UNITED STATES
Orlando Sentinel

[The full report from BishopAccountability.org]

By Amy L. Edwards, Orlando Sentinel

Dozens of children whose parents were missionaries for Sanford-based New Tribes Mission were sexually and physically abused at an African boarding school in the 1980s, according to a report made public this week.

New Tribes, one of the largest Christian missionary organizations in the world, operated a boarding school in the village of Fanda, in the country of Senegal, in the 1980s and 1990s for the children of missionaries.

The report said many children endured sexual, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse at the hands of workers at the school.

It estimates there were 22 to 27 child sex abuse victims, and more than 35 victims of physical and emotional abuse.

SPENCER (WV)
News and Sentinel

SPENCER - A circuit court judge dismissed charges Friday against an Ohio priest accused of sexual abuse.

Charges against the Rev. Robert F. Poandl were dismissed with prejudice, which means prosecutors could not refile the same charges, by Roane County Circuit Judge David W. Nibert. The ruling was delayed for 90 days by Nibert to give prosecutors a chance to appeal to the West Virginia Supreme Court. ...

The National Survivor Advocates Coalition, an advocacy network, has urged prosecutors to appeal Nibert's ruling, saying it was dismissed on a technicality.

"We're troubled by the unusual circumstances of this delay," said Kristine Ward of Dayton, Ohio, chairman of the coalition. "Trials get postponed all the time for various reasons. Somewhere out there there are others who can shed light on these allegations."

NETHERLANDS
Reuters

By Harro ten Wolde

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Cardinal Ad Simonis, a former head of the Dutch Catholic Church, could become the first senior Church official to testify in a Dutch court in a sexual abuse case involving a former priest, a lawyer said on Thursday.

Lawyer Martin de Witte said he had asked a court in Middelburg to establish whether Simonis knew about the priest's misdeeds when he worked in his diocese, and whether he agreed to the priest's transfer to another region where he was arrested and convicted for sexual abuse in 1990.

The Dutch Church is facing a string of complaints about predator priests and 900 victims have come forward in recent months, part of a wave of scandals and complaints shaking the Church in several European countries.

SPENCER (WV)
The Times Record

By DAVID HEDGES
Publisher -

Criminal charges lodged against a priest accused of sexually abusing a young boy nearly 20 years ago have been dismissed after the judge found problems with the evidence.
In January a Roane grand jury indicted Robert Poandl, 68, of Cincinnati on charges of 1st degree sexual assault, 1st degree sexual abuse and sexual abuse by a custodian.
The charges allege Poandl molested a 10-year-old boy from Cincinnati who traveled with him to Spencer in August 1991, when he was filling in for the priest at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church.

The alleged victim did not tell anyone about the incident until last year.
But Poandl’s attorneys, Anita Ashley and Dennis Curry, say Poandl came to Spencer by himself and the entire story was fabricated.

“Father Bob did not bring a boy to Spencer,” Ashley said.

“This kid made the whole thing up,” Curry added.

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

donderdag 02 september 2010Auteur: Werner Rommers

'Als kardinaal Danneels zegt dat hij totaal onvoorbereid aan het gesprek met de misbruikte neef van de Brugse bisschop deelnam, dan liegt hij.' Dat zegt advocate Christine Mussche, die het slachtoffer bijstaat.

Advocate Christine Mussche tilde gisteren zwaar aan de inhoud van het recht van antwoord dat de advocaat van kardinaal Godfried Danneels woensdag in Het Nieuwsblad en De Standaard liet publiceren. 'Ik ben verbijsterd omdat de kardinaal blijft beweren dat hij op 8 april in Brugge 'onvoorbereid' aan dat gesprek met Roger Vangheluwe, zijn neef en enkele van zijn familieleden deelnam. Want dat is pertinent onjuist', zegt Mussche.

'Kardinaal Danneels is begin april door Roger Vangheluwe ingelicht dat hij jarenlang zijn neef heeft misbruikt. Dat bevestigt Danneels' advocaat trouwens in zijn recht van antwoord. Vervolgens heeft hij op 8 april 2010 het bewuste gesprek met de neef en enkele van zijn familieleden gehad, waarvan iedereen de inhoud ondertussen kent. Bovendien weten we dat hij diezelfde dag, kort voor dat gesprek, 45 minuten lang met Vangheluwe overleg

BELGIE
De Standaard

donderdag 02 september 2010Auteur: Norbert Bethune (priester in Wingene)

(PRIESTER IN WINGENE) - Ik was helemaal niet verbaasd over de inhoud en de stijl van de tapes van het gesprek van Godfried Danneels en de neef en familie van Roger Vangheluwe (DS 28 augustus). Evenmin verbaasde mij de reactie van Godfried Danneels en van zijn advocaat na de publicatie in uw krant.

Als lid van de werkgroep 'Mensenrechten in de kerk' werk ik reeds vele jaren met slachtoffers, hun familie en het instituut. De tapes bevestigen wat vele slachtoffers, die bij Danneels of andere kerkleiders op bezoek gingen met hun verhaal, ons vertelden. Zelf heb ik het ervaren toen ik met slachtoffers bij hem was. Ik ken Godfried Danneels als de minzame man uit de media, maar ook als de bittere, ja soms ingehouden woedende man als zijn macht, zijn visie, zijn priesters of zijn instituut ter discussie worden gesteld.

Het priesterschap is voor Godfried Danneels een icoon van Christus, het gelaat van God op aarde. Al wie priesters of het instituut waartoe zij behoren ter discussie durft te stellen of de vinger legt op onduldbare praktijken, zoals seksueel misbruik, wordt ervan beschuldigd de kerk in diskrediet te brengen of kapot te willen maken.

BELGIE
De Sandaard

Communicatie is een belangrijk instrument, maar ze kan niet alles redden, schrijft communicatie-expert ERIC POTIER. Ook niet in de affaire-Danneels.

Heeft u het ook gemerkt, de communicatiemensen bij de kerk hebben de plaats moeten ruimen voor de advocaten. Zij konden het niet meer aan. Hun inspanningen gaven niet meer het gewenste resultaat. Dat was niet verwonderlijk. De kerk heeft nooit begrepen wat goede communicatie is. Getuige daarvan het recht op antwoord dat gisteren verscheen (DS 1 september).

De kerk denkt boven de mensen en boven de publieke opinie te staan. Net als een reeks andere instellingen en organen in ons land. Politiek, justitie, magistratuur en kerk: ze denken allemaal een speciaal statuut te hebben, zodat ze de toets van de publieke opinie niet moeten doorstaan. Vorige eeuw was dat inderdaad nog zo, maar de tijden veranderen. Het is niet toevallig dat al deze instellingen erg laat het nut van communicatie ingezien hebben en deze discipline geïntegreerd hebben in hun organisaties. Communicatieverantwoordelijke of woordvoerder van een bisdom of van een aartsbisdom: het zijn jobs die tot voor zeer kort niet bestonden en die de kerk onder druk van de media en de publieke opinie heeft moeten creëren.

BELGIE
De Standaard

Kardinaal Godfried Danneels heeft wel degelijk geprobeerd dossiers van kindermisbruik toe te dekken. Dat zegt Linda Opdebeeck (46) vanavond in het VTM-programma Telefacts.

Zij is voorzitster van de werkgroep Mensenrechten in de Kerk en werd van haar 13de tot haar 17de misbruikt in het college van Oudergem. De dader was een broeder die haar lessen Frans gaf.

Elke week moest Linda gemiddeld drie keer naar zijn bureau komen. ‘Hij kwam achter me staan en begon aan mij te prutsen, ook als ik menstrueerde. Hij waste toen gewoon zijn handen.' Linda Opdebeeck maakte een einde aan het misbruik toen ze 17 was: ‘Ik ben naar hem toegestapt, heb hem vastgepakt en met zijn hoofd tegen de kast geslagen.'

NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A Catholic priest convicted of sexually abusing three young sisters has been jailed for four years.

Father Eugene Lewis, 76, was found guilty of 11 charges of assault between 1963 and 1973. The sisters said the abuse began when they were as young as seven. He had denied the charges.

The abuse took place at their County Fermanagh home.

NORTHERN IRELAND
RTE News

[with video]

A Dublin-based priest has been jailed for four years for sexually abusing three sisters nearly 50 years ago.

In May, Fr Eugene Lewis, a former provincial superior of the White Fathers, was convicted of indecently assaulting the young girls at their home in Co Fermanagh.

Lewis was found guilty of abusing his victims on dates between 1963 and 1973 - when the girls were aged between seven and 13.

WEST VIRGINIA
Catholic News Agency

Charleston, W.Va., Sep 2, 2010 / 03:08 am (CNA).- A judge in West Virginia has dismissed all charges against a Catholic priest from Cincinnati who was accused of molesting a 10-year-old boy in 1991. Attorneys for the priest, who was suspended for over a year because of the allegations, said the ruling found that the accuser had manipulated and falsified evidence.

In January a Roane County grand jury indicted Fr. Robet F. Poandl, 68, on charges of molesting the alleged victim at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Spencer, West Virginia, the Charleston Gazette reports.

The charges were dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning he cannot be prosecuted on the same charges in the future.

NEDERLAND
BN DeStem

MIDDELBURG/BREDA - Bisschop Hans van den Hende van Breda en een van zijn voorgangers, oud-bisschop Huub Ernst, dienen onder ede te getuigen in een zaak rond seksueel misbruik in de rooms-katholieke kerk.

Dat eist de advocaat van een misbruikslachtoffer. Het gaat om Dave ter Hoor uit Terneuzen die via een civiele procedure een schadevergoeding wil van het bisdom Breda. Zijn advocaat, Martin de Witte, die in totaal 120 mensen vertegenwoordigt die de katholieke kerk van seksuel misbruik beschuldigen, heeft ook het voormalige hoofd van de RK-kerk in Nederland, kardinaal Simonis, als getuige gedaagd. De zaak draait rond pater Jan. N, lid van de congregatie van salesianen van Don Bosco, die in de jaren tachtig als pastoor aan de slag ging in een parochie in Terneuzen, in het bisdom Breda. In 1990 werd hij voor ntucht met drie minderjarige jongens, onder wie Ten Hoor, veroordeeld voor de rechtbank in Middelburg. Ernst, destijds bisschop van Breda, ontsloeg daarop de pastoor die voor 25 procent in dienst was van het bisdom. Volgens de advocaat van Ter Hoor wist het bisdom ten tijde van de benoeming van N. in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen van eerder seksueel misbruik dat hij gepleegd zou hebben in een jeugdcentrum in Rijswijk.

NEDERLAND
HRC Handelsblad

Rotterdam, 1 sept.

Het voormalig hoofd van de Nederlandse Rooms-Katholieke Kerk, kardinaal Ad Simonis, dient onder ede te getuigen in een zaak rond kerkelijk seksueel misbruik. Dat eist de advocaat van een misbruikslachtoffer in een verzoekschrift aan de rechtbank Middelburg.

Ook bisschop Hans van den Hende van Breda en een van zijn voorgangers, oud-bisschop Huub Ernst, zouden gehoord moeten worden. De rechtbank besluit binnenkort over de aanvraag voor het voorlopig getuigenverhoor.

De advocaat van Dave ten Hoor (34) uit Terneuzen wil in een civiele procedure een schadevergoeding eisen van het bisdom Breda. Dat bisdom was de werkgever van een pater die in de jaren 70 en 80 minderjarige jongens, onder wie Ten Hoor, seksueel misbruikte.

NEDERLAND
NOS

Kardinaal Simonis moet onder ede getuigen. Dat eist de advocaat van een slachtoffer dat door een pater seksueel misbruikt is.

De pater werd in 1979 door de politie opgepakt voor het misbruiken van jongens in een jeugdcentrum in Rijswijk, wat onder het bisdom Rotterdam valt. Simonis was daar toen bisschop. Die zaak werd geseponeerd. In 1984 ging de pater aan de slag in Terneuzen, dat onder het bisdom Breda valt.

[summary]

Cardinal Simonis must testify under oath in a proceeding involving one victim of abuse by a priest. A priest was in 1979 arrested by police for abusing boys at a youth center in Rijswijk which falls in the Rotterdam diocese. Simonis was then diocesan bishop.

NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

Dublin based priest Fr Eugene Lewis, unanimously convicted of sexually abusing three sisters in their Co Ferrmanagh home going back almost 50 years, has been jailed for a total of four years in a Belfast Court.

However, the 76-year-old disgraced former head of the White Fathers from their Cypress Grove headquaters in Templeogue Dublin, still maintains his innocence.

In a statement issued through his solicitor Joe McVeigh outside Belfast's Laganside Courthouse, the paedophile priest, also placed on the Sex Offenders' Register for life, claimed that his Co Throne trial in Omagh Crown Court was a "miscarriage of justice".

NORTHERN IRELAND
The Irish Times

A Dublin priest has been jailed for four years for sexually abusing three sisters in their Co Ferrmanagh home almost 50 years ago.

Fr Eugene Lewis (76), was found guilty by a jury at Omagh Crown Court in May of 11 counts of indecently assaulting the three Co Fermanagh sisters separately and on differing dates between August 1963 and September 1973.

Lewis, the former provincial superior of the Society of Missionaries of Africa, based in Dublin, had denied the charges.

NORTHERN IRELAND
CNN

From Nic Robertson and Thomas Evans, CNN

Armagh, Northern Ireland (CNN) -- Months after the revelation that he helped cover up for one of Ireland's most notoriously abusive priests, the country's top Catholic churchman, Cardinal Sean Brady, says he has "moved on" and will not resign.

"I've moved on there, I think, and I got a lot of support in my decision," he told CNN in a rare interview.

Brady was part of an internal church investigation into Father Brendan Smyth in 1975, he confirmed early this year. He did not report his findings to the police and asked two teenagers who gave him evidence to sign oaths of secrecy.

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

AAP

The Catholic Church will throw its support behind a national campaign against child sexual assault for the first time.

The church announced on Thursday that it would support Bravehearts' White Balloon Day campaign during Child Protection Week, September 5 to 12.

More than 1300 Catholic parishes and nearly 1700 Catholic schools around the country will display white balloons on Tuesday September 7 and Sunday, September 12, in a show of support for the protection of young people.

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, September 02, 2010

The top representative of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, has said he has "moved on" from any talk of resignation.

Following the publication of abuse reports last year, there were calls for the cardinal to step down.

BELGIUM
Catholic News Agency

Brussels, Belgium, Sep 2, 2010 / 06:05 am (CNA).- In a new development concerning claims that Cardinal Godfried Danneels asked a sexual abuse victim to cover up a bishop’s abuse, the cardinal’s lawyer has accused a newspaper of committing “character assassination” on the prelate using selective highlighting and “extremely biased commentary.”

The lawyer said the cardinal actually caused the abusive bishop for the first time to admit his guilt, to apologize and beg forgiveness “in front of his entire family.”

“Whoever considers this a meaningless or unimportant event is wrong,” commented Fernand Keuleneer in a statement provided to CNA.

ARIZONA
Phoenix New Times

By James King, Wed., Sep. 1 2010

If you read the headline to this post and think you're experiencing a case of deja vu, we assure you, you're not.

Leaders of a church being accused of molesting kids is nothing new, to say the least, and the latest member of the cloth accused of feelin' up kids while leading a congregation happened here in Arizona.

According to the Cottonwood Police Department, a grand jury returned a 20-count indictment alleging that 43-year-old Christopher Furey, the youth minister at the Emmanuel Fellowship Church in Cottonwood, molested several children while working as the youth pastor at the church.

BELGIUM
L'Anglophone

BRUSSELS – According to secretly-recorded tapes made public, a former leader of Belgium's Catholic church advised a victim of sexual abuse to remain silent until after the retirement of the perpetrator, who was both the victim's uncle and the Bishop of Bruges.

The first of the two tapes, both of which were made public last weekend in the Flemish dailies De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad, is of a conversation on 08 April 2010 between three people: the victim, whose name has not been made public; Robert Joseph Vangheluwe, 73, the former bishop of Bruges; and Cardinal Godfried Danneels, 77, the former archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels. Church authorities have verified the tapes' authenticity.

On the first tape, the victim is encouraged to either accept a private apology and remain silent, or to wait until Vangheluwe's retirement in 2011. "The bishop will resign next year, so actually it would be better for you to wait. I don’t think you’d do yourself or him a favor by shouting this from the rooftops,” said the cardinal, adding later in the conversation, "I don't know whether it would be to your advantage to make a lot of noise about it. Neither for you, nor for him."

INDIA
CathNews

Kerala Church has been rocked by the release of a controversial book which accuses its clergy of a range of misdemeanours and abuses. An official has responded by describing the book as “an all-out attempt to malign the Church.”

Here Is The Heart Of The Priest, the autobiography of Shibu Kalaparamban, a former member of the Vincentian congregation, was officially launched on Sep. 2.

It alleges that Catholic priests and nuns have broken the vows of chastity and engaged in sexual sins including homosexuality, child abuse and illicit relations. The author narrates confessions he has heard, to substantiate his allegations.

BELGIUM
The New York Times

By DOREEN CARVAJAL and STEPHEN CASTLE
Published: September 1, 2010

PARIS — With the recent release of tapes chronicling the private clash of a family over sexual abuse by a Belgian bishop, the retired cardinal who played a role as a mediator is now distancing himself from his longtime colleague and friend.

The cardinal, Godfried Danneels, 77, has moved to defend himself after the release of the tapes, which have provoked withering criticism of the cardinal, who was urging reconciliation in the matter.

The lawyer representing Cardinal Danneels criticized Roger Vangheluwe, 73, the former bishop of Bruges, who was the cardinal’s friend for more than 25 years. Mr. Vangheluwe resigned in April after the scandal and has retreated to a spartan Trappist monastery in Westvleteren, Belgium.

“Knowing the facts, I think it is fair to say the cardinal was misled by Bishop Vangheluwe,” said Fernand Keuleneer, the cardinal’s lawyer, adding that his client may have been “trapped.”

UNITED STATES
WebWire

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Investigative documentary exploring pope’s role in managing the child sexual abuse crisis - debuts

Saturday, September 25at 8:00pm ET & PT on CNN/U.S. and CNN International

During his first papal visit to the U.S., Pope Benedict XVI reached out to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, unprecedented for the Vatican. He became the first pope to directly and personally apologize to victims for their trauma. He was the first to acknowledge publicly that the Church had systemically erred in the way that it had transferred offending priests to new parishes, putting more children at risk, instead of reporting offenders to law enforcement. A new era of accountability seemed to have dawned.

But Benedict’s role in managing the child sex abuse scandal while he was Archbishop of Munich and Freising, and as a powerful cardinal at the Vatican, has now come under scrutiny. CNN national correspondent Gary Tuchman reports for What the Pope Knew, investigating some of the most notorious pedophile priest cases in the United States and finds that the pope, as Cardinal Ratzinger, had direct responsibility for how they were handled. CNN’s investigation reveals that Ratzinger opposed or slowed down the defrocking of some priests, including convicted child molesters.

BELGIE
De Standaard

01 september 2010

Roger Vangheluwe, de voormalige bisschop van Brugge die een minderjarig familielid jarenlang misbruikte, zal niet door de katholieke kerk vervolgd worden. De feiten zijn immers verjaard, zo staat in Le Soir.

Het Vaticaan verlengde in juli wel de verjaringstermijn van kindermisbruik tot twintig jaar nadat het slachtoffer de meerderjarigheid heeft bereikt, maar in de zaak-Vangheluwe is dat 24 jaar geleden.

BELGIE
De Standaard

woensdag 01 september 2010

De Standaard voert geen heksenjacht tegen kardinaal Danneels. Wij waren ons zeer bewust van de impact die de bekendmaking van de inhoud van zijn gesprek met het slachtoffer van ex-bisschop Roger Vangheluwe voor hem kon hebben. Wij beseffen dat hij onder deze kwestie lijdt.

Toch hebben we de transcriptie van de opname gepubliceerd. De belangrijkste reden daarvoor was dat het een maatschappelijk belangrijk document is. Het werpt een bijzonder licht op de manier waarop de kardinaal, en bij uitbreiding de Kerk die hij decennialang heeft geleid, met de nasleep van seksueel misbruik door priesters omgaat. Hoewel de opname clandestien werd gemaakt, waren en blijven wij van mening dat wij niet het recht hadden ze geheim te houden.

Ook het antwoord dat zijn raadsman, meester Fernand Keuleneer, ons bezorgde, beschouwen we als een belangrijk document. Het verheldert het precieze verloop van de gebeurtenissen. Ook als de wet ons daartoe niet verplichtte, zouden wij het hier integraal hebben afgedrukt. Zodat onze lezers er kennis van zouden nemen en hun eigen oordeel zouden kunnen vormen.

BELGIE
De Standaard

In een recht van antwoord beschuldigt de advocaat van kardinaal Danneels De Standaard van karaktermoord. We publiceren hieronder de integrale tekst en een nawoord van de hoofdredactie, zodat de lezer zich een oordeel kan vormen.

Op zaterdag 28 augustus heeft De Standaard een karaktermoord gepleegd op kardinaal Danneels. Uw krant heeft een gedeelte van de transcriptie van de geïmproviseerde en mislukte verzoeningspoging die de kardinaal op 8 april 2010 ondernam met de familie Vangheluwe gepubliceerd. Daarbij heeft De Standaard bepaalde passages in het rood gemarkeerd, en de tekst verder voorzien van uiterst gekleurde commentaar.

Vrijwel iedereen is het erover eens dat aan de kardinaal juridisch niets verweten kan worden. Wij menen daarenboven dat de kardinaal ook vanuit moreel oogpunt correct heeft gehandeld.

CONNECTICUT
Westport News

Genevieve Reilly, Staff Writer
Published: 05:09 p.m., Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Forty dollars a day. That's all Fairfield University graduate Paul Kendrick is asking his alma mater to come up with. That amount, he said, would provide $2 daily for each of the 20 or so sexual-abuse victims of Douglas Perlitz, a fellow Fairfield U. grad once lauded by the school for the charity he founded to help homeless boys in Haiti.

That charity -- Project Pierre Toussaint in Cap Haitien -- is where Perlitz recently admitted he perpetrated the abuse, a school that was supposed to be a haven for street youths in the improverished nation. Perlitz pleaded guilty in federal court last month and admitted to having sex with one underage male. However, he did not dispute prosecution claims that he abused at least eight boys. The school has been shuttered and the victims abandoned, Kendrick said.

Kendrick and several supporters on Wednesday morning stood at Fairfield University's North Benson Road entrance, handing out a leaflet to motorists entering and leaving the campus on the first day of classes for the new school year.

BELGIUM
Catholic Culture

September 01, 2010
A Belgian newspaper “voluntarily and deliberately defamed” Cardinal Godfried Danneels when it published transcripts of a conversation between the cardinal and a victim of sexual abuse, the cardinal’s lawyer has charged.

Fernand Keueleneer, the lawyer representing Cardinal Danneels, said the the daily De Standaard culled out selected passages from a transcript of the conversation between the retired prelate and a man who was abused for years by Bishop Roger Vangheluwe. The lawyer said that Cardinal Danneels had not been prepared for the conversation, and needed time to reflect on the man’s report before taking action. “This has nothing to do with a plot or a cover-up,” Keuleneer said.

BELGIE
Knack

Fernand Keuleneer, de advocaat van kardinaal Godfried Danneels, beschuldigt De Standaard ervan een karaktermoord te hebben gepleegd op Danneels. Dat staat in een recht van antwoord dat woensdag in de krant is verschenen. De Standaard betreurt dat het woord karaktermoord wordt gebruikt.

De Standaard publiceerde zaterdag de transcriptie van geheime geluidsopnames die werden gemaakt tijdens een ontmoeting tussen de Brugse ex-bisschop Roger Vangheluwe en zijn neef die hij jarenlang heeft misbruikt. Danneels was bij het gesprek aanwezig.

De opnames werden gemaakt door het slachtoffer. Daaruit blijkt onder meer dat Danneels het seksueel misbruik door Vangheluwe nog minstens geheim wilde houden tot Vangheluwe met pensioen zou gaan. Hij zette het slachtoffer er ook toe aan om vergiffenis te schenken.

BELGIE
Gazet van Antwerpen

Op 13 september stelt de Bisschoppenconferentie van België tijdens een persconferentie de opvolger van de commissie-Adriaenssens voor. Onder leiding van kinderpsychiater Peter Adriaenssens behandelde die commissie dossiers van kindermisbruik door geestelijken. Ze werd opgedoekt na 'Operatie Kelk'.

Eind juni vonden er huiszoekingen plaats in het aartsbisschoppelijk paleis in Mechelen, in de woning van kardinaal Danneels en bij de commissie-Adriaenssens in Leuven. In totaal werden er op 24 juni 475 misbruikdossiers in beslag genomen. De leden van de commissie dienden vervolgens hun ontslag in.

"Peter Adriaenssens heeft zeer goed werk geleverd en genoot veel geloofwaardigheid", liet minister van Justitie Stefaan De Clerck (CD&V) eerder al weten. "Het zou zeer goed zijn dat hij, indien mogelijk, opnieuw een binnenkerkelijke commissie zou leiden. Die moet er hoe dan ook komen. De Kerk moet intern verantwoordelijkheid blijven opnemen", aldus de politicus. Peter Adriaenssens zal echter wellicht niet opnieuw deel uitmaken van de opvolger van de commissie.

BELGIE
De Morgen

Meester Christine Mussche, de advocate die de neef en slachtoffer van oud-bisschop Roger Vangheluwe bijstaat, is niet onder de indruk van het recht van antwoord dat meester Fernand Keuleneer, de advocaat van kardinaal Godfried Danneels, vandaag heeft laten verschijnen in de Corelio-kranten. "Opnieuw stellen wij vast dat er niet toegegeven wordt dat de kardinaal in de fout is gegaan en opnieuw wordt het slachtoffer niet erkend", zegt de advocate.

Volgens meester Keuleneer hebben de twee kranten een karaktermoord gepleegd op kardinaal Danneels, onder meer door de tapes van zijn gesprek met de neef van bisschop Vangheluwe te publiceren en daaruit te concluderen dat de kardinaal het seksueel misbruik in de doofpot wou steken. De kranten zijn in de fout gegaan, aldus meester Keuleneer maar zijn confrater meester Christine Mussche ziet dat anders.

MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by David Clohessy, executive director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, 314-566-9790

It’s very tough for any child sex abuse victim to come forward, seek justice, expose wrongdoers and start healing. It’s particularly tough on someone like Greg who has lost so much, including a productive professional career, because the devastating effects of horrific childhood trauma came suddenly crashing down on him.

It’s a real sign of health that he’s taking careful steps to gradually rid himself of the inevitable shame that accompanies awful childhood sexual abuse.

The Bible tells us that the truth shall set us free. Greg, along with tens of thousands of other deeply wounded men and women who were violated as kids by clerics, is helping to expose that truth. We applaud him for doing so.

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

[BishopAccountability.org has the full report about Fanda, the New Tribes Mission School, Senegal.]

OVERALL SCHOOL CLIMATE

Church officials “created a mindset that ignored clear evidence of abuse, protected the predators, and shamed and even shunned the victims” (2)

“Authority was exercised in a manner that was absolute and not receptive to being questioned or challenged” (7)

Children “as young as five were separated from their parent and placed in dorms” (9)

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Kari Mikitson (a Seattle woman in her 30s who was victimized in childhood at the NTM school in Senegal Africa) 312 505 0160 kari@peregrinebynature.com

Today, we’re outside a police station for one simple reason. This is where child sex crimes should be reported – to law enforcement.

No matter what anyone thinks of how any church officials handle any abuse cases, child sex crimes – both known and suspected- should be reported here – to secular authorities, not church authorities.

I returned to Senegal in 2008 to explore the country of my childhood. While I was there, I began hearing stories of sexual abuse at the missionary-run boarding school I attended. This was my first inkling that the sexual abuse that I suffered and reported to New Tribes Mission in 1989 did not happen to me alone.

VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Dorris, outreach director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314-862-7688 home, 312-503-0003 cell)

Arlington Catholic officials have taken the most minimal steps to help police find victims of this predator. They can, and should, do much more.

The bishop has a diocesan newspaper and website, along with dozens of staff and weekly parish bulletins. He should use his considerable resources to aggressively seek out others who may have been molested and may still be suffering in shame, silence and self-blame.

The principal has alumni mailing lists which should be used to reach out to anyone else who may have been hurt by Hamilton.

UNITED KINGDOM
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Dorris, outreach director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell)

Of course the Pope will meet privately with a handful of carefully-chosen abuse victims behind closed doors in England. It's a perfect, virtually risk-free public relations strategy that has repeatedly worked for him. Such meetings change nothing and protect no one, but lead some to naively assume the Vatican is somehow "reforming" its approach to clergy sex crimes and cover ups. That's a sad and silly and reckless assumption.

As long as we pretend such meaningless and minor gestures are somehow significant, predators win and kids lose. We must instead ignore symbolic moves and insist on real reform. That's the only way children will be safer and victims will be healed.

NEW YORK
News 12

[with video]

(08/31/10) KIRYAS JOEL - Shlomo Weiss grew up in Kiryas Joel, a rural Orthodox-Jewish town, and says that he was sexually abused starting at the age of 7, adding that the abuse was regularly covered up by others in the close-knit community.

Now 36 years old and living in Brooklyn, Weiss says that in a horrifying twist, his abuser was the one man who should've been protecting him -- his father.

It would be nine long years before Weiss would seek help, revealing his secret to his school teachers and to the head rabbi at the Nitra Yeshiva in Mount Kisco, where he was studying.

CANADA
Metro

TRACEY TONG
METRO OTTAWA
Published: September 01, 2010

The court case for a 79-year-old former priest and St. Pius X High School teacher inched forward Wednesday after disclosure was released.

Ottawa lawyer Elena Davies, appearing on behalf of Kenneth O'Keefe’s Windsor-based lawyer, Andrew Bradie, said the disclosure, which contains the details of the charges, was only released Wednesday. The next date for the case is Sept. 29 in courtroom 5. The instructions for the next court date will depend on what is written in the disclosure, said Davies.

O’Keefe was arrested last month after police received a complaint of inappropriate contact between a priest and a teenage male that occurred 38 years ago.

BELGIUM
National Catholic Reporter (United States)

Media portrayals of retired Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels' meeting with a sex abuse victim, the victim's family and the abuser, Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Brugge, Belgium, have not given a complete picture of what transpired, says the lawyer representing Cardinal Danneels.

To counter the misrepresentations in the media, Fernand Keuleneer, Danneels' attorney, issued the following statement Aug. 30:

About Cardinal Danneels' failed attempt at reconciliation within the Vangheluwe family
On Saturday August 28, the Belgian newspaper De Standaard committed a character assassination on Cardinal Godfried Danneels (77), the retired archbishop of Mechelen – Brussels. De Standaard published (a part only of) the transcript of the tapes which had been secretly recorded during a confidential, improvised and failed reconciliation attempt with the Vangheluwe family, which the Cardinal acquiesced to undertake on April 8, 2010, De Standaard put certain paragraphs in red and moreover added extremely biased commentary.

Almost everyone agrees that legally, the Cardinal did nothing wrong. We moreover consider the Cardinal has acted in a morally irreproachable way.

NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Emily Moulton
Wednesday, 1 September 2010

The Catholic Church has been accused of showing more interest in making excuses than dealing with the pain of victims in its response to the Claudy bombing report.

It has been more than a week since the Police Ombudsman revealed the Church made a secret deal with the RUC and the British Government to prevent the arrest of Father James Chesney — the priest suspected of being an IRA leader and masterminding the 1972 atrocity — yet there has been no formal apology from the Church.

Last week a statement from Cardinal Sean Brady said the Church accepted the findings, but did not say sorry.

But this week the Catholic Communications Office released a statement in the name of former bishop Edward Daly, which called the findings into question and accused journalists of competing to write the most “lurid headlines”.

DES MOINES (IA)
Bank Info Security

September 1, 2010 - Linda McGlasson, Managing Editor

Over a weekend in August, the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa, fell victim to a $600,000 ACH fraud theft and becomes another in the growing list of businesses and entities that have suffered huge losses as a result of these crimes.

The church says it was victimized by criminals who illegally obtained its banking information in order to transfer funds to numerous "money mule" recipients across the United States on Aug. 13 and 16.

The Diocese is but the latest of many such incidents to have hit the nation's businesses and government entities over the past year. The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates that 205 separate businesses have reported incidents of corporate account takeover since 2004 - the bulk of them in the past year with estimated fraud losses topping $40 million.

Belgien
Vatican Magazine (Deutschland)

This links to a German magazine which carries an article in PDF format that addresses the church situation in Belgium.

MALTA
Times of Malta

Claudia Calleja

The head of the Church-appointed response team looking into allegations of sexual abuse by priests in an orphanage will not say when he expects to conclude the investigation that started seven years ago.

“I give no details about the case... I don’t discuss the case at all,” Judge Victor Caruana Colombo said when asked when the response team would wrap up the investigation now that it had the victims’ testimonies in hand.

The Vatican’s Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mgr Charles Scicluna, who conducted interviews with victims in June and July, presented his report on the meetings to the Archdiocese of Malta in July.

BALTIMORE (MD)
WJZ

BALTIMORE (AP)

A former Catholic school teacher convicted of raping one of his students in the mid-1970s has filed an appeal that he hopes will improve his chances of being released from prison.

A federal judge has ruled that John Merzbacher had ineffective counsel because his attorneys didn't give him a chance to accept a 10-year plea deal before his 1995 trial. Judge Andre Davis ordered that Merzbacher should be offered the plea deal again -- but he said a judge "must express a willingness" to go along with the deal.

Merzbacher's appeal seeks to strike down that caveat in Davis' ruling. He says in court papers that it's not likely that a judge "would approve such a plea agreement today."

CANADA
CJAD

Tue, 2010-08-31 17:57.
Shuyee Lee
A request for a class action lawsuit has been filed alleging sexual abuse at the hands of priests at the former Montreal Institute of the Deaf and the Mute.

Serge D'arcy wants to sue the Institut et la Congrégation des Clercs de Saint-Viateur de Montréal, the religious order which was running the institution he was attending between 1964 and 1972. The lawsuit targets alleged acts between 1967 and 1982. D'arcy was between 9 and 15 at the time. He alleges that it started a year after he arrived at the institute, accusing priests who worked and taught there.

The lawsuit is claiming $600,000 in damages for D'arcy but the global amount could go up to millions, because the lawsuit is claiming $100,000 in moral damages for each of the alleged victims, plus compensation. Serge D'arcy's lawyer Pierre Boivin says there are many alleged victims.

CANADA
Montreal Gazette

August 31, 2010 MONTREAL — Alleging sexual and physical abuse started when he was nine, a former resident of a school for deaf children is seeking leave to launch a class-action lawsuit against the school and the order of Catholic brothers who staffed it.

If granted by the Superior court, Serge D'Arcy is seeking a total of $600,000 for alleged abuse between 1967 and 1982: $250,000 for loss of revenue; $250,000 for physical and psychological suffering; and $100,000 in punitive damages.

For other victims who would become part of the class-action, the suit is seeking $100,000 in punitive damages for each, plus other compensation to be determined on am individual basis.

NEW YORK
Nuchem is Right

Yet another molestation horror story just shocked the world yesterday. A brave young man from Kiryas Yoel, NY came forward after years of being raped and molested by his own father.

Unfortunately these stories are very common these days, but they still put a shiver in your spine every time you hear a new story, and it reminds you of how important it is to fight pedophilia in our community.

At the same time however, there are still people in the community who believe in hush-hush! No matter how many people come forward, and how many stories are being exposed and how many people being put into the slammer, they still have the attitude of “it’s a copout” He is blaming someone else for HIS problems” and “its overblown” and similar poor excuses.

IRELAND
U.S. Catholic

Wednesday, September 1, 2010
By Megan Sweas

An 80-year-old Irish woman won't be attending Mass on September 26 and she wants other Catholic women to join in her one-day boycott.

From the Irish Times:

Jennifer Sleeman from Clonakilty in Cork said she wants 'to let the Vatican and the Irish church know that women are tired of being treated as second-class citizens.'

She has called on the Catholic women of Ireland to 'join your sisters on Sunday, September 26th. On that one day boycott Mass. Stay at home and pray for change. We are the majority. We may have been protesting individually but unremarked on, but together we have strength and our absence, the empty pews, will be noticed.'

MINNESOTA
Leagle

Jane Doe 43C, et al., Appellants,
v.
Diocese of New Ulm, et al., Respondents.
No. A10-374.
Court of Appeals of Minnesota.
Filed August 31, 2010.

Jeffrey R. Anderson, Kathleen P. O'Connor, Jeff Anderson & Associates, St. Paul, Minnesota, for appellants.

Thomas B. Wieser, Jennifer R. Larimore, Meier, Kennedy & Quinn, Chtd., St. Paul, Minnesota, for respondents.

Considered and decided by Peterson, Presiding Judge; Wright, Judge; and Larkin, Judge.

OPINION
LARKIN, Judge.

Appellants assert that the district court erred by granting summary judgment in respondents' favor on their intentional-misrepresentation claim. We conclude that the district court erred by determining that appellants' claim was time barred under the statute of limitations. But because appellants' intentional-misrepresentation claim is based solely on nondisclosure, and appellants did not establish that respondents had a duty to disclose, the district court correctly determined that appellants failed to present sufficient evidence of a misrepresentation, which is an essential element of their claim. We therefore affirm the district court's award of summary judgment for respondents.

GERMANY
Rome Reports

September 1, 2010. Germany's Catholic bishops have issued new rules on how to deal with cases of sexual abuse by priests. From now onwards the rules require that any case of suspected child abuse must be reported to the appropriate legal authorities. They will warn the police in any case, not only when the victims come forward requesting it.

The German guidelines apply to priests, religious and lay people who work for the Church.

Also, anyone involved the religious care of minors must submit a police certificate of good conduct.

GERMANY
Catholic News Service

By Catholic News Service

TRIER, Germany (CNS) -- The German Catholic Church will require all employees who work with young people to obtain police checks and undergo psychiatric tests when necessary, under new guidelines published Aug. 31.

"The new guidelines now extend to clerics, order members and other employees in the church's service," said Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier, the bishops' representative for sex abuse issues. "They depend on people actively serving the church to follow the necessary procedures and offer help whenever possible."

Bishop Ackermann said the key point in the guidelines, which took effect Sept. 1, concerned the church's duty to notify state law enforcement bodies of all abuse accusations. He said the new text went further in preventing cover-ups, as well as in encouraging victims to report abuse and enhancing child protection.

NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher

The Rabbinical Council of America, the largest organization of Orthodox rabbis, is likely to initiate an inquiry into alleged moral improprieties of its member, Rabbi Marc Schneier, the high-profile spiritual leader of The Hampton Synagogue in Westhampton, L.I., and New York Synagogue in Midtown, whose successes in drawing wealthy and loyal supporters and congregants is matched by his widely reported history of personal romances.

Faced with the choice of resignation or the likelihood of being brought before the RCA’s Vaad Hakavod, a committee to deal with the personal conduct of members, Rabbi Schneier this week chose not to step down.

The impetus for the RCA’s involvement in the matter is a spate of recent stories in local tabloids reporting on an alleged affair Rabbi Schneier was conducting this spring while still married to his fourth wife.

LANSING (MI)
Detroit Free Press

BY KATHLEEN LAVEY
LANSING STATE JOURNAL

LANSING -- Vintage ceramic tile and linoleum in his new workplace led attorney Gregory Guggemos to recall his days at St. Vincent home for children in the 1950s, he said Tuesday.

Guggemos said he was abused at that home by its founder, Msgr. John Slowey, who led Catholic Social Services of Lansing.

He settled a claim against the Catholic Diocese of Lansing for $225,000 last month. He said he hopes telling his story will help his healing process -- and other victims of clergy abuse.

"I know now I did nothing wrong when I was at the orphanage. I have no responsibility for being sexually abused. I am a victim," said Guggemos, who formerly lived in Haslett.

MINNESOTA
Post-Bulletin

9/1/2010

Associated Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Court of Appeals has thrown out a lawsuit by four women who say they were abused as children by a New Ulm priest.

The women accused the New Ulm Diocese of fraud for failing to disclose information about Rev. David Roney's abusive behavior. After Roney died in 2003, the diocese acknowledged that he had sexually abused children. Roney served at St. Francis in Benson and St. Mary's in Willmar during the 1960s and 1970s.

The appeals court ruled the diocese's silence on Roney's behavior did not constitute fraud.

IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

September 1, 2010

An 82-year-old priest charged with the alleged sexual assault of a boy in County Galway over 40 years ago has been sent forward for trial.

The priest – who can’t be named for legal reasons – was extradited from the US in July

GERMANY
Deutsche Welle

Any suspicion of the mistreatment of children by church officials will in future be reported to prosecutors immediately, according to new guidelines presented by Germany's Catholic bishops on Tuesday.

The Roman Catholic Church in Germany on Tuesday unveiled a new set of guidelines for dealing with cases of sexual abuse within the church.

All future allegations of abuse at the hands of church officials are to be reported to state prosecutors, which was not the case under the previous policy. Rules have been extended to include not just clergy but all staff working for the church.

NEDERLAND
Staatscourant

De Minister van Justitie en de Minister voor Jeugd en Gezin,
Gelet op artikel 2, eerste lid, van de Wet vergoedingen adviescolleges en commissies;
Besluiten:

Artikel 1. Begripsbepalingen In dit besluit wordt verstaan onder:
a. de Ministers: de Minister van Justitie en de Minister voor Jeugd en Gezin;

b. de Commissie: de Commissie onderzoek seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen die onder verantwoordelijkheid van de overheid in instellingen zijn geplaatst.

BELGIE
deredactie

Fernand Keuleneer, de advocaat van kardinaal Godfried Danneels, heeft hard uitgehaald naar De Standaard in een recht van antwoord dat de krant vandaag publiceert. Hij beschuldigt de krant van karaktermoord op de kardinaal. Hoofdredacteurs Bart Sturtewagen en Karel Verhoeven ontkennen dat ze een heksenjacht voeren en blijven erbij dat de kardinaal meer had kunnen doen.

Zaterdag publiceerde De Standaard een weergave van de opnames van een verzoeningsgesprek met het slachtoffer van ex-bisschop Roger Vangheluwe, waar Danneels bij was. Dat gesprek vond plaats op 8 april 2010, kort voor Vangheluwe ontslag nam.

"Vrijwel iedereen is het erover eens dat aan de kardinaal juridisch niets verweten kan worden. Wij menen daarenboven dat de kardinaal ook vanuit moreel oogpunt correct heeft gehandeld", schrijft advocaat Keuleneer in de brief.

BELGIE
Metro Times

BRUSSEL Het Brusselse parket heeft een onderzoek geopend naar de lekken rond Operatie Kelk, het onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik in de katholieke kerk. Bij die operatie werden huiszoekingen uitgevoerd in de Sint-Romboutskathedraal in Mechelen, in het aartsbisdom, bij kardinaal Danneels thuis (foto) en bij de commissie-Adriaenssens. Die huiszoekingen verliepen niet helemaal volgens het boekje, zo besliste de Kamer van Inbeschuldigingstelling in een arrest. Dat arrest had echter geheim moeten blijven, maar lekte uit in de pers. Heel het onderzoek wordt geplaagd door perslekken.

LONDEN
RKnieuws

LONDEN (RKnieuws.net) - Of er een ontmoeting komt tussen paus Benedictus XVI en de slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik tijdens zijn bezoek aan Groot-Brittanië (16 – 19 september), hangt van het Vaticaan af. Dat heeft aartsbisschop Vincent Nichols, leider van de katholieke Kerk van Engeland en van het Land van Wales, dinsdag verklaard.

‘Als het tot een dergelijke ontmoeting komt, zal die echter zeker niet vooraf aangekondigd worden’, zei de aartsbisschop.

BELGIUM
America Magazine

Posted at: Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Author: Austen Ivereigh

I don't often correct myself, but I think I need to on this occasion. What I wrote on the devastating weekend story of how Cardinal Danneels sought to persuade an abuse victim to remain silent was, I now realise, too sympathetic to the former Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels.

I say this because my friend Tom Heneghan of Reuters -- who runs the indispensable Faithworld blog -- has been in touch, gently to point out that where I had written

And there is the abuse victim unable to forgive him. ("This is unsolvable,” the nephew tells his uncle. “You’ve torn our family completely apart.”) That exchange throws light on what Bishop Vangheluwe said when he resigned: that he had asked the victim and his family to forgive him but the wound had not healed, “neither in me nor the victim.”

BELGIUM
America Magazine

Posted at: Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Author: Austen Ivereigh

Cardinal Danneels's spokesman, Toon Osaer, has posted a statement by the Cardinal's lawyer in the comboxes below my previous post. The statement sheds some important light on how Danneels saw the meeting with the abuse victim, his uncle, the bishop, who abused him, and their relatives. Leaving aside his advocate's defence points, he offers some important contextual facts:

1. that in early April Bishop Vangheluwe of Bruges calls the Cardinal to confess that 20 years earlier, from 1973 to 1986, he had sexually abused his nephew, and that the abuse had continued until he (by then a bishop) had been confronted by his brother. Danneels was obviously shocked. The lawyer does not say what Danneels said to the bishop on this occasion or subsequently, only that he could "barely respond". But he does make clear that Danneels and Vangheluwe are close -- which is presumably why the bishop turned to him.

2. On 8 April the bishop approaches him at a meeting for the elderly which is honouring Danneels, who stood down as Archbishop of Brussels in January. He asks him to mediate later that day in a meeting of his family; Danneels, unprepared, tries to postpone but the family are en route, and he agrees. The meeting is held at 3pm that day.

MALTA
Times of Malta

Claudia Calleja

It was now the responsibility of the Archdiocese of Malta to conclude “in a timely manner” its investigation into the alleged abuse that took place in a Church orphanage 20 years ago, a top Vatican official said yesterday confirming that his own report into the case had been concluded.

Last June, Mgr Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, held meetings with some of the eight men who seven years ago alleged they had been abused by priests in a home for boys in Sta Venera in the 1980s and 1990s.

His aim was to gather direct information to supplement the work being done on the case by the Curia in the hope that the full investigation would be concluded “expeditiously”.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Punch

The Vatican will decide whether Pope Benedict XVI meets with victims of child abuse during his upcoming visit to Britain, organisers said on Tuesday, adding that any talks would be strictly private.

“That’s a decision for the Holy See,” Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, the head of the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales, told reporters ahead of the papal visit to Scotland and England on September 16-19, Agence France Presse reports.

“If it happens it will not be announced beforehand and it will be in private, which is absolutely proper to protect those who will attend who are very vulnerable.”

BELGIUM
Sydney Morning Herald

AFP

The former head of the Belgian Catholic church was defamed by a newspaper report accusing him of trying to cover up the sexual abuse of a minor by the former bishop of Bruges, his lawyer said.

The Flemish daily De Standaard published on Saturday the transcripts of a conversation taped on April 8 between Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the victim and Roger Vangheluwe, who was still bishop at the time.

In the tape, Danneels, who headed the church between 1979-2009, asks the victim to accept an apology from Vangheluwe, or at least not make his allegations public until the bishop retired a year later.

COTTONWOOD (AZ)
Verde Independent

By Jon Hutchinson
Staff Reporter

COTTONWOOD - The Cottonwood Police Criminal Investigations Division received a 20-count indictment from the Yavapai County Grand Jury alleging sex offenses by Christopher William Furey.

Furey, 43, who served as the youth pastor at Emmanuel Fellowship Church in Cottonwood, is charged with having sex with a 16-year-old girl.

The complaint lists numerous felony charges including five counts of sexual conduct with a minor, 11 counts of sexual abuse and four counts of luring a minor for sexual exploitation.

CALIFORNIA
Auburn Journal

By Jon Brines
Gold Country News Service

The family of a 14-year-old Loomis girl molested by a youth pastor at Cornerstone Community Church in Rocklin are now suing him and the church for allowing the abuse to occur.

The church is also known as Rocklin Foursquare Church and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel based in Los Angeles.

The 13-page complaint filed earlier this month seeks punitive damages for sexual abuse of a child, sexual battery, gross negligence, breach of fiduciary duty. They also want reimbursement for medical care and lost earnings.

In April, Jeffery Waisner, 33 of Lincoln, was convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child stemming from a nearly six-month affair with the girl who was a part of his Friday night youth group. According to court documents, Waisner performed oral sex, intercourse and fondled her during incidents at his home, on trips with the church and at the church in Rocklin.

FAIRFAX (VA)
Fairfax Times

by Gregg MacDonald | Staff Writer

An international manhunt for a Centreville man described by U.S. Marshals as one of the most wanted child sex offenders in the country ended last week in Poland.

Former Little League Baseball coach John E. Hamilton, 39, was arrested Aug. 25 by the Polish Border Guard as he attempted to cross into Poland from the Czech Republic. Hamilton is on the G8 Wanted Child Sex Offender list, making him one of the 10 most wanted child sex offenders in the U.S., according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

Fairfax County Police, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Department of Justice are in the process of extraditing Hamilton to the U.S. ...

According to the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Hamilton was a baseball coach at Bishop Ireton High School in 1999. The diocese said it was made aware of Hamilton's charges by police early last year.

"We notified the players from that year and we have put a notice in our bulletin," said Joelle Santolla, director of communications for the diocese, in January.

CANADA
CBC News

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Halifax, N.S., is spending $2.3 million to renovate Glebe House so it can house Archbishop Anthony Mancini and other priests.

Some have criticized the expense given that the Roman Catholic diocese of Antigonish, N.S., must sell some of its properties to raise $15 million for a settlement with victims of sexual abuse by priests, but Rev. Paul Morris, the rector of nearby St. Mary's Basilica, defended it.

"Antigonish is a separate diocese," he said. "It is also a separate legal corporation. I, as the rector here, am trying to fulfill the responsibilities entrusted to me."

GERMANY
Der Spiegel

The Catholic Church in Germany has introduced new guidelines on dealing with allegations of suspected sexual abuse. They are intended to get police involved more quickly and prevent cases from being covered up. Media commentators feel the new rules do not go far enough.

The Catholic Church in Germany has often been accused in recent months of not doing enough to tackle cases of sexual abuse within its ranks. Now the institution has taken steps to give better protection to victims -- but critics say it has not gone far enough.

The bishop of Trier, Stephan Ackermann, announced new guidelines Tuesday for dealing with reported cases of sexual abuse. The guidelines, which come into effect Wednesday, are a revision of rules from 2002 which were criticized for being insufficient.

One of the main changes is that, under the new guidelines, public prosecutors will be informed about all suspected cases of abuse, unless the victim objects. The earlier guidelines had merely "advised" that priests contact prosecutors about "proven" cases of abuse.

AUSTRALIA
Dandenong Leader

1 Sep 10 @ 08:00am by Sam Landsberger

THE story of disgraced parish priest Kevin O’Donnell is a horrific one.

The convicted pedophile’s crimes stretched across five decades, during which he abused several victims. He served 13 years at Dandenong’s St Mary’s parish and 16 years in Oakleigh.

It was at Oakleigh that he sexually assaulted primary school students Emma and Katherine Foster. Their mother, Chrissie Foster, has written a book called Hell On The Way To Heaven about that horrific period.

From 1988 to 1993 the Catholic priest sexually assaulted the girls.

SANTA ROSA (CA)
The Press Democrat

By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Shame and fear of ridicule kept him quiet about alleged sexual abuse by a Catholic priest in Eureka nearly 30 years ago, a Humboldt County man said Tuesday.

“For a man, there is so much shame involved in saying anything,” the 38-year-old man, who declined to give his full name, said in an interview.

“I tried to work past it,” said the man, a father who works in law enforcement and as a young boy wanted to become a priest himself. “I just figured it was too late to do anything.”

MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
Posted: 09/01/2010

Four women who alleged that a now-dead priest sexually abused them as children had their lawsuit thrown out by the state Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

The court ruled that the New Ulm Diocese's silence on the Rev. David Roney's abusive behavior did not constitute fraud because the diocese did not "suppress" facts that it was under a legal obligation to disclose, a three-judge panel wrote.

There may be circumstances where a legal obligation to disclose the information existed, but the plaintiffs did not allege that, the court wrote.

WEST VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Judy Block Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, 636-433-2511, SNAPjudy@gmail.com

We hope this will be appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court. It’s important that the truth of what happened gets to be aired in open court. And it’s important that suspected child predators not walk free because of legal technicalities.

We know this victim and family. They are very credible and caring. This brave young man and his loved ones should be commended for coming forward quickly and having the courage and wisdom to contact law enforcement. (Many times victims are unable to promptly report their abuse - and are often criticized for that. In this case, however, this brave young victim stepped forward promptly.)

Regardless of whatever happens in the justice system, this victim has taken a key step toward healing himself and protecting other kids.

BELGIUM
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Dorris Outreach Director SNAPdorris@gmail.com 314 862 7688

The ball is now squarely in the court of 10 people.

Belgian Catholic officials now confirm that, just four months ago, Belgian Cardinal G Danneels a man once considered to be a likely candidate for Pope, tried to cover up admitted clergy child sex abuse, by urging a victim to stay silent. What’s worse is that Danneels did this even though the acknowledged predator was still in active ministry around kids and able to molest others.

Nine Belgian bishops, especially Danneels' successor Archbishop André-Mutien Léonard, should now publicly urge the Pope to discipline Danneels. If they don't, they are essentially endorsing Danneels' irresponsible, callous and hurtful actions. Staying silent about child sex cover ups is just as harmful as engaging in child sex cover ups.

The victim was smart for tape recording the meeting. We strongly urge victims to never meet alone with church officials. (Church officials almost never meet alone with victims.) In several instances, after a victim or advocate has met alone with church officials, those church officials claim money was extorted or threats were made. It's inherently dangerous and unwise for victims to meet alone with any church officials about abuse.

GERMANY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Blaine, SNAP President 312 399 4747

A lack of words on paper isn't causing this crisis and more words on paper won't fix it. For starters, every church official who ignored or concealed child sex crimes must be removed. Every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric must be exposed and suspended immediately. Unless and until those two steps are taken, everything else is window dressing.

This is part of the standard public relations playbook bishops use. For decades, nearly every diocese in which a major child sex abuse scandal has emerged has adopted or tweaked written policies. It rarely makes any real difference, other than mollifying some naive parishioners.

The problem isn't inadequate policies, it's a corrupt structure and system, in which bishops exercise virtually limitless power and are accountable to virtually no one.

Just months ago, Belgium's most powerful Catholic official tried hard to keep admitted child sex crimes by a bishop covered up. He tried to guilt-trip and sweet-talk a deeply wounded man to protect the church's image. No policy, regardless of what it says, would have prevented such wrong-doing or will prevent it in the future.

GERMANY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Dorris, SNAP Outreach Director (314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell)

The policy is backwards. It largely implies that clergy sex crimes and cover ups are past tense. They are not. Any bishop's first job must be to stop and prevent current and future child sex crimes.

This is a substantially weaker version of the very weak and only sporadically enforced US bishops' policy. It essentially keeps all of the power and discretion with the same bishops and church structure that has, for decades, ignored and concealed and enabled the horrific assaults on thousands of kids, and still does. There's no pledge of openness or any guarantees that predators will be exposed or suspended from ministry. It's window dressing, nothing more.

Under 'publicity,' there's not even a mention of transparency. The policy calls on church officials to warn one another when transferring a predator but not the public or the parishioners.

BELGIE
Gazet van Antwerpen

Volgens Fernand Keuleneer, de advocaat van Godfried Danneels, heeft de krant De Standaard een karaktermoord gepleegd op de kardinaal. Dat zegt hij in het christelijke weekblad Tertio.

De krant pakte afgelopen zaterdag uit met de transcripties van twee geluidsopnamen die het slachtoffer maakte van het gesprek met Danneels en Vangheluwe. Daaruit blijkt dat Danneels het seksueel misbruik geheim wilde houden tot bisschop Vangheluwe op pensioen zou gaan.

Volgens Keuleneer is er sprake van een gekleurde sfeerschepping. De man zegt dat de transcripties onvolledig zijn. Ook zegt hij dat het gaat om "het toepassen van methodes die met het objectief zoeken naar de waarheid niets te maken hebben". "Dit is karaktermoord", besluit hij.

BELGIE
KerkNet

BRUSSEL (KerkNet/KERK&leven) "Niemand twijfelt aan de goede bedoelingen van kardinaal Godfried Danneels om mensen in nood te helpen. Achteraf beschouwd lijdt het evenwel geen twijfel dat hij een inschattingsfout heeft gemaakt door in te gaan op het verzoek van Roger Vangheluwe, de toenmalige bisschop van Brugge, voor een bemiddelend gesprek met diens neef en familie." Dat schrijft Bert Claerhout, de hoofdredacteur van KERK & leven in zijn wekelijkse column die verschijnt in KERK & leven van woensdag 8 september.

Volgens Claerhout kwam kardinaal Danneels als een hond in een kegelspel terecht. "Geconfronteerd met een getormenteerde familie en niet wetend in welke verwerkingsfase het slachtoffer verkeerde, werd hij met onduidelijke en tegengestelde verwachtingen geconfronteerd. Wie hem beter kent, weet dat Danneels altijd bereid is tot een pastoraal gesprek. Ook in de ontmoeting met Vangheluwes slachtoffer hanteerde hij een uitgesproken pastoraal register."

BELGIE
De Standaard

woensdag 01 september 2010

'Je moet alles in zijn tijdsgeest bekijken', zei Vlaams parlementslid Johan Sauwens (CD&V). Volgens hem kunnen we alleen zo de houding begrijpen die kardinaal Godfried Danneels had aangenomen tijdens dat trieste gesprek met het slachtoffer van bisschop Roger Vangheluwe.

Vrijwel alle katholieke opiniemakers die gisteren in deze krant reageerden op de zogeheten Danneels-tapes, maakten een verwijzing naar 'de historische context', zoals zuster Monica Van Kerrebroeck het van haar kant noemde.

De redenering luidt dan: vroeger (wanneer?) dacht men anders over kindermisbruik. Dat is juist, maar so what? Ook in dat 'vroeger' was pedofilie een zonder meer strafbaar feit. En wat betekent het argument in dit geval, dat tenslotte niet zomaar een incidentje was, maar gaat om systematisch seksueel misbruik gedurende zeker twaalf jaar, dat begon toen het slachtoffer amper een kleuter van vijf was.

BELGIE
De Standaard

woensdag 01 september 2010

In een recht van antwoord beschuldigt de advocaat van kardinaal Danneels De Standaard van karaktermoord. We publiceren hieronder de integrale tekst en een nawoord van de hoofdredactie, zodat de lezer zich een oordeel kan vormen.

Op zaterdag 28 augustus heeft De Standaard een karaktermoord gepleegd op kardinaal Danneels. Uw krant heeft een gedeelte van de transcriptie van de geïmproviseerde en mislukte verzoeningspoging die de kardinaal op 8 april 2010 ondernam met de familie Vangheluwe gepubliceerd. Daarbij heeft De Standaard bepaalde passages in het rood gemarkeerd, en de tekst verder voorzien van uiterst gekleurde commentaar.

Vrijwel iedereen is het erover eens dat aan de kardinaal juridisch niets verweten kan worden. Wij menen daarenboven dat de kardinaal ook vanuit moreel oogpunt correct heeft gehandeld.

GERMANY
The Irish Times

DEREK SCALLY in Berlin

GERMAN CATHOLIC bishops have vowed to report to state prosecutors all suspected cases of clerical child abuse.

Guidelines presented yesterday are the answer of the Catholic Church in Germany to a wave of abuse cases that came to light earlier this year. “The terrible events and experiences of the past months showed us that the guidelines from 2002 were not precise enough,” said Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier, a special abuse commissioner of the church.

“Thus, we put the guidelines under critical scrutiny and tightened them up further.”

LANSING (MI)
WLNS

A local man says his life has been a living hell after he realized he'd been sexually abused by a Lansing priest more than 50 years ago. He spoke out about the alleged incident. Gregory Guggemos came forward as that victim. The former attorney got a settlement worth 225,000 dollars earlier this month paid by the Lansing Diocese.

Though the diocese won't admit the abuse happened, Guggemos says the sexual abuse occurred when he lived at Lansings' St. Vincent Orphanage from 1954 to 1955. He says Monsignor John Slowey, who ran the orphanage, is the man who assaulted him. Guggemos says he repressed the memories of what happened for decades. He says it wasn't until 1999 when he read several cases of sex abuse by priests throughout the United States--and visited the orphanage, that memories came flooding back.

Gregory Guggemos, sexual abuse victim: "When I saw his picture, I threw all the papers in the air and started crying uncontrollably. When i saw Slowey's picture, I had an immediate flashback to him, the orphanage, and one incident of being sexually abused. When I saw Slowey's picture and had the flashback, I immediate felt that all the questions, suspicions and fears I had for a number of years that I was sexually abused at the orphanage were confirmed."

GEORGIA
Savannah Morning News

By Dana Clark Felty
A priest formerly in charge of three southeast Georgia Catholic missions has been cleared of charges he sexually abused a child.

The Rev. Bob Poandl was serving as pastor of St. Christopher in Claxton, Holy Cross in Pembroke and Our Lady of Guadalupe in Sand Hill when he was accused June 9, 2009, of sexual misconduct in the early 1990s with a West Virginia child.

The Glenmary Home Missioners, the religious order that operates the three missions, immediately placed Poandl on administrative leave and transferred him to the order’s headquarters in Cincinnati.

INDIA
Times of India

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There seems no end to Church's woes as far as "God's own country" is concerned. After ex-nun Sister Jesmi's tell-all book on the dark side of the convent life, it's now the turn of a former priest to expose what he claims "sexual anarchy among the clergy and the faithful".

The book, 'Here is The Heart of a Priest' by K P Shibu, who left the Vicentian Congregation after 11 years, is autobiographical and slams the "indulgent and licentious life-style of a section of the clergy". Writing about his days with the congregation, Shibu (38) alleges, "Homosexuality and adult films had become a part of their lifestyle... a section of priests and nuns were driven by lust for power and money. Mismanagement of funds was also rampant in institutions under the order."

LANSING (MI)
The Injury Board Blog

Posted by David Mittleman
August 31, 2010

[The following is the text of the prepared statement read by my client at today's press conference]

My name is Gregory J. Guggemos. I am married and my wife and I have 2 sons and 5 grandchildren. I am the person who my attorney Dave Mittleman referred to during his press conference last week who settled my claim for sexual abuse with the Lansing Diocese (“Diocese”) for $225,000.

Today I will be reading to you a prepared written statement outlining the factual background beginning with the events which occurred from June of 1954 through the time the settlement agreement was signed by me and the Bishop for the Diocese. I will not answer any questions when I conclude reading my prepared statement. Any questions must be addressed to Dave Mittleman. I may, at sometime in the future, be willing to answer questions from the media. I ask each of you to respect my position on this issue.

My decision to go public with what occurred to me has been a very difficult one for me and my family to make. We decided to provide the media with this written statement because it is the right thing to do for two primary reasons.

LANSING (MI)
WILX

Reporter: Jamie Edmonds
Email Address: jamie.edmonds@wilx.com

Gregory Guggemos said the past few years have been unbearable.

"When I saw his picture, I threw all the papers up in the air and started crying uncontrollably," Guggemos said. "When I saw Slowey's picture, i immediately had a flashback to him, the orphanage and being sexually abused by him."

He said memories of his sexual abuse at the hands of Father John Slowey, while he stayed at the St. Vincent home for Children back in the 50s, have come back to him as an adult like a flood. It started with a tour of the home back in 2008.

GERMANY
BBC News

The Catholic Church in Germany has issued tougher guidelines on the handling of reports of sex abuse.

The revised rules insist all allegations must be reported to prosecutors in an attempt to prevent cases being covered up.

But critics say the new advice does not go far enough to tackle the issue.

The Catholic Church in Germany and other European countries has been hit by repeated accusations of abuse.

GERMANY
Sydney Morning Herald

Simon Sturdee
September 1, 2010

AFP

Germany's Catholic Church unveiled on Tuesday tougher guidelines on investigating and preventing child sex abuse that it hopes will stop a repeat of the hugely damaging scandals of this year.

"The dreadful findings and experiences of recent months have shown us that the (previous) guidelines of 2002 were imprecise in some areas," said Stephan Ackermann, bishop of Trier, as he presented the new rules.

"It was important for us bishops to make sure that ... the new guidelines prevent cases of sexual abuse being covered up," Ackermann, who was tapped by the German Episcopal Conference to draw up the new code, told reporters.

UNITED STATES
Leon J. Podles: Dialogue

August 31st, 2010

Because the reporting on the Vangheluwe - Danneels case is in Dutch, much of the information is difficult to access.

One important piece of background has recently surfaced. Tom Heneghan of Reuters wrote to Austen Ivereigh at America:

What is not said in the transcripts but was reported in the other paper running the transcripts (Het Nieuwsblad) is that the victim was moved to speak out after learning that Vangheluwe had consecrated a deacon who was a child abuser. One of his victims later committed suicide. Vangheluwe’s victim felt this might have been avoided if he had spoken out about Vangheluwe years ago. The victim cannot just accept an apology from his uncle, he feels a duty to do more, but he does not come across as vengeful. At one point early on, he even says to Danneels that if he (D) suggests a coverup is the only way, he might have to learn to live with that. But then he pulls himself together again and says Vangheluwe simply cannot stay in office if the Church is to stand for anything at all.

Ivereigh is backing away from his attempt to soften Danneels action or rather refusal to act. Danneels was caught on tape acting like bishops usually act and will continue to act. And Danneels will suffer no consequences, nor will any future bishop who covers up sexual abuse suffer any consequences, and they know it. Until we get a true reforming pope like Pius V, the hierarchy will continue to tolerate abuse whenever they can get away with it – which is almost always.

BELGIE
RKnieuws

IEPER (RKnieuws.net) - De schandalen in de kerk hebben ook hun vertakkingen in Vlamertinge. Diaken Marc V. werkte ondanks een eerdere veroordeling voor misbruik nog steeds in de Kortrijkse school Ter Bruyninge. Daar wist de directrice tot gisteren niets van een veroordeling, want de man kon een bewijs van goed gedrag en zeden voorleggen. Nu werd Marc V. op ziekteverlof gestuurd.

Ook in de Sint-Vedastusparochie van Vlamertinge wordt de diaken op non-actief gezet. De man werd in de jaren 80 immers schuldig bevonden aan de verkrachting van een minderjarige, die nadien zelfmoord pleegde, maar hij kreeg opschorting van straf. Later werd hij tot diaken gewijd, ook al had de moeder van het slachtoffer daartegen fel geprotesteerd bij bisschop Vangheluwe.

[summary]

A deacon named Marc V. worked in Vlamertinge despite a previous conviction for abuse and he is still working in a school. The school director knew nothing of the conviction until yesterday because the man came with a certificate of good conduct. The man before ordination was convicted in the 1980s of abusing a minor, who later committed suicide, but he was given a suspended sentence. The victim's mother complained to Bishop Vangheluwe but he was ordained a deacon anyway.

PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

By Jason Brudereck
Reading Eagle

The Allentown Diocese is working with the Vatican to defrock a priest accused of sexually abusing a 19-year-old woman and impregnating her after counseling her at Central Catholic High School.

The process, called laicization, removes a priest from a clerical state, diocese spokesman Matt Kerr said Tuesday.

A lawsuit on behalf of the woman's parents was filed last week in Berks County Court seeking more than $300,000 in damages from the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito, the Allentown Diocese, Central Catholic, Allentown Bishop John O. Barres and the diocese's former bishop, Edward P. Cullen.

LANSING (MI)
Lansing State Journal

Kathleen Lavey • klavey@lsj.com • August 31, 2010

LANSING -- Attorney Gregory Guggemos has identified himself as the man who settled a decades-old sex abuse claim against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lansing for $225,000 earlier this month.

Guggemos, his voice sometimes breaking with emotion, read a 10-page statement at his attorney's office today. detailing the years-long process of recalling the abuse.

Guggemos says he was abused by Monsignor John Slowey at the St. Vincent home for children while he and three siblings stayed there for portions of 1954 and 1955.

BELGIUM
Catholic News Service

By Jonathan Luxmoore
Catholic News Service

OXFORD, England (CNS) -- A spokesman for Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels said the transcript of an April meeting with a victim of clergy sex abuse has been interpreted out of context.

"There was no intention of any cover-up," said Toon Osaer, spokesman for the cardinal, who retired in January as archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels.

"Seen from today's perspective, the cardinal realizes he was rather naive to think he could help the family in question reach a reconciliation," he told Catholic News Service Aug. 30. "At that moment, however, the family didn't want to make public something they'd kept secret for 24 years."

BELGIE
De Standaard

31 augustus 2010, 20u24

Fernand Keuleneer, de advocaat van kardinaal Godfried Danneels, stelt dat De Standaard karaktermoord pleegde op Danneels.

Lees het recht van antwoord van kardinaal Godfried Danneels morgen in De Standaard

UNITED STATES
Religion in the News

by Andrew Walsh

Even in the hands of relatively buttoned-down practitioners of mainstream American journalism, blogs are megaphones. So Ross Douthat, the New York Times’ conservative columnist, was engaging in conscious hyperbole when his June 9 blog in the Atlantic carried the headline, “The Catholic Church is finished.”

“This was the year when the cover-up of priestly sex abuse, a long-simmering crisis for Catholicism, became something much, much bigger,” Douthat wrote. And, indeed, coverage of the crisis in all forms of media during early 2010 surged to the highest level since 2002.

The surge occurred because the abuse crisis came home to Europe, with scandals convulsing Ireland, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria. Above all, the coverage focused attention on the Vatican and on high-level church leaders, with a cast of characters including the Belgian police, German Chancelor Angela Merkel, and the New York Times showering the church leadership with very hostile questions about their handling of the crisis over the past 20 years.

MALTA
Times of Malta

Claudia Calleja

It was now the responsibility of the Archdiocese of Malta to conclude “in a timely manner” its investigation into the alleged abuse that took place in a Church orphanage 20 years ago, a top Vatican official said yesterday confirming that his own report into the case had been concluded.

Last June, Mgr Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, held meetings with some of the eight men who seven years ago alleged they had been abused by priests in a home for boys in Sta Venera in the 1980s and 1990s.

His aim was to gather direct information to supplement the work being done on the case by the Curia in the hope that the full investigation would be concluded “expeditiously”.

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor

By Ben Leubsdorf / Monitor staff
August 31, 2010article tools

A priest who formerly served as a chaplain at Magdalen College in Warner has been charged with sexually touching an 11-year-old girl in northern Virginia.

The Rev. Felix Owino, 44, was arrested in Fairfax County, Va., on July 7 and charged with a single count of aggravated sexual battery, the police said. He is being held without bail and is set to appear Thursday in Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, which hears cases involving crimes against children.

The court declined to say if Owino has a lawyer. The battery charge is a felony carrying one to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

KENYA
Mwakilishi

A priest who had served as chaplain at a small New Hampshire Catholic college was arrested in Virginia last month and charged with sexual assault against an 11-year-old girl, two activists organizations said yesterday.

The Rev. Felix Owino was arrested in Herndon, Va., which is about 25 miles west of Washington, D.C. A Fairfax County police spokesman said Owino was considered a longtime friend of the alleged victim's family.

A native of Nairobi, Kenya, Owino served as chaplain of Magdalen College in Warner from June 2005 to October 2008, the college said yesterday. He was a member of the Africa-based Apostles of Jesus missionary worder.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A young lodger killed an 81-year-old vicar in his home and then dismembered his body because of his sexual abuse, Lewes Crown Court has heard.

Christopher Hunnisett allegedly drowned the Rev Ronald Glazebrook in the bath at the churchman's home in St Leonards, East Sussex, in April 2001.

Prosecutor Philip Katz said that Mr Hunnisett, now 26, who denies murder, was going to claim he was trying to stop the vicar sexually abusing him. ...

He told the court: "There is evidence that the relationship between the deceased and the defendant had deteriorated to the extent that the priest wanted the defendant out of his flat and the defendant knew that."

Mr Katz said there was no suggestion of sexual abuse during the original trial and Mr Hunnisett was introducing a "wholly unlikely story" at his retrial.

GERMANY
Earth Times

Trier, Germany - Germany's Catholic bishops have ordered all future allegations of child molestation to be reported to police, said Stephan Ackermann, the bishop in charge of the issue, on Tuesday.

The guidelines, replacing 2002 German rules that gave church officials some discretion whether to call police over unproven allegations, are to go into force on Wednesday, said Ackermann.

The church has faced criticism around the globe that it failed to properly investigate child-sex allegations against church staff, or kept the cases secret, or re-assigned guilty priests to new jobs where children were again at risk.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
WFMZ

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- The Diocese of Allentown has begun the process of defrocking a priest who is accused of impregnating a teenage girl.

Spokesman Matt Kerr said the diocese began putting paperwork together over the weekend for the process known as removal from the clerical state, more popularly known as defrocking.

Kerr said the final decision is up to the Vatican.

Berks County District Attorney John Adams said he won't file charges against the Rev. Luis Bonilla Margarito because the relationship started when the girl was 18.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Canadian Press

By Patrick Walters (CP)

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic diocese in Pennsylvania has begun the process to defrock a priest whose dalliances with a teenage girl were videotaped by her parents. She later gave birth to a daughter.

But Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams says his office won't press charges against the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito because the relationship started when the girl was 18.

A spokesman says the Diocese of Allentown began putting paperwork together over the weekend for the process known as removal from the clerical state — popularly known as defrocking. The diocesan spokesman, Matt Kerr, says the final decision is up to the Vatican.

NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Adrian Rutherford
Tuesday, 31 August 2010

A victim of the Claudy bombing has criticised Edward Daly after the retired bishop said the priest accused of masterminding the IRA atrocity deserved a presumption of innocence.

Mary Hamilton accused Bishop Daly of “rubbing salt in the wounds” of Claudy’s victims after he cast doubt on Fr James Chesney’s involvement in the 1972 massacre.

Nine people were killed and more than 30 injured when three no-warning bombs exploded in the Co Londonderry village.

WASHINGTON
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By JESSIE STENSLAND
WHIDBEY NEWS TIMES

Another former altar boy has come forward to accuse a now-defrocked Oak Harbor priest of sexually abusing him 30 years ago.

A 42-year-old former Whidbey Island resident has filed a civil lawsuit in King County Superior Court against the Seattle Archdiocese for alleged childhood sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of Father Barry Ashwell.

Ashwell served as pastor of St. Augustine Church in Oak Harbor from 1978 to 2000. The Archdiocese placed him on administrative leave when a sexual abuse allegation became public through a lawsuit in 2002.

ICELAND
Iceland Review

Almost 50 priests met three women who accused former Bishop Ólafur Skúlason (who died in 2008) of sexual harassment in 1996 in the church Vídalínskirkja in Gardabaer yesterday and listened to their stories.

“It was a valuable experience and I thank these women heartily for speaking with us after all this time and all this silence. They told us about pain and anger and this time the priests didn’t stand and hold long speeches but learnt. I believe we all learnt something and I am extremely grateful for that,” Rev. Sigrídur Gudmarsdóttir of Grafarholt in Reykjavík told visir.is.

Rev. Thórhallur Heimisson of Hafnarfjördur said the meeting had been very emotional. “It was good to meet the women and listen to their stories and hopefully for them to hear how we feel.”

GERMANY
The Local

Germany's Catholic Church unveiled on Tuesday tougher guidelines on investigating and preventing child sex abuse that it hopes will stop a repeat of the hugely damaging scandals of this year.

"The dreadful findings and experiences of recent months have shown us that the (previous) guidelines of 2002 were imprecise in some areas," said Stephan Ackermann, bishop of Trier, as he presented the new rules.

"It was important for us bishops to make sure that ... the new guidelines prevent cases of sexual abuse being covered up," Ackermann, who was tapped by the German Episcopal Conference to draw up the new code, told reporters.

GERMANY
Houston Chronicle

By MELISSA EDDY and KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press Writers
Aug. 31, 2010

BERLIN — Germany's Roman Catholic church introduced new guidelines Tuesday on handling reports of sexual abuse that require prosecutors to be informed of any suspected cases.

The expanded guidelines come in response to hundreds of allegations of abuse at the hands of clergy that emerged earlier this year and rocked the church in Germany — Pope Benedict XVI's homeland.

Stephan Ackermann, the Bishop of Trier who was tapped by church authorities to lead the revision of the 2002 guidelines, said special attention had been given to the issue of involving law enforcement officials.

CONNECTICUT
MN-SNAP

Press Release
For immediate release August 31, 2010
Contact: Paul Kendrick 207-838 1319/

A Fairfield University alumnus will hold a demonstration and hand out fliers on the Fairfield University campus to protest the abandonment of child sex abuse victims in Haiti by Fairfield University sponsored admitted child rapist.

For two and one-half years, Fairfield University has abandoned and ignored the homeless, street children in Haiti who were sexually abused by Douglas Perlitz, former executive director of Fairfield University created and sponsored – Project Pierre Toussaint.

Fairfield University President Jeffrey von Arx won’t even help the victims by donating a measly $2 per day, per boy, to help provide for their basic needs of food, water, safe shelter, medicine and education.

BALTIMORE (MD)
The Examiner

Associated Press
08/31/10 7:10 AM PDT BALTIMORE — A former Catholic school teacher convicted of raping one of his students in the mid-1970s has filed an appeal that he hopes will improve his chances of being released from prison.

A federal judge has ruled that John Merzbacher had ineffective counsel because his attorneys didn't give him a chance to accept a 10-year plea deal before his 1995 trial. Judge Andre Davis ordered that Merzbacher should be offered the plea deal again — but he said a judge "must express a willingness" to go along with the deal.

Merzbacher's appeal seeks to strike down that caveat in Davis' ruling. He says in court papers that it's not likely that a judge "would approve such a plea agreement today."

UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Published: 6:27AM BST 31 Aug 2010

Cardinal Seán Brady has faced widespread criticism over his handling of a clergy child abuse scandal, and for his refusal to apologise after a priest was allowed to evade questioning over an IRA bombing.

But he defiantly told an Irish newspaper that he would not be stepping down and that he hoped to attend many of the engagements during Benedict XVI’s historic state visit to Scotland and England in three weeks’ time.

“I plan to accompany Pope Benedict in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Birmingham,” said Cardinal Brady, the head of the church in Ireland.

GHANA
Joy

A first degree felony charge against a randy Roman Catholic priest, Rev. Father Charles Asamoah of Bodwesango, has been dropped as a result of an out-of-court settlement.

The 32-year-old was convicted and sentenced by an Obuasi circuit court to pay a fine of GH¢800 for hacking his lover girl over an issue of infidelity at the St. Louis Parish's mission house.

Fr. Asamoah was convicted after pleading guilty to two counts of causing unlawful harm and threat of death to Janet Dwamena Agyapomaa aka Yaa Kwahu.

NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

The Catholic Church has got itself in another horrible mess of its own making.

By continuing to cast doubt on the Police Ombudsman's report into the Claudy bombing - and in particular the central allegation that a priest was one of those involved in the atrocity - it stands accused today of being in denial. Indeed, most commentators will see the church's stance on Claudy as reverting to type and adopting the same position as it did when confronted with allegations of clerical abuse of children. It seems that when the church feels itself under attack it retreats into a siege mentality, defending itself only by rounding on its critics rather than addressing the criticisms.

In the case of Claudy, it is clear from the Police Ombudsman's lengthy inquiry that Cardinal Conway agreed with the then Secretary of State, William Whitelaw, to send the priest to a parish in Donegal. The cardinal described his errant cleric as "a very bad man". Why would the church allow civic authorities to brand one of its clergymen as a terrorist, if it did not have grave suspicions about his activities? Why would the priest allow himself to be railroaded out of the province if innocent?

VERO BEACH (CA)
Miami Herald

The Associated Press
VERO BEACH, Fla. -- South Florida investigators are looking for a counselor and former Catholic priest who allegedly planted child pornography on the computer of another former priest.

Alfred Justin Boulerice faces charges of trespassing, tampering with evidence and making a false report to law enforcement.

The investigation began last year, when someone anonymously called police and said they saw child pornography on a computer belonging to Gerald Lamothe. He was arrested and charged, but exonerated in February after an informant told police the pictures were planted.

UNITED STATES/IRELAND
Irish Central

By DARA KELLY, IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

A major search is underway for Oliver O'Grady, the elusive Limerick priest who was deported to Ireland 10 years ago after being jailed for sexually abusing two boys. American law firm Manly, McGuire and Stewart now want to serve the defrocked Irish priest with papers for a civil action on behalf of his alleged victims.

The firm has hired a private detective to track down the Limerick man who has been reported to be living in Limerick, Dublin and also Holland, and may now be residing in a hostel in Dublin city center.

Patrick Wall, one of the U.S. representatives of the law firm, is a former Roman Catholic Priest and Benedictine monk, and is an expert on the abuse crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church where he has been consulted on more than 200 cases of clerical abuse in the United States.

MICHIGAN
WILX

A man who says he was abused by a local priest will identify himself at a press conference Tuesday.

That's according to a press release issued by his attorney.

The man is expected to talk about his experience and explain why he believes Michigan's child sex abuse laws need to change.

WEST VIRGINIA
Dayton Daily News

SPENCER, W.Va. — A judge has dismissed charges against a Fairfield, Ohio priest accused of sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy while the two visited a West Virginia church in 1991.

Roane County Circuit Judge David W. Nibert dismissed the charges against The Rev. Robert F. Poandl on Friday with prejudice, meaning prosecutors could not refile the same charges against Poandl. Nibert delayed his ruling for 90 days so prosecutors could appeal to the state Supreme Court.

One of Poandl's lawyers, Anita Ashley, said Monday that Nibert dismissed the case because the accuser had failed to comply with a court order to produce medical records.

SPOKANE (WA)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By JOHN STUCKE
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW

SPOKANE, Wash. -- The Catholic Diocese of Spokane is broaching a consequence of its bankruptcy once thought unthinkable - the sale of churches to pay victims of clergy sex abuse.

New claims of abuse that occurred decades ago continue to be filed, approved and paid, draining a special $1 million fund that now needs replenishing as part of the legal settlement the diocese signed to end its bankruptcy.

If the diocese and a select group of parishes fail to raise the necessary new funds, the trustee in charge of carrying out the bankruptcy settlement is duty-bound to begin the foreclosure process to collect the money.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

A young lodger killed an elderly vicar in his own home before chopping up his body because he claimed he had been sexually abused, a court heard today.

Former church server Christopher Hunnisett allegedly drowned 81-year-old Reverend Ronald Glazebrook in his bath and then dismembered his body in 2001.

Together with a friend, Jason Groves, Hunnisett, then aged 17, went on to scatter the retired vicar's body parts at woodland spots across East Sussex.

BELGIE
Nederlands Dagblad

BRUSSEL - De Belgische kardinaal Godfried Danneels heeft geprobeerd de zaak rond de ex-bisschop van Brugge die zijn neefje jarenlang seksueel misbruikte in de doofpot te stoppen.

De Vlaamse kranten De Standaard en Het Nieuwsblad hebben dat zaterdag gemeld. Zij baseren zich op een geluidsopname van een confrontatie tussen Danneels, de bisschop en het slachtoffer.

Bisschop Roger Vangheluwe van Brugge legde in april zijn functie neer nadat hij het misbruik van zijn neef had toegegeven. Eerder had er een gesprek plaats tussen Danneels, Vangheluwe en het slachtoffer. Uit een bandopname die de neef daarvan zelf stiekem maakte, blijkt dat Danneels aandrong op geheimhouding, in ieder geval zo lang Vangheluwe nog niet met pensioen was. De neef wilde dat zijn oom ontslag nam.

BELGIE
Sargasso

“Ah! We kunnen ook, zoals ik al zei vergiffenis vragen en vergiffenis geven, dat is ook nog een mogelijkheid.”
(Kardinaal Danneels in De Standaard, 28 augustus 2010, transcriptie van de Danneels-tapes, geen link)

Je moet maar durven. Op 8 april dit jaar heeft kardinaal Godfried Danneels, tot voor kort de hoogste prelaat binnen de Belgische katholieke kerk, een slachtoffer van seksueel misbruik voorgesteld om te wachten met openbaarmaking tot de dader met pensioen zou gaan: ‘Eigenlijk, monseigneur gaat volgend jaar zijn ontslag geven, eigenlijk zou dat beter zijn dat je wacht.’ Het slachtoffer was notabene dertien jaar lang, tot zijn achttiende, misbruikt door zijn oom, bisschop Roger Vangheluwe.

BELGIE
De Redactie

De advocate van het slachtoffer van de ex-bisschop Roger Vangheluwe vraagt een duidelijk antwoord van de huidige aartsbisschop André Léonard. Ze ontkent ook dat er een tweede gesprek zou komen, iets wat Godfried Danneels beweerde.

VRT Vrijdag is een opname uitgelekt van een gesprek tussen de voormalige aartsbisschop Godfried Danneels en het slachtoffer van seksueel misbruik door Roger Vangheluwe. In tegenstelling tot wat Danneels enkele maanden geleden beweerde, blijkt uit de tapes dat hij vooral probeerde om de zaak toe te dekken. Hij vroeg het slachtoffer om minstens te wachten tot na het pensioen van Vangheluwe om met het verhaal naar buiten te komen. De neef van Vangheluwe is nu 42 en werd tijdens zijn jeugd jarenlang misbruikt.

BELGIQUE
RTL

La victime de l'ancien évêque de Bruges Roger Vangheluwe a rendu publics les enregistrements pris lors d'une rencontre avec le cardinal Danneels. Il apparaît que l'ancien primat de l'Eglise catholique belge voulait garder le secret sur l'affaire. Ce que nie fermement l'intéressé via son porte-parole.

Dans le cadre de l'affaire des actes d'abus commis par l'ancien évêque de Bruges Roger Vangheluwe, la presse flamande publie ce samedi le contenu d'enregistrements faits par la victime lors de la confrontation en présence du cardinal Godfried Danneels.

BELGIE
Kerknieuws

DI 31 aug 2010 | 08.47

De Belgische kardinaal Danneels heeft via zijn tijdelijke woordvoerder laten weten "dat het nooit zijn bedoeling is geweest om het misbruik door oud-bisschop Vangheluwe in de doofpot te willen stoppen".

Verder laat hij weten dat hij binnen een vertrouwelijke context wilde zoeken naar mogelijke oplossingen. "Op geen enkel ogenblik is er bij het slachtoffer noch bij de familie op aangedrongen het geval 'geheim te houden'en niet naar het gerecht te stappen".

Danneels betreurt het dat de vertrouwelijke gesprekken openbaar zijn gemaakt.

BELGIE
De Standaard

dinsdag 31 augustus 2010

MAART

Het 42-jarige slachtoffer telefoneert naar zijn oom-bisschop, Roger Vangheluwe, die hem misbruikte van zijn vijfde tot zijn achttiende jaar. Hij vraagt een afspraak met zijn oom en vraagt dat ook diens 'overste', die hij niet bij naam noemt, erbij zou zijn.

Het gonst in die periode in de pers van verhalen over misbruik in de katholieke Kerk in andere landen. In zijn eerste paasmis als nieuwe aartsbisschop van ons land verwijst André Léonard naar de recente schandalen rond pedofilie in de Kerk. Die mogen niet in de doofpot, zegt Léonard in zijn homilie. Het slachtoffer vat daardoor na vele jaren van twijfel moed en vindt dat het tijd is om de hiërarchie van de kerk eindelijk ook persoonlijk te vertellen dat zijn oom hem al die jaren heeft misbruikt. Uit schaamte en onder druk van zijn katholieke entourage heeft hij dat nooit eerder gedurfd.

(Priester Rik Devillé beweert dat hij Danneels in de jaren negentig wél op de hoogte bracht van het misbruik door Vangheluwe, nadat een vertrouwenspersoon van het slachtoffer hem het verhaal had verteld. Dat gebeurde zonder het medeweten van het slachtoffer zelf, red.)

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

dinsdag 31 augustus 2010, 12u29

Het Brusselse parket opent een gerechtelijk onderzoek na de lekken over het arrest van de KI in de zaak Operatie Kelk. Dat meldt het parket.

De zaak draait rond een arrest dat de kamer van inbeschuldigingstelling (KI) op 13 augustus uitsprak over operatie Kelk. De inhoud van dat arrest bleef geheim op vraag van onderzoeksrechter De Troy. Maar VTM meldde vorige vrijdag dat het toch inzage had gekregen en ook eerder waren al berichten over de inhoud opgedoken.

Het arrest van de KI sprak zich uit over de huiszoekingen bij de commissie-Adriaenssens, die onderzoeksrechter De Troy had laten uitvoeren in zijn gerechtelijk onderzoek naar kindermisbruik en een eventuele doofpotoperatie daarrond binnen de katholieke Kerk. Het werd achter gesloten deuren uitgesproken en op vraag van de onderzoeksrechter werd de inhoud niet bekendgemaakt.

DES MOINES (IA)
Radio Iowa

by Dar Danielson on August 27, 2010

The Catholic Diocese of Des Moines says thieves were able to electronically steal over $600,000 from one of the organizations bank accounts. Diocese spokeswoman, Anne Marie Cox, says they were notified by the bank on August 17th. Cox says as soon as the learned about the fraud, they closed all the relevant accounts and began looking at recovering the funds.

The F.B.I. is investigating and the U.S. Treasury has been notified, and Cox says it looks as though all the proper procedures were followed and no bank staff or diocese employees are believed to be involved. Cox says they also want to reassure donors they are safe.

Cox says the bank has assured them that no donor accounts that use automatic donation have been compromised. “Law enforcement tells us that we seem to have been victim of a highly sophisticated operation,” Cox says. Cox says they are working to get all the money back.

DES MOINES (IA)
KCCI

The Diocese of Des Moines said Friday that it is missing $600,000 from its bank account.

Officials said criminals illegally obtained its banking information on Aug. 13 and Aug. 16 in order to transfer more than $600,000 of diocesan funds to numerous recipients across the United States.

The diocese was notified for the transfer by Bankers Trust on Aug. 17. Officials said all relevant bank accounts were shut down and the bank immediately initiated the process of recovering funds where possible.

Officials said that as of Friday approximately $180,000 has been recovered.

DES MOINES (IA)
WOI

The Diocese of Des Moines wants its money back after thieves stole more than half a million dollars from their bank accounts. Diocese officials told us they fully expect to get all the money back and hope their misfortunate can help others.

Criminals, possibly overseas, illegally obtained banking information for accounts at Banker's Trust and were able to give $600,000 to recipients across the country.

"Our goal is to help people come closer to god. So the fact that a catholic, service organization like us was robbed, came as a surprise," said diocese spokeswoman Anne Marie Cox. She said between the FBI investigation, Banker's Trust and their insurance carrier they plan to be reimbursed for the total amount stolen. Meanwhile, $180,000 have already been recovered.

DES MOINES (IA)
Des Moines Register

By DAVID ELBERT • delbert@dmreg.com • August 28, 2010

More than $600,000 has been stolen electronically from a Bankers Trust account belonging to the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, the bank and the diocese said Friday.

The thieves are believed to be "a highly sophisticated operation most likely based overseas" who transferred the money "to numerous recipients across the United States on Aug. 13 and 16," the diocese said in a statement announcing the theft.

Bankers Trust alerted the diocese to the fraud on Aug. 17. The bank immediately shut down relevant bank accounts and began a process to recover the funds. "To date, approximately $180,000 has been recovered," the diocese said.

UNITED STATES
The Register (United Kingdom)

By John Leyden

Posted in Crime, 31st August 2010

Scammers who made off with $600,000 after breaking into the bank account of a Catholic diocese claim the funds have been earmarked for the victims of paedophile priests.

Around a dozen money mules were used to loot the funds from an online bank account maintained by the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa earlier last month. The unwitting middlemen in the scams were offered bogus work-at-home jobs by the Impeccable Group, which falsely posed as a reputable New York-based international finance firm.

In reality they were all used to receive funds from a compromised online banking account maintained with the Bankers Trust of Des Moines before transferring this money overseas.

DEUTSCHLAND
sueddeutsche

Trier (dpa) - Der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, Bischof Stephan Ackermann, stellt heute in Trier die neuen Leitlinien der katholischen Kirche für den Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch vor.

Nach einer Welle von Missbrauchsfällen haben die deutschen Bischöfe die Vorschriften aus dem Jahr 2002 überarbeitet. Die neuen Regeln sollen nicht nur für Priester gelten, sondern auch für Ordensangehörige und Mitarbeiter der Bischofskonferenz.

DEUTSCHLAND
News Echo

Von Dominik Hammes mit Material von dpa

Trier – Bischof Stephan Ackermann, der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, wird heute in Trier die neuen Leitlinien der katholischen Kirche für den Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch vorstellen.

Die neuen Vorschriften stellen eine Reaktion auf die Welle von bekannt gewordenen Missbrauchsfällen dar, die die Schlagzeilen monatelang bestimmte. Sie ersetzen die Regelungen aus dem Jahr 2002 und sollen erheblich strikter ausfallen als diese.

Die Leitlinien sollen nicht nur für Priester sondern auch Ordensangehörige und Mitarbeiter der Bischofskonferenz gelten.

DEUTSCHLAND
domradio

Chronologie zum Thema Missbrauch an katholischen Einrichtungen

Die katholischen Bischöfe stellen heute ihre überarbeiteten Leitlinien zum Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch in der Kirche vor. Seit Mitte Januar erschüttert der Missbrauchsskandal die katholische Kirche in Deutschland. Die Katholische Nachrichten-Agentur (KNA) nennt wichtige Stationen der Entwicklung aus den vergangenen Monaten.

Mitte Januar 2010: Der Leiter des Canisius-Kollegs der Jesuiten in Berlin, Pater Klaus Mertes, informiert in Briefen rund 500 Schüler der „potenziell betroffenen“ Abiturjahrgänge 1975 bis 1983 über mögliche Missbrauchsfälle. Er entschuldigt sich für „ein Wegschauen“ im Lehrerkollegium und im Orden. In den folgenden Wochen kommen zahlreiche Missbrauchsfälle durch katholische Priester und Ordensleute ans Licht. Auch das oberbayerische Kloster Ettal und die Regensburger Domspatzen sind betroffen.

6. Februar: Laut Umfrage des „Spiegel“ wurde in der katholischen Kirche Deutschlands seit 1995 gegen 97 Priester und Laien wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs ermittelt.

GERMANY
The Associated Press

By The Associated Press

BERLIN — Germany's Roman Catholic bishops are releasing new guidelines Tuesday on how to deal with reports of sexual abuse with revisions they say will make it clear that prosecutors should be brought in early to investigate.

The Bishops Conference said in April it would rework its guidelines after the country — Pope Benedict XVI's homeland — was shaken by multiple cases of alleged abuse by clerics.

At that time the Justice Ministry said internal church investigations must not delay or hamper public prosecutors' work.

SEATTLE (WA)
KOMO

By John Discepolo

SEATTLE -- Two men say money and power kept them from being protected from sexual assault as teenagers.

Now they're suing the Boy Scouts of America and its Seattle chapter over the accusations against an assistant scoutmaster.

The lawsuit directs aim at the Boy Scouts of America, claiming it allowed the Mormon Church - the single largest sponsor of scouting - to disregard its sex abuse policies.

BELGIUM
Catholic News Agency

Brussels, Belgium, Aug 31, 2010 / 03:43 am (CNA).- Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium has denied he intended to cover up a bishop’s sexual abuse and said he was “unprepared” for his meeting with a victim who secretly taped their conversation. His spokesman acknowledged the transcripts of the meeting but claimed they do not show enough nuance.

A 42-year-old nephew of the former Bishop of Bruges Roger Vangheluwe accused his uncle of sexually abusing him. The nephew made a recording of his April 8 meeting with the cardinal, transcripts of which were published in two Belgian newspapers on Saturday.

According to Reuters, the tapes feature the former head of the Belgian Catholic Church urging the alleged victim to accept a private apology or to wait a year until Bishop Vangheluwe’s retirement before making his accusations public.

UNITED STATES
CathNews

Greg Erlandson decided to write a book on the clergy sex abuse crisis because the secular media kept raising questions about Pope Benedict XVI's handling of cases in their coverage of a new wave of clergy sex abuse in dioceses around the world.

For him, there was a "genuine curiosity about what's going on. ... It wasn't just a bishop in this diocese or a bishop in that diocese, but now it was about the pope and his credibility," said Erlandson, president and publisher of Our Sunday Visitor Publishing.

"As I dug into it, I felt there was a big chunk of the story that wasn't being reported and part of it was not getting the perspective" it deserved, he said.

MANCHESTER (NH)
New Hampshire Union Leader

FROM STAFF REPORTS

MANCHESTER – A priest who had served as chaplain at a small New Hampshire Catholic college was arrested in Virginia last month and charged with sexual assault against an 11-year-old girl, two activists organizations said yesterday.

The Rev. Felix Owino was arrested in Herndon, Va., which is about 25 miles west of Washington, D.C. A Fairfax County police spokesman said Owino was considered a longtime friend of the alleged victim's family.

A native of Nairobi, Kenya, Owino served as chaplain of Magdalen College in Warner from June 2005 to October 2008, the college said yesterday. He was a member of the Africa-based Apostles of Jesus missionary worder.

PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

By Mary E. Young
Reading Eagle

The question of whether the parents of a 19-year-old woman knew she was living with a priest when they filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexually abusing and impregnating her remained unanswered Monday.

Jay N. Abramowitch, the parents' Wyomissing attorney, said he could not talk about the specifics of the suit filed in Berks County Court last week.

Also Monday, District Attorney John T. Adams said no criminal charges will be filed against the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito because Reading police determined that the young woman was 18 when the relationship began.

SPENCER (WV)
News and Sentinel

August 31, 2010 - By Staff and Wire Reports

SPENCER - A circuit court judge dismissed charges Friday against an Ohio priest accused of sexual abuse.

Charges against the Rev. Robert F. Poandl were dismissed with prejudice, which means prosecutors could not refile the same charges, by Roane County Circuit Judge David W. Nibert. The ruling was delayed for 90 days by Nibert to give prosecutors a chance to appeal to the West Virginia Supreme Court.

The charges of first-degree sexual assault, first-degree sexual abuse and sexual abuse by a custodian were dismissed because prosecutors had failed to comply with a court order to produce medical records, according to Anita Ashley, one of Poandl's lawyers.

ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic

by Michael Clancy - Aug. 31, 2010
The Arizona Republic.

A woman was ordained as a Catholic priest in the Valley on Saturday in the kind of ceremony the Vatican recently condemned as one of the church's most serious crimes.

Elaine Groppenbacher received holy orders from Bishop Peter Hickman of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, one of several liberal Catholic offshoots in the Valley. The ceremony took place at Guardian Angels Catholic Community, which meets in Tempe.

Groppenbacher is the fourth woman to be ordained as a Catholic priest in the Valley.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

By Devon Lash, OF THE MORNING CALL

August 31, 2010

When Mark Rozzi learned a young woman in his own Berks County neighborhood was allegedly involved in a sexual relationship with a priest, it seemed he was 13 again.

At that age, Rozzi said, he was sexually abused by his teacher and priest at Holy Guardian Angels outside Reading. It took decades for him to talk about the abuse. On Monday, joining a small group of protesters outside the Allentown Catholic Diocese headquarters in South Whitehall Township, he encouraged others like him not to wait so long.

"Bad stuff happens to good people," said Rozzi, now 39 and living in Muhlenberg Township. "But you have to keep coming forward, because there are so many victims that are afraid to talk about this."

BELGIE
De Standaard

Niet iedereen was verrast door de onthullingen dit weekend. Volgens PATRICK DE WITTE gaan religie en hypocrisie hand in hand.

In zijn paashomilie van enkele jaren geleden verwees kardinaal Danneels naar de euthanasie van Hugo Claus: 'Men antwoordt niet op het probleem van het lijden en de dood door het te omzeilen.' Sterk, komende van iemand die het probleem van het lijden en de dood in 1996 middels een bypassoperatie nogal een beetje heeft omzeild. Nu ontdekken we echter dat dit staaltje van hypocrisie zich tot zijn huidige faux pas verhoudt als een winkeldiefstal tot moord in koelen bloede. Blijkt dat kardinaal Danneels in de zaak Vangheluwe immers niet enkel zijn verantwoordelijkheid, maar in één ruk meteen ook de basisprincipes van zijn geloof, zijn zelfverklaard levensdoel, zeg maar alles waar hij voor staat heeft 'omzeild'. Dat het uit de wind zetten van een collega en geloofsgenoot voor hem belangrijker is dan de fundamenten van zijn roeping. Dat het leed - waar het katholieke geloof zo hoog mee oploopt - van een pedofilieslachtoffer minder gewicht in de schaal werpt dan de reputatie van een bisschop. Eerlijk, is dit wel nieuws?

BELGIE
De Standaard

31 augustus 2010

De publicatie van het gesprek tussen kardinaal Danneels en het slachtoffer van Roger Vangheluwe in De Standaard werd ook opgepikt door internationale kranten en persbureaus.

‘Belgische kerkleider spoorde slachtoffer aan te zwijgen', titelde de New York Times gisteren. De krant catalogeert de Danneels-tapes onder de ‘meer onthullende documenten in het voortdurende schandaal van seksueel misbruik door geestelijken en de daaropvolgende doofpotoperatie door de Kerk'. Ze neemt uitgebreid letterlijke citaten over uit de Danneels-tapes en stelt vast dat de katholieke Kerk opnieuw in verlegenheid wordt gebracht.

De Britse omroep BBC onthoudt dat het voormalige hoofd van de katholieke Kerk in België gepoogd heeft een slachtoffer ervan te overtuigen zijn verhaal niet publiek te maken.

BELGIE
De Standaard

maandag 30 augustus 2010

Auteur: MARC REYNEBEAU

BRUSSEL - In zijn gesprek met het slachtoffer van bisschop Vangheluwe gaf kardinaal Godfried Danneels nooit blijk van empathie. Met het gesprek wilde hij de bisschop uit de wind zetten en voorkomen dat de zaak publiek bekend raakte. Als dat moest, wilde hij het slachtoffer zelfs intimideren. Dat leert een analyse van wat precies werd gezegd, maar vooral van hoe dat gebeurde.

Tijdens zijn gesprek met het slachtoffer van ex-bisschop Roger Vangheluwe deed kardinaal Godfried Danneels niet veel moeite om een correcte en rechtvaardige oplossing te vinden. Dat leren de tapes van dat gesprek, waarvan de transcriptie zaterdag in De Standaard verscheen. Maar uit de tapes valt nog meer te leren.

BELGIUM
America Magazine

Posted at: Monday, August 30, 2010
Author: Kevin Clarke

... shortest one act play.

Belgian's Cardinal Godfried Danneels, met with a victim of sexual assault, now 42, and his uncle-perpetrator, Bishop Robert Vangheluwe, in early April. The bishops spoke freely because they did not understand the conversation was being taped and would not be kept secret as so many others like it had. As a result, their conversation provides the most succinct explanation for the complicity and failure of our church in this continuing crisis. From today's N.Y. Times:

Cardinal: "The bishop will resign next year, so actually it would be better for you to wait... I don’t think you’d do yourself or him a favor by shouting this from the rooftops.” The cardinal warns the victim against trying to blackmail the church and suggested that he accept a private apology from the bishop and not drag “his name through the mud.”

BELGIUM
Catholic Culture

By Diogenes | August 30, 2010

Today Cardinal Godfried Danneels is in the headlines, with the revelation that he urged a victim of sexual abuse to keep quiet until his molester, another Belgian bishop, was safely ushered into retirement. Speaking through a spokesman, the retired cardinal allowed:

"Looking back I have been naive by going to such a meeting unprepared."

It’s always better to be prepared, as any Boy Scout would tell you. If you’re a high-ranking prelate, getting ready to meet with a man who was sexually abused by a prelate of lesser stature, what should you be prepared to do: (check all that apply)

•Deny everything.
•Call a lawyer.
•Write a large check.

WEST VIRGINIA
The State Journal

The charged stemmed from an alleged sexual assault in 1991.

Sexual assault charges against an Ohio priest have been dropped in Roane County.

Robert Poandl was suppose to go on trial Monday for the alleged abuse but instead the judge dismissed the case.

A 10-year-old boy said he visited the priest at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church Rectory in Spencer in 1991. The victim is now 28.

IRELAND
The Irish Times

OPINION: It is hardly fair to sneer at a new association of Irish priests as a mere clerical trade union, writes DAVID RICE

THE ITALIAN alpine village of Villaretto was drowsing under its blanket of snow when, on January 26th, 1985, the parish priest hanged himself, just before the Saturday evening Mass. He left three farewell letters, one addressed to the altar servers. It read: “Be more friendly and generous with your next priest: do not leave him alone at the altar.”

Those words have haunted me for years, for we do leave our priests alone at the altar and the loneliness of many a priest is a crucifixion.

IRELAND
The Irish Times

JAMES P MACKEY

RITE AND REASON: The concluding article of this series looks at the future of the Roman Catholic Church

NO SINGLE future awaits the billion-strong multitude that presently forms the Roman Catholic Church worldwide. Rather different groupings of this multitude will forge different futures, depending upon reforms initiated and embraced. Or not, as the case may be.

But initially at least, the largest grouping of Catholics is likely to consist of those who remain unconvinced that any substantial reform is necessary; nothing more than a clearance of maverick clerical and religious abusers and dealing with other incidental occurrences of that regrettable ilk.

The welcome and willing leader of this grouping is the current pope, a mere mortal man convinced of his supreme infallible power to dictate what we, all “children of our holy father”, are to believe and practise in life liturgical and moral.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND, REGISTER CORRESPONDENT 08/30/2010

Paul Vitz is the senior scholar at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences and professor emeritus of psychology at New York University. He is also an adjunct professor at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Washington.

His interests include how the religious relates to psychology, and he has published Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship, Faith of the Fatherless: the Psychology of Atheism and Sigmund Freud’s Christian Unconscious.

Vitz recently spoke in the Washington, D.C. area at a seminar about seminary formation. The seminar was organized by the Institute for the Psychological Sciences.

How much has psycho-spiritual formation changed?

Two things are happening. The way in which psychology has been used in the past has been reliably harmful because of the biases of those using psychology, particularly with respect to sexual issues. The psychologists often used to push a secular and liberal agenda as well as a secularized and liberalized way of approaching character and personality issues.

WEST VIRGINIA
The Charleston Gazette

By Andrew Clevenger
The Charleston Gazette

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A Roane County Circuit judge has dismissed all charges against a Catholic priest from Cincinnati who was accused of molesting a 10-year-old boy in 1991.

Robert F. Poandl had been scheduled to go to trial on Monday. On Friday, Judge David W. Nibert dismissed all charges against Poandl, including first-degree sexual assault, first-degree sexual abuse and sexual abuse by a parent, guardian or custodian, with prejudice, meaning that they cannot be re-filed.

In January, a Roane County grand jury indicted Poandl, charging the 68-year-old priest with molesting the alleged victim at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Spencer in August 1991.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
WFMZ

Karin Mallett | Reporter

Posted: 5:40 pm EDT August 30, 2010

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- A support group for victims of abuse by priests wants others to know they're not alone.

On Monday, the group urged victims to come forward and said there may be a connection to a priest who was named in a lawsuit filed in Reading just last week.

They stood in front of the offices of the Allentown Diocese.

BELGIE
KW

Brugge - Aartsbisschop Léonard moet reageren op de rol van kardinaal Danneels in het uitgelekte gesprek met het slachtoffer van bisschop Vangheluwe. Dat zeggen de advocaten van de neef die jarenlang werd misbruikt door de bisschop. Velen vinden de aanpak van Danneels ongepast want zonder veel medeleven voor het slachtoffer.

Aartsbisschop Léonard wil niet veel kwijt over de zaak. Alleen dat de teksten voor zich spreken en dat het niet zijn taak is om daarover te oordelen. Toch verwachten de advocaten van het slachtoffer een duidelijker antwoord van Léonard, dat wat gebeurd is echt fout is en dat de kerk afstand neemt van doofpottechnieken.

BELGIE
Trouw

(Novum/AP) - Het voormalige hoofd van de Belgische rooms-katholieke kerk Godfried Danneels heeft erkend dat hij geen gesprek had moeten hebben met een slachtoffer van seksueel misbruik. Bovendien had hij niet moeten suggereren de zaak stil te houden totdat de geestelijke die het misbruik pleegde met pensioen zou gaan.

Het gesprek, dat Danneels op 8 april voerde, werd in het geheim opgenomen door het nu 42-jarige slachtoffer en werd afgelopen weekend gepubliceerd in twee Belgische kranten.

Sinds de publicatie van het gesprek ligt de 77-jarige Danneels zwaar onder vuur. "Hij beseft dat de hele benadering, zoals dat toen ging, niet de juiste was", aldus de woordvoerder van Danneels. Danneels zou onvoorbereid zijn en hebben 'geïmproviseerd'.

BELGIUM
National Catholic Reporter (United States)

by Tom Roberts on Aug. 30, 2010 NCR Today

Some will be surprised at the revelation that Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium urged a victim who was abused by his uncle, a bishop, to remain quiet, accept a private apology and allow the bishop to retire and not “drag his name through the mud.”

Secretly made recordings of meetings among the cardinal, the victim and the perpetrator leave little room for Danneels to explain his way out of his own words. He didn’t call the police, he didn’t immediately seek removal of the bishop, he didn’t act immediately to find out whether there had been other victims.

One press report termed the leaked recordings “ some of the most damaging documents to emerge in the scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church.” That may be a bit of overstatement. But what the recordings underline is the fact that when church leaders are caught in their own words – in depositions, letters, memos, directives, in the tens of thousands of pages, for instance, archived at bishopaccountability.com – the true nature of the scandal is bared. The deepest part of it, that part which refuses to go away with countless pro-forma apologies and programs, has little to do with sex and much to do with a culture that sees itself above accountability.

VERO BEACH (FL)
Sun-Sentinel

By Lamaur Stancil, TCPalm.com

VERO BEACH —
Police have put out warrants for a man who may have planted child pornography on a former priest's computer last year.

Alfred Justin Boulerice, 29, has warrants for five counts of trespassing and one count each of tampering with evidence and making a false report to law enforcement. Boulerice, who previously lived in the 1700 block of Fifth Court in Vero Beach, is wanted in the ongoing investigation, which initially resulted in 33 child porn possession charges against Gerald Lamothe. The state dropped all charges in February, but his attorney said the ordeal strongly affected Lamothe.

"This still hangs over him," attorney Robert Stone said Friday. "The warrants go further toward exonerating him. But not everyone is going to believe him until someone is arrested."

WEST VIRGINIA
Cincinnati Enquirer

By Dan Horn • dhorn@enquirer.com • August 30, 2010

A Catholic priest in Fairfield will not face a trial on child molestation charges this week after a judge dismissed the case and barred prosecutors from filing the charges again.

The sexual abuse and sexual assault charges against the Rev. Robert F. Poandl arose last year when a man claimed Poandl abused him in 1991 while the priest was working at a West Virginia church. The man said the abuse occurred when he was 10.

Poandl, a priest with the Glenmary Home Missioners, has been on administrative leave for more than a year and is living at the religious order's home in Fairfield.

PENNSYLVANIA
CBS News

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (CBS/AP) A 41-year-old priest who was allegedly caught on videotape having sexual relations with one of his 18-year-old female students now stands accused of fathering the young girl's baby.

The parents of the high school senior suspected Rev. Luis Bonilla Margarito, an ex-chaplain at Reading Central Catholic High School, and their daughter were having sex in the basement of their home.

They decided to take legal action after they say a hidden video camera recorded a sexual encounter between the couple in November 2009 confirmed their suspicions.

WEST VIRGINIA
WLWT

SPENCER, W.Va. -- A judge has dismissed charges against a priest accused of sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy while the two visited a West Virginia church in 1991.

Roane County Circuit Judge David W. Nibert dismissed the charges against the Rev. Robert F. Poandl on Friday, but delayed his ruling for 90 days so prosecutors could appeal to the state Supreme Court.

One of Poandl's lawyers, Anita Ashley, said Monday that Nibert dismissed the case because the accuser had failed to comply with a court order to produce medical records.

BELGIUM
The Associated Press

By RAF CASERT (AP)

BRUSSELS — The former head of Belgium's Roman Catholic Church has acknowledged that he should not have held a meeting with a victim of serial sexual abuse and suggested a cover up until the offending bishop retired.

The April 8 meeting that retired Cardinal Godfried Danneels held was secretly taped by the victim and the conversation was published in two newspapers over the weekend.

Since the tapes' publication, Danneels, 77, has faced fierce criticism for his suggestion that the sexual abuse be kept secret and that the victim should consider forgiving the bishop, his uncle, as part of seeking closure.

BELGIUM
LifeSite

By Hilary White

BRUSSELS, August 30, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Recordings have revealed Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels urging a victim not to reveal 13 years of sexual abuse at the hands of the cardinal’s friend and colleague Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, the recently retired bishop of Bruges.

“The bishop will resign next year, so actually it would be better for you to wait,” the cardinal is heard saying. Danneels warned the victim against trying to blackmail the church and suggested that he accept a private apology from the bishop and not drag his name “through the mud.”

The victim responded, “He has dragged my whole life through the mud, from five until 18 years old,” and asked, “Why do you feel sorry for him and not for me?”

BELGIUM
The Christian Science Monitor

By Robert Marquand, Staff writer / August 30, 2010

A former Belgian church leader privately urged a victim of sexual abuse to remain silent this past spring, at a time when the Vatican was denying the scope and scale of a pedophile scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church to its core.

.The April 8 conversation, captured on tapes published this weekend and confirmed by church authorities as genuine, offers a rare glimpse into a transaction between church officials and victims in what has been described as a widespread practice of hushing pedophile cases.

Cardinal Godfried Danneels is heard telling the victim, a nephew of Bishop Robert Vangheluwe, “The bishop will resign next year, so actually it would be better for you to wait… I don’t think you would do yourself or him a favor by shouting this from the rooftops.”

BELGIUM
America Magazine

Posted at: Monday, August 30, 2010
Author: Austen Ivereigh

The British media are today running a story (as is the NYT) from the weekend's Belgian press that the former Archbishop of Brussels, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, sought to persuade the victim of abuse by a bishop to stay quiet.

On 23 April -- see my post here -- that bishop, 73-year-old Roger Vangheluwe, the Bishop of Bruges for more than 25 years, suddenly and spectacularly resigned, admitting that while still a priest, and for a while while he was a bishop, he had sexually abused a young man in his "entourage". The move left everyone around him reeling. The bishop is currently in a monastery, keeping silence, while police investigate.

It transpires now that two weeks before that shock resignation, on 8 April, the victim -- it turns out to be the bishop's nephew, an unnamed 42-year-old -- went to see Cardinal Danneels, 77 (pictured), who retired in January this year. The victim secretly recorded the meeting, the transcripts of which were published at the weekend by two Flemish-language newspapers.

BELGIUM
Los Angeles Times

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

August 30, 2010

Reporting from Brussels — The former head of Belgium's Roman Catholic Church acknowledged Monday that he was wrong to have urged a sexual-abuse victim to stay quiet until after the bishop who repeatedly molested him over a span of 13 years could retire.

The statement by Cardinal Godfried Danneels came after secret tapes of a meeting between him and the 42-year-old victim were published over the weekend in two newspapers, causing an outcry in this predominantly Roman Catholic country.

"The whole approach … was not the right one," Danneels' spokesman, Toon Osaer, told the Associated Press on Monday.

BELGIUM
National Catholic Reporter (United States)

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM -- Audio recordings leaked to the Belgian media this weekend reveal Belgium's Cardinal Godfried Danneels urging a sex abuse victim not to make public that his abuser was his uncle Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Bruges, Belgium. The recordings show Danneels pressuring the young man not to force Vangheluwe to resign.

Vangheluwe eventually did resign April 23. He had served as bishop of Bruges for more than 25 years and was 73 years old.

A spokesman for Danneels told NCR that the cardinal did not comment about his meeting with the nephew and Vangheluwe, during an earlier press conference, because "he assumed that it was a confidential conversation to be kept within the family."

BELGIQUE
Lalibre

Jacques Laruelle

Mis en ligne le 30/08/2010

Le cardinal avait conseillé à la victime de l’évêque de Bruges de se taire un an. Il avait voulu le convaincre d’accepter un pardon plutôt que d’exiger une démission.

Le cardinal Godfried Danneels a-t-il tenté de convaincre le neveu de l’évêque de Bruges de garder le silence sur les abus sexuels commis par son oncle? A-t-il vraiment tout dit lorsqu’il s’est exprimé, le 24 avril dernier après la démission de Mgr Roger Vangheluwe, affirmant qu’il n’avait jamais voulu "étouffer l’affaire" ?

Le compte rendu de l’entretien, que le cardinal Danneels a eu le 8 avril avec la victime et son oncle, publié samedi in extenso par "De Standaard", éclaire d’un nouveau jour ces questions. Et l’image du cardinal Danneels en ressort passablement écornée. Dans cet entretien, enregistré à l’insu du cardinal, il conseille clairement à la victime d’attendre la retraite de l’évêque de Bruges, programmée dans un an, avant de parler. Plutôt que de démission de l’évêque, le cardinal propose le pardon.

UNITED STATES
Chicago Tribune

By Sheila O'Brien

Would someone in Rome formally excommunicate me, please? I want to be excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church because walking away will break my heart.

My grandparents left Ireland with nothing but their vibrant faith. They and my parents brought my siblings and me to a baptismal font and promised to guide us to Christ. And, they did that by word and deed. They taught us to love the Gospel and challenged us to live that Gospel at all costs. I love the Mass, Catholic social teaching, the scores of nuns who built the church around the world, the dedicated priests and people who love God with all their hearts and bring that love to the world. It is my life, the center of every experience, the filter for reality.

But, the headlines continue — more pedophilia, more stonewalling by the bishops, more "norms" from Rome protecting perpetrators. Now, it is a "crime" of the church to attempt to ordain people like Mother Teresa or St. Teresa of Avila — women. And, the hierarchy, who have arguably hidden crimes and criminals, who will not open the books so we can see where our money has gone and who always claim the moral high ground, have grouped ordaining women with pedophilia.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Paul Donovan
The Guardian, Monday 30 August 2010

Pope John Paul II was seen as the great communicating pontiff, a man who went out from the Vatican to engage with the world. The message was clear and the symbolism spot on: remember him kneeling to kiss the ground when he came to the UK during the Falklands war in 1982? The present pope, Benedict XVI, could not be more different. A scholarly man who made his way as the previous pope's enforcer in the Vatican, he is not a natural communicator.

Benedict XVI's regime has seen several PR disasters: the Regensburg address in 2006, which was widely interpreted as an attack on Muslims, then the suggestion that saving humanity from homosexuality was as important as saving the rainforest, and the decision to pardon Richard Williamson, the Holocaust-denying British bishop. ...

However, the mishaps experienced so far by the present pope and his media team slide into insignificance when compared with the potential damage that mishandling of the international child abuse scandal could wreak. Earlier in the year, PR weaknesses were exposed as abuse cases were uncovered in America, Germany, Austria, Holland, Ireland and Belgium.

Abuse appeared endemic in the operation of the church. The global media sensed blood as the crisis seemed to move closer to the pope himself. The first response from the Vatican was to try to shoot the messenger, accusing the media of dishonest reporting. The stories were said to be part of an "obvious and shameful" campaign to "damage" Pope Benedict "at all costs".

As the crisis gathered momentum, there were unhelpful contributions from Father Rainero Cantalamessa, the preacher at the pontifical household, who compared attacks on the pope to antisemitism, and from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the college of cardinals, referring to "petty gossip". Finally, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, suggested a link between paedophilia and homosexuality. Against this background, the first visit of a pope to Britain as a head of state was announced.

UNITED KINGDOM
Digital Journal

By R. C. Camphausen.

London - Timed to be active during Pope Benedict's four-day trip to England and Scotland, campaigners for the Catholic Women's Ordination campaign (CWO) will use London buses for ads that read 'Pope Benedict - Ordain Women Now!'

Having learned a lesson from the earlier atheist campaign to use posters on buses to disseminate their views, a religious lobbying group known as Catholic Women's Ordination (CWO) will have a multipronged campaign that includes posters on London's public bus lines.

UNITED KINGDOM
CNN

Barring women from being Catholic priests is not the result of sexism 2,000 years ago, it's because women cannot fulfill a basic function of the priesthood, "standing in the place of Jesus," a leading British Catholic thinker argued Monday.

"This teaching is not at all a judgment on women's abilities or rights. It says something about the specific role of the priest in Catholic understanding - which is to represent Jesus, to stand in his place," argued Father Stephen Wang in a statement sent out by the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales.

BELGIUM
Channel 4 News (United Kingdom)

By Channel 4 News
Updated on 30 August 2010

Secret recordings reveal a senior figure in the Catholic church pleaded with a sex abuse victim to delay going public about his ordeal until the 73-year-old bishop who had abused him resigned, writes Jonathan Rugman.

The self-confessed abuser was 73-year-old Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Bruges (pictured right), who was forced to resign in disgrace earlier this year after his nephew accused him of abuse from the age of five to 18.

But the apparent cover up goes even higher up the Catholic Church than that: to the Bishop's former boss, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the ex-head of the Church in Belgium. He was secretly taped in April - before the Bishop resigned - urging the victim not to go public.