National Survivor Advocates Coalition

SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By VANESSA HO
SEATTLEPI.COM

Michael G. Ryan, the longtime pastor at St. James Cathedral and former top aide in the Seattle Archdiocese, took the witness stand Thursday, where he described how the local Catholic church once dealt with child-molesting priests: In a “cloak of secrecy” and with the belief that sexual abusers were treatable.

“With the hindsight we have now, we would never have done the things we did,” Ryan told jurors. “We made mistakes, for which we are sorry.”

But he denied any legal responsibility in the case now pending against the Archdiocese, in which two men abused by their priest allege that the church knew — or should have known — that the priest was a predator. Filed in King County Superior Court, the case is the first sex-abuse claim against the Archdiocese to go to trial.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Today’s TMJ4

Mick Trevey

MILWAUKEE – Former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland’s new book includes a frank discussion about the priest sex scandal, as well as Weakland’s sexual relationship with another man.

TODAY’S TMJ4 reporter Mick Trevey obtained a publisher’s preview copy of the manuscript. In the 423 pages of “A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop,” Weakland writes about his development as a priest and as an Archbishop.

The book also includes substantial discussion about the priest sex abuse scandal that happened during Weakland’s 25 years with the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

Several times, Weakland writes that sex offender priests were given more attention than the abuse victims. He writes that “in handling these cases, I had accepted naively the common view that it was not necessary to worry about the effects on the youngsters: either they would not remember it or would ‘grow out of it’.”

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Leon J. Podles: Dialogue

Archbishop Rembert Weakland was one of the more loathsome bishops who shuffled abusive priests from one parish to another without warning anyone. The history and details are at BishopAccountability and videos of his depositions can be seen here, here, here, and here.

In his 1994 interview with the Milwaukee Journal, the archbishop was more effusive and less restrained in his speculations.

An ephebophile’s sexual interest in an individual, explained the archbishop, “usually begins at puberty—say 12 or 13…What happens so often in those cases is that they go on for a few years and then the boy gets a little older and the perpetrator loses interest. Then is when the squealing starts and you have to deal it.”

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Time

By M.J. Stephey Monday, May. 25, 2009

The Rev. Alberto Cutié made an attractive poster boy for the Roman Catholic Church: he’s young, telegenic and the host of a popular Miami radio show. But since photos surfaced on May 5 showing the priest dubbed Padre Oprah frolicking with an attractive young woman, he’s become a reluctant part of the centuries-old debate over clerical celibacy.

It wasn’t until the 12th century that formal rules were established forbidding clergymen to have sex. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Peter himself had a mother-in-law (which would usually imply a wife as well). The ban had theological roots–abstaining from pleasures of the flesh to demonstrate one’s commitment to the church–but there was a practical reason too: celibacy meant no offspring vying to inherit church property. That’s not to say the rules were always followed, however. Many priests’ spirits proved weak and their flesh willing–notably the sybaritic Pope Alexander VI, who installed his teenage son as an Archbishop in 1493. Fernando Lugo, the current President of Paraguay and a former bishop, is accused of fathering three children as a man of the cloth. And while abstinence does not inevitably lead to child molestation, critics are quick to draw a link between priestly celibacy and recent pedophilia scandals.

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BELOIT (WI)
WKOW

BELOIT (WKOW) — Beloit Catholic parishioners are planning to protest Madison Bishop Robert Morlino’s decision to fire a layworker by not giving money to the Annual Catholic Appeal.

Below is a news release from the Call for Action Catholic group:

Bishop Morlino has announced his decision not to reinstate Ruth Kolpack, the church employee he fired in March over her masters’ thesis on inclusive language. In response, Ms. Kolpack’s supporters are asking fellow Catholics to respond to Bishop Morlino’s Annual Catholic Appeal fundraiser by sending in their appeal envelopes without money and with the words “Reinstate Ruth.” Ms. Kolpack has also been in consultation with a canon lawyer.

MILLERSVILLE (PA)
Lancaster Online

By STAFF

A Millersville woman has filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Allentown and a deceased priest.

Sharon Tell, 56, said the Rev. James J. McHale molested her from 1964 to 1984, starting when she was 12 years old, according to a story in The Express-Times.

The lawsuit alleges McHale, who died in 1997, ingratiated himself with her family and pretended to provide guidance and support while he was molesting her.

CALIFORNIA
California Catholic Daily

Gary Macy, a professor of theology at Jesuit-run Santa Clara University, told attendees at a Monday night lecture at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee, there is little room for historical doubt that women were ordained in the Catholic Church until about the end of the 12th century.

Macy’s lecture, entitled “A Higher Calling for Women? Historical Perspectives in the Catholic Church,” was given at Benton Chapel on the Vanderbilt campus. The university’s news service described the lecture this way: “The very idea of the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church is dismissed by many as contrary to basic church doctrine. Gary Macy, the John Nobili, S.J. Professor of Theology at Santa Clara University, says historical evidence is overwhelming that for much of the church’s history, the ordination of women was a fact.” …

According to Macy, until about the mid-12th century, women were ordained as deaconesses, served as bishops, distributed Communion and even heard confessions. “Women were considered to be as ordained as any man… they were considered clergy,” he said.

By the middle of the 12th century, said Macy, a profound change occurred in the Church’s understanding of the concept of ordination, largely as a consequence of political considerations as the Church sought to protect its property from feudal lords by inventing “a separate clerical class.” Theologians came to view women as “metaphysically different from other people,” so that, by the mere fact of being female, women were considered incapable of being ordained. Canonists adopted the position, “Women were never ordained, are not ordained now, and can never be ordained,” said Macy.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis American

By Chris King Of The St. Louis American
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 10:09 PM CDT

Two African Americans who were molested by a Catholic priest who is now sheltered at Saint Louis University’s Jesuit Hall are calling for SLU Director of Public Safety Sam Simon to come clean about their former abuser’s whereabouts and activities – and to make a full disclosure of all sex offenders currently housed or employed by the university.

“Put it all on the table so we know who these people are, where they are kept and how we can protect ourselves,” said Charles Spearman.

SLU currently houses Fr. Chester E. Gaiter at Jesuit Hall. Spearman accused Gaiter of sexually abusing him in the mid-1980s at Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School. The suit was settled in 2007, with $140,000 awarded to Spearman and both the Jesuits and the Archdiocese of St. Louis agreeing to write him letters of apology.

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