Vol. 1, No 55
1. Inquiry into clerical abuse will only name known offenders - IRELAND -
Sunday Business Post2.
2. In all things, charity – UNITED STATES – Father Lasch3.
3. Who Is a Real Catholic? – UNITED STATES – Washington Post4.
4. Public show of support for accused could send wrong message – SALINAS (CA) -
Monterey Herald5.
5. Discovery of ‘genocide’ priest taints Vatican – ITALY – The Times (United Kingdom)
6. Weakland says he didn’t know priests’ abuse was crime - MILWAUKEE (WI) – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
7. Uncle Ted gets love from St. Luke’s Institute – UNITED STATES – Beliefnet
8. Waitress: Priest Exposed Himself - MICHIGAN – Click on Detroit
9.Clericalism, Religious Duress and its Psychological Impact on Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse – UNITED STATES – Springer Link10.
10. Speakers at public forum share stories of childhood sexual abuse and search for healing – MINNESOTA – Morrison County Record
11. Another abuse suit filed against diocese, priest – DELAWARE – The News Journal12.
12. Inspection aims to find pedophile clergymen – GALLUP (NM) – Gallup Independentv
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Inquiry into clerical abuse will only name known offenders
IRELAND
Sunday Business Post
Sunday, May 17, 2009 By John Burke
The statutory inquiry into clerical abuse in the Dublin archdiocese will identify only abusers whose names are already in the public domain.
The Sunday Business Post has learned that the report, which is near completion, will only publicly name priests who have either previously been convicted in court or those who have ”a notorious reputation”. This means that no new names of abusive clerics will emerge from the long awaited report, which will detail widespread evidence of repeat offences.
The report covers alleged claims of abuse against priests who were based in the diocese between 1975 and 2004,mostly during the period of Cardinal Desmond Connell’s stewardship as archbishop of Dublin.
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In all things, charity
UNITED STATES
Father Lasch
It continues to astound me how the Scriptures come to life over and over again under different circumstances. No matter how familiar I may be with a particular passage or combination of texts, life experiences continue to influence the way I read or hear the text proclaimed at worship. This is particularly true on special occasions such as weddings, anniversaries and funerals. This may be attributed to the fact that on these occasions, the congregation is present not so much to fulfill a religious obligation but freely as it were, in order to celebrate or find deeper meaning in life through the lens of special events. …
Triggered by the scandal of the priest in Florida who was pictured with his ‘date’ on the cover of a tabloid magazine last week, Fox News commentator, Lou Dobbs, invited two priests – one a celibate convert who became a Catholic in protest to the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church. The other priest was noted writer and author, Anthony Padovano, a priest who was dispensed from his vows and no longer functioning canonically as an active priest. The segment was just long enough for a strong case to be made for optional rather than mandatory celibacy. For at least half of the life of the Church, there were married priests and the reasons for the imposition of mandatory celibacy were neither traditional nor deeply theological. Quite frankly, the defense of celibacy offered by the celibate priest was more embarrassing than cogent. Ironically, the married priest made a stronger case for optional celibacy than the celibate. In any case, a married priesthood has existed in the Eastern discipline of the Roman Catholic Church for centuries and there are many good reasons why it could work within the western discipline of the Church.
Church authoritties would do well to take a second look at the way the early Church evolved and functioned as it gradually became acclimated to early believers, both Jews and gentiles and to other cultures as the Church expanded west toward Rome and east toward Asia.
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Who Is a Real Catholic?
UNITED STATES
Washington Post
By David Gibson
Sunday, May 17, 2009
All you need to know to diagnose the state of the Catholic Church in America today is that Pope Benedict XVI — who has a knack for ticking off Muslims and Jews — spent the past week wandering the Middle East, yet Catholics here barely noticed. They were too busy fighting over Barack Obama’s appearance as commencement speaker at Notre Dame or arguing about the fate of a popular Miami priest known as “Father Oprah,” who was caught on camera sharing a seaside embrace with his girlfriend.
Is this what Catholicism in America has come to? Bickering about whether Notre Dame is really Catholic, or whether a priest can make out on the beach with his gal pal? Well, yes. And that should come as no surprise.
Since the emergence of Catholicism in the 19th century as a counterweight to the United States’s reigning Protestant culture, American Catholics have struggled to balance their desire to assimilate into society with the fear of losing their faith in the nation’s melting pot. These new controversies show that, in the Catholic saga, assimilation is winning.
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Public show of support for accused could send wrong message
SALINAS (CA)
Monterey Herald
By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Herald Salinas Bureau
Updated: 05/17/2009 01:25:41 AM PDT
When the Rev. Antonio Cortes goes to court for a preliminary hearing Friday on charges alleging he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old boy, the courtroom will likely be packed with his faithful supporters.
A national spokesman for victims of sexual molestation said such public displays of support are common, but inappropriate, in clergy abuse cases.
David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said vocal support for accused child molesters sends a damaging message to others who are being abused, whether at the hands of a priest or a parent: Don’t tell. No one will believe you.
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Discovery of ‘genocide’ priest taints Vatican
ITALY
The Times (United Kingdom)
Jon Swain
THE Vatican has come under renewed pressure to purge its ranks of suspected killers after a second Rwandan Catholic priest accused of involvement in the 1994 genocide was found to be working in Italy under an assumed name.
An international arrest warrant is being prepared by Rwanda for Father Emmanuel Uwayezu following the discovery that he is working in a parish at Empoli, near Florence. It will accuse him of direct complicity in the massacre of more than 80 students, aged from 12 to 20, at a Catholic school where he was headmaster. …
Uwayezu denied taking part in the genocide and said he had tried to save the students. He said their deaths still haunted him. He is a Hutu like another notorious Rwandan priest, Athanase Seromba, who joined the campaign to exterminate Rwanda’s Tutsi minority and who also ended up in Florence.
After the genocide they both escaped to Italy with the help of Catholic supporters and began new lives as priests with the approval of Florence’s archbishop. g prepared by Rwanda for Father Emmanuel Uwayezu following the discovery that he is working in a parish at Empoli, near Florence. It will accuse him of direct complicity in the massacre of more than 80 students, aged from 12 to 20, at a Catholic school where he was headmaster. …
Uwayezu denied taking part in the genocide and said he had tried to save the students. He said their deaths still haunted him. He is a Hutu like another notorious Rwandan priest, Athanase Seromba, who joined the campaign to exterminate Rwanda’s Tutsi minority and who also ended up in Florence.
After the genocide they both escaped to Italy with the help of Catholic supporters and began new lives as priests with the approval of Florence’s archbishop.
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Weakland says he didn’t know priests’ abuse was crime
MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: May. 15, 2009
In the early years of the sex abuse scandal in Milwaukee, retired Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland says in his soon-to-be released memoir, he did not comprehend the potential harm to victims or understand that what the priests had done constituted a crime.
“We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature,” Weakland says in the book, “A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church,” due out in June.
Weakland said he initially “accepted naively the common view that it was not necessary to worry about the effects on the youngsters: either they would not remember or they would ‘grow out of it.’ ”
Clergy victims reacted angrily to the revelation.
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Uncle Ted gets love from St. Luke’s Institute
UNITED STATES
Beliefnet
Rod Dreher
A Catholic friend in Washington writes to say that he’s just received a “save the date” notice for October 19, when the retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington will receive the St. Luke Institute Award at the Vatican Embassy. According to the St. Luke Institute:
At the Annual Benefit, the Saint Luke Award is presented to an individual who in their professional life or charitable works embodies the ideals of the Institute: the rebuilding of the spiritual, physical, emotional and intellectual life of their brothers and sisters. In undertaking these tasks, the honoree is motivated by the Gospel ideals of compassion, charity, and a belief that all persons are brothers and sisters in Christ.
Ah, the St. Luke Institute, whose director, Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, once wrote the following words (cited by Diogenes):
In the 10 years in which Saint Luke Institute has treated over 300 priests who have sexually molested minors, we currently know of only 2 who have relapsed into child sexual abuse. While it is likely that there are others whom we do not know about, our experience to date suggests that it is improbable that a priest will relapse if he has done well in residential treatment, complied with our 5-year after-care program and engaged in ongoing supervision and outpatient treatment. …
Monsignor Rossetti, who was one of the top advisers to the US Catholic bishops on how to handle ex abusers. wrote those words in 1995, in the Jesuit magazine America. Let go of your inner anger at the child molesting cleric among us, why don’t you? As Catholic World Report’s Diogenes reminds us, the late Father John Geoghan, the molesting monster of Boston, was treated by Msgr. Rossetti and his crew twice — in 1989 and 1995
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Waitress: Priest Exposed Himself
MICHIGAN
Click on Detroit
A Downriver priest will be sentenced next month for disorderly conduct. The charge stems from an incident at a restaurant where a waitress reported seeing him expose himself and rub his private parts.
Rev. Roger Knapp was arraigned earlier this week on charges of lewdness and indecent exposure. According to the Heritage News-Herald, the incident happened the afternoon of March 26 at Amigo’s Restaurant, 22085 West Road.
Under a plea bargain, Knapp pleaded no contest to the charge of disorderly conduct and the charge of lewd and indecent exposure was dropped. Knapp is expected to be sentenced June 4 to nine months probation. If he follows the terms of his probation, the charge will be dropped.
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Clericalism, Religious Duress and its Psychological Impact on Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse
UNITED STATES
Springer Link
Marianne Benkert and Thomas P. Doyle
Published online: 14 January 2009
Abstract Religious duress is a unique kind of threat and constraint involuntarily experienced by some members of the Roman Catholic Church as a result of religious indoctrination and training. Fear, awe and respect for the clergy foster the development and actualization of religious duress. This phenomenon can seriously impede a person’s capacity to accurately perceive and evaluate abusive actions perpetrated on them by clergy. This constraint poses an impediment to emotional and spiritual development. Internalized religious duress confuses and psychologically overwhelms such individuals and renders them incapable of absorbing their sexual trauma. The consequent feelings of numbness and immobility distort the perception of reality. It then becomes impossible for the individual to act in a manner that would protect and promote emotional growth and spiritual well being.
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Speakers at public forum share stories of childhood sexual abuse and search for healing
MINNESOTA
Morrison County Record
During a public forum in Little Falls May 2, four men shared their stories. Stories of trust betrayed and pain and shame endured in silence.
Three of the men experienced their betrayal at the hands of their parish priest. The fourth, at the hands of a foster parent.
“For 35 years I wondered why God had forsaken me,” said Bob Schwiderski of Wayzata. “It took a group of Christian men to convince me he hadn’t.”
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Another abuse suit filed against diocese, priest
DELAWARE
The News Journal
A 43-year-old Delaware man who claims he was sexually abused in 1979 by a St. Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church priest filed a lawsuit Thursday, his attorneys said.
The man, who is going under the pseudonym, John Moe No. 3, claims he was abused by the former Rev. Edward F. Dudzinski, who coached a youth baseball team.
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Inspection aims to find pedophile clergymenGALLUP (NM)
Gallup Independent
Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer
GALLUP – Officials with the Diocese of Gallup announced details of their review of priest personnel files on the same day Minnesota attorney Patrick Noaker announced he had filed a third priest abuse lawsuit against the Gallup Diocese in the Navajo Nation courts.
This current review of personnel files – reportedly an exhaustive review of more than 400 files – was triggered earlier this year when Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, then serving as the diocese’s apostolic administrator, discovered a 1983 newspaper article from Winslow, Ariz., in the personnel file of the Rev. John Boland. The article indicated Boland had been charged with misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and a felony count of committing a lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 15.
Olmsted removed Boland from ministry, launched an investigation into allegations against Boland, and then ordered the review of personnel files.
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