• Clergy abuse cases highlight cardinal [O'Grady deported to Ireland]
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp? category=1110&slug=Church%20Abuse%20Mahony ; By GILLIAN FLACCUS, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LOS ANGELES (CA): The case of a notorious molester from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Stockton has come back to vex Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, who testified at a 1998 civil trial involving the former priest.
Six lawsuits accusing ex-priest Oliver O'Grady of abuse were filed last year, under a California law that lifted for one year the statute of limitations in old sex-abuse cases.
Now plaintiffs' lawyers want to discover what Mahony knew about the activities of O'Grady, a former Stockton priest who pleaded guilty in 1993 to molesting two brothers and served seven years in prison before being deported to his native Ireland. Mahony was bishop in Stockton from 1980 to 1985, during part of O'Grady's tenure there.
The brothers won a $30 million judgment against the Stockton Diocese after the 1998 trial, which featured dozens of pages of confidential church documents and sworn testimony from Mahony, who was by then leading the Los Angeles Archdiocese. The award was later reduced to $7.5 million in a settlement with the diocese.
The six new cases threaten to reopen a controversial part of Mahony's past at a time when he has been criticized for his handling of the abuse scandal that has enveloped the church nationwide since 2002.
• Conservative Catholics target bishop with blue binder of blasphemy [Brown, Stephens]
Orange County Weekly, www.ocweekly.com/ink/04/43/news-arellano2.php , by Gustavo Arellano
CALIFORNIA: Every week, a group calling itself the Orange County Catholics gathers in a different member's house and recites the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel.
"St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of Battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the Devil," they whisper while kneeling on the floor.
They then speak about the sinner to whom they direct the 19th-century prayer: Orange Diocese Bishop Tod D. Brown, a man whom one former Catholic-school teacher claims is "duped by the Devil."
Each Orange County Catholic (OCC) member has a personal beef with Brown. Michael and Susan Teissere of Long Beach complain Brown ignored them two years ago when they pleaded with the bishop to defrock Father Rod Stephens, Michael's cousin, for supposedly being gay.
One woman frowns at Brown's infamous Jan. 18 nailing of his "Covenant with the Faithful" outside the doors of Orange's Holy Family Cathedral that pledged diocesan transparency in sex-abuse cases. "Since when has it been faithful to emulate Martin Luther?" she scoffs.
And almost everyone is uncomfortable that Brown serves on a national ecumenical and interreligious-affairs council. "And he aligns himself with moderate denominations, not the Jerry Falwells or Southern Baptists!" gasps another lady.
• More Salesian old boys speak out
The Age (Melbourne), www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/02/1088488152579.html?oneclick=true , July 3, 2004
AUSTRALIA: They sang Kyrie and the Sanctus in Latin and remembered the good times at Rupertswood. The Salesians of Don Bosco were celebrating their history at their Mother House in Australia, Rupertswood, a mansion at Sunbury. Thousands of boys had passed through it since the Salesians arrived there in 1927.
The third largest Catholic organisation in the world, with 17,000 members, the Salesians are a powerful order of priests and brothers. Their saint, John Bosco, founded the order in Turin, Italy, in 1859, to be a friend to children who were poor, abandoned or at risk. But now, the Salesians were moving from the imposing building in Sunbury that had been their Australian base under the spiritual guidance of their chosen patron, Mary, Help of Christians.
Pre-dinner drinks were reportedly served around the stairs in front of the dining room, according to an internet account of the event, and guests recited Prayers of the Faithful in remembrance of those who had graced the hallowed rooms.
• Prosecution actions mean fewer charges for ex-priest [1980s Shanley]
Contra Costa Times, www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/nation/9063885.htm?1c , By Jay Lindsay, ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The most outspoken accuser of defrocked priest Paul Shanley was dropped from the case by prosecutors Thursday and won't testify at Shanley's upcoming sex abuse trial.
Prosecutors filed documents to remove Gregory R. Ford, who received one of the largest civil settlements from the Boston Archdiocese after saying he recovered memories of abuse as a child. A second accuser, Anthony Driscoll, was also removed from the case.
As a result, four rape and two indecent assault and battery charges were dropped against Shanley, one of the most notorious figures in the clergy abuse scandal that began in Boston in 2002. He now faces 10 charges -- six counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child.
Ford, now 26, alleged Shanley raped him while he was attending church-run classes at St. Jean's Parish in Newton during the 1980s, a charge Shanley has denied.
• Jail for leaders of paedophile ring [1995-2000 Wiel]
The Scotsman, http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=757132004
FRANCE: A court in northern France has convicted ten members of a paedophile ring after a trial that gripped the nation.
The court heard allegations of sexual abuse, torture and bestiality involving children from three to 18 in the town of Outreau between 1995 and 2000.
After nearly two months of hearings and 15 hours of deliberations, the court sentenced 37-year-old Myriam Delay-Badaoui, the woman at the centre of the trial, to 15 years in prison for child rape.
Her husband, unemployed alcoholic Thierry Delay, 40, and another couple who were their neighbours, were also handed hefty prison sentences for rape. All four had confessed to raping the Delay couple's four children.
The court also sentenced priest Dominique Wiel and another man to prison for rape, and found four others guilty of abusing, but not raping, children. All six had pleaded innocent. Seven other people were acquitted. [Emphasis added]
• Salesians accused of paying hush money [1960s Ayers, 1970s, 1975]
The Age (Melbourne), www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/02/1088488156571.html?oneclick=true , By Martin Daly, July 3, 2004
AUSTRALIA: The Salesian sex-abuse scandal widened last night with claims that four new alleged victims were secretly paid compensation by the Catholic order.
The Age has already reported allegations by three former students from the Salesians' college at Rupertswood, in Sunbury, that they were abused by a priest in the 1970s.
The new alleged victims include a man from rural Victoria who was paid $45,000 to settle his claim he had been sexually abused at Rupertswood in the 1960s by Father Jack Ayers, a Salesian priest now reported to be seriously ill in Samoa.
Another alleged victim, Mark Beaumont, 36, of Melbourne, received a $10,000 settlement last November relating to claims he had been sexually abused at the age of seven by a Salesian brother at the Don Bosco Boys' Club in South Oakleigh.
Beaumont says his sister, now dead, received $5000 compensation last year for alleged abuse by the same man when she was five.
Both cases allegedly happened in about 1975.
• A hard look at prisons [Geoghan]
The Boston Globe, www.boston.com/ news/globe/ editorial_opinion/ editorials/articles/ 2004/07/02/a_ hard_ look_ at_prisons ; July 2, 2004
BOSTON (MA): The brutal murder of defrocked priest John Geoghan last year while in prison catalyzed a long-overdue examination of the state's correction system. An investigation by the Romney administration concluded that a culture of tolerance for abuse pervaded the Correction Department, and Governor Romney removed or reassigned several high-ranking officers, including the correction commissioner. Now a panel headed by former attorney general Scott Harshbarger has taken an even broader look, offering proposals to bring more transparency and accountability to the troubled system.
The Harshbarger report adds an important voice to a growing chorus for prison reform, an issue that has attracted little public interest for decades. Pressure is growing to develop a prison system that is not only more humane but smarter, more cost-effective, and safer for all citizens. Two key recommendations -- for an inspector general to investigate complaints about staff, inmates, or prison conditions and an external monitoring committee -- have the potential to remake the system.
In addition to these structural changes, the report calls for a sweeping new mission for the Correction Department: better preparing offenders for their eventual release. The lack of literacy, skills, and education for prisoners within months of their return to the streets is shocking and contributes to the high rates of repeat offenses -- nearly 50 percent of released inmates are convicted of another crime within three years. "Often people are coming out more dangerous than when they went in," Harshbarger said in a meeting with the Globe.
Even for those who are not "stepping down" toward release dates, drug and alcohol treatment and violence prevention training should be universally available. That only 3 percent of the Correction Department's nearly half-billion-dollar budget goes to programming indicates the low priority given to such crucial strategies.
• 6 charges dropped against ex-priest [Shanley] - RCC.
The Boston Globe, www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/07/02/6_charges_dropped_against_ex_priest , By Ralph Ranalli and Jonathan Saltzman, July 2, 2004
BOSTON (MA): Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley dropped charges yesterday involving two alleged victims of defrocked priest Paul R. Shanley, including Gregory Ford, Shanley's first and most controversial accuser.
In a move that prosecutors and defense lawyers alike described as a tactical maneuver to strengthen the remaining case against Shanley, Coakley's office dismissed four charges of rape and two charges of indecent assault on a child involving the alleged molestation of Anthony Driscoll and Ford, whose continued involvement would probably have complicated the upcoming trial, given conflicting statements he has given about when he recovered memory of the alleged molestation.
"In determining our strategy with the best interests of the victims, the jury, and the case in mind, it seemed clear that trying a portion of the case, rather than all of the allegations altogether, would produce a similar verdict either way," Coakley said in a statement released by her office yesterday.
"We . . . believe that this will result in preserving the best interest of justice," she said.
All four of the alleged victims accused Shanley of raping them while they were altar boys and he was a priest assigned to St. Jean's Parish in Newton.
Ford has led a troubled life, marked by emotional turmoil, multiple suicide attempts, and psychiatric hospitalizations, and he had become a lightning rod for criticism of the case by Shanley's defenders.
• Audit: Priest misused $127,500 in Wellfleet [1980s-90s Kelly]
Cape Cod Times, www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/auditpriest2.htm , By AMANDA LEHMERT
BARNSTABLE (MA): A former Falmouth priest embroiled in a murder investigation allegedly misused $175,000 in church funds in Wellfleet in addition to some $800,000 he may have embezzled from a Woods Hole church, according to court documents filed yesterday.
The Rev. Bernard Kelly, 71, already admitted to misspending at least $50,000 from St. Joseph Parish in Woods Hole, where auditors found the $800,000 in unexplained expenses earlier this year.
That spurred auditors to examine the financial records at Our Lady of Lourdes in Wellfleet, where Kelly was pastor from 1987 to 1997. The investigation yielded the additional questionable expenditures.
The private auditing firm hired by the diocese also determined Kelly spent at least $127,500 of the $175,000 for his own use, the court documents said.
Auditors are still investigating whether the remaining $47,500 was spent on authorized church expenses.
• Ex-bishop: Priest OK'd for duty [Clay]
Times Leader, www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/news/local/9060662.htm , By BONNIE ADAMS badams@leader.net , and MARK GUYDISH markg@leader.net
PENNSYLVANIA: Bishop James Timlin and others say the Rev. Christopher Clay was entitled to resume ministerial duties when no criminal charges resulted from a young man's accusations against him.
The former Diocese of Scranton bishop said he offered Clay local parish work in 2003 after a police investigation yielded no charges.
But that word apparently hasn't reached the Diocese of Forth Worth in Texas, where Clay this week was barred from saying Mass because church officials say they have no proof he's in good standing.
Clay until recently assisted his close friend, the Rev. Allan Hawkins, at St. Mary the Virgin Church in Arlington, Texas. In reaction to a Dallas Morning News article, Hawkins distributed a letter to his parishioners Wednesday.
Hawkins said he had contacted Timlin in 2003 "to make sure that there was no objection to my inviting Father Clay to assist us at St. Mary the Virgin." Timlin confirmed Thursday that he had no objections.
Diocese of Scranton spokeswoman Maria Orzel said this week that Clay was removed from active ministry after his name surfaced during an investigation into an allegation against two priests at the Society of St. John in Pike County.
• Mahony alleged to be in contempt [O'Grady $US 7m damages]
Pasadena Star News, www.pasadenastarnews.com/Stories/0,1413,206~24533~2245221,00.html
LOS ANGELES (CA): Attorneys for alleged clergy sex abuse victims have asked a judge to consider holding Cardinal Roger Mahony in contempt of court for resisting depositions in cases that date to his years as bishop of Stockton.
Mahony now heads the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the nation. The contempt motion targeting him was filed late Tuesday in Alameda County Superior Court.
Attorneys want to question Mahony because he led the Diocese of Stockton from 1980 to 1985 and supervised Father Oliver O'Grady, who was later convicted of child molestation.
The Stockton diocese previously paid two brothers $7 million in damages after a jury found it didn't do enough to prevent the abuse by O'Grady.
• Juneau diocese pays former Alaskan who said he was abused [1979-82 Nash $US 175,740]
Grand Forks Herald, www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/state/9060673.htm , Associated Press
JUNEAU (AK): The Catholic Diocese of Juneau has agreed to pay $175,740 to a former Juneau resident who said he was sexually abused by a priest more than two decades ago.
Joel Post, who now lives in Duluth, Minn., said the Rev. Michael Nash sexually abused him numerous times between 1979 and 1982, according to a statement from the diocese.
Nash's attorney, Louis Menendez, said the former Juneau priest is attending law school at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., and was neither involved in nor notified of the settlement. Nash denies any wrongdoing, "without equivocation," Menendez told the Juneau Empire.
He said Nash would have been happy to address the charges openly in court.
"The American Catholic Church should not be viewed as a slot machine that pays off on allegations. ... The American Catholic Church deserves more," Menendez said.
• Diocese asks priest to admit hiring error [Clay]
The Dallas Morning News, www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/tarrant/stories/070204dnmetpriest. 2ab3a.html ; By SUSAN HOGAN/ALBACH, Thursday, July 1, 2004
ARLINGTON (TX): The pastor of St. Mary the Virgin Catholic Church in Arlington has been asked by diocesan officials to tell weekend worshippers that he made a mistake in allowing a Pennsylvania priest accused of sexual abuse to assist at worship over the last year, an official of the Fort Worth Diocese said Thursday.
The unusual action came after an e-mail was sent to church members, apparently by the pastor, the Rev. Allan Hawkins, saying he planned to defend his actions during weekend Masses. The e-mail said Father Hawkins had been assured by officials from the Diocese of Scranton, Pa., that the Rev. Christopher Clay's suspension from ministry had been lifted last year.
The Scranton Diocese said Thursday said that Father Clay remains "removed from active ministry without faculties as a priest" because of an ongoing ecclesial investigation. The Fort Worth Diocese banned Father Clay from ministry Tuesday after learning he'd been assisting in Mass at the Arlington church.
Neither Father Hawkins nor Father Clay, who lives in Dallas, has responded to repeated interview requests.
• Diocese moves $5M in assets -- to avoid paying compensation of $US 16m?
Fox 11, www.fox11az.com/news/local/stories/KMSB-20040701-dsbp-docese.2b6b29629.html , By Stephanie Innes / Arizona Daily Star, 11:25 AM MST, Thursday, July 1, 2004
TUCSON (AZ): During the last 13 months, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson, which is considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has sold or transferred assets reportedly worth $5 million -- primarily to other Catholic corporations.
Attorneys representing plaintiffs in pending civil actions against the diocese are concerned the diocese is shifting its assets to affiliated Catholic entities to avoid compensating victims of sexual abuse by local clergy. Another result of shifting assets to other Catholic groups is that on paper the diocese will appear to have less wealth than it really has, the lawyers say.
The diocese says its transactions from the past year were in good faith and part of regular church business.
Last month, Diocese of Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas wrote a letter to parishioners saying that filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection "now appears to be the only option" for the diocese, which serves about 350,000 Catholics in nine counties and has already paid out an estimated $16 million in settlement costs related to priests abusing children.
• Former Douglaston Priest Is Dismissed By Catholic Diocese [Byrns]
Queens Chronicle, www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12176948&BRD=1862&PAG=461&dept_id=152512&rfi=6 , by Liz Rhoades, Managing Editor July 01, 2004
NEW YORK: After seven years of charges and lengthy investigation, a priest who formerly served in Douglaston has been barred from the ministry by the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens for sexual abuse charges involving two local boys.
The removal of Father Joseph Byrns, 61, who served at St. Anastasia Catholic Church from 1969 to 1983, was announced by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio in a letter read to the Douglaston parishioners on Sunday and to those in St. Rose of Lima Church in Brooklyn, where he last served.
"I accepted the Diocesan Review Board's report and met with Father Byrns, advising him that he would not be permitted to return to active priestly ministry," Bishop DiMarzio said. The priest had been on administrative leave since 2002.
Charges against the priest were brought by two brothers from Douglaston, Father Timothy Lambert and Robert Lambert. It was persistence by Father Lambert that eventually got action on the sexual abuse charges. [Emphasis added]
• Allegations made versus priest who served area [1965, 1973 Joffe]
Saukvalley.com ; http://ww2.saukvalley.com/news/285598494860679.bsp , SHAW NEWS SERVICE, Thursday, July 1, 2004
ROCKFORD (IL): The Catholic Diocese of Rockford received sexual-misconduct allegations against a former priest who once served parishes in Lee and Whiteside counties, Bishop Thomas Doran said in a statement released Wednesday.
According to Rockford Catholic Diocese officials, the allegations made against William Joffe came from four people.
In the statement released by Doran, church officials said they first heard allegations of sexual misconduct against Joffe in 1993 from a man who said Joffe molested him in 1965 when Joffe was an associate pastor at St. Patrick Parish in Dixon.
A second adult male made more allegations against Joffe in 2002, claiming that Joffe engaged in sexual contact with him when he was a minor in 1973, when Joffe was pastor at St. Mary's Parish in Morrison and a faculty member at Newman Central Catholic High School in Sterling, diocese officials said.
• Church Asks San Diego Judge To Invalidate Abuse Cases [1967-68 Janssen, about 800 other cases]
NBCSanDiego.com ; www.nbcsandiego.com/news/3483233/detail.html
SAN DIEGO (CA): The Roman Catholic Church is asking a San Diego federal judge to void a 2003 law that makes it legal for victims of sexual abuse to sue, it was reported Thursday.
The law put an end to an earlier statute of limitations in parish sexual abuse cases, opening up a tidal wave of lawsuits in California. The Roman Catholic Church currently faces about 800 alleged sexual abuse cases, said Susan Oliver, a San Diego lawyer representing the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa.
The church's request stems from an alleged case of sexual abuse in San Diego. A Colorado man says his parish priest molested him there when the two were vacationing in 1967 and 1968. The priest, James Michael Janssen, is now 83.
• Prosecutors drop accuser from case against Shanley [1980s Shanley]
MetroWest Daily News, www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=72177 , By Jay Lindsay / Associated Press, Friday, July 2, 2004
CAMBRIDGE (MA): The most outspoken accuser of defrocked priest Paul Shanley won't testify against him in Shanley's upcoming sex abuse trial after prosecutors dropped him from the case yesterday.
Prosecutors filed documents to remove Gregory R. Ford and another accuser, Anthony Driscoll, from the case during a hearing on an unrelated motion at Middlesex Superior Court.
As a result, four rape charges and two indecent assault and battery charges were dropped against Shanley, a key figure in the sex abuse scandal that began in Boston in 2002. He now faces 10 charges -- six counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child.
Ford, now 26, said Shanley raped him while he was attending church-run classes at St. Jean's Parish in Newton during the 1980s, a charge Shanley has denied.
Ford received one of the largest civil settlements from the Boston Archdiocese in April. His lawyers said the lengthy civil proceedings, in which Ford was deposed 40 to 50 times, gave Shanley's criminal defense attorneys plenty of material to use to cross-examine Ford, in an attempt to create reasonable doubt with the jury.
Shanley's attorney, Frank Mondano, said prosecutors dropped the two weakest cases. He said he could use them to prove the allegations against Shanley were fabricated to win judgments in civil lawsuits.
• Victims group meets diocese official
Providence Journal, www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20040702_snap2.268c78.html , BY RICHARD C. DUJARDIN, Journal Religion Writer, Friday, July 2, 2004
PROVIDENCE (RI): Two leaders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests [SNAP] are asking that Roman Catholic Bishop Robert E. Mulvee allow abuse victims to provide sensitivity training to his newly ordained priests.
Yesterday afternoon the group's national leader, David Clohessy, and Landa Mauriello-Vernon, who heads the chapter in Connecticut, went to the diocesan offices at Cathedral Square with a letter intended for Bishop Mulvee.
Since the bishop is on a visit to Rome, Monsignor Paul D. Theroux, the moderator of the curia, accepted the letter on his behalf, saying he thought the bishop "would be open to arranging something."
The monsignor and Clohessy have known each other for at least 10 years, going back to when the priest was working for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and had helped set up some of the first meetings between bishops and abuse victims.
• Ten convicted in France sex case [1995-2000]
BBC News (Britain), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3859115.stm
FRANCE: A court in northern France has convicted 10 members of a paedophile ring after a trial that gripped France.
The court heard allegations of sexual abuse, torture and bestiality involving children from three to 18 in the town of Outreau between 1995 and 2000.
The ringleaders, Thierry Delay and his wife Myriam - the parents of four of the victims - were sentenced to 20 and 15 years in jail for child rape.
Another couple and a priest were also among those convicted in Saint Omer. [Emphasis added]
• Priest targeted by another suit [1975 onwards Cornelius]
Seattle Times, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001970529_cornelius02m.html , By Janet I. Tu
SEATTLE (WA): Another lawsuit has been filed against the Rev. John Cornelius, this one by three local men who accuse him of sexually abusing them when they were teenagers.
The suit accuses the Roman Catholic priest, who has been the subject of multiple lawsuits, of molesting them at John F. Kennedy Memorial High School in Burien, and/or at St. Mary and Immaculate Conception churches and rectories in Seattle. The suit, filed in King County Superior Court, does not name the men.
Cornelius, who resigned his pastoral assignment in May 2002 after the Seattle archbishop said he would be removed from ministry, could not be reached for comment. At the time, he apologized for the pain he caused his accusers and the church but stopped short of admitting to the numerous sexual-molestation charges lodged against him.
In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, one plaintiff accused Cornelius of raping him hundreds of times over the course of 10 years. He said he met Cornelius in summer 1975, just before his freshman year at Kennedy, after his family was introduced to the priest.
He said he eventually turned to drugs, couldn't keep a job, attempted suicide twice and was financially dependent on Cornelius, who provided him with money to support himself as long as he complied with the priest's sexual demands. The suit says he still suffers from "profound, debilitating and disorienting depression."
• Brookyn priest pulled from ministry [Byrns] - RCC.
The Boston Globe, www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/07/02/brookyn_priest_pulled_from_ministry , By Michael Rezendes, July 2, 2004
BROOKLYN (NY): A Brooklyn priest who was initially exonerated after allegations that he sexually molested two brothers in the early 1970s has been permanently removed from active ministry by Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio -- six years after church officials first heard the charges.
The announcement that the Brooklyn diocese has found allegations against the Rev. Joseph P. Byrns credible was made at St. Anastasia Church in Queens, where Byrns was serving at the time the two brothers were abused, and at St. Rose of Lima Church in Brooklyn, where Byrns was pastor until last July, when he was temporarily suspended.
In his June 28 letter to parishioners, DiMarzio said church officials reached their decision after the allegations were examined by a diocesan review board established to evaluate allegations of clergy sexual abuse.
"I accepted the board's report and met with Father Byrns, advising him that he would not be permitted to return to active ministry," DiMarzio said.
DiMarzio's action was a crucial marker on a long and painful journey for the brothers who made the allegations, the Rev. Timothy J. Lambert, a New Jersey priest, and Robert V. Lambert, a Nevada resident who has held a variety of jobs.
"I'm very relieved this has happened," Robert Lambert said yesterday. "At the same time, I'm a bit disappointed that it took this long." [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 03:26 AM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Fri July 02, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont87.htm
• Eight acquittals for Marist brother. [1980s Maguire] - RCC.
Catholic News, Australia, www.cathnews.com/news/407/12.php , Jul 2, 2004
SYDNEY (NSW), Australia: After eight trials on child sex abuse charges, NSW Marist Brother John Maguire has been acquitted once more.
The Age reports today that jurors were never told of the other allegations against him.
Because of a court ruling on the risk of contamination of evidence, a judge decided that each case against Br Maguire had to be heard separately. The ruling followed defence claims that the students making the allegations had colluded at a school reunion in 1999.
The jurors at each trial before Judge Megan Latham in the NSW District Court since last November were therefore unaware of the extensive allegations against Br Maguire.
Prosecutors were also hamstrung by the 20 years that elapsed between the alleged offences and when the first complainant went to police in 1997. Legal rules prevented the Crown from calling several witnesses, such as psychologists, family members, girlfriends and other teachers in all but one case.
Br Maguire, 60, was accused of sexually and indecently assaulting six boys at St Joseph's College in Hunters Hill, Sydney 20 years ago. In all, he faced 17 counts of sexually related assault of boys aged between 11 and 13 while he was the year 7 dormitory and form master. He now lives on school grounds at Marist College, Ashgrove, in Brisbane. He was suspended as deputy headmaster when he was charged on February 13, 2002. ...
SOURCE: Eight acquittals for priest (The Age, Melbourne, 2/7/04)
LINKS:
Court told dormitory brother preyed on homesick boarders (CathNews 18/2/03)
Priests said to cross borders to escape abuse charges (National Catholic Reporter 29/6/04)
Vatican looking for ways to speed up processing of sex abuse cases (Catholic News Service 1/7/04)
• Gets 13-y-o drunk and penetrates her, but may be free in a year and a bit. -- No religion involvement [Gibson]
The West Australian, "Father fumes over predator's penalty," by Pamela Magill, p 10, Friday, July 2, 2004
PERTH (W. Australia): A predator who plied a 13-year-old girl with alcohol and sexually assaulted her after she passed out could be out of jail in little more than a year.
Robert Joseph Gibson, 36, was sentenced in the District Court to two years and eight months jail after being convicted of indecently assaulting and sexually penetrating the girl.
But because of sentencing laws and his eligibility for parole, he will have to serve just half of that.
The girl's father, who was infuriated by what he saw as a lenient sentence, warned young girls to be safety conscious. ... he feared assaults by older men who preyed on young victims were prevalent. ... his daughter kept her assault a secret for eight months because she feared she would not be believed against the word of an adult. ... she reportedly had eight more vodka cruiser drinks after being sick. ... She knew she should not have been drinking and should not have been at her attacker's house and was worried she may have contributed to, or in some way deserved, what happened.
The girl had permission to sleep at a friend's house on the night of the assault but the friend was a relative of Gibson and they ended up at his house. ...
The girl's father said she now understood she did not contribute to Gibson's despicable behaviour. ...
[COMMENT: The scarcity of room in prisons possibly is more a cause of the modern lenient "sentencing laws" and "eligibility for parole" than the usual "blame society" arguments put forward by politicians on both sides of the fence. (Do not forget, however, that real reformers have a fear that a high percentage of prison inmates have been "framed".) And the taxation loopholes plus wasteful government spending are probably the causes of under-funding of prison accommodation and criminals' rehabilitation programmes. Some people will question the father's statement that the daughter "did not contribute" to the behaviour. Having eight more alcoholic drinks after vomiting is hardly a blameless or sensible action, many would judge. - jcm 02 Jul 04. COMMENT ENDS.] [Newsitem: Jul 2, 04]
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Sat July 03, 2004 edition follows:-
• Little evidence of sexual abuse in institutions
One in Four, http://oneinfour.org/news/news2004/evidence , by Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent - Irish Times
IRELAND: The secretary general at the Department of Education and Science, Mr John Dennehy, has said there was no significant evidence of sexual abuse at the State's residential institutions in files at the Department.
Giving evidence to the investigation committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in Dublin yesterday, he corroborated the view of the former minister at the Department, Mr Micheál Martin, who told the committee on Wednesday that relevant files dealt mainly with physical abuse and neglect.
The minister said details of sexual abuse at the institutions emerged mainly through the media and survivors.
However, earlier yesterday another former minister for education, Dr Michael Woods, who in January 2000 succeeded Mr Martin in the post, told the committee files there reported "abuse particularly physical, some instances of sexual (abuse) and some of both." [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 07:36 AM]
• Ahern to speak at child abuse inquiry
One in Four, oneinfour.org/news/news2004/aherntospeak
IRELAND: The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, is expected to give evidence to the investigation committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse next Monday. Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent, reports.
A spokeswoman for the commission confirmed yesterday that it had been provisionally agreed Mr Ahern would begin his evidence at 10 a.m. on July 5th. It is likely to centre on factors leading to his 1999 apology to abuse victims on behalf of the Irish people.
Yesterday, Ms Mary McLoughlin, of the child-legislation unit at the Department of Health and Children, said the first mention of child sex abuse in Department policy documents was in 1977, when a memorandum from a committee of experts on non-accidental injury to children made passing reference to it.
Prior to that, "the understanding that abuse existed was not there," she said. Until the mid-1980s, in Department reports and files "there was very little consciousness of anything other than neglect".
• Christian Brothers resolve legal dispute -- €1 million cost (so far)
One in Four, http://oneinfour.org/news/news2004/resolvedispute
IRELAND: A legal dispute between the Christian Brothers Congregation and the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse has been resolved after the commission's recent decision that it won't proceed with "naming and shaming" individual perpetrators of abuse unless those were convicted by the courts, the Supreme Court heard yesterday.
The action has cost the commission more than €1 million. As a result of the June 16th decision announced by the new chairman of the commission, Mr Justice Sean Ryan, the substance of the congregation's challenge to proposed procedures of the commission's investigation committee is now unnecessary and won't be proceeding, Ms Mary Irvine SC, for the congregation, said.
In stating it would not name individuals, the commission had unilaterally moved the goalposts and rendered unnecessary the main point of the congregation's appeal against aspects of the High Court's decision on the congregation's challenge, counsel indicated.
Mr Frank Clarke SC, for the commission, said he broadly accepted what Ms Irvine said. At Ms Irvine's request, Ms Justice McGuinness, sitting with Mr Justice Hardiman and Mr Justice Geoghegan, granted, on consent, an order setting aside the congregation's appeal against aspects of a High Court decision last January on the congregation's challenge to the investigation committee's proposed procedures.
• Uncovered Vatican files highlight abuse [1930s-60s 30 allegations]
One In Four, www.oneinfour.org/news/news2004/vatican , From RTE Online
IRELAND: The Christian Brothers have revealed that they have uncovered files in the Vatican relating to the abuse of schoolboys in Irish institutions.
The files include written accounts about thirty findings of child sex abuse at six schools between the 1930s and 1960s.
Eleven of the cases relate to Artane Industrial School, while the others relate to other schools around the country.
The Christian Brothers say, the files were found by an archivist last year and will now be handed over to the Committee of Inquiry into Child Abuse.
The files relate to Canonical trials - where the Christian Brother leadership carried out 'internal investigations' into thirty allegations of child sex abuse against individual Brothers in Ireland.
• 2 men say Rodimer OK'd transfer of priest to Dover [1979 Tully, 20 years Rodimer]
Daily Record, www.dailyrecord.com/news/articles/news2-Akbishop.htm , By Abbott Koloff, Daily Record
NEW JERSEY: Two men accused Bishop Frank Rodimer in court papers filed Friday of trying to keep their families quiet about their alleged sexual abuse by a priest, and then allowing that priest to continue working at a Dover parish for 20 years before removing him one month ago.
The bishop reportedly told families of the two alleged victims at the time that the priest would never again be allowed to work with children.
Monsignor Ronald Tully, 67, was removed from Sacred Heart parish in Dover a month ago for what church officials said at the time was a legal matter that had resurfaced. That legal matter was a criminal charge of sex abuse and two counts of endangering the welfare of children filed in Riverhead, N.Y., in 1979.
Two men who say they were abused by Tully in 1979, when they were teenagers attending a Passaic school where Tully worked, filed papers in a Long Island court Friday that provide details of their allegations. They say Tully took them to his summer home on Long Island, got them drunk, fondled one boy, and pulled down the pants of the other boy and molested him. The boys, 14 and 15 at the time, then ran to a nearby house and police were called.
They said in court papers that one church official threatened their families to keep them quiet 25 years ago and that Rodimer made a promise at the time that he did not keep.
• State looks into priest abuse allegations [Joffe]
Northwest Herald, ://www.nwherald.com/MainSection/280886623770830.php , By KRISTEN SCHMIDT, kristenschmidt@nwherald.com
WOODSTOCK, (Illinois): The McHenry County state's attorney's office has launched an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by a former Woodstock priest.
The investigation began after a person identifying himself as a victim of sexual abuse by former priest William Joffe called Assistant State's Attorney James McAuliff this week.
The Catholic Diocese of Rockford on Wednesday released a four-page statement and chronology detailing accusations against Joffe, who was pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Woodstock for 10 years.
Joffe has been charged with no crime in connection with these or any other sexual allegations.
Woodstock police and the McHenry County Sheriff's Department have detectives investigating whether crimes happened in their jurisdictions and whether there are other, still silent, victims.
• Minister's sex-assault trial begins next week -- Fellowship Baptist [1995-98 Nation]
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/local/9073882.htm?ERIGHTS=- 4668685690973086941dfw::kashaw@peoplepc.com&KRD_RM= 8oowvxvswtpwovppxorooooooo|Kathleen|Y
TEXAS: Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday in a Palo Pinto district court in the trial of a minister who is accused of sexually assaulting three children.
Mark Wayne Nation, 48, has been in the Palo Pinto County Jail since he was arrested Feb. 25. He was indicted on four counts of aggravated sexual assault involving three children. The assaults occurred from 1995 through 1998, said Ira Mercer, an investigator for the Palo Pinto district attorney's office.
Nation was a minister at Fellowship Baptist Church in Lone Camp for several years, Mercer said.
• Trial date for pastor accused of sexual abuse stepped up -- Baptist [2002-03 Hollingsworth]
The Hawk Eye, www.thehawkeye.com/daily/stories/ln7_0701.html , By DOROTHY de SOUZA GUEDES, dotdsg@thehawkeye.com , July 1 2004
IOWA: A former Danville pastor's sexual abuse trial was moved up several weeks because the defendant has not waived his right to a speedy trial.
Harry Frederick Hollingsworth Sr., 57, Hubbard, Texas, was arrested March 23 on a warrant for felony sexual abuse by a counselor or therapist. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.
Hollingsworth is accused of engaging in sexual conduct with a parishioner he was counseling between Sept. 1, 2002, and April 30, 2003, while the pastor of First Baptist Church in Danville. Hollingsworth was counseling the woman, described in court documents as emotionally dependent, for marriage and personal problems.
Iowa Assistant Attorney General Virginia Barchman Barchman is prosecuting the case at the victim's request due to a perceived conflict of interest with the Des Moines County Attorney's office.
A jury trial was set to begin Aug. 3. But because Hollingworth has not waived his right to a trial within 90 days of the May 4 filing of formal charges, Barchman on June 9 requested that the trial date be moved.
• Former Md. Priest Accused of Abusing 2 Teens in '70s [Benham]
Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24819-2004Jul2.html , By Caryle Murphy, Page B02, Saturday, July 3, 2004
WASHINGTON (DC): A 67-year-old Illinois man who left ministry as a Roman Catholic priest about two decades ago has been arrested on charges of sexually molesting a teenage boy and girl when he was still a priest and serving as pastor of a Forestville parish in the 1970s, Prince George's County and Washington Archdiocese officials said.
Francis A. Benham was charged with second- and third-degree sex offenses June 25 by Prince George's police, court records show.
He was arrested June 29 by Lincoln, Ill., city police, the Lincoln Courier newspaper reported. He is scheduled to appear in Logan County Circuit Court on Tuesday for an extradition hearing, according to Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for Prince George's County State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey.
According to papers filed by police in Prince George's County District Court, Benham allegedly kissed, undressed and sexually aroused a 15-year-old boy at Church of the Holy Spirit in Forestville on about six occasions between July 1977 and April 1978.
• Discrepancy celibacy
Ventura County Star, www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/religion_and_ethics/article/0,1375,VCS_151_ 009372,00.html ; By Daniel Burke, Religion News Service, July 3, 2004
NEW YORK -- A new documentary on HBO raises provocative questions about the role of clerical celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church's sexual abuse crisis. It is drawing fire from outraged Roman Catholic bishops who say the film uses a "stacked-deck approach" to "assault" the church's sexual ethos.
In an interview from his home in England, the filmmaker, Antony Thomas, said his interest in celibacy was spurred by a desire to go beyond the daily media coverage of the church's abuse scandal. "Like a lot of people, I was seeing the reports of priest abuse," he said. "But no one was asking the 'why' questions. It seemed to me there was a connection between celibacy and the reports we were seeing, and yet no one was asking, 'Why celibacy?' 'Why practice it?' 'Who benefits from it?' "
The film, "Celibacy," opens with a comparative look at the practice outside the Roman Catholic Church. Interviews with Hindu priests, laymen and Buddhists who slough off worldly desires show how the renunciation of sexual activity is a potent force in many religious traditions.
• Views of Gozitan Priests on Celibacy
DI-VE, www.di-ve.com/dive/portal/portal.jhtml?id=142057 , July 03, 2004
GOZO, Malta (di-ve news)-- 1040CET -- A survey carried out in recent weeks by Fr. Michael Galea, a qualified psychologist, has revealed some shocking statistics as regards priests in Gozo. Above all, the survey shows that 9 per cent of Gozitan priests are not observing the Cannon Law provision on celibacy while 17 per cent say that they do not agree with it, media reports said on Saturday.
The survey, carried out with the approval of the Gozo Curia, had the participation of just over half of Gozo's priests, equivalent to 85.
On the other hand, the overwhelming majority, 91 per cent, said that they are complying with the code.
The Canon Law provision on celibacy states that "Clerics are obliged to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven, and are therefore bound to celibacy. Celibacy is a special gift of God by which sacred ministers can more easily remain close to Christ with an undivided heart, and can dedicate themselves more freely to the service of God and their neighbour."
Furthermore it states that "Clerics are to behave with due prudence in relation to persons whose company can be a danger to their obligation of preserving continence or can lead to scandal of the faithful."
• Former priest's lawyers question cardinal's knowledge [O'Grady $US 7.5m]
Ventura County Star, www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/state/article/0,1375,VCS_122_3010318,00.html ,
Six lawsuits accusing ex-priest Oliver O'Grady of abuse were filed last year, under a California law that lifted for one year the statute of limitations in old sex-abuse cases.
Now plaintiffs' lawyers want to discover what Mahony knew about the activities of O'Grady, a former Stockton priest who pleaded guilty in 1993 to molesting two brothers and served seven years in prison before being deported to his native Ireland. Mahony was bishop in Stockton from 1980 to 1985, during part of O'Grady's tenure there.
The brothers won a $30 million judgment against the Stockton Diocese after the 1998 trial, which featured dozens of pages of confidential church documents and sworn testimony from Mahony, who by then was cardinal of the Los Angeles Archdiocese. The award was reduced to $7.5 million a year later in a settlement with the diocese. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 06:54 AM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Sat July 03, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont87.htm
• Salesians accused of paying hush money. [1970s, 1960s Ayers $45,000, ~1975 $10,000, $36,000, 1970s Klep]
The Age (Melbourne), http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/02/1088488156571.html?oneclick=true , By Martin Daly, (page 3 in section 1 of the paper) Saturday July 3, 2004
MELBOURNE (Vic), Australia: The Salesian sex-abuse scandal widened last night with claims that four new alleged victims were secretly paid compensation by the Catholic order. The Age has already reported allegations by three former students from the Salesians' college at Rupertswood, in Sunbury, that they were abused by a priest in the 1970s.
The new alleged victims include a man from rural Victoria who was paid $45,000 to settle his claim he had been sexually abused at Rupertswood in the 1960s by Father Jack Ayers, a Salesian priest now reported to be seriously ill in Samoa.
Another alleged victim, Mark Beaumont, 36, of Melbourne, received a $10,000 settlement last November relating to claims he had been sexually abused at the age of seven by a Salesian brother at the Don Bosco Boys' Club in South Oakleigh. Beaumont says his sister, now dead, received $5000 compensation last year for alleged abuse by the same man when she was five. Both cases allegedly happened in about 1975.
The family of another former boarder at Rupertswood last night confirmed he had been paid $36,000 by the Salesians in 2000 for alleged repeated sexual abuse by a senior priest and for lesser abuse by a second priest. He was 13 or 14 at the time. "I understand that within a week of his reporting the (alleged) abuse to a nun... in 1988, the two priests had fled overseas," his mother said last night.
The head of the Salesians in Australia, Father Ian Murdoch, did not respond to calls from The Age about the latest claims.
The Salesians have been under siege since Melbourne priest Frank Klep, who was convicted in 1994 on four counts of sexually assaulting students at Rupertswood, was remanded in custody on his return to Melbourne from Samoa last week on further charges of sexual abuse in the 1970s. Klep was sent by the order to Samoa in 1998, even though it knew police were investigating him on new abuse allegations. The role of the Salesians was condemned yesterday as "disgraceful" by Melbourne lawyer David Forster, who said two of his clients were allegedly abused by Klep in the 1970s.
"Too often, known pedophiles have been tipped off to avoid the law," he said. Mr Forster called for a church ombudsman to investigate the Salesians to determine if priests had been moved out of the way to avoid prosecution. [Jul 3, 04] (By courtesy of Broken Rites victim support group)
• More Salesian old boys speak out.
The Age, http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/02/1088488152579.html?oneclick=true , by Martin Daly, (in section 2 of the paper) July 3, 2004
The Catholic order paid out several former students over their claims of sexual abuse, reports Martin Daly.
MELBOURNE: They sang Kyrie and the Sanctus in Latin and remembered the good times at Rupertswood. The Salesians of Don Bosco were celebrating their history at their Mother House in Australia, Rupertswood, a mansion at Sunbury. Thousands of boys had passed through it since the Salesians arrived there in 1927.
The third largest Catholic organisation in the world, with 17,000 members, the Salesians are a powerful order of priests and brothers. Their saint, John Bosco, founded the order in Turin, Italy, in 1859, to be a friend to children who were poor, abandoned or at risk.
But now, the Salesians were moving from the imposing building in Sunbury that had been their Australian base under the spiritual guidance of their chosen patron, Mary, Help of Christians. Pre-dinner drinks were reportedly served around the stairs in front of the dining room, according to an internet account of the event, and guests recited Prayers of the Faithful in remembrance of those who had graced the hallowed rooms.
Rupertswood was a boys' boarding school until the 1950s, when it first admitted day students, but it continued to offer boarding, mainly to students from rural Victoria and southern NSW. Girls were admitted from 1992.
No doubt, some of those celebrating that night thought they were toasting only the best of times. But for a man who wants to be known only as Roy - and, allegedly, for some others schooled at Rupertswood - the memories are so painful that they have trouble speaking of them. "It was a terrible place," Roy says now of his time there in the 1960s.
He told The Age yesterday that he had been abused repeatedly by Father Jack Ayers, a teacher and gardener at the school, when he was aged 12 and 13. "There were 200-odd kids there. We were all scared of them generally. There were a few guys who were very good people, but they were angry, too. In outbursts of rage, they would fly down the room and just knock someone out of their chair. It was scary when, as a boarder, you could not go home."
Claims by Salesian old boys that they were sexually brutalised by a few priests and brothers have rocked the order and sent the Australian leadership into a bunker. Apart from a brief statement by the order's head, Father Ian Murdoch - who negotiated a number of financial settlements with alleged sex abuse victims - there has been no comment from the Salesians.
Roy was paid $45,000 in 2000 from the Salesians for alleged sexual abuse by Ayers. The Salesians denied liability. Ayers is now seriously ill and reportedly dying in Samoa, where the Salesians sent him allegedly after he was accused of abusing children.
Another alleged victim, Mark Beaumont, 36, of Melbourne, received a $10,000 settlement in November in a deal also partially brokered through Murdoch. It related to purported sexual abuse by a Salesian brother at the Salesian Don Bosco Boys Club at South Oakleigh, which was part of the Salesian College at Mount Waverley. He was aged about seven at the time. Beaumont says his sister, who is now dead, was given $5000 compensation in 2003 for abuse by the same man when she was five. Both cases allegedly happened in about 1975.
But Beaumont says the Salesians had difficulty in understanding why it had taken him so long to come forward and had disputed his case, telling him the brother was "into little girls, not boys".
The Salesians have been featured in a US media report about a global "rat line" allegedly run by the Catholic Church and some of its orders to hide priests and other religious figures accused of sex crimes around the world.
The Salesians also sent another Victorian Salesian priest, Frank Klep, to Samoa, to keep him away from children. Klep - a former principal of the Salesian College at Rupertswood and who later ran a youth centre in Brunswick - was convicted in 1994 of four charges of sexual assault relating to incidents during the 1970s. The Samoans ordered Klep be deported last week when his past was uncovered. On his return to Melbourne, he was charged and remanded in custody on five counts of indecent assault against a boy in 1973 while teaching at Rupertswood.
The Salesians are now being investigated by Samoa's Transnational Crimes Unit to determine if any other Salesians working in Samoa have convictions for child abuse and to investigate whether the former head of the Salesians in Australia, Father John M. Murphy, also in Samoa, should be deported because he witnessed Klep's visa application. This said Klep was of good character and did not have any convictions.
Murdoch did not respond to calls from The Age yesterday about the allegations, including a claim from a woman that her son had been paid $36,000 four years ago by the order. Her son claimed that as a schoolboy at Rupertswood, aged 13 or 14, he had been raped six times by a Salesian priest. The priest was reportedly a senior member of the order when a group of parents complained to him that another priest had sexually abused students at Rupertswood during the 1970s.
Murdoch also did not respond to the claims by Roy. The boarders at Rupertswood were in a cream brick building down a hill from the main building. The dormitories were occupied by about 100 junior boys, partitioned at both ends by curtains behind which a Salesian brother slept to maintain order. There were about 19 priests, brothers and lay brothers. Klep was not there during the time that Roy describes.
"It was a terrifying place for me," recalls Roy. "I have horrible memories of the main building, dark staircases, where the priests lived. If you found yourself on the second floor, you were in trouble." . He says sex abuse by Ayers forced him to run away several times. He didn't tell anybody, but the Salesians told his mother he was an insolent boy. He says the abuse continued, particularly when Ayers was drunk and Roy was ordered to help him to his room.
In 2000, he decided to confront his past and called the Salesians. They sent him to the Catholic Church's Towards Healing process, which deals with abuse claims and compensates victims. "They accepted everything. Ian Murdoch said he was very sorry. He said that they had been waiting for other victims of Ayers to come forward and that there had been somebody before me," says Roy.
"I asked Murdoch if he would bring Ayers back. He said Ayers was out of harm's way in Samoa and was out of reach of children at some seminary. He said he had been sent there because of the abuse reported by the victim who reported him before me. That was in mid 2000.
"He told me that he could not get him to Australia, and that there was no extradition treaty with Samoa. I telephoned Murdoch again in mid-2000 to tell him I was running late for an appointment. "I told the secretary I was calling Murdoch about the Ayers case. She said, 'Oh, Father Ayers is here, sitting in the garden. I can see him from the window.' I was furious. Murdoch later told me Ayers had been here for heart treatment." # [Jul 3, 04] (By courtesy of Broken Rites victim support group. A shorter version is in the Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker above.)
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Sun July 04, 2004 edition follows:-
• Detroit Archdiocese suspends Mexican priest in child sex case [de Alba Campos]
Detroit Free Press, www.freep.com/news/statewire/sw100511_20040704.htm , July 4, 2004, 12:47 PM
DETROIT (MI) (AP) -- A Mexican priest serving at a Roman Catholic church in Detroit has been fired because of accusations that he was involved in the sexual abuse of a minor, the Archdiocese of Detroit said Sunday.
The Rev. Luis Javier de Alba Campos, 49, became pastor at St. Gabriel Parish in February. The archdiocese said it asked him to leave the parish in mid-June after learning of a criminal child sexual abuse investigation against him.
This month, the archdiocese fired de Alba and banned him from serving as a priest in the archdiocese, it said in a news release. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 03:04 PM]
• Victim's tale of abuse by priest draws big response [Huneke]
South Bend Tribune, www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2004/07/04/local.20040704- sbt-FULL-D1-Victim_s_tale_of.sto ; By MARGARET FOSMOE, July 4, 2004
SOUTH BEND (IN): John Salveson didn't know what to expect when he poured out his heart for publication.
He knew some people would be angry about his revelation of abuse by a Catholic priest, and others might not believe him.
What he received was a flood of support, thanks and revelations by others who secretly had suffered abuse years earlier and never told a soul.
"I got a lot of heart-rending letters from people who had been carrying this around for years and years," said Salveson, 48, a University of Notre Dame graduate who lives in Pennsylvania.
Salveson told his story for a Tribune article published in May 2003.
Salveson described being sexually abused starting at age 13 by a priest from his home parish in Long Island, N.Y., and his later efforts to have the priest removed from ministry.
When Salveson enrolled as an undergraduate at Notre Dame in the 1970s, the priest -- the Rev. Robert D. Huneke -- followed him and took a rector's job at the university, where the abuse continued.
• Weymouth priest speaks to local Voice of the Faithful
Stoneham Sun, http://www2.townonline.com/stoneham/artsLifestyle/view.bg?articleid=22856 , By Alice Wadden/ Special to the Stoneham Sun Tuesday, June 29, 2004
WINCHESTER (MA): On Monday, June 14, the Winchester Area Voice of the Faithful welcomed Father Ron Coyne, Pastor of St. Albert the Great Parish in Weymouth to its regular Monday night meeting at St. Eulalia's Church in Winchester.
About 85 people were in attendance. St. Albert's is one of the 65 parishes the Archdiocese of Boston is scheduled to close before the end of 2004.
Fr. Coyne began his talk by discussing how he decided to become a priest. His inspiration was Monsignor John J. Philbin whom he met at Holy Name Parish in West Roxbury. Fr. Philbin was a pastor in both urban and suburban parishes and retired after serving for 22 years at St. John's the Evangelist Parish in Wellesley. Fr. Philbin died June 11, 2004. Fr. Coyne was ordained in 1973 when he was 25 years old. He has served in a number of parishes in greater Boston, several of them in the city of Boston. ...
Fr. Coyne remains excited about the Catholic Church today, and loves dealing with people. However, he acknowledges that it is not easy to be a priest. Fr. Coyne is a member of the Boston Priests' Forum and was one of 58 priests who signed a letter asking for Cardinal Law's resignation. Coyne believes that as a priest, he has an obligation to tell bishops what he thinks.
In the reconfiguration of churches in the Archdiocese of Boston, the Weymouth cluster of which St. Albert's is a part, did not want to choose a parish to close. Ultimately, however, St. Albert's was chosen. Fr. Coyne was disappointed in the entire process, which did not address what he considers to be the fundamental questions of "why aren't people going to church" and "why aren't people becoming priests."
• Ex-priest is arrested on child molestation charges [1977-79 Benham]
Baltimore Sun, www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.sbriefs04jul04,0,5854625.story?coll=bal-local- headlines ; July 4, 2004
UPPER MARLBORO (MD): A man who left ministry as a Roman Catholic priest about two decades ago has been arrested on charges of sexually molesting a boy and a girl when he was serving as pastor at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Forestville in the 1970s.
Francis Benham, 67, of Illinois was charged with second- and third-degree sex offenses June 25 by Prince George's County police, court records show. He was arrested in Lincoln, Ill., and is scheduled to appear in Logan County Circuit Court on Tuesday for an extradition hearing, according to Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for Prince George's County State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey.
According to papers filed by police in Prince George's County District Court, Benham is accused of kissing, undressing and sexually arousing a 15-year-old boy at the church on about six occasions between July 1977 and April 1978. He is also charged with sodomizing and having oral sex with a 13-year-old girl at the church two or three times a week from April 1977 to April 1979.
• Ex-priest arrested in Lincoln on 1970s sex-offense charges [1977-79 Benham]
Pantagraph, www.pantagraph.com/stories/070404/new_20040704027.shtml , By Katherine Rosenberg , newsroom@pantagraph.com , July 4, 2004
LINCOLN (IL): A former Catholic priest living in Lincoln was arrested this week on sex charges from a late-1970s case in Maryland.
Francis Benham, 67, was arrested Tuesday on a warrant from Prince Georges County, Md., where he is accused of having sex with minors between 1977 and 1979.
Benham is charged with two counts of second-degree sex offense, which carry maximum potential prison terms of 20 years each, and one count of third-degree sex offense, which carries a maximum of 10 years.
Logan County State's Attorney Tim Huyett said Lincoln police received word of the warrant Tuesday and went directly to Benham's home. Someone there told police Benham was at church, praying, the state's attorney said.
Officers arrested Benham about 2:30 p.m. at Holy Family Church in Lincoln.
• What does Timlin know? It's hard to tell [Urrutigoity, Ensey]
Times Leader, www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/news/local/9075293.htm , By MARK GUYDISH, markg@leader.net , Posted on Sun, Jul. 04, 2004
SCRANTON (PA): The bishop seemed baffled. "I got some kind of report about the thing but it was not a written report, it was not anything."
"I don't know whether I asked for them or not."
"I remember the facts of the letter, but I don't remember seeing the letter."
These are quotes from former Bishop James Timlin during depositions in a lawsuit that accuses two priests of molesting a teenage boy after getting him drunk.
A key point in the depositions concerns whether Timlin learned about results from psychological evaluations of the priests. He had requested the evaluations after the accusations surfaced. The diocese footed the bill. Timlin admits that, by diocese policy, he was supposed to see the results.
He says he never saw them, though he did hear about them. [...]
The tug of war regarding psychological evaluations is the latest twist in a saga that began when Doe, now 23, accused Urrutigoity and Ensey of sexual abuse.
The alleged abuse occurred while Doe attended St. Gregory's Academy in Elmhurst, and later when he went to California with Ensey to visit Ensey's parents and to tour St. Thomas Aquinas College. Doe considered going there after high school.
Urrutigoity and Ensey were founding members of the Society of St. John, a priestly organization temporarily housed at St. Gregory's. Later, they bought property and moved to Shohola, Pike County. Things seemed to go well for the budding society until Doe made his allegations. [...]
Although all defendants are located in the Diocese of Scranton - and fall to varying degrees under the bishop's rule - three sets of lawyers emerged: one for Timlin and the diocese, one for the academy and the priestly fraternity, and one for the accused priests and their society.
The diocese and the academy distanced themselves from Urrutigoity and Ensey in court papers. The academy points out that the priests were not employees and that most of the alleged acts occurred in California, when Doe and Ensey visited Ensey's family.
Similarly, attorneys claim there is insufficient evidence to hold Timlin or the diocese accountable for the priests' alleged acts.
But that misses the point, said Jeffrey Bond, a relentless critic of the Society of St. John. Instead of dividing and fighting the lawsuit, Bond said the groups should be working together to find the truth.
"They are engaging in all these technical legalisms that avoid getting to the heart of the problem," Bond said. ...
• Presbyterians issue abuse apology - Presbyterians.
The Courier-Journal, www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/07/04ky/B1-pres0704-8962.html , By PETER SMITH, psmith@courier-journal.com , July 4, 2004
RICHMOND, Va. - Presbyterians have taken steps to toughen their policies toward ministers accused of sexual abuse, and they issued a sweeping apology to the victims of a late missionary who allegedly sexually abused at least 22 girls and women on two continents.
The actions came late Friday night at the legislative General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), based in Louisville.
The assembly, which adjourned yesterday, was highlighted by a narrow vote Friday to uphold the church's ban on ordaining noncelibate gays and lesbians, despite other votes seeking more liberal policies toward homosexuals in the church and society.
In contrast to that hotly debated issue, there was widespread support for the church's adopting stricter policies toward those who sexually abuse minors or mentally disabled adults.
• In Rome's shadow disports the disgraced Cardinal Law - RCC.
The Boston Globe, www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/07/04/in_romes_shadow , By Michael Paulson, July 4, 2004
ROME -- In the Eternal City, where two millenniums of Catholic triumphs and tragedies are etched into underground caverns and soaring churches, Cardinal Bernard F. Law is quietly reclaiming a portion of the influence and prestige he once enjoyed as archbishop of Boston.
He is playing an active role in governing the world's largest religious body, serving on an unusually high number of Vatican congregations charged with, among other things, the appointment of bishops and the oversight of priests around the world.
He is the titular head of two significant churches here: the Basilica of St. Mary Major, one of the four patriarchal basilicas of the Catholic Church, and Santa Susanna, an ancient parish now dedicated to serving Americans in Rome.
He is seen about town with some frequency, patronizing some of the same restaurants he preferred when Rome was just a place he visited, and sitting in the front row at important Vatican events.
Although in Boston, his role in the clergy sexual abuse scandal made it difficult for him to appear in public without being shadowed by reporters and protesters, his public presence causes barely a ripple in Rome.
Here he is overshadowed within the church by dozens of other red-robed cardinals and a beloved pope, in society by more pressing domestic scandals and controversies, and on the streets not only by ancient ruins and Renaissance art, but by modern thrills like the cast and crew of "Oceans 12," a motion picture now in production in the city's streets.
• Uncovered Vatican files highlight abuse [Christian Brothers] - RCC. 30 reports. RTE News, www.rte.ie/news/2004/0703/brothers.html , 19:24, 03 July 2004
IRELAND: The Christian Brothers have revealed that they have uncovered files in the Vatican relating to the abuse of schoolboys in Irish institutions.
The files include written accounts about thirty findings of child sex abuse at six schools between the 1930s and 1960s.
Eleven of the cases relate to Artane Industrial School, while the others relate to other schools around the country.
• Pastor sent to prison for sex assault of 5-y-o -- Pentecostal [2002 Lawrence]
Toledo Blade, "Pastor sent to prison for sex assault of child," www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040702/NEWS02/40702002/-1/NEWS , Friday, July 2, 2004
LIMA, Ohio - A pastor convicted of sexually assaulting a 5-year-old was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison.
Russell Lawrence, 64, of Lima, also was placed on probation for five years and classified as a sexually oriented offender by Allen County Common Pleas Judge Richard Warren.
Lawrence had entered an Alford plea May 21 to a reduced charge of gross sexual imposition. In an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit guilt but pleads guilty to escape more severe penalties had the case gone to trial. Lawrence, pastor of Pentecostal Bethlehem Tabernacle Church in Van Wert, was originally charged with rape in the November, 2002 incident.
• Local Minister Suspected Of Rape; Man Preached Protection From Devil Through Sex -- Apostolic Church [Romero]
TheSanDiegoChannel.com ; www.thesandiegochannel.com/news/3490094/detail.html , 2:35 pm PDT, July 3, 2004
SAN DIEGO (CA): A local minister has been arrested for allegedly using fear of the devil to induce women to have sex with him.
Carlos Romero, 59, was arrested at his workplace in Kearny Mesa Friday after a 2-month investigation, La Mesa police Sgt. Dan Willis said.
In May, a 31-year-old woman told police that she had been sexually assaulted by her pastor over the last 6 years, 10News reported.
She said the pastor had convinced her that having sex with him would protect her from the devil.
During the investigation, La Mesa police located 2 additional victims.
Police said Romero, who has been a minister for 20 years, has a congregation of about a dozen people and has nondenominational services in the homes of his Apostolic Church members. (The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
• Bishop Comiskey won't return to live in Wexford
Sunday Business Post www.sbpost.ie/web/DocumentView/did- 803548768-pageUrl--2FThe-Newspaper-2FSundays-Paper-2FNews-2FIreland.asp ; By Kieron Wood
IRELAND: Brendan Comiskey, the former Bishop of Ferns who resigned over his handling of a clerical sex abuse scandal, has decided not to return to Wexford to live.
Comiskey stood down after the broadcasting of a documentary about paedophile Ferns curate Fr Sean Fortune. The priest committed suicide while awaiting trial for abusing boys.
"I can only assure you that I did my best," Comiskey said in his resignation statement in April 2002. "Clearly this was not good enough. I found Father Fortune virtually impossible to deal with."
After his resignation, Comiskey went to study addiction counselling in the United States.
• Abuse claims push diocese to bankruptcy [$US 20m wasted]
Sunday Business Post (Ireland), www.sbpost.ie/web/DocumentView/did-21831158-pageUrl--2FThe-Newspaper-2FSundays-Paper-2FNews-2FWorld.asp ; By Kieron Wood
TUCSON (Arizona): The Catholic diocese of Tucson, Arizona, is to file for bankruptcy because it cannot afford to pay outstanding claims for clerical sex abuse.
It will be the first US diocese ever to declare bankruptcy.
Diocesan insurers have already paid out almost $20million in sex abuse settlements and have now refused to cover any more claims. The annual budget for the diocese is about $6.5 million.
Two years ago, ten sex abuse victims reached a confidential settlement with the diocese, which paid out a sum reported to be around $15 million.
• Sex-abuse amendments approved -- Presbyterians.
Worldwide Faith News, www.wfn.org/2004/07/msg00054.html , by Bill Lancaster, June 2004
RICHMOND (VA): The 216th General Assembly approved 10 of a series of 11 proposed changes to the Book of Order Friday evening.
The proposed amendments have to do with the disciplinary processes of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and were recommended by the Independent Committee of Inquiry (ICI) that investigated sexual abuse at a primary school in the Congo over a period of more than 20 years. Two of the four perpetrators were Presbyterian missionaries.
The purpose of the ICI, and of the amendments, is "to promote healing for victims, for their loved ones, for the missionary community, and for the church as a whole," in the words of the ICI report.
The only proposed change that the Assembly disapproved would have removed the word "honorably" from "honorably retired" in reference to clergy convicted of sexual abuse. The Assembly added a long comment to one item, an apology for the church's failings in its handling of the abuse cases.
(This story and many others may have photos, media, video clips that can be found at http://www.pcusa.org/ga216/. )
• Who cares?
The Age (Melbourne, Australia), www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/03/1088488198720.html
AUSTRALIA: Next month the results of a senate inquiry into the treatment of ex-wards of the state will be published showing, in many cases, damning evidence of life in care over the last 50 years. Claire Halliday reports.
Kerry Lowdon has spent a lifetime pretending. As a former ward of the state, she was placed into institutional care at the Catholic Church-run Bentleigh Children's Home when she was 18 months old, along with her sisters Jenny, now 42, and Sue, 40.
Both her parents were the product of childhood institutional care and Kerry was removed from them after being listed as having no fit place of abode. Lowdon, 37, says the sexual, physical and verbal abuse and neglect she suffered in care left her life fractured and herself in mourning for the loss of the woman she should have become.
"I've always put on a facade to other people - people who don't know me really well. There are little parts of yourself you just can't show. Different versions of Kerry," she says.
• SA sex abuse help line launched
The Age, www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/04/1088879359614.html?oneclick=true , July 4, 2004
AUSTRALIA: A telephone help line for adult survivors of child sex abuse has been launched by the South Australian government.
The line will be run by independent group, Relationships Australia, from Monday.
"The help line is a vital tool to give survivors of child sexual abuse the opportunity to heal and I urge all community leaders to support the initiative," Families and Communities Minister Jay Weatherill said in a statement.
"The choice of Relationship Australia to manage the service ensures that it is being provided by a secular, non-government, community-based agency with a history going back more than 50 years of providing confidential support and counselling."
The government last week released terms of reference for an inquiry into the way complaints of sexual abuse of children in state care were dealt with.
The inquiry will focus on whether there were any cover-ups or mishandling of allegations or reports of sex abuse involving wards of the state.
A similar inquiry into the Anglican Church in Adelaide last month resulted in a scathing report which found the church was more concerned with protecting itself than helping child-abuse victims.
• Former Priest Arrested In Lincoln [1977-79 Benham]
WEEK, http://week.com/morenews/morenews-read.asp?n=4864 , Posted 9:31pm July 3, 2004
ILLINOIS: A former Catholic priest now living in Lincoln is behind bars tonight facing sexual abuse charges.
Francis Benham was arrested in Lincoln after Maryland authorities issued a felony warrant. The warrant alleges Benham had sexual acts with minors while serving as a priest in Maryland from 1977-1979. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 03:03 AM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Sun July 04, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont87.htm
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Mon July 05, 2004 edition follows:-
• Shelter for the shamed? -- Salesian RC order
The Australian, www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10050659% 255E28737,00.html , By Rory Callinan and Daniel Hoare, for July 06, 2004
AUSTRALIA: The 145-year-old Salesian religious order likes to boast about having 40,000 priests, brothers, sisters and lay people working in 120 countries around the world.
"Whether in Colombia, South America - or in Columbus, Ohio - the goal of the Salesians is the same: to give kids in need a chance at a full life," its website states.
But the order's spiel fails to mention how its global structure has provided comfortable boltholes for priests who are alleged to have preyed upon the children their order vows to help.
In missions and parishes from Costa Rica and Chile to Peru and the US and even Samoa and Australia, the Salesians have come under attack for allowing alleged pedophile priests to move across international boundaries and avoid prosecuting authorities.
Nowhere has this been more apparent recently, than when former Melbourne-based Salesian priest Frank Klep was found working in the order's theological college in Apia, Samoa. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 12:15 PM]
• We saw it coming, say ex-students, as brother acquitted [1980s Maguire] -- RC Marist brother
Sydney Morning Herald, www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/01/1088488097907.html?oneclick=true , By Natasha Wallace, July 2, 2004
AUSTRALIA: Brother John Maguire has faced eight trials on child sex abuse charges. Eight times, including yesterday, he has been acquitted, with none of the jurors ever being told of the other allegations against him.
The Herald can now reveal that, due to a court ruling on the risk of contamination of evidence, a judge decided that each case against Brother Maguire had to be heard separately. The ruling followed defence claims that the students making the allegations had colluded at a school reunion in 1999.
The jurors at each trial, before Judge Megan Latham at the NSW District Court since last November, were therefore unaware of the extensive allegations against Brother Maguire.
Prosecutors were also hamstrung by the time - 20 years - that elapsed between the alleged offences and when the first complainant went to police in 1997. Legal rules prevented the Crown from calling several witnesses, such as psychologists, family members, girlfriends and other teachers in all but one case.
The Marist Brother, 60, was accused of sexually and indecently assaulting six boys at St Joseph's College in Hunters Hill 20 years ago. In all, he faced 17 counts of sexually related assault of boys aged between 11 and 13 while he was the year 7 dormitory and form master.
• Portland trial likely in priest abuse cases
The Oregonian, www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1089028638224970.xml ; By ASHBEL S. GREEN, Monday, July 05, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): Thousands of priest abuse lawsuits have been filed against the Catholic Church in the past 20 years, but just seven have gone all the way through trial to a jury verdict.
Barring a last-minute holiday weekend settlement, Portland will be the site of the eighth Catholic priest abuse trial beginning Tuesday.
Experts say there are powerful reasons why so few cases end up in front of juries. Plaintiffs face a public and detailed airing of their sexual abuse allegations. Church officials face the revelation of potentially embarrassing information, particularly in cases where they knew about allegations against the priest and responded by moving him to another parish.
"They are extremely painful for all involved," said Jeffrey Anderson, a Minnesota attorney who has represented hundreds of plaintiffs in priest abuse cases, including three that went to trial. They "are often very fragile. Some of them are not emotionally equipped for a trial."
"The church's dirty laundry gets exposed," he added.
The Roman Catholic Church also faces an abysmal trial record: It has lost all seven cases that went to jury since the first one in 1986. Although the church has had some success on appeal, juries have returned verdicts ranging from $1.1 million to nearly $120 million.
• Call for Catholic Church Reform Modeled on Declaration of Independence
eMediaWire, www.emediawire.com/releases/2004/7/emw138863.htm , July 5, 2004
UNITED STATES (PRWEB) -- Using the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a model, Web-based Lost Dog, Tall Weeds, LLC, has issued the 4th of July Call for Essential Catholic Church Reform and placed it on the Internet in the form of a petition.
The petition can be found at: http://www.petitiononline.com/ldtw62/petition.html
The petition declares that:
I. All women and men are created equal
II. The Creator has endowed us with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, freedom of conscience, and freedom of speech
• Priest accused of sexual abuse [Campos]
The Detroit News, www.detnews.com/2004/metro/0407/05/a09-203273.htm , By Doug Guthrie
DETROIT (MI): Parishioners at a southwest Detroit church were stunned Sunday when they found out their priest had been removed from his position amid accusations of child sex abuse.
The Archdiocese of Detroit relieved the Rev. Luis Javier de Alba Campos, 49, of his duties at St. Gabriel Church on West Vernor. He is also barred from conducting public ministry in the archdiocese while police investigate allegations he sexually abused a male under 18, archdiocese spokesman Ned McGrath said Sunday.
The announcement to parishioners came at the close of Sunday's Mass from the Rev. Donald Hanchon, a priest at another Detroit church who has been temporarily assigned to St. Gabriel.
"He told us about allegations," parishioner Salvador Aquinago said. "We know nothing more. The community loves Father Luis. We are praying for him."
De Alba Campos, who was ordained in 1983 by the Diocese of San Juan de los Lagos in Mexico, was assigned pastoral administration of the Detroit church in February. He was in Mexico prior to the assignment and was expected to remain in the city for three years, McGrath said.
• W. Mifflin case to test church conspiracy allegation [1989 Wellinger]
Post-Gazette, www.post-gazette.com/pg/04187/341971.stm , By Ann Rodgers, Monday, July 05, 2004
PITTSBURGH (PA): In 1995, former parishioners accused John W. Wellinger, then pastor at Holy Spirit parish in West Mifflin, of molesting their son. They say diocesan officials told them he would be removed from ministry.
The claim, contained in a lawsuit, goes on to say that, contrary to what they were told, Wellinger continued in the priesthood for up to seven more years. The diocese, for its part, insists Wellinger has not functioned as a priest since the 1995 accusation.
The suit was brought not against Wellinger but against the diocese for an alleged conspiracy to cover up child sexual abuse. It cites 14 priests and former priests, but Wellinger's case was chosen to test the suit's conspiracy theory. There will be a hearing tomorrow.
While the accusation that Wellinger kissed, fondled and performed a sex act on the 11-year-old altar boy in 1989 is apparently the suit's most recent case, it was chosen because it was typical and because the accuser believes the bishop lied to his parents in 1995, said Diane Perer, an attorney working on the case.
• Sex abuse lawsuit pursues diocese, not priests
Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh), www.post-gazette.com/pg/04187/341975.stm , By Ann Rodgers, Monday, July 05, 2004
PITTSBURGH (PA): While scandal erupted in Boston because Cardinal Bernard Law failed to dismiss pedophile priests after making payments to victims, Pittsburgh Bishop Donald Wuerl has long appeared to have done the opposite.
In known cases, he ousted priests who were "credibly accused." But, although the diocese offered to pay for counseling, Wuerl is not known to have paid settlements apart from three cases where victims were able to sue within the statute of limitation for child sexual abuse.
That two-year limit underpins a sweeping lawsuit claiming that Wuerl engaged in a huge cover-up. At a hearing tomorrow, the diocese will ask that the suit be dismissed.
Only Wuerl and his predecessor, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, are named in the suit. But the cases stretch at least to the tenures of deceased Bishops Vincent Leonard (1969-1983), John Wright (1959-1969) and John Dearden (1950-1958).
• Unnerving Choices for Church Historians
Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-priests5jul05,1,2352490.story?coll=la-headlines-california , By William Lobdell
CALIFORNIA: When beloved priests are revealed to be child molesters, Roman Catholic parishes, schools and dioceses face an uncomfortable choice: to remove existing tributes to the clerics and erase glowing references in local histories - or explain to victims and critics why they continue to honor men who also were pedophiles.
This issue "taps into something that is very difficult for we humans to understand - the tension that lies between the good that a person can do and the evil that we are all capable of," said Shirl Giacomi, a top administrator with the Diocese of Orange.
"People who have known only the good [the priest has done] have difficulty understanding the evil," she said. "And people that have been hurt cannot, rightly so, understand the good."
Some church officials have opted to stick with the pre-revelatory status quo, arguing that history and achievements of the priests should not be obliterated by their misdeeds. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 02:58 AM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Mon July 05, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont87.htm
• Salvation Army will pay ward for years of beatings.
The West Australian, Perth, W. Australia, "Salvos pay for abuse to ex-ward," by Sean Cowan, p 4, Monday, July 5, 2004
PERTH: The Salvation Army will compensate a former children's home ward who suffered years of physical abuse at the hands of some officers
The abuse of Brian Hart, 58, was revealed during a Senate inquiry last year into the running of homes Australia-wide.
Under the agreement, the Salvation Army will pay for years of counselling, pain and suffering. The size of the payout, which is understood to be modest, has not been revealed.
The Salvation Army and other organisations that ran homes in the 1950s, 60s and 70s face compensation claims by other victims who claim to have been physically, emotionally and even sexually abused.
The Perth office of Slater and Gordon, which handled Mr Hart's claim, is negotiating claims on behalf of other wards, including at least one who has alleged sexual abuse.
Associate Phil Gleeson said he was pleased with the way the Salvation Army settled the claim.
"It was a case where there wasn't a large insurer standing behind them so it wasn't a case of having to push and push," he said.
"We understand that the Salvation Army had to weigh, on the one hand, what is an appropriate and compassionate amount of compensation but on the other hand they have to consider the fact that it is coming out of their own pocket."
At the Senate inquiry, Mr Hart said he had been known only as "Number 36" from the time he moved to the Nedlands Boys Home from the Greenough convent in about 1956.
At Nedlands, he suffered beatings and strict discipline. Wards were not even allowed to wear shoes unless they were going out in public.
"I would say that some of them, when they were dishing out the punishment, went overboard," he said. "I think a lot of it was uncalled for.
"There was one officer who had a bit of a heart, really. I would say the others went overboard -- and there was no need for it.
"If you were going to be punished, you wished it would be a certain one giving it to you because he did not whale into you like the others did." #
[COMMENTS:
1. Not even allowed to wear shoes unless going out in public was common for children among many families back in the 1940s and 50s, and possibly later.
2. Senator Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrat) was one of the prime movers in starting and conducting the Senate inquiry of 2003. The committee is due to report at the end of August 2004. COMMENT ENDS.] [Article: Jul 5, 04]
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Tue, July 06, 2004 edition follows:-
• Priest Abuse Trial On Hold After Bankruptcy Declared [1963 Grammond]
KOIN, www.koin.com/webnews/20042/20040706_archdioceseb.shtml , July 6, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): A trial against the Portland Archdiocese was supposed to start Tuesday, instead Chapter 11 bankruptcy was declared by the Archdiocese, putting the trial on hold indefinitely.
The trail was to prove that the archdiocese knew about the abuse of two men by the late Father Maurice Grammond.
The first plaintiff claims he was 8-years-old when Grammond allegedly fondled him at a church in Seaside, Ore. The second man claims the priest molested him in Oakridge, Ore., in 1963.
Before dying, Grammond allegedly said the children abused him.
The archdiocese says it can not afford the more than $160 million that the two plaintiff's are asking for. The reason? They have already paid more than $53 million to settle more than 130 claims filed by individuals who say they were abused by priests and dozens of claims are still pending.
Of the seven cases that went to a jury, the Catholic Church lost them all. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 06:29 PM]
• In the unflappable territory of Jack Reynolds: Rama Church pastor on the carpet [Reynolds] -- Rama Church
GHANA: The Ghanaian Chronicle, http://db.ghanaian-chronicle.com/thestory.asp?id=2376 , Posted: Tuesday, July 06, 2004
His dress is immaculate and impeccable. He exudes the self-confidence of a Colossus, and the smooth talk of a serpent. He has a five thousand flock to his beckon, and a firm grip on all that he surveys. Stand up to be counted, Rev. Dr. Jack Nana Reynolds.
To the casual observer, the head of the Rama Church in Tema could be presented as a vicegerent of the Almighty on earth; to another, he is an unmistakable man of God.
But, to a trained eye, Bishop Reynolds is anything but the lustre of sanctity that could be attributed to the man of his calibre.
This heartless prelate does not mind crawling through brambles to swallow even the golden eggs of a widow, let alone a cripple.
And so, when this angelic-looking pastor was nabbed for defrauding a Ghanaian cripple resident in London to the gross tune of £16,000, the news was electrifying. There were those who were clearly shocked, others who re-echoed the "I told you so," and those who got numbed by the exposure.
• 'Keep media out rape hearing' [2004]
Trinidad and Tobago Express, by Hayden Mills, Tuesday, July 6th 2004
TRINIDAD: Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls is to rule next week on an objection to media coverage of the preliminary enquiry into rape and indecent assault charges against a Roman Catholic priest.
Declaring that he was "disturbed" by what he claimed were prejudicial stories carried in the Express, Desmond Allum SC, who is defending the priest, made an official submission to the court on the issue yesterday.
The priest, who allegedly indecently assaulted and raped a woman on March 16 and 19 this year, was before McNicolls in the Port of Spain Magistrates' Inquests Court.
Allum had first questioned the media's presence at the enquiry on June 30, and McNicolls advised the Express of the limitations of the reporting.
Yesterday, the attorney argued that offences of a sexual nature were usually heard "in camera" and that information of a preliminary enquiry which could be published was limited, unless otherwise directed by the magistrate, to names, addresses and occupations of witnesses and legal submissions and arguments.
• Woman alleges abuse by former Budd Lake priest [Continuho] - Sect not named.
Mount Olive Chronicle, By PHIL GARBER, Managing Editor, July/06/2004
NEW JERSEY: Terri had read one too many news stories about plans to have church trials for four priests accused of sexual abuse but there was always scant information about a fifth who served in Mount Olive and other area churches before he was finally ordered not to practice as a priest.
Terri, who asked her last name not be revealed, said her anger about the lack of publicity, caused her to speak publicly for the first time about the priest who she said repeatedly, sexually abused her for about a year and a half when she was an adolescent.
The priest, Absalom Continuho, believed to 58 or 59, is a native of India. He now lives in Florida where he has been ordered not to perform any priestly functions.
"I've become more brazen. If there are other people out there who he has abused, I want them to come forward," said Terri. "I think of him and I literally want to vomit.
• Portland archdiocese declares bankruptcy - RCC.
Catholic World News, www.cwnews. com/news/ viewstory.cfm? recnum=30657 , July 6, 2004 PORTLAND (OR) (CWNews.com): The Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, has filed for bankruptcy, seeking court relief in the face of overwhelming legal damages in sex-abuse lawsuits.
At a press conference on Tuesday, July 6, officials announced that the Portland archdiocese would become the first Catholic diocese to ask for protection in a "Chapter 11" bankruptcy proceeding. The Diocese of Tucson, Arizona, is reportedly considering bankruptcy, as are several other American dioceses that have been hammered by legal judgments in sex-abuse cases.
A "Chapter 11" bankruptcy filing allows the archdiocese to protect some essential assets, dividing the remainder among creditors. The court proceedings will allow creditors to examine detailed financial statements from the archdiocese, exposing all the business affairs of the archdiocese to public scrutiny.
The bankruptcy filing brings a temporary halt to all legal proceedings in which the archdiocese is a defendant. Spokesmen for the archdiocese told reporters that the Church "could not afford what the plaintiffs are asking."
• Ahern tells commission child abuse 'hurt' required apology
One in Four, by Eoin Burke-Kennedy - Irish Times, ~ July 6, 2004
IRELAND: The Taoiseach has told the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse he was "struck by the genuine hurt and suffering" expressed on meeting those who had been abused in industrial schools.
Explaining the motivation behind his public apology in 1999 on behalf of the State to former residents of industrial schools, Mr Ahern told the Commission's investigation committee that the State had left a section of the community "vulnerable and exposed".
He said both he and the-then minister of education, Mr Martin, believed the "hurt" that these people felt was not going to be redressed unless there was an apology.
The Taoiseach said these people had been "badly dealt with by the State and we owed them something".
• Ahern pledges to 'see it all through' on abuse
One in Four by Patsy McGarry - Irish Times
IRELAND: The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said yesterday he was committed "to seeing it all through" where State measures to deal with the abuse of children in residential institutions were concerned.
He was giving evidence to the investigation committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse yesterday. Afterwards he was applauded by former residents of the institutions who attended the hearing.
He told the committee: "I think it has to be said that the test of a true democracy is to be found in how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members.
"Modern Ireland has many brave but vulnerable survivors of childhood abuse, whose young lives were shattered by terrible wrongs that were perpetrated upon them."
• Godawful Numbers
Religion in the News, by Andrew Walsh
UNITED STATES: Yet again the nation's Catholic bishops have seized public relations defeat from the jaws of victory.
On February 27, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released two tough reports on the clerical sexual abuse crisis prepared by the lay National Review Board it had empowered to establish the extent and causes of the crisis.
The long anticipated reports contained both shocking statistics and trenchant criticism. Nevertheless, the church received more than grudging praise for its belated attempts to fashion and enforce systemic reforms to safeguard children and other vulnerable parties.
Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Illinois, president of bishops' conference, resolutely met the press and appeared on news broadcasts to announce the reports and interpret their significance. His message for the day: The church has put the scandal behind it.
"I assure you that known offenders are not in ministry," he declared at a news conference reported in the New York Times and many other outlets the next day. "The terrible history recorded here today is history."
But on April 7, the Washington Post's Alan Cooperman broke a story suggesting that the leadership of bishops' conference had "rejected the recommendation by a panel of prominent Roman Catholic lay people that it immediately authorize a second round of independent audits of sex abuse procedures in dioceses across the country." In mid-May the National Catholic Reporter published a slew of correspondence including bitter exchanges between some bishops and the review board.
• Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., says it will file for bankruptcy because of abuse lawsuits [1980s Grammond] - RCC. 50 boys. Cases halted.
Boston Herald, Associated Press, Tuesday, July 6, 2004
PORTLAND, Ore. - The Portland Archdiocese said Tuesday that it will file for bankruptcy, becoming the first Roman Catholic diocese in the nation to seek bankruptcy court relief in the face of accusations of sexual abuse.
The Chapter 11 bankruptcy action, planned for Tuesday afternoon, puts an immediate halt to a priest abuse case scheduled to begin in Portland on Tuesday. It involves the Rev. Maurice Grammond, who was accused of molesting more than 50 boys in the 1980s.
Plaintiffs in two lawsuits involving Grammond have sought a total of more than $160 million.
The archdiocese and its insurers already have paid more than $53 million to settle more than 130 claims by people who say they were abused by priests.
Dozens of other claims are pending, and at Tuesday's news conference, church officials said they "could not afford what the plaintiffs are asking."
• Archdiocese To File For Bankruptcy -- Portland
WCCO, 1:15 pm US/Central, Jul 6, 2004
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP): The Portland Archdiocese said Tuesday that it will file for bankruptcy because it can't afford to pay the potential cost of sex abuse lawsuits, becoming the first Roman Catholic diocese in the nation to seek such court relief.
The Chapter 11 bankruptcy action, planned for Tuesday afternoon, freezes the start of a priest abuse civil trial involving the late Rev. Maurice Grammond, ...
Dozens of other claims are pending, and at Tuesday's news conference, church officials said they "could not afford what the plaintiffs are asking."
"The pot of gold is pretty much empty right now," Archbishop John Vlazny said.
James Devereaux, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that had been scheduled to go to trial Tuesday, vowed that in spite of the announcement, "We will continue our fight to finally get the archdiocese to accept the sin of its crimes."
• Law's appointment 'poorly timed,' says Boston archbishop.
National Catholic Reporter, www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/bn070604.htm , July 6, 2004
ROME: Boston's archbishop has admitted that the nomination of his predecessor, Cardinal Bernard Law, to a Roman job "couldn't have come at a worse time," and that "people in Boston didn't really understand the appointment."
Archbishop Sean O'Malley spoke to NCR July 2 in Rome. O'Malley told NCR that the appointment was "poorly timed" and not well received by Catholics in his archdiocese.
Posted by Dennis Coday, NCR staff writer at 09:42 AM
• Trial begins for preacher accused in exorcism death of boy -- Faith Temple Church
Duluth News Tribune, BY DERRICK NUNNALLY
MILWAUKEE (WI): On a warm Friday night in August, an autistic 8-year-old went with his mother to a strip-mall church where a school janitor moonlighting as a preacher said he could cast out the demons twisting the boy's development.
After an intense two-hour prayer session that brought the preacher chest-to-chest with little Terrance Cottrell Jr. while others held the boy's limbs, the preacher's shirt was soaked with sweat and the boy had, at some point, stopped moving.
Nobody noticed when Terrance died, according to what those present told police.
This morning, the preacher, Ray A. Hemphill, will go on trial for what happened that night in his Faith Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith. He faces a charge of felony child abuse, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and five more on extended supervision, because Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann said he didn't think a homicide charge would stick.
In a written report last year, the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office ruled the death a homicide by suffocation "due to external chest compression."
• Priest abuse case to begin
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORTLAND (OR): An Oregon priest abuse lawsuit is scheduled to start today, barring any last-minute settlement in the sensitive case.
Few such cases have wound up in front of juries -- in fact, only seven of the thousands of priest abuse cases filed against the Roman Catholic Church in recent years have made it all the way to trial, to a jury verdict.
Experts said that's because both sides often want to avoid exposing painful, and embarrassing details.
Still, if history is any indication, the Catholic Church could be in trouble with the upcoming cases, one of which is a backup in case the other is settled. The church has lost all seven cases that went to jury since the first one in 1986.
• Diocese inaction faulted [Forand]
The Republican, By BILL ZAJAC, wzajac@repub.com , Tuesday, July 06, 2004
TURNERS FALLS (MA): Claire A. Singley remembers being in the choir loft of St. Anne's Church in Turners Falls about five years ago when someone pointed out the presence of Singley's former pastor.
"When I saw him, I could have thrown up," Singley said recently.
About seven years earlier, Singley was told by her son Gary R. Singley that their former pastor, the Rev. Clarence W. Forand, had sexually abused him up to 1,000 times when he was between the ages of 9 and 17.
Forand said he was stunned when Gary Singley made his allegations.
"We were very good friends until I left St. Anne's. It must have been a misunderstanding," Forand said.
Forand described the relationship as that of "father and son or big brother and little brother."
"Gary was a good honest soul. I don't understand how he would have thought I hurt him. ... I think he maybe missed me when I left," said Forand, now 86 and living in the Belchertown retirement community Pine Valley Plantation. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 04:45 AM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Tue, July 06, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont87.htm
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Wed, July 07, 2004 edition follows:-
• Vatican reports deficit for third year
Grand Forks Herald, By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press, ~ July 07, 2004
VATICAN CITY: The Vatican reported a deficit for the third consecutive year Wednesday but an increase in donations provided a bright spot at a time of some dismal financial news for the Catholic Church because of settlements from the sex abuse scandal.
In its annual financial report, the Vatican listed a 2003 deficit of about $11.8 million, 30 percent lower than the 2002 figure. It reduced the shortfall despite the costs for the Holy See's expanding diplomatic missions.
At the same time, it reported an increase in contributions to the pope, known as Peter's Pence, which it said were used for various humanitarian relief efforts around the world and for the Catholic Church in the Holy Land.
The figures regard the administrative headquarters of the Catholic Church, its property and its diplomatic missions.
Dioceses around the world are largely independent of Vatican financial control, although they are expected to seek Vatican approval before taking such drastic steps as seeking bankruptcy protection. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 09:49 PM]
• Judge denies church's summary judgment request [1974-84 Kircher]
Sun Herald, By HOLBROOK MOHR, Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. - A judge denied a request by the Catholic Diocese of Jackson to issue a summary judgment Wednesday in a case filed by two men who alleged they were sexually abused by Father James Kircher.
The order said the victims, named only as John Does 6 and 7, want accountability for all church officials "responsible for the incalculable emotional and psychological damage ... they will continue to suffer for the remainder of their lives."
The suit brought against the Diocese not only targets Kircher for allegedly molesting young boys but the church hierarchy who "were involved in a cover up of massive proportions," the order said. The case stems from a lawsuit filed by four plaintiffs in 2002 who claimed they were sexually abused at St. Mary Catholic Church in Shelby and at St. Therese Catholic Church in Jackson between 1974 and 1984.
The order issued Wednesday by Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter said the church responded to the victims pursuit of accountability "with a motion for summary judgment, which means (the church) is asking this Court to summarily dismiss their claims, denying them the forum for a jury to even consider their grievances."
• Baptists in shock after leader accused [1970s-80s Morley] - Baptist. Children.
The Age, www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/07/1089000225283.html , By Barney Zwartz, Religion Editor, July 8, 2004
AUSTRALIA : Members of Boronia Baptist Church were called to a special meeting after the Sunday morning service. They had no idea what it was about - but it proved devastating.
Victorian Baptist Union director of ministries Alan Marr told them that the church was investigating allegations of sexual abuse by a former minister of the church, and one of the most admired Victorian Baptists, John Morley. Some older members of the congregation, to whom Morley had ministered, broke down and wept.
John Morley, who died in 1989, was minister at Boronia from 1976 to 1984, the period the allegations relate to. He had also been president of the Baptist Union in 1962-63, chaplain at Carey Baptist Grammar from 1948 to 1957, and principal of Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar from 1957 to 1972. The Boronia church's administration centre, Morley House, was named after him. The sign came down this week.
So far the Baptist Union is aware of four victims, who were aged about eight to 12 at the time of the abuse. It has gone public this week because of concerns that there might be more victims. "Because of his role in schools we are concerned there might be people outside the Baptist network who have stories to tell us," Mr Marr said yesterday.
• Pastor pleads not guilty to child sex abuse; will stand trial [2004 Southward] -- Baptist, Internet date
Ann Arbor News, www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1089211483145370.xml , BY CATHERINE O'DONNELL, Wednesday, July 7, 2004
MICHIGAN: On his way to meet a 14-year-old girl at Briarwood Mall last April, a former Ypsilanti pastor bought a pink rose at a flower shop, according to court testimony Tuesday.
The Rev. James C. Southward bought the rose as part of his plan to sexually abuse the girl, a police investigator testified.
At the close of the hearing, Southward, 63, former pastor of Graceway Baptist Church on South Grove Road, was ordered to stand trial on one charge of child sexual abuse and another charge of using the Internet to arrange child sexual abuse. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine on each charge.
Southward pleaded not guilty, and a pretrial hearing is scheduled for Aug. 18 in Washtenaw County Circuit Court. His lawyer said during the hearing that police entrapped him.
He remains free on $50,000 bond but is forbidden to use the Internet or have unsupervised contact with minors.
• Immorality among ministers reflects culture
Church Central, www.churchcentral.com/nw/s/template/Article.html/id/19788 , Jul 7, 2004
FRANKLIN, Tenn. - The present crisis in ministry ethics is a reflection of the times, according to Joe E. Trull and James E. Carter, whose new book, "Ministerial Ethics: Moral Formation for Church Leaders" (Baker Books), addresses the importance of ethical issues for pastors and church leaders. Preaching Now highlighted the recent release.
"Ethical failure in the pulpit affects the pew," Trull and Carter wrote. "At the same time, clergy morals seem to mirror the general decline in morality among the laity. Our day is fraught with political cover-ups, insider trading on the stock exchange, corporate scandals, and media manipulation. Numbed by it all, people are seldom shocked when they hear of an immoral minister."
The authors wrote that ministerial ethics can no longer be assumed, if ever they were. They reported that when a pastor in one of the fastest growing churches in the South was arrested for drug smuggling, he confessed to flying cocaine from Colombia. His church had led the state in the number of baptisms for several years. The pastor was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $10,000.
Another breach involved a Southwest minister whose sexual affairs were featured in a regional magazine. The article claimed that the charismatic leader was obsessed with wealth, power and status.
[COMMENT: General decline among the laity! Pastors are there to set a good example, not to mirror the sins of the World! COMMENT ENDS.]
• Priest paints graphic picture of abuse - RCC. Salesian was victim himself.
The Age, www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/07/1089000225277.html , By Martin Daly, July 8, 2004
AUSTRALIA : A prominent Salesian Catholic priest, described as the patron saint of kids, has revealed the brutality inflicted on students at the order's Victorian college, Rupertswood, where priests and brothers allegedly assaulted boys over decades.
Father Chris Riley, who runs the Youth Off The Street network and has helped about 45,000 street kids, says a pedophile Salesian brother physically assaulted him when he was a student at the college and he saw fellow students being abused.
School officials say much has changed since Father Riley's school days, not least that the college now accepts girls. But in his account of Rupertswood, contained in the biography Mean Streets Kind Heart: The Father Chris Riley Story by journalist and author Sue Williams, he recalls a time when he knelt in the chapel in tears every day asking God for help.
Former students of Rupertswood, a 50-room Victorian mansion at Sunbury, 35 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, have given detailed accounts to The Age of a regime of violence against them by priests and brothers at the then motherhouse of the Salesians of Don Bosco. They say physical violence was the norm and sexual violence was not unusual.
• Filing won't affect church's local holdings
Mail Tribune, By JONEL ALECCIA, July 7, 2004
OREGON: The Archdiocese of Portland owns nearly $2 million in Jackson County property, assessment records show, but the archbishop promised local Catholic church leaders on Tuesday he wouldn't touch it to pay bankruptcy debts.
The Rev. Liam Carey, a priest at Medford's Sacred Heart Church, said he was reassured by a letter from Archbishop John Vlazny.
"Under canon law, parish assets belong to the parish," Carey said. "The archbishop never does and cannot take those funds."
County assessment records show a combined real market value of about $1.97 million for local properties owned by the archdiocese. That includes three local Catholic churches, a Gold Hill retreat center, the Walsh Memorial Newman Center near Southern Oregon University in Ashland and the tiny Joseph Mission in Jacksonville.
Civil law may be different than canon law, acknowledged Carey. He speculated that the groundbreaking case could wind up in state or federal Supreme Court.
• Sex abuse expert furore -- zero tolerance "too harsh"
The Mercury (Hobart), By ELLEN WHINNETT, Chief Reporter, July 08 2004
AUSTRALIA : A controversial academic and adviser to the Vatican will visit Tasmania to present a workshop and lecture on sexual abuse within Christian churches.
Bill Marshall, Australian-born but living in Canada, is one of the top academics in the field of treating sex offenders and is being brought here by the Catholic Church.
In February, the Vatican commissioned Dr Marshall and several other non-Catholic sex abuse experts to prepare a report into sexual abuse by clergy and the church's response to it.
The controversial report found that the zero-tolerance policy being implemented by some churches was too harsh, and might even discourage victims from coming forward with their complaints.
Dr Marshall was quoted by giant US news agency CNN as saying a zero-tolerance policy sent a message that the church did not care about the offender or believe he could be rehabilitated, "neither of which are good messages for the church to communicate".
• Victims of priest abuse cry foul over bankruptcy plan [1964 + Grammond]
The News-Review, www.newsreview. info/apps/pbcs. dll/article?AID=/20040707/ NEWS/107070080 , July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR) (AP) -- Plaintiffs and their attorneys accused the Archdiocese of Portland of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to cover up the tawdry details of priest abuse and to deny victims their fair share.
"This case is not being filed because the archdiocese is short of funds," said David Slader, who has represented many priest abuse plaintiffs, including one whose civil trial against the archdiocese was to start Tuesday. "This case is being filed because the archdiocese is doing everything it can to prevent a public airing of the whole sordid history of its cover-up."
Slader's client, James Devereaux, said being raped by the late Rev. Maurice Grammond left him with no one to confess to.
"I had been taught as a child that God is Almighty and the priest is his representative on earth," said Devereaux, a 52-year-old rancher who said he was abused beginning in 1964 in the southern Oregon logging town of Oakridge.
"I knew I had committed the ultimate sin and that I was doomed -- I had nowhere to hide."
What he could not find at the confessional, Devereaux hoped he would find in court.
• Diocese Bankruptcy Reaction
KOLD News 13, by Millie Martinez, posted July/07/04
TUCSON (AZ): Tucson's Catholic Diocese has threatened to do it. But, another diocese has beat them to it. Tuesday the Portland, Oregon archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy over the high costs of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by clergy.
A Portland archdiocese priest says, "The pot of gold is pretty much empty!" The archdiocese of Portland has filed for bankruptcy claiming millions of dollars in sex abuse settlements have drained their resources. The Catholic Diocese of Tucson released this statement about the Portlands Diocese's decision.
Bishop Gerald Kicanas says, "While not unexpected, it came as a surprise." "Like the diocese of Tucson, they have been struggling with the decision."
But, here in Tucson those who claim they were abused by priests are skeptical of how the Tucson Diocese is handling finances.
• Local church operations to continue normally
The Register-Guard, By Jeff Wright, July 7 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The decision by the Archdiocese of Portland to declare bankruptcy isn't expected to affect day-to-day operations at its 124 parishes across Western Oregon, including about a dozen in Lane County.
Daily and weekend Masses will still be celebrated as scheduled, and local parishes aren't at risk of having property or funds confiscated, archdiocese spokesman Bud Bunce said.
Various services provided by the archdiocese to member parishes - such as training for youth ministers and religion education volunteers - are expected to continue, at least for the time being, he said.
• Bankruptcy offers church relief, risk
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial Board
PORTLAND (OR): By using bankruptcy to protect church property against a rising flood of lawsuits by those who claim they were abused by priests as children, officials in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland have raised a host of moral and legal questions.
"The pot of gold is pretty much empty now," Archbishop John Vlazny said in an unfortunate choice of words to announce the bankruptcy plans Tuesday. The lawsuits against the church over pedophiliac priests don't amount to some sort of litigious lottery but the pursuit of compensation for horrors visited upon children.
The Portland Archdiocese is the first in the nation to seek bankruptcy protection. The archdiocese in Santa Fe, N.M., considered bankruptcy before deciding to borrow from parish savings to pay abuse victims, and the archdiocese in Boston decided against bankruptcy in favor of selling church real estate.
Portland's problems clearly are exacerbated by Oregon law, which permits punitive damages and allows the church to be held liable even if it had no knowledge of the child sexual abuse.
• Experienced executive takes top position at Holt [Cousineau]
The Register-Guard, By Susan Palmer, July 7 2004
EUGENE (OR): Holt International Children's Services named a longtime vice president Tuesday as its new president and CEO and also announced the creation of two new programs to help children overseas.
Gary Gamer, 49, fills the position left vacant when former CEO David Cousineau resigned in April after the Archdiocese of Los Angeles listed a child sexual abuse allegation against him.
Cousineau had been a Catholic priest for 18 years before leaving the priesthood and marrying. Since his resignation, a second person has filed a lawsuit claiming that Cousineau molested her when she was 11 years old. Cousineau has denied the allegations.
The resulting turmoil hasn't hurt the Eugene-based adoption agency financially, Gamer said. Holt relies on donations and grants to fund a variety of programs, including in-country adoptions, foster care assistance and help for American families adopting children overseas.
• Bankruptcy considered by many Catholic archdioceses in priest sex abuse lawsuits
Bradenton Herald, By WILLIAM McCALL, Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. - A number of Roman Catholic dioceses have considered bankruptcy to fight lawsuits resulting from allegations of priest sex abuse over the years, and some may be ready to make that move after the Portland Archdiocese became the first in the nation to file for Chapter 11 protection.
The bishop of the Diocese of Tucson in Arizona says it may be the "best way to respond to all victims."
Bishop Gerald Kicanas has been meeting with attorneys for much of the past month to consider filing for bankruptcy, said Fred Allison, spokesman for the Arizona diocese.
Kicanas said the Archdiocese of Portland bankruptcy announced Tuesday by Archbishop John Vlazny "while not unexpected, came as a surprise."
He did not say whether Tucson will follow Portland, but warned "we continue to explore the best option for our diocese."
• Claims of abuse force diocese into bankruptcy
Telegraph, By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles, (Filed: 08/July/2004)
PORTLAND (OR): The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, has filed for bankruptcy in the face of multi-million-dollar lawsuits stemming from alleged sexual abuse by its priests.
Two cases seeking a total of $155 million (£85 million) compensation for alleged abuse by Portland clergy that were about to go to trial were adjourned.
It is predicted that many of America's 195 Catholic dioceses could follow suit given the welter of child sex abuse claims made against the church nationwide.
Several multi-million-dollar settlements have been reached and hundreds more claims are pending.
• Oregon Archdiocese Files for Bankruptcy
NPR, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Portland, Ore., says it will file for bankruptcy due to the cost of settling lawsuits prompted by allegations of sex abuse by the clergy. The decision has implications for those pursuing legal cases against the church. Oregon Public Radio's Colin Fogarty reports.
• Sex abuse claims bankrupt church -- 60m adherents in USA
The Guardian (Britain), by Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent, Thursday July 8, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Oregon has become the first in the US to file for bankruptcy protection in response to increasing accusations of priestly sexual abuse of children and the prospect of more multimillion-dollar settlements to add to the $53m (£29m) it has already had to pay out.
Its action came as the archdiocese was about to face two further claims from victims in court.
Archbishop John Vlazny told a press conference: "The pot of gold is pretty much empty right now. This is not an effort to avoid responsibility.
"It is, in fact, the only way I can assure that other claimants can be offered fair compensation. Major insurers have abandoned us and are not paying what they should on claims."
Nationally, the Catholic church - the largest Christian denomination in the US, with 60 million adherents - is confronting a growing number of cases which have shaken its confidence and undermined its prestige.
• Religious to be quizzed on indemnity agreement of 2002 indemnifying the orders
One in Four, by Patsy McGarry - Irish Times, ~ July 07, 2004
IRELAND: Members of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will tomorrow question representatives of 18 religious congregations on their controversial 2002 indemnity deal with the State.
The committee is trying to establish why meetings in November 2001 and January 2002 which led up to an agreement in principle with the congregations were attended only by their representatives, the former minister for education, Dr Michael Woods, and the secretary general at that Department, Mr John Dennehy. There was no State legal representation present.
Under the agreement, the congregations agreed to contribute €128 million in cash and property to a State redress scheme for former residents of institutions managed by them.
In return, the Government agreed to indemnify the congregations against future legal actions by the residents.
The comptroller and auditor general in a report last year said the redress scheme may yet cost the State between €887 million and €1 billion.
• Our Story - RCC.
Voices Emerge, www.voicesemerge.com , ~ July 07, 2004
IRELAND: In the early 1990's, the appalling stories of child abuse in the Religious Run Residential Homes began to emerge. I, with the rest of Irish Society listened with growing horror to the stories of beatings, starvation, physical and sexual abuse that these unfortunate children had suffered.
My interest was personal, as well as humanitarian; I too had been in a home. The only child of a 48 year old mother who suffered from mental illness, and an alcoholic father, the Sisters of Mercy came to my rescue when I was found dying of starvation at 6 weeks old.
The home was closed when I was five and I had many more times where the sisters in the community rescued me after being returned to my parents.
I felt so sorry for the sisters I knew, their years of washing, cooking, cleaning and fundraising to make our lives that bit more bearable now tarnished. But, if in their suffering the reflected shame of the few abusers, healing was provided, then so be it.
By 2002, the abuse stories still continued - with increasing vitriol, and the Religious seemed to have become fair game for any allegation.
Unsubstantiated stories became financially beneficial as documentaries and books were presented to an unsuspecting public as fact. After seeing some ex pupils come out in defence of their own residential homes, I put my story out also.
Many of us made contact with each other, and feeling the carers we knew needed support, decided to form a cohesive group. With the collective experience of 90 of us from 15 different homes, some resident until 18 years old, Let Our Voices Emerge was born.
Our sole aim was to support the Religious of integrity through the abuse crisis while the suffering of those genuinely abused was being vindicated. Stories of being well fed and clothed, fighting over comics, toys and sweets, hiding from the bullies in the older groups and minding the children in the younger groups started to emerge. [Emphasis added]
• Priests, lay leaders sad but supportive
The Oregonian, By NANCY HAUGHT, Wednesday, July 07, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The fax machine in the Rev. Peter Byrne's office at St. Ignatius Parish started whirring at 10 a.m. Tuesday. It was a letter from Archbishop John G. Vlazny announcing that the archdiocese was declaring bankruptcy.
Byrne quickly gathered the half-dozen staff members in the building.
"I read it to them," he said of the letter announcing that the Archdiocese of Portland was filing for Chapter 11 protection. The Jesuit pastor of the Southeast Portland parish said his staff was shocked by the news.
"I didn't get any sense that they would quit or throw in the towel," he said. "It was more a sense of sadness, of being subdued. "
Roman Catholic priests and lay leaders contacted Tuesday all said their faith would endure the legal and financial implications of the morning announcement.
Byrne said he thought about the Jewish people of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, and how they "lost everything" in their exile to Babylon.
[COMMENT: The Babylonian Captivity was not a "lost everything" story, in spite of the general belief that it was. Much Jewish literature must be read before a non-Jew can realise that even in their own literature they had been partly deceived. Prosperous Jewish rabbi schools existed in Babylon until well after AD 1000. And read Koestler's book The thirteenth tribe. COMMENT ENDS.]
• Filing for bankruptcy halts priest abuse trial
The Oregonian, ASHBEL S. GREEN and STEVE WOODWARD, Wednesday, July 07, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The Archdiocese of Portland's decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection halted a potentially embarrassing lawsuit from going to trial on Tuesday, but it also opened the church to unprecedented financial scrutiny, and all but assured a constitutional showdown between church and secular law.
Although the decision raises serious questions about the future of archdiocesan schools, parish property and donations, plaintiffs and their attorneys accused Roman Catholic officials of seeking yet again to cover up 50 years of priest abuse.
"They have been morally bankrupt my entire life," said James Devereaux, one of two plaintiffs who was set to go to trial Tuesday.
But in an earlier news conference, Portland Archbishop John G. Vlazny said bankruptcy was the church's only move in the face of empty coffers, a pair of lawsuits seeking more than $155 million and dozens of other unsettled claims. In its filing, the archdiocese said its largest 20 lawsuits added up to more than $340 million in claims.
"This is not an effort to avoid responsibility," Vlazny read from a prepared statement. "It is, in fact, the only way I can assure that other claimants can be offered fair compensation."
• Salem Catholics stunned, disappointed -- 130 sex payouts in past 4 years
Statesman Journal, By MATT MONAGHAN, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): Catholic parishioners in Salem were surprised and saddened by Tuesday's announcement that the Portland Archdiocese has filed for bankruptcy.
The mood at a midday Mass at St. Joseph Church was somber. Attendees were resolute in their faith but nervous about how the financial crisis will affect their parish and the 14 others in Marion and Polk counties served by Oregon's largest diocese.
"It's a sad, sad day," Stan McClain said upon exiting the service. "I don't know what more to say about it."
The Portland Archdiocese covers more than 29,000 square miles in Oregon, serving 124 parishes with a population of more than 350,000 people.
In a statement released by Archbishop John Vlazny, the Portland Archdiocese was forced to make the unprecedented financial maneuver because of settlements doled out in more than 130 claims of sexual misconduct by Catholic priests in the past four years.
• Victims of clergy sex abuse must deal with archdiocese bankruptcy [1964 + Grammond]
Telegram & Gazette, By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writer, July 7 2004
PORTLAND, Ore.- Being molested by a priest left James Devereaux with nobody to confess to. What he could not find at the confessional as a boy, Devereaux hoped he would find in court as a man.
But just as Devereaux and his lawyer were preparing to sue the late Rev. Maurice Grammond, the Portland Archdiocese announced Tuesday it was filing for bankruptcy.
The archdiocese took action because of the steep costs from clergy sex abuse lawsuits, halting the trial of a lawsuit against Grammond, accused of sexually abusing more than 50 boys in the 1980s.
Devereaux said he would persevere despite the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, an unprecedented step that could open the Roman Catholic archdiocese to new levels of court scrutiny.
"We will continue our fight to finally get the archdiocese to accept the sin of its crimes," said Devereaux, a 52-year-old rancher who said he was raped repeatedly by Grammond beginning in 1964 in the southern Oregon logging town of Oakridge.
• Dollars And Demons
Story Hunters, www.storyhunters.com/gbu/archives/001109.shtml , ~ July 07, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): First they rape children, then they cover it up. Now, they don't want to pay for their crimes or help their victims heal.
And to think, the Catholic church is supposed to be one of the good guys.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Portland, Oregon has filed for bankruptcy after having to shell out $53 million to settle more than 130 claims of sexual abuse by priests. And, as the "Los Angeles Times" reports, 25 more complaints have been filed.
As the "Times" reports, Portland is the first Catholic district in the U.S. to file for bankruptcy but others are likely to follow as there are a lot of priests out there who have raped a lot of children and there are a lot of people who looked the other way and continued pouring money into the Pope's pockets. In Los Angeles alone, it's believed the church is facing 540 sexual abuse claims
Catholics are now finally refusing to offer money to the church, disgusted that their hard earned dough should be going to pay for the ramifications of abusive behavior when instead it could be going toward helping priests improve their golf game.
• Portland Archdiocese files for bankruptcy
Statesman Journal, By ALAN GUSTAFSON, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The national sex-abuse scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church took a groundbreaking and controversial turn Tuesday when the Portland Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy.
"I am doing something I hoped I would never have to do," said Archbishop John Vlazny, the spiritual leader of 356,000 Roman Catholics in Western Oregon.
"If I am to be a prudent steward of our resources, I believe that the best choice is to seek protection in bankruptcy."
The Portland Archdiocese is the first of the country's 195 dioceses to file for bankruptcy because of sexual-abuse lawsuits. However, dioceses in Tucson, Ariz., Boston and Dallas, Texas, also have considered seeking financial protection against such claims.
In recent years, the Portland Archdiocese and its insurers have paid $53 million to settle more than 130 claims by people who say that priests abused them. Dozens more claims, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, are pending.
"Major insurers have abandoned us and are not paying what they should on the claims," Vlazny said.
As it stands, the church cannot afford the ongoing staggering costs. "The pot of gold is pretty much empty," he said.
Vlazny denied that the church was trying to avoid responsibility to compensate molestation victims. He said it was seeking to be fair to all victims while continuing to minister to Oregon's Catholics.
• Abuse victims: Bankruptcy claim halts justice [Grammond] -- 50 cases
Statesman Journal, By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, The Associated Press, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): Victims of abuse by Catholic priests said they felt cheated by the Portland Archdiocese's decision to file for bankruptcy rather than go to trial.
"It denies justice - and it sidesteps accountability to the victims," said Bill Crane, the head of the Portland chapter of the Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests [SNAP].
Chapter 11 bankruptcy frees an organization from the threat of creditors' lawsuits while it reorganizes.
James Devereaux, 51, was one of two plaintiffs whose trial against a priest in the Portland Archdiocese was halted.
"They might have filed for bankruptcy today, but they have been bankrupt my whole life," said Devereaux, who says he was molested by the Rev. Maurice Grammond when he was a 12-year-old choir boy in Southern Oregon.
There are more than 50 lawsuits pending in circuit court against Grammond - who died in 2002 - accusing him of sexual abuse, said David Slader, attorney for a dozen of those plaintiffs, including Devereaux.
• Wave of clergy sex-abuse scandals sweeps Oregon
Statesman Journal, By ALAN GUSTAFSON, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): When the Portland Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy Tuesday, Salem lawyer Daniel Gatti was far removed from the uproar. He was in Boston, attending a convention of American trial lawyers.
But Gatti, a leading litigator in a wave of lawsuits accusing Catholic priests of decades-old sexual abuse in Oregon, found time to criticize church leaders for taking the unprecedented step.
"It's shocking what they'll do to avoid compensating these victims," Gatti said. "They're bidding for more time and public sympathy."
Gatti has represented dozens of plaintiffs in priest sex-abuse cases filed in Marion and Multnomah counties.
The cases range from a $28 million suit filed on behalf of seven men accusing a priest of molesting them while they were at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility three decades ago to multi-million-dollar suits filed on behalf of a dozen plaintiffs who claim they were molested long ago by priests with ties to the Mount Angel Abbey, a 100-year-old monastery about 20 miles east of Salem.
• Church assets subject to secular scrutiny -- $US 53m wasted so far
Statesman Journal By MICHAEL ROSE, Statesman Journal, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): Filing bankruptcy puts the Portland Archdiocese in a secular battle about cash.
The church's decision to file a Chapter 11 reorganization will mean facing the same potential benefits and risks as troubled companies seeking a second chance, bankruptcy experts say.
The action puts a stay on pending lawsuits and could ultimately lead to an injunction against further lawsuits in the future, as well as a payment plan for abuse victims.
But bankruptcy has its costs.
Like in all bankruptcies, the church's finances will become contentious.
"The first order of business is getting a handle on what assets this particular debtor has," said David Mills, a Eugene attorney who has represented trustees and creditors in bankruptcies. He is not involved in this bankruptcy case.
Although a Chapter 11 filing is not a liquidation, in which everything must be sold, creditors will have the right to scrutinize and possibly interfere with the church's financial affairs, Mills said. The church will have to disclose every asset, from property holdings to bank accounts.
The archdiocese and its insurers have already paid more than $53 million to settle more than 130 claims by people who say they were abused by priests. Plaintiffs with unsecured claims will find themselves in line with other creditors attempting to squeeze cash from the church, Mills said.
• Diocese says bankruptcy only option
Chicago Tribune, By Larry B. Stammer, Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times; Tribune staff reporter James Janega contributed to this report; Published July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The archdiocese of Portland, Ore., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday, becoming the first Roman Catholic diocese in the U.S. to seek financial protection against millions of dollars in potential sexual-abuse claims.
Though Portland is the first, it probably will not be the last of the 195 American dioceses to seek court protection.
The diocese of Tucson, Ariz., is expected to seek bankruptcy protection by mid-September, according to its vicar general, Rev. Van Wagner. Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas has likened sexual-abuse claims to a monsoon.
Others dioceses, particularly smaller ones with relatively few assets that can be sold, could follow suit. In doing so, bishops would cross a line that American church leaders had hesitated to pass. Although the Roman Catholic Church is theologically and liturgically united, each diocese is a separate legal entity.
Major corporations have gone to bankruptcy court in the last few decades to limit payouts in lawsuits involving products including asbestos and birth control devices. In a bankruptcy reorganization, a judge can limit how much a person who is owed money will receive. Plaintiffs who claim injuries must wait in line along with other creditors.
• Adoption firm picks executive to take helm [Cousineau]
The Oregonian, By ALICE TALLMADGE, Wednesday, July 07, 2004
EUGENE (OR): Holt International Children's Services has appointed its vice president for international programs, Gary Gamer, to be its new president and chief executive officer.
"The board believes that Gary's intimate knowledge of Holt's work and his commitment to intercountry adoption, together with his ability to get the job done, make him the right person at the right time to lead Holt," wrote board Chairman Larry Cahill in a message to the staff.
Holt's former president, David Cousineau, a former priest, stepped down in March after his name appeared on a list of priests in the Los Angeles diocese who had been accused of sexual abuse since 1930. The agency's board was unable to substantiate the allegation but decided Cousineau's ability to lead the agency had been compromised.
Last month, a second alleged victim filed a suit in California against the Los Angeles diocese and a parish school, claiming Cousineau molested her when she was a young girl.
• The archdiocese, which doesn't want to go to trial, has settled more than 130 claims
The Oregonian Wednesday, July 07, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): Portland Archbishop John G. Vlazny announced Tuesday that the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because it cannot risk going to trial on two priest abuse cases seeking more than $155 million in damages.
The church and its insurers have already spent more than $53 million to settle more than 130 claims of priest abuse -- the second-highest settlement figure in the nation.
Legal experts say the church is taking a risk in seeking Chapter 11 protection under federal bankruptcy laws because it opens the church to unprecedented financial scrutiny and raises constitutional questions about the separation of church and state. Q: What is Chapter 11 bankruptcy? A: Chapter 11 bankruptcy frees an organization from the threat of creditors' lawsuits while it reorganizes. The debtor -- in the case, the Archdiocese of Portland -- has 120 days to file a plan of reorganization.
The plan has to outline how the church plans to pay its creditors. The plan must be approved by a U.S. bankruptcy judge. The proceedings would open church records to public scrutiny and could require church leaders to cede some control to the courts. Q: How does it differ from other types of bankruptcy? A: Individuals or businesses who file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 have their assets converted into cash by the court, which then parcels it out to creditors. In Chapter 13, the debtor works out a plan to repay creditors.
• Diocese in Ore. files for Chap. 11 - RCC. > 100 claims already settled.
The Boston Globe, By Michael Paulson, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., filed for bankruptcy yesterday, an unprecedented step for a Roman Catholic diocese and a dramatic illustration of the devastating financial impact decades of sexual abuse by priests are having on the nation's largest religious denomination.
Archbishop John G. Vlazny, in a letter to western Oregon Catholics, said his diocese has already settled more than 100 claims of abuse, but faced another $155 million in claims in two cases that were scheduled to go to trial yesterday.
"At this point, circumstances beyond my control have created great financial risk," Vlazny said. "If I am to be a prudent steward of our resources, I believe that the best choice is to seek protection in bankruptcy."
The archdiocese is the first to file for protection under federal bankruptcy laws, which will require that the church fully disclose its finances and cede authority over its spending to a federal bankruptcy judge. Many other dioceses that have talked of taking such a step, including Boston, have avoided doing so. The Tucson diocese, in Arizona, is still seriously considering a bankruptcy filing.
• Court says priest can be charged in case from 1970s [1970s Graham]
Kansas City Star, Associated Press, ~ July 07, 2004
ST. LOUIS (MO): A state appeals court has ruled that a Roman Catholic priest can be charged with sodomy in an alleged child sex abuse case from the 1970s.
Attorneys on both sides said Tuesday's ruling by a Missouri Court of Appeals three-judge panel could be significant in other such cases.
The appeals court reversed a St. Louis circuit judge, who ruled that too much time had passed for the Rev. Thomas Graham to be charged with the crime.
Graham, now 70, was indicted in December 2002 on a charge of performing oral sex on a teenage boy in the late 1970s in the rectory of the historic Old Cathedral in downtown St. Louis. He was released on bond.
Graham's attorneys argued too much time had passed for him to be charged, while the state maintained there is no required time limit for bringing charges.
• Priest quits over child porn [2003-04 Kuechl] - RCC. Pictures of sex with minors and animals. Seminary.
News 24, www.news24. com/News24/ World/News/ 0,,2-10-1462_ 1553033,00. html , ~ July 7, 2004
VIENNA, Austria: The head of a seminary for trainee priests at St Poelten, 50 kilometres west of Vienna, resigned on Monday over a child pornography scandal.
Ulrich Kuechl, a priest in Lower Austria province for the past 28 years, submitted his resignation to St Poelten Diocese Bishop Kurt Krenn but denied any wrongdoing.
"The slander spread in the media by a former seminary member against myself has made such a negative impression on public opinion that my further conduct of office would probably be a great burden for the seminary and diocese," he said.
Investigators say pornographic pictures were found in the main computer of the seminary. State prosecutor Walter Nemec said some of the pictures were of sexual acts with minors, or with animals. Legal authorities confiscated a number of mobile computer terminals.
Nemec said: "It's correct that thousands of photos were found on these laptops, but their content is not yet clarified."
• Youth leader arrested for child porn [2004 Miller] -- Presbyterian had 200 undergarments
News 14, By News 14 Carolina, ~ July 07, 2004
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Members of Myers Park Presbyterian Church are in shock after learning that a volunteer youth counselor there was arrested on charges of child porn.
Russ Miller was leading a middle-school mission trip in Georgia when the FBI arrested him Thursday.
Agents searched his home and say they found pornographic nude photos of adults and children. They also found more than 200 undergarments belonging to little girls.
The items were mixed in with Miller's clothes in his dresser.
Some members of the church were shocked by the news but say the church and a caring pastor will help them through this difficult time.
• Oregon archdiocese files for bankruptcy
Newsday BY CAROL EISENBERG, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): Confronted by mounting costs of sex abuse lawsuits, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., Tuesday became the first diocese in U.S. history to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection -- a step that effectively cedes control of church operations to a federal judge.
"No diocese has ever declared bankruptcy," said Charles Zech, an economist at Villanova University who specializes in Catholic church finance. "There's no precedent. They're taking a huge risk in turning over their operations to a civil judge."
Nor is Portland's decision likely to be an isolated one. Last week, Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas said he is considering taking that step before an abuse trial begins in September. Boston officials recently avoided bankruptcy only by selling property worth millions of dollars.
Officials in Dallas, Santa Fe and Louisville, Ky., have considered the option in the face of multimillion-dollar payouts to victims of sexual abuse. And many lawsuits, including several pending in Rockville Centre, Brooklyn and New York, haven't even come to court yet.
"I'm surprised it took this long for it to happen," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, who has written several books about church government. "The money is simply not there any more. The court awards in some of these cases have been so big that liquid assets are gone, the insurance money has run out and people in the pews do not want to fork over money to pay for settlements."
• Abuse cases turn on deadlines
Tribune-Review, By Glenn May, Wednesday, July 7, 2004
PITTSBURGH (PA): An Allegheny County judge expressed skepticism Tuesday with legal arguments that sexual misconduct lawsuits filed against the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh missed legal deadlines.
Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. did not rule on diocesan lawyer Joseph Selep's request to dismiss the lawsuits filed by two dozen men and women who claimed the diocese and its bishops failed to stop sexual misconduct. Nor did Wettick indicate when he might rule on the pretrial motions.
Describing the recent discoveries about clergy abuse as "extraordinary revelations," Wettick suggested parents could not have been expected to be skeptical in the past about the church's dedication to protecting children from sexual predators.
"I would never expect the church to subject my son to someone who has been involved in previous activities," Wettick said.
Attorneys Alan Perer and Richard Serbin, who represent the plaintiffs, agreed the state's two-year limit for filing civil lawsuits has passed since most of the incidents. But the lawyers argued the clock should not begin to run until 2002, when clergy sex abuse became a national scandal.
• US diocese buckles
The Courier-Mail (Australia), July 07 04
PORTLAND (OR): The US Catholic diocese of Portland has announced that it would become the first in the country to file for bankruptcy as it buckles under the weight of multi-million-dollar sexual abuse lawsuits.
The archbishop of the main city of the northwestern state of Oregon, Reverend John Vlazny, took the step as two major cases against the church stemming from alleged sexual abuse by its priests were set to go to trial.
"This is not an effort to avoid responsibility," said the archbishop in a statement. "It is in fact the only way I can assure that other claimants can be offered fair compensation."
In one of the cases that had been due to go to trial Tuesday, plaintiffs were demanding more than 130 million dollars in damages, while another case sought $US25 million from the Portland branch of the Catholic church.
"We have made every effort to settle these claims fairly but the demand of each of these plaintiffs remains in the millions. I am committed to just compensation," Mr Vlazny said.
• Oregon Archdiocese Files for Bankruptcy Protection - RCC. 50 boys
The New York Times By LAURIE GOODSTEIN, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, becoming the first Roman Catholic diocese in the nation to seek such relief in response to mounting claims by victims of sexually abusive priests.
The archdiocese announced its intention to file for bankruptcy just as jury selection was to begin in a civil trial. The archdiocese is being sued for negligence by a man who says it failed to remove a priest accused of having abused more than 50 boys from the 1950's to the 1980's.
The plaintiff was seeking $130 million in damages and said he was determined to have a public hearing of his case against the church. But a bankruptcy filing means that the trial is immediately suspended. The lawyer representing the plaintiff accused the Portland archdiocese of trying to prevent the full story of its culpability from coming to light.
Archbishop John G. Vlazny of Portland said in a statement to parishioners that bankruptcy was the "best choice" because "circumstances beyond my control have created great financial risk." He said the bankruptcy filing would allow the church's parishes and schools to operate while financial issues were resolved.
• Accused priest: Not at parish at that time [1961 Wilt] - RCC. Girl.
Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh), By Ann Rodgers, Wednesday, July 07, 2004
PITTSBURGH (PA): The Rev. George Wilt, the retired pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church in Mt. Lebanon who is accused of molesting a 13-year-old girl in 1961, says he wasn't at that parish until seven years after she claims he abused her there.
"He is saying absolutely he did not do it, and the hard evidence proves he did not do it," said William Pietragallo II, an attorney who released a statement on Wilt's behalf.
Wilt, 72, stepped down last year after 35 years as a priest and pastor at St. Bernard.
A lawsuit, filed last week, claims that Wilt fondled "Jane Doe II" in 1961 when she was a student at St. Bernard school and he was called in to counsel her in the rectory because she said her father had sexually abused her.
• Time has run out for abuse cases, diocesan lawyers say [1989 Wellinger] - RCC.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette By Ann Rodgers, Wednesday, July 07, 2004
PITTSBURGH (PA): The first hearing in a lawsuit claiming that the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh conspired to protect priests against allegations of child sexual abuse focused not on whether a priest molested a child but on whether the cases are too old to try.
Allegheny Common Pleas Court Judge R. Stanton Wettick spent 23 minutes questioning attorneys for both sides. He will rule later.
The accusations concerning 14 priests and former priests are long past the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse. Which is why the suit is claiming a conspiracy on the part of the diocese.
To test their argument, attorneys for 25 plaintiffs chose the case of the former Rev. John Wellinger, who is accused of molesting 11-year-old Chris Matthews in 1989.
The Post-Gazette's policy is to withhold the names of victims of alleged sexual abuse, but Matthews, now 26, has given his permission to publish his name. He says the diocese broke a promise to his parents to "defrock" Wellinger. Diocesan officials say Bishop Donald Wuerl forbade Wellinger ever to dress, act or identify himself as a priest again.
• Former Central Illinois Priest Faces Sex Abuse Charges [1977, 1979 Benham] - RCC.
WEEK, Posted 11:03pm July 6, 2004
LINCOLN (IL): A former priest who lives in Lincoln will soon face charges of sexual abuse in Maryland.
Earlier this year, two people in that state came forward with the allegations after more than 25 years had passed.
Francis Benham, a former priest in the Diocese of Washington D.C., will be extradited to Maryland to face two charges of sexual abuse dating back to 1977 and 1979.
Attorney Fred Nessler says the window of opportunity to report abuse only starts closing in states such as Illinois after the victim acknowledges the abuse and its impact on their life, sometimes decades after the crimes are committed.
• Priest can be charged in old sex case, court rules [1975 ~ '78 Graham] - RCC.
Post-Dispatch, By Peter Shinkle, July 06, 2004
ST. LOUIS (MO): In a ruling that could open the door to more sex abuse charges, a state appeals court said Tuesday that a St. Louis priest can be charged with sodomy for allegedly molesting a child more than a quarter century ago.
The Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District issued an opinion reversing a St. Louis circuit judge, who ruled last November that too much time had passed for the priest, Thomas Graham, to be charged with the crime.
In the case, Graham is accused of performing oral sex on a teen-age boy at some point from January 1975 to the end of 1978 in the rectory of the Old Cathedral, a St. Louis landmark considered the oldest Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi.
Graham's attorneys argued too much time had passed for him to be charged, and they pointed to conflicting rulings by the Missouri Supreme Court. But in Tuesday's opinion, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals ruled that the language of the law permitting the charge was "plain and clear."
• Portland Archdiocese declares bankruptcy -- two trials avoided
CNN, Posted: 2255 GMT (0655 HKT) Tuesday, July 6, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): (CNN) -- The archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday, just as the civil trials of two priests accused of sexual abuse were set to begin, Archbishop John Vlazny announced.
Vlazny said the filing was not an attempt to avoid responsibility for abuse allegations, but was "the only way I can assure that other claimants can be offered fair compensation," and to keep the archdiocese's schools and parishes operating.
No other American diocese has filed for bankruptcy, though Boston threatened to do so at the height of the abuse crisis that began there two years ago, according to The Associated Press. The Diocese of Tucson, Arizona, has said it will decide whether to seek court protection before an abuse trial there in September, according to the AP.
Chapter 11 protects an organization from being sued by its creditors while it restructures.
• Paterson's Bishop Arrives, Preaching and Politicking
The New York Times By ROBERT HANLEY, Published: July 7, 2004
PATERSON, N.J., July 6 - With a vow to uphold the Catholic Church's teachings against abortion and euthanasia, and a pledge to protect children from evil, the Rev. Arthur J. Serratelli was installed on Tuesday as the bishop of the Diocese of Paterson.
Bishop Serratelli, 60, a biblical scholar and seminary professor, said in his homily that his mission was to preach Christ's Gospel, and he urged all Catholics, clergy and lay members alike, to do likewise. He called the Gospel the way to justice and to peace. "It is the very salvation of the world," Bishop Serratelli said. ...
In the last two years, the diocese has been buffeted by the sexual abuse scandal that has shaken the church in the United States. Supporters of abuse victims in the diocese have said they were disenchanted with Bishop Rodimer's response to the scandal and expressed hopes that Bishop Serratelli would be more sensitive and responsive.
The newly installed bishop did not refer directly to the scandal in his homily. But he devoted part of it to the story of an 11-year-old saint in the Catholic Church, Maria Goretti, who was assaulted and fatally stabbed by a neighbor in her Italian village in 1902. Before the girl died, she forgave her assailant.
Bishop Serratelli called her a "martyr for purity."
• Oregon archdiocese files Chapter 11 [Grammond]
Houston Chronicle, By AVIVA L. BRANDT, Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Portland Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy Tuesday because of the steep costs of clergy sex abuse lawsuits, an unprecedented step that could open the Roman Catholic archdiocese to new levels of court scrutiny.
No other American diocese has filed for bankruptcy, though Boston threatened to do so at the height of the abuse crisis that began there two years ago. The Diocese of Tucson, Ariz., has said it will decide whether to seek court protection before an abuse trial in September.
Portland's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing halted the trial of a lawsuit against the late Rev. Maurice Grammond, who was accused of molesting more than 50 boys in the 1980s. Grammond died in 2002.
Plaintiffs in the two lawsuits involving Grammond have sought a total of more than $160 million. The archdiocese and its insurers already have paid more than $53 million over 50 years to settle more than 130 claims by people who say they were abused by priests.
• Alleged abuse victims pressure LA cardinal over outreach effort [1988 Aguilar] - RCC. Altar boys.
The Mercury News, www.mercurynews. com/mld/mercurynews/ news/breaking_news/ 9092291.htm?ERIGHTS=-527948 1807526220152 mercurynews::kashaw@ peoplepc.com&KRD_RM= 4nrnolomtsptrnr kkkkkkkkloo|Kathleen|Y ; By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (CA): Alleged victims of clergy sex abuse pressured Cardinal Roger Mahony Tuesday to step up efforts to find possible victims of a Mexican priest who previously worked in two Los Angeles parishes.
The priest, Father Nicolas Aguilar, spent nine months at Our Lady of Guadalupe parish and St. Agatha's parish between April 1987 and January 1988, when two altar boys told their mother the priest had abused them.
Aguilar was suspended by the diocese and then fled to Mexico. He was charged with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child but never arrested.
Officials with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles - the largest in the nation - said they tried in 1988 to reach potential victims by reading letters in both parishes shortly after Aguilar left for Mexico. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 01:03 AM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Wed, July 07, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont87.htm
• Former football umpire jailed for sexually abusing boys. [1985-90 Sherwood, 9yrs+ gaol] -- No religion link reported
The West Australian, by David Darragh, p 9, Wednesday, July 7, 2004
PERTH (W. Australia): A former junior football umpire has been labelled evil and cruel by a District Court judge for sexually abusing two teenage trainee umpires in the 1980s.
Peter Nolan Sherwood, 58, formerly of Tuart Hill, was jailed yesterday for nine years and two months after a jury found him guilty of 20 sex offences, including attempted sexual penetration and gross indecency, after a two-week trial in May.
The court was told that Sherwood, who is now infected with HIV, showed the boys pornographic videos and plied them with alcohol, amyl nitrate, and, on one occasion, cannabis, to make them more receptive to his sexual advances.
In sentencing, Judge Peter Blaxell said that evil and cruel was the only way to describe Sherwood's callous offences against one of the trainee umpires over a six-year period from 1985.
Sherwood intimidated the teenager into continuing their sexual relationship by threatening to "out" him among his football mates. He also threatened to seduce the victim's younger brother if he did not submit to the abuse.
... teenager ... dropped out of school and sport ... drugs. ... abused the second victim ... two-year period ... [...] ... He tried to rape one victim after luring him into a spa. ... claimed there was a conspiracy against him. ... sexual abuse ... two other former junior umpires ...
• Driver of disabled on sex charges. [2004 No name reported] -- No religion link reported
The West Australian, p 9, Wednesday, July 7, 2004
PERTH (W. Australia): A bus driver for the Activ Foundation has been charged with sexually abusing two intellectually disabled people during trips from their supported workplaces.
The 61-year-old Joondanna man was charged with two counts of sexually penetrating an incapable person, six counts of indecently dealing with an incapable person and four counts of procuring an incapable person.
Police allege he committed the offences between May 1 and June 26 on the bus while driving the alleged victims, a man aged 49 and a woman of 20, from Activ Foundation workshops. [Activ without a terminal "e" is the correct name of this sheltered workshop group.]
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• Trial begins for preacher accused in exorcism death of boy -- Faith Temple Church
Duluth News Tribune, BY DERRICK NUNNALLY
MILWAUKEE (WI): On a warm Friday night in August, an autistic 8-year-old went with his mother to a strip-mall church where a school janitor moonlighting as a preacher said he could cast out the demons twisting the boy's development.
After an intense two-hour prayer session that brought the preacher chest-to-chest with little Terrance Cottrell Jr. while others held the boy's limbs, the preacher's shirt was soaked with sweat and the boy had, at some point, stopped moving.
Nobody noticed when Terrance died, according to what those present told police.
This morning, the preacher, Ray A. Hemphill, will go on trial for what happened that night in his Faith Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith. He faces a charge of felony child abuse, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and five more on extended supervision, because Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann said he didn't think a homicide charge would stick.
In a written report last year, the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office ruled the death a homicide by suffocation "due to external chest compression."
• Priest abuse case to begin
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORTLAND (OR): An Oregon priest abuse lawsuit is scheduled to start today, barring any last-minute settlement in the sensitive case.
Few such cases have wound up in front of juries -- in fact, only seven of the thousands of priest abuse cases filed against the Roman Catholic Church in recent years have made it all the way to trial, to a jury verdict.
Experts said that's because both sides often want to avoid exposing painful, and embarrassing details.
Still, if history is any indication, the Catholic Church could be in trouble with the upcoming cases, one of which is a backup in case the other is settled. The church has lost all seven cases that went to jury since the first one in 1986.
• Diocese inaction faulted [Forand]
The Republican, By BILL ZAJAC, wzajac@repub.com , Tuesday, July 06, 2004
TURNERS FALLS (MA): Claire A. Singley remembers being in the choir loft of St. Anne's Church in Turners Falls about five years ago when someone pointed out the presence of Singley's former pastor.
"When I saw him, I could have thrown up," Singley said recently.
About seven years earlier, Singley was told by her son Gary R. Singley that their former pastor, the Rev. Clarence W. Forand, had sexually abused him up to 1,000 times when he was between the ages of 9 and 17.
Forand said he was stunned when Gary Singley made his allegations.
"We were very good friends until I left St. Anne's. It must have been a misunderstanding," Forand said.
Forand described the relationship as that of "father and son or big brother and little brother."
"Gary was a good honest soul. I don't understand how he would have thought I hurt him. ... I think he maybe missed me when I left," said Forand, now 86 and living in the Belchertown retirement community Pine Valley Plantation. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 04:45 AM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Tue, July 06, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont87.htm
#### Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker, www.ncrnews.org/abuse, Wed, July 07, 2004 edition follows:-
• Vatican reports deficit for third year
Grand Forks Herald, By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press, ~ July 07, 2004
VATICAN CITY: The Vatican reported a deficit for the third consecutive year Wednesday but an increase in donations provided a bright spot at a time of some dismal financial news for the Catholic Church because of settlements from the sex abuse scandal.
In its annual financial report, the Vatican listed a 2003 deficit of about $11.8 million, 30 percent lower than the 2002 figure. It reduced the shortfall despite the costs for the Holy See's expanding diplomatic missions.
At the same time, it reported an increase in contributions to the pope, known as Peter's Pence, which it said were used for various humanitarian relief efforts around the world and for the Catholic Church in the Holy Land.
The figures regard the administrative headquarters of the Catholic Church, its property and its diplomatic missions.
Dioceses around the world are largely independent of Vatican financial control, although they are expected to seek Vatican approval before taking such drastic steps as seeking bankruptcy protection. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 09:49 PM]
• Judge denies church's summary judgment request [1974-84 Kircher]
Sun Herald, By HOLBROOK MOHR, Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. - A judge denied a request by the Catholic Diocese of Jackson to issue a summary judgment Wednesday in a case filed by two men who alleged they were sexually abused by Father James Kircher.
The order said the victims, named only as John Does 6 and 7, want accountability for all church officials "responsible for the incalculable emotional and psychological damage ... they will continue to suffer for the remainder of their lives."
The suit brought against the Diocese not only targets Kircher for allegedly molesting young boys but the church hierarchy who "were involved in a cover up of massive proportions," the order said. The case stems from a lawsuit filed by four plaintiffs in 2002 who claimed they were sexually abused at St. Mary Catholic Church in Shelby and at St. Therese Catholic Church in Jackson between 1974 and 1984.
The order issued Wednesday by Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter said the church responded to the victims pursuit of accountability "with a motion for summary judgment, which means (the church) is asking this Court to summarily dismiss their claims, denying them the forum for a jury to even consider their grievances."
• Baptists in shock after leader accused [1970s-80s Morley] - Baptist. Children.
The Age, www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/07/1089000225283.html , By Barney Zwartz, Religion Editor, July 8, 2004
AUSTRALIA : Members of Boronia Baptist Church were called to a special meeting after the Sunday morning service. They had no idea what it was about - but it proved devastating.
Victorian Baptist Union director of ministries Alan Marr told them that the church was investigating allegations of sexual abuse by a former minister of the church, and one of the most admired Victorian Baptists, John Morley. Some older members of the congregation, to whom Morley had ministered, broke down and wept.
John Morley, who died in 1989, was minister at Boronia from 1976 to 1984, the period the allegations relate to. He had also been president of the Baptist Union in 1962-63, chaplain at Carey Baptist Grammar from 1948 to 1957, and principal of Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar from 1957 to 1972. The Boronia church's administration centre, Morley House, was named after him. The sign came down this week.
So far the Baptist Union is aware of four victims, who were aged about eight to 12 at the time of the abuse. It has gone public this week because of concerns that there might be more victims. "Because of his role in schools we are concerned there might be people outside the Baptist network who have stories to tell us," Mr Marr said yesterday.
• Pastor pleads not guilty to child sex abuse; will stand trial [2004 Southward] -- Baptist, Internet date
Ann Arbor News, www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1089211483145370.xml , BY CATHERINE O'DONNELL, Wednesday, July 7, 2004
MICHIGAN: On his way to meet a 14-year-old girl at Briarwood Mall last April, a former Ypsilanti pastor bought a pink rose at a flower shop, according to court testimony Tuesday.
The Rev. James C. Southward bought the rose as part of his plan to sexually abuse the girl, a police investigator testified.
At the close of the hearing, Southward, 63, former pastor of Graceway Baptist Church on South Grove Road, was ordered to stand trial on one charge of child sexual abuse and another charge of using the Internet to arrange child sexual abuse. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine on each charge.
Southward pleaded not guilty, and a pretrial hearing is scheduled for Aug. 18 in Washtenaw County Circuit Court. His lawyer said during the hearing that police entrapped him.
He remains free on $50,000 bond but is forbidden to use the Internet or have unsupervised contact with minors.
• Immorality among ministers reflects culture
Church Central, www.churchcentral.com/nw/s/template/Article.html/id/19788 , Jul 7, 2004
FRANKLIN, Tenn. - The present crisis in ministry ethics is a reflection of the times, according to Joe E. Trull and James E. Carter, whose new book, "Ministerial Ethics: Moral Formation for Church Leaders" (Baker Books), addresses the importance of ethical issues for pastors and church leaders. Preaching Now highlighted the recent release.
"Ethical failure in the pulpit affects the pew," Trull and Carter wrote. "At the same time, clergy morals seem to mirror the general decline in morality among the laity. Our day is fraught with political cover-ups, insider trading on the stock exchange, corporate scandals, and media manipulation. Numbed by it all, people are seldom shocked when they hear of an immoral minister."
The authors wrote that ministerial ethics can no longer be assumed, if ever they were. They reported that when a pastor in one of the fastest growing churches in the South was arrested for drug smuggling, he confessed to flying cocaine from Colombia. His church had led the state in the number of baptisms for several years. The pastor was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $10,000.
Another breach involved a Southwest minister whose sexual affairs were featured in a regional magazine. The article claimed that the charismatic leader was obsessed with wealth, power and status.
[COMMENT: General decline among the laity! Pastors are there to set a good example, not to mirror the sins of the World! COMMENT ENDS.]
• Priest paints graphic picture of abuse - RCC. Salesian was victim himself.
The Age, www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/07/1089000225277.html , By Martin Daly, July 8, 2004
AUSTRALIA : A prominent Salesian Catholic priest, described as the patron saint of kids, has revealed the brutality inflicted on students at the order's Victorian college, Rupertswood, where priests and brothers allegedly assaulted boys over decades.
Father Chris Riley, who runs the Youth Off The Street network and has helped about 45,000 street kids, says a pedophile Salesian brother physically assaulted him when he was a student at the college and he saw fellow students being abused.
School officials say much has changed since Father Riley's school days, not least that the college now accepts girls. But in his account of Rupertswood, contained in the biography Mean Streets Kind Heart: The Father Chris Riley Story by journalist and author Sue Williams, he recalls a time when he knelt in the chapel in tears every day asking God for help.
Former students of Rupertswood, a 50-room Victorian mansion at Sunbury, 35 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, have given detailed accounts to The Age of a regime of violence against them by priests and brothers at the then motherhouse of the Salesians of Don Bosco. They say physical violence was the norm and sexual violence was not unusual.
• Filing won't affect church's local holdings
Mail Tribune, By JONEL ALECCIA, July 7, 2004
OREGON: The Archdiocese of Portland owns nearly $2 million in Jackson County property, assessment records show, but the archbishop promised local Catholic church leaders on Tuesday he wouldn't touch it to pay bankruptcy debts.
The Rev. Liam Carey, a priest at Medford's Sacred Heart Church, said he was reassured by a letter from Archbishop John Vlazny.
"Under canon law, parish assets belong to the parish," Carey said. "The archbishop never does and cannot take those funds."
County assessment records show a combined real market value of about $1.97 million for local properties owned by the archdiocese. That includes three local Catholic churches, a Gold Hill retreat center, the Walsh Memorial Newman Center near Southern Oregon University in Ashland and the tiny Joseph Mission in Jacksonville.
Civil law may be different than canon law, acknowledged Carey. He speculated that the groundbreaking case could wind up in state or federal Supreme Court.
• Sex abuse expert furore -- zero tolerance "too harsh"
The Mercury (Hobart), By ELLEN WHINNETT, Chief Reporter, July 08 2004
AUSTRALIA : A controversial academic and adviser to the Vatican will visit Tasmania to present a workshop and lecture on sexual abuse within Christian churches.
Bill Marshall, Australian-born but living in Canada, is one of the top academics in the field of treating sex offenders and is being brought here by the Catholic Church.
In February, the Vatican commissioned Dr Marshall and several other non-Catholic sex abuse experts to prepare a report into sexual abuse by clergy and the church's response to it.
The controversial report found that the zero-tolerance policy being implemented by some churches was too harsh, and might even discourage victims from coming forward with their complaints.
Dr Marshall was quoted by giant US news agency CNN as saying a zero-tolerance policy sent a message that the church did not care about the offender or believe he could be rehabilitated, "neither of which are good messages for the church to communicate".
• Victims of priest abuse cry foul over bankruptcy plan [1964 + Grammond]
The News-Review, www.newsreview. info/apps/pbcs. dll/article?AID=/20040707/ NEWS/107070080 , July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR) (AP) -- Plaintiffs and their attorneys accused the Archdiocese of Portland of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to cover up the tawdry details of priest abuse and to deny victims their fair share.
"This case is not being filed because the archdiocese is short of funds," said David Slader, who has represented many priest abuse plaintiffs, including one whose civil trial against the archdiocese was to start Tuesday. "This case is being filed because the archdiocese is doing everything it can to prevent a public airing of the whole sordid history of its cover-up."
Slader's client, James Devereaux, said being raped by the late Rev. Maurice Grammond left him with no one to confess to.
"I had been taught as a child that God is Almighty and the priest is his representative on earth," said Devereaux, a 52-year-old rancher who said he was abused beginning in 1964 in the southern Oregon logging town of Oakridge.
"I knew I had committed the ultimate sin and that I was doomed -- I had nowhere to hide."
What he could not find at the confessional, Devereaux hoped he would find in court.
• Diocese Bankruptcy Reaction
KOLD News 13, by Millie Martinez, posted July/07/04
TUCSON (AZ): Tucson's Catholic Diocese has threatened to do it. But, another diocese has beat them to it. Tuesday the Portland, Oregon archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy over the high costs of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by clergy.
A Portland archdiocese priest says, "The pot of gold is pretty much empty!" The archdiocese of Portland has filed for bankruptcy claiming millions of dollars in sex abuse settlements have drained their resources. The Catholic Diocese of Tucson released this statement about the Portlands Diocese's decision.
Bishop Gerald Kicanas says, "While not unexpected, it came as a surprise." "Like the diocese of Tucson, they have been struggling with the decision."
But, here in Tucson those who claim they were abused by priests are skeptical of how the Tucson Diocese is handling finances.
• Local church operations to continue normally
The Register-Guard, By Jeff Wright, July 7 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The decision by the Archdiocese of Portland to declare bankruptcy isn't expected to affect day-to-day operations at its 124 parishes across Western Oregon, including about a dozen in Lane County.
Daily and weekend Masses will still be celebrated as scheduled, and local parishes aren't at risk of having property or funds confiscated, archdiocese spokesman Bud Bunce said.
Various services provided by the archdiocese to member parishes - such as training for youth ministers and religion education volunteers - are expected to continue, at least for the time being, he said.
• Bankruptcy offers church relief, risk
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial Board
PORTLAND (OR): By using bankruptcy to protect church property against a rising flood of lawsuits by those who claim they were abused by priests as children, officials in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland have raised a host of moral and legal questions.
"The pot of gold is pretty much empty now," Archbishop John Vlazny said in an unfortunate choice of words to announce the bankruptcy plans Tuesday. The lawsuits against the church over pedophiliac priests don't amount to some sort of litigious lottery but the pursuit of compensation for horrors visited upon children.
The Portland Archdiocese is the first in the nation to seek bankruptcy protection. The archdiocese in Santa Fe, N.M., considered bankruptcy before deciding to borrow from parish savings to pay abuse victims, and the archdiocese in Boston decided against bankruptcy in favor of selling church real estate.
Portland's problems clearly are exacerbated by Oregon law, which permits punitive damages and allows the church to be held liable even if it had no knowledge of the child sexual abuse.
• Experienced executive takes top position at Holt [Cousineau]
The Register-Guard, By Susan Palmer, July 7 2004
EUGENE (OR): Holt International Children's Services named a longtime vice president Tuesday as its new president and CEO and also announced the creation of two new programs to help children overseas.
Gary Gamer, 49, fills the position left vacant when former CEO David Cousineau resigned in April after the Archdiocese of Los Angeles listed a child sexual abuse allegation against him.
Cousineau had been a Catholic priest for 18 years before leaving the priesthood and marrying. Since his resignation, a second person has filed a lawsuit claiming that Cousineau molested her when she was 11 years old. Cousineau has denied the allegations.
The resulting turmoil hasn't hurt the Eugene-based adoption agency financially, Gamer said. Holt relies on donations and grants to fund a variety of programs, including in-country adoptions, foster care assistance and help for American families adopting children overseas.
• Bankruptcy considered by many Catholic archdioceses in priest sex abuse lawsuits
Bradenton Herald, By WILLIAM McCALL, Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. - A number of Roman Catholic dioceses have considered bankruptcy to fight lawsuits resulting from allegations of priest sex abuse over the years, and some may be ready to make that move after the Portland Archdiocese became the first in the nation to file for Chapter 11 protection.
The bishop of the Diocese of Tucson in Arizona says it may be the "best way to respond to all victims."
Bishop Gerald Kicanas has been meeting with attorneys for much of the past month to consider filing for bankruptcy, said Fred Allison, spokesman for the Arizona diocese.
Kicanas said the Archdiocese of Portland bankruptcy announced Tuesday by Archbishop John Vlazny "while not unexpected, came as a surprise."
He did not say whether Tucson will follow Portland, but warned "we continue to explore the best option for our diocese."
• Claims of abuse force diocese into bankruptcy
Telegraph, By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles, (Filed: 08/July/2004)
PORTLAND (OR): The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, has filed for bankruptcy in the face of multi-million-dollar lawsuits stemming from alleged sexual abuse by its priests.
Two cases seeking a total of $155 million (£85 million) compensation for alleged abuse by Portland clergy that were about to go to trial were adjourned.
It is predicted that many of America's 195 Catholic dioceses could follow suit given the welter of child sex abuse claims made against the church nationwide.
Several multi-million-dollar settlements have been reached and hundreds more claims are pending.
• Oregon Archdiocese Files for Bankruptcy
NPR, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Portland, Ore., says it will file for bankruptcy due to the cost of settling lawsuits prompted by allegations of sex abuse by the clergy. The decision has implications for those pursuing legal cases against the church. Oregon Public Radio's Colin Fogarty reports.
• Sex abuse claims bankrupt church -- 60m adherents in USA
The Guardian (Britain), by Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent, Thursday July 8, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Oregon has become the first in the US to file for bankruptcy protection in response to increasing accusations of priestly sexual abuse of children and the prospect of more multimillion-dollar settlements to add to the $53m (£29m) it has already had to pay out.
Its action came as the archdiocese was about to face two further claims from victims in court.
Archbishop John Vlazny told a press conference: "The pot of gold is pretty much empty right now. This is not an effort to avoid responsibility.
"It is, in fact, the only way I can assure that other claimants can be offered fair compensation. Major insurers have abandoned us and are not paying what they should on claims."
Nationally, the Catholic church - the largest Christian denomination in the US, with 60 million adherents - is confronting a growing number of cases which have shaken its confidence and undermined its prestige.
• Religious to be quizzed on indemnity agreement of 2002 indemnifying the orders
One in Four, by Patsy McGarry - Irish Times, ~ July 07, 2004
IRELAND: Members of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will tomorrow question representatives of 18 religious congregations on their controversial 2002 indemnity deal with the State.
The committee is trying to establish why meetings in November 2001 and January 2002 which led up to an agreement in principle with the congregations were attended only by their representatives, the former minister for education, Dr Michael Woods, and the secretary general at that Department, Mr John Dennehy. There was no State legal representation present.
Under the agreement, the congregations agreed to contribute €128 million in cash and property to a State redress scheme for former residents of institutions managed by them.
In return, the Government agreed to indemnify the congregations against future legal actions by the residents.
The comptroller and auditor general in a report last year said the redress scheme may yet cost the State between €887 million and €1 billion.
• Our Story - RCC.
Voices Emerge, www.voicesemerge.com , ~ July 07, 2004
IRELAND: In the early 1990's, the appalling stories of child abuse in the Religious Run Residential Homes began to emerge. I, with the rest of Irish Society listened with growing horror to the stories of beatings, starvation, physical and sexual abuse that these unfortunate children had suffered.
My interest was personal, as well as humanitarian; I too had been in a home. The only child of a 48 year old mother who suffered from mental illness, and an alcoholic father, the Sisters of Mercy came to my rescue when I was found dying of starvation at 6 weeks old.
The home was closed when I was five and I had many more times where the sisters in the community rescued me after being returned to my parents.
I felt so sorry for the sisters I knew, their years of washing, cooking, cleaning and fundraising to make our lives that bit more bearable now tarnished. But, if in their suffering the reflected shame of the few abusers, healing was provided, then so be it.
By 2002, the abuse stories still continued - with increasing vitriol, and the Religious seemed to have become fair game for any allegation.
Unsubstantiated stories became financially beneficial as documentaries and books were presented to an unsuspecting public as fact. After seeing some ex pupils come out in defence of their own residential homes, I put my story out also.
Many of us made contact with each other, and feeling the carers we knew needed support, decided to form a cohesive group. With the collective experience of 90 of us from 15 different homes, some resident until 18 years old, Let Our Voices Emerge was born.
Our sole aim was to support the Religious of integrity through the abuse crisis while the suffering of those genuinely abused was being vindicated. Stories of being well fed and clothed, fighting over comics, toys and sweets, hiding from the bullies in the older groups and minding the children in the younger groups started to emerge. [Emphasis added]
• Priests, lay leaders sad but supportive
The Oregonian, By NANCY HAUGHT, Wednesday, July 07, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The fax machine in the Rev. Peter Byrne's office at St. Ignatius Parish started whirring at 10 a.m. Tuesday. It was a letter from Archbishop John G. Vlazny announcing that the archdiocese was declaring bankruptcy.
Byrne quickly gathered the half-dozen staff members in the building.
"I read it to them," he said of the letter announcing that the Archdiocese of Portland was filing for Chapter 11 protection. The Jesuit pastor of the Southeast Portland parish said his staff was shocked by the news.
"I didn't get any sense that they would quit or throw in the towel," he said. "It was more a sense of sadness, of being subdued. "
Roman Catholic priests and lay leaders contacted Tuesday all said their faith would endure the legal and financial implications of the morning announcement.
Byrne said he thought about the Jewish people of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, and how they "lost everything" in their exile to Babylon.
[COMMENT: The Babylonian Captivity was not a "lost everything" story, in spite of the general belief that it was. Much Jewish literature must be read before a non-Jew can realise that even in their own literature they had been partly deceived. Prosperous Jewish rabbi schools existed in Babylon until well after AD 1000. And read Koestler's book The thirteenth tribe. COMMENT ENDS.]
• Filing for bankruptcy halts priest abuse trial
The Oregonian, ASHBEL S. GREEN and STEVE WOODWARD, Wednesday, July 07, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The Archdiocese of Portland's decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection halted a potentially embarrassing lawsuit from going to trial on Tuesday, but it also opened the church to unprecedented financial scrutiny, and all but assured a constitutional showdown between church and secular law.
Although the decision raises serious questions about the future of archdiocesan schools, parish property and donations, plaintiffs and their attorneys accused Roman Catholic officials of seeking yet again to cover up 50 years of priest abuse.
"They have been morally bankrupt my entire life," said James Devereaux, one of two plaintiffs who was set to go to trial Tuesday.
But in an earlier news conference, Portland Archbishop John G. Vlazny said bankruptcy was the church's only move in the face of empty coffers, a pair of lawsuits seeking more than $155 million and dozens of other unsettled claims. In its filing, the archdiocese said its largest 20 lawsuits added up to more than $340 million in claims.
"This is not an effort to avoid responsibility," Vlazny read from a prepared statement. "It is, in fact, the only way I can assure that other claimants can be offered fair compensation."
• Salem Catholics stunned, disappointed -- 130 sex payouts in past 4 years
Statesman Journal, By MATT MONAGHAN, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): Catholic parishioners in Salem were surprised and saddened by Tuesday's announcement that the Portland Archdiocese has filed for bankruptcy.
The mood at a midday Mass at St. Joseph Church was somber. Attendees were resolute in their faith but nervous about how the financial crisis will affect their parish and the 14 others in Marion and Polk counties served by Oregon's largest diocese.
"It's a sad, sad day," Stan McClain said upon exiting the service. "I don't know what more to say about it."
The Portland Archdiocese covers more than 29,000 square miles in Oregon, serving 124 parishes with a population of more than 350,000 people.
In a statement released by Archbishop John Vlazny, the Portland Archdiocese was forced to make the unprecedented financial maneuver because of settlements doled out in more than 130 claims of sexual misconduct by Catholic priests in the past four years.
• Victims of clergy sex abuse must deal with archdiocese bankruptcy [1964 + Grammond]
Telegram & Gazette, By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writer, July 7 2004
PORTLAND, Ore.- Being molested by a priest left James Devereaux with nobody to confess to. What he could not find at the confessional as a boy, Devereaux hoped he would find in court as a man.
But just as Devereaux and his lawyer were preparing to sue the late Rev. Maurice Grammond, the Portland Archdiocese announced Tuesday it was filing for bankruptcy.
The archdiocese took action because of the steep costs from clergy sex abuse lawsuits, halting the trial of a lawsuit against Grammond, accused of sexually abusing more than 50 boys in the 1980s.
Devereaux said he would persevere despite the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, an unprecedented step that could open the Roman Catholic archdiocese to new levels of court scrutiny.
"We will continue our fight to finally get the archdiocese to accept the sin of its crimes," said Devereaux, a 52-year-old rancher who said he was raped repeatedly by Grammond beginning in 1964 in the southern Oregon logging town of Oakridge.
• Dollars And Demons
Story Hunters, www.storyhunters.com/gbu/archives/001109.shtml , ~ July 07, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): First they rape children, then they cover it up. Now, they don't want to pay for their crimes or help their victims heal.
And to think, the Catholic church is supposed to be one of the good guys.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Portland, Oregon has filed for bankruptcy after having to shell out $53 million to settle more than 130 claims of sexual abuse by priests. And, as the "Los Angeles Times" reports, 25 more complaints have been filed.
As the "Times" reports, Portland is the first Catholic district in the U.S. to file for bankruptcy but others are likely to follow as there are a lot of priests out there who have raped a lot of children and there are a lot of people who looked the other way and continued pouring money into the Pope's pockets. In Los Angeles alone, it's believed the church is facing 540 sexual abuse claims
Catholics are now finally refusing to offer money to the church, disgusted that their hard earned dough should be going to pay for the ramifications of abusive behavior when instead it could be going toward helping priests improve their golf game.
• Portland Archdiocese files for bankruptcy
Statesman Journal, By ALAN GUSTAFSON, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The national sex-abuse scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church took a groundbreaking and controversial turn Tuesday when the Portland Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy.
"I am doing something I hoped I would never have to do," said Archbishop John Vlazny, the spiritual leader of 356,000 Roman Catholics in Western Oregon.
"If I am to be a prudent steward of our resources, I believe that the best choice is to seek protection in bankruptcy."
The Portland Archdiocese is the first of the country's 195 dioceses to file for bankruptcy because of sexual-abuse lawsuits. However, dioceses in Tucson, Ariz., Boston and Dallas, Texas, also have considered seeking financial protection against such claims.
In recent years, the Portland Archdiocese and its insurers have paid $53 million to settle more than 130 claims by people who say that priests abused them. Dozens more claims, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, are pending.
"Major insurers have abandoned us and are not paying what they should on the claims," Vlazny said.
As it stands, the church cannot afford the ongoing staggering costs. "The pot of gold is pretty much empty," he said.
Vlazny denied that the church was trying to avoid responsibility to compensate molestation victims. He said it was seeking to be fair to all victims while continuing to minister to Oregon's Catholics.
• Abuse victims: Bankruptcy claim halts justice [Grammond] -- 50 cases
Statesman Journal, By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, The Associated Press, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): Victims of abuse by Catholic priests said they felt cheated by the Portland Archdiocese's decision to file for bankruptcy rather than go to trial.
"It denies justice - and it sidesteps accountability to the victims," said Bill Crane, the head of the Portland chapter of the Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests [SNAP].
Chapter 11 bankruptcy frees an organization from the threat of creditors' lawsuits while it reorganizes.
James Devereaux, 51, was one of two plaintiffs whose trial against a priest in the Portland Archdiocese was halted.
"They might have filed for bankruptcy today, but they have been bankrupt my whole life," said Devereaux, who says he was molested by the Rev. Maurice Grammond when he was a 12-year-old choir boy in Southern Oregon.
There are more than 50 lawsuits pending in circuit court against Grammond - who died in 2002 - accusing him of sexual abuse, said David Slader, attorney for a dozen of those plaintiffs, including Devereaux.
• Wave of clergy sex-abuse scandals sweeps Oregon
Statesman Journal, By ALAN GUSTAFSON, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): When the Portland Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy Tuesday, Salem lawyer Daniel Gatti was far removed from the uproar. He was in Boston, attending a convention of American trial lawyers.
But Gatti, a leading litigator in a wave of lawsuits accusing Catholic priests of decades-old sexual abuse in Oregon, found time to criticize church leaders for taking the unprecedented step.
"It's shocking what they'll do to avoid compensating these victims," Gatti said. "They're bidding for more time and public sympathy."
Gatti has represented dozens of plaintiffs in priest sex-abuse cases filed in Marion and Multnomah counties.
The cases range from a $28 million suit filed on behalf of seven men accusing a priest of molesting them while they were at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility three decades ago to multi-million-dollar suits filed on behalf of a dozen plaintiffs who claim they were molested long ago by priests with ties to the Mount Angel Abbey, a 100-year-old monastery about 20 miles east of Salem.
• Church assets subject to secular scrutiny -- $US 53m wasted so far
Statesman Journal By MICHAEL ROSE, Statesman Journal, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): Filing bankruptcy puts the Portland Archdiocese in a secular battle about cash.
The church's decision to file a Chapter 11 reorganization will mean facing the same potential benefits and risks as troubled companies seeking a second chance, bankruptcy experts say.
The action puts a stay on pending lawsuits and could ultimately lead to an injunction against further lawsuits in the future, as well as a payment plan for abuse victims.
But bankruptcy has its costs.
Like in all bankruptcies, the church's finances will become contentious.
"The first order of business is getting a handle on what assets this particular debtor has," said David Mills, a Eugene attorney who has represented trustees and creditors in bankruptcies. He is not involved in this bankruptcy case.
Although a Chapter 11 filing is not a liquidation, in which everything must be sold, creditors will have the right to scrutinize and possibly interfere with the church's financial affairs, Mills said. The church will have to disclose every asset, from property holdings to bank accounts.
The archdiocese and its insurers have already paid more than $53 million to settle more than 130 claims by people who say they were abused by priests. Plaintiffs with unsecured claims will find themselves in line with other creditors attempting to squeeze cash from the church, Mills said.
• Diocese says bankruptcy only option
Chicago Tribune, By Larry B. Stammer, Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times; Tribune staff reporter James Janega contributed to this report; Published July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The archdiocese of Portland, Ore., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday, becoming the first Roman Catholic diocese in the U.S. to seek financial protection against millions of dollars in potential sexual-abuse claims.
Though Portland is the first, it probably will not be the last of the 195 American dioceses to seek court protection.
The diocese of Tucson, Ariz., is expected to seek bankruptcy protection by mid-September, according to its vicar general, Rev. Van Wagner. Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas has likened sexual-abuse claims to a monsoon.
Others dioceses, particularly smaller ones with relatively few assets that can be sold, could follow suit. In doing so, bishops would cross a line that American church leaders had hesitated to pass. Although the Roman Catholic Church is theologically and liturgically united, each diocese is a separate legal entity.
Major corporations have gone to bankruptcy court in the last few decades to limit payouts in lawsuits involving products including asbestos and birth control devices. In a bankruptcy reorganization, a judge can limit how much a person who is owed money will receive. Plaintiffs who claim injuries must wait in line along with other creditors.
• Adoption firm picks executive to take helm [Cousineau]
The Oregonian, By ALICE TALLMADGE, Wednesday, July 07, 2004
EUGENE (OR): Holt International Children's Services has appointed its vice president for international programs, Gary Gamer, to be its new president and chief executive officer.
"The board believes that Gary's intimate knowledge of Holt's work and his commitment to intercountry adoption, together with his ability to get the job done, make him the right person at the right time to lead Holt," wrote board Chairman Larry Cahill in a message to the staff.
Holt's former president, David Cousineau, a former priest, stepped down in March after his name appeared on a list of priests in the Los Angeles diocese who had been accused of sexual abuse since 1930. The agency's board was unable to substantiate the allegation but decided Cousineau's ability to lead the agency had been compromised.
Last month, a second alleged victim filed a suit in California against the Los Angeles diocese and a parish school, claiming Cousineau molested her when she was a young girl.
• The archdiocese, which doesn't want to go to trial, has settled more than 130 claims
The Oregonian Wednesday, July 07, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): Portland Archbishop John G. Vlazny announced Tuesday that the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because it cannot risk going to trial on two priest abuse cases seeking more than $155 million in damages.
The church and its insurers have already spent more than $53 million to settle more than 130 claims of priest abuse -- the second-highest settlement figure in the nation.
Legal experts say the church is taking a risk in seeking Chapter 11 protection under federal bankruptcy laws because it opens the church to unprecedented financial scrutiny and raises constitutional questions about the separation of church and state. Q: What is Chapter 11 bankruptcy? A: Chapter 11 bankruptcy frees an organization from the threat of creditors' lawsuits while it reorganizes. The debtor -- in the case, the Archdiocese of Portland -- has 120 days to file a plan of reorganization.
The plan has to outline how the church plans to pay its creditors. The plan must be approved by a U.S. bankruptcy judge. The proceedings would open church records to public scrutiny and could require church leaders to cede some control to the courts. Q: How does it differ from other types of bankruptcy? A: Individuals or businesses who file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 have their assets converted into cash by the court, which then parcels it out to creditors. In Chapter 13, the debtor works out a plan to repay creditors.
• Diocese in Ore. files for Chap. 11 - RCC. > 100 claims already settled.
The Boston Globe, By Michael Paulson, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., filed for bankruptcy yesterday, an unprecedented step for a Roman Catholic diocese and a dramatic illustration of the devastating financial impact decades of sexual abuse by priests are having on the nation's largest religious denomination.
Archbishop John G. Vlazny, in a letter to western Oregon Catholics, said his diocese has already settled more than 100 claims of abuse, but faced another $155 million in claims in two cases that were scheduled to go to trial yesterday.
"At this point, circumstances beyond my control have created great financial risk," Vlazny said. "If I am to be a prudent steward of our resources, I believe that the best choice is to seek protection in bankruptcy."
The archdiocese is the first to file for protection under federal bankruptcy laws, which will require that the church fully disclose its finances and cede authority over its spending to a federal bankruptcy judge. Many other dioceses that have talked of taking such a step, including Boston, have avoided doing so. The Tucson diocese, in Arizona, is still seriously considering a bankruptcy filing.
• Court says priest can be charged in case from 1970s [1970s Graham]
Kansas City Star, Associated Press, ~ July 07, 2004
ST. LOUIS (MO): A state appeals court has ruled that a Roman Catholic priest can be charged with sodomy in an alleged child sex abuse case from the 1970s.
Attorneys on both sides said Tuesday's ruling by a Missouri Court of Appeals three-judge panel could be significant in other such cases.
The appeals court reversed a St. Louis circuit judge, who ruled that too much time had passed for the Rev. Thomas Graham to be charged with the crime.
Graham, now 70, was indicted in December 2002 on a charge of performing oral sex on a teenage boy in the late 1970s in the rectory of the historic Old Cathedral in downtown St. Louis. He was released on bond.
Graham's attorneys argued too much time had passed for him to be charged, while the state maintained there is no required time limit for bringing charges.
• Priest quits over child porn [2003-04 Kuechl] - RCC. Pictures of sex with minors and animals. Seminary.
News 24, www.news24. com/News24/ World/News/ 0,,2-10-1462_ 1553033,00. html , ~ July 7, 2004
VIENNA, Austria: The head of a seminary for trainee priests at St Poelten, 50 kilometres west of Vienna, resigned on Monday over a child pornography scandal.
Ulrich Kuechl, a priest in Lower Austria province for the past 28 years, submitted his resignation to St Poelten Diocese Bishop Kurt Krenn but denied any wrongdoing.
"The slander spread in the media by a former seminary member against myself has made such a negative impression on public opinion that my further conduct of office would probably be a great burden for the seminary and diocese," he said.
Investigators say pornographic pictures were found in the main computer of the seminary. State prosecutor Walter Nemec said some of the pictures were of sexual acts with minors, or with animals. Legal authorities confiscated a number of mobile computer terminals.
Nemec said: "It's correct that thousands of photos were found on these laptops, but their content is not yet clarified."
• Youth leader arrested for child porn [2004 Miller] -- Presbyterian had 200 undergarments
News 14, By News 14 Carolina, ~ July 07, 2004
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Members of Myers Park Presbyterian Church are in shock after learning that a volunteer youth counselor there was arrested on charges of child porn.
Russ Miller was leading a middle-school mission trip in Georgia when the FBI arrested him Thursday.
Agents searched his home and say they found pornographic nude photos of adults and children. They also found more than 200 undergarments belonging to little girls.
The items were mixed in with Miller's clothes in his dresser.
Some members of the church were shocked by the news but say the church and a caring pastor will help them through this difficult time.
• Oregon archdiocese files for bankruptcy
Newsday BY CAROL EISENBERG, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): Confronted by mounting costs of sex abuse lawsuits, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., Tuesday became the first diocese in U.S. history to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection -- a step that effectively cedes control of church operations to a federal judge.
"No diocese has ever declared bankruptcy," said Charles Zech, an economist at Villanova University who specializes in Catholic church finance. "There's no precedent. They're taking a huge risk in turning over their operations to a civil judge."
Nor is Portland's decision likely to be an isolated one. Last week, Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas said he is considering taking that step before an abuse trial begins in September. Boston officials recently avoided bankruptcy only by selling property worth millions of dollars.
Officials in Dallas, Santa Fe and Louisville, Ky., have considered the option in the face of multimillion-dollar payouts to victims of sexual abuse. And many lawsuits, including several pending in Rockville Centre, Brooklyn and New York, haven't even come to court yet.
"I'm surprised it took this long for it to happen," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, who has written several books about church government. "The money is simply not there any more. The court awards in some of these cases have been so big that liquid assets are gone, the insurance money has run out and people in the pews do not want to fork over money to pay for settlements."
• Abuse cases turn on deadlines
Tribune-Review, By Glenn May, Wednesday, July 7, 2004
PITTSBURGH (PA): An Allegheny County judge expressed skepticism Tuesday with legal arguments that sexual misconduct lawsuits filed against the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh missed legal deadlines.
Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. did not rule on diocesan lawyer Joseph Selep's request to dismiss the lawsuits filed by two dozen men and women who claimed the diocese and its bishops failed to stop sexual misconduct. Nor did Wettick indicate when he might rule on the pretrial motions.
Describing the recent discoveries about clergy abuse as "extraordinary revelations," Wettick suggested parents could not have been expected to be skeptical in the past about the church's dedication to protecting children from sexual predators.
"I would never expect the church to subject my son to someone who has been involved in previous activities," Wettick said.
Attorneys Alan Perer and Richard Serbin, who represent the plaintiffs, agreed the state's two-year limit for filing civil lawsuits has passed since most of the incidents. But the lawyers argued the clock should not begin to run until 2002, when clergy sex abuse became a national scandal.
• US diocese buckles
The Courier-Mail (Australia), July 07 04
PORTLAND (OR): The US Catholic diocese of Portland has announced that it would become the first in the country to file for bankruptcy as it buckles under the weight of multi-million-dollar sexual abuse lawsuits.
The archbishop of the main city of the northwestern state of Oregon, Reverend John Vlazny, took the step as two major cases against the church stemming from alleged sexual abuse by its priests were set to go to trial.
"This is not an effort to avoid responsibility," said the archbishop in a statement. "It is in fact the only way I can assure that other claimants can be offered fair compensation."
In one of the cases that had been due to go to trial Tuesday, plaintiffs were demanding more than 130 million dollars in damages, while another case sought $US25 million from the Portland branch of the Catholic church.
"We have made every effort to settle these claims fairly but the demand of each of these plaintiffs remains in the millions. I am committed to just compensation," Mr Vlazny said.
• Oregon Archdiocese Files for Bankruptcy Protection - RCC. 50 boys
The New York Times By LAURIE GOODSTEIN, July 7, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): The Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, becoming the first Roman Catholic diocese in the nation to seek such relief in response to mounting claims by victims of sexually abusive priests.
The archdiocese announced its intention to file for bankruptcy just as jury selection was to begin in a civil trial. The archdiocese is being sued for negligence by a man who says it failed to remove a priest accused of having abused more than 50 boys from the 1950's to the 1980's.
The plaintiff was seeking $130 million in damages and said he was determined to have a public hearing of his case against the church. But a bankruptcy filing means that the trial is immediately suspended. The lawyer representing the plaintiff accused the Portland archdiocese of trying to prevent the full story of its culpability from coming to light.
Archbishop John G. Vlazny of Portland said in a statement to parishioners that bankruptcy was the "best choice" because "circumstances beyond my control have created great financial risk." He said the bankruptcy filing would allow the church's parishes and schools to operate while financial issues were resolved.
• Accused priest: Not at parish at that time [1961 Wilt] - RCC. Girl.
Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh), By Ann Rodgers, Wednesday, July 07, 2004
PITTSBURGH (PA): The Rev. George Wilt, the retired pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church in Mt. Lebanon who is accused of molesting a 13-year-old girl in 1961, says he wasn't at that parish until seven years after she claims he abused her there.
"He is saying absolutely he did not do it, and the hard evidence proves he did not do it," said William Pietragallo II, an attorney who released a statement on Wilt's behalf.
Wilt, 72, stepped down last year after 35 years as a priest and pastor at St. Bernard.
A lawsuit, filed last week, claims that Wilt fondled "Jane Doe II" in 1961 when she was a student at St. Bernard school and he was called in to counsel her in the rectory because she said her father had sexually abused her.
• Time has run out for abuse cases, diocesan lawyers say [1989 Wellinger] - RCC.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette By Ann Rodgers, Wednesday, July 07, 2004
PITTSBURGH (PA): The first hearing in a lawsuit claiming that the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh conspired to protect priests against allegations of child sexual abuse focused not on whether a priest molested a child but on whether the cases are too old to try.
Allegheny Common Pleas Court Judge R. Stanton Wettick spent 23 minutes questioning attorneys for both sides. He will rule later.
The accusations concerning 14 priests and former priests are long past the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse. Which is why the suit is claiming a conspiracy on the part of the diocese.
To test their argument, attorneys for 25 plaintiffs chose the case of the former Rev. John Wellinger, who is accused of molesting 11-year-old Chris Matthews in 1989.
The Post-Gazette's policy is to withhold the names of victims of alleged sexual abuse, but Matthews, now 26, has given his permission to publish his name. He says the diocese broke a promise to his parents to "defrock" Wellinger. Diocesan officials say Bishop Donald Wuerl forbade Wellinger ever to dress, act or identify himself as a priest again.
• Former Central Illinois Priest Faces Sex Abuse Charges [1977, 1979 Benham] - RCC.
WEEK, Posted 11:03pm July 6, 2004
LINCOLN (IL): A former priest who lives in Lincoln will soon face charges of sexual abuse in Maryland.
Earlier this year, two people in that state came forward with the allegations after more than 25 years had passed.
Francis Benham, a former priest in the Diocese of Washington D.C., will be extradited to Maryland to face two charges of sexual abuse dating back to 1977 and 1979.
Attorney Fred Nessler says the window of opportunity to report abuse only starts closing in states such as Illinois after the victim acknowledges the abuse and its impact on their life, sometimes decades after the crimes are committed.
• Priest can be charged in old sex case, court rules [1975 ~ '78 Graham] - RCC.
Post-Dispatch, By Peter Shinkle, July 06, 2004
ST. LOUIS (MO): In a ruling that could open the door to more sex abuse charges, a state appeals court said Tuesday that a St. Louis priest can be charged with sodomy for allegedly molesting a child more than a quarter century ago.
The Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District issued an opinion reversing a St. Louis circuit judge, who ruled last November that too much time had passed for the priest, Thomas Graham, to be charged with the crime.
In the case, Graham is accused of performing oral sex on a teen-age boy at some point from January 1975 to the end of 1978 in the rectory of the Old Cathedral, a St. Louis landmark considered the oldest Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi.
Graham's attorneys argued too much time had passed for him to be charged, and they pointed to conflicting rulings by the Missouri Supreme Court. But in Tuesday's opinion, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals ruled that the language of the law permitting the charge was "plain and clear."
• Portland Archdiocese declares bankruptcy -- two trials avoided
CNN, Posted: 2255 GMT (0655 HKT) Tuesday, July 6, 2004
PORTLAND (OR): (CNN) -- The archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday, just as the civil trials of two priests accused of sexual abuse were set to begin, Archbishop John Vlazny announced.
Vlazny said the filing was not an attempt to avoid responsibility for abuse allegations, but was "the only way I can assure that other claimants can be offered fair compensation," and to keep the archdiocese's schools and parishes operating.
No other American diocese has filed for bankruptcy, though Boston threatened to do so at the height of the abuse crisis that began there two years ago, according to The Associated Press. The Diocese of Tucson, Arizona, has said it will decide whether to seek court protection before an abuse trial there in September, according to the AP.
Chapter 11 protects an organization from being sued by its creditors while it restructures.
• Paterson's Bishop Arrives, Preaching and Politicking
The New York Times By ROBERT HANLEY, Published: July 7, 2004
PATERSON, N.J., July 6 - With a vow to uphold the Catholic Church's teachings against abortion and euthanasia, and a pledge to protect children from evil, the Rev. Arthur J. Serratelli was installed on Tuesday as the bishop of the Diocese of Paterson.
Bishop Serratelli, 60, a biblical scholar and seminary professor, said in his homily that his mission was to preach Christ's Gospel, and he urged all Catholics, clergy and lay members alike, to do likewise. He called the Gospel the way to justice and to peace. "It is the very salvation of the world," Bishop Serratelli said. ...
In the last two years, the diocese has been buffeted by the sexual abuse scandal that has shaken the church in the United States. Supporters of abuse victims in the diocese have said they were disenchanted with Bishop Rodimer's response to the scandal and expressed hopes that Bishop Serratelli would be more sensitive and responsive.
The newly installed bishop did not refer directly to the scandal in his homily. But he devoted part of it to the story of an 11-year-old saint in the Catholic Church, Maria Goretti, who was assaulted and fatally stabbed by a neighbor in her Italian village in 1902. Before the girl died, she forgave her assailant.
Bishop Serratelli called her a "martyr for purity."
• Oregon archdiocese files Chapter 11 [Grammond]
Houston Chronicle, By AVIVA L. BRANDT, Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Portland Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy Tuesday because of the steep costs of clergy sex abuse lawsuits, an unprecedented step that could open the Roman Catholic archdiocese to new levels of court scrutiny.
No other American diocese has filed for bankruptcy, though Boston threatened to do so at the height of the abuse crisis that began there two years ago. The Diocese of Tucson, Ariz., has said it will decide whether to seek court protection before an abuse trial in September.
Portland's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing halted the trial of a lawsuit against the late Rev. Maurice Grammond, who was accused of molesting more than 50 boys in the 1980s. Grammond died in 2002.
Plaintiffs in the two lawsuits involving Grammond have sought a total of more than $160 million. The archdiocese and its insurers already have paid more than $53 million over 50 years to settle more than 130 claims by people who say they were abused by priests.
• Alleged abuse victims pressure LA cardinal over outreach effort [1988 Aguilar] - RCC. Altar boys.
The Mercury News, www.mercurynews. com/mld/mercurynews/ news/breaking_news/ 9092291.htm?ERIGHTS=-527948 1807526220152 mercurynews::kashaw@ peoplepc.com&KRD_RM= 4nrnolomtsptrnr kkkkkkkkloo|Kathleen|Y ; By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (CA): Alleged victims of clergy sex abuse pressured Cardinal Roger Mahony Tuesday to step up efforts to find possible victims of a Mexican priest who previously worked in two Los Angeles parishes.
The priest, Father Nicolas Aguilar, spent nine months at Our Lady of Guadalupe parish and St. Agatha's parish between April 1987 and January 1988, when two altar boys told their mother the priest had abused them.
Aguilar was suspended by the diocese and then fled to Mexico. He was charged with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child but never arrested.
Officials with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles - the largest in the nation - said they tried in 1988 to reach potential victims by reading letters in both parishes shortly after Aguilar left for Mexico. [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 01:03 AM]
////////// End of Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse , Wed, July 07, 2004
Religions' sex abuse Chronology, visit: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethics/ethcont87.htm
• Former football umpire jailed for sexually abusing boys. [1985-90 Sherwood, 9yrs+ gaol] -- No religion link reported
The West Australian, by David Darragh, p 9, Wednesday, July 7, 2004
PERTH (W. Australia): A former junior football umpire has been labelled evil and cruel by a District Court judge for sexually abusing two teenage trainee umpires in the 1980s.
Peter Nolan Sherwood, 58, formerly of Tuart Hill, was jailed yesterday for nine years and two months after a jury found him guilty of 20 sex offences, including attempted sexual penetration and gross indecency, after a two-week trial in May.
The court was told that Sherwood, who is now infected with HIV, showed the boys pornographic videos and plied them with alcohol, amyl nitrate, and, on one occasion, cannabis, to make them more receptive to his sexual advances.
In sentencing, Judge Peter Blaxell said that evil and cruel was the only way to describe Sherwood's callous offences against one of the trainee umpires over a six-year period from 1985.
Sherwood intimidated the teenager into continuing their sexual relationship by threatening to "out" him among his football mates. He also threatened to seduce the victim's younger brother if he did not submit to the abuse.
... teenager ... dropped out of school and sport ... drugs. ... abused the second victim ... two-year period ... [...] ... He tried to rape one victim after luring him into a spa. ... claimed there was a conspiracy against him. ... sexual abuse ... two other former junior umpires ...
• Driver of disabled on sex charges. [2004 No name reported] -- No religion link reported
The West Australian, p 9, Wednesday, July 7, 2004
PERTH (W. Australia): A bus driver for the Activ Foundation has been charged with sexually abusing two intellectually disabled people during trips from their supported workplaces.
The 61-year-old Joondanna man was charged with two counts of sexually penetrating an incapable person, six counts of indecently dealing with an incapable person and four counts of procuring an incapable person.
Police allege he committed the offences between May 1 and June 26 on the bus while driving the alleged victims, a man aged 49 and a woman of 20, from Activ Foundation workshops. [Activ without a terminal "e" is the correct name of this sheltered workshop group.]
or click Clergy Sex Abuse Tracker www.ncrnews.org/abuse for current on-line
The Boston Globe Spotlight http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse
The Needle periodically, and books: pbpress@iinet.net.au W. Australia
References at: www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/ethicscontents.htm
Overview at: www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/minilist.htm
Books: www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/carnalbooks.htm
Buy Fidelity magazine www.j23.com.au Australia
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• Fraud linked to the Vatican -- the Frankel fire case & $US 208m frauds Lexington Herald-Leader, www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/nation/9082797.htm , By Lynda Edwards, ASSOCIATED PRESS JACKSON, Miss. - The torching of financier Martin Frankel's $3 million mansion in Greenwich, Conn., was meant to destroy evidence of an insurance scam that cost Mississippi and other states millions, police said. But not everything went up in flames. Firefighters searching the rubble found Frankel's pornographic videos, jewel-encrusted mobile phones, Ouija board and "Things to Do List." No. 1 was: "Launder more money NOW." The financier, who initially fled to Europe, was extradited and pleaded guilty in 2002 in Mississippi to stealing $208 million in five states. But that did not end the case for Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale. While unraveling Frankel's web of trickery, Dale found a thread that led to the Vatican. In a lawsuit Dale filed, which is moving toward a jury trial in U.S. District Court in Jackson, he claims Vatican officials violated the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Damages, if Dale prevails, could be more than $600 million. • Frankel's financial trickery linked to the Vatican. Toledo Blade, www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040705/NEWS08/407050353 , ASSOCIATED PRESS, Monday, July 5, 2004 JACKSON, Miss. - The torching of financier Martin Frankel's $3 million mansion in Greenwich, Conn., was meant to destroy evidence of an insurance scam that cost Mississippi and other states millions, police said. But not everything went up in flames. Firefighters searching the rubble found Frankel's pornographic videos, jewel-encrusted mobile phones, Ouija board, and "Things to Do List." No. 1 was: "Launder more money NOW." The former Toledoan, who initially fled to Europe, was extradited and pleaded guilty in 2002 in Mississippi to stealing $208 million in five states. But that did not end the case for Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale. While unraveling Frankel's web of trickery, Mr. Dale found a thread that led into the secretive halls of the Vatican. And he is determined to follow it, even though, as he says, "This step meant some soul searching." In a lawsuit Mr. Dale filed, which is moving toward a jury trial in U.S. District Court in Jackson, he claims Vatican officials violated the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act [RICO]. Damages, if Mr. Dale prevails, could be more than $600 million. A Vatican spokesman denies the Roman Catholic church profited from business dealings with Frankel or accepted funds he stole. The church has filed a motion to dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction, and a ruling is expected this summer. Mr. Dale remains determined to pursue his suit against "The Holy See aka Vatican City State" and others. "The evidence of wrongdoing my investigators accumulated was so clear," he says. "State officials are always slammed as paper pushers. But two federal agencies fumbled the ball with Frankel. The Internal Revenue Service approved Frankel's taxes. The FBI had suspicions but made no moves. In the end, insurance commissioners brought this guy down." Just days before Frankel's mansion burned in 1999, he and his associates went to Jackson to discuss a possible tie between Vatican officials and the insurance scam. Frankel didn't show. Those who did appear and were questioned included Thomas Bolan, a former New York prosecutor and powerhouse fund-raiser for the Republican party and the Catholic church; Monsignor Emilio Colagiovanni, a member of the board that provides the Pope's legal counsel; and the Rev. Peter Jacobs, a New York priest who was also a Vatican insider. "He showed me his ring and said it was a gift from Pope Paul or Pope John, some pope," Mr. Dale said of Father Jacobs. "He said, 'The Pope blessed this ring - do you want to kiss it?" ' "No, not particularly," replied Mr. Dale, a Baptist deacon whose wife was raised Catholic. The scam that threw these unlikely antagonists together began in 1998 when Frankel formed a bogus Catholic charity, the St. Francis of Assisi Foundation, with $55 million. The Vatican got $5 million of the seed money, according to court documents. Monsignor Colagiovanni agreed to oversee St. Francis and vouch for it with investors. Frankel would control the remainder of St. Francis funds. He used the money to buy financially desperate insurance companies, then spent policyholders' money on drugs, diamonds, sex clubs, vacations, cars, call girls, and Concorde tickets, prosecutors said. The Vatican became involved with Frankel after he had been banned by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from doing deals with brokers and investment advisers. The 1992 ban forced Frankel on a quest for new partners with prestige and deep pockets. By 1998, Frankel had an entree to the Vatican: Mr. Bolan. A fervent Catholic and Roy Cohn's ex-law partner, Mr. Bolan, now 79, had raised millions for Vatican charities and Ronald Reagan's re-election campaign. Frankel paid Mr. Bolan more than $75,000 in legal fees, court documents show. In return, Mr. Bolan introduced Frankel to influential priests like Father Jacobs and the Vatican equivalent of Fed chairman Alan Greenspan - economic affairs prefect Bishop Francesco Salerno. Mr. Bolan's attorney, Maurice Nessen, did not return calls for this story. Pitching the St. Francis project to Bishop Salerno, Father Jacobs, and Mr. Bolan allegedly said Frankel would control the bulk of the money, but his involvement would remain hidden. A Vatican official would head St. Francis, and the Vatican would get a cut of the proceeds for its trouble. Monsignor Colagiovanni, 83, supervised St. Francis on Frankel's behalf. In response to Associated Press requests for comment, spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said that at the time, Monsignor Colagiovanni was retired from the Vatican board that provides the Pope's legal counsel. Still, Monsignor Colagiovanni wore a papal ring and clerical robes. He used Vatican stationery, telephone lines, and fax machines on Frankel's behalf. Monsignor Colagiovanni also supervised Monitor Ecclesiasticus, a canon law review distributed globally to bishops and cardinals. The publication offered a special advantage for Frankel. As a non-Catholic, he could not open a Vatican Bank account, but Monitor Ecclesiasticus did have an account. When Frankel had money he didn't want the Internal Revenue Service to count, he would wire it to the law review's account. Frankel flew Vatican officials by Concorde to his Connecticut mansion to complete details. Mr. Dale claims that Bishop Salerno approved the arrangement. Bishop Salerno went on to oversee the Vatican supreme court. Responding to requests for comment from Bishop Salerno, the Vatican Press Office said, "There is a trial under way. The trial continues and we are not interfering." Insurance company officials in Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma were targeted by Frankel. When some of the firms' executives got jumpy about their prospective new owner, Monsignor Colagiovanni reassured them, the complaint says, and sometimes gave them personal, behind-the-scenes tours of Vatican City. By the end of 1998, Frankel was funneling $434 million in bogus insurance company policies through St. Francis. Mr. Dale said that Frankel's companies sold "small face policies, meaning the most a claim would ever pay off would be $10,000." Frankel kept enough money in insurance company coffers to pay the few claims filed during his tenure. But insurance companies are legally required to keep millions in reserve. The millions are acquired through sound investments like blue-chip stocks. Reserves protect the company and policyholders in case catastrophe - like tornadoes or an epidemic - strikes a state and launches an avalanche of claims. "But Frankel spent the reserve money on himself," Mr. Dale said. When an insurance company is purchased by another entity, "change of control" forms must be submitted to the state. But Mr. Dale's deputy, Lee Harrell, noticed that three floundering insurers were part of a trust purchased by St. Francis but had never filed the forms. "We called the insurance company executives to find out where their assets were invested and got weird, panicky, evasive answers," Mr. Dale said. He did glean names of St. Francis trustees and supporters, and he summoned them to Mississippi. Following the 1999 session with Frankel's trustees in Jackson, Mr. Dale demanded that the St. Francis representatives return $200 million worth of reserve assets to the Mississippi insurance companies. The insurance companies went bankrupt days later. Mississippi's guaranty fund picked up the tab for claims filed by Frankel's policyholders. Ignoring Mr. Dale's summons, Frankel skipped the meeting. "We know that Frankel made it as far as the Hilton lobby, but we never met him face to face," Mr. Dale said. In 2002, both Frankel and Monsignor Colagiovanni pleaded guilty to fraud in Mississippi. Meanwhile, Mr. Dale and Mr. Harrell continued tracing the paper trail that led them to sue the Vatican in 2001. # * Also see: "As Frankel awaits sentence, loose ends abound," Toledo Blade, www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? AID=/20040809/NEWS08/408090317/-1/NEWS ; By ROBIN ERB, BLADE STAFF WRITER, Aug/09/04 [Jul 5, 04] |
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