their pews and takes action to exercise the powers they were called to by the teachings of Vatican II.
   The all too common missive "pay, pray and obey", will in one form or another lead to a revisiting of the scandals that have occurred while the laity blindly ceded control of their souls and their money.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 05:51 PM
• Former Baptist pastor destroyed evidence, but let off
   AUSTRALIA: The Courier-Mail, "Former pastor get suspended jail term," www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,8940826%255E3102,00.html , by Mark Oberhardt, Mar 12 04
   A former Baptist pastor who a court was told shredded pages from a girl's diary that referred to sexual abuse on her by a parishioner was yesterday convicted of intentionally destroying evidence.
   In the District Court in Brisbane, Judge Nick Samios said he did not believe Douglas Ray Ensbey should serve time in jail because the mitigating factors outweighed the crime.
   Judge Samios sentenced Ensbey to a wholly suspended six-month jail term with an operational period of two years.
   The judge said he had to perform "a balancing act" in a case for which there was no precedent in Queensland.
   Judge Samios said while deterrence had to be a factor, it had to be balanced with all the circumstances.
• Three more allege sexual abuse by former priest
   ST. LOUIS (MO) Kansas City Star www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/8162747.htm , By BETSY TAYLOR, Associated Press
   Three men filed lawsuits Thursday, bringing to 17 the number of people claiming past sexual abuse by longtime St. Louis area priest Michael McGrath.
   The lawsuits were filed in St. Louis Circuit Court. The men, now in their 30s, are former parishioners at St. Simon's Church in the St. Louis suburb of Concord Village. The suits seek unspecified damages.
   Lawyers Susan Carlson and Kenneth Chackes, representing the accusers, said the alleged abuse occurred in the 1980s, as many as 20 to 25 times in the case of one victim.
   Like many others, the suits alleged McGrath, 58, of Richmond Heights, groped and abused children in his van close to home and on out-of-town trips, and also allegedly assaulted one of the victims at a residence.
   David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said, "We worry that Catholics gradually become desensitized to this pain." But he said SNAP's phone continues to ring with stories from victims and calls from outraged Catholics.
   Of McGrath, Clohessy said, "He has suffered no visible consequences."
• Lawsuit filed against priest [1993-99]
   INDIANA Linton Daily Citizen www.dailycitizen.com/articles/2004/03/11/news/prei.txt , By Nick Schneider, Staff Writer, March 11, 2004
   A civil lawsuit filed in Marion Superior Court and made public Wednesday alleges that a 17-year-old Bloomfield boy was molested by a Catholic priest over a period of six years starting in 1993.
   The Indianapolis Star in Thursday's edition reports that the suit, filed by the juvenile boy's mother, alleges that the Rev. Jonathan L. Stewart, 40, whose last known address was Oldenburg, committed the series of incidents against her son. Stewart was living in Milan and serving at St. Charles Borromeo Parish at the time.
   After being ordained in 1991, Stewart was assigned to religious posts throughout Indiana, including in Indianapolis, Floyds Knobs and Enochsburg.
   Eric A. Koch, a Bloomington attorney representing the mother and son, who are listed as Jane and John Doe in the suit, told The Associated Press the abuse occurred in Bloomfield.
   Koch was out of his office Thursday morning and unavailable for further comment.
• Church had a 'lack of experience' in sex abuse (!)
   The Advocate "Archbishop faces angry questions about abuse," www.newarkadvocate.com/news/stories/20040311/localnews/58259.html ,
   DAYTON (OH) (AP): Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk's repeated apologies to victims of sexual abuse by priests did not appease several people who say they were among those victims.
   Pilarczyk told an audience of about 400 at the University of Dayton on Wednesday night that he and other church officials are sorry for the abuse.
   "I expect that I will carry that sorrow with me to my grave," he said.
   During Pilarczyk's speech, several protesters stood at the back of the room with signs bearing pictures of themselves as children, at the time of their alleged abuse by priests.
   The archbishop focused on what he said was bad advice by psychological experts, lack of experience with child abuse, and the "seemingly contradictory demands" that caused some well-meaning bishops to secretly transfer abusive priests from one parish to another.
   He also said Ohio law was unclear on whether church leaders had to report abusers to police, and church law made it virtually impossible to fire the priests.
   In a question-and-answer session after his speech, people who said they were sex abuse victims berated Pilarczyk and the church for not doing enough to stop abusive priests. Other Catholics said they were embarrassed about their church.
   Kathy Davis, of Miamisburg, said she was abused by a priest when she was an eighth-grader in 1973. She said it's too late for many victims to bring criminal charges because of the statute of limitations.
• Feature:Priests live under Boston's shadow
   United Press International www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040310-061252-4745r , By Mila S. Koumpilova, UPI Correspondent, Published 11:07 AM March/11/2004
   WASHINGTON (DC) (UPI) -- The launch of Scott Woods' career as a Roman Catholic priest has been something of an extended grilling session. First, he was put on the spot on the day of his ordination in May 2002. It was the first such ceremony in Washington after Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize-winning series of January 2002 unleashed media inquiries into sex abuse by Catholic clergy.
   Fox News hooked a microphone to Woods' vestment collar and aimed a TV camera glare at the 27-year-old, who, Woods family legend goes, announced at the age of 3 he'd one day be a priest. Oblivious of this long-dreamed goal and the eight years of diligence in the seminary, a reporter asked if the sex-abuse scandal had shaken his resolve.
   Then, during his first months as an associate pastor at the St. John Neumann parish in suburban Washington, parishioners would often have him over for dinner. Over dessert near the end of his visit, after the children had scurried off to play, they would ask him about his take on the sex-abuse crisis.
   During classroom visits, youngsters would pop questions, from the fourth graders' innocent "What about priests hurting kids?" to high school students' more pointed queries, the kind he wouldn't image asking his own priest as a child.
   The sex-abuse scandal has been a low-key but persistent presence to Woods' first two years at St. John's. "It's somewhere at the back of your mind constantly," he said.
   At St. John's, Woods assists the Rev. Michael Fisher, 46, a former public accountant in Washington with 14 years of experience as a pastor. In a parish of 2,000 families, the duo is constantly around the 800 or so minors, from the 5-year-olds at the monthly children's liturgy to the teens on the youth board, who readily cut down on mall expeditions for the sake of church initiatives.
• Diocese: Accused priest to keep post [1975]
   Register-News www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11105781&BRD=1091&PAG=461&dept_id=425707&rfi=6 , By Scott Morgan, March/11/2004
   BORDENTOWN CITY (NJ): The Diocese of Trenton says it has conducted its own investigation and has no plans to remove the pastor of St. Mary's Church who was recently accused in a civil lawsuit of sexually abusing a sixth-grader in 1975.
   Two weeks ago, a former city resident (the woman was not identified) filed a civil lawsuit against the Rev. Michael Burns, 56, pastor at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church on Crosswicks Street. The suit, filed in Mercer County Superior Court, alleges the Rev. Burns sexually abused the woman in 1975 when she was a sixth-grade student at the now-defunct Sacred Heart School in Trenton.
   No criminal charges have been filed against the Rev. Burns. He continues to serve at St. Mary's, said Steven Emery, spokesman for the diocese.
   According to Mr. Emery, the complaint against the Rev. Burns was first submitted to the diocese in March 2002. After an investigation, Mr. Emery said, diocesan officials announced it had found "insufficient evidence that abuse of a minor occurred."
   In a statement released March 4, the diocese announced that an internal review board "spent extensive time with the complainant (who was flown in from out of state), and later with the accused priest, in an effort to determine what, if anything, happened between them 30 years ago."
• Priest Found Guilty In Sexual Assault Case
   TheWMURChannel.com ; www.thewmurchannel.com/news/2915414/detail.html , POSTED: 1:39 pm EST March 11, 2004
   DOVER, N.H. -- The sexual abuse case of a former Dover priest is headed to the state Supreme Court.
   A judge Wednesday found Joseph Maguire guilty on 28 counts of sexual assault involving three altar boys. Maguire did not contest the charges, but his lawyers have said they would appeal the convictions.
   His attorneys argued that the crimes happened too long ago. But Judge Peter Fauver agreed with prosecutors that because Maguire lived out of state after the assaults, the state had a longer time to bring the charges.
• Two Men Sue Ex-Bishop, Alleging Sex Abuse
   Mercury News Two Men Sue Ex-Bishop, Alleging Sex Abuse , By ADAM GORLICK, Associated Press
   SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - Two men sued retired Springfield Bishop Thomas Dupre on Thursday, accusing him of molesting them when they were altar boys and he was a parish priest in the 1970s.
   Dupre, 70, is also under grand jury investigation in the same two cases and could become first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States to be criminally charged with sex abuse.
   The plaintiffs, now 39 and 40, are seeking at least $200,000 for long-term psychotherapy, and other damages. The Associated Press does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.
   Roderick MacLeish Jr., the men's attorney, said Dupre sexually abused the boys for years and asked them to keep quiet about the abuse when he was made auxiliary bishop in 1990.
   According to the lawsuit, Dupre told the men that if the abuse became known, it would embarrass the church. One of the men, an immigrant who learned English with Dupre's help, said Dupre told him no one would believe him.
   MacLeish was one of the lawyers who brokered an $85 million settlement between the Boston Archdiocese and more than 550 victims of sexual abuse.
• Catholic leaders nix same-sex marriages
   WORCESTER (MA) Telegram & Gazette www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040311/COLUMN01/403110353/1008/NEWS02 , By Dianne Williamson, March 11 2004
   Here's a sound bite you wouldn't have heard in the not-so-distant past:
   "The shocking scandal of sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and the mishandling of this dreadful situation by some church leaders have brought shame and ridicule on the Catholic Church in the United States."
   Those words were uttered Tuesday afternoon by the bishop-elect of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester, Robert J. McManus. Our new bishop is relatively young at 52, well-educated, and savvy enough to understand the need to address the scandal so forcefully in his first local press conference.
   (It wasn't so long ago that his predecessor, in his first public comments on the clergy abuse scandal, angrily accused the media of being unfair to the church and dismissed any inquiries with the memorable line, "We'll let you know when we feel like letting you know.")
   Just as our new bishop was bluntly denouncing the past actions and inactions of his church, church leaders were gearing up to fight what they apparently consider a more appalling sex scandal: the prospect that two gay adults who love each other will be allowed to marry in Massachusetts. The fact that same-sex unions have little to do with sex and everything to do with equality is a point lost on Catholic church leaders, whose aggressive campaign against gay marriage has stunned even those opposed to it.
   It's interesting, really, how far these two groups - gays and Catholics - have come. A few years ago, denial, ignorance and anger was the response from church leaders to the clergy abuse scandal. And a few years ago, the idea of civil unions for gay and lesbian couples would have been embraced by gays as welcome progress rather than condemned as unwelcome compromise.
   Time marches on. Some people learn from the past, and some learn to expect more from the future.
   But some lessons come too late. In the nearby Diocese of Springfield, another new bishop was welcomed this week to replace a prelate whose fall from grace is almost Shakespearean in its tragedy. Last month, Springfield Bishop Thomas L. Dupre abruptly resigned and faces possible criminal charges after being accused of sexually abusing two boys in the 1970s and 1980s. If indicted, the 70-year-old Dupre would become the first American bishop to face criminal charges for sexual abuse.
   There is every indication that Bishop Dupre would have survived the alleged crimes of his past were it not for his astounding hypocrisy. In February, one of his alleged victims was reading a newspaper account about how Bishop Dupre had taken a leading role in denouncing gay marriage. The alleged victim - who says he was 12 when Bishop Dupre plied him with alcohol and showed him gay pornography before having sex with him - became outraged over what he considered the bishop's arrogance and decided to hold him accountable.
   Bishop Dupre resigned last month when confronted with the charges. And at the ripe old age of 70 - in a gesture perhaps symbolic of an institution's enduring failure to face its demons - he checked himself in to St. Luke Institute, a Maryland psychiatric facility that treats priests for a variety of emotional and psychological disorders, including sexual abuse. He's about 40 years too late, but like the church he represents, remorse came only after he got caught.
• Priest targeted after testifying in suit
   ARLINGTON (VA) The Washington Times www.washtimes.com/metro/20040310-105348-7459r.htm , By Julia Duin, Mar 10 2004
   A Catholic priest who exposed the sexual misdeeds of fellow clergy at three parishes in the Diocese of Arlington is being prosecuted by his own bishop on five ecclesiastical charges.
   The Rev. James R. Haley, an Arlington priest, will appear before a church tribunal to answer charges brought against him by the Most Rev. Paul S. Loverde, bishop of Arlington. Presiding as judge will be the Most Rev. Thomas G. Doran, bishop of Rockford, Ill.
   The hearing is set for Wednesday at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa.
   The charges against Father Haley include sexual misconduct; absolution of an accomplice in sexual sin; and the "use of instruments of social communication [the media] to injure good morals, to express insults and to excite hatred or contempt against the Church."
   He also is charged with "publicly inciting subjects to animosities or hatred against a [bishop]" and "injuring the good reputation of another."
• Bishop Timothy McDonnell named Eighth Bishop of Springfield
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) iobserve ; www.iobserve.org/rn0309a.html , By Fr. Bill Pomerleau, Observer Staff, March 9, 2004
   Pope John Paul II has named New York Auxiliary Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell the Eighth Bishop of Springfield.
   His appointment, announced March 9 by the Vatican, will be officially effective April 1, when he will be formally installed as head of the diocese.
   Bishop McDonnell, 66, is an experienced pastor and archdiocesan administrator, having headed or helped administer offices that oversee some of the matters that are very likely to be prominent in the Diocese of Springfield in the next few years.
   He is also well-known for his handling of the aftermath of what was, at the time, the most notorious case of sexual misconduct by a priest in the United States.
   In 1990, the New York Post first reported that Conventual Franciscan Father Bruce Ritter, the founder of the agency for runaway and homeless youth Covenant House, had lavished gifts on a teenage male prostitute in return for sex. Further investigation by New York media and law enforcement authorities revealed that Father Ritter had misappropriated Covenant House funds for his personal use.
• Dupre's accusers to sue
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) Republican http://masslive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1078996711228190.xml?nntn , By BILL ZAJAC wzajac@repub.com , March/11/2004
   In what one lawyer said was no surprise, two men who have accused the former bishop of sexually abusing them as minors will file civil suits seeking unspecified damages today.
   The Most Rev. Thomas L. Dupre will be listed as the defendant in a suit that will accuse the 70-year-old former bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield of assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, according to Roderick MacLeish Jr. of Boston, the lawyer representing the men.
   No monetary damages amount can be listed in suits per state law.
   "There (are) also other subpoenas, document requests and other items that will be on file with the court tomorrow," said MacLeish, who represented several hundred clients in the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston the past two years.
   He refused to say whether his clients will identify themselves by name in the suit.
• Brisbane Baptist pastor guilty of sex-abuse cover-up
   BRISBANE, Queensland, AUSTRALIA: ABC, "Court finds Brisbane pastor guilty of sex-abuse cover-up," www.abc.net.au/brisbane/news/200403/s1064016.htm , Thursday, 11 March 2004
   A Brisbane Baptist pastor has been found guilty of destroying evidence relating to a sexual abuse case.
   The District Court jury delivered its verdict after a day and a half of deliberations.
   Fifty-three-year-old Douglas Roy Ensbey pleaded not guilty.
   The court was told Ensbey shredded the notes of a teenage girl's diary which contained details about sexual abuse from one of the parishioners at the Baptist Church at Sandgate.
• DA, diocese hash out their differences
   NEW BEDFORD (MA) Standard-Times, www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/03-04/03-11-04/a03sr664.htm , By RAY HENRY, Standard-Times staff writer, March 11 2004
   One week after the Fall River diocese reported that 32 of its priests had been accused of sexual misconduct, the Bristol County District Attorney questioned if church officials withheld some of the information two years after he asked for it.
   In 2002, then-Fall River Bishop Sean P. O'Malley responded to a request by District Attorney Paul F. Walsh Jr. by releasing a list of 23 priests accused of sexual misconduct, Mr. Walsh wrote in a letter to current Fall River Bishop George W. Coleman.
   "This perplexes me. In our request for any and all information concerning clergy abuse, we hoped that we would receive everything," Mr. Walsh wrote.
   In a statement, diocesan officials said the original list they gave Mr. Walsh didn't include abusive priests who molested outside Bristol County.
   The new report, submitted to John Jay College as part of a national church-sponsored study on priestly abuse, also includes the names of James Porter and Alexander Delgado, both of whom were indicted in Bristol courts by the District Attorney's office.
• Catholic Priest Admits to Destroying Church Documents
   SPOKANE (WA) KXLY, www.kxly.com/common/getStory.asp?id=35032
   A Spokane priest's admission to destroying piles of confidential church documents is adding new fuel to the priest sex abuse scandal.
   Monsignor John Steiner was Chancellor of the Diocese in the late 1970's, under retiring Bishop Bernard Topel. He admitted in a deposition in late January that Topel asked him to get rid of some documents upon his retirement, and Steiner burned piles of them in the Diocese fireplace. Monsignor Steiner testified he only saw mimeographed correspondence with other bishops and the Vatican.
   However, attorneys representing alleged sex abuse victims speculate those documents contained allegations of sexual abuse against priests.
   "Not that the Diocese didn't know, but that there was knowledge and it was either not documented or was documented and later destroyed," said Tim Kosnoff, attorney for alleged sex abuse victims.
• Suit claims abuse went on for years [1993-99]
   INDIANAPOLIS (IN) Indianapolis Star www.indystar.com/articles/0/128301-4520-009.html , By Tom Spalding Tom.spalding@indystar.com , March 11, 2004
   A 17-year-old Greene County boy contends in a lawsuit that he was molested by a priest as recently as 1999, an allegation that came as a partial surprise to the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
   The archdiocese was aware of some of the allegations -- which were deemed credible -- because they were first made two years ago.
   But officials thought the alleged acts by the Rev. Jonathan L. Stewart, 40, occurred in 1993. The lawsuit, filed last month in Marion Superior Court, said he abused the boy through 1999.
   "This is the first we have heard of abuse occurring in 1999. Our records indicate the last incident of sexual abuse occurred in 1993," said Susan Borcherts, a diocese spokeswoman.
• Archbishop faces faithful at public forum
   The Cincinnati Enquirer www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/03/11/loc_pilarczyk11.html , By Reid Forgrave, March 11 2004
   DAYTON, Ohio - Standing before a crowd of 400 people - most Catholic, many angry, all looking for answers - Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk on Wednesday reviewed the priest sexual abuse scandal from a bishop's viewpoint and answered questions from the faithful.
   Again and again, he said he was sorry. He listened to victims of sexual abuse berate him and the church for not doing enough to stop abusive priests. He listened as some Catholics said they were embarrassed about their church. He nodded as others said they steadfastly supported the Catholic church and its shepherds.
   And he answered their questions succinctly - with general expressions of contrition about the entire scandal, but without addressing any specific cases.
   In the opening lecture for a three-semester-long series at the University of Dayton addressing the abuse scandal, Pilarczyk, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati since 1982, first reviewed the history of the scandal from a bishop's perspective.
• Shockingly, Only 2% of Catholic Clergy Sexual Abusers Were Ever Jailed
   UNITED STATES FindLaw ; http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20040311.html , By MARCI HAMILTON, hamilton02@aol.com , Thursday, Mar. 11, 2004
   There were some disturbing statistics in the John Jay College Report on sexual abuse by the Catholic Church's clergy over the last 50 years. (The report was released February 27, 2004.)
   But the shocking and most telling of all was the statistic as to the percentage of abusers who were ever incarcerated -- only 2% (3% were prosecuted and convicted but apparently, of those, a third either will not serve time, or have yet to serve time).
   What does this statistic tell us? It tells us the Church dramatically failed in its obligations to the public good. And it also tells us that one current "remedy" for abuse that the Church is still putting forward -- more self-policing -- will never work.
   As Predicted, There Are Thousands of Victims and Abusers
   The number of victims was 10,667. The number of abusers? A minimum of 4,392.
   And these statistics, sadly, were not the shocking ones. Those familiar with these issues knew there were many more abusers than had yet been revealed. And there are very probably many more -- even ten times more -- victims and abusers than the Report indicated, as the Report itself acknowledges.
• Archbishop Apologizes to Victims of Priest Sex Abuse
   CINCINNATI (OH) Ohio News Network www.onnnews.com/story.php?record=29338 , March 11, 2004
   Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk's repeated apologies to victims of sexual abuse by priests did not appease several people who say they were among those victims.
   Pilarczyk told an audience of about 400 at the University of Dayton last night that he and other church officials are sorry for the abuse. He said he expects to carry that sorrow to his grave.
   Several protesters stood at the back of the room with signs bearing pictures of themselves as children at the time of their alleged abuse. Some victims berated him and the church for not doing enough to stop abusive priests.
• One church topples a bishop [30 abused 70]
   USA Today, www.usatoday.com/life/2004-03-10-bishop-usat_x.htm , By Cathy Lynn Grossman, March 10 2004
   EAST LONGMEADOW, Mass. - Ultimately, it wasn't a local prosecutor or an aggressive attorney for two sexual abuse victims who toppled the Catholic bishop of Springfield, Mass.
   It was the people of his diocese - led by a small-town priest, an angry dad and a quiet nun - who turned the legal spotlight on Bishop Thomas Dupré. (Related story: Bishop may face abuse charges)
   The rebels of St. Michael's parish inspired the mother of a man who says Dupré raped him when he was 12 to speak out, leading to an investigation that could make Dupré the first bishop to face criminal charges for sexually abusing minors.
   This is a tale of a letter, of a moral action conducted by collection basket, of a victim willing to talk once he found a community willing to listen.
   For two years, the national spotlight has been on crowds in Boston protesting their disgraced archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Law, for protecting known abusive priests. "Boston" became shorthand for the crisis that engulfed the church.
   But 90 miles west, the 250,000 Catholics in this diocese also felt the corrosive effect of church leaders who failed, or refused, to see and to stop the abuse. A recent report by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice found 4% of U.S. priests abused 10,667 children and teens in the last half-century. That includes 30 priests accused of abusing 70 children and teens since 1950 in Springfield.
• Local Priests React to John Jay Study
   ARLINGTON (VA) Catholic Herald www.catholicherald.com/articles/04articles/jjay-react.htm , By Mary Frances McCarthy and Angela E. Pometto (From the issue of March/4/04)
   Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde sent a letter to pastors last week to be read at Masses announcing the release of the results of the John Jay Study, commissioned by the independent National Review Board established by the U.S. bishops in 2002 to shed light on the clergy sex abuse crisis. The nationwide study went back 50 years and brought to public eye the instances of sex abuse in the dioceses that complied with the investigation.
   Bishop Loverde released the local study results last month (ACH 2/19/04). The release of these results, which stated that nine priests have been accused since the formation of the diocese in 1974, fostered many reactions from local priests.
   Father Michael Dobbins, parochial vicar of St. Philip Parish in Falls Church, and Father Michael Duesterhaus, administrator of St. William of York Parish in Stafford, were both upset with the way the scandal was handled by people in leadership positions.
   "I can't understand the disconnect between what people feel and how the bishops handled it," Father Dobbins said. He explained that most people who hear about child sex abuse would know it was wrong and try to stop it. However, the national study now proves that some Church leaders allowed evil to perpetuate.
• One victim each is not likely
   NEW ORLEANS (LA) Best of New Orleans, "Uncommon Candor," www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/current/commentary.html
   Father Tom Stahel saw the shock waves coming. Stahel, a Jesuit priest and pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish, late last month prepared worshippers for the latest revelations in the sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church. He did so with a candor that has been all too uncommon since the crisis exploded in Boston two years ago.
   "[Feb. 27] will not be a happy day for the Catholic Church in the U.S. and I expect there will be a lot of media coverage," Stahel wrote in the weekly church bulletin, referring to the study released by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clerics. "First, resist the temptation to think that this is just media hype. Really bad things happened to a lot of children at the hands of priests, and there is no getting around that. ...
   Second, resist the temptation to think that the stories you see are just the ravings of a hostile press or merely an attempt to discredit the Church. ...
   Ask yourself these questions: When was the devil more at work ... when such abuse was going unchecked and was covered up? [O]r, when it was brought to light and rooted out no matter how sad or troubling the stories?"
   Those questions resonate following the release of the national two-part study on the Church molestation problem from 1950-2002. The first study, by the prestigious John Jay College of Criminal Justice, found 4,392 priests had been accused of abusing 10,667 minors.
   University of New Orleans criminologist Peter Scharf warns the first part should be read with "absolute caution." Among other concerns, he notes that the report states 56 percent of the priests were alleged to have abused one victim each-- a statistic that defies criminal behavioral research. "The typical pedophile has dozens of victims," Scharf says.
   In Part II, the National Review Board examines how the crisis occurred. The Catholic lay panel puts much of the blame on "some bishops and Church officials" who inadequately responded to victims and gave "unwarranted" benefits of the doubt to accused priests, while engaging in legalistic "adversarial defense tactics ... at the expense of concerns for victims of abuse."
• Lawyer to file suit against Dupre
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) Boston Globe www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/03/11/lawyer_to_file_suit_against_dupre , By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff, March/11/2004
   The lawyer representing two men who say the former Roman Catholic bishop of Springfield sexually abused them when they were boys said he will file suit against the bishop and seek to question under oath more than a dozen clerics, including Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley of Boston, about what they knew, and when they knew, of the allegations. Roderick MacLeish Jr., a lawyer with the Boston firm Greenberg Traurig, said the subpoena he intends to serve O'Malley today is "not meant to embarrass the archbishop in any way." The law firm represented hundreds of people who settled claims against the Boston Archdiocese last year in what was O'Malley's first major accomplishment after being brought in to address the clergy sexual abuse crisis that exploded in Boston.
   But MacLeish said he believes O'Malley and a group of other clerics, including outgoing Bishop Daniel P. Reilly of Worcester and up to a dozen priests in the Springfield diocese, have information that is relevant to the lawsuit against the diocese and Thomas L. Dupre, who stepped down last month as bishop of Springfield.
   "We want to establish what Bishop Dupre said to [O'Malley and other priests] and when he said it," said MacLeish, who represents the two men who say Dupre plied them with alcohol, showed them gay pornography, and initiated sex with them when one was 12 and the other was 14 or 15. The men say the abuse took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they were altar boys and Dupre was a parish priest in Western Massachusetts.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 05:55 AM
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Thursday, March 11, 2004
• Bishop Power says the US cases unveiled are part of a larger culture of abuse.
   AUSTRALIA: CathNews from Church Resources, Australia, "Bishop says it's time to face up to the big picture on abuse," http://www.cathnews.com/news/403/65.php , Mar 11, 2004
   Canberra Auxiliary Bishop Pat Power has commented on the John Jay Report on clergy sex abuse in the US, saying the Australian Church's focus on particular cases has obscured the larger context of the problem.
   He told ABC Radio National's Religion Report that it's important that the truth comes out, that these cases are part of a larger culture of abuse.
   "We've been fairly preoccupied with trying to meet the immediate needs of victims and trying to deal with the people that have been responsible for those crimes," he said. "The Americans probably have gone that step further in terms of having investigated the whole history of abuse... I am sure that the American study and the results that have come out of it, will be of concern to our Australian committee."
   The 140 page report, which was authorised by the US Catholic Bishops, was written by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and released on 27 February. It revealed a massive under-reporting of sexual abuse, suggesting 4400 priests, or 4% of those in the priesthood, abused 9700 minors between 1950 and 2002. The ABC Religion Report said the percentage of abusing clergy was previously understood to be around 1%.
   Bishop Power, who was described as a "spokesperson" for the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, made it clear that he is not a member of the Bishops' Professional Standards Committee and there could be "big picture" initiatives underway that he's not aware of.
   He suggested that any local study is likely to be beneficial as long as the end result helps those who have been hurt.
   "I'm sure that any study that can look into those sort of statistics will only be of help, and I suppose the prime concern would be to see that people who have already been hurt and offended against, that they be helped in the best possible way."
[Picture of Bishop Power]
SOURCE: John Jay Report on US Clerical Sexual Abuse (ABC Radio Religion Report 10/March/04) http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s1063064.htm
LINKS: John Jay releases national study of sex abuse by Catholic priests (John Jay) http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/info/calendar/pressRelease/
Text http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/churchstudy/
US Bishops' website http://www.usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/
Catholic Review Board http://www.catholicreviewboard.com/
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference: Towards Healing http://www.acbc.catholic.org.au/statements/sexual_abuse_th2001_1.htm
Catholic Church to establish office to evaluate abuse complaints (Catholic Communications NZ 10/March/04) http://www.cathcom.org.nz/media.php?subaction=showfull&id=1078882365&archive=&cnshow=news&start_from=
Churches share knowledge on addressing sexual abuse (Insights 10/March/04) http://nsw.uca.org.au/news/2004/churches-sexual-abuse_10-03-04.htm
Developments in abuse scandal include church suit against insurer (Catholic News Service 9/March/04) http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20040309.htm
HAVE YOUR SAY at http://members4.boardhost.com/cathtelecom/ 11 Mar 2004
##### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Friday, March 12, 2004 edition follows:-
• N.Y. Authorities Look Into Priest Attack
   SanLuisObispo.com ; www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/local/8174302.htm , By FRANK ELTMAN, Associated Press
   RIVERHEAD, N.Y. - A Roman Catholic priest who was scheduled to be arraigned Friday on charges he sodomized a 6-year-old boy was hospitalized after allegedly being attacked in jail.
   The Rev. Barry E. Ryan sought medical attention Friday and officials were investigating an "allegation" that another inmate may have assaulted him, said Chief Alan Otto, a spokesman for the Suffolk County sheriff. He did not say who made the allegation.
   Ryan, 56, signed a statement last week confessing to the sexual assault between May and October 2003 at a private home on Long Island, prosecutor Thomas Spota said. Ryan was jailed on $500,000 bond.
   He was scheduled to appear before a Suffolk County judge Friday to answer charges in an indictment filed this week by a grand jury.
   A spokeswoman for Central Suffolk Hospital could not immediately confirm that Ryan was a patient. Ryan also suffers from terminal cancer.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 10:15 PM
• Pilarczyk can't atone with secrecy
   DAYTON (OH) Dayton Daily News www.daytondailynews.com/opinion/content/opinion/daily/0312bishop.html , March 12, 2004
   SEVERAL TIMES WEDNESDAY NIGHT, ORGANIZERS of Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk's speech at the University of Dayton asked the audience to listen respectfully, then ask their questions civilly.
   The request was a pre-emptive appeal. The university knew there were sexual-abuse victims and their families in the crowd. The audience of several hundred more than obliged. People were memorably polite, almost reverential, even when they were expressing outrage or struggling to tell how they or their children had been abused and, in one case, raped.
   Many left disappointed, though, and probably more angry than when they came. Archbishop Pilarczyk read a defensive, overly rationalized account of what the bishops were thinking and doing when the scandal was building. He talked about how difficult their jobs are and insisted that, until recently, church law prevented him and others from putting the rights of children above the rights even of known sex-abusing priests. He apologized, but there was no appeal for forgiveness.
   And he wasn't prepared to explain why the church is taking so long to resolve cases against priests suspected of abuse or why the archdiocese is not willing to say where these suspected offenders are living now.
   In addition to refusing to give out that information, the diocese will not release the names of four priests who have resigned voluntarily and who have been accused of abuse. (Archbishop Pilarczyk defends that decision by saying those individuals are no longer under his authority.)
   And the archdiocese has a list of still seven other priests whom it has investigated for possible abuse. Because diocesan officials weren't able to substantiate the charges against the men in this group, those names, too, remain secret.
• Court rules against Seattle archdiocese
   SEATTLE (WA) KGW, www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D819096O0.html , Associated Press March/12/2004
   An attempt to dismiss a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle has failed, in a decision with possible statewide implications.
   The Seattle Archdiocese asked a King County Superior Court judge to throw out a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a 1988 change in state law. That change extended the statute of limitations for victims of childhood sex abuse, allowing them up to three years after the time they realize they were abused to file a lawsuit.
   On Thursday, Judge Paris Kallas ruled against the archdiocese's argument and declined to dismiss the case.
   The Spokane Diocese has filed a similar argument in court cases here.
   "This is a blow to the Spokane Diocese because their claims are directly controverted by existing case law in Washington," Tim Kosnoff, an attorney representing several victims in Spokane, told The Spokesman-Review newspaper. "For us, it's good news."
• Father Lee Resigns Following More Charges of Sexual Misconduct; Allegations Forwarded To The Vatican
   LYMAN (ME) Boothbay Register, http://boothbayregister.maine.com/2004-03-11/allegatons_forwarded.html, March 11, 2004
   Catholic Bishop Joseph J. Gerry announced on Saturday via letter that child abuse charges against Father Thomas Lee are credible enough to justify forwarding the matter to Rome for further investigation, and that Lee, who has been suspended since September from his duties at St. Philip's Church in Lyman where he currently serves, has submitted his resignation.
   Charges of misconduct by Father Lee while he was serving as priest at Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Boothbay Harbor between 1971 and 1985 were first investigated between May and November of 2002, but first came to the public's attention on August 24 of last year during Our Lady Queen of Peace's 75th anniversary, when a parishioner, the mother of an alleged victim, confronted Lee. The investigation seemed to go nowhere until Voice of the Faithful, a support group for families and victims who reported sexual abuse by priests, continued to press for further investigation and to encourage others who may have been subjected to inappropriate behavior to step forward.
   The group said this past week that several others have claimed similar experiences of inappropriate touching or sexual abuse while visiting with Father Lee at a summer cottage on Sebago Lake, and these charges have been forwarded to the Bishop. In a letter last week to Maine's new Bishop, Richard Malone, who will assume new duties later this month, Voice of the Faithful said it had "spoken with at least eight victims and continues to receive unsolicited phone calls from more victims."
• Celibacy formation a major part of seminary programs today
   Catholic News Service, www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/20040312.htm , By Jerry Filteau, Catholic News Service, March 12, 2004
   WASHINGTON (DC) (CNS) -- In recent years there has been significant improvement in celibacy formation throughout U.S. Catholic seminaries, said Franciscan Sister Katarina Schuth, one of the country's leading experts in seminary research.
   In telephone interviews with Catholic News Service, she and others said celibacy formation programs are more comprehensive and thoroughgoing today than in the past.
   One of the major recent influences on those programs was Pope John Paul II's 1992 document on priestly formation, "Pastores Dabo Vobis" ("I Will Give You Shepherds").
   The pope called for much more attention to the role of human formation, a factor integrating the intellectual, spiritual and pastoral formation that formed the core focus of seminary formation efforts before 1992. Human formation includes development of emotional, psychosexual and social maturity.
• Priest held on sodomy charge allegedly assaulted in jail
   RIVERSIDE (NY) Newsday, www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lipriest0312,0,4327940.story?coll=ny-topstories-headlines , The Associated Press March 12, 2004, 4:48 PM EST
   A terminally ill Catholic priest who was scheduled to be arraigned Friday on charges he sodomized a 6-year-old boy was hospitalized after allegedly being attacked in jail.
   "There is an allegation involving another inmate that may have assaulted" Barry E. Ryan, said Chief Alan Otto, a spokesman for Suffolk County Sheriff Alfred Tisch.
   He added that an internal affairs investigation is ongoing and confirmed that Ryan "did seek medical attention."
   Ryan, 56, a resident of Palm City, Fla., since 1997, signed a statement last week confessing to the sexual assault that occurred between May and October 2003 in a private home of acquaintances on Long Island, District Attorney Thomas Spota said. He was jailed on $500,000 bond.
   He was scheduled to appear before Suffolk County Court Judge Ralph Gazzillo on Friday morning to answer similar charges in an indictment filed this week by a grand jury. But Ryan was a no-show because he had been taken to Central Suffolk Hospital, a prosecutor said.
   A hospital spokeswoman could not immediately confirm that Ryan was a patient there and referred calls to the sheriff's department.
• Groups Wants S.A. Archdiocese To Release Priest Abuse List
   SAN ANTONIO (TX) KSAT, www.ksat.com/news/2917863/detail.html , POSTED: 9:48 am CST, March 12, 2004
   A group in San Antonio is pushing to make public a list of priests who are known to have sexually abused children while serving in the San Antonio Archdiocese.
   The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said some victims want to know who the 20 priests were who abused children over the past 50 years.
   "Some of these people just want to know if the priest is alive and still serving," said Barbara Garcia-Boehland, of SNAP. Garcia-Boehland said naming names will help victims heal.
   But Deacon Pat Rogers of the San Antonio Archdiocese disagrees.
   "We don't believe that a list of names will help people heal," Rogers said. "What possible good, what possible healing, will come from that list?"
   Rogers said none of the priests on the list are still serving in the archdiocese. He also said eight names have already been made public for one reason or another, six priests have died, four are out of the country and two are in their 70s.
   Rogers added that Carlos Lozano, who was accused of sexually abusing Garcia-Boehland's son, is on the list. The KSAT 12 Defenders caught up with Lozano working at a Wal-Mart in Kingsville recently.
   But the Rev. Alfredo Prado, a notorious Oblate priest who is in exile in Costa Rica, is not on the list.
• No let-up in sex-abuse scandal
   UNITED STATES World Magazine, www.worldmag.com/world/issue/03-20-04/national_6.asp , By Edward E. Plowman
   The clergy sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church refuses to go away. This month the district attorney in Springfield, Mass., announced he will go before a grand jury with accusations that recently retired Bishop Thomas Dupre, 70, abused two altar boys when he was a parish priest, beginning in the 1970s and continuing into the 1990s. Bishop Dupre resigned last month, citing health reasons. His resignation came a day after a Springfield newspaper confronted him with charges concerning the two boys. Refraining from public comment, he checked himself into a church-run psychiatric hospital in Maryland. He is the fourth bishop to resign over sex-abuse allegations in the past two years.
   In Albany, N.Y., Bishop Howard Hubbard, 65, is fighting charges that he was involved in two homosexual relationships, one of which led to a man's suicide 30 years ago. He also was accused of sheltering gay priests from abuse charges. In a PR campaign, he denied ever having sexual relations with anyone and claimed conservatives in the church were out to get him and discredit the hierarchy. He announced he had persuaded the diocesan council to hire a former federal prosecutor to investigate the charges independently.
   The story deepened last month when priest John Minkler was found dead in his home near Albany. He had met with Bishop Hubbard two days earlier to deny involvement in writing and sending a 1996 letter to the New York Archdiocese that claimed the bishop was part of a "ring of homosexual Albany priests." The cause of Rev. Minkler's death remains under investigation.
• Consultors to elect diocesan administrator Monday
   WORCESTER (MA) The Catholic Free Press, http://catholicfreepress.org/Administrator.html , By Tanya Connor, March 12 , 2004
   The diocesan College of Consultors is to meet at 11 a.m. Monday at the Chancery to elect a diocesan administrator, according to Msgr. F. Stephen Pedone, judicial vicar/vicar for canonical affairs.
   The diocesan administrator’s job is to keep the diocese running in the interim between Bishop Reilly’s retirement, effective last Tuesday, and the installation of his successor, Bishop Robert J. McManus, May 14, Msgr. Pedone said.
   "Right now, technically, there’s no bishop of Worcester until the new bishop assumes office," he said. ...
   The diocesan administrator is to maintain the status quo and not make innovations, Msgr. Pedone said. He said the man could not perform any functions restricted to the bishop of the diocese. He could remove clergy accused of sexual abuse, but could not close or merge parishes, he said. He could appoint parish administrators, but not pastors.
• Assembly passes bill requiring clergy to report sex abuse
   MADISON (WI) GMtoday ; www.gmtoday.com/news/politics/state/topstory117.asp , March 12, 2004
   Wisconsin clergy would be required to tell authorities if they suspect a child has been sexually abused, under legislation the Assembly approved in the wake of the Catholic Church’s clergy abuse scandal of recent years.
   The Assembly voted 99-0 Thursday to approve the bill that features stronger reporting requirements for the clergy than were passed by the Senate.
   The amended version must be approved by the Senate before the bill can be sent to Gov. Jim Doyle, who has promised to sign whatever bill lawmakers approve. The Senate was scheduled to take up the matter Friday.
   "This is a big first step in protecting our children and our families," said Rep. Peggy Krusick, D-Milwaukee, who helped craft the measure.
• Diocesan staffers react to new bishop appointment with hope, happiness
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) iobserve ; www.iobserve.org/rn0309c.html , By Peggy Weber, Observer staff
   SPRINGFIELD - Reaction to the appointment of Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell as the Eighth Bishop of Springfield was positive, bordering on jubilant, following a meeting with diocesan staff on March 9.
   Sister of St. Joseph Paula Robillard, director of religious education for the Diocese of Springfield, said she was "delighted that the first words out of his mouth involved catechesis."
   "He is someone who has worked in the parish and can only help to build up the Body of Christ," she said.
   The words thrilled, happy and delighted were used many times by people who met the new bishop for the first time at a 10 a.m. meeting at the Bishop Marshall Center, adjacent to St. Michael’s Cathedral in downtown Springfield.
   "We’re thrilled and looking forward to working with him on so many important projects in and around the diocese, especially the Annual Appeal," said Virginia Webb, diocesan Director of Stewardship and Development.
• Dupre named in civil lawsuit
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) Republican, http://masslive.com/news/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1079082904187260.xml , By BILL ZAJAC, wzajac@repub.com , March/12/2004
   Two local priests, Worcester's bishop and the archbishop of Boston are expected to be subpoenaed in connection with a civil suit filed yesterday by two men who have accused the recently resigned bishop of Springfield of sexual abuse.
   In a move a Boston Archdiocesan official described as "grandstanding," lawyers for the men are attempting to prove that the allegations against Dupre were no secret to influential church leaders and parish priests.
   Meanwhile, as expected, the alleged victims' lawyers yesterday filed a civil suit that names the Most Rev. Thomas L. Dupre, the former bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, as the only defendant. The suit was filed in Hampden Superior Court.
   The 10-page document identifies by name the alleged victims, but their lawyers requested the media not identify them publicly. Although it doesn't specify monetary damages that could be awarded, they are seeking at least $200,000 for therapy.
• Court will weigh privacy rights
   MAINE Portland Press Herald, www.pressherald.com/news/state/040312priestnames.shtml , By GREGORY D. KESICH, Portland Press Herald Writer, March 12, 2004
   Maine's highest court will confront three different views of privacy rights when it considers whether to release the names of deceased Roman Catholic clergy accused of child sexual abuse as well as the identities of their alleged victims.
   Lawyers for the Blethen Maine Newspapers, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, and two victims' advocacy groups have entered briefs arguing different viewpoints of what the Supreme Judicial Court should release.
   At issue is a lower court ruling that ordered the attorney general to make public the files of sexual abuse allegations against clergy members who are now dead, including the names of the victims and witnesses who reported them.
   In its brief, Blethen, the parent company of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, has asked the high court to uphold the ruling. Bishop Joseph Gerry's brief asks that the records be kept secret and, if any are released, that all names and identifying information be suppressed.
• Both sides wrong on church abuse
   UNITED STATES: Chicago Tribune, www.suntimes.com/output/greeley/cst-edt-greel12.html , BY ANDREW GREELEY [well-known priest, author], March 12, 2004
   The Catholic left would have us believe that the most serious problem the church faces is clerical celibacy. If the church would only ordain married men, the vocation crisis would disappear, the quality of preaching would improve, there would be no more sexual abuse, bishops would have to change their style of leadership because the wives of priests would not tolerate their present behavior. Priests seem especially likely to see the abolition of celibacy as the solution to all problems and are furious if someone suggests it is not all that simple.
   The Catholic right, on the other hand, wants to blame everything on homosexuals. The sexual abuse crisis resulted from the ordination of large numbers of homosexuals from the easy-going seminaries after the Vatican Council. Homosexuals ran and may still run seminaries. Homosexuals do not preach the traditional Catholic sexual ethic. They are the ones who are demoralizing the church.
   Two major reports were issued last week: the report on prevalence and incidence of sexual abuse, written by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the report on the causes and contexts of sexual abuse, written by the lay National Review Board. Representatives of both factions then scurried around looking for sound bites and data bits that would confirm what they already knew to be true.
   In fact, there was precious little evidence to support either side. If 96 percent of priests were not abusers, then celibacy would hardly seem to be the cause of sexual abuse. Although 81 percent of abusers were homosexuals, it does not follow that all gay men or all gay priests are abusers. In fact, my own research (reported in Priests: A Calling in Crisis, published recently by the University of Chicago Press) shows that some 16 percent of priests are gay and three-fifths of them have lived celibate lives (as opposed to four-fifths of heterosexual priests). Mature gay men seek sexual partners among other mature gay men. Immature gays go after junior high school boys. Blaming homosexuals for the sex abuse crisis is part of a larger syndrome in which a certain proportion of American society (and of American Catholics) display their deep-seated hatred for gay men and women. Shame on them for not realizing that God loves them as much as He loves everyone else! Scapegoating gays for the problems of the church (and society) is a sickness not unlike racism and anti-Semitism and anti-Catholic Nativism, and appeals to the same kind of twisted personalities as these other prejudices.
   Most of the abusers, incidentally, were ordained from seminaries either preceding the Vatican Council or immediately after, before the seminaries began to change. They were among the huge number of young men who flocked to the seminaries during the days of huge classes during the 1950s and early 1960s.
   What, then, is to be blamed for the abuse crisis if not celibacy or homosexuality? The reflections of the National Review Board, presided over by Justice Anne M. Burke of the Illinois Appellate Court, leave little doubt about where blame should be placed. The guilty people are the bishops -- insensitive, cowardly, ignorant, clericalist -- who reassigned such priests. Equally guilty are their staffs -- vicars general, vicars for the clergy, civil and canon lawyers, psychiatrists, chiefs of Catholic mental institutions.
   These star-chamber cabals of people gave bishops (and indirectly other priests) the advice they wanted to hear and not the advice they needed to hear. There is, as the National Review Board says, ''zero tolerance'' for abusing priests but no ''zero tolerance'' for reassigning bishops. I am happy to say that in the two dioceses in which I work -- Chicago and Tucson -- the present bishops are not to blame for the mess.
   The rest of American Catholics will have to pick up the tab, one way or another, for the episcopal incompetence and malfeasance in office. It is not fair; it is not right. In the Catholic Church, as it is now constituted, that's simply the way it is.
   Just as at one time we could not replace abusing priests, so now we cannot replace the bishops who created the abuse crisis. That's simply the way it is. [END]
• Two men sue Springfield ex-bishop in molest case
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) Boston Herald, http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=2609 , By Eric Convey, Friday, March 12, 2004
   Two men who say they were sexually molested by the now-retired bishop of Springfield filed a civil suit against him yesterday.
   They charge that Bishop Thomas Dupre molested them in various ways beginning around 1975 and continuing into the 1980s. The allegations were identical to those previewed by the pair in a statement issued last month through their lawyer.
   Among their charges is that Dupre plied them with alcohol and gay pornography.
   The plaintiffs want financial compensation. The Herald is withholding their names because they are alleged victims of sex crimes.
   Dupre's criminal defense lawyer, Michael Jennings, said the suit "comes as no surprise" given the previous public allegations by the men.
   "We're into our own investigation," he said.
   Jennings said it is upon his advice that Dupre has yet to respond to the accusations.
• Worcester Diocese, Rueger added to suit
   WORCESTER (MA) Telegram & Gazette, www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040312/NEWS/403120416/1025/NEWSLETTERS08 , by Gary V. Murray, gmurray@telegram.com , March 12, 2004 The Diocese of Worcester and Auxiliary Bishop George E. Rueger have been named as defendants in a civil lawsuit filed in Texas by two men who allege they were sexually abused as teenagers by the Rev. Thomas H. Teczar after the Catholic priest relocated from Worcester to the Fort Worth area in 1988.
   The plaintiffs, identified in court documents as John Doe I and John Doe II, added the Worcester diocese and Bishop Rueger as defendants in the case in December. Previously named defendants were Rev. Teczar, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth and Bishop Joseph P. Delaney. The amended suit, which is pending in Tarrant County District Court, includes claims for conspiracy to commit sexual assault, breach of confidential relationship, assault by offensive physical contact, intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraudulent concealment and negligence.
   Diocesan officials and Bishop Rueger, who is being sued individually, denied all of the allegations against them in an answer to the amended suit that was filed in court last month.
   Rev. Teczar, who now lives in Dudley, was ordained in the Worcester diocese in 1967 and was placed on leave by Bishop Timothy J. Harrington in 1986. He remains a priest, but is no longer allowed to exercise his priestly functions.
   Tahira Khan Merritt, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the civil suit, has said that Bishop Delaney took Rev. Teczar into the Fort Worth diocese in 1988 despite warnings by Worcester diocesan officials of a potential liability.
   The suit alleges that as far back as his days as a seminary student, Rev. Teczar "exhibited well documented sexual proclivities towards adolescent boys which made him unsuitable to serve as a minister" and that his "troubled," 20-year career in the Worcester diocese was "marked by complaints against him for sexual misconduct," transfers and treatment.
• Archbishop denies knowledge of charges
   BOSTON (MA) Boston Globe, www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/072/metro/Archbishop_denies_knowledge_of_charges+.shtml , March/12/2004
   Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley last night denied knowing that a Massachusetts bishop was accused of molesting children until the day before the Vatican accepted the bishop's resignation.
   In a statement issued at 7 p.m., O'Malley's spokesman, the Rev. Christopher J. Coyne, said O'Malley had learned on Feb. 10 that Bishop Thomas L. Dupre of Springfield was accused of abusing two boys. The Vatican accepted Dupre's resignation Feb. 11. Coyne also said O'Malley did not know until Feb. 11 that Dupre offered to resign last November.
   "Archbishop O'Malley has never spoken to Bishop Dupre about his reasons for retiring or the allegations being made against him," Coyne said.
   Whether O'Malley knew about Dupre's alleged misconduct has become an issue because the two launched a campaign against gay marriage after Dupre allegedlly knew he faced abuse allegations, and because O'Malley serves as the regional metropolitan, or senior bishop. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 agreed that "in cases of an allegation of sexual abuse of minors by bishops, we will apply the requirements of the Charter (for the protection of children and young people) also to ourselves, respecting always Church law as it applies to bishops. In such cases, the Metropolitan will be informed when an allegation has been made against a bishop."
• O'Brien's history to be discussed at pre-sentencing.
   PHOENIX (AZ): The Arizona Republic, www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0312obrien-hearing.html , by Joseph A. Reaves, Mar. 12, 2004
   Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien returns to court today for the first time as a convicted felon knowing he will have to listen to a parade of witnesses talk about the role he played in covering up sexual abuse and trying to avoid responsibility for other actions in his past.
   At least six witnesses will be called by the prosecution in an attempt to persuade Judge Stephen A. Gerst of Maricopa County Superior Court to impose a stiff sentence on O'Brien, who was found guilty Feb. 17 of fleeing the scene of a fatal car-pedestrian accident last summer.
   O'Brien's attorneys will present their own witnesses and testimonials to argue for a lighter sentence.
   The bishop, who resigned as head of the Phoenix Diocese after his arrest, can be sentenced anywhere from probation to 45 months in prison.
   County Attorney Rick Romley refused Thursday to discuss the pre-sentencing hearing or what penalties his deputies would ask the judge to impose. But a records examination by The Arizona Republic indicates prosecutors most often request defendants in similar cases be sentenced to at least six months in county jail along with a fine and community service.
• Bill to require clergy to report all abuse.
   MADISON (WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/mar04/214111.asp , By STEVEN WALTERS and PATRICK MARLEY swalters@journalsentinel.com Posted: March 12, 2004
   Madison - The state Assembly on Thursday rewrote a Senate-passed bill in a way that would require clergy members to report all suspected sex abuse of children they see, just like health care workers and teachers.
   On a voice vote, the Assembly overturned a state Senate decision to have clergy members report only suspected sexual abuse involving other clergy members - a change that had narrowed the original bill written to help child victims of abuse and stop future abuse. The bill gained momentum with the disclosure of sex abuse of children by Catholic priests, sponsors said.
   The Assembly vote returned the controversial bill to the Senate, where its future was uncertain. To become law, the Senate would have to approve the Assembly changes in the final hours of the legislative session, which could extend into next week.
   "The passage of time does not make a child abuser any less guilty," said Rep. Peggy Krusick (D-Milwaukee), who has been working on the issue for 10 years.
   Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle wants current law strengthened, aide Dan Leistikow said.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw kashaw@peoplepc.com at 02:25 AM
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Friday, March 12, 2004
• Earnest child writes about doing good on back of sheet recording clergyman confessing badness.
   The West Australian, Perth, "Irony in the soul," in "Inside Cover" column with Pam Casellas, p 2, Friday March 12 2004
   WESTERN AUSTRALIA:
   Picture this: an earnest child, a student at a local Catholic school, was asked to write what she'd do if she was God for the day.
   She'd ensure that all the children of the world had enough food and water, she wrote, because that's what God would like too.
   "I would do all the right things because that's what God does," she added.
   She read her words to her father, standing before him, rather like one of the disciples.
   On the back of the sheet of recycled paper she'd used, a media monitoring report, her father could read the headline:
   "Priest pleads guilty to abusing children" [What followed was a phtocopy of that headline and the news item about the Western Australian country priest Adrian Van Klooster's guilty plea.]
• 6700 victims substantiated says partial survey, but apologist in Perth is quoting rebel bishop of Lincoln..
   The Record, Perth, Western Australia Roman Catholic newspaper, "Presenting the truth? Perth ethicist Fr Walter Black, MSC, a former convener of the Church committee charged with investigating allegations of child abuse by clergy in WA, says the John Jay report released in the US in late February is seriously flawed." By Fr Walter Black, p 11, March 12, 2004
   PERTH:
   The extensive cover given in The Record on March 04, 1004 under the heading "Presenting the truth" must not be allowed to pass without comment. The John Jay Study ... is so seriously flawed that many US dioceses refused to participate ... Bishop of Lincoln ... Origins, February 05, 2004, pg 588 ... reasons [...]
   2. Serious sins against the Eighth Commandment are likely to be part of the result of the study: detraction, calumny, slander, contumely, etc. [9th Commandment to non-RC Christians.] [...]
   Along with former Bishop Robert Healy, I was convener for many years for the Committee for Professional Standards acting on behalf of the Dioceses of Western Australia investigating all allegations of child sexual abuse.
   The lurid comments in the secular press looking for every opportunity to attack the Catholic Church ignored the fact that the sum total of diocesan priests in the Archdiocese of Perth across the last 50 years who have been found guilty of child sexual abuse amounts to two, besides two deceased priests accused. [...]
   ... of the allegations made in Western Australia, one in six turned out to be false allegations.
   The false allegations were made out of a desire to obtain what they thought was easy money thinking that the allegation would not be investigated or taken to court, but settled out of court to obtain silence. . . .
   ... the national committee ... reported ... this incidence of false allegations was ... widespread in all other dioceses of Australia ... psychiatrist Professor Ball of St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne ... one in six mirrored exactly the findings of world-wide research into allegations of child sexual abuse.
   ... easy money, vendetta against a particular priest, or the wish to find some explanation or culprit for their child's tantrums and misbehaviour. [...]
   In no way to I intend to write off the many valuable points made in the John Jay Study, or the value of its recommendations for the formation of future clergy. ...
   [COMMENT: The customary attack on the mass media is in the 15th paragraph. Do you detect a persecution complex there? Note the careful slide from WA dioceses (plural) to the "Archdiocese of Perth," and the choice of the words "diocesan priests." The latter words were used presumably to "con" unaware RCs into overlooking the convictions and accusations of religious order clergy and brothers, and the gossip about religious order members' attempted misbehaviour in relation to girls' boarding schools.
   Notice that the number was two "found guilty," and then two accused are mentioned. Isn't the priest who displayed himself to passing school-age girls in "cool g-strings" and was convicted in a court guilty of a form of child sex abuse? He was transferred to another parish.
   How on earth could the John Jay Study have anything to tell the RC Church about priests' formation? COMMENT ENDS.]
Article: March 12, 2004
• American priest thinks it's ended, the media over-reported, the lawyers get too much money, the definitions are too elastic, repentance and transformation..
   The Record, Perth, Western Australia Roman Catholic newspaper, "For once, media bias may have unwittingly helped," by Chris Lindsay, of The Catholic Weekly, p 11, March 12, 2004
   AUSTRALIA:
   Sexual abuse by Catholic priests and religious in the US had been disproportionately reported by the media, and had largely ceased decades ago, an American priest told clergy in Sydney. [...]
   Fr Hughes quoted a veteran Catholic journalist who wrote: "The media have ignored the most important story of all. Clergy sexual abuse has virtually disappeared. Over the past decade, clergy sexual abuse has been almost completely eradicated from the Roman Catholic Church and from most other major denominations."
   [COMMENT: He starts with a sin against the 8th/9th Commandment. And then he puts the mass media's supposed "disproportionate" reporting down as part of what old-fashioned Christians and others used to call "Providence". And then he saves his honesty by writing: "Without this media-generated publicity, the bishops would in all probability have continued to sweep things under the rug." This is a true saying!
   He says the abuse has virtually disappeared. Not if the daily Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker reports coming from the USA are any guide! Certain clergymen have ventured into Cyberspace to groom juveniles for sex, and are being caught in police internet "stings".
   Fr Hughes then criticises the "norms" (good academic word that) for being "elastic." For goodness' sake, a clergyman whether he has taken celibacy vows or not is NOT to touch, induce, play with, or even skirt around or towards corrupting ANY PERSON, whether child, teenager, or adult. Can't clericalism see that, yet? "You must therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." Look it up. COMMENT ENDS.]
Article: March 12, 2004
• Man-made celibacy rules mean that Fathers' can't combine ministry with fatherhood.
   The Record, Western Australia Catholic newspaper, "Fathers' first priority is their children: Bishop; Philippine prelate explains opposition to priests who father children." p 13, March 12, 2004
   PHILIPPINES: A new book presents an archbishop's argument to separate from active ministry priests who father children after ordination.
   "CBCP Guidelines Circular 2003-20: A Critique," written by Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Lingayen-Dagupan, was published in January, several months after "Pastoral Guidelines on Sexual Abuse and Misconduct by the Clergy" went into effect on an experimental basis in the Philippine church, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand.
   Archbishop Cruz, a canon lawyer, heads the national matrimonial tribunal and is a former president of the Philippine bishops' conference.   . . . "local, disturbing and disedifying clerical phenomenon" that "progressively became even more extensive in a good number" of church jurisdictions within the country in recent decades.
   Biological fatherhood and priestly ministry ... are "irreconcilable," and the combination violates commandments on adultery and bearing false witness against one's neighbour, as well as canon, natural and civil laws. [...]
   In 2003, Archbishop Guadencio Rosales of Manila, chairman of the bishops' clergy commission, told UCA News that the dismissal of priests had been a contentious issue at the bishops' July 2003 assembly.  . . .
   ... most bishops at that meeting "took the possibility of rehabilitation" of priests and "considered their responsibility" as bishops in healing the offender, victims and the community.  . . .
   ... one-child-per-cleric principle ... fitness for celibacy.
   [COMMENT: Fatherhood, he says, can't be reconciled with ministry! Tell that to the millions and millions of Orthodox, Catholic Eastern Rite, Protestant, and other Christians! Tell it to the Apostles! How complicated it all gets trying to work through the ingrafted man-made celibacy rules, breaking Commandments in the pretence these rules are from Heaven! COMMENT ENDS.]
##### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Saturday, March 13, 2004 edition follows:-
• Priests in St. Cloud Diocese join call for dialogue on celibacy rule
   iobserve ; www.iobserve.org/nn0312a.html , By Joseph Young, Catholic News Service, March 12, 2004
   ST. CLOUD, Minn. (CNS) -- Thirty-seven priests in the St. Cloud Diocese have signed letters to the president of the U.S. bishops' conference calling for dialogue on the issue of mandatory celibacy.
   The letters were sent in early March to Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Each priest signed a copy of the same letter and all were sent along with a cover letter.
   Their action resulted from a survey mailed to priests in mid-February by Father Robert Kieffer, pastor of Our Lady of Victory Parish in Fergus Falls, and Father Ronald Weyrens, pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Waite Park.
   "We join our voices to those of other dioceses to urge the bishops of the United States to talk with priests on the issue of mandatory/optional celibacy for diocesan priests of the Roman rite," they said in a cover letter that listed the priest-signers.
   "We ask the bishops to create a format for discussion in which any priest who wants to may be heard on the issue," they said.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 04:37 PM
• Parishioners Protest Sex Abuse Awareness Training
   COLUMBUS (OH) WCPO, www.wcpo.com/news/2004/local/03/13/churchabuse.html , Reported by: AP News Web produced by: Neil Relyea Photographed by: 9News 1:37:58 PM, March/13/04
   Columbus area parishioners are protesting a sex abuse awareness training program offered by their diocese. Some parishioners who coach sports or run school pizza fund-raisers say they will stop volunteering if the Columbus diocese forces them to attend the training sessions.
   This fall the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus began mandatory one-day sessions for clergy, lay volunteers and employees of parishes and schools.
   The program called "Protecting God's Children" aims to make them aware of the scope of sex abuse and how to help prevent it, according to the diocese.
   Guidelines adopted in 2002 by U.S. bishops calls for the training as a response to the church's abuse scandal.
   The classes have angered some parishioners who say they weren't consulted about the training and that the scandal involves clergy, not laypersons.
   "I tell people this isn't about protecting God's children -- it's about protecting church assets," said Jay Ryan, a member of St. Michael Church in suburban Worthington and a longtime coach.
• Mission novice faces porn charge [2004, computer]
   NORTHBROOK (IL) Chicago Tribune, www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0403130106mar13,1,6971823.story , Published March 13, 2004
   A student at the Society of the Divine Word, a Catholic missionary organization in Techny, was charged Friday with having 300 images of child pornography on his computer and posting 30 of them on the Internet, prosecutors said.
   Kevin Phan, 30, of the 1900 block of Waukegan Road, Techny, is accused of posting images on a Web site that someone reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va. That group traced the images and found they had been posted from a computer in Epworth, Iowa, where Phan had attended Divine Word College.
• Abuse victim: Bishop O'Brien told him to keep quiet, get on with his life
   PHOENIX (AZ) Tucson Citizen, www.tucsoncitizen.com/breaking/031204_obrien_testimony.html , The Associated Press, March 12, 2004
   Catholic Bishop Thomas O'Brien told a man who said he was abused by a priest in the late 1980s to keep silent and move on with his life, the man testified Friday.
   A Maricopa County judge was hearing testimony on Friday to help determine a sentence for O'Brien, who was convicted last month of leaving the scene of a fatal hit-and-run accident that killed a pedestrian.
   O'Brien, believed to be the first Roman Catholic bishop in U.S. history to be convicted of a felony, could receive anything from probation to three years and nine months in prison when he is sentenced March 26.
   Prosecutors declined to say what kind of sentence they would seek.
   Testimony about O'Brien's alleged role in helping cover up abuse by priests in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, which he oversaw until shortly after his arrest, was barred during the hit-and-run trial but is allowed during the sentencing phase.
   Victor DiGiovine testified Friday that he was told to move on with his life after talking about his abuse.
   "Shortly after the abuse, I agreed to a meeting with O'Brien and the priest who abused me. I was asked to forgive the man who had hurt me," he said.
• What Should the Bishop's Sentence Be?
   KPHO, www.kpho.com/Global/story.asp?S=1708478&nav=23KuLV4R
   PHOENIX (AZ) (AP) -- A woman asked a judge Friday to impose the maximum sentence on Catholic Bishop Thomas O'Brien, who was convicted in the hit-and-run accident that killed her son. "I try very hard to keep moving forward. But I am all alone now," Jim Reed's mother, Lillie, told Superior Court Judge Stephen Gerst through an interpreter. She sobbed as she spoke.
   Other family members burst into tears when Reed's sister showed a photo presentation of family gatherings.
   Flora Mendoza, who had two sons with Reed, read a letter one of the boys wrote in school in which he recalled his father's cowboy hat and said he missed him. "I hope you make your decision wisely and think about the family and the kids," Mendoza told Gerst.
   The judge heard the testimony during Friday's presentencing hearing to help determine a sentence for O'Brien, who was convicted Feb. 17 of leaving the scene after he struck Reed with his car. O'Brien, believed to be the first Roman Catholic bishop in U.S. history to be convicted of a felony, could receive anything from probation to three years and nine months in prison when he is sentenced March 26. Prosecutors declined to say what kind of sentence they would seek.
• Allegations against investigators
   ALBANY (NY) Capital News 9, www.capitalnews9.com/content/headlines/?ArID=63712&SecID=33 , By: Capital News 9 web staff, 6:47 PM, March/12/2004
   More allegations in the Capital Region clergy sex abuse claims.
   This time they are directed toward investigators. Attorney John Aretakis said they are acting inappropriately.
   Mary Jo White is the independent investigator hired by the Albany Diocese to examine claims Bishop Howard Hubbard had homosexual relationships in the 1970s.
   White said she will also look into the death of Father John Minkler, who was found dead at his home in Watervliet in February. Minkler had served as a chaplain for the VA Hospital in Albany.
   Aretakis claimed investigators interviewed witnesses at inappropriate locations, such as Minkler's office in the VA Hospital, which is federal property. Aretakis also said White's investigative team won't allow him to be present when they question his clients.
   Mary Jo White's office said one of its investigators did do an interview last week at the VA and the investigator was not aware of a requirement to seek prior permission. An apology was issued to the hospital administrators.
• VA gave no OK to probe meeting
   ALBANY (NY) Albany Times Union, www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=228196&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=March/13/2004 , By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Saturday, March 13, 2004
   Investigators working with former federal prosecutor Mary Jo White's probe into allegations of sexual misconduct against Bishop Howard Hubbard did not have permission to conduct interviews at the Stratton Veterans Affairs Medical Center on March 2, a VA spokeswoman said Friday.
   "It was inappropriate for the investigators to come to the medical center without obtaining prior permission from VA officials," spokeswoman Linda Blumenstock said. "We regret the interview took place without the knowledge of the VA."
   Investigator Frank Citera met at the hospital with a 78-year-old woman who was a friend of the Rev. John Minkler. The VA chaplain died at his Watervliet home last month after he was linked to a letter accusing the bishop of homosexual conduct and theological transgressions.
   The impropriety at the VA was brought to White's attention by the elderly woman's attorney. In a March 3 letter to White, John Aretakis said his client was "bullied" by the investigator and by the Rev. Charles SanFratello, a VA chaplain who arranged for the session in what had been Minkler's office. Aretakis also said he was wrongly prevented from being present while the woman was questioned. While he welcomed the VA's determination that the private inquiry had improperly used federal property, he said the VA hospital should have pursued White's possible violations of federal laws.
• Bishop may get extended
   Telegram & Gazette, http://telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040313/NEWS/403130372/1025 , by Lyndal Gawen, lgawen@telegram.com , March 13, 2004
   WORCESTER (MA): It is likely Bishop Daniel P. Reilly will be elected on Monday to run the diocese until Bishop Robert J. McManus is installed as his successor, Bishop George E. Rueger said yesterday.
   The 12 members of the Worcester Diocesan College of Consultors will meet at 11 a.m. Monday at the Elm Street Chancery to elect a diocesan administrator.
   According to Bishop Rueger, when Bishop Reilly took over from Bishop Timothy J. Harrington in 1994, Bishop Harrington was elected as the interim diocesan administrator.
   "The same thing is likely to happen this time," he said.
   Bishop Reilly officially resigned as Bishop of the Diocese of Worcester on Tuesday when Pope John Paul II accepted his resignation and named Bishop McManus of Providence the diocese's fifth bishop.
   Bishop McManus will be installed as the new bishop on May 14, and the diocese's College of Consultors have until Wednesday to convene to elect an interim administrator. Until Monday's election, Bishop Rueger will be attending to the administration of the diocese.
   Judicial Vicar Monsignor F. Stephen Pedone, who will oversee the canon law during the election, said it "usually happens that the retiring bishop is elected" as the interim administrator.
• Lawsuit alleges church pressure canceled rally
   SIOUX CITY (IA) Des Moines Register, http://desmoinesregister.com/life/stories/c5351764/23791688.html , By SHIRLEY RAGSDALE, Register Religion Editor, March/13/2004
   A Sioux City man has gone to court seeking an injunction against the Sanford Center and its executive director for allegedly bowing to pressure from the Catholic Church and canceling the rental contract for a March 20 rally at the auditorium for victims of child sexual abuse by priests.
   James L. Goff of Sioux City, with his sister, Aletha Goff, sued the Sioux City Catholic Diocese in August, claiming they were sexually abused by the Rev. George McFadden. James Goff said the cancellation is retaliation.
   "It's in connection to (the abuse) lawsuit," Goff said, declining to comment further.
   The rally was sponsored by a fledgling chapter of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a victim's advocate organization and a vocal critic of the Catholic Church's handling of the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the denomination.
• Abuse plaintiffs ask for files
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) Republican, http://masslive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1079173057325330.xml?nnae , By STEPHANIE BARRY sbarry@repub.com March/13/2004
   Lawyers for both sides in 30 clergy sexual abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield continued to wrangle yesterday over reams of documents so far protected by attorney-client privilege and other confidentiality laws.
   Greenfield lawyer John J. Stobierski, who represents the majority of the alleged abuse victims, argued that the possibility of a criminal cover-up among diocesan leaders may trump protections afforded lawyers and their clients.
   Lawyers representing the diocese contended the local church never concealed abuse, and that more than 5,000 pages of records related to complaints in the early 1990s against defrocked priest Richard Lavigne should remain protected.
   About half the pending suits accuse Lavigne, while the rest accuse other priests. Many include allegations of molestation against the plaintiffs when they were altar boys.
   Lawyer John J. Egan, who has represented the Springfield Diocese for decades, sharply rebuked Stobierski yesterday during a motion hearing in Hampden Superior Court for repeatedly implying that Egan's law firm is withholding records from plaintiffs.
• Report suggests 10%
   UNITED STATES WorldNetDaily, http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37567 , Posted 1:00 a.m. Eastern, March 13, 2004
   Millions of children might be victims of sexual misconduct by teachers or other public school employees, according to a draft report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education.
   Despite the lack of sufficient data, the scope of the problem appears to far exceed the priest-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, according to the report's author, Charol Shakeshaft, professor of educational administration at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.
   The report, required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, concludes the issue "is woefully understudied," reports Education Week.
   Nearly 10 percent of students have been targeted with unwanted sexual attention by school employees, the best available data indicates, according to Shakeshaft.
   The mistreatment ranges from sexual comments to rape, says the report, titled "Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature."
   "So we think the Catholic Church has a problem?" Shakeshaft asked, according to Education Week.
• Methodist Minister in court on abuse charges Wed.
   NORTH CAROLINA The Charlotte Observer, "Minister in court on abuse charges Wed.," www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/8176471.htm?1c , By KYTJA WEIR
   A former Lincoln County minister faces his first court date Wednesday after being arrested on charges of sexually abusing a female relative in another county more than 20 years ago.
   News of the allegations, which surfaced eight months ago, has left his church reeling.
   "They just don't believe it from their relationships with him," said Hubert Clinard, a pastor who came out of retirement to serve as interim pastor at Webbs Chapel United Methodist Church in Denver, N.C. "They just don't believe that those charges were true."
   Church members knew Ted Eugene Hendrix, 65, as the dedicated pastor who used an oxygen tank for breathing problems, he said.
   Hendrix had served as pastor of the 220-member church since 1992 until he surrendered his credentials in August, the interim pastor said, a month after the allegations were made.
   After an eight-month investigation, Hendrix turned himself in to Yadkinville police on March 3. He was charged with second-degree rape, second-degree sexual offense and committing crimes against nature, among other charges, said Yadkinville Police Detective Dawn Pardue. He was released in lieu of $75,000 bond, she said.
• Ariz. Ex-Bishop Accused of Protecting Molesters
   Reuters, www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=4560026§ion=news , By David Schwartz
   PHOENIX, Ariz. (Reuters) - The former longtime head of the Roman Catholic church in Phoenix, convicted of leaving the scene of a fatal accident, was accused by witnesses on Friday of protecting priests accused of child sexual misconduct, as a judge weighed his sentence in the hit and run case.
   Testimony about the role of retired Bishop Thomas O'Brien in protecting accused pedophile priests came as prosecutors, who called 10 witness to introduce material not allowed during the trial, sought to paint him as a person with a history of covering up serious crimes.
   One witness, Victor DiGiovine, testified during the pre-sentencing hearing that he had been drugged and raped by a parish priest in 1987 but that O'Brien had shrugged off DiGiovine's pleas for help.
   "I was told to go on with my life and that I needed to get over this," DiGiovine told a judge during the proceedings in Maricopa County Superior Court.
   The mothers of two other parishioners who have said they were molested by priests testified that their complaints to O'Brien likewise fell on deaf ears.
   Defense witnesses drew an altogether different portrait of the man who served as head of the 460,000-member Phoenix Diocese for 21 years, saying he demonstrated a selfless commitment to the church and city.
• Priest Accused of Sex Assault Is Hurt in Jail
   The New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2004/03/13/nyregion/13priest.html , March 13, 2004
   RIVERHEAD, N.Y., March 12 (AP) - A terminally ill Catholic priest who was scheduled to be arraigned Friday on charges he sodomized a 6-year-old boy was hospitalized after what appeared to be an attack in jail.
   "There is an allegation involving another inmate that may have assaulted" the priest, the Rev. Barry E. Ryan, said Alan Otto, chief of staff to the Suffolk County sheriff, Alfred C. Tisch.
   Mr. Otto said an internal affairs investigation was being done and confirmed that Father Ryan "did seek medical attention," but did not provide details about his injuries. Father Ryan, 56, a resident of Palm City, Fla., since 1997, signed a statement last week confessing to the sexual assault that occurred between May and October 2003 in a private home of acquaintances on Long Island, the Suffolk County district attorney, Thomas J. Spota, said.
   He was jailed in [sic] $500,000 bail. He was scheduled to appear before Judge Ralph T. Gazzillo in Suffolk County District Court on Friday morning to answer similar charges in an indictment filed this week by a grand jury. But he did not show up because he had been taken to Central Suffolk Hospital, a prosecutor said.
   A hospital spokeswoman could not immediately confirm that Father Ryan was a patient there and referred calls to the sheriff's department. Father Ryan's lawyer, Joseph Ostrowski, was not immediately available for comment, a man answering the telephone at his law office said.
• Judge rules against archdiocese, won't dismiss suit
   WASHINGTON Seattle Post-Intelligencer, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/164705_archdiocese13.html , SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES
   In a decision with possible statewide implications, a King County judge this week ruled against an attempt to dismiss a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle.
   The Seattle Archdiocese challenged a 1988 state law when asking a judge to dismiss the lawsuit brought by a man who claims the Rev. James McGreal sexually abused him from 1975 to 1977.
   The 1988 law change extended the statute of limitations for victims of childhood sexual abuse, allowing them up to three years after the time they realize they were abused to file a lawsuit.
   Attorneys for the archdiocese had argued the change in law was unconstitutional because it allowed for retroactive legislation that violated defendants' due process, among other contentions.
• Catholic Church's attempt to throw out sexual-abuse lawsuit fails
   SPOKANE (WA) Seattle Times, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001878080_archdiocese13m.html , By The Associated Press
   An attempt to dismiss a sexual-abuse lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle has failed, in a decision with possible statewide implications.
   The Seattle Archdiocese asked a King County Superior Court judge to throw out a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a 1988 change in state law.
   That change extended the statute of limitations for victims of childhood sex abuse, allowing them up to three years after the time they realize they were abused to file a lawsuit.
   On Thursday, Judge Paris Kallas ruled against the archdiocese's argument and declined to dismiss the case.
   The Spokane Diocese has filed a similar argument in court cases here.
• Hospital critical of probe protocol
   ALBANY (NY) Troy Record, www.troyrecord.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11117666&BRD=1170&PAG=461&dept_id=7021&rfi=6 , By: Robert Cristo, March/13/2004
   Private investigators hired by Mary Jo White to look into sexual misconduct allegations against Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard were never given clearance to conduct interviews at Stratton Veterans Medical Center Hospital earlier this month.
   Hospital officials criticized part of the team retained by the Albany Diocesan Review Board Friday for having to read in a Record story that White's investigators were conducting interviews on the premises without permission. Private investigator Frank Citera attempted to interview a close personal friend of the late Rev. John Minkler in the deceased priest's 11th floor office on March 2.
   Minkler, who was a chaplain at the VA, was found dead in his Watervliet home last month just days after he signed an affidavit stating he did not write a letter that allegedly linked Hubbard to sexual relations with two other priests. The Albany County coroner's office has yet to release a report on the cause of Minkler's death.
   The interview occurred in Minkler's office on March 2, but was cut short by the investigator, who walked away from the table after realizing Minkler's friend wanted legal counsel in the room.
• The Law Can't Stop at the Church Door
   Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54797-2004Mar12.html , By Stephen H. Galebach, Page B01, Sunday, March 14, 2004;
   ANDOVER, Mass.: "If the bishops don't manage the problem, the government will," attorney Robert Bennett said late last month at a news conference of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' National Review Board, which the bishops set up to advise them on the church's clerical sexual abuse scandal. Bennett was expressing a fear that many Catholics no doubt share.
   Yet as a Catholic parent whose family has spent a great deal of time in churches and with priests, I regard appropriate government intervention not with fear but with hope.
   I have no desire to criticize Bob Bennett. As a prominent member of and de facto spokesman for the board, he deserves credit for speaking the truth, for calling an epidemic an epidemic, and for calling upon shepherds who have betrayed their flock to resign. Public rebuke is exactly what scripture prescribes in this situation -- I Timothy 5:20: "If any [elder] is at fault, reprimand him publicly, as a warning to the rest" -- and Bennett is the first one on behalf of the church to deliver it.
   Still, with all due respect to the board, we parents and other interested parties are entitled to ask the question the board did not touch: How did the American legal system allow this epidemic to encompass more than 10,000 victims and more than 4,000 perpetrators without bringing the crimes to a halt long ago? As an attorney who has been involved in many church-state issues over the past 25 years,
   I suspect that the failure of the legal system in this instance is a matter of selective non-application of justice -- one based on false notions of what protects religious liberty -- rather than a matter of deficiencies in our laws.
   [COMMENTS:
1. It is NOT safe to add the word "elder", even in square brackets, to 1 Timothy 5:20, even though elders are mentioned just previously. A more faithful translation is: "Reprove, in the sight of all, the ones sinning, in order that the remainder may have fear." A word of warning: The two epistles to Timothy, and the one to Titus, are probably fabrications of the 2nd century. This brings a further worry; if some part of the Jesus people in past centuries thought the doctrines in them were important enough to forge and tell lies, why didn't the RC Church in later centuries think the anti-celibacy teachings in them are important enough to obey?
2. The legal system is unlikely to have failed because of a false notion of religious liberty. It most probably failed because large numbers of people, from the victims and their families right through to the law enforcement and judicial system people, did not want to bring religion into disrepute. Most Christians have little idea of the "punishing" side of the Jesus religion at the start, and most would not have even heard of the text quoted above, let alone similar ones. They aren't read out, nor used as sermon subjects. COMMENTS END.]
• Tears flow in court
   PHOENIX (AZ) The Arizona Republic, www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0313obrien13.html , by Joseph A. Reaves Mar. 13, 2004
   Courtrooms are often places of pain. But for a few hours Friday, a crowded fourth-floor courtroom in downtown Phoenix held hurt enough to fill a lifetime.
   There was a trembling Native American woman keening for her dead son. And the sobs of a boy reading a hand-scrawled letter to a father he will never see again.
   There was the misery of mothers weeping for sexually abused sons. And the drawn breath of a man, standing before his wife and the world, telling how he was molested by a priest he loved.
   The scenes played out Friday in a presentencing hearing for Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien, former head of the Phoenix Roman Catholic Diocese.
   O'Brien, 68, was convicted Feb. 17 of leaving the scene of a fatal accident that claimed the life of pedestrian Jim L. Reed last summer.
• Archdiocese identifying accused priests via Web site
   CHICAGO (IL) Chicago Sun-Times, www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-abuse13.html , BY CATHLEEN FALSANI, Religion Reporter, March 13, 2004
   The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago launched a Web site Friday where people can inquire whether a priest has been accused of sexual misconduct with children.
   An online form requesting information about any diocesan priest -- past or present -- may be submitted through the archdiocese's Web site, www.archdiocese-chgo.org, and archdiocesan officials say they will respond, in writing, within two weeks.
   The online inquiry, which is available in English, Spanish and Polish, requires the person seeking information to provide their name and address. The form also asks for a reason for the inquiry, but does not require one to be given as a condition of processing the request.
   The Web-based inquiry process differs greatly from what archdiocesan Chancellor Jimmy Lago said last fall church officials were hoping to provide. At a press conference last September, Lago said he thought the archdiocese would have an online searchable database much like that of the state's Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 07:52 AM
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Saturday, March 13, 2004
• Baptists shunned girl victim's family, but serenade the convicted cover-up minister. [1996]
   The Weekend Australian, "Parish sings for pastor's 'cover-up'," by Kevin Meade, p 5, March 13-14, 2004
   AUSTRALIA
   A Baptist minister who shredded the diary of a 14-year-old girl to hide the fact she was sexually molested by a parishioner has been serenaded with hymns by worshippers and is free to continue as pastor at a Queensland church.
   But the girl's family -- who left Pastor Douglas Ensbey's church in Brisbane's northern suburbs in disgust because they were shunned by parishioners -- has not yet received an apology from the Baptist Church.
   Gwyn Milne, the Melbourne-based national president of the church's governing body, the Baptist Union of Australia, said it was the first she had heard of the case when contacted by The Weekend Australian yesterday.
   Worshippers wept and sang hymns of gratitude outside the Brisbane District Court on Thursday after Ensbey, 53, was spared a jail term even though he was found guilty of destroying evidence in 1996.
   Judge Nick Samios handed down a six-month jail sentence but ordered it be suspended.
##### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Sunday, March 14, 2004 edition follows:-
• Irish priest may have faked death to escape sex abuse claims
   BRITAIN: One in Four, http://oneinfour.org/news/news2004/irishpriest , By Michael Brennan, Irish Examiner
   British police are still hunting an Irish priest accused of sex abuse, believing he may have faked his own death to avoid extradition.
   Fr Christopher Clonan, who worked in a parish in Coventry for 20 years, fled to Dublin and then Australia in 1992 after several altar boys made allegations of abuse against him.
   Police were unable to trace him, but in 2000 Fr Clonan’s brother, who lives in the small town [sic] of Bendigo, near Melbourne, told them he had died of a brain haemorrhage two years earlier and had been cremated.
   However, West Midlands police detectives were unconvinced by the death certificate and are seeking authority to travel to Australia to investigate. "We are still liaising with the Australian Federal Police and enquiries are ongoing," said a police spokeswoman yesterday.
   The death certificate showed that Fr Clonan died on October 22, 1998, and was cremated at Bendigo Crematorium on October 27. He would have been 56.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 02:47 PM
• High percentages suspect abuse
   One in Four, http://oneinfour.org/news/news2004/highpercentage , Irish Times, Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent
   SOUTH AMERICA: Polls conducted in Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico have found that where child sex abuse is concerned 58 per cent of Mexican Catholics, 55 per cent in Colombia and 46 per cent in Bolivia believe priests abuse minors "frequently".
   Just 7 per cent of Mexicans, 5 per cent of Colombians and 4 per cent of Bolivians believe their priests never commit such abuse.
   It also established that Catholics in those countries want the church to help the poor but reject its intrusions into politics. The poll was conducted on behalf of the US-based Catholics For a Free Choice group, as well as its equivalent in the three countries.
• Priest at centre of sex abuse claims
   NORTHERN IRELAND: Irish Examiner, http://breaking.examiner.ie/2004/03/14/story138298.html , 3:43:43 PM, March 14 2004
   A Catholic priest has voluntarily stepped down from the church in the wake of child sex abuse allegations, it emerged today.
   Father Jim Donaghy denied the offences in a statement read to the congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer Church in Ballyholme, Co Down, this weekend.
   Bishop of Down and Connor the Rt Rev Patrick Walsh read a letter to parishioners and assured them that the church’s primary concern was child protection.
   "I wish you to know that your parish priest Fr Jim Donaghy has voluntarily stepped down from the ministry," the letter read.
• Bond Set In Abuse Case
   LINCOLN (NE) WOWT, www.wowt.com/news/headlines/647201.html
   Bond has been set at $2,500 for the Reverend Norman Leach. The former executive director of the Lincoln Interfaith Council faces allegations of third-degree sexual assault of a teenage boy.
   Leach is being held at the Lancaster County Jail.
   Lancaster County Judge Laurie Yardley set bond and ordered Leach, 63, not to have contact with anyone under 17-years-old.
   If Leach makes bond, he must surrender his passport and he cannot leave Lancaster County.
• New bishop surprised by appointment
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) Republican, www.masslive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1079255727150680.xml?nnae , By BILL ZAJAC wzajac@repub.com March/14/2004
   The Most Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell was into the first hour of a weeklong Spanish immersion language course in Florida when he was notified that he would become the eighth bishop in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield.
   "I was flabbergasted," said McDonnell about the March 1 phone call.
   McDonnell had been just as flabbergasted when he received word he would become an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of New York in 2002.
   "That came out of the blue," said McDonnell. "I think God has a sense of humor and that God reaches out and taps you when you don't expect it."
   McDonnell also showed a sense of humor when he was introduced to the diocese at a news conference Tuesday.
   He laughed at the April 1 installation date, adding, "I think we will make use of St. Paul's line, 'Fools for the sake of Christ.'"
• Catholic speaker recognizes grief
   CHICOPEE (MA) Republican, www.masslive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1079255966150680.xml?nnae , By MICHAEL McAULIFFE mmcauliffe@repub.com , March/14/2004
   As Catholics in Western Massachusetts continue to grapple with the recent resignation of Bishop Thomas L. Dupre amid allegations of sexual abuse, Monsignor Raymond G. East said he could detect "a kind of sense of collective depression" in his audience at Elms College yesterday.
   But East, an administrator in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., told those attending a conference on parish social ministry that it is not "dying time" for the church.
   "This is getting-up time," East said to about 165 people who came to hear his keynote address. "This is rising time. This is healing time."
   The conference, titled "At The Crossroads Of Anger And Hope," included workshops on hunger and homelessness, evangelization in the urban community and how to begin a parish social ministry.
   But the impact of the sex scandal, in which Dupre resigned as head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield following allegations he sexually abused two boys beginning more than 25 years ago when he was a parish priest, led to a decision to change the title of the conference. It was originally to be called "... And Justice for All."
• Church needs to tell more of what it knows
   OHIO Dayton Daily News, www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/opinion/daily/b6_0314ellen.html , By Ellen Belcher
   When two reports came out last month on the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal, Bishop Wilton Gregory, who directed one of the investigations, said the church's "terrible history" was history.
   He is wrong. The reports leave important issues hanging, including in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
   Specifically, a national study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that, between 1950 and 2002, nearly 11,000 people accused 4,392 priests of sexually abusing them as children. That figure represented about 4 percent of all the priests who served during that period. The percentage was mirrored almost exactly in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
   The survey and researchers' numbers-crunching give the most definitive picture thus far of the extent of the scandal. But the picture has raised more questions.
• Church may be missing $800K
   WOODS HOLE (MA) Cape Cod Times, www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/churchbe14.htm , By AMANDA LEHMERT
   The tally of the funds missing from a Woods Hole church could increase dramatically.
   The money allegedly misappropriated by former St. Joseph's pastor Bernard Kelly could reach $800,000, Fall River Bishop George Coleman is expected to tell parishioners in a statement to be read at Mass this morning.
   Kelly admitted to mishandling funds last November, around the same time he resigned his post. A civil court complaint filed by the diocese said the parish could be missing $50,000.
   Initial conclusions in a church audit show the exact loss will "far exceed" that amount, according to Fall River Diocese spokesman John Kearns
   The diocese, which was granted a $100,000 lien on Kelly's Cummaquid estate last fall, recently got a Barnstable Superior Court judge to raise the lien to $800,000.
   The lien ties up Kelly's assets and will help protect the diocese and St. Joseph's from the financial loss while they sue Kelly for the missing funds in civil court.
• Backgrounds not checked on existing Scout leaders
   LINCOLN (NE) Lincoln Journal Star, www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/03/13/top_story/10046704.txt , by Margaret Reist, March 13 2004
   Fewer than a third of 3,000 local Boy Scout and Cub Scout leaders have undergone national criminal background checks, a relatively new requirement of the national organization. Since last April, the local Boy Scout organization has done background checks on all new leaders and those changing positions, or 800 to 900 people, said Steven Smith, chief executive officer of the Cornhusker Council, the local Boy Scouts organization that includes 16 counties in Southeast Nebraska.
   Those whose backgrounds were checked didn't include the Rev. Norman Leach, who was associated with the Boy Scouts for 53 years until his arrest Thursday on suspicion of third-degree sexual assault of a Scout in the troop he helped organize. Until last week, he was on the troop committee and the troop's sponsor representative, Smith said.
   When authorities began investigating Leach, they learned he had been convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor in California in 1975.
• An ecumenical voice resigns from council
   LINCOLN (NE) Lincoln Journal Star, www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/03/02/local/10046172.txt , Bob Reeves, March 2 2004
   The Rev. Norman Leach resigned Tuesday as executive director of the Lincoln Interfaith Council.
   Leach had not been in his office for several days, and as of Tuesday was a patient at Bryan LGH Medical Center West. There was no report on his medical condition, and Leach could not be reached to comment.
   The Rev. Jay Vetter, president of the Interfaith Council, said Leach's resignation had not been "formalized" by the council's 29-member board.
   "We really aren't in a position to make any comments at this time," he said.
   He would not say whether the resignation was voluntary or at the board's request. "It's safe to say he's not functioning as executive director now," Vetter said.
   Leach came to Lincoln in 1989 to head the Interfaith Council, which had been broadened from the former Lincoln Fellowship of Churches to include non-Christian religions.
• Former Lincoln Interfaith Council leader told scouts to come to bed with him -- accusation
   LINCOLN (NE) Lincoln Journal Star, "Teens: Leach had Scouts join him in bed," www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/03/13/top_story/10046683.txt , BY AARON SANDERFORD, March 13 2004
   The Rev. Norman E. Leach, 63, wanted the boys who stayed the night at his house to sleep beside him, according to court documents detailing interviews with the teenage boy who authorities say Leach sexually assaulted.
   Police interviewed five teens - all ages 12 to 15 and all members of Boy Scout Troop 911, which he founded. All five said Leach insisted they join him in bed when they stayed over, the documents say.
   On Friday, Leach, the former executive director of the Lincoln Interfaith Council, appeared in Lancaster County Court, where County Judge Laurie Yardley set his bail at 10 percent of $25,000. He was arrested and jailed overnight Thursday.
   Leach was charged in the mid-1970s with sex crimes in California, Lancaster County Attorney Gary Lacey said, asking for a higher-than-usual bail. One of the charges, sodomy, involved a teen.
   Leach now faces a police allegation of third-degree sexual assault. Charges, if filed, could come as early as Monday.
   Dressed in nursing scrubs and shackled at his wrists and ankles, Leach listened as lawyer Thomas Lamb argued for lower bail. A few feet away sat Leach's adult son, Tha Chanh Lam.
• Pro-Asian Rev. Leach will be missed
   LINCOLN (NE) Lincoln Journal Star, "Leach will be missed," www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/03/14/local/10046714.txt
   Without him, there would be no African Multi-Cultural Community Center. No Faces of the Middle East.
   And so outrage is tempered with sadness by some who worked closely with the Rev. Norman Leach, a 63-year-old Boy Scouts leader arrested Thursday on suspicion of third-degree sexual assault.
   Leach was released on bond Friday, amid police reports he fondled a 15-year-old Scout as he slept at Leach's home. Other Scouts interviewed by authorities say in court documents that he always insisted they sleep in his bed during overnight stays at his southeast Lincoln residence.
   Asian Center Board President Chuck van Rossum said his emotions seesawed at the news about Leach.
   There was sadness and there was anger that a beloved father figure may have hurt young boys entrusted to his care.
   "It takes courage for (immigrant) families to go through this process," van Rossum said.
   It was Leach's dream to serve the Asian community, so in 1993, under the auspices of the Lincoln Interfaith Council, the Asian Community and Cultural Center was born. Leach was executive director of the Interfaith Council for 14 years.
   The Asian center became a separate agency in 1998. Leach was a paid consultant to the board until about a month ago.
   "We will not distance ourselves from Norm Leach and from the Lincoln Interfaith Council," van Rossum said.
   Leach helped the Asian agency in many ways over the years, van Rossum said, particularly with program development and fund raising.
   A Presbyterian minister, Leach was also a friend to van Rossum, comforting him when his brother died.
• Further allegations may come, experts say
   LINCOLN (NE) Lincoln Journal Star, www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/03/14/local/10046713.txt , March 14 2004
   He helped establish cultural programs to help minorities and immigrants. He won the city's Human Rights Award in 2002.
   He even won the National Council of Churches' Most Significant Achievement in Ecumenism award.
   That was before a teenage Lincoln boy told police that Leach insisted the boy sleep in Leach's bed and touched him inappropriately. The boy was a member of the diverse Boy Scout troop Leach helped found.
   The awards came before it was widely known that Leach was accused of sodomy in California and convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a child.
   Skepticism now clouds his 53-year involvement in Boy Scouts.
   This could be just the beginning of the 63-year-old Lincoln minister's fall from grace, says a man who wrote a book chronicling sex abuse in the Boy Scouts.
   The fall started with a call to the state's child abuse hot line reporting that Leach masturbated in bed next to boys, according to court documents.
• Documents Show Minister Allegedly Fondled Boys
   TheOmahaChannel.com ; www.theomahachannel.com/news/2919593/detail.html , UPDATED: 5:42 pm CST March 12, 2004
   LINCOLN, Neb. -- A Lincoln minister accused of sexual abuse went before a judge Friday after he was arrested for third-degree sexual assault Thursday.
   Court records allege that Norman Leach, 63, slept with boys in the same bed in his Lincoln home. He is also accused of fondling a teenage Boy Scout.
   Leach was a longtime Boy Scout volunteer. His troop, 911, was made up of a diverse group of boys. Police believe Leach occasionally invited at least four of them to spend the night.
   Court records show one of the boys told police that on numerous occasions he's been awakened by Leach pulling down his pants. He allegedly touched the boy inappropriately, and when the boy tried to roll over to get away, he said Leach grabbed him and pulled him closer. The boy said he eventually was able to roll over and make the fondling stop.
   "He had kids over at his home and that's a direct violation of Boy Scout policy," said Steven Smith, with the Cornhusker Council of Boy Scouts of America.
   Smith said he's been working with Lincoln's Child Advocacy Center to make sure the boys and their families are getting counseling.
• A Novel Tack by Cardinal
   LOS ANGELES (CA) Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-priest14mar14,1,666880.story?coll=la-headlines-california , By William Lobdell and Jean Guccione, Times Staff Writers, March 14 2004
   Enmeshed in a high-stakes battle to maintain the secrecy of church documents involving priests accused of molesting children, Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony has adopted a legal strategy more aggressive than that of any other bishop in the country, according to scholars and attorneys.
   At the center of the fight are thousands of pages from priest personnel files that Mahony has succeeded for more than a year and a half in keeping from prosecutors, lawyers for victims and the public. Officials at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles concede that the files include evidence that Mahony and other church leaders improperly handled some cases involving abusive priests.
   "We believe that our early decisions were correct at the time they were made but, as our understanding grew, we concluded that those early decisions had generally been too tolerant," said spokesman Tod Tamberg. "In retrospect, then, some of our early policies were mistakes."
   Tamberg said that, overall, Mahony should be seen as a national leader in reforming the church's sexual abuse policies. But the cardinal's opponents say that, if all the files became public, they would hobble his leadership of the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the United States.
• Bishops wrestle with identifying priests accused long ago
   NEW ORLEANS (LA) Times-Picayune, www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1079251013300490.xml , By Bruce Nolan Staff writer Sunday March 14, 2004
   When the Archdiocese of New Orleans disclosed for first time this past week that two years ago it relieved the Rev. Carl Davidson of his ministry for allegedly sexually abusing a minor, it touched on a matter of enormous sensitivity to victims, working priests and parents: whether to release the names of priests accused of abuse years ago.
   The question of a relevant time element pits virtues of frankness and outreach to still-hidden victims against issues of fairness, particularly with respect to dead or infirm priests who cannot defend themselves.
   It also strains the fraternal bonds between bishops and their conflicted working priests, who wince at every new wound that fresh disclosures about other priests inflict on their ministries, even as they grieve for victims.
   All of the 195 Catholic dioceses in America operate under new transparency policies that promise to disclose from now on when a priest is relieved of duty. But virtually all dioceses, including New Orleans, draw the line at releasing the names of past abusers. Identifying Davidson appears to be a singular exception.
• Robert Kosanke's time at camps brought numerous abuse allegations [? 1970s, 80s]
   COLORADO Denver Post, www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~11741~2014683,00.html , By Eric Gorski and John Moore
   Robert C. Kosanke's name is written in bold print in two Colorado criminal convictions and in the minds of the victims he was accused of molesting.
   Nearly 35 years have passed since the first known allegation against him. Memories have faded, key figures have died and employment records have burned.
   What is known is this: Kosanke worked at Camp St. Malo, a historic Roman Catholic youth camp at the doorstep of Rocky Mountain National Park.
   He was fired from the camp, then started his own "creative growth" boys' camp called White Raven, which opened in Colorado and later moved to Wyoming.
   He was convicted in 1977 and 1983 in connection with sexual contact with two boys and spent time in jail.
• Stage of healing
   Denver Post, www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~415~2016216,00.html , By John Moore Denver Post Theater Critic
   NEW YORK - Martin Moran was like a lot of altar boys in 1972. He had just received the sacrament of confirmation, welcoming the Holy Spirit into his life as an adult Christian, and everywhere he looked he saw God - in his Denver neighborhood, at his Christ the King grade school, even in the mirror.
   He relished placing calls on the student council's behalf. "Hello," he would proclaim to every unsuspecting recipient, "This is Christ the King calling!"
   "And right here in my breast I'd get this little burst of ... 'Maybe I am!"' he would later recall.
   Later that year, 75 miles removed from the protection of church or family, the 12-year-old boy found nothing approaching the Holy Spirit. Instead, guilt and pleasure battled for his soul as he lay naked in a sleeping bag, his back on the arms of a 29-year-old man, wondering:
   "God, oh God. Is this you?"
   Martin pleaded for God's presence, but deep down he suspected he had just entered into a compact with the devil. He looked down at his forbidden place, that place where a nun had often told him, "That's nothing down there to be toying with," and saw spilled before him "the sacred seed of God."
• Web site lets people research Chicago-area priests
   CHICAGO (IL) Indianapolis Star, www.indystar.com/articles/0/129197-1650-010.html , Associated Press March 14, 2004
   The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has launched a Web site that allows people to research whether one of its priests has been accused of sexual misconduct with children.
   Victims groups criticized the project, saying it discourages users by requiring them to reveal their names and reasons for their inquiries.
   "This is an effort to appear that they're going to give information when it's actually a ploy to obtain information," said Barbara Blaine, an advocate for victims abused by priests.
   The Web site is part of a settlement in October in which the archdiocese agreed to provide information on 55 priests involved in 140 credible cases of sexual abuse in the past 50 years.
   Archdiocese spokesman Jim Dwyer defended the policy of requiring users' names, saying it will discourage people from compiling lists of priests accused of crimes and publicizing them.
• Maryland center treats priests accused of molesting children
   SILVER SPRING (MD) Cleveland Plain Dealer, www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/107926181524530.xml , by Jo-Ann Moriarty Newhouse News Service March/14/04
   When former Springfield, Mass., Bishop Thomas Dupre was admitted to the Saint Luke Institute here, he joined a list of clergy who became patients after they were accused of sexually abusing minors.
   While Dupre's course of treatment has not been revealed, the facility has been best known in recent years for treating priests who prey on children. They included defrocked Boston priest John Geoghan, who was murdered in his Massachusetts prison cell last August by another inmate. Geoghan was accused of molesting more than 130 children.
   The facility, behind brick walls, is set on a 43-acre campus along the Washington, D.C.- Maryland line. It has tennis and basketball courts but is no retreat for wayward priests, says its director. "Part of what we do here is to help them get on with their lives, face the past honestly," said the Rev. Stephen Rossetti, the institute's chief executive officer. "You can't move on to the future unless you face the past. This is not summer camp."
   Dupre, 70, has yet to face allegations that he sexually abused two boys, 12 and 13, more than 20 years ago. When confronted Feb. 10 by a reporter from Springfield's newspaper, The Republican, who had interviewed the mother of an alleged victim, Dupre announced his immediate retirement and disappeared from public view overnight. Two men several days later gave detailed accounts of the alleged abuse.
   Dupre's admission to the institute brought new attention to Saint Luke. In addition to treating deviant sexual desires, the institute treats a range of mental and addictive disorders.
• Abusive priests list not on Web
   CHICAGO (IL) Chicago Tribune, www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0403140080mar14,1,479161.story?coll=chi-news-hed , By Li Fellers Published March 14, 2004
   As part of a legal settlement, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago on Friday established a process for people to seek information through its Web site about priests who have been accused of sex abuse.
   But victims groups say the process falls short of the full disclosure they hoped for and is instead another attempt by the archdiocese to protect abusive priests.
   The Web site does not provide a list of accused priests or a way for individuals to search online by name. Instead, requesters are instructed to fill out a form providing their name, address and a reason for their request along with the name of the priest and the priest's places and dates of service.
   The form can be submitted online, by fax or by telephone, but anonymous requests will not be accepted. Within two weeks, the archdiocese will provide a written response by mail. In rare instances, a request could be rejected, said archdiocese spokesman Jim Dwyer.
   "It was simply our understanding that Cardinal [Francis] George would do what bishops in Tucson, Baltimore and Los Angeles and others have done, which is simply put the name of dangerous men out there so people could protect themselves and their kids," said David Clohessy, spokesman for the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests. "And that's obviously not what this is."
• In Albany, sexual accusations raise a bishop's high profile
   ALBANY (NY) Boston Globe, www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/074/nation/In_Albany_sexual_accusations_raise_a_bishop_s_high_profile+.shtml , By Darryl McGrath, Globe Correspondent, March/14/2004
   When Bishop Howard Hubbard of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany takes center stage at a news conference, it is usually to speak out on the death penalty, poverty, or some other issue of social justice.
   For the past month, though, the bishop's news conferences have revolved around accusations that he is a closeted homosexual.
   So far, the tale involves two suicides, a priest's recanted accusation against the bishop, and an assertion by a former male prostitute that Hubbard paid him for sex decades ago in an Albany park.
   Hubbard has repeatedly denied that he has ever had any sexual relationship.
   "I stand before you today with a clear conscience," said Hubbard, 64, when the first accusation surfaced in early February. "I am at peace with God and within myself, because there is absolutely no truth to the allegations which have been leveled against me."
   Nevertheless, the Albany Diocese last month hired a former US attorney, Mary Jo White, known for her prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, as an independent investigator. The diocese is paying White $770 an hour out of its self-insurance fund.
   The turmoil surrounding Hubbard follows two fractious years for the Albany Diocese in which parishioners heard about a lengthy history of sexual abuse by priests. Settlements in abuse claims have cost the diocese more than $2.3 million. The diocese has reported that 19 priests committed sexual abuse in the past 53 years, and investigations are pending into allegations involving 10 current and former priests, two of whom are now dead.
   [COMMENT: The RC Church's current opposition to the death penalty is in direct contrast to its teachings of the 1940s era that after a fair trial governments had the right to execute people. FPP opposes the death penalty because of the risk of killing innocent people -- but that's not what the RCC used to teach. COMMENT ENDS.]
• Catholic church’s abuse report not enough
   UNITED STATES: York Daily Record, http://ydr.com/story/op-ed/19895 , by David M. Drew, Sunday, March 14, 2004
   I was quoted in an article by Karen Muller on Feb. 28 entitled, "Reports Detail Clergy Sex Abuse," as saying: "I think there is something a little disingenuous about this whole thing. They covered this up as long as they possibly could, and when they were forced to bring it out into the open, I think they painted it a different color." I would like to specify exactly why this report is "disingenuous."
   The report is a collection of data provided by the individual dioceses to a panel of expert psychologists overseen by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. These psychologists function as pure statisticians because they offer no opinion as psychologists as to the cause of the problem or provide any recommendations as to its correction. A physician first performs a through history and physical examination to collect data. The purpose of the data is to arrive at a diagnosis of the problem. Without the diagnosis, the collection of the data is useless because there cannot be any effective action to effect a cure. Their role as psychologists on this panel is therefore pure window dressing. Catholics are now supposed to be complacently satisfied that expert psychologists have the problem in hand.
   This is the most important deficiency, their failure to identify the nature and the cause of the problem. Even using their own data it is clear that the problem is primarily one of homosexuals who entered the Catholic priesthood since the 1960s using the clerical collar as a cover for the predatory behavior against young Catholic boys. This problem was directly caused in the 1960s by American Catholic bishops doing away with the established criteria and practical methods for screening active or latent homosexuals from being accepted as candidates for admission to Catholic seminaries to prepare for the priesthood.
   The recently published book, Goodbye, Good Men by Michael S. Rose, provides a look at how degraded some Catholic religious orders and seminaries have become. However, Mr. Rose is not the first to bring this problem to the attention of the American bishops. One of the priests who assist us at Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Mission, Fr. Enrique T. Rueda, wrote the book, The Homosexual Network, a 700-page work published in 1981 that details with extensive documentation some of the inroads made by homosexuals into the Catholic clergy 25 years ago.
• About 25% of Boston parishes to close; ripping at people's psyches.
   LOWELL (MA) Lowell Sun, "Church closings rip at parishioners' psyches," www.lowellsun.com/Stories/0,1413,105~4746~2016922,00.html , By DAVID PERRY, Sun Staff
   A deep sense of drama and angst has settled over many of the 357 parishes overseen by the Archdiocese of Boston.
   A portion of them estimates range from 60 to 90 aren't going to be around much longer. The Archdiocese plans to announce in May which ones will close.
   The numbers are daunting to area Catholics who wait to see if their parish will close in a massive consolidation.
   "I don't know of anything comparable," says Thomas Groome, director of the institute for Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at Boston College. "It's hard to believe we need to close as many as 25 percent of our parishes." ...
   Mike Gustin is a 15-year member of St. Catherine parish in Westford. He also belongs to Voice of the Faithful, the Catholic lay movement that formed in response to the clergy sexual-abuse crisis and its handling by the church hierarchy. The group, which claims more than 30,000 members worldwide, has urged more lay participation in church dialogue.
   Gustin believes there's been far too little interaction, particularly lay participation in the closing process, despite church leaders and spokespersons saying such a voice is essential to the process.
   "There simply hasn't been a lot of input from lay people since this started," Gustin says.
   He calls it "the illusion of inclusion." If last week's quest to let local clusters decide closings feels more democratic, he believes, he doesn't expect the final decision to include lay voices.
   St. Catherine is in a cluster with St. Mary's in Chelmsford and St. John the Evangelist in North Chelmsford. The local clergy and lay people recommended no closings in their report to church officials.
   "They're all healthy, active and viable parishes," Gustin says.
• Church Starts Web Site on Accused Priests
   CHICAGO (IL) phillyburbs.com ; www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/1-03132004-264088.html , The Associated Press
   The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has launched a Web site that allows people to research whether one of its priests has been accused of sexual misconduct with children.
   Victims groups criticized the project, saying it discourages users by requiring them to reveal their names and reasons for their inquiries.
   "This is an effort to appear that they're going to give information when it's actually a ploy to obtain information," said Barbara Blaine, an advocate for victims abused by priests.
   The Web site is part of a settlement in October in which the archdiocese agreed to provide information on 55 priests involved in 140 credible cases of sexual abuse in the last 50 years.
   Archdiocese spokesman Jim Dwyer defended the policy of requiring users' names, saying it will discourage people from compiling lists of priests accused of crimes and publicizing them.
   "To put a list out there implies that they have been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt," Dwyer said.
• Mahony Takes Tough Stance in Legal Fight Over Files
   LOS ANGELES (CA) Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-priest14mar14,1,666880.story?coll=la-home-headlines , By William Lobdell and Jean Guccione , Times Staff Writers
   Enmeshed in a high-stakes battle to maintain the secrecy of church documents involving priests accused of molesting children, Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony has adopted a legal strategy more aggressive than that of any other bishop in the country, according to scholars and attorneys.
   At the center of the fight are thousands of pages from priest personnel files that Mahony has succeeded for more than a year and a half in keeping from prosecutors, lawyers for victims and the public. Officials at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles concede that the files include evidence that Mahony and other church leaders improperly handled some cases involving abusive priests.
   "We believe that our early decisions were correct at the time they were made but, as our understanding grew, we concluded that those early decisions had generally been too tolerant," said spokesman Tod Tamberg. "In retrospect, then, some of our early policies were mistakes."
   Tamberg said that, overall, Mahony should be seen as a national leader in reforming the church's sexual abuse policies. But the cardinal's opponents say that, if all the files became public, they would hobble his leadership of the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the United States.
• The Stuff of Legend
   UNITED STATES The New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/books/review/14JEFFERT.html?pagewanted=print&position= , By MARGO JEFFERSON, March 14, 2004
   Don't bring us any more memoirs!" This is the new cry in the book industry, I'm told, and a foolish cry it is, unless what publishers no longer want are just those unshaped tales written as though every detail mattered simply because it happened. [. . . ]
   In two recent memoirs -- Paul E. Dinter's "Other Side of the Altar: One Man's Life in the Catholic Priesthood" and Anthony Swofford's "Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles" -- we enter all-male worlds of secrecy and ritual. Strangers are seen as aliens, inferiors or enemies.
   Dinter, the Roman Catholic chaplain at Columbia University for 15 years, began his priestly training in 1964, a high school boy excited by the modernizing influence of Vatican II. Thirty disillusioned years later he left the church to marry and become a stepfather. Anthony Swofford came from two generations of military men. He signed up for the Marine Corps and, in what now seems like a deja-vu-all-over-again twist of political fate, found himself fighting in the first gulf war under the first President Bush. These men are witnesses and survivors. Witnesses tell us what happened. Survivors tell us what it cost.
   We now have official reports on 50 years of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, sanctioned by lies and cover-ups. Dinter is one of the few priests to give us the testimony we need: sustained and intelligent, layered with observations and emotion. Part of his story could be called "Memories of a Catholic Boyhood." Boys, he writes, have trouble finding "an inner life, a fantasy world, in which they do not figure as sports heroes, cops, firemen, film stars, members of the military or a little of each." The church eased spiritual longings and provided both a good education and a profession. Dinter writes that it "offered the unsure young male a safe place in between boyhood and the uncertain demands, unsafe desires and unpublished satisfactions of adulthood. . . . The priestly mystique offered a young man the chance to rise above the messiness of everyday existence."
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 01:16 AM
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