References cont. (77) — Clergy Child Molesters

• Priest placed on administrative leave [1967-83 Wamsher] - Roman Catholic Church.

   Iobserve ; www.iobserve.org/rn0415a.html , By Father Bill Pomerleau, Observer staff, ~ April 15, 2004
   SPRINGFIELD (MA): Father Ronald E. Wamsher, a priest whose primary ministry has been at the diocesan tribunal, has been placed on administrative leave by Springfield Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell.
   The leave, which is effective immediately, was ordered April 13 as the diocesan review board revived a dormant investigation of alleged sexual misconduct by Father Wamsher.
   Last December, four brothers who grew up in Greenfield filed a lawsuit alleging that five deceased and living priests of the Diocese of Springfield had abused them in various church, Boy Scout and private locations between 1967 and 1983.
   The diocese first learned about the alleged abuse in mid-2002, when Bishop Thomas L. Dupré received a letter from one of the brothers. Bishop Dupré referred the matter to the board then known as the Diocesan Misconduct Commission, which met with the brothers on Nov. 13, 2002. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 08:22 PM] (This is the first of the Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse , for Thursday April 15, 2004.)

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   INCOMPLETE LINKS: Refer back to "References 61" for methods of obtaining the URLs. • State to oust sheriff? ... Quo warranto filed Friday; if state wins, Worsham is out
   MISSOURI: Webster County Citizen, www.webstercountycitizen.com/articles/2004/04/14/news/news01.txt , By Fred Spriggs and Dan Wehmer, Wednesday, April 14, 2004
   If Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has his way, Webster County Sheriff Ron Worsham soon will be removed from office.
   The state attorney general's office filed a civil petition - called "quo warranto" - last Friday afternoon that seeks Worsham's removal, which accuses the sheriff of misconduct and failing to perform his official acts and duties, among many other misdeeds.
   "They can't beat me at the polls, so I guess they'll go to the statutes to remove me from office," Worsham said Saturday, after hearing of the quo warranto being filed in Webster County Circuit Court in Marshfield at 1 p.m. Friday by Theodore "Ted" Bruce, an assistant attorney general who has been heading the state's investigation into the Webster County Sheriff's Department.
   "But this thing is all so political," he added. "I won't mention names, but those aware of the situation know who's involved. This is more (political) than anything."
   Worsham even speculated that the final straw must have snapped when he toured Seymour for more than five hours on April 1 with Dewey Crepeau, a Columbia attorney whom many feel is the frontrunner to win the upcoming Aug. 3 Republican primary election for attorney general, where his opponent would be Nixon. ...
   Also discussed is the misconduct of former dispatcher George Bissell, charged earlier this year for having sexual relations with a female inmate, and William "Chaplain Bill" Rethford, who served as the department's volunteer chaplain and allegedly tried to have sexual relations with a former male inmate at the county jail in a Marshfield motel.
• Bail set at $100,000 in Tifft slaying [1999 Pavone] - Music director's religion not named.
   BUFFALO (NY): Buffalo News, www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20040415/1055165.asp , By T.J. PIGNATARO and HOLLY AUER, 4/15/2004
   Is Michael Pavone a talented musician and caring friend accused of a crime he didn't commit, or a psychotic who brutally stabbed his former roommate to death in Tifft Nature Preserve?
   In a case now more than four years old - the October 1999 slaying of Keith A. Sutherland - those are the central questions.
   At a bail hearing Wednesday in Erie County Court, a prosecutor gave statements that portray Pavone, a Geneva, Ill., church music director, as something of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - brilliant in his work, but mentally unstable, with deadly consequences.
   After hearing Assistant District Attorney Joseph Marusak describe Pavone as a serious flight risk, County Court Judge Sheila A. DiTullio granted Pavone, 58, the right to post $100,000 bail and return home to the Chicago area. He will be required to surrender his passport.
   "What we have here is a true circumstantial whodunit," said Edward C. Cosgrove, Pavone's attorney, describing the prosecution's evidence as flimsy.
   Pavone, who had been arraigned Monday, says he had befriended Sutherland and taken him into his Buffalo home for eight months as an act of charity, according to Cosgrove.
• Authorities: Too Late To Pursue Charges Against Local Priest [1973, '75 Kinane] - RCC.
   CHALMETTE (LA): TheNewOrleansChannel.com ; www.theneworleanschannel.com/news/3008672/detail.html , April 15, 2004
   Authorities said too much time probably has passed to prosecute a priest accused of sexual abuse in 1973 and 1975.
   The Archdiocese of New Orleans said in late March that the Rev. Gerard Kinane, who worked at churches in Chalmette, Slidell and Houma, had been placed on administrative leave and relieved of duties as a priest.
   That action occurred after a man accused Kinane of abusing him as a teenager while the priest was at St. Mark Catholic Church in Chalmette.
   Authorities said the complainant was 14 at the time of the first alleged incident and is now 44.
   The accuser, who has not been identified publicly, and his attorney, Marion Farmer, met last week with sheriff's detectives from St. Bernard and St. Tammany parishes.
   Col. Richard Baumy, a spokesman for the St. Bernard Parish sheriff, said detectives believed the time period for prosecuting a sexual charge would have expired under state law when the man reached his 28th birthday -- 16 years ago.
• Background checks worry priest
   Indianapolis Star, www.indystar.com/articles/3/138263-4193-103.html , Associated Press, April 15, 2004
   GARY, Ind. -- The top adviser on church law to Gary's Roman Catholic bishop has asked the Vatican to review a rule that requires the 150 priests in the diocese to undergo criminal background checks.
   The Rev. Michael Maginot said the rule is an invasion of privacy and goes beyond reforms aimed at preventing sexual abuse, the Post-Tribune of Merrillville reported today.
   Maginot said he is one of three priests who have refused to consent to the background checks. "I told the bishop right out front I'm not complying," he said. "I have nothing to hide. I'm doing it out of principle because this stuff never ends.
   "The next thing is fingerprinting. If you don't make a stand, everything is taken away and before you know it, the church is a police state," he added.
• Fla. Diocese Reaches Sex Abuse Settlement - RCC.
   Centre Daily , www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/8440269.htm , By MITCH STACY, Associated Press, Thu, Apr. 15, 2004
   TAMPA, Fla. - The Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg paid more than $1 million to settle lawsuits filed by a dozen men who said they were sexually abused by a priest, their attorney said Thursday.
   The victims claimed Robert Schaeufele, now 56, sexually abused them when they were between the ages of 9 and 14. The incidents happened between 1976 and the early 1990s.
   "The survivors had an interest in making sure this didn't happen to other children, and the diocese was willing to work with them to provide some assurance that they can have some input," attorney Joseph H. Saunders said.
   As part of the settlement, the victims will sit on an oversight committee, acting as a liaison between the diocese and clergy abuse victims.
   Schaeufele is serving a 30-year prison sentence after pleading guilty last year to attempted sexual battery. He was removed from the ministry in 2002.
   The 12 men filed the lawsuits against Schaeufele last year. An arbitrator is determining how the money will be distributed among plaintiffs.
• More allegations against Albany Diocese - RCC.
   Capital News 9, www.capitalnews9.com/content/headlines/?ArID=69221&SecID=33 , By Jessica Schneider, 5:23 PM, 4/15/2004
   ALBANY (NY): Outspoken attorney John Aretakis continued to press the Albany Diocese on Bishop Howard Hubbard's alleged homosexual relations and is now saying the note left by Father John Minkler before his suicide lashed out at the Bishop.
   "I have been told by people who are aware of the letter. That it does address Bishop Hubbard's homosexuality and the rampant homosexuality and sexual misconduct of many Albany Diocesan priests, including Bishop Hubbard," Aretakis said.
   Aretakis stood by several alleged victims of clergy abuse, all who said Bishop Hubbard's homosexual lifestyle was well known around the community. And they also said Hubbard did everything in his power to shelter his fellow gay priests.
   David Leonard, alleged clergy sex abuse victim said, "Priests in Bishop Hubbard's Diocese have gotten away with their own private sexual activities for years -- like Father Minkler told us, because Bishop Hubbard so brazenly and arrogantly denied being gay. Now all priests and the Bishop are called on as great big liars. Again, where is the polygraph?"
   Leonard, who is now 62, claimed he was abused by a Boston area priest when he was an adolescent. He also said he was manipulated into a homosexual relationship as an adult by an area priest.
• Divine Intervention
   Nerve.com ; www.nerve.com/dispatches/interview_jackowski , by Michael Martin, posted Apr/15/2004
   UNITED STATES: Sexuality and organized religion have been at odds since the beginning of time, but rarely as dramatically - and disastrously - as in the Catholic Church. According to church decree, priests must take a vow of celibacy, women are relegated to secondary status, and homosexuality, premarital sex and birth control are varying speeds on the express ride to eternal damnation. In her new book The Silence We Keep: A Nun's View of the Catholic Priest Scandal, Karol Jackowski argues that this repressive sexual doctrine is responsible for the sexual abuse of children.
   Since victims began coming forward, the Church has paid millions in damage settlements - $85 million to 522 victims in the Boston area alone. A report released last February set the number of abused at 10,667. The number of abusers: at least 4,392. (Only two percent have been prosecuted.) The Catholic sociologist Andrew Greeley predicted that the number of victims was closer to 100,000.
   It's a tragedy of breadth and density; the aftershocks are as deeply felt as the initial rumblings of publicity. Last month, twenty-nine-year-old Patrick McSorley, a victim of a defrocked Boston priest, committed suicide - seventeen years after he was abused. Jackowski, an ordained nun since 1964, discussed the scandal from her perspective, the breakdown of organized religion and her vision of a universal church that incorporates a married priesthood, same-sex unions and women in positions of authority.
• Springfield marriage tribunal priest, publicity man, accused. [Wamsher, 1985 Graziano] - RCC.
   The Boston Globe, "Springfield Diocese investigating sex allegations against priest," www.boston.com/ dailynews/106/ region/ Springfield_ Diocese_investigat:. shtml , By Adam Gorlick, Associated Press, Apr/15/2004
   SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP): A Catholic priest who worked on marriage annulment cases for the Springfield Diocese is being investigated for sexual misconduct and has been placed on administrative leave, church officials said Thursday.
   The Rev. Ronald E. Wamsher, 54, is the second church official to be publicly named this week in a growing sex abuse scandal in the church's western Massachusetts parishes.
   Michael Graziano, who is not a priest but was in charge of the diocese's Catholic Communications Corporation, resigned Monday after he was accused of sexual misconduct dating back to 1985.
   Wamsher, who served on the diocese's tribunal a panel that mainly rules on marriage annulments has been accused of sexual abuse stemming from an alleged incident 25 years ago, church officials said. Wamsher did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
   The alleged victim, who was not identified by church officials, made the complaint against Wamsher in August 2002 and the diocese notified the district attorney's office. Officials would not provide details of the allegations, but said Wamsher has maintained his innocence.
• Saint who covered up for child abusers - RCC. New BOOK.
   The Guardian, Britain, "Saint who covered up for child abusers," http://books. guardian.co. uk/news/art icles/0,6109, 1192267, 00.html , by Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent, Thursday April 15, 2004
   BRITAIN: The Roman Catholic church's mishandling of paedophile scandals among its clergy is not a modern phenomenon but has been going on for hundreds of years, a new book, published today, reveals.
   It describes how the priest who is the patron saint of Catholic schools covered up sex abuse.
   Father Joseph Calasanz, the 17th-century Spanish priest who founded the Piarist Order to educate the children of the poor, remains a revered figure, canonised in 1767, with an elegant statue at St Peter's in Rome.
   Among those educated by the order, which currently has 1,500 priests across the world, have been Goya, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Bruckner, Victor Hugo, Gregor Mendel and Antonio Gaudi.
   But now a British academic has uncovered a secret, hidden for more than three centuries in the Vatican archives: Calasanz, whose order was suddenly and mysteriously shut down for a period by Pope Innocent X in 1646, was guilty, like many since, of suppressing accusations of child abuse against his colleagues.
   Karen Liebreich, a Cambridge-educated historian, claims: "The contemporary Catholic church's practice of moving a suspected paedophile away from the original scene of the crime for fear of ensuing scandal and the backlash clearly has long antecedents."
   Her book, Fallen Order, quotes from a letter Calasanz wrote to the headmaster of one of the order's schools in Naples in 1631 about a priest accused of abuse: "I want you to know that your reverence's sole aim is to cover up this great shame in order that it does not come to the notice of our superiors, otherwise our organisation, which has enjoyed a good reputation until now, would lose greatly."
• An Actor Confronts a Wrenching Rite of Passage
   NEW YORK: The New York Times, http://theater2.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/theater/reviews/13TRIC.html , By BEN BRANTLEY, Published April 13, 2004
   Toward the end of "The Tricky Part," Martin Moran's translucent memoir of a play, a man who might be called the villain of the piece is quoted to shattering effect: "There were a lot of levels to what we shared."
   It is a bland enough sentence out of context. But what is being remembered is the sexual relationship between a 30-year-old man and a 12-year-old boy, the playwright three decades ago. Talking about "a lot of levels" might be appropriate to a post-mortem of a more conventional love affair. As a self-defense of or apology for pedophilia, it is unforgivable. Even so, there are a lot of levels to the autobiographical story that Mr. Moran tells in "The Tricky Part," which opened last night at the McGinn/Cazale Theater on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. ...
   The show's first part is devoted to Mr. Moran's wry recollections of attending Catholic school in Denver and of how the church's theology and imagery shaped his vision of himself. The rest of the play shifts between accounts of the beginning of his affair in early adolescence with a church camp counselor and former seminarian, and of the brief reunion between them in 2002, when the older man (identified by a pseudonym in the play) was a patient in a veteran's hospital.
• Catholic Communications president resigns as accused of abuse
   SPRINGFIELD (MA): iobserve ; www.iobserve.org/rn0413a.html , By Father Bill Pomerleau, Observer staff
   Michael A. Graziano, the longtime head of the Diocese of Springfield's communications ministries, resigned April 12.
   His resignation came after an allegation of sexual misconduct against him was brought to the diocese.
   Springfield Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell personally announced Graziano's resignation to the diocese's communications personnel at a morning staff meeting April 13. He then immediately released a press statement announcing the sudden development.
   Later in the day, the board of directors of the Catholic Communications Corporation, the semi-autonomous company that produces communications products for the diocese, named Sister of St. Joseph Catherine F. Homrok temporary administrator for the corporation.
   Sister Homrok, a full-time reporter for Catholic Communications, has worked as producer of the "Chalice of Salvation" televised Mass for six years before taking a leadership position in her religious community in 1993.
• Legal mediation possible in abuse
   SPRINGFIELD (MA): Republican, http://masslive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1082017083115160.xml?nntn , By BILL ZAJAC, wzajac@repub.com , 04/15/2004
   A 45-day legal cease-fire in the clergy sexual abuse suits has been called in the Springfield diocese in the hopes that the mediator can "fast track" a settlement, according to the new bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese.
   Also, the Most Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell said another diocesan staff member is being placed on administrative leave. It will be announced today, two days after the president of the diocesan communications department resigned after an allegation that he committed sexual misconduct in 1985.
   Those comments were made yesterday as McDonnell conducted his first media interviews since his installation April 1.
   During his one-on-one interview with The Republican, he also said a retired state police officer has been hired as an investigator for the diocese's Review Board, which handles allegations of sexual abuse.
   McDonnell also stated he would like to disassociate the diocese from the fund that was set up through donations for the financial support of sexually abusive priests. The fund was facilitated by his predecessor, the Most Rev. Thomas L. Dupre, who resigned two months ago after being confronted by The Republican with an allegation that he sexually abused two minors more than 20 years ago.
• Grand jury meets on Garza case; no witnesses called [1960]
   EDINBURG (TX): Brownsville Herald, www.brownsvilleherald.com/ts_comments.php?id=58829_0_10_0_C , By SARAH OVASKA, The Monitor, April 15, 2004
   A grand jury met Wednesday at the Hidalgo County Courthouse for the sixth time to discuss the 1960 slaying of Irene Garza, a McAllen teacher and former beauty queen.
   The grand jury did not call any witnesses Wednesday. To date, only one witness, Elena Sanchez, the secretary for Sacred Heart Catholic Church in downtown McAllen, has testified in front of the panel. The proceedings have been handled by two prosecutors from the Hidalgo County district attorney's office.
   Lynda de la Viña, Garza's first cousin, spoke March 10 to the grand jury, at the beginning of its investigation, to express the family's concerns.
   "We continue our vigil every week and we continue to be very concerned regarding the progress," de la Viña said Wednesday. She, Noemi Ponce Sigler, a distant cousin of Garza's, and other family members have been sitting outside the grand jury room each week.
   Homer Vasquez, one of the two prosecutors presenting the case to the grand jury, said he has no idea when law enforcement would be called to testify or when the grand jury would finish the case. Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra, Vasquez's superior, had indicated previously that grand jury deliberations would take four to six weeks, according to Monitor archives.
   "It's taken a lot longer" than originally thought, Vasquez said. "The grand jury is making a thorough examination."
   Garza's body, which had a blow to the head and showed evidence of rape, was found April 21, 1960, in a McAllen canal, according to her death certificate. She had been reported missing five days earlier, on April 16, after she failed to come home from making confession at Sacred Heart.
   The priest who heard her confession, John B. Feit, was questioned extensively by police at the time of Garza's death. He has never been charged in relation to Garza's death. No longer a priest, Feit is living in the Phoenix area.
   In an incident less than a month prior to Garza's death, Feit was charged with attempting to rape a female college student, according to court documents.
• Porter wraps up bid for release
   TAUNTON (MA): Pawtucket Times, www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11324254&BRD=1713&PAG=461&dept_id=24491&rfi=6 , by Gregg Miliote, 04/15/2004
   The attorney for child molester James Porter concluded his case Wednesday for the former priest's immediate release from the Massachusetts Treatment Center by hammering home two main points.
   Michael Farrington insisted psychologists cannot accurately predict who will reoffend and that Porter's advanced age makes him a considerably low risk to prey on children in the future.
   Although the burden of proof is on the commonwealth, Porter's court-appointed attorney presented another prominent clinical psychologist to substantiate his argument that the commonwealth has no evidence supporting a civil commitment for the former Diocese of Fall River priest.
   Dr. Joseph Plaud, a psychologist who focuses his research on human sexual arousal and offending sexual behavior, concluded that psychologists cannot accurately make predictions on a sex offender's risk to society, as two prosecution experts claimed last week.
• Music director expected to post bail [1999]
   GENEVA (IL): Kane County Chronicle, www.kcchronicle.com/today/KCC/news/280280996715500.html , By ADAM KOVAC and BRENDA SCHORY
   Bond was set Wednesday at $100,000 for a former employee at St. Peter Catholic Church accused of slaying his ex-lover in New York, authorities said. Michael Pavone, 58, of West Chicago, has pleaded innocent to murder and other offenses for allegedly stabbing and beating his former roommate nearly five years ago and then dumping the body in a Buffalo, N.Y., nature preserve.
   Pavone, the former music director at the Geneva parish, was arrested Monday in New York, about one week after authorities said new evidence surfaced linking him to the crime.
   While Pavone appeared Wednesday in an Erie County, N.Y., courtroom, leaders and parishioners at St. Peter grappled with news that another church employee had been accused in an embarrassing criminal matter.
   Pavone is expected to post bail in the next few days and must surrender his U.S. passport, although he is not restricted from traveling throughout the country, Buffalo defense attorney Edward Cosgrove said.
   Even though prosecutors asked that he remain jailed without bond, Pavone argued that he was not a flight risk, adding that he suffers from diabetes and an unspecified psychological disorder, Cosgrove said.
   "He's had some emotional problems that have been treated with medication for many years," Cosgrove said. "He's not too different from many of us."
   On Oct. 21, 1999, Buffalo police found the slashed and battered body of Keith A. Sutherland floating in a pond in the Tifft Nature Preserve on the city's south side. His car was found nearby with its windows and headlights smashed.
   Prosecutors maintain that Sutherland, 45, had ended a romantic relationship with Pavone, who overdosed on pills after the body was found and was hospitalized briefly as a suicide risk, preventing police from questioning him.
   Pavone was hired Aug. 1, 2003, at St. Peter and served without incident until this week, when he was fired for lying about his employment history, according to church officials, who expressed shock at Pavone's arrest.
   "It was New York and five years ago. We did ... a criminal background check and nothing showed up," church spokeswoman Rama Canney said. "Now we just have to go about our work and pray, pray, pray and act like Jesus."
• Episcopal Church officials deny knowing former choir director was murder suspect - Episcopal.
   GENEVA (IL): Chicago Daily Herald, "Church officials deny knowing former choir director was murder suspect," www.daily herald.com/ dupage/main_ story.asp?int ID=3809223 , By Garrett Ordower, Posted Thursday, April 15, 2004
   Everywhere Michael Pavone went, his past followed him in the form of a package.
   It showed up in the mail at the musician's new job shortly after he started.
   It came from his brother, and contained a damning reminder of his past - a videotape with news footage and clippings from Buffalo, N.Y., describing the 1999 murder of his lover Keith Sutherland, 46, in which he was a suspect.
   He was arrested [and] charged in connection with that murder Monday, and faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted.
   When he worked at St. Charles Episcopal Church, the package showed up around Christmas-time 2001, two months after he started working there.
   "We looked at all the information and decided we were not going to fire him over this," said the Rev. William Nesbit. "It was pretty clear to us he was being hounded by his brother and that the police were not pursuing him."
• N.Y. judge sets bail for ex-church worker [1999 Pavone] - RC.
   GENEVA (IL): Chicago Tribune, www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/southsouthwest/chi-0404150079apr15,1,201260.story?coll=chi-newslocalssouthwest-hed ; By Ted Gregory, Published April 15, 2004
   A judge on Wednesday set bail at $100,000 for a West Chicago man charged with killing his former housemate in Buffalo in 1999.
   Michael Pavone, former music director at St. Peter Catholic Church in Geneva, is expected to make bail and be released by Friday, his attorney, Edward Cosgrove, said after the brief hearing in Buffalo.
   "We're very pleased," Cosgrove said Wednesday. "He's going to come back and try to relate back to his community there."
   Pavone, 58, is charged with second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal mischief in the slaying of Keith Sutherland, 46, whose severely stabbed and beaten body was found Oct. 21,1999, floating in a pond in the Tifft Nature Preserve in Buffalo. The two men had been housemates for several months in 1999 in the Buffalo suburb of Hamburg before Sutherland left the relationship in early October, authorities said.
   From the beginning, investigators had considered Pavone a suspect. He was an organist and choirmaster at a Catholic church in Orchard Park, N.Y., at the time of the homicide and later lived in Ohio and South Carolina before arriving in suburban Chicago in January 2001, Cosgrove said.
   Pavone worked at St. John of the Cross Catholic Church in Western Springs from January until June 15, 2001. Then he was employed through part of 2002 as an adjunct professor of music appreciation at College of DuPage and as the music director of St. Charles Episcopal Church in St. Charles. He was hired Aug. 1 as music director at St. Peter.
• Fired O'Hara teacher denies 30-year-old abuse claim [1970s]
   The Daily Times, www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1675&dept_id=18171&newsid=11324265&PAG=461&rfi=9 , By MATT ZAGER, mzager@delcotimes.com , Apr/15/2004
   PENNSYLVANIA: A veteran teacher who was fired March 26 by Cardinal O'Hara High School over a 30-year-old claim of sexual abuse fervently declared his innocence in an interview Wednesday.
   "It's been miserable, but I've been receiving a lot of phone calls from past students and parents and some students crying on the telephone," said a soft-spoken Edward Adams Jr. in a phone interview Wednesday night, during which he consulted with his attorney before answering each question.
   Adams had not commented when news of his dismissal became public this month.
   He added, "There is a great feeling coming from O'Hara. It's a great school and I haven't heard anyone say they believe this stuff, and it is incredibly encouraging to me."
   Adams, 59, of Drexel Hill, said he began teaching at Cardinal O'Hara in Springfield in 1967 and that it was his first teaching job after he graduated from Cheney University. He called the allegation against him "a lie."
   His dismissal resulted from an accusation made to the archdiocese's victim-assistance coordinator in December that Adams had sexually abused a minor about 30 years ago, according to a statement by the archdiocese on April 7.
• Church should leave Kerry alone
   Newsday, www.newsday. com/news/opinion/ ny-vprya15375 8129apr15,0,3243 417.story?coll= ny-viewpoints- headlines ; BY DICK RYAN (Dick Ryan wrote "Holy Human: Stories of Extraordinary Catholics.") April 15, 2004
   UNITED STATES: If members of the American Catholic hierarchy are as politically astute as they pretend, they will abort their current efforts to torpedo the presidential campaign of John Kerry, a practicing Roman Catholic, because of his pro-choice position on the issue of abortion.
   They will also drop all the shrill rhetoric about him not taking Communion, as is currently being voiced by St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke and Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley. Nobody likes bullies, especially a group of men who were invisible and timidly inarticulate at the height of the worst scandal in the history of their church.
• Three local priests refuse background check order [Right to privacy gambit]
   Post-Tribune, www.post-trib.com/cgi-bin/pto-story/news/z1/04-15-04_z1_news_05.html , By Carole Carlson, April 15, 2004
   MERRILLVILLE (IN): The priest who serves as the chief legal adviser to the Gary Diocese's bishop says the rule requiring criminal background checks for priests is intrusive and he won't submit to it.
The directive requires priests to undergo criminal background checks along with lay volunteers as a safeguard against sexual abuse.
   The Rev. Michael Maginot, who serves as judicial vicar of the diocese, has taken his case to the Vatican, which is investigating the nature of the directive made last summer by the Most Rev. Dale Melczek, bishop of the four-county Roman Catholic Diocese of Gary.
   Maginot says he's one of three priests in the diocese who won't consent to the criminal background checks. The diocese has 150 priests,
   Maginot says the policy goes beyond a charter approved by the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops two years ago and is an invasion of his privacy. The bishops approved the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People as a response to the sexual abuse crisis that has rocked the Roman Catholic church.
   "You can't fundamentally infringe on the right to privacy; it has to be done lawfully," said Maginot, who as judicial vicar advises Bishop Dale Melczek in matters of church law. He also heads a tribunal that handles marriage annulments and other matters.
• Second House of Affirmation civil suit with impound order, revisited on January 15, 2002.
   WORCESTER (MA): Worcester Voice, http://worcestervoice.com/2nd_house_suit_1993.htm
   The Worcester Voice has learned of a second suit involving the House of Affirmation of Whitinsville and a successful attempt by attorneys for the defendants to impound and keep secret details of the suit.
   A person identified as "John Doe" on February 9, 1993 filed a suit listing similar defendants. The suit was filed in Suffolk Superior Court (SUCV1993-00869) naming the Housing of Affirmation and Rev. Robert Burns. The suit additionally named as defendants the Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston and Bishop James M. Malone of Youngstown, Ohio.
   Nine attorneys are listed as representing parties in this case. "John Doe" is again represented by Laurence E. Hardoon of Boston. Wilson Rogers and Wilson Rogers Jr. are listed as attorneys of record for the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston. Attorney James G. Reardon represented the House of Affirmation and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, which at the time was Bishop Timothy Harrington.
   On the day of the filing - February 9, 1993 - an order was entered for immediate impoundment of documents. "ORDER The Court enters an Order for IMPOUNDMENT, which order shall include the Cover sheet, Complaint, Docket Sheet, all orders of the Court & all other pleadings filed by any party in this action. This Order for Impoundment shall remain in full force and effect until such time as any party petitions the Court to vacate the ORDER OF IMPOUNDMENT at which time the Court may rehear the matter. (Barrett,J.)."
• Well-paid doc: Porter not dangerous
   TAUNTON (MA): Boston Herald, http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=3478 , By Jessica Heslam, Thursday, April 15, 2004
   A psychologist who has made a small fortune arguing for the release of sex offenders, testified yesterday that a convicted pedophile like 69-year-old James Porter would be unlikely to commit sex crimes at his age.
   Dr. Joseph Plaud said past behavior is not a "strong predictor" of future sexual behavior and that the rate of re-offending decreases as people age. Plaud said a 69- or 70-year-old offender is "highly, highly unlikely to re-offend."
   Plaud was called as a witness by defense attorney Michael Farrington, who argues Porter is no longer sexually dangerous. The former priest was sentenced in 1993 after admitting he molested more than two dozen children in the 1960s.
   Porter, now held at the Massachusetts Treatment Center, has completed his prison sentence.
   Two psychologists who testified for the prosecution said Porter is likely to molest again. But Plaud said there is no reliable way to predict such behavior.
   Plaud said he has done more than 100 sexually dangerous person evaluations in Massachusetts since 2000. Of those, he found 20 percent to be sexually dangerous.
• SNAP Alerting Eureka Parishoners Over Dispute With Church [Anderson]
   ST. LOUIS (MO): KSDK, www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=58707 ,
   The Survivors Network for Those Abused By Priests [SNAP] is sending out letters to parishioners of Sacred Heart church in Eureka.
   SNAP claims an archdiocese publication, the St. Louis Review, inaccurately portrayed the abuse allegations leveled against Father Alex Anderson, the pastor at Sacred Heart.
   SNAP wants parishioners to hear its version of what happened.
   Barbara Dorris, SNAP outreach coordinator, "We've asked Archbishop Burke to remove him, which he should do under the Dallas Charter, and he has not. Since he has not, we're asking parishioners to meet us and hear the other side so they can protect their children."
   Monsignor Richard Stika says the archdiocese stands behind the articles in the review, and stands behind Father Anderson.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 07:44 AM
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Thursday April 15, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont77.htm
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Friday April 16, 2004 edition follows:-
• Sin: A Cardinal Deposed Will Play Boston, Scandal's Crucible, in June; Producer Seeks Angels
   ARLINGTON (MA): Playbill, www.playbill.com/news/article/85618.html , By Kenneth Jones, 16 Apr 2004
   Bailiwick Repertory's lauded Chicago production of Sin: A Cardinal Deposed travels to Boston, the hometown of its main character, Cardinal Bernard Law, June 9-27.
   Since its Windy City world premiere in March, Michael Murphy's docudrama, based on public records surrounding the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, the play has received both audience and critical acclaim. It's expected to have a wide regional life.
   In Boston, Sin plays Wednesdays-Thursdays at 7:30 PM, Fridays at 8 PM, Saturdays at 3 PM & 8 PM, and Sundays at 3 PM and 7 PM at the Regent Theatre, 7 Medford Street, Arlington, MA.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 09:32 PM
• Anti-abuse group will leaflet churches Sunday
   HUDSON (IA): The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Iowa, www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2004/04/16/news/metro/476e88a7d62bfe9c86256e780044e91c.txt ; By PAT KINNEY, Assistant City Editor, Friday, April 16, 2004
   Members of the Northeast Iowa chapter of a support group for survivors of sexual abuse by clergy will leaflet two Roman Catholic churches in the Waterloo area on Sunday.
   Steve Theisen and Heather Smith, co-founders of the Northeast Iowa chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, and supporters will leaflet Sacred Heart Church in Waterloo at 8:15 a.m. and St. Patrick Catholic Church in Cedar Falls at 11:30 a.m. The leafleting will let victims of religious sexual abuse, their families and their supporters know of the chapter's formation.
   Both parishes to be leafleted have had priests accused of sexual misconduct with minors.
• Closing arguments in bid to have pedophile priest committed [1960s]
   Pioneer Press, www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/8449312.htm?1c , By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press, Posted on Fri, Apr. 16, 2004
   TAUNTON, Mass. - A prosecutor argued Friday that former priest James Porter is a serial pedophile who is likely to molest more children if he is released from prison, while Porter's attorney described the 69-year-old Porter as an old man whose crimes are in the distant past.
   The contrasting portrayals of Porter were made during closing arguments as a hearing concluded in Taunton Superior Court on prosecutors' bid to keep Porter locked up indefinitely as a sexually dangerous person.
   "Jim Porter committed many offenses against children - mostly boys - 40 years ago, when he was sheltered by the Catholic Church in his role as a priest," said Michael Farrington, Porter's court-appointed attorney. "That was 40 years ago. We have to make these judgments based on ... today."
   Porter, a former priest in the Fall River Diocese, was convicted in 1993 of molesting 28 children in the 1960s and 1970s. In Bemidji, Minn., more than 20 allegations of sexual abuse have been made against him from when he worked there as a priest in 1969-70.
   He completed his prison term in January, but Bristol District Attorney Paul Walsh filed a petition seeking to have Porter civilly committed to the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater.
   Assistant District Attorney Mimi McMahon said Porter's long history of abusing children is evidence enough that he is likely to commit more sex crimes if released. She said that each time Porter abused children, he was transferred to another church, where he abused more children.
• Lawyers accuse Tucson diocese of concealing wealth
   TUCSON (AZ): Fox 11, www.fox11az.com/news/local/stories/KMSB_local_diocese_041604.13116ef61.html , By Stephanie Innes / Arizona Daily Star 06:13 PM MST, Friday, April 16, 2004
   Lawyers representing men who say they were abused by local priests want the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson to stop crying poor.
   Plaintiff attorneys Lynne M. Cadigan and Kim E. Williamson say the local diocese is concealing its true wealth by putting money into entities like the Catholic Foundation to avoid paying victims of priest abuse. The attorneys say the diocese has been waging a media campaign of poverty to get sympathy from parishioners - and potential jurors.
   Denying the allegations, Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas on Thursday said the diocese has been nothing but candid in sharing information about its finances with parishioners.
   "The resources are quite limited, although our intent and desire is to continue to try to respond to the pain and hurt of victims and provide for them wherever possible," Kicanas said. "We are assessing the credibility of the claims and responding the best way we can."
• Investigators hope letter delivers justice [Lavigne]
   WGGB, http://wggb.com , Posted: April 16, 2004
   SPRINGFIELD (MA) abc40: Thirty-two years after Danny Croteau was found murdered, there could be new evidence in the investigation.
   Investigators believe a printer removed from defrocked priest Richard Lavigne's home last week was used to print a letter written by him, but signed with another name.
   Sources tell abc40 the investigators have that letter and it contains an alibi for Lavigne in the 1972 murder of altar boy Danny Croteau.
   Lavigne was the prime suspect in the Croteau murder. Now a forensic expert is trying to match the letter to the computer.
• Allegations place priest on leave [Wamsher]
   SPRINGFIELD (MA): Republican, http://masslive.com/news/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1082105280222750.xml , By BILL ZAJAC, wzajac@repub.com , Friday, April 16, 2004
   A former parish priest who most recently served on the panel that decides marriage annulments, has been placed on paid leave while the diocese further investigates sexual abuse allegations against him.
   The Rev. Ronald E. Wamsher, 54, who has been accused of abusing three brothers who grew up in Greenfield, was placed on immediate administrative leave by the Most Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell, the recently installed bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, the diocese announced yesterday.
   Wamsher denied the allegations, according to a diocesan spokesperson. Efforts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful.
• Groups support abuse victims
   FLORIDA: Sun-Sentinel, www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-bc16abuseapr16,0,4829318.story?coll=sfla-news-palm ; By Mary Thurman Yuhas, Special Correspondent, Posted April 16 2004
   Catholic Charities in Palm Beach County has started a nondenominational support group for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, part of the Catholic Church's efforts to deal with the issue in wake of the clergy crisis.
   The Bethany Program is designed to help people who were sexually abused as children. Free, weekly support groups will meet at the Catholic Charities offices in Delray Beach, West Palm Beach and Stuart. A certified counselor will run the meetings on weekdays evenings. Delray Beach will meet from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Mondays; West Palm Beach will meet from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Mondays and Stuart will meet from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays. Meetings are open, so people can join at any time.
   "It's very hard for people to start. We're waiting for calls. We know there are lots of people out there," said Diann Jasinski, division director of counseling for Catholic Charities, the Catholic Church's nondenominational social service agency.
   On Feb. 27, Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, acknowledged more than 10,000 claims of sexual abuse of children by priests since 1950 and apologized to the victims, pledging that the tragedy would never be repeated.
• Lawyer admits stealing $70,000 from client; Prominent In Sex Abuse Cases.
   WINCHESTER (KY): Lexington Herald-Leader, www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/legislature/8444297.htm , By Peter Mathews, CENTRAL KENTUCKY BUREAU, Posted on Fri, Apr. 16, 2004
   A prominent Lexington lawyer admitted yesterday that he stole nearly $70,000 from a former client.
   Robert Treadway, who has represented plaintiffs in sexual-abuse cases against the Catholic Diocese of Lexington and Lexington's city government, pleaded guilty to five felony counts of theft by deception.
   Prosecutors will not make a sentencing recommendation to Clark Circuit Judge Julia Adams. Treadway could get as much as 20 years when he is sentenced June 3.
   Treadway, 44, was accused of manufacturing a sexual misconduct allegation by an unidentified employee of Rogers Investments Inc. -- a company led by Ale-8-One President Frank A. Rogers III.
• Church settles abuse claims - RCC. $US 1.075m, Schaeufele survivors.
   ST. PETERSBURG (FL): St. Petersburg Times, www.sptimes.com/2004/04/16/Tampabay/Church_settles_abuse_.shtml , By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Published April 16, 2004
   The Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg has agreed to pay $1,075,000 to a dozen men who accused a former priest of molesting them when they were boys.
   The settlement will pay the men between $20,000 and $250,000 to resolve claims they were sexually abused between the ages of 9 and 14 by Robert Schaeufele beginning in the mid 1970s.
   An arbitrator selected by the victims will decide how much money each will receive, which will depend upon the severity of the abuse.
   Schaeufele, 56, a priest in the diocese for 27 years before his 2002 resignation, was sentenced to 30 years in prison last year after he pleaded guilty to charges that he sexually abused three boys.
   With this settlement, the diocese has paid about $2-million since 1990 in settlements and related expenses to settle claims of sexual abuse.
   Seven lawsuits have been filed against the diocese involving allegations against Schaeufele. Five of those lawsuits will be dismissed. Two men who accuse Schaeufele of sexual abuse refused to settle.
• Bishop places priest on leave [1970s, Wamsher]
   The Boston Globe, www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/04/16/bishop_places_priest_on_leave , By Brian MacQuarrie, April 16, 2004
   SPRINGFIELD (MA): In a rapid series of responses to the Springfield Diocese's clergy sex-abuse crisis, newly installed Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell announced yesterday that he has placed a Catholic priest on leave pending an investigation of alleged sexual misconduct 25 years ago.
   The Rev. Ronald E. Wamsher, 54, will not be allowed to perform any priestly duties during the probe, including his responsibilities as legal aide to the diocesan tribunal that rules on marriage annulments.
   The announcement followed the resignation Monday of the president of the diocesan communications department. Michael Graziano, a layman, stepped down after an allegation of sexual misconduct dating to 1985.
   Church officials received the allegation against Wamsher in 2002, but the complex case was slowed by a lack of trained investigators on the diocese's review board, said Laura Failla Reilly, the diocese's advocate for victims. Reilly said the review board recommended on April 4 that the Wamsher case be investigated further.
   In October, the case was cited by auditors hired by the US bishops as being particularly slow-moving and an example of the diocese's need to improve. As part of its response to that audit, the diocese recently hired a retired State Police detective to investigate allegations of abuse for which the all-volunteer review board lacked the expertise and time to resolve quickly, Reilly said.
   In another move yesterday, McDonnell held the first of 10 meetings scheduled over the next two weeks with alleged victims and their families, said Reilly, who attended the session. In the meeting, McDonnell "expressed his apologies, his regret, and his horror that this abuse happened," Reilly said.
   "And he listened. He wanted to listen to the survivor about the impact it's had on his life."
• Jacques Pushing Bills To Protect Abuse Victims
   BOSTON (MA): The Daily Free Press, www.dailyfreepress.com/news/2002/02/20/News/Jacques.Pushing.Bills.To.Protect.Abuse.Victims-187241.shtml ; By Scott Brooks, Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2002
   State Sen. Cheryl Jacques (D-Norfolk, Bristol) proposed bills to the Senate which will require religious officials to report suspected child abuse and to establish a sexual assault and rape victims' bill of rights.
   Although the Church has revealed the names of nearly 90 current and former priests in this Archdiocese who have committed sexual abuse against children, Sen. Cheryl Jacques (D-Norfolk, Bristol) said yesterday just knowing the names of these molesters is of little use without more information.
   Jacques is pushing for the House to pass two bills designed to protect victims of sexual abuse and facilitate the prosecution of sex criminals. The legislation would force clergy members to report incidents of child abuse to the state and would establish a Victims' Bill of Rights in rape and sexual assault cases.
   In light of pressure following the first trial of defrocked priest John J. Geoghan, who was charged with more than 130 allegations of sexual abuse against children, Bernard Cardinal Law instituted a "zero tolerance" policy in the Archdiocese. The Clergy Reporting Bill, co-sponsored by Jacques, would effectively enforce this measure.
   Under the bill, clergy members who fail to report relevant cases would be fined up to $1,000. The bill would categorize religious officials with teachers, social workers and doctors, all of whom are legally required to report all suspicions of child abuse.
• Archdiocese fund-raising rebounds
   BOSTON (MA): Boston Herald, http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=3499 , By Eric Convey, Friday, April 16, 2004
   A major annual Archdiocese of Boston fund-raiser that ended yesterday raised $1.3 million more than during the previous year - a possible sign Catholics are opening their wallets again after the shock of the clergy abuse scandal in 2002.
   The Annual Catholic Appeal netted $10.3 million from 47,000 donors.
   "Supporting the Annual Catholic Appeal helps enable the ministries of the church to deliver important programs and services," said Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley.
• Regent set to be the house of 'Sin'
   The Boston Globe, www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/107/living/Regent_set_to_be_the_house_of_Sin_+.shtml , By Catherine Foster, 4/16/2004
   ARLINGTON (MA): The much-discussed play "Sin: A Cardinal Deposed" is scheduled to open at Arlington's Regent Theatre in June. Bailiwick Repertory, the Chicago company that originated the show, is expected to announce the engagement today.
   "Sin," about the Catholic Church's sex-abuse scandal, has packed the 90-seat Bailiwick theater since it opened March 2. Written in the tradition of docudramas such as "The Laramie Project," it's compiled mostly from transcripts of Cardinal Bernard F. Law's pretrial depositions in the civil suits brought by abuse victims against priests John Geoghan and Paul Shanley.
   The Globe's Ed Siegel wrote in his review of the Chicago production: "It almost seems as if the cardinal himself is onstage." The play has provoked high emotions. During the "talk-backs" that follow the show, priests and those who say they were abused by priests have stood up, many in tears, to describe their reactions and experiences.
   Plans were made to mount the Bailiwick production in May at the Wellesley Summer Theatre, but the college quickly canceled, citing "logistical problems." Boston-area theater companies then approached Bailiwick about producing the show themselves, says Mark Steel, the company manager who also plays plaintiffs' lawyer Roderick MacLeish Jr. in the show.
   Ultimately, he says, Bailiwick decided "right now it's this beautiful child of ours that we're not ready to let go of yet." After looking at a number of venues, Bailiwick chose the 500-seat Regent because of its size, enthusiastic staff, and availability. "We hope that it'll get the same reaction it's getting here in Chicago, and that's overwhelming support," Steel says.
   "This show belongs to Boston, and we trust once it 'comes home,' if you will, that it will be extremely well received." Steel adds that Bailiwick is looking for financial help with the costs of transferring the show.
• O'Brien won't appeal felony conviction [2003]
   PHOENIX (AZ): The Arizona Republic, www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0415B1-talker-ON1.html , Apr. 15, 2004
   Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien will not appeal his felony conviction in a hit-and-run case and says he intends "to comply fully" with his sentence.
   "I feel relieved that we have come this far in this whole unfortunate, sad and exhausting ordeal," O'Brien said in a short statement released by the Phoenix Diocese public information office.
   O'Brien was convicted Feb. 17 and sentenced March 26 for leaving the scene of an accident that took the life of Jim L. Reed, 43, in June 2003. He was sentenced to four years probation, including 1,000 hours of community service aiding people who are severely injured or dying.
   He expressed "deep regret" to the Reed family and appreciation to his supporters.
• Diocese Settles Claims Of Sex Abuse By Priest [12 complainants, $US 1.1m, Schaeufele]
   ST. PETERSBURG (FL): Tampa Tribune, http://news.tbo.com/news/MGA4DASS3TD.html , By STEPHEN THOMPSON, spthompson@tampatrib.com , Published: Apr 16, 2004
   The Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg has reached a $1.1 million lump-sum settlement with 12 men who said they were molested by priest Robert Schaeufele when they were boys.
   They will divide that amount in accordance with a formula that breaks them up into three categories, with those who suffered the worst abuse receiving the most money, said the men's attorney, Joseph H. Saunders.
   Saunders and the diocese characterized the settlement as a bittersweet arrangement. On one hand, it brings to a close a 2-year-old battle with the church that commenced when Schaeufele's victims first went to the Pinellas Park attorney. On the other, it does nothing to erase the scars etched on the men's psyches.
   "No amount of money can compensate a person who was harmed as a child by someone serving in the ministry," Bishop Robert N. Lynch said in a prepared statement. "We reach this agreement for pastoral and not for legal reasons to help those who have been harmed.
• Priest refuses background check
   MERRILLVILLE (IN): Northwest Indiana News, www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2004/04/16/news/top_news/416dd9c4a90cc9a186256e780001a163.txt ; BY BILL DOLAN
   A Northwest Indiana priest believes the Vatican will excuse him from a criminal background check being demanded of everyone working with children in the Gary diocese.
   The Rev. Michael Maginot, administrator of the St. Stephen Martyr Church and top adviser to Bishop Dale Melczek in church law, said Thursday he is refusing the bishop's requirement to submit his name to state police for any record of contact with law enforcement.
   He is appealing to the Congregation for the Clergy, which interprets church law for Pope John Paul II.
   "I anticipate the Vatican will side with me," Maginot said Thursday.
   Brian Olszewski, a diocese spokesman, said the bishop is aware of Maginot's refusal, but isn't in town to comment.
• Report shows upgrades to diocese's abuse policy
   ST. CLOUD (MN): St. Cloud Times, http://miva.sctimes.com/miva/cgi-bin/miva?CMN/Local/read.mv+20040416035131+4+ , by Sarah Colburn, scolburn@stcloudtimes.com
   A local report says the Diocese of St. Cloud has successfully upgraded a number of its policies to protect young people.
   Since its inception in October 2002, the local Diocesan Review Board has reviewed and made recommendations on how to revise the sexual misconduct policy, create guidelines for ethics and integrity in ministry, and strengthen sexual misconduct internal reporting guidelines. Recommendations include identifying a process for how church leaders relay accusations against a priest to the local parish.
   "Our work added some stronger steps clarifying how the reporting occurs and to whom it flows," said Mel Euteneuer, chairman of the review board.
   The work of the 12-member board, created under the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, continues.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 12:43 AM
//////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Friday April 16, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont77.htm
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Saturday April 17 2004 edition follows:-
• 33 years' silence broken [1970s, McSweeney]
   RALEIGH (NC): News-Observer, www.news-observer.com/front/story/3519954p-3123200c.html , By YONAT SHIMRON, Staff Writer
   After the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh handed him a check for $120,000 last month, J. Michael Woods thought he might be able to put his past behind him. But two weeks ago, he read in the paper that a former North Carolina priest was charged with sexual abuse.
   This time, Woods decided, he could no longer keep silent. He had a horrific story to tell, and he wanted to tell it.
   It has been two years since the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal broke, but Woods, 43, is just beginning to recover from sexual abuse by a priest 33 years ago. Raleigh Bishop F. Joseph Gossman said that Woods' complaint is credible and that he has received a similar complaint about that priest from someone else.
   "I felt he had lost his life," Gossman said. "I would apologize to him and to other victims one more time and ask for their forgiveness and their prayers."
   Woods, who grew up in Durham and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, says his story boils down to this:
   Beginning at age 11, he was repeatedly molested by a priest.
   That priest was Monsignor James E. McSweeney, who died in 1999. Woods said that for three years, McSweeney took him to Kerr Lake and to the beach and performed sexual acts with him. When McSweeney couldn't get away, he forced Woods to commit those acts in the rectory and even in his car.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 01:27 PM
• Antiochian Orthodox bishop sentenced to jail time [2003, Khoury]
   TRAVERSE CITY (MI): Record-Eagle, www.record-eagle.com/2004/apr/17bishop.htm , By PATRICK SULLIVAN, Apr 17 2004
   An Eastern Orthodox bishop who begged not to be incarcerated for groping a woman's breast at a casino last year was ordered to spend 28 days in jail.
   Bishop Demetri Khoury, 55, implored 13th Circuit Judge Philip Rodgers Jr. to sentence him to community service Friday for attempted fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct.
   Jail "would be like a death sentence to my career and thus to my very life," Khoury said in heavily-accented English.
   Rodgers said Khoury could perform community service while he is in jail and offer spiritual guidance to others there.
   Khoury, of Toledo, led churches in the Midwest for the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America until he was arrested at the Turtle Creek Casino in July, charged with being drunk and grabbing a woman at a slot machine.
   Chief Assistant Prosecutor Alan Schneider argued that even though Khoury has no criminal record and has led an accomplished life, he should be treated like anyone else convicted of sexual assault.
• Straight Guy with the Catholic Eye, No. 2
   UNITED STATES: Mens News Daily, http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/a-b/abbott/2004/abbott041704.htm , by Matt C. Abbott, April 17, 2004
   Well, it looks like this column will be more than just "occasional." It certainly won't be daily; but perhaps weekly. We'll see.
   A pathetic situation in Albany
   The Diocese of Albany, New York, has had its share of scandal in the last couple of months, with allegations of a ring of homosexual priests operating in the Diocese, Bishop Howard Hubbard being accused of protecting that ring and engaging in his own sexual shenanigans, and the recent bizarre suicide of a long-time critic of Hubbard, Father John Minkler. (For a detailed background of this situation, click here.)
   In an April 15 story on the website of Albany's Capital News 9, Jessica Schneider wrote that, "Outspoken attorney John Aretakis continued to press the Albany Diocese on Bishop Howard Hubbard's alleged homosexual relations and is now saying the note left by Father John Minkler before his suicide lashed out at the Bishop.
   "I have been told by people who are aware of the letter. That it does address Bishop Hubbard's homosexuality and the rampant homosexuality and sexual misconduct of many Albany Diocesan priests, including Bishop Hubbard," Aretakis said.
   Aretakis stood by several alleged victims of clergy abuse, all who said Bishop Hubbard's homosexual lifestyle was well known around the community. And they also said Hubbard did everything in his power to shelter his fellow gay priests.
• Bishop jailed for grabbing woman [2003, Khoury]
   TOLEDO (OH): Toledo Blade, www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040417/NEWS02/404170352 , By MARK ZABORNEY, Apr 17 2004
   Bishop Demetri Khoury of Toledo, who oversees eight states for the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church, was sentenced yesterday in Grand Traverse County Circuit Court in Traverse City, Mich., to 28 days in jail and fined for an assault last year in which he was accused of groping a woman's breast.
   Khoury, 56, began serving his sentence yesterday in the county jail, a spokesman in the clerk of courts office said. He pleaded guilty in February to one count of attempted fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony.
   He could have received a year in jail and a $500 fine. Circuit Judge Philip Rogers sentenced him to 28 days in jail but credited him with two days served and placed him on probation for two years. He was fined $200, although he was assessed costs in excess of $800.
   His guilty plea to a reduced charge just before he was to stand trial reduced his potential jail time by a year and meant his sentence would be served in the local jail, not Michigan's prison system. A misdemeanor charge was dismissed.
   Khoury was charged initially with fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct for the July 9, 2003, incident in which he grabbed the breast of a North Carolina woman seated next to him at a slot machine in the Turtle Creek Casino outside Traverse City.
   He was highly intoxicated, and the entire incident was captured on the casino's security surveillance system, authorities said.
• Oakland Police Conduct Second Search At St. Patrick Abbey [Weeks]
   KTVU, www.ktvu.com/news/3014129/detail.html POSTED: 6:08 pm PDT, April 16, 2004
   OAKLAND, Calif. -- Oakland police are conducting a lengthy search at St. Patrick Abbey in Oakland today, following up on a search two weeks ago that led to the arrest of the Rev. Donald Weeks on sexual assault charges.
   Standing outside the abbey at 3700 East 12th St., Weeks said, "This is police harassment."
   Weeks' attorney John Burris said, "Police are scrounging around to try to get evidence to file new charges" against Weeks, 60, who has run a transitional housing program at the abbey for parolees and substance abusers for five years."
   Burris said, "The present charges are bogus, so they're trying to get new charges."
   He said, "This is a desperate attempt on their part (the Oakland Police Department)."
   Oakland police officials didn't return several calls seeking comment on today's investigation.
   Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Tim Wellman, who is prosecuting Weeks on 24 counts of oral copulation with a minor, declined to comment other than to say that the investigation in the case is ongoing. Weeks is free in lieu of $50,000 bail and is scheduled to return to court next Tuesday to enter a plea.
• Bishop Won't Appeal Hit-and-Run Conviction [2003, O'Brien]
   PHOENIX (AZ): Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-briefs17.4apr17,1,5507557.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
   Expressing "deep regret" over the case, Bishop Thomas O'Brien said he would not appeal his conviction in a deadly hit-and-run accident.
   O'Brien, 68, was convicted in February of leaving the scene of an accident that killed 43-year-old pedestrian Jim Reed. The bishop had until Thursday to file an appeal.
   Phoenix Superior Court Judge Stephen A. Gerst sentenced O'Brien to four years' probation and ordered him to spend 1,000 hours of community service ministering to the sick and dying.
• DiLorenzo guided Hawaii's66 parishes through some difficult times during his tenure
   HONOLULU (HI): Star-Bulletin, http://starbulletin.com/2004/04/17/features/story1.html , By Mary Adamski, madamski@starbulletin.com
   The departing leader of Hawaii Catholics said the scandal of sexual predator priests has not driven off church members or held back financial contributions.
   "Most people are bright enough to know that this is not just a church of saints, but of saints and sinners both," said Honolulu Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, who during his tenure here removed six priests from duty on charges of sexual abuse of minors.
   "People will continue to go to church because they have a deep conviction. They want to keep up the environment they are worshipping in. They want the programs to continue.
   "But for people not very strong in their faith, this hurts them very much. I don't think you can measure that effect."
   The bishop talked in an interview about his role in facing the clergy scandal, which has shaken the Catholic church nationwide for the past two years. He talked about challenges and changes during his 11-year tenure as head of the Hawaii diocese, which will end next month when he leaves to head the diocese in Richmond, Va.
   "I believe the quality of clergy has improved dramatically over this period of years. Our system of screening and selecting people who want to come into the diocese has improved very much," he said.
• Porter would abuse again, prosecutor argues in closing [Porter]
   TAUNTON (MA): Standard-Times, www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/04-04/04-17-04/a01lo847.htm , By RAY HENRY
   Even after a decade in jail, former priest and convicted pedophile James Porter minimizes the sexual abuse he inflicted on at least two dozen children and would do it again if released, prosecutors said yesterday.
   In her closing remarks, Assistant District Attorney Mimi McMahon argued that prosecutors have presented enough evidence during a two-week hearing to warrant a full trial on whether to indefinitely commit the 69-year-old convict.
   "What sets him apart from perhaps the typical pedophile is that James Porter acts out on his sexual fantasies," Ms. McMahon said. "Recent records indicate he has temptations still to this very day."
   The former priest in the Fall River Diocese pleaded guilty in 1993 to 41 counts of child molestation. That admission provided a glimpse into the national clergy abuse scandal that would erupt nine years later in Boston.
   Although his prison sentence ended in January, District Attorney Paul F. Walsh Jr. is pushing for a trial on whether Mr. Porter is a "sexually dangerous person" under state law. If so, he could face an indefinite committal at the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater.
   Defense attorney Michael Farrington never denied his client's past yesterday, but said the crimes happened decades ago while Mr. Porter was "sheltered" by the Catholic Church.
   Instead, Mr. Farrington focused on undercutting the findings of two psychologists who testified for the prosecution. Both believed Mr. Porter demonstrated anti-social behavior and was likely to reoffend.
• Ex-priest accepts deal in sex case [1990s or 80s, Jablonowski]
   OHIO: Marietta Times, www.mariettatimes.com/news/story/0417202004_new03expriest.asp , By Justin McIntosh, jmcintosh@mariettatimes.com
   A former St. John's Catholic priest has been sentenced in Wyoming for indecent liberties with a minor, likely making the priest a registered sex offender after his release from prison.
   Anthony Jablonowski, who left St. John's in 2002, received the one-year to seven-year sentence Thursday after accepting a plea bargain from prosecutors in Platte County, Wyo. Under the plea, Jablonowski was directed to plead no contest to the felony charge. In return nearly 10 criminal charges would be dropped against the former priest.
   The no contest plea stems from allegations against Jablonowski during his time in the Cheyenne, Wyo., diocese nearly 20 years ago. The accusations came to light in 2002.
   The allegation involves sex with a boy who was 17 years old at the time. According to Jablonowski the acts were for spiritual reasons and not sexual gratification, said Eric Alden, prosecuting attorney for Platte County in Wyoming.
   According to that state's laws, the charge of "indecent liberties with a minor" involves sexual acts between a youth and an authority figure.
   "His (Jablonowski) explanation was penitential prayer and redemptive suffering," Alden said. "This infliction of pain was somehow a necessary addition to allow for spiritual focus."
• Porter's pedophilia began at 23, records say [1960 onwards, and confessed]
   BOSTON (MA): Boston Herald, http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=3518 , By Jessica Heslam, Saturday, April 17, 2004
   James Porter became interested in adolescent boys in his early 20s and didn't have sex with a woman until he was 36 years old - after he had spent a decade molesting more than a hundred children, according to jailhouse therapy records obtained by the Herald.
   The 69-year-old former priest molested mostly boys at parishes across the country and confessed his deviant behavior "all along in confessional" from 1960 to 1970, according to the 1995 records.
   Porter, who is engaged to be married, was sentenced in 1993 after he admitted molesting 28 Massachusetts children. The pedophile's prison sentence is up, but prosecutors are trying to keep him committed as a sexually dangerous person.
   In closing arguments yesterday, defense attorney Michael Farrington said Porter is an old man who committed "many offenses against children" 40 years ago while "sheltered by the Catholic Church in his role as a priest."
   "That was 40 years ago," said Farrington. "We have to make these judgments" based on today.
   But prosecutor MiMi McMahon called Porter a "menace" to society who has a lifelong history of sexually abusing children and is likely to molest again if freed. "Recent records indicate he has temptation still to this day," the prosecutor said. "It's the man's lifelong dedication."
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 08:35 AM
//////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Saturday April 17 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont77.htm
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Sunday April 18 2004 edition follows:-
• Experts say treatment helped Porter
   TAUNTON (MA): The Sun Chronicle, www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2004/04/18/city/city6.txt , BY DAVID LINTON
   Therapists at the Franklin County House of Correction, where former priest James Porter served time for molesting children, gave the pedophile generally glowing reviews for his sex offender treatment, according to jail records.
   "Mr. Porter appears to have benefited from therapy. Mr. Porter has now learned the skills to successfully control his sexual offending, if he elects to do so," a therapist in the jail's sex offender program wrote in December 1998.
   The records, comprised of scores of treatment documents, including a letter from a victim, were ordered released Friday by Judge David McLaughlin, who said the records indicate Porter waived confidentiality to them.
   Porter's lawyer Michael Farrington had argued that the records were privileged.
   During the two-week hearing in Taunton Superior Court, Farrington had argued that the records indicated that Porter, 69, successfully completed treatment to counter testimony by prosecution experts.
   Two psychologists, who appeared for the prosecution, said Porter was terminated from treatment at the Massachusetts Treatment Center for the sexually dangerous in Bridgewater, where he was transferred in 2000.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 11:08 AM
• Bishop still 'listening,' learning
   SPRINGFIELD (MA): Republican, http://masslive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1082276124201240.xml?nntn , Sunday, April 18, 2004
   The following is a condensed report of a recent question-and-answer session between The Republican and the Most Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell, installed April 1 as the eighth bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield:
   Q: Have you identified what your priorities are going to be?
   A: Actually, I'm still listening. I said that the first day ... that I would not act until I understood. To understand, I have to learn. In order to learn, I have to listen. I'm still doing a lot of listening. I have meetings set up. There are a lot of groups in the diocese that I have not had a chance to meet with yet. ... Until that is finished, I don't have a chance to say what my priorities will be. Am I seeing indications of direction? Yes. The most I would say I do have is indications of directions - no more than that.
   Q: Can you give any hints?
   A: I would rather not, because they may go nowhere.
   Q: Have you identified any one thing or things that need to be changed or tweaked?
   A: The only tweaking that I have done so far was - and this was in process when I arrived and I completed it - I did make arrangements for the mediator to become part of the (settlement) process so ... we can fast-track that. We have arranged that and accepted a hiatus on all litigation ... so that can go forward.
   We have hired a retired state investigator to investigate any allegations that are forthcoming so we can get a professional analysis and be able to act based on true investigations.
   Q: Is it going to be a full-time position?
   A: I don't know; actually I hope not.
• Ananda Church Claiming Bigotry
   HOPKINTON (RI): The Westerly Sun, www.thewesterlysun.com/articles/2004/04/18/news/news2.txt , By Ryan McBride
   A neighbor of the Ananda Church of Self-Realization and Retreat Center charges that the religious organization has violated the zoning for its 40-acre compound on rural Tomaquag Road.
   But the church claims neighbor Richard Coppa is mixing his zoning complaints with half-truths about the organization and religious bigotry.
   The church received a permit from Building and Zoning Official Charles Mauti on Feb. 27 to build a house on its Tomaquag Road site, zoned for residential use.
   But according to Coppa, of 279 Tomaquag Road, the construction violates the terms of a special-use permit - awarded to the church in 2002 to operate the retreat center - that it "... apply to the appropriate board if they plan on... any building expansion."
   Coppa recently circulated a flier to residents on Tomaquag Road that says the Ananda religion is a "cult." And the church's "religious leader (J. Donald Walters) is a fugitive from justice stemming from a previous conviction of 'sexual abuse' and 'constructive fraud' resulting from the church's brainwashing of their followers."
   In response to Coppa's flier, the church sent a letter to neighbors which argues that Coppa uses the word "cult" as a tabloid label to mask "religious intolerance." Further, the response asserts that Walters, 78, whose religious name is Swami Kriyananda, has no convictions for sexual abuse.
   Yet the Ananda Awareness Network, a watchdog group of estranged members, claimed last month that Italian authorities sought Walters for five criminal charges, including fraud, usury and slavery in connection with his involvement with an Ananda church police raided in Asissi, Italy.
   The local Ananda church's letter says that Walters, who left Italy for India in January, reported to the Italian consulate in Delhi to answer the charges. "The Italian judge saw through the ridiculousness of the charges and no longer requires (Walters') presence in Italy," the local representatives wrote.
• Schools face tougher sex laws - All schools
   AUSTRALIA: The Advertiser, www.theadvertiser. news.com.au/common/ story_page/ 0,5936,9321676 %255E421, 00.html , By Rosemary Odgers, Apr 19 2004
   Queesnland's teachers will be fined up to $1500 if they fail to report suspected sexual abuse of students by other school employees.
   The new laws will take effect from tomorrow when students return from the Easter break.
   The laws also will apply to anyone working in state and non-state schools including cleaners and teacher-aides.
   Any staff member at a school who becomes aware of or suspects a student has been sexually abused by another employee must report the case to their supervisors, who are then required to notify police.
   The laws also cover consenting sexual relations between staff and minors.
   Education Minister Anna Bligh said the mandatory reporting would ensure the welfare and safety of children was the top priority.
   "This is the first time in Queensland the obligation to report in writing actual or suspected sexual abuse of students by school employees has been enshrined in legislation," Ms Bligh said. ...
   However child protection advocate Hetty Johnston, of the Bravehearts organisation, said the penalties should be harsher.
   "I'm surprised it's not a jailable offence to cover up for a pedophile," she said.
   "The ramifications of abuse are enormous and we should be putting kids first."
   The changes are based on recommendations from a government taskforce which was established to respond to the Anglican Church inquiry into the handling of complaints about sexual abuse.
• Presbyterian, former Napa youth counselor charged with sex crime [1970s, 2000s Leach] - Presbyterian. Boy.
   CALIFORNIA: Napa Valley Register, "Former Napa youth counselor charged with sex crime," www.napanews.com/templates/index.cfm?template=story_full&id=762C3036-3BE7-402E-A1C6-88D942139E57 ; By MARSHA DORGAN, Sunday, April 18, 2004
   Almost 30 years ago, Norman Leach, then executive director of a Napa non-profit organization called Aldea, Inc., was arrested by Napa police on child molestation charges.
   Leach, 63, is once again in hot water with authorities, this time in Lincoln, Neb.
   Leach was arrested last month on suspicion of third-degree sexual assault against a 15-year-old boy. The alleged victim is a member of Boy Scout Troop 911. Leach is the executive director the troop, according to court records.
   In 1974, Leach was charged with sodomy, oral sex and child molestation against two boys, 16 and 17, in Napa. Napa police would not state whether the victims were enrolled in programs run by Aldea.
   Aldea Child and Family Services is a Napa nonprofit agency that has provided mental health and children's services since 1972.
   In February, 1975, Leach pleaded guilty in a Napa County court to a misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and was sentenced to three years probation. At that time, Leach left the county.
   Last month, Leach pleaded not guilty in the Nebraska case. ...
   Leach is a Presbyterian minister and former executive director of the Lincoln Interfaith Council. He helped found the Asian Community Center and Citizens Against Racism and Prejudice in Nebraska. In 2002, Leach won Humans Rights Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement in improving human relations in Lincoln.
• Shamed priest, "died" in Australia, posing as teacher: claim [Clonan]
   BRITAIN: ic Coventry ; "Shamed priest posing as teacher: claim," http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_objectid=14158604&method=full&siteid=50003&headline=shamed-priest-posing-as-teacher--claim-name_page.html ; By Paul Malley, Sunday Mercury, Apr 18 2004
   A shamed Midland priest believed to have faked his own death in Australia in a bid to escape child abuse charges has been spotted on the run in Birmingham.
   Father Christopher Clonan has been sighted in the Kings Heath area of the city, according to a well-informed source close to the Catholic Church.
   He is believed to be posing as a teacher and is travelling under an assumed name. He has apparently been using a passport bearing his new identity.
   The Sunday Mercury revealed in January how West Midlands Police believed Fr Christopher Clonan might still be alive despite claims that he died from a brain haemorrhage in 1998.
   We reported how cops suspected that the former Coventry priest - who fled the city in 1992 amid child sex allegations - might be living in the Midlands under a new name.
• Keep bishop's house: It wasn't McCormack's to sell
   NEW HAMPSHIRE: New Hampshire Sunday News, www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=36285
   Keeping the bishop's official residence in Manchester's North End as part of the Manchester Diocese is the right thing to do for the Catholic Church. Former Mayor George Trudel's home was a gift in perpetuity to the diocese and we thought Bishop John McCormack was overstepping his authority in unilaterally abrogating that deal last year.
   This doesn't mean the residence needs to be lavishly maintained or restricted to the sole use of the bishop. Last year, this bishop said the diocese could no longer afford the place. Contributions to the church are down because of the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked it to its core. Parishes are closing and missions are being cut back. The last thing the diocese needs now is a symbol of waste.
   Within the applicable zoning standards and with due regard for its neighbors, the church should make the most and best use of the lovely mansion that overlooks Stark Park and the river and mountains beyond. Indeed, a constant presence at the place may provide more eyes and ears to alert police to the offensive sexual behavior that has made Stark Park uninviting to so many in recent years.
   We are glad the bishop's house will stay; but the authority of the Bishop of Manchester will remain less than effective so long as the current man holds that office. Again, with the important issue of the legal definition of marriage now before the Legislature, the church's moral authority was questioned because of John McCormack's record of inattention toward and mishandling of sex abuse by priests in Massachusetts.
• Where a fallen bishop goes to heal [O'Connell]
   Palm Beach Post, www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/news_04188f67a56ee1a000a0.html ; By John Lantigua, Sunday, April 18, 2004
   MONCK'S CORNER, S.C. -- The entrance to Mepkin Abbey is a long, private driveway lined with ancient live-oak trees, scenically draped in Spanish moss. Go straight, and you reach a beautiful, terraced garden sewn with azaleas and camellias, overlooking a calm, lonely stretch of the Cooper River.
   Turn before that, and you will reach the riverside monastery itself, where 27 Trappist monks live, following a regimen that has its roots in the 11th century. They pray communally seven times a day, and if you arrive at the right time, you will hear the church bells toll. The monks will be found in their white, hooded robes, manning their prayer stalls, singing and chanting the Psalms.
   These days, you also will see a guest, not robed but in civilian dress, sitting among them. He is Bishop Anthony J. O'Connell, who resigned as head of the Palm Beach Diocese 25 months ago after confessing to sexual improprieties. He has lived here ever since in the seclusion of this Catholic monastery.
   O'Connell, once the leader of 250,000 Catholics in the five-county diocese, lives in a 10-by-15-foot monastic cell and follows the rigorous Trappist prayer schedule, which begins at 3:20 every morning. He also performs manual labor and menial tasks demanded by the regimen, including work on the chicken farm the monks operate.
   "He is healing himself and turning to God," said Mary Jeffcoat, a spokeswoman for the monks.
   Accusations against O'Connell include numerous instances of sexual abuse of minors at a Missouri seminary, where he was stationed from 1964 to 1988. That year he was named a bishop and head of the Diocese of Knoxville, Tenn. He was transferred to the Palm Beach Diocese in 1999 and was stationed here until March 8, 2002, when the first accusation of sexual abuse emerged and he resigned.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 02:53 AM
//////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Sunday April 18 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont77.htm
• Ex-trainee clergyman extradited on child-sex charges. [1970s-80s, Goldsmith]
   The Sunday Times, Perth, W. Australia, "Businessman on child-sex charges," p 16, Sunday, April 18, 2004
   AUSTRALIA:
   A prominent Tasmanian businessman has been arrested in Perth on child-sex charges.
   Paul Richard Goldsmith, 59, from the northwest coast of Tasmania, was extradited on Friday.
   He was arrested at a South Lakes home on Wednesday and appeared in Perth Magistrate's Court the following day.
   The extradition application was lodged over a series of alleged sexual offences involving children in the 1970s and '80s.
   Mr Goldsmith had trained as a Catholic priest but was never ordained.
   A WA police spokesman said Mr Goldsmith faced three indecent assault charges. A further 27 alleged victims were being interviewed. April 18, 2004
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Monday April 19, 2004 edition follows:-
• Doyle wants dioceses to release names of abusive priests
   Duluth News Tribune, www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/8467813.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp ; By JR ROSS, Associated Press, Posted on Mon, Apr. 19, 2004
   MADISON, Wis. - Gov. Jim Doyle urged Roman Catholic leaders Monday to release the names of priests who sexually abused minors as he signed legislation strengthening reporting laws for Wisconsin clergy.
   Doyle said the state has no power to require its dioceses to release the names of priests who had a sexual abuse claim against them substantiated. But he compared it to state laws requiring the identification of sex offenders in a community.
   "We're better off having publicized those names," said Doyle, who is Catholic.
   Abuse victims, including members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, have been in talks with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee since December on several issues, including its desire to have those names released.
   Diocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said leaders have not decided whether to release the names of abusive priests. He said some have advocated releasing them because it would allow parishioners to monitor offenders and would prompt more victims to come forward.
   But he said other victims fear naming priests would lead to their abuse becoming public. The diocese also wants to be sensitive to which priests are on the list because some claims have yet to be substantiated.
   "Our goal is to make sure that children are safe and that we can do everything we can to encourage people who have been victims of clergy sexual abuse to come forward and report," he said.
   The archdiocese has reported substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of minors against 46 diocesan priests in the 10-county archdiocese since 1950. Statewide, Wisconsin dioceses have reported more than 100 Catholic clergy members have had proven claims they sexually abused children since 1950.
• Investigation Continues in Diocese of Worcester [Dupre, Hubbard, Brom, Lynch, Rueger]
   WORCESTER (MA): The Wanderer (independent orthodox Catholic US weekly), http://thewandererpress.com/a4-22-2004.htm , By PAUL LIKOUDIS, Issue Date April 22, 2004 (on Internet before that)
   In Dallas, June 2002, the U.S. bishops pledged transparency, zero tolerance for clerical sex abusers, one strike and you’re out, and now, nearly two years later, hundreds of priests have been removed from ministry.
   But some serious problems have emerged in the ensuing time, particularly in the handling of abuse cases brought against members of the hierarchy. Of concern are the sudden retirement of Bishop Thomas Dupre of Springfield, Mass., after allegations he sexually abused two young boys, ongoing allegations against Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, N.Y., and unresolved charges of sex abuse by at least three other bishops: Robert Brom of San Diego, Robert Lynch of Tampa-St. Petersburg, and George E. Rueger, auxiliary of the Diocese of Worcester, Mass.
   Bishop Rueger, 72, who studied at Holy Cross College in Worcester, was ordained to the priesthood in 1958 by Bishop (later Cardinal) John J. Wright.
   According to Mary T. Jean, of Leominster, Mass., in the Diocese of Worcester, Bishop Rueger remains the subject of a state police investigation, following charges last year by Sime Braio, 52, that Rueger abused him nearly 40 years ago when Braio was a 13-year-old altar boy at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Worcester, and later while he was a student at the Lyman School for Boys in Westboro.
   Bishop Rueger denied the allegations against him. In late November, 2003, Superior Court Judge Tina S. Page dismissed the civil lawsuit without prejudice after Braio, who had a falling-out with his attorney, the flamboyant Daniel J. Shea of Houston, asked the suit be dropped pending the outcome of a state police investigation.
   But Mrs. Jean claims that there is a huge cover-up in place. A lifelong Catholic, she runs a web site called Worcester Voice www.worcestervoice.com/ that provides documentation on the extent of sex abuse in the Worcester Diocese, names the priests accused and convicted, and gives information on lawsuits and links to legal documents and pending cases. [...]
   "Rev. Kane used Affirmation Books, the publishing arm of the House of Affirmation, to advertise and promote his beliefs regarding relationships with children. For example, the book, Intimacy, published in 1978 by Whitinsville-based Affirmation Books, includes essays by therapists offering seemingly contradictory views on celibacy and sexuality. . . .
   "As stated in one news article by The Boston Herald’s Robin Washington, ‘a psychological text published by a now-defunct treatment center for troubled priests could have served as a primer for molestation of adolescents and adults by clergymen, according to psychotherapists who have studied sex abuse in the church.’
   "Rev. Kane left the House of Affirmation in 1986 amid allegations of financial improprieties brought by 11 center managers and executives. In June 1988, 11 months after being removed from his responsibilities at the House of Affirmation, Rev. Kane was named executive director of the National Guild of Catholic Psychiatrists, following a recommendation from Bishop Timothy J. Harrington.
   "After settling a lawsuit where he was shown to have been with several boys, Rev. Kane filed for bankruptcy in the early 1990s. Before filing for bankruptcy, Rev. Kane transferred a piece of property he owned in Florida to Msgr. Brendan P. Riordan, who also was a director of the House of Affirmation and was a friend of Rev. Kane. Msgr. Riordan is also accused of child molestation by a survivor. ...
• No apologies [$SING 5.1m, Kang]
   SINGAPORE: Today Online, www.todayonline.com/articles/17753.asp , by Wong Fei Wan, feiwan@newstoday.com.sg
   Joachim Kang's massive mitigation plea to the court ran into 57 pages, but was conspicuously lacking in one thing: An apology.
   Prosecutors pointed out yesterday that while the parish priest had admitted to misappropriating about $5.1 million in church funds, his mitigation was "sorely lacking in apology to the Church, parishioners, and let alone to the Archbishop".
   Instead, Kang's lawyers said that he had written a will in 1994 leaving all his "worldly possessions" to the Roman Catholic Church on his death.
   Kang, 55, is due to be sentenced on Friday and faces up to three years' jail and a maximum $10,000 fine on each of six charges.
   In a letter to the judge pleading for leniency, Archbishop Nicholas Chia said the priest would suffer "the loss of moral standing in the Christian community" and had "to live with the stigma of his guilt".
   While the Church did not condone Kang's actions, the archbishop said, he asked the court to "temper justice with mercy and compassion".
• Singapore archbishop asks court to show leniency on disgraced priest [$SING 5.1m, Kang]
   Channelnewsasia.com ; www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/80847/1/.html
   SINGAPORE: The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Singapore urged a court on Monday to show leniency on disgraced priest Joachim Kang, who has pleaded guilty to embezzling S$5.1 million in church funds.
   Archbishop Nicholas Chia said in a letter to district court judge Jasvender Kaur that Kang, 55, had "served the pastoral needs of the parishioners well", despite his crimes.
   "Though the Catholic Church did not and does not condone what Father Kang had done ... I am humbly requesting your honour to temper justice with mercy and compassion when you impose sentence on Father Kang," Chia wrote.
   Chia said Kang had already suffered a loss of moral standing in the Christian community and emphasised the church would give him "spiritual counselling".
   The archbishop's letter was read out after Kang's defence lawyers presented their mitigation plea, in which they said Kang had written a will leaving all his worldly possessions to the Roman Catholic Church of Singapore.
   They also said the Church of St. Theresa, where Kang had stolen the money while parish priest, had only incurred "paper losses" due to his offences because the stolen money had been invested in properties, unit trusts and bank deposits.
   But prosecutors pointed out that the mitigation plea was sorely lacking in remorse and no apology had been given to the church, parishioners or the archbishop.
• Episcopal priest to face tribunal [2002, $30,000, Platt]
   LEXINGTON (KY:) Bradenton.com (Florida's Gulf Coast); www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/8467244.htm , By FRANK E. LOCKWOOD, Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, Posted on Mon, Apr. 19, 2004
   A longtime Lexington priest will go before an ecclesiastical court today to answer charges that he stole Episcopal Church funds.
   A panel, made up of three members of the clergy and two laypeople, will determine whether the Rev. Christopher Platt misappropriated about $30,000 in church funds while serving as a bishop's assistant and a campus minister.
   If convicted of "crime" and "conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy," Platt, 56, could be suspended or permanently removed from the ministry. Because it's a religious court, not a government one, the panel has no ability to fine or imprison the people it judges.
   Ecclesiastical trials are rare. "Certainly there hasn't been anything like this in the time I have worked here," said diocesan spokeswoman Kay Collier McLaughlin, a diocesan employee for 30 years. "This is a sad and difficult time," she added.
   On chrisplattspeaks.com, his Web site, Platt has vigorously denied the charges. "I did not steal God's money. I did not steal from the diocese. I did not use church money for my own purposes," he writes.
   Online, Platt has posted the results of a lie-detector test he took and passed.
   But diocesan leaders say Platt "unlawfully" took money from the bishop's discretionary account between May 15, 2002 and Dec. 2, 2002, writing himself checks totalling $6,512.50. The checks were "written without the Bishop's knowledge, consent or authority, deceptively recorded and concealed from the Bishop," according to a church indictment known as a presentment.
• Community service's lesson often unclear
   PHOENIX (AZ): The Arizona Republic, www.azcentral.com/news/columns/articles/0419ruelas19.html , Richard Ruelas, Apr. 19, 2004
   He didn't have a special phone line set up, or any tasks specified by the judge. What Kevin Cloud did have was a list of charity organizations near his house. So he started his community service hours in a warehouse in Mesa filled with beat-up ovens and broken toilets.
   "I never heard of this place," Cloud said, wearing a deep-blue T-shirt. On the upper left was the logo for Stardust Building Supplies, a charity that collects abandoned or surplus appliances, countertops, bathtubs and other fixtures. It installs some in shelters or in the homes of elderly people in need. The rest it sells, donating the profits to housing organizations.
   The donations came from demolition or remodeling sites. Cloud drove a truck to make the collections. Most of the stuff was heavy.
   It was just like having a job. "Except for the paycheck part," Cloud said.
   This is what community service is to thousands of Maricopa County residents. They become a labor pool for non-profits that need menial tasks done. A lot of these charities depend on these probationers. They're the ones who do the lifting, the sweeping, the mowing.
   To most of us, it sounds like a way for the convicted to give back. But to those who do it, it's more like punishment.
   "It stinks," said LeAnn Mounkes, who spent most of her community service hours working the coffee bar at an alcoholic rehabilitation clinic. "I had to keep remembering to myself, 'This is court-ordered. This needs to be done.' "
   Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien will not be lifting anything heavy or handing change to recovering addicts. His 1,000 hours of community service will be spent ministering to the sick and dying, under orders from Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Steven Gerst.
   The bishop has a phone line so people can call for appointments. The message asks for the needy person's name and the "hospital or care facility" where they are located.
   The bishop will get to do what he's used to doing, where he feels comfortable doing it. But that doesn't bug Cloud, who was sentenced to 360 hours as part of a drug conviction.
• Second woman makes claim against retired Nome priest [1970-84, Poole]
   NOME (AK): KGW, www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8220N7G0.html Associated Press, 04/19/2004
A second woman has filed a claim against the Catholic Church for abuse she said she suffered at the hands of a Nome Jesuit priest.
   Patricia Hess saw Rev. James Poole's face on television last month after a lawsuit was filed against him, she said. The incident triggered terrible memories about her own encounters with Poole, she said.
   Hess told the Anchorage Daily News she also was sexually molested by Poole while a teenager in Nome. She has filed a formal complaint with the Catholic Church.
   "I tried to forget about it," she said. "I just kept quiet about it. ... (But) I didn't forget. It was just back there."
   Poole's name became public March 15, the day another victim sued him, the Fairbanks diocese and the Jesuits in Bethel Superior Court for allegedly molesting her from 1978 to 1984. That woman, who is going by the pseudonym Jane Doe, also was a teenager in Nome when she said Poole fondled and kissed her against her will.
   Hess said the same thing happened to her from 1970 to 1973.
• Blackwell To Stand Trial For Sexual Abuse Charges In June [1989-92, Blackwell]
   BALTIMORE (MD): TheWBALChannel.com ; www.thewbalchannel.com/news/3019557/detail.html
   A Baltimore judge refused Monday to dismiss the remaining charges against a priest accused of molesting a parishioner who later shot him.
   Circuit Judge John Glynn's decision means the trial of the Rev. Maurice Blackwell on four counts of child sexual abuse will go forward.
   The judge rejected the defense's arguments that the statute of limitations had expired and that Blackwell's rights to due process were violated by the length of time between the alleged incidents and when he was charged.
   Blackwell is charged with molesting Dontee Stokes beginning in 1989 and ending in 1992. But he was not charged until 2002, after Stokes shot him.
   Blackwell was also charged with four misdemeanor assault charges involving Stokes, but Glynn dismissed those charges last month.
• The Divine Sociopath
   PHOENIX (AZ): Phoenix New Times, www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2004-04-15/feature.html/print.html , BY MICHAEL LACEY, Apr 15, 2004
   *Author's note: I may be sick, but I am not ill. None of us here at New Times could imagine anything worse than a bedside visit from the prelate without a personality, Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien; so we decided to imagine it in words.
   I am terminally ill with rectal cancer. (Go ahead, make a crude joke. I'd have cracked wise if the tables were reversed. If only.)
   The pain is unimaginable in a place that should never hurt.
   The hospice attendants have given me control of the morphine drip, something I longed for all of my life when I might have enjoyed it. But now that I have it, I realize you only get the dope joystick when your prognosis is hopeless.
   Worse than the pain are my thoughts. What awaits me on the other side? I don't want to leave. I want to spend a few beery hours watching one of Jerry Colangelo's teams, even the Phoenix Suns. Am I on the verge of unending stillness?
   What if there is judgment day? All the women I've betrayed, all the children I've slapped, all the dogs I've kicked, all the church collection plates I've stiffed?
   I know my pending death is not unique. Everyone croaks. Like Beckett's Murphy said, "The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new."
   That's no comfort when you have rectal cancer and only hours, not days, of the nothing new.
   I am under the blackest depression.
   What's that?
   Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a short, uncomfortable man shuffling toward my side.
   Sweet Baby J.s.s, it is Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien.
   NURSE!!! HELP!!!
   Where is the morphine button?
   Who let this crusader for child-molesting priests, this divine sociopath, approach my bedside?
   Someone stop his mumbling. Oh, this is my ex-wife's dark prank, calling the bishop's hot line.*
   Who is responsible for ushering this socially dysfunctional pervert into what's left of my life? Who created this sick parody of comfort for the dying?
   I'll tell you who is responsible: Judge Stephen A. Gerst. [...]
   But once the Takatas initiated contact with the police and filed a complaint, Bishop O'Brien obstructed justice by ordering Father Ladensack to pressure the parents into rescinding the paperwork.
   The bishop's current attorney, Tom Henze, is unimpressed by Ladensack's testimony before the County Attorney's Office. In a recent interview, Henze pointed out that the former priest gave a different version of events in a 1990 deposition.
   In a lawsuit involving infamous pedophile Father George Bredemann, Ladensack was asked specifically about the Takata phone call with Bishop O'Brien.
   Question: "Were you questioned in any way as to whether you had recommended to the parents for them to call the police?" Answer: "I do not remember that at all."
   Officials inside the County Attorney's Office counter that Ladensack was fearful of retribution from church authorities against numerous relatives active in the church, some of whom had business relationships with the diocese. They also point out, correctly, that if you read the entire deposition, it is obvious that Ladensack's attorney instructs him directly to be evasive and not answer questions.
   Prosecutors argue that, by 2002, Ladensack was prepared to let the chips fall where they may. . . .
• 2 from state face Porter [1970s, Porter]
   TAUNTON (MA): Pioneer Press, www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/8463402.htm?1c , By RUBÉN ROSARIO, Posted on Mon, Apr. 19, 2004
   Jim Grimm and Verlyne Gray had to be there this month, on a witness stand in a Massachusetts courtroom, face to face with the monster from their past.
   For Grimm, a 46-year-old married father of two from Bemidji, Minn., it was the first time in 34 years that he had seen the former Catholic priest who sexually assaulted him about three times a week for nearly 13 months.
   For Gray, who lives in Oakdale, it had been about a decade since she last saw her ex-husband, the father of her four children. They were looking at the same man - James Porter - arguably the most infamous pedophile priest in U.S. history.
   Porter's name is well known around these parts. The former Minnesota priest's prosecution 10 years ago provided the nation a disturbing glimpse into a church hierarchy's decades-old practice of shielding child predators and knowingly moving them from one unsuspecting parish to another instead of a prison cell. Porter was bad enough, but it would take a more recent Boston area church scandal, one that felled a cardinal, for the Vatican to finally publicly acknowledge the problem.
   So when news came that Porter was about to be released after serving a prison term for molesting scores of children at three Massachusetts parishes in the 1950s and 1960s, Grimm, Gray and two other Minnesotans - a then-15-year-old Oakdale baby sitter Porter molested 17 years ago and the victim's older sister - hopped on planes and flew east to add their voices to the crescendo of protest.
• Priest sentenced on molestation charge in Wyo. case involving alleged ritual beatings, torture [1980s, Jablonowski]
   Daytona Beach News, www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Noteworthy/03NewsNOTE11041904.htm , Associated Press, Last update: 19 April 2004
   CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- A priest accused of molesting a teenage boy has pleaded no contest in the case, but argues that he committed the acts in question for spiritual reasons and not sexual gratification, his lawyer said Sunday.
   Anthony Jablonowski, 69, was sentenced Thursday to between 15 months and seven years in prison for one count of taking indecent, immodest or immoral liberties with a minor, his attorney Dallas Laird said. The amount of time he serves will depend on his behavior in prison.
   The victim, now in his late 30s, stepped forward recently with allegations that Jablonowski had molested him at least once in the early 1980s at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Guernsey, about 100 miles north of Cheyenne. He was 17 at the time.
   During an investigation, authorities learned that Jablonowski regularly took men to the church basement, asking them to strip naked before they were gagged, blindfolded and hung upside down from the ceiling, Platte County prosecutor Eric Alden told The Denver Post in Sunday's editions.
   According to Alden, the men's genitals were manipulated to induce pain while they prayed. He could not be reached for comment Sunday.
• Charges against clergy elusive [1970s, Dupre]
   SPRINGFIELD (MA): Republican, http://masslive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1082362679122460.xml?nntn , By STEPHANIE BARRY, sbarry@repub.com , Monday, April 19, 2004
   Facing a virtual graveyard of failed clergy abuse prosecutions nationwide, the county's top prosecutor was unusually expansive recently as he announced plans for a grand jury probe into ex-Bishop Thomas L. Dupre.
   Though the last two years of pedophile priest allegations unfolded in the shadow of the Catholic calamity in Boston, Hampden County District Attorney William M. Bennett is poised for a national first. If he is able to bring abuse-related charges against Dupre for alleged molestation of two boys more than 25 years ago, Bennett will achieve what no other prosecutor has.
   A string of intense criminal investigations of top clergy have not produced indictments - most notably in Boston - despite startling evidence of widespread child molestation and apparent cover-ups. An examination of cases in those cities shows that Bennett will face a number of obstacles, not the least of which is statutes of limitations and the difficulty of convincing a grand jury - in this case a heavily Catholic one - of the probability of a religious leader's guilt.
   In Palm Beach, Fla., two bishops from the same diocese resigned in succession in the late 1990's after admitting they molested boys many years earlier.
   But prosecutors were unable to put either behind bars, largely because the alleged crimes were too old to prosecute under the statute of limitations.
   "There's no magic way around it," said Bernie McCabe, Florida's Pinellas-Pasco County state attorney.
   His office successfully prosecuted a small number of priests whose victims were under 12. There is no statute of limitations for sex crimes against those under 12 in Florida.
   Prosecutors in Boston, Long Island and New Hampshire convened grand juries but were unable or unwilling to hold leaders of the dioceses criminally accountable for failing to stop abuse, either because statutes of limitations had expired or the penalties associated with lesser charges amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist.
• Protection is the principal issue [Maginot]
   INDIANA: Times, www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2004/04/19/opinion/times_editorials/570976802aaf96e486256e78007525fb.txt
   Three priests, including Bishop Dale Melczek's top adviser on church law, are refusing to undergo the required criminal background check.
   The Rev. Michael Maginot, who also is administrator of St. Stephen Martyr Church, says he has nothing to hide but that it is a matter of principle.
   His explanation: "Canon law says one of the fundamental rights of every person is to privacy and a good name, and these rights are not to be illegitimately infringed upon."
   Considering the priestly sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the church in recent years, that stance is hard to accept. Just as difficult to understand is his comment that the church is within its rights to screen new employees, but that as a priest for 21 years, he has earned the church's trust.
   Probably so. But, unfortunately, revelations by victims, confessions by their abusers and apologies from bishops who often ignored the devastating evidence would dictate otherwise.
   Lest anyone think this is picking on the Catholic church, be advised this is not case. Any person of any religious denomination must be found to be above reproach -- and criminal background -- before being entrusted to work with children. Many denominations do that, requiring background checks on everyone from priests to Sunday School teachers. Diocesan schools require anyone dealing with their students, such as coaches, sign forms submitting to background checks.
   Maginot said he is appealing to the Congregation for the Clergy, which interprets church law for the pope. This group should see that the protection of children is the primary issue here, not some perceived matter of principal by anyone involved with the children of the church.
• NJ Court Ruling Could Help Sex Abuse Victims
   1010 Wins, http://1010wins.com/topstories/winstopstories_story_110070742.html 7:00 am US/Eastern, Apr 19, 2004
   PARSIPPANY, N.J. A recent state appeals court decision addressing sexual abuse allegations may make it easier for victims to get around the state's civil statute of limitations, one lawyer said.
   Last month's ruling punched a hole in what had been a protection for some nonprofit organizations against lawsuits. It allowed John Hardwicke to continue his lawsuit against the American Boychoir School in Princeton.
   The three-judge panel ruled that the state's Charitable Immunity Act did not apply to lawsuits brought under a newer law that expanded the rights of victims of childhood sexual abuse. That 1992 law allows the victims to sue attackers and institutions that had knowingly employed them.
   Lawyer Greg Gianforcaro has filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson on behalf of some two dozen people earlier this year.
   He told the Daily Record of Parsippany he believes his case has been helped in a number of ways by that appellate court decision.
   While plaintiffs in the past had to prove that they had recovered repressed memories of abuse within the two years before filing a lawsuit, Gianforcaro said the Hardwicke decision might allow lawsuits against institutions to be filed under the 1992 law.
   That law allows a looser interpretation, he said, requiring only that alleged victims file a lawsuit within two years of the time they recognize being harmed by sexual abuse.
• Desperate sins of Catholic flesh [Celibacy discussed] - RCC. DOCUMENTARY FILM.
   NEW ZEALAND: Stuff, www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2879799a1869,00.html , Apr 19 2004
   The town was one long street: first a cluster of shops, then, as it wandered down to the beach with its unrelenting iron sand, it passed, first, the Presbyterian church (short, snug, familiar), then the Anglican (tall, white, socially superior), then, finally, the Catholic. The Catholic kids wore stripy ties to school and, if you married a Catholic, they took all your money and gave it to the church.
   Next to the Catholic church was a large, low house, inside which the Catholic priest lived with his "housekeeper".
   I would have been as surprised to learn that the minister and the vicar were sexually active within their marriages as I was to learn that the priest got up to no good with his housekeeper.
   But the fact that priests and nuns (who whacked your knuckles with a stick when they taught you piano) were not allowed to marry was just another thing that made the Catholic Church so exotic, so different from the other ones I knew.
   Tucked away late last night, at a time when prurience can easily wear a plain brown wrapper, was one of the scarier documentaries I've watched in recent times. Flesh and the Devil set out to look at "a church in crisis".
   The Catholic Church is the only religious denomination which demands celibacy of its priests, and this doesn't come without cost. Since 1960, 200,000 priests worldwide have renounced their vows and the church is having a hard time attracting new ones. The church has also been rocked by scandals linking Catholic priests in at least 10 countries to child abuse. In one diocese of Dublin, the archbishop faces a staggering 450 legal actions.
   This documentary was not for the faint-hearted. Presenting itself more as "told to National Geographic" than as "reported by the Daily Mirror",it showed horrific close-ups of head-shaving, flagellation and, nauseatingly, castration.
   In attempting to explain why the church should demand celibacy from its priests and nuns, it said that Christianity was not alone in venerating celibacy, that all great Eastern religions also viewed it as the highest form of religious existence. Close-up of whips and bleeding backs. [...]
   Throughout the documentary, we saw interviews with the sad, anguished souls who, in their hundreds of thousands, have been the victims of the custom of celibacy. There's nowt so queer as what folk will get up to as they try to come to terms with being mortal, and address those great big questions.
   I suspect that not many churches will be showing this documentary to their younger members. It was made chillingly clear that for centuries the church turned a blind eye to almost any sort of sexual activity that its young "celibate" men - though definitely not its women - got up to.
   The last people interviewed were a couple so alike they could have been siblings (think Donny and Marie Osmond). They had met nearly 30years ago, he a priest, she a nun, and fallen in love.
   The priest had sought counsel from his superiors within the church and had effectively been told to have an affair with her and get it out of his system. This he had felt unable to do, and they both left their vocations to marry.
   Since then, they have felt like pariahs. The wife is still coming to terms with how little her well-being had mattered to the church. It was clear to her that as far as the church was concerned, her husband could have relieved his sexual urges in any way he wished.
   "The real mistake he made," she said, "was falling in love with a woman."
• Priest faces 15 months for abuse [1980s, Jablonowski]
   Beacon Journal, www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/local/8465458.htm?1c , Associated Press, Posted on Mon, Apr. 19, 2004
   CHEYENNE, WYO. - A former Ohio priest will serve 15 months to seven years in jail for molesting a teen-age boy in a case that also involved allegations of ritual beatings and torture, his lawyer said Sunday.
   Anthony Jablonowski, 69, pleaded no contest in a Wyoming district court last week to one count of taking indecent, immodest or immoral liberties with a minor, attorney Dallas Laird said.
   The priest denied taking part in any rituals but told authorities the sex act was for spiritual reasons and not sexual gratification.
   Jablonowski was serving at a monastery in southeast Ohio when the charges surfaced two years ago, Laird said.
   Jablonowski remained at the Platte County jail Sunday. It was unclear whether he would be transferred to a state corrections facility.
   "I don't know that he will actually go into the prison system," Laird said. "There's a safety concern."
   The victim, now in his late 30s, made allegations that Jablonowski touched his genitals at least once in the early 1980s at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Guernsey. The man was 17 at the time.
• Hong Kong sex-abuse victim may sue ex-priest: report [1991-92, Lau]
   Channelnewsasia.com ; www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/eastasia/view/80822/1/.html , Posted: 1555 hrs 19 April 2004
   HONG KONG: The sex-abuse victim of a former Catholic priest is considering suing the Church for HK$11 million (US$1.4 million) in the first case of its kind in Asia, a local report said on Monday.
   A man who was sexually abused as a youngster by ex-priest Michael Lau is considering launching the suit against the Hong Kong diocese, The Standard newspaper said, quoting sources.
   It said church officials and Lau, 43, had received notification letters.
   A secretary for Father Lawrence Lee, a diocesean spokesman, said the Church would not comment on the issue.
   Lau is serving a four-and-a-half year sentence in Hong Kong's Stanley Prison after being convicted on three counts of sexual assault and one of attempted buggery dating back to 1991 and 1992.
   He was sentenced last year and lost an appeal last month.
   The attacks happened when the claimant, now 28, was a pupil in a Kowloon school where Lau was the headmaster.
• Priest abuse case spurs second accuser to speak [1970-73, Poole]
   ANCHORAGE (AK): Anchorage Daily News, www.adn.com/alaska/story/4982516p-4910648c.html By NICOLE TSONG, Published: April 19, 2004
   The day that the Rev. James Poole's face was shown on television as a Catholic priest accused of molesting a teenager for years in Nome, terrible memories about the same man resurfaced for an Anchorage woman named Patricia Hess.
   Hess said in a recent interview that she also was sexually molested by Poole while a teenager in Nome and has filed a formal complaint with the Catholic Church.
   Hess hadn't seen Poole's face for decades and had tried to pretend their encounters never happened, but memories of the abuse rushed back when Poole showed up in a television report about a lawsuit against him involving another girl. The moment she saw his picture, she felt sick to her stomach and her head throbbed.
   "I tried to forget about it," she said. "I just kept quiet about it. ... (But) I didn't forget. It was just back there."
   Poole's name became public on March 15, the day another victim sued him, the Fairbanks diocese and the Jesuits in Bethel Superior Court for allegedly molesting her from 1978 to 1984. That woman, who is going by the pseudonym Jane Doe, also was a teenager in Nome when she said he fondled and kissed her against her will.
   Hess said the same thing happened to her, only from 1970 to 1973. Each time, he would grab her by the chin, kiss her on the mouth and put his tongue in her ear, she said. He sometimes fondled her breasts under her shirt. A few times, he made her put her hand on his genitalia, she said.
• A special time to recall love, loss
   ALBANY (NY): Albany Times Union, www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=239879&category=SARATOGA&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=4/19/2004 ; By LEIGH HORNBECK, Monday, April 19, 2004
   In the hush of a darkened church on Sunday, friends and family spoke aloud the names of crime victims at a candlelight vigil.
   Kathleen Campion was killed by a drunken driver. Edmund Zampier was raped by a priest. Jennifer Fake was murdered. My son. My aunt. My sister. My beautiful daughter.
   Each year, the Capital District Coalition for Crime Victims' Rights, Inc. lights candles and unrolls a scroll listing the names of victims. At around 250 names, it reached three-quarters the length of the aisle at the Presbyterian-New England Congregational Church in Saratoga Springs. The coalition also gathers to hear victims' stories.
   Andrea King buried her sister, brother-in-law, two nieces and a nephew after a drunken driver hit the Gansevoort family's car in 1991.
   "Bobbi Lynn was 8 going on 16. She couldn't wait to be a teenager, but she never will be. She will always be 8," said the soft-spoken King. She was flanked by poster boards covered with dozens of pictures of men, women and children who were killed or injured.
   The youngest member of the family, 4-year-old Bret was buried in the clothes he was to have worn on his first day of kindergarten, three weeks after his death. The family was laid to rest in two caskets, King said.
   Eddie Zampiere's deep voice filled the sanctuary with his story of manipulation, rape and molestation at the hands of two Catholic priests in Troy when he was 15 and again when he was 17. The abuse was not only an assault on his body, but a wound to his identity, Zampiere said.
• Pastor controversy goes to the public [Alesandro's leadership questioned]
   OYSTER BAY (NY): Newsday, www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lidoms193764194apr19,0,4430093.story?coll=ny-topstories-headlines ; BY RITA CIOLLI, April 19, 2004
   After months of private and sometimes confrontational discussions with Msgr. John Alesandro over his leadership of St. Dominic parish in Oyster Bay, a group of influential members is organizing an extraordinary public forum to question what the former top church administrator knew about the priest sex abuse scandal in the Diocese of Rockville Centre and to review some of his controversial decisions as pastor.
   The dramatic development, a sign of how the scandal has emboldened Catholics nationwide to seek a greater role in their local church, stems mainly from lingering concerns parishioners have about the still not fully explained departure of the former pastor two years ago and about why Alesandro has been unable to move the parish beyond the problems that have enveloped the North Shore enclave.
   "We want to gauge the temperature in the rest of the parish and whether the people in Rockville Centre will deal with us," said Robert Quinn, a Wall Street bond broker who said he is among 40 parishioners who are organizing the meeting. He said the core group has been in contact with about 300 other members who have expressed doubts about Alesandro's leadership. The group plans to mail notices about the meeting this week. "There is an earthquake of suspicion about this guy," he said.
   Alesandro, 62, said on Saturday that he will not attend the meeting, which will be held at Oyster Bay Town Hall on April 27. "I do not consider such general meetings to be helpful ways of addressing pastoral issues," said Alesandro in an e-mail. Alesandro said he has experienced a "tremendous outpouring of affirmation and support" in the past few months and the parish has lay leaders in place on various boards "to help us heal and grow."
   Central to the discussion will be Msgr. Charles Ribaudo, who was suspended in 2002 by Bishop William Murphy after allegations arose that he had inappropriate sexual contact with teenage boys while he was a high school chaplain in the 1970s and 1980s. Ribaudo steadfastly denies any wrongdoing, and a segment of the parish still feels he was mistreated by Murphy. After his removal, Alesandro was chosen to repair the damage at St. Dominic.
• Honeymoon's over for Hub archbishop
   BOSTON (MA): Boston Herald, http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=3542 , By Eric Convey, Sunday, April 18, 2004
   To many of his critics, recent conservative moves by Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley appear hard to reconcile with the image of a gentle Franciscan friar.
   But people who know O'Malley and Franciscan history well say such actions should come as no surprise.
   "Our charism is to be the so-called Minutemen of the church," said the Rev. Paul Kuppe, a fellow Capuchin Franciscan and friend of O'Malley's since they were teens. "Where there are problems to be solved . . . when things need to be done, the church calls on the Capuchins to go and do them."
   In O'Malley's case, that meant coming to Boston during the depths of the clergy molestation crisis. Since taking over in July, he has overseen the settlement of hundreds of civil suits. Churches overflow when he visits for Mass.
   But in recent weeks, he has taken actions that have been less popular in some quarters. Deviating from normal rules, church leaders encouraged pastors throughout the archdiocese to show a video attacking the gay-rights movement during Mass.
   In an annual homily to the archdiocese's priests during Holy Week, O'Malley listed "feminism" as among the troubles afflicting baby boomers.
   Then on Holy Thursday, he washed only the feet of men even though some other conservative archbishops including Bernard Cardinal Law wash women's feet.
   Ann Hagan Webb, a nonpracticing Catholic and co-New England coordinator of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests [SNAP], said O'Malley got off to a "humble start," but her concerns have been validated.
• Priest accused by two circulates petition [Anderson]
   EUREKA (MO): St. Louis Post-Dispatch, www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/St.+Louis+City+%2F+County/655A20FD725DC6A486256E7B0016132B?OpenDocument&Headline=Priest+accused+by+two+circulates+petition ; By Aisha Sultan, 04/18/2004
   The Rev. Alexander Anderson, who has denied the two sexual abuse accusations against him, asked his Eureka parishioners Sunday after Mass to sign a petition supporting his innocence. But the petition is largely symbolic.
   Anderson, of Most Sacred Heart Church, faces no criminal charges and has resolved the civil suits related to allegations by one accuser after Anderson sued the accuser, who countersued. Church officials determined that both accusations were without merit.
   But the battle for the hearts and minds of the parishioners continues. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests mailed letters to many of the church's families inviting them to a meeting Tuesday evening at Grand Glaize Public Library to hear the other side of the abuse allegations.
   "They've gotten a very slanted view from Father Anderson," said David Clohessy, national director of SNAP.
   He said Anderson was trying to prevent people from hearing their side of the story by celebrating a Mass the same evening at the same time. In response, the SNAP meeting has changed the time of its meeting. It will be from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. so people can attend before and after Mass, Clohessy said.
• Gary priest rejects probe [Maginot]
   GARY (IN): Chicago Sun-Times, www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-met19.html , April 19, 2004
   At least one Catholic priest in the Gary Diocese is refusing to undergo a criminal background check required by the church to help weed out molesters in clergy ranks, and a Chicago-based group is calling on the bishop to discipline him.
   "There's no sense in having a policy if you're not going to enforce it, and to let priests pick and choose which aspects of the abuse-prevention policy they will comply with," David Clohessy of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests [SNAP] said Sunday. "The theoretical privacy concerns of a grownup vs. the very real safety of perhaps dozens of kids, that's the choice the bishop has to make."
   The Rev. Michael Maginot, judicial vicar of the northwest Indiana diocese, has asked the Vatican to review the policy.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 08:10 AM
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Monday April 19, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont77.htm
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Tuesday April 20, 2004 edition follows:-
• Alleged victim to meet with Bishop Hubbard [1980s, Celeste]
   TROY (NY): Capital News 9, www.capitalnews9.com/content/headlines/?ArID=69870&SecID=33 , By Edward Muir, 6:02 PM, 4/19/2004
   The abuse allegations by Randy Sweringen first came to light last November in Troy. Sweringen said while he was a member of a fraternity at RPI in the 1980s, he was abused by Father Charles Celeste. At the time, Celeste was the fraternity chaplain and lived in the nearby rectory of St. Paul the Apostle Church.
   Sweringen said, "He asked me to stroke his arm on the bottom side, and then we ended up, over time, he kissed me and we would kiss for longer periods of time."
   Sweringen said the abuse culminated in a more serious sexual act just before he left RPI and became a monk. He left the order, however, after 10 years. Sweringen said he never reported Celeste's abuse at the time because he was afraid of a backlash.
   He said, "I was so isolated and vulnerable as an emerging gay person that I was incredibly scared. A fraternity brother of mine sent a hate email to every gay person on campus."
   Sweringen's attorney, John Aretakis said, "We believe that the diocese does not and never has believed that what Father Celeste did was highly improper."
• Church settles a molestation case [1970s, Ludwig]
   SPOKANE (WA): KGW, www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8226OL80.html , By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS / Associated Press, 04/20/2004
   The Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane will pay $30,000 to settle a claim by a man molested decades ago in Walla Walla.
   The man, who requested anonymity in public discussions of his case, said he suffered the abuse as a youth at the hands of August Ludwig, a former Marianist brother, the diocese said.
   Ludwig was principal of De Sales High School in Walla Walla during the 1970s. Ludwig's name was disclosed publicly and to law enforcement authorities in the late 1990s as a sex offender, the diocese said.
   The diocese said it believes Ludwig was removed from ministry years ago and confined to quarters in a monastery in the eastern United States.
   Spokane Bishop William Skylstad apologized to the victim for "the suffering caused by an individual who betrayed the values one is to reflect as a religious brother who represents the teachings of Christ Jesus."
   Even though the civil statute of limitations had expired, Skylstad said a settlement was proper because the abuse had occurred.
• Clergy must report sex abuse under new law [but there's a loophole]
   MADISON (WI): Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, www.jsonline.com/news/state/apr04/223459.asp , By STACY FORSTER, sforster@journalsentinel.com , Posted April 19, 2004
   Members of the clergy in Wisconsin are required to report incidents of suspected sexual abuse to authorities under a new law signed Monday by Gov. Jim Doyle.
   After nearly two years of effort by victims-rights advocates, Doyle signed a bill mandating that religious leaders alert authorities when they suspect a child is being abused by fellow clergy. While supporters of the law called it a victory, they said they will continue to push for more strict legislation, and Doyle said he would sign an even tougher bill if it came across his desk.
   The new law provides an exception for information clergy members receive in private conversations, meaning that communications such as confessions would fall outside the reporting requirements.
   That immunizes religious officials from being completely forthright, said Peter Isely, Midwest director for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a national victims-rights organization.
   "Under no circumstances will they have to report, because how they find out about abuse is going to be through private communications," Isely said. "Almost everything is going to be covered."
• Doyle signs child abuse reporting law
   MADISON (WI): WAOW, http://www.waow.com/news/full_story.php?id=34755 , Apr 19, 2004
   Governor Doyle signed a new law today that strengthens abuse reporting requirements for Wisconsin clergy.
   The bill expands the list of occupations required to report suspicions of child sexual abuse.. to include the clergy.
   It also extends the statute of limitations for victims of alleged abuse to file lawsuits against churches and clergymen.
• Church settles sex-abuse case [1970s, Ludwig]
   SPOKANE (WA): Seattle Post-Intelligencer, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/169824_churchabuse21.html , THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Tuesday, April 20, 2004
   The Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane will pay $30,000 to settle a claim by a man molested decades ago in Walla Walla.
   The man, who requested anonymity in public discussions of his case, said he suffered the abuse as a youth at the hands of August Ludwig, a former Marianist brother, the diocese said.
   Ludwig was principal of De Sales High School in Walla Walla during the 1970s.
   Ludwig's name was disclosed publicly and to law enforcement authorities in the late 1990s as a sex offender, the diocese said.
   The diocese said it believes Ludwig was removed from ministry years ago and confined to quarters in a monastery in the eastern United States.
   Spokane Bishop William Skylstad apologized to the victim for "the suffering caused by an individual who betrayed the values one is to reflect as a religious brother who represents the teachings of Christ Jesus."
• Priest's sex abuse trial to go forward [1980s, Blackwell]
   BALTIMORE (MD): Baltimore Sun, www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.blackwell20apr20,0,2541087.story?coll=bal-local-headlines ; By Allison Klein, Originally published April 20, 2004
   Baltimore prosecutors can proceed with sexual child abuse counts against Maurice J. Blackwell, the priest accused of sodomizing Dontee Stokes more than 15 years ago, according to a judge's ruling issued yesterday.
   Circuit Judge John M. Glynn denied a motion made by Blackwell's lawyers last month asking that sexual child abuse charges be thrown out because they were too old and politically motivated.
   Glynn ruled that although prosecutors first investigated the abuse claims in 1993 and didn't charge Blackwell until 2003, the delay "was not purposefully done ... to gain advantage over the defendant."
   Blackwell is accused of fondling and sodomizing Stokes, 28, when Stokes was a teen-ager.
   Stokes, Blackwell's former parishioner, shot and wounded the clergyman in May 2002 after confronting him about the alleged abuse. Stokes was later acquitted of attempted murder at a trial held at the height of the child sex abuse scandal in the U.S. Roman Catholic church.
• Louisville priest convicted of molesting 2 boys in 1974;Victims told jury abuse followed drug, alcohol use . [Hargadon]
   The Courier-Journal, www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/04/20ky/A1-hargadon04200-7048.html , By PETER SMITH, psmith@courier-journal.com , Tuesday, April 20, 2004
   LEITCHFIELD, Ky. - A Grayson Circuit Court jury yesterday convicted the Rev. James Hargadon, a Roman Catholic priest from Louisville, on charges of sexually molesting two boys in 1974.
   The jury of five men and seven women reached the verdict about 8 p.m. CDT, after 1½ hours of deliberations.
   Hargadon showed no emotion and sat gazing down as the jurors were polled to confirm the verdict.
   The jury then began preparing for the penalty phase of the trial.
   Earlier yesterday, Lawrence Thompson of Louisville and John Kaelin, of Waxahachie, Texas, testified that Hargadon befriended them while they were students at St. Polycarp School in Pleasure Ridge Park, where Hargadon was pastor. [...]
   Hargadon also faces a criminal trial in Jefferson County, where he is charged with sodomizing Todd D. Robertson in 1976. Robertson was 14 at the time. The Jefferson Circuit Court trial is scheduled for June 8.
• Former priest accused of abuse files suit [Sues his former archbishop]
   NEW ORLEANS (LA): The Times-Picayune, www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-0/108245160368570.xml , By Bruce Nolan, Tuesday, April 20, 2004
   A former New Orleans Catholic priest took the rare step Monday of suing the archbishop, saying Archbishop Alfred Hughes humiliated him when the church announced that the man may have sexually molested a child while serving as a priest at a Metairie parish 30 years ago.
   Denying it ever occurred, Bernard Schmaltz sued Hughes for defamation and invasion of privacy.
   Schmaltz also said Hughes broadcast the allegation against Schmaltz to "deflect attention" from his own "deplorable" conduct as an auxiliary bishop in the early 1990s in Boston, the epicenter of the Catholic sexual abuse crisis in the United States.
   Bishops who for years quietly transferred molester-priests to new parishes now "are knowingly throwing innocent priests to the wolves to cover up their actions," Schmaltz said in a statement at the law office of his attorney, Arthur "Buddy" Lemann.
   However, the Archdiocese of New Orleans says it handled the complaint against Schmaltz responsibly, balancing the interests of Schmaltz, his accuser and the church.
• Diocese kicks off fund drive minus fanfare -- and a goal
   ALBANY (NY): Albany Times Union, www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=240259&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=4/20/2004 ; By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Tuesday, April 20, 2004
   In an apparent break from tradition, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany did not announce a goal for the 2004 Bishop's Appeal as the annual nine-week fund drive was launched at churches this weekend.
   The campaign, which fell short of its $6.8 million goal last year, usually kicks off with a flourish as church leaders show videos to help illustrate good works financed by donations from parishioners.
   This year the appeal by the diocese, which is roiling from a clergy sex abuse scandal, consisted of a five-minute pitch at Sunday Masses and a 15-page brochure mailed to 400,000 members. It came a week after Easter, and just two months since Bishop Howard Hubbard was publicly accused of engaging in homosexual behavior and soliciting a teenage male prostitute in the 1970s.
   Some said the low-key fund drive that specifically failed to set a dollar goal is a way to avoid drawing attention to the controversy.
   Longtime Bishop's Appeal Director Jack Manning disagreed.
   "Historically, we've had an incremental increase each year," said Manning, who has run the drive for 23 years. "My hope is we do at least as well as last year. That's a minimum need."
• Gov. Jim Doyle urged Roman Catholic leaders Monday to release the names...
   Duluth News Tribune, www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/8473793.htm , Associated Press, Posted on Tue, Apr. 20, 2004
   MADISON, Wis. - Gov. Jim Doyle urged Roman Catholic leaders Monday to release the names of priests who sexually abused minors as he signed legislation strengthening reporting laws for Wisconsin clergy.
   Doyle said the state has no power to require its dioceses to release the names of priests who had a sexual abuse claim against them substantiated. But he compared it to state laws requiring the identification of sex offenders in a community.
   "We're better off having publicized those names," said Doyle, who is Catholic.
   Abuse victims, including members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, have been in talks with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee since December on several issues, including its desire to have those names released.
   Diocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said leaders have not decided whether to release the names of abusive priests. He said some have advocated releasing them because it would allow parishioners to monitor offenders and would prompt more victims to come forward.
   But he said other victims fear naming priests would lead to their abuse becoming public. The diocese also wants to be sensitive to which priests are on the list because some claims have yet to be substantiated.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 06:32 AM
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Tuesday April 20, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont77.htm
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Wednesday April 21, 2004 edition follows:-
• Bishops seduce and abandon review board
   UNITED STATES: National Catholic Reporter, http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2004b/042304/042304k.php , By EUGENE KENNEDY, Religion News Service
   Don’t pay as much attention to what we say, Richard Nixon said famously in introducing his cabinet to the country 35 years ago, but pay attention to what we do.
   The bishops’ administrative board recently voted to defer until November any authorization of the continued work on the clergy sex abuse scandal by the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People that they themselves appointed in 2002.
   What they are saying, according to their president, Wilton Gregory, is that they discussed "how to build on what has already been done" and "strongly reaffirmed" the conference’s commitment to the charter they adopted in Dallas two years ago.
   What they are doing, however, is smothering, with a pillow they think as silken as their choir cassocks, the work of the review board by short-circuiting the next round of the independent audit of the 195 dioceses to see if they are in compliance with their own mandate.
   What they are doing is aborting the further study of the causes of the sex abuse scandal proposed by the National Review Board in its Feb. 27 report.
   What they are doing is trying to put an end to the review board, to make its work history as Gregory claimed, in reacting to the board’s report, that the abuse sex scandal itself is now history. As my late Aunt Margaret once wrote to the sponsors of a soap opera about unlikely motivations in its characters, "What do you take us for, damn fools?"
   What they are doing is best illustrated in the letters to the administrative board from such bishops as New York’s Cardinal Edward Egan and Nebraska’s Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, urging its members to postpone action on this vital and relevant report until after the leaves fall.
   Posted by Kathy Shaw at 06:47 PM
• Charges Against Weeks Dismissed, But Probe Continues [and see changed heading below]
   KTVU, "Weeks Denies Report he Committed a Crime," www.ktvu.com/news/3027807/detail.html , POSTED: 11:38 am PDT April 21, 2004, UPDATED: 12:50 am PDT April 22, 2004
   OAKLAND, Calif. -- Sexual assault charges against the Rev. Donald Weeks of St. Patrick Abbey in Oakland were dropped Tuesday because of insufficient evidence, but Oakland Deputy Police Chief Mike Holland said he's still convinced Weeks committed a crime and believes charges will be reinstated in the future.
   Holland said, "We're very confident we're right in this matter" and police will continue their investigation of Weeks, 60, who had been charged with 24 counts of oral copulation with a minor before Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Tim Wellman dropped the charges today, telling Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith there's conflicting evidence about the age of the alleged victim at the time of the alleged offenses.
   "We believe the offenses actually occurred and the victim actually was under 18 at the time," Holland said, stating that continuing the investigation "is the ethical and right thing to do."
   Weeks' attorney, John Burris, feels exactly the opposite, stating that he's considering filing a lawsuit against the Oakland Police Department on Weeks' behalf.
   Weeks said, "I thank Mr. Burris that this is over with -- there's no truth to the charges. Thank God the truth will set you free."
   Burris said Weeks was the victim of "a targeted police investigation aimed at destroying his ability to operate the abbey," which housed a transitional housing program for parolees and substance abusers until Oakland officials moved to shut it down after Weeks housed convicted sex offender Cary Verse.
   Verse only stayed at the abbey for a few days and now lives in San Jose, but Oakland officials say the abbey is in violation of fire and zoning codes. The abbey used to house at least 25 residents, but all the regular residents have moved out and only Weeks and a few monks remain.
   Oakland police conducted lengthy searches at the abbey on March 30 and again last Friday, but Burris said they rushed their investigation into Weeks and failed to check all the records in the case.
   Burris said the alleged victim was over the age of 18 when he began a relationship with Weeks and there wasn't even any evidence that Weeks was in Oakland when the alleged illegal sexual activity supposedly occurred.
   UPDATED INTRODUCTION: OAKLAND, Calif. -- The Rev. Donald Weeks denies a report by Bay City News Service that he admitted Wednesday that he paid to have sex with a man whom police allege Weeks molested when the man was a minor.
   Weeks, 60, who was closely scrutinized by Oakland officials after he briefly housed convicted sex offender Cary Verse at the abbey last month, continued to emphatically deny allegations that he molested the man during a two-year period beginning in 1994, when the alleged victim was 16.
   Weeks was charged with 24 counts of oral copulation with a minor, but the Alameda County district attorney's office dismissed the charges Tuesday noting a lack of sufficient evidence.
   However, Oakland Deputy Police Chief Mike Holland said police were continuing to investigate Weeks because they believe he did commit a crime.
• Alleged victim said he got an apology [1980s, Celeste]
   ALBANY (NY): Capital News 9, www.capitalnews9.com/content/your_news/capital_region/default.asp?ArID=70234 , By Capital News 9 web staff, 3:52 PM, 4/21/2004
   A man who said he was sexually abused by a priest said he got a formal church apology from Bishop Howard Hubbard.
   Randy Sweringen, 38, met privately with the bishop Tuesday.
   Sweringen was a freshman at RPI back in 1983 when he first came in contact with Father Charles Celeste. Sweringen said Celeste abused him sexually. He said after his meeting, he has recommendations for the church.
   He said, "The first step should be either temporary or permanent replacement of Bishop Howard Hubbard. This man who has worked so hard with the diocese and deserves much praise in his work with the poor, should step down and let a new leader deal with the current crisis."
   Sweringen also said Hubbard finally admitted the relationship between Sweringen and Celeste was not consensual. Celeste is on a leave of absence from his parish in Little Falls.
• Deliberations begin in Lutheran abuse case [Thomas]
   TEXAS: Denton Record-Chronicle, www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D823EUL87.html , By BOBBY ROSS JR., Associated Press, 04/21/2004
   Jurors began deliberating late Wednesday in a sexual abuse lawsuit involving nine alleged victims who claim a regional Lutheran synod ignored warnings about a minister who preyed on boys.
   Attorneys for the plaintiffs urged the jury to deliver "full justice" and hold the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Northern Texas-Northern Louisiana Synod responsible for former minister Gerald Patrick Thomas Jr.'s crimes.
   Thomas, former pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in this East Texas town, was sentenced last year to 397 years in state prison for molesting boys.
   Plaintiffs' attorney Jason Stephens said full justice would mean awarding $50 million in damages to each of the two most traumatized victims. He did not specify amounts on the other seven plaintiffs.
   Stephens appealed to the jury of eight men and four women to send a message that the church hierarchy must protect children from sexual predators.
   "Will these boys go in a church again," Stephens asked during closing arguments. "Do you think (the minister has) brought them closer to God? They wonder, 'Why God did this happen to me?" It has scarred them for life and you're going to be asked to fully compensate them for that. How much is too much for something like this?"
   The plaintiffs allege that the Dallas-based synod was aware of past questionable behavior by Thomas but withheld that information from the Marshall congregation, where Thomas served as pastor from 1997 to 2001.
   In his closing argument, synod attorney Tracy Crawford said former Bishop Mark Herbener and former bishop assistant Earl Eliason acted reasonably in assigning Thomas to Marshall, based upon his graduation from the Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio.
• Lay group grows in archdiocese
   CINCINNATI (OH): The Catholic Telegraph, www.catholiccincinnati.org/tct/apr2304/042304laygroup.html , By Eileen Connelly, OSU, April 23 2004
   ARCHDIOCESE - From conducting parish information sessions to sponsoring healing prayer services, the Cincinnati area chapter of Voice of the Faithful has been busy in recent months.
   Nan Fischer, president of Cincinnati VOTF, said the local chapter remains committed to the national organization’s three original goals - to support those who have been abused, to support priests of integrity and to shape structural change within the church. The national VOTF Representative Council has worked to further define the third goal to clarify that the organization respects the teaching authority of the church, recognizes the role of the hierarchy and does not seek to change church doctrine.
   Yet, Fischer has found that many Catholics still believe VOTF has some type of hidden agenda. This is simply not true, she stressed, saying, "We are very pro-Catholic movement. We love the church but are pained by what has happened as a result of the sexual abuse scandal and the limited decision making role of the laity. VOTF has not espoused any position that is contrary to church teaching. All we are asking for is a seat at the table, to be represented in the decision-making that effects the laity."
   Much of what leads people to accuse VOTF of having a hidden agenda, Fischer said, is a fear of the unknown. "Never before has the church truly operated out of collaborative communication among laity, priests and bishops," she said. "The laity have always deferred decision-making to those in power, those who are vowed or ordained to take the lead."
• 3 file complaints against Gloversville police captain Lorenzoni [Celeste]
   LITTLE FALLS (NY): Observer-Dispatch, www.uticaod.com/archive/2004/04/21/news/30549.html , By KARI INGERSOLL, Wed, Apr 21, 2004
   With the steeple of the Holy Family Parish on the horizon, formal complaints were filed Tuesday stemming from alleged confrontations at the church during two November 2003 protests against clergy sex abuse.
   According to the complaints, Gloversville Police Capt. James Lorenzoni, who lives in Little Falls, made verbal and written statements of a threatening nature. Lorenzoni referred all questions to his attorney, Karen Khanzadian of DePerno and Khanzadian in Barneveld.
   "The allegations against Mr. Lorenzoni are unsubstantiated and false," she said Tuesday after learning that the additional complaints had been filed. Two prior complaints had been filed in February and were investigated but were unfounded, said Little Falls Police Chief Gregg DeLuca.
   David Leonard of Frankfort, a member of the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said he and Lorenzoni had a confrontation Nov. 16 that included verbal attacks and physical threats by Lorenzoni.
   As a result, Randall "Randy" Sweringer, who accused the Rev. Charles Celeste of sexual misconduct, also filed a complaint noting his fear for his safety because of Lorenzoni's position in the police department.
• Abuse victim speaks out in Little Falls [1980s, Celeste]
   LITTLE FALLS (NY): The Evening Telegram, www.herkimertelegram.com/articles/2004/04/21/news/news01.txt , By JOE PARMON, Apr 21 2004
   A California man who was sexually abused at the hands of Little Falls priest Charles Celeste in the mid-1980s traveled to Little Falls yesterday to talk about the effect the abuse has had on his life.
   Randall Sweringen, who now resides in Berkeley, Calif., met Celeste while he was pledging to the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Rochester, where Celeste was chaplain.
   The abuse began during Sweringen's freshman year at RPI and continued during his undergraduate studies.
   Sweringen also alleges that Celeste, who had presided over Holy Family Parish in Little Falls, had inappropriate sexual encounters with at least one other fraternity member.
   Celeste was granted a leave of absence by Bishop Howard Hubbard of the Albany Catholic Diocese in November shortly after Sweringen spoke out about the abuse.
   Although Celeste has admitted the abuse took place, during a press conference yesterday across the street from the Little Falls Police Department Sweringen said he wanted a sincere apology from Celeste acknowledging the pain inflicted by his actions.
   Sweringen also called on the Albany Catholic Diocese to take steps to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future. [...]
   Sweringen's attorney, John Aretakis, said that victims of sexual abuse by clergy members are often silenced by those in authority.
   "We will not let bishops, priests, and law enforcement silence us any further," said Aretakis.
   Also Tuesday, Aretakis filed three complaints against Gloversville Police Capt. James Lorenzoni involving two rallies last fall that were held in front of Holy Family Parish protesting against clergy sexual abuse. . . .
• Former Steubenville Diocese Priest Pleaded No Contest To Sex Abuse; No Local Victims Have Come Forward. [Jablonowski; tied up, beat people for "spiritual" reasons]
   OHIO: WTOV, www.wtov9.com/news/3028229/detail.html , by Ashlea Kosikowski, NEWS 9.
   A former Steubenville Diocese priest pled no contest to molesting a teenager in Wyoming. But he says his indecent actions were for spiritual reasons not for sexual gratification. Platt County, Wyoming Prosecutor Eric Alden says church officials came to him prompting a criminal investigation into the actions of father Anthony Jablonowski. Jablonowski was a preacher at a church in Wyoming in the early 80's.
   "It originally came from a case of adults tied up and beaten," Alden told NEWS 9. "They were induced by him calling it a religious ritual."
   According to Alden, Jablonowski regularly took men to the church basement, asked them to strip, then, bound and gagged them. Alden says the men hung from the ceiling as their genitals were manipulated to induce pain, while the men prayed. Further investigation found juveniles were involved in the religious rituals. This week, Jablonowski pled guilty to sex abuse charges with a minor.
   "The charges we agreed not to file come from what I would call sado-masochistic rituals," Alden said.
   Jablonowski was a priest with the Diocese of Steubenville from 1997 until the accusations came out in June of last year. Jablonski worked at a church near Marietta, which is part of the Steubenville Diocese.
   Msgr. Gerald Calovini -- the spokesman for the diocese -- says no victims from our area have come forward. Jablonski remains a priest of the diocese but he was directed not to engage in any public ministry.
• St. Louis archdiocese settles clergy abuse case for nearly $1.7 million [to one family; 1997-2000, Wolken]
   ST. LOUIS (MO): Union-Tribune, www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20040421-1200-churchabuse-settlement.html , By Jim Suhr, ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 21, 2004
   The Archdiocese of St. Louis will pay nearly $1.7 million to a family whose son was sexually abused over three years by a Roman Catholic priest now serving 15 years in prison, the family's attorney said Wednesday.
   Robert Ritter said that he and attorneys for the church settled Tuesday in the case of the Rev. Gary Wolken, the former associate pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church.
   In pleading guilty in December 2002 to two counts of statutory sodomy and six counts of child molestation, Wolken admitted exposing himself to the son of a family friend, inappropriately touching him and having oral sex with him from 1997 to 2000. The abuse began when the child was in kindergarten and often took place while Wolken baby-sat.
   The archdiocese said the settlement was its largest in a sexual-abuse case in its 157-year history. "While the settlement represents closure of the civil case, our pastoral concern and our prayers continue for all who have been affected by this tragic abuse," church officials said in a statement.
   Wolken was arrested in 2002.
• Cardinal Martini urges church to be more democratic
   Chicago Tribune, "Cardinal urges church to be more democratic," www.chicagotribune.com/features/women/chi-0404210042apr21,1,4521849.story?coll=chi-leisurewomannews-hed ; By Philip Pullella, Reuters, Published April 21, 2004
   VATICAN CITY -- In a move certain to spark debate about the choice of the next pope, a leading cardinal has said the Catholic Church should be more democratic, allow women to be deacons and give laypeople a say in selecting bishops.
   Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the former archbishop of Milan, made the maverick suggestions in a wide-ranging interview published last week in the Rome newspaper Il Tempo.
   Martini, 77, also said secret conclaves to select popes should not be restricted to cardinals but should include the chairmen of national bishops' conferences in order to make the selection more representative.
   The cardinal, who for years before he retired in 2002 was the favorite candidate of liberal Catholics to succeed Pope John Paul II, said power should not be a monopoly of the hierarchy.
   In the interview, he called for a "permanent reigning council" to help run the church together with the pope.
   As the pope's health has declined, leading clergy have begun a period of informal pre-electoral debate over the main issues in the selection of the next Roman Catholic leader.
   One issue will be the next pope's stand on the role of women. The severe shortage of priests in many countries has meant that women have become vital to running many parishes.
   Martini stopped short of speaking about women priests but he said women should get more power and influence in the church and that their merits should be "recognized and promoted."
• Critic solicits donations for overdue church audit
   NEW HAMPSHIRE: Concord Monitor, www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040421/REPOSITORY/404210313/1001/NEWS01 ; By ANNMARIE TIMMINS, April 21. 2004
   A Concord woman upset that the state has not found a way to pay for its overdue inspection of the Catholic Church is asking people to donate to the cause.
   Anne Coughlin, a Catholic who has been outspoken about the church's mishandling of sexually abusive priests, is circulating her request through e-mail and the Internet. She wrote that donations may be the surest way to help the state find the nearly $200,000 it needs to hire auditors for the inspection.
   The state attorney general's office is required to audit the church's handling of new sexual assault complaints annually until 2007 as part of an agreement it signed with the Diocese of Manchester in 2002. The audit of the first year was to begin in January, but it hasn't been started because the attorney general's office and the Diocese of Manchester cannot agree who will pay for it.
   The agreement, signed by Bishop John McCormack and former attorney general Philip McLaughlin, did not specify who would cover the expense.
   The money will not be easily found in either budget. The church has laid off staff, shut down its newspaper and closed buildings to make up its budget shortfall. And last month, Gov. Craig Benson asked Attorney General Peter Heed to cut $100,000 from his already reduced budget as part of a statewide effort to cut spending. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 05:58 PM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Apr 21, 2004
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