National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Vol. 1, No 100

Victim believed in priests who hurt him

Vol. 1, No 92

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Click on the headline to read the whole story.

1.  Abuse Files Shouldn’t Be Secret – CONNECTICUT – The Hartford Courant

2.  Salinas Priest Back in Court – SALINAS (CA) – KION

3.  Is DuPage Co. pedophile priest too dangerous to be free? – ILLINOIS – Daily Herald

4.  Catholic priest pleads guilty to 29 sex offences – AUSTRALIA – ABC Newcastle

5.  How Catholic Nuns Shaped America – UNITED STATES – Fox Business

6.  U.S. Catholic CEO responds to Benedict’s economic encyclical – UNITED STATES -
Reuters
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Abuse Files Shouldn’t Be Secret

CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

July 9, 2009

If only the Catholic Church had been open and honest much earlier about complaints that a few of its priests had sexually abused children, it clearly would have been better for the victims – and perhaps the scandal would have more easily receded into history.

But the church too often chose the tactics of stonewalling and cover-up.

The Diocese of Bridgeport will continue that failed policy if it decides to fight the state Supreme Court’s insistence on unsealing 12,600 pages of court files from 23 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse on the part of at least seven priests.

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Salinas Priest Back in Court

SALINAS (CA)
KION

SALINAS, Calif. – On Wednesday morning, Rev. Antonio Cortes appeared in a Monterey County courtroom for another arraignment hearing and entered a plea of not guilty.

He’s set to stand trial for child molestation charges, including one felony of sodomy and one felony of possession of child pornography.

Cortes, who’s from St. Mary of the Nativity Church, is out on bail. His bail has been lowered from $750,000 to $100,000. One of his attorneys, Eugene Martinez says, after the preliminary hearing, the judge heard the evidence and decided to lower it.

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Is DuPage Co. pedophile priest too dangerous to be free?

ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

By Christy Gutowski | Daily Herald Staff

A civil hearing is under way in DuPage County to determine if a pedophile priest is too dangerous to be set free back into his community.

Fred Lenczycki, 65, is the first member of the clergy in Illinois, and perhaps the country, to have been civilly committed beyond his prison term. He was denied parole in March 2008.

Since then, he’s continued with voluntary treatment at a state facility in Rushville, and argues that with strict monitoring and outpatient services, he poses a low risk to re-offend.

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Catholic priest pleads guilty to 29 sex offences

AUSTRALIA
ABC Newcastle

New South Wales Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to molesting dozens of boys on separate occasions in the 1970s and 80s.

John Sidney Denham was originally charged with 134 child sex offences relating to 39 boys in Sydney, Newcastle, the Hunter Valley and the state’s mid-north coast.

Today he pleaded guilty to 29 offences, with the bulk of the other charges withdrawn.

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How Catholic Nuns Shaped America

UNITED STATES
Fox Business

By Elizabeth MacDonald

The news that the Vatican is now making official inquiries into Catholic nuns in America and whether they are adhering to church doctrine obscures a very important history about nuns in this country.

For nearly three centuries, Catholic nuns have worked heroically, unselfishly, tirelessly, against all odds, to make this great country what it is today. The US economy would not have come so far through the centuries without the help of American nuns.

You rarely see the American history of Catholic nuns reported in the media. A bit of journalistic astigmatism, reductio ad absurdum.

But a new exhibit touring museums throughout America may cahnge all that. The new exhibit makes the courageous effort of Catholic nuns in shaping this country’s landscape quite plain. …

Make no mistake, I am a Catholic, and I love my faith. I don’t agree with it on a host of issues. And it’s an atrocity that Catholic priests have committed outrageous, disgusting criminal acts of sexual abuse against the young, whereby they have molested and raped children. Every last one of them should be put on trial and, if found guilty, thrown in jail.

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U.S. Catholic CEO responds to Benedict’s economic encyclical

UNITED STATES
Reuters

Posted by: Daniel Bases

Pope Benedict’s encyclical “Charity in Truth” proposed a sweeping reform of the world economic system from one based on the profit motive to one based on solidarity and concern for the common good. Like other such documents in the Roman Catholic Church’s social teaching tradition, the encyclical delivers a strong critique of unbridled capitalism. This can be uncomfortable for Catholics who champion free enterprise and some conservative Catholic writers reacted quickly and critically. One of them, George Weigel, wrote the encyclical “resembles a duck-billed platypus.”

We wanted to hear the views of a Catholic executive, one who’s involved in business rather than reacting from the sidelines. So I called Frank Keating, president and chief executive officer of the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI). The former Republican governor of Oklahoma (1995-2003) is a former chairman of the National Catholic Review Board, which he said “sought to identify and correct the horror of sexual abuse on the part of the clergy.” He is a Knight of Malta and a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.

DB: What’s your overall reaction to the encyclical?

FK:”I haven’t read the 30,000 words but I think what the pope is proposing is not inconsistent with other papal messages. The common denominator to all of them is the worth of the individual, the dignity of every human person. So Benedict XVI focuses on the right to life, he speaks against euthanasia, he speaks against the evil of abortion, he speaks against cloning. But at the same time he talks about duties and responsibilities to the vulnerable because the vulnerable are dignified human beings as well as those who are rich and powerful.

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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

Vol. 1, No 90

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Click on the headline to read the whole story.

1.  Visitors in the past – UNITED STATES – National Catholic Reporter

2.  Court won’t reconsider order to diocese to release sex abuse data – CONNECTICUT -
Connecticut Post

3.  SNAP responds to St. Louis Archbishop Carlson – T. LOUIS (MO) – Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
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Visitors in the past

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jul. 06, 2009
By Gary Macy

Editor’s note: The Vatican last January announced it had begun an apostolic visitation, or comprehensive study of U.S. women religious. The decree indicated the visitation was being undertaken to examine the quality of life of women religious. In February came news of a second Vatican women’s religious study, this of its umbrella leadership group, the Leadership of Conference of Women Religious. The studies have brought praise and have touched off considerable anxiety within the ranks of women religious.

The present Vatican investigations of U.S. communities of religious women would have astounded religious women of earlier centuries. For at least 1,200 years of Christian history, religious women would not have looked to the Vatican for oversight of their life. That prerogative belonged either to the abbess of a religious community or perhaps to the local bishop. Furthermore, bishops and religious were considered self-governing within their own communities or dioceses. Rome may have been recognized as the sole patriarch of the Western church but this did not imply that other bishops would welcome or even tolerate Rome’s interference in their affairs.

Early abbesses were powerful and acted independently not only of the papacy, but also of the local bishop. In fact, the most impressive example is the powerful Cistercian abbess of Las Huelgas near Burgos in Spain who wore her miter and carried her crosier until she was finally forbidden to do so in 1873. The abbess had the power to appoint parish priests for the countryside subject to the convent of Las Huelgas, some 64 villages. No bishop or delegate from the Holy See could perform a visitation of the churches or altars or curates or clerics or benefices under the care of the abbess. The abbess of Las Huelgas was even able to convene synods in her diocese and to make synodal constitutions and laws for both her religious and lay subjects.

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Court won’t reconsider order to diocese to release sex abuse data

CONNECTICUT
Connecticut Post

By Daniel Tepfer
Staff writer

HARTFORD — Advocates for children who say they were sexually abused by priests in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport reacted with cautious optimism Monday to the state Supreme Court’s refusal to reconsider its earlier ruling ordering the diocese to release hundreds of documents detailing decades of alleged abuse by priests.

The Supreme Court issued the brief decision without comment.

“We are inching closer to Connecticut citizens and Catholics fully learning the truth,” said David Clohessy, director of the Chicago-based SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “I fear, however, Bishop [William] Lori may still have something up his sleeve.”

“It appears justice may finally be served,” said Jim Alvord, regional coordinator of Voice of the Faithful, an organization of Catholics that supports abuse victims and is demanding greater transparency in the church’s operations. “It’s a sad, sad circumstance how the diocese has spent so much money on such a small matter of basic truthfulness.”

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SNAP responds to St. Louis Archbishop Carlson

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

[the Post-Dispatch story]

The Post Dispatch is reporting – in a lengthy, on-line story – that St. Louis’ new archbishop “acknowledges that he didn’t report” admitted child sex crimes committed by “one of the country’s most notorious pedophile priests” to authorities.

In thousands of cases, Catholic bishops ignored or concealed allegations of child sexual abuse. This case is different. The predator, Fr. Thomas Adamson, admitted his crimes to Carlson. Not once, but twice.

Carlson admits he never once called the police.

Carlson didn’t cover up allegations of devastating crimes. He covered up actual knowledge of devastating crimes.

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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

Vol. 1, No 89
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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

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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
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Victims’ groups under pressure

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.

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Vatican inquiry to focus on religious order

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.

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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.

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Vatican runs deficit amid weak donations

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.

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More church properties face liens

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.

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Rally Wasn’t Lobbying

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.

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Sex-abuse suits target DeSales order

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.

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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

Vol. 1, No 88

TABLE OF CONTENTS Click on the headline to read the whole story.

1.  Woman sues Crookston diocese – MINNESOTA – Grand Forks Herald

2.  Five prelates to begin probe of Legionaries in July – VATICAN CITY – Catholic Culture

3.  Millstreet film-maker tells harrowing story of the ‘forgotten Maggies’ – IRELAND -
The Corkman

4.  Nuns in the U.S. Are Facing Scrutiny by the Vatican – UNITED STATES -
The New York Times
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Woman sues Crookston diocese

MINNESOTA
Grand Forks Herald

By: Stephen J. Lee, Grand Forks Herald

A woman sued the Catholic Diocese of Crookston on Thursday for more than $50,000, alleging that in 2004, when she was 15, her parish priest in Greenbush, Minn., the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul, sexually abused her.

It’s an unusual case because the alleged abuse by the priest is said to have happened relatively recently and because Jeyapaul apparently fled the country in 2005.

Most cases that came to light in recent years involved abuse dating back 25 to 50 years.

Jeyapaul worked in the diocese less than a year before returning to India in September 2005, more than a year before the diocese learned of the girl’s allegations, said Monsignor David Baumgartner, vicar general of the diocese, which includes about 35,000 Catholics in northwest Minnesota. Baumgartner said the diocese saw the girl’s allegations as credible.

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Five prelates to begin probe of Legionaries in July

VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

An apostolic visitation of the Legionaries of Christ will begin August 15, with five bishops conducting inquiries in different geographical areas, Vatican officials have quietly confirmed. Informed sources at the Vatican have verified the accuracy of a reporter by Sandro Magister of L’Espresso, who said that the five bishops charged with the investigation received their detailed assignments at a June 27 meeting with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State, and other ranking officials of the Roman Curia. After investigating the affairs of the Legionaries the five prelates will report back to the Holy See.

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Millstreet film-maker tells harrowing story of the ‘forgotten Maggies’

IRELAND
The Corkman

By TRISH O’DEA

Thursday July 02 2009

A YOUNG documentary maker from Millstreet, whose ‘ The Forgotten Maggies’ is set to stir up a storm of controversy at the Galway Film Festival next Wednesday, admits that in the process of making the film “I felt ashamed to be Irish”.

The ‘ Forgotten Maggies’ picks up the stories of four women who were inmates of Cork’s notorious Magdalene Laundries after they left the workplaces they were forced into because they became pregnant when they were unmarried.

In some cases the harrowing effects of what happened to these women reverberate down through the generations. Along with the 30,000 women who lived and worked in the laundries until the last was closed in 1996, the children of these women, this documentary shows, are often deeply damaged by this legacy.

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Nuns in the U.S. Are Facing Scrutiny by the Vatican

UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: July 1, 2009
The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition.

Nuns were the often-unsung workers who helped build the Roman Catholic Church in this country, planting schools and hospitals and keeping parishes humming. But for the last three decades, their numbers have been declining – to 60,000 today from 180,000 in 1965.

While some nuns say they are grateful that the Vatican is finally paying attention to their dwindling communities, many fear that the real motivation is to reel in American nuns who have reinterpreted their calling for the modern world.

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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

Vol. 1, No 87

TABLE OF CONTENTS Click on the headline to read the whole story.

1.  Lobbying Probe Of Bridgeport Diocese Loses Momentum – CONNECTICUT – The Hartford Courant

2.  Call to address child abuse revelations in ‘broad light of day’ – IRELAND – Leitrim Observer

3.  Youngstown Bishop defends diocese handling of priest abuse – YOUNGSTOWN (OH) -
WFMJ

4.  Push to strengthen sex offender laws in Mass. – BOSTON (MA) – NECN

5.  Boston Archdiocese Cuts Benefits Of Sick, Retired Priests – MASSACHUSETTS -
WBUR
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Lobbying Probe Of Bridgeport Diocese Loses Momentum

CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

By JOSH KOVNER
The Hartford Courant

July 1, 2009

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has advised ethics officials to drop an investigation of whether a protest rally and other actions by the Diocese of Bridgeport constitutes lobbying, saying that the lobbying law is too broad and could violate freedom of religion in this instance.

Blumenthal said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon that it’s possible the church’s activities fall under the lobby registration law – the diocese, for example, might have spent over the threshold of $2,000 booking buses to take parishioners to a rally at the Capitol in March to protest a bill that would have dramatically changed the way internal church affairs are governed. The bill was withdrawn. He also noted that in the past, church officials have registered as lobbyists in other circumstances.

“The point is not whether the law applies,” said Blumenthal, whose office was asked to defend the Office of State Ethics against a federal lawsuit by the diocese that seeks to block the investigation. “It’s whether the enforcement and investigative activities would be stopped by the court, rightly, because they violated church-state separation and First Amendment rights.”

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Call to address child abuse revelations in ‘broad light of day’

IRELAND
Leitrim Observer

Published Date: 01 July 2009
Well known author and priest, Fr Liam Kelly has called for the issue of child abuse to be “looked at in its totality and in the broad light of day” following the revelations of the Ryan Report.

Speaking at the unveiling of a memorial plaque to renowned author, the late John McGahern, on the grounds of the former Presentation Brothers College, Carrick-on-Shannon, Fr Kelly recalled how McGahern had addressed the issue of abuse of children, most notably in his second novel, ‘The Dark’, published in May 1965.

“I think it is significant that we are unveiling this plaque here at a time when the country is still reeling from the Ryan Report which outlined the horrific abuse of children in institutions run by the religious orders here in Ireland. John McGahern wrote about the abuse of children in his fiction, most notably in his second novel, The Dark, which was published in May 1965. The country wasn’t ready to hear about the abuse of children then. Instead the church and state conspired against him. His book was banned and he was sacked from his teaching job,” noted Fr Kelly.

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Youngstown Bishop defends diocese handling of priest abuse

YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
WFMJ

Youngstown’s bishop will not respond to criticism of the way the diocese has handled the investigation of a priest who admitted to sexual abuse.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, (SNAP), has accused the diocese of perpetuating a culture of silence with regard to sex crimes by clergy members.

Bishop George Murry said his responsibility is to the families, and that a national review board has commended the diocese for its handling of the situation.

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Push to strengthen sex offender laws in Mass.

BOSTON (MA)
NECN

[with video]

(NECN: Brad Puffer, Boston, Mass.) – There is a push in Massachusetts to tighten the state’s sex offender laws. One bill would eliminate a 27-year statute of limitations on rape for victims under the age of 18. Today, a House committee heard from a woman who was raped 19 years ago when she was just a teenager.

House Minority Leader Bradley Jones’s measure would include adoption relationships in the state’s incest laws and a Rep. Lantigua bill would ban spying on another person in order to derive sexual gratification, as well as nude trespassing.

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Boston Archdiocese Cuts Benefits Of Sick, Retired Priests

MASSACHUSETTS
WBUR

By MONICA BRADY-MYEROV
BOSTON – The Boston Archdiocese has admitted that, within two years, it won’t have the money to pay for the care and housing of its elderly and sick priests, unless major changes are made to those benefits.

An outside study says a combination of factors, including poor management, has brought the fund that supports retired priests to the brink of insolvency. As a result, starting Wednesday, retired and sick priests are having their benefits cut.

Joe D’Arrigo is a consultant hired by the archdiocese to put the clergy fund on sound footing. He said the fund was managed by priests with little financial experience who didn’t see the problem coming. “A combination of retiree health care, the housing costs and the increasing number of retiring priests over this last eight years or so just acted like a locomotive and the cost just overtook the fund,” he said.

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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

Vol. 1, No 86
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BOOKS

Say Sorry

A Harrowing Childhood in Catholic Orphanages
By Ann Thompson

Conceived out of wedlock in 1941, Ann was just two months old when she was placed in the care of a Catholic orphanage in Christchurch, New Zealand.   From the beginning, she was taught her mother was sinful and that she would be too unless the devil was beaten from her soul. She was physically and sexually abused by religious and lay staff at the orphanage from an early age and was forced to work long hours on the orphanage farm and later in the laundries. In 1997, when Ann watched a Prime Television documentary exposing the decades of abuse by the Good Shepherd nuns at the Christchurch orphanage, she realised hers wasn’t the only lost childhood. Ann’s battle to get authorities within the Catholic Church to accept responsibility for the past institutionalised abuse of children and young people in its care is entering its eleventh year. She is committed to communicating truthfully and openly about the abuse inflicted on her, and its ongoing consequences, until the church acknowledges culpability and admits – unconditionally – that there was wrongdoing.   About the Author   Ann now lives in Whangarei with her husband and children.
Review    Ann Thompson first came to my attention when she started contributing to the CathNews discussion board in Australia which I helped administer. Her story, and the ways in which she told it upset some people to the point where there was a steady flow of complaints from a minority wanting to have Ann barred from contributing to the discussion board. Privately I sought the feelings of the community at large, and also the management of CathNews, as to how we might handle the situation. After much consultation we decided to give Ann as much freedom as possible in order to relate her story. The CathNews Discussion Board eventually spawned Catholica (www.catholica.com.au) and in this community we have endeavoured to continue our encouragement of Ann. From the at times barely articulate woman we first encountered six or seven years ago, Ann has blossomed into an articulate and strong advocate for the victims of child sexual abuse. It is almost as great a thrill for many of us in the Catholica community who have followed Ann’s story from the beginning of her appearance on the internet to see her story now picked up by a major publisher in Penguin New Zealand. Ann’s story is tragic not only for the abuse but for the fact that she was deprived of any significant education. It is testimony to her personal growth that despite many educational and social handicaps she has sought out the people who could help her tell her story. While, in so many ways, her story is tragic and harrowing, it is also a story of great hope and poignancy. Ann has emerged as a person of great strength in personal character and is fearless today in standing up for the victims of sexual and other forms of abuse.    I commend Fiona Craig for her editing of Ann’s story and also thank Fr Tom Doyle for the powerful appendix he provides to Ann’s story.  

Brian Coyne
editor & publisher
www.catholica.com.au

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Click on the headline to read the whole story.

1.  Lawsuit claims priest molested altar boy in 1990s – ORANGE (CA) – The Orange County Register

2.  Bishop says diocese is taking action to prevent abuse – YOUNGSTOWN (OH) -
Canton Repository

3.  Abused were hidden in clear sight, says ombudsman – IRELAND – The Irish Times

4.  A Summer Read: Tennessee survivor Mike Coode writing book as adult victim of pedophile priest, here is part of the story – UNITED STATES – City of Angels

5.  Dublin inquiry into how 19 senior clergy handled sex claims – IRELAND – The Irish Times

6.  Two diocesan priests named in new sex abuse lawsuits. – DELAWARE – Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington

7.  Lawsuit: Priest molested 2 teens – TOMS RIVER (NJ) – Asbury Park News
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Lawsuit claims priest molested altar boy in 1990s

ORANGE (CA)
The Orange County Register

By EUGENE W. FIELDS
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

ORANGE – A 29-year-old man is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, alleging he was sexually abused by a priest when he was as an altar boy at St. Norbert Church in the 1990s.

The man, who is identified in the lawsuit only as John DC Doe, alleges he was molested from 1990 to 1992 and that the diocese knew about the molestations and did nothing to stop it.

The priest is not named in the lawsuit, but the man’s attorney, Rebecca Rhoades, identified the priest as Monsignor Sinon Falvey.

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Bishop says diocese is taking action to prevent abuse

YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
Canton Repository

By Charita Goshay
CantonRep.com staff writer
Posted Jun 30, 2009 @ 08:36 PM

YOUNGSTOWN – .Bishop George V. Murry got the kind of phone call every shepherd dreads: One of his priests had been accused of sexual immorality.

Shortly afterward on May 22, Murry removed Thomas Crum from the pulpit at Our Lady of Peace Church in Canton. Crum admitted engaging in inappropriate behavior with a student more than 30 years ago while at Cardinal Mooney High School in Youngstown.

In the weeks hence, the head of the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown has been on a quest to ensure that such an incident doesn’t happen again. He vows to keep parishioners apprised of what the diocese is doing about it, and encourages anyone who has been victimized to contact his office.

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Abused were hidden in clear sight, says ombudsman

IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

FOLLOWING THE Ryan report “we all emerge . . . somewhat lost, unbalanced, the touchstone of our former beliefs and certainties cast adrift,” the Ombudsman and Information Commissioner Emily O’Reilly has said.

“We stood exposed, not as an island of charming saints and chatty, avuncular scholars but as a repressed, cold-hearted, fearful, smugly pious, sexually ignorant and vengeful race of self-styled Christians,” she said

She recalled that at the 2004 Céifin conference in Ennis, Co Clare, she had wondered “what the real us [her emphasis] actually was, the old-style pious Mass-goers, or the new-style materialists.” She continued, “I wonder even more so in the light of Ryan.”

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A Summer Read: Tennessee survivor Mike Coode writing book as adult victim of pedophile priest, here is part of the story

UNITED STATES
City of Angels

By City of Angels

Soon to be a major book, maybe a movie or at least part of one, here is Mike Coode’s story, something to read on a beach chair this weekend. Based on his experience going public as an adult victim of a pedophile priest in the early 1990s, his book should be ready for a publisher in mid-July, Mike told me today. I hope so, as Coode spins a good yarn in Tennessee straight talk style, as revealed in the speech copied here, which he delivered at a Nashville VOTF meeting in 2004. Enjoy this summer read, a taste of what Mike Coode’s upcoming book will be like.

I have a story to tell, and the question I ask myself is Why would I want to tell it? It is so painful this telling of my personal loss; the humiliation, the spiritual confusion, and the debasement. It’s difficult to publicly share my story with my sons and daughters, brothers and sisters and lifetime Friends. It’s difficult to see the pain in the eyes of those of you who share this terrible experience with me. It’s difficult to share my story with strangers.

But I must share it, because if by telling this story, one child is spared this horrible experience, if my story moves one person to see that the wrongs committed by the leaders of my church, our church, are corrected, then it’s worth the telling. If there are tears, it’s okay. When I see the pain in your eyes, it’s okay. That anguish you feel, that horrible pit in your stomach must forever be a reminder to you that this must stop. We must see that our children and our grandchildren are never caught up in this terrible tragedy.

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Dublin inquiry into how 19 senior clergy handled sex claims

IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE DUBLIN Archdiocese Commission of Investigation is believed to have inquired into how four archbishops and 15 bishops addressed clerical child sex abuse allegations in the Dublin archdiocese.

It is expected to present its report to Minister for Justice by the middle of next month, most likely in the week beginning Sunday, July 12th.

The report is understood to be 800 to 1,000 pages and, unlike the 2005 Ferns report or the Ryan report, it will name priests who have been convicted in the courts in relation to abuse and those whose names are already in the public domain in relation to abuse.

It is thought likely that on its receipt the report will be referred by the Dermot Ahern to Attorney General Paul Gallagher for advice as three priests investigated by it are currently before the courts on abuse charges.

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Two diocesan priests named in new sex abuse lawsuits.

DELAWARE
Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington

June 25, 2009 — (Wilmington, DE) — Two priests of the Diocese of Wilmington – one deceased and one retired – have been named in separate lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of minors, the Diocese of Wilmington announced today. Prior to the filing of these lawsuits, there had been no allegations of this nature against either of these priests.

Rev. John Francis O’Brien, who passed away on January 7, 2003, is accused of abuse of a minor in the early 1960s.

Fr. O’Brien was ordained in 1962 and during the first ten years of his priesthood he served as associate pastor of St. Paul’s Church in Wilmington, St. Helena’s Church in Wilmington and St. Ann’s Church in Wilmington. In 1972 Fr. O’Brien was appointed pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Church in New Castle, Delaware. In 1982 he became pastor of St. Elizabeth’s Church in Wilmington. Fr. O’Brien was assigned as pastor of St. Mary Magdalen Church in Wilmington in 1997 and served in that capacity until his death. He also served the Diocese of Wilmington as director of the Catholic Youth Organization (CYM).

Rev. James Edward Richardson, retired, age 77, is accused of sexually abusing a minor on two occasions in the late 1960s. Fr. Richardson denies the allegations.

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Lawsuit: Priest molested 2 teens

TOMS RIVER (NJ)
Asbury Park News

By Kathleen Hopkins • TOMS RIVER BUREAU • June 29, 2009

TOMS RIVER – A sexual abuse lawsuit against a former pastor of St. Rose of Lima Church in Freehold has been amended to include a second plaintiff who has come forward with allegations that he was sexually abused by the Roman Catholic priest during an overnight trip to a spa resort about 25 years ago, when the clergyman was assigned to St. Veronica’s Church in Howell.

The new plaintiff, now 38 and living in Pennsylvania, alleges in the amended lawsuit that the Rev. Richard Milewski pulled down his bathing suit while roughhousing with him in the pool and squeezed his genitals until he was motionless with pain.

The plaintiff, identified in the lawsuit only by initials “S.J.,” alleged that Milewski made the group of boys he took to the spa resort in northwest New Jersey strip naked before going into a whirlpool tub and steam room with him.

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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

Vol. 1, No 85

TABLE OF CONTENTS Click on the headline to read the whole story.

1.  Keeper of St. Norbert Church Pedo-Priests Now Accused of Boy Rape Himself – ORANGE COUNTY (CA) – Orange County Weekly

2.  Two cases that affect SOL for child sex crimes in opposite ways now up for review by Supreme Court of California – CALIFORNIA – City of Angels

3.  The context of our sex abuse shame – IRELAND – Eureka Street (Australia)

4.  Deadline looms for sex-abuse cases – DELAWARE – The News Journal

5.  Kids and congregants at risk – UNITED STATES – Stop Baptist Predators

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Keeper of St. Norbert Church Pedo-Priests Now Accused of Boy Rape Himself

ORANGE COUNTY (CA)
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano in Ex Cathedra

What is it about the pastors of St. Norbert Church in Orange and their predilection for protecting pedo-priests? The most recent example was Cirilo Flores, who is now an auxiliary bishop under Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown; the most notorious example was John Urell, who famously cracked during a deposition digging into his days as the man in charge of “investigating” the pedophiles who terrorized county parishes for decades. I guess they just learned from their elders; after all, longtime St. Norbert pastor Sinon Falvey was in charge of two pedo-priests during his tenure from 1969 to 1989: John Kenney and John Lenihan. God smote the first John in a 1977 car accident; with Lenihan, Falvey moved him along to my home parish of St. Boniface in Anaheim.

Now, Falvey is the target of a civil lawsuit filed June 25 in Orange County Superior Court.

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Two cases that affect SOL for child sex crimes in opposite ways now up for review by Supreme Court of California

CALIFORNIA
City of Angels

By Kay Ebeling
Creator, City of Angels Blog

The State Supreme Court accepted the KJ petiion for review last week, leveling the playing field between adult victims of pedophiles and corporate entities who are trying to prevent further lawsuits. Earlier this month the Catholic Church and its attorneys celebrated when the state’s highest court granted their request to review Quarry, where the trial court sustained the Bishop of Oakland’s demurrer and dismissed the complaint. Then the First Appellate Court reversed and Catholic Church attorneys worked long and hard to get the Quarry decision reviewed, as we reported here June 12th.

Now, by the Court agreeing to review KJ as well, “All the big issues will be on the table,” an attorney close to the California Clergy Cases told City of Angels. In K.J. v. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Stockton, the plaintiff began to recover memory of the abuse in 2004 and filed suit in 2007. The Third Appellate Court agreed with the Church that the case was time barred, now the Court will review both cases.

“The justices, at their weekly conference in San Francisco, agreed to review a Third District Court of Appeal ruling that affirmed a San Joaquin Superior Court judge’s dismissal of a suit by ‘John K.J. Doe’ against the Stockton Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church,” reported Metropolitan News Enterprise June 25th.

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The context of our sex abuse shame

IRELAND
Eureka Street (Australia)

Shane Wood June 29, 2009

During recent weeks, there has been much publicity in the media in Ireland and in Australia regarding the release of a report commissioned by the Irish Government into past widespread abuse of children. The body making the report is The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. It was set up in 2000 by the Irish Government and began its work while I was in Ireland for twelve months study.

The Commission had three primary functions:

• to hear evidence of abuse from persons who allege they suffered abuse in childhood, in institutions, during the period from 1940 or earlier, to the present day;
  to conduct an inquiry into abuse of children in institutions during that period and, where satisfied that abuse occurred, to determine the causes, nature, circumstances and extent of such abuse; and
  to prepare and publish reports on the results of the inquiry and on its recommendations in relation to dealing with the effects of such abuse.

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Deadline looms for sex-abuse cases

DELAWARE
The News Journal

By BETH MILLER • The News Journal • June 29, 2009

The two-year window of Delaware’s 2007 Child Victim’s Act is about to close, putting an end to a steady stream of civil lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse that dates to the 1950s and reaches to churches, schools and private homes.

The 2007 law eliminated the civil statute of limitations in such cases and opened the two-year period during which cases previously barred by the time limit could be filed.

More than 140 cases had been filed as of Friday, attorneys said, and lawmakers last week unanimously approved legislation to clarify that the deadline for the cases should be July 9 — marking exactly two years since Gov. Ruth Ann Minner signed the act into law. Some judges and attorneys previously thought the window closes Tuesday, the last day of the fiscal year.

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Kids and congregants at risk

UNITED STATES
Stop Baptist Predators

People often ask me why I keep doing this work.

That graph is a big part of the answer. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, about 1 in 6 Americans are Baptist.

Southern Baptists alone are twice as big as the second-largest Protestant group, the Methodists. And if you add in all the other sorts of Baptists, then Baptists are about 4 times more numerous than the Methodists. That’s according to data compiled by the National Council of Churches, which listed the top 25 faith groups in the country.

Baptists are so big that they literally dwarf all the other Protestant groups.

Southern Baptists alone claim to have about 16.2 million members. That’s a population the size of Chile or the Netherlands.

To serve that population, Southern Baptists have 101,000 clergy in this country and 43,000 churches. Yet, despite their faith group’s shared identity, Southern Baptists disclaim any shared responsibility for their clergy… or for the safety of people who sit in Southern Baptist pews.

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Steve Sheehan
Publisher