Vol. 1, No 89
________________________________________________________
Op-Ed
This section of NSAC News is designed to permit Survivor Advocates to express their opinions and ideas relevant to the subject matter of this newsletter. Your participation is invited and encouraged. Letters to the Editor addressing a particular article should be sent to the Editor of the publication. in which the article originally appeared
Special From; Fr. Robert Hoatson NSACoalition Member July 2, 2009
During the week of June 21-27, 2009, I traveled to London, Dublin, and Belfast for the screenings of a film about clergy sexual abuse for which I was a consultant. A Belfast native, Maeve Murphy, wrote, directed, and co-produced the film, “Beyond the Fire, ” a fictitious but true to life story of an ex-priest who leaves Northern Ireland for London in order to search for the priest who sexually abused him when he was a boy. In London, he does not find the priest at first, and bunks for a few nights with a distant cousin who is a band leader. The band’s manager, a woman who was raped a year ago and who shares a flat with the band leader, meets the ex-priest and the sparks fly. The film brilliantly explores the themes of trauma and post traumatic stress disorder and all the other after-effects of having been sexually abused.
I attended a screening in London on June 22 and participated in a question and answer period afterward with some patrons and media from London. I then traveled to Dublin where I met with John Kelly, the leader of the largest survivor organization in Ireland, SOCA (Survivors of Child Abuse), with 5-6 thousand members. I also had the pleasure of meeting with Maeve Lewis, Executive Director of One in Four, a counseling and advocacy center located about a half block from where my grandmother was born in Dublin. Maeve told me that in the wake of the release of the Ryan Commission Report, nearly 400 new survivors had phoned the center looking for help.
I also had the opportunity to trace some of my religious life history, having been an Irish Christian Brother for nearly 25 years. I knew the Ryan Commission Report would be very critical of the Christian Brothers because of sexual and physical abuse. I had a chance to do some research on the brothers in Ireland, and I visited the oldest Christian Brothers school in Dublin.
After two days in Dublin, I headed to Belfast for another screening of Maeve Murphy’s movie at Queens Film Theater next to the campus of the Queen’s University. Maeve Murphy and I were interviewed by BBC One of Northern Ireland (television and radio) and Radio station FM 96.7 Belfast. The screening was nearly sold-out and we engaged in a 40 minute question and answer session after the screening which was recorded for the Sunday BBC program, Sunday Sequence. The film was well received and the questions from the audience were good. Colm O’Gorman, founder of One in Four and now director of Amnesty International in Ireland, was on the panel for the question and answer period.
All in all, the week was, as the Irish would say, “brilliant.” Since I returned home, I have received four phone calls regarding new survivors of abuse in the New Jersey area. One young man has been sexually abused for the past five years by his pastor…yes, the immediate past five years (2004-2009!). We are helping him recover.
Bob Hoatson
_______________________________________________________
1. Victims’ groups under pressure – IRELAND – Sunday Business Post
2. Vatican inquiry to focus on religious order – Sunday Business Post (Ireland)
3. Empowerment Solidarity Gathering for Crosier Sexual Abuse Survivors – MINNESOTA -
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
4. Vatican runs deficit amid weak donations – VATICAN CITY – PRESS TV (Iran)
5. More church properties face liens – VERMONT – Burlington Free Press
6. Rally Wasn’t Lobbying – CONNECTICUT – The Hartford Courant
7. Sex-abuse suits target DeSales order – PENNSYLVANIA – The Morning Call
________________________________________________________
IRELAND
Sunday Business Post
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Help groups have been inundated with calls since the publication of the Ryan Report, but cannot rely on sustained funding from the government, writes Public Affairs Correspondent John Burke.
Over the past six weeks, 476 people have contacted sexual abuse advocacy group One In Four for the first time.
This figure represented more new victims coming forward than the agency would normally encounter in an average year.
Last Monday alone, 70 people called for the first time.’ ‘The phones did not stop all day,” said Maeve Lewis, director of One In Four.
********************************************************
Sunday Business Post (Ireland)
Sunday, July 05, 2009
The Vatican has appointed a Spanish bishop to investigate the Legionaries of Christ in Ireland and other European countries, writes Kieron Wood.
The founder of the Catholic congregation, Fr Marcial Maciel, who died last year, was ordered by Pope Benedict to spend his final years in prayer and penance after being accused of sexual abuse and of fathering one or more children.
The Legionaries of Christ set up their first Irish house in Bundoran, Co Donegal, in 1960. Two years later, they opened a novitiate in Malahide, Co Dublin.
********************************************************
Empowerment Solidarity Gathering for Crosier Sexual Abuse Survivors
MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests [SNAP] will hold two (2) events for victims of clergy sexual abuse by members of the Crosier Fathers and Brothers Religious Order. Both will be on Saturday, July 11th.
Event 1 -Noon- Public outreach activity
WHAT:
We will unite at noon for a dignified, silent one hour vigil on the public sidewalk on Wall St. outside the 2009 Crosier All-School Reunion being held at the former Crosier Seminary in Onamia, MN. Each person will be asked to hold childhood pictures of when they, their spouse, their loved one or a friend were sexually abused. The media will be invited.
THE GOAL:
To honor those who have been hurt by abusive clergy and reach out, via the news media and our solidarity, to others who have been molested and are trapped in shame, silence and self blame.
********************************************************
VATICAN CITY
PRESS TV (Iran)
The Vatican says the global economic crisis has taken its toll on its budget, which suffered in 2008 due to lack of donations and troubled finances.
The Holy See press office posted a budget deficit of around €0.9 million ($1.27 million) for 2008, a slightly improved figure compared with a loss of €9.06 million ($12.7 million) in 2007, the Associated Press reported.
The financial report released Saturday listed €254.8 million in expenses spent in supporting the activities of Pope Benedict XVI and the Holy See’s offices as well as running its costly media, including Vatican Radio, the report said.
********************************************************
VERMONT
Burlington Free Press
By Sam Hemingway, Free Press Staff Writer • July 5, 2009
A drop in the value of church property has led a Burlington judge to put liens on four church-owned rest homes and part of the state Roman Catholic diocese’s investments in order to cover monetary awards in two priest sex abuse cases.
Among the properties affected are the St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged on North Prospect Street in Burlington, rest homes in Derby and Rutland, the now-closed Camp Holy Cross site in Colchester and $1.8 million of the diocese’s $8.5 million financial portfolio.
The move was made after a real-estate appraiser hired by the diocese determined the 32-acre site of the diocesan headquarters on North Avenue in Burlington was worth $6 million, not the $11 million amount assigned to the property on the city’s grand list.
********************************************************
CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant
July 5, 2009
Connecticut’s Office of State Ethics owes Attorney General Richard Blumenthal a debt of gratitude for talking it down from conducting an inquiry it would have come to regret.
The ethics agency had begun an investigation of whether a protest rally organized by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport on the Capitol grounds in Hartford last March violated the state’s lobbyist-registration statute. (For example, the diocese might have spent more than the statute’s $2,000 threshold amount on renting buses without registering.) Catholics were protesting an ill-conceived bill – which was quickly withdrawn – that would have radically changed the way churches handled their internal financial affairs.
Earlier this week, Mr. Blumenthal said that whether the lobby-registration law applied was not as important as the likelihood that a court would find the ethics agency’s inquiry to be illegally intrusive and in violation of the separation of church and state. Under the circumstances – a protest rally at the seat of state government – the rights of freedom of assembly, speech and religion would trump the lobby law, he said.
********************************************************
PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call
By Matt Birkbeck | and Darryl R. Isherwood
OF THE MORNING CALL
July 5, 2009
In fall 1984, a young seminarian was fulfilling a lifelong dream studying to become a priest at the Brisson Seminary in Center Valley.
But the dream quickly turned into a nightmare for the 18-year old, who told The Morning Call he was sexually assaulted by a priest at Brisson in January 1985.
The seminarian said he immediately reported it to seminary officials and to the Oblates of St. Francis DeSales, the religious order that operated the seminary.
The allegation came one month after the Diocese of Allentown, which sent students to study at the seminary, had begun an investigation of Brisson following a raucous ordination party in October 1984 that involved drunkenness and allegations of a sexual encounter between two priests.
********************************************************
Note: If you know someone who would be interested in receiving these daily news compilations from NSAC, forward their name and email address to me. I’ll ask their permission and add them to the mailing list.
Steve Sheehan
Publisher