CoverUp's

Catholic brother abused youth: jury told

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:41:54 +1100

Tag: australia

A Catholic brother molested a teenager he was counselling after the youth was sexually assaulted by another man, a Sydney jury has been told.

Crown prosecutor Nanette Williams said the youth's parents, who had respected and trusted William Stanley Irwin, had arranged for him to counsel their son.

"(The teenager) found the accused to be sympathetic and he welcomed the support he received from the accused at that time," she said in the NSW District Court on Wednesday.
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Irwin, 55, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of gross indecency on a male under the age of 18 in the mid-1980s.

Ms Williams said Irwin took the 17-year-old youth on a road trip from Melbourne and the alleged offences occurred when they stayed overnight at St Stanislaus College in Bathurst.

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"The accused himself was a student at Stanislaus College in Bathurst in the 1970s and after that he went to a seminary and became a member of the order of St Vincentian," she said.

Irwin, who was based at the college from 1980 to 1983 and from 1987 to 1989, met the complainant and his parents when he worked in a Melbourne parish.

Ms Williams said Irwin's alleged victim was 15 and on work experience when he was sexually assaulted by another man, who later pleaded guilty and was jailed.

The teenager's parents were referred to Irwin, who counselled youths aged between 15 and 18, and at first the teenager welcomed his support.

"After a time, the accused began to put his arm around his shoulder and embrace him at the end of each counselling session," Ms Williams said.

The youth's parents allowed him to go on the road trip with Irwin and they first stopped in Sydney, where they stayed in a seminary and nothing untoward happened.

Ms Williams said the next day Irwin showed him "a homosexual mission" where he once worked, as well as a place "where homosexuals gathered".

That night they stayed at St Stanislaus and after dinner, the youth went to Irwin's room with him, Ms Williams said.

Irwin asked the youth to lie down on the bed with him, which they did, and after talking for a while, the man allegedly began kissing the youth.

Ms Williams alleged that Irwin put his hand inside the youth's trousers and fondled him, before getting the youth to masturbate Irwin and vice-versa.

"..... the accused told (the youth) not to tell anyone what they had done," she said.

"I expect (the youth) will tell you he felt guilty and upset because he knew what the accused had done was wrong and inappropriate."

His parents found out what happened after the youth told a nun, she said.

The parents then met with a Father Gerald Scott who travelled from Sydney to Melbourne.

The trial is continuing.

Tag: william-stanley-irwin

Tag: vincentian-fathers st-stanislaus-college nsw bathurst

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-...1c5z7.html ...

Vincentian Priest befriended young schoolgirls

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:19:08 +1100

Tag: australia
Tag: new_zealand

By a Broken Rites researcher

Some Australian women, now advancing in years, are still complaining about having been abused (when they were children) by Father Dominic Phillips, a senior Catholic priest from the Vincentian Fathers religious order.

Phillips worked in several Australian parishes that were staffed by the Vincentian order (officially called the Congregation of the Mission).

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He also taught trainee priests at seminaries in Australia and New Zealand.

Even while working at seminaries, he would frequent a nearby parish, where he would befriend local families and their children. He would invite a child to visit the priest's house, where he would maul the child indecently. He evidently had a preference for girls.

Another worry about Phillips is that he was a chaplain to deaf-mute children in New South Wales and New Zealand — and these vulnerable children could have been at risk.

The priest's background

At the age of 17 in New South Wales, Dominic Phillips somehow became recruited by the Vincentian order as a trainee priest. A part of his training was done in a Vincentian seminary facility attached to St Stanislaus College (a boys' high school) at, Bathurst NSW. After being ordained, Phillips spent several years teaching trainee Vincentian priests at St Stanislaus College. (This mention of St Stanislaus College will raise some eyebrows, because the Vincentians have developed a reputation for a culture of sexual abuse and cover-up, and there been public revelations about this at St Stanislaus.)

Phillips taught future priests at three seminaries:

* a Vincentian seminary in Eastwood in Sydney;

* New Zealand's national seminary (Holy Cross College), situated then at Mosgiel (staffed then by the Vincentian order); and

* South Australia's seminary (St Francis Xavier) in Rostrevor, Adelaide (this was from 1957 to 1964).

While at these seminaries, he also became known in the local parish.

In between his seminary postings, he spent some years working full-time in parishes:

* in Malvern Victoria (St Joseph's parish), 1953-55;

* in Southport, Queensland (Mary Immaculate parish), 1956; and

* in Wandal, Rockhampton, Queensland (St Vincent's parish), 1966-70,

Complaints from women
Three women, who do not know each other (they are from three separate states have contacted Broken Rites), complaining about having been handled indecently by Fr Dominic Phillips when they were children.

One victim, "Deirdre" (born 1958), of Rockhampton QLD, told Broken Rites in 1994:

"In the late 1960s, from when I was 10 until when I was 12, I was living in St Vincent's parish, Wandal, Rockhampton, Queensland. I was a pupil at the local primary school, St Joseph's, in Grades 4, 5 and 6.

"We girls used to visit St Vincent's church at lunch-time to clean the brass vessels in the sacristy. Also, one or other of us would visit Fr Phillips in his office — at weekends, as well as on school days.

"He would sit me on his lap. On several occasions, his hands wandered, touching my private parts.

"Another girl told me that he did the same thing to her."

Another victim, "Mandy" (born 1957), has told Broken Rites that she encountered Fr Phillips when he was the spiritual director at Adelaide's St Francis Xavier seminary in Rostrevor. Mandy's family lived near the seminary. They attended the local parish church, where Fr Phillips befriended her family. Mandy says that Phillips dealt indecently with her in his room at the seminary, when she was seven.

And "Rita" (born 1943) said that she was molested by Fr Phillips at St Joseph's parish, Malvern (in Melbourne's inner south-east) about 1953, when she was aged 10.

These women are particularly alarmed that, as a child-abuser, Fr Dominic Phillips was helping to train future Catholic priests.

And his role as a chaplain to deaf children in New South Wales and New Zealand gives cause for concern.

Tag: vincentian-fathers st-stanislaus-college nsw bathurst

http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/n...llips.html ...

After 42 years, two victims expose the church's cover-up

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 23:56:18 +1100

Tag: australia

By a Broken Rites researcher

Two victims have demonstrated that, under Australian law, it is never too late to bring a church sex-offender to justice. In the Melbourne County Court in the State of Victoria on 8 March 2011, a former Catholic religious brother was finally jailed for indecently assaulting two vulnerable boys in their beds in a boarding school 42 years ago.

The offender, Peter Paul van Ruth, was sentenced to 28 months jail, with a minimum of 16 months behind bars before becoming elegible for parole.

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The offences occurred in 1969 while van Ruth (then aged 22) worked (as Brother Van Ruth) at Salesian College "Rupertswood" (a secondary school) in Sunbury, near Melbourne. He was 64 when jailed.

This school was operated by the Salesians of Don Bosco religious order. "Rupertswood" then was a boys-only school, with boarders as well as day students. The boarders included many from distant communities.

Van Ruth, who is known by his middle name (Paul), was born on 5 July 1946. He was charged with indecent assaults against two boys, both aged 12. These were not necessarily the only boys who were touched by Brother Paul Van Ruth. These were the two who have spoken with the police.

Peter Paul Van Ruth pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent assault upon two male children. One of the charges involved the digital penetration of the child.

The court proceedings
Peter Paul Van Ruth (residing in Adelaide, South Australia) appeared before a magistrate in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 23 July 2010. There, the defence lawyer applied to have the sentencing done by the magistrate's court, rather than by a judge in the County court (the latter court can impose a more severe sentence). However, the magistrate refused this application, and ordered Van Ruth to appear in the County Court for sentencing by a judge.

At the County Court on 21 February 2011, Judge Jane Campton heard submissions from the prosecutor and a defence lawyer about the circumstances of the offending and also about what sort of sentence the court should impose.

The court was told that Peter Paul Van Ruth came from a "strict" Catholic family background. At age 12, his family sent him to be a boarder at Salesian College in Chadstone, Melbourne. There, the Salesians fancied him as a future Salesian brother or priest. Thus, at age 14, he became an "aspirant" for a "religious vocation". Thus, during his years as a boarder there, he absorbed the Salesian culture. Next, at 18, he became a novice at the Salesian seminary in Oakleigh, Melbourne. There, he donned clerical garb and became "Brother" Paul Van Ruth.

In 1969, aged 22, the Salesians appointed him to teach at "Rupertswood" College, at Sunbury (in Melbourne's outer north-west), where he was put in charge of a dormitory containing about 30 or 40 beds for incoming young boarders. His duties included supervising the boys at bed-time — and this is when Van Ruth committed his sexual offences.

* Victim No. 1 was upset about being separated from his family and was crying in bed. On several occasions, after "lights-out", Van Ruth got into bed with the boy and touched him sexually. On one occasion, Van Ruth put his finger into the boy's anus, the court was told. Two of the court charges related to this victim, although the incidents happened on more than two occasions.

* Victim No. 2 was upset after learning that his grandmother had died. After "lights-out", Van Ruth got into this boy's bed and touched him indecently.

Each victim felt powerless to complain to Van Ruth's fellow-Salesians in the school administration. Eventually, the parents of Victim No. 1 learned about the abuse and they complained to the Salesians.

The Salesians' way of solving the Van Ruth problem was to transfer him to a Salesian community in South Australia. There, they immediately arranged for him to leave the Salesian order, enabling him to join the South Australian state education department in 1970 as Mister Van Ruth, using the teachers' qualification that he had gained from the Salesians. Thus, he became a teacher in government primary schools — and the Salesians had "solved" their Van Ruth problem.

In 1978, Mr Van Ruth was accepted back into the Catholic education system (still in South Australia), becoming a principal or deputy principal in several church schools.

In 1993 the Catholic Education Office seconded Mr Van Ruth to the South Australian government schools registration board.

Meanwhile, three decades after the 1969 abuse, Van Ruth's victims were still feeling aggrieved by the way in which Van Ruth had been inflicted on them and by the way in which their lives had been disrupted. In 2006, Victim No. 1 from "Rupertswood" consulted the Victoria Police Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (SOCA) squad. After being interviewed by a specialist police officer, he signed an official police statement about the abuse.

The matter was later investigated by Detective Senior Constable Nathan Toey, of the Victoria Police criminal investigations unit (CIU) at Broadmeadows (situated in the region of "Rupertswood" College). During the investigation, Detective Toey met Victim No. 2.

Police then located Paul Van Ruth in South Australia. At first, Van Ruth explained his actions by telling police that he had been starting a "sex education" program for the boys.

In fact, however, Van Ruth did not have proper qualifications to give "sex education". In court, his lawyer said that that Salesians had put Brother Van Ruth in charge of these boys without having proper safeguards in place for the protection of the children.

Because Van Ruth pleaded guilty at an early stage, the court proceedings were relatively brief. The victims were not required to give evidence in court, although they were sitting (separately) at the back of the courtroom as observers.

The prosecution had arranged for each victim to write an impact statement, explaining how the sexual abuse at "Rupertswood" College had affected his adolescent development and his adult life. To protect the privacy of the victims, these statements were not read out in court. The prosecutor submitted the statements to the judge to help the judge to consider the kind of penalty that should be imposed on Van Ruth.

Jailed
In sentencing Van Ruth to jail on 8 March 2011, Judge Jane Campton said a suspended sentence would be inadequate.

"Your abuse of both boys involved a substantial breach of trust," she said.

The judge ordered that Van Ruth is to be a registered sex offender for life.

Footnote
During the pre-sentence submissions on 21 February 2011, the prosecutor drew Judge Campton's attention to jail sentences imposed in previous cases involving offences against boys in church schools:

* Father Frank Gerard Klep, of the Salesian College "Rupertswood", was sentenced to a minimum of 3 years 6 months behind bars. See the Broken Rites story here.

* Christian Brother Peter Toomey, of Melbourne, was sentenced to a minimum of 2 years 6 months behind bars. See the Broken Rites story here.

In both the Klep and Toomey cases, a judge originally imposed a lesser minimum jail term but the Director of Public Prosecutions appealed against this sentence on behalf of the victims and secured a longer minimum sentence.

Other Salesians who have been convicted include:

* Fr Paul Raymond Evans,
* Brother Gregory Coffey (or Coffyn) and
* Fr David Rapson.

The Australian Salesian leadership has signed an out-of-court civil settlement with a Ruperstwood College ex-pupil who complained about Fr Julian Fox and another settlement with a different Rupertswood ex-pupil who complained about Fr Jack Ayers.

So, in the Salesian scheme of things, Brother Paul Van Ruth was certainly not unique.

http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/n...-ruth.html ...

Priest In Abuse Lawsuit At St. Joseph's

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 03:24:36 +1100

Tag: usa

A priest accused of sexually harassing a seminary student is working as a chaplain at St. Joseph's University, and he was placed that by the Archdiocese Of Philadelphia.

He's a part-time chaplain in the alumni office and has no contact with current students Fox 29 is told.

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A spokeswoman for St. Joe's says the university is aware of his past. He had denied the allegations but did agree to an out of court lawsuit settlement back in 2002.

St. Joe's told Fox 29 the archdiocese not only gave its approval but a signed the priest to his current post.

The Archdiocese had no comment on Friday and referred us to the university.

On Monday, the archdiocese will be hit with yet another lawsuit, this time from a man who says two priests sexually abused him as a young child.

When he went to the victim's assistance program the archdiocese set up a few years ago, well, the lawyer says did he not get the help he desperately needed.

The lawsuit comes three weeks after a second scathing grand jury report that found 37 priests who had faced credible accusations still worked in local parishes.

Six years ago the first grand jury found allegations against 63 priests accused of molesting children.

It described how the archdiocese covered up for the priests and allowed the activities to cover sometimes for decades.

The Philadelphia district attorney did not file charges that time because the statute of limitations had expired.

This time, though, a senior church official is facing criminal charges accused of covering up sexual abuse by priests.

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/l...joseph%27s ...

For Philly Catholics, an abuse bombshell

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 00:10:33 +1100

Tag: usa

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE, New York Times

Dozens of priests accused of preying on kids still work.

PHILADELPHIA - Three weeks after a scathing grand jury report accused the Philadelphia Archdiocese of providing haven for as many as 37 priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior toward minors, most of those priests remain active in the ministry.

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The possibility that even one predatory priest, not to mention three dozen, might still be serving in parishes -- "on duty in the archdiocese today, with open access to new young prey," as the grand jury put it -- has unnerved many Roman Catholics here and sent the church reeling in the latest and one of the most damning episodes in the American church since it became engulfed in the sexual abuse scandal nearly a decade ago.

The extent of the scandal here, including a cover-up that the grand jury said stretched over many years, is so great that Philadelphia is "Boston reborn," said David J. O'Brien, who teaches Catholic history at the University of Dayton in Ohio, referring to the archdiocese where widespread sexual abuse exploded in public in 2002.

Some parishioners say they feel discouraged and are caught in a wave of anxiety, even as they continue to attend mass.

"It's a tough day to be a faith-filled Catholic," Maria Shultz, 43, a secretary at Immaculata University, said after mass last weekend at St. Joseph's Church in suburban Downingtown.

Shultz, who has four daughters, expressed no doubt about how the church should deal with the 37 priests. "They should be removed immediately."

The church has not explained directly why these priests, most of whom were not publicly identified, are still active, though it is under intense pressure to do so. Cardinal Justin Rigali initially said no active priests had substantiated allegations against them, but six days later, he placed three of them, whose activities had been described in detail by the grand jury, on administrative leave.

He also hired an outside lawyer, Gina Maisto Smith, a former assistant district attorney who had prosecuted child sexual assault cases for 15 years, to lead a reexamination of the cases.

"There is a tremendous sense of urgency here," Smith said of her team, working around the clock without interference from the church hierarchy. "They've given me the freedom and the independence to conduct a thorough review," she said, with "unfettered access to files." She added that announcements about her initial review would be coming "sooner rather than later."

"The urgency is to respond to that concern over the 37, what that means, how that number was derived and what to do in response to it," she said.

Philadelphia is unusual in that the archdiocese has been the subject of not one but two grand jury reports. The first, in 2005, found credible accusations of abuse by 63 priests, whose activities had been covered up by the church. But there were no indictments, mainly because the statute of limitations had expired.

This time, the climate is different.

When the grand jury issued its report on Feb. 10, the district attorney immediately indicted two priests, a parochial school teacher and one who had left the priesthood, on charges of rape. He also indicted a high-ranking church official on charges of endangering the welfare of children -- the first time the courts have reached into the church hierarchy in the sex scandal in the United States. All four are due in court on March 14.

http://www.startribune.com/nation/117468338.html ...

Abuse Story in Philadelphia Archdiocese Deepens, and Circus Side Show at Chestnut Hill College Continues

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 00:02:43 +1100

Tag: usa

The situation in the archdiocese of Philadelphia remains dismal, where Katherine Seelye and Jon Hurdle are reporting in the New York Times that three weeks following the grand jury report which resulted in the indictment of the diocese's secretary of clergy Msgr. William Lynn, most of the 37 priests credibly accused of inappropriate behavior towards minors in the report are apparently still in ministry.

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Cardinal Rigali initially responded to the report by claiming that no priests credibly accused of molesting minors are still in ministry, but then suspended three priests accused of abuse who were, in fact, still in ministry. Seelye and Hurdle report that many Catholics in the Philadelphia archdiocese are stunned by this latest report, which is like "Boston reborn" (this refers to the first major round of abuse revelations in the American church in 2002), since Catholics in the area had been informed that the broken system had been fixed and abusive priests had been removed from ministry.

Meanwhile, the story of the openly gay and partnered Old Catholic Apostolic priest who was fired recently at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia becomes stranger and stranger, with reports that Fr. Jim St. George had previously been jailed for mail fraud in the early 1990s. Despite this, as the Advocate is reporting, support for St. George on the campus and among students remains strong, and students have organized a Facebook group to express support and are planning demonstrations.

Chestnut Hill officials are on the defensive, and on Thursday, the college issued a new statement saying that it expresses its sorrow for not having communicated clearly about a situation that it regards as "rife with complex and complicating factors," and that the college "aches" for the deep pain and anguish the firing has produced for gay members of the campus community and gay alumni.

I have to wonder what's the deeper story here, the backstory to all of this turmoil. On the one hand, St. George's criminal record certainly doesn't look good. On the other hand, as someone who has done administrative work as a university department chair, academic dean, and academic vice president, I'd be very surprised to learn that someone with a known criminal record could not have been well vetted prior to hiring. Just as I'd be astonished to learn that those who hired St. George did not know he was an Old Catholic priest and in a gay relationship when he was hired.

I have to wonder if those digging up dirt now are engaged in a game designed to divert attention away from what's happening with the diocese and its officials. And if the dirt digging was already going on at the time whoever's been pushing for St. George's firing began that push--that is, if he was carefully selected as a target and a sacrificial scapegoat precisely because someone knew that they could bring out this dirt down the road, to make the decision to fire him because he was gay sound even more plausible.

Given that all of this is happening just as the grand jury report comes out and the seemingly criminal behavior of diocesan officials--behavior that many people would see vastly transcending in ugliness what St. George has been accused of, and behavior that has gone unpunished for years--becomes known to the public, I have to wonder why St. George is being pursued so vigorously. And who's behind the pursuit.

This is not to excuse criminal behavior on anyone's part, or to suggest that St. George should be given a free pass simply because he's gay, and because that's the ostensible reason Chestnut Hill fired him. It is to point out, though, that smear campaigns of this sort are not anything new in faith-based institutions, including Catholic ones, when the target is a gay person who has spoken out against unjust discrimination by these institutions premised on the sexual orientation of the person being targeted.

Meanwhile, in another bizarre twist in the story, it appears Sister Carol Jean Vale, the Sister of St. Joseph who is president of Chestnut Hill, is now also being targeted on reactionary Catholic blogs--for having hired St. George in the first place. And for being, well, a Vatican II-style nun.

This response to the St. George story on Daniel Hamiche's AmeriCatho blog is astonishing. Hamiche entitles the posting, "Schismatic, Openly Gay, and Professor in a Catholic College," and under the title, has a picture of Vale with the caption, "All smiles, with a permanent and earrings, a necklace and brooch, this is Sister Carol Jean Vale, SSJ, a perfect idiot."

Hamiche goes on to express astonishment that "Father" St. George, a member of a schismatic "church" in a relationship of "homosexual concubinage," would be hired by a Catholic school (the first two sets of quotation marks are in the original). He concludes with the hope that the "false priest" (my quotation marks) sues the school and wins.

Hamiche is, according to a biography at Wikipedia, a royalist Catholic traditionalist, and a French journalist--which makes the fact that he maintains a website whose subtitle says it's devoted to the history of and news about American Catholicism fascinating. Why would a French journalist who promotes royalism have any interest in blogging about American Catholicism, I wonder? With a prominently displayed link on his blog's homepage to an essay entitled "The Battle Against Obamacare" . . . .

Curioser and curioser, the St. George story and the commentary swirling around now about it seem--especially in light of the real story, the really important one, that's breaking in the Philadelphia archdiocese at the moment. And which the circus sideshow at Chestnut Hill College should not obscure.

And, finally, I have to say it: the declaration of Chestnut Hill College that its administration "aches" for the pain its decision to fire St. George has caused to gay members of the campus community sounds hollow to me, when Sister Carol Jean Vale's initial statement about why St. George was fired still stands: his partnered gay life is "contrary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church." The Catholic church, its bishops, priests, and nuns can't have it both ways: you can't fire people because they're gay and then say your heart "aches" at the pain you've inflicted.

You can't do that and be credible, that is. What speaks loudly and clearly is not the tinny insistence that your heart "aches" at a cruelty you're inflicting. What speaks loudly and clearly is your unjust treatment of those who are gay solely because they're gay. And the cruelty you're willing to practice in the name of church teaching. No matter how much you claim to be aching about that cruelty.

http://www.bilgrimage.blogspot.com/20...ocese.html ...

Italy priest convicted of sex abuse in case that also implicated bishops for ignoring rumours

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:38:45 +1100

Tag: italy

By Nicole Winfield (CP)

ROME — An Italian court convicted a priest of molesting boys and sentenced him to 15 years in prison Thursday in a case closely watched because his bishop admitted knowing of the abuse allegations, but didn't remove the priest.

The trial of Rev. Ruggero Conti, a politically connected priest, garnered international headlines last year when his bishop was called to testify about the molestation just as the clerical abuse scandal that erupted in Europe inched closer to the Vatican.

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Conti was charged with sexual violence and other charges stemming from accusations by seven boys who frequented his parish on the outskirts of Rome.

In police interrogations, the boys — some as young as 13 at the time of the alleged abuse — said Conti would force them to perform sexual acts on him in his home where he frequently invited them to eat dinner and watch movies.

Conti denied the charges and will appeal, his lawyer said Thursday.

Bishop Gino Reali became the first Italian bishop called to testify in a sex abuse case when he appeared in court last May, a significant milestone given that clerical abuse has long been a taboo subject in this Roman Catholic country.

In his testimony, Reali admitted he knew of rumours Conti had abused boys but didn't remove him or report him to police.

Victims' lawyers have said Reali aided and abetted the crimes because he knew about the abuse allegations but didn't do anything to prevent more abuse.

On Thursday, they said that with Conti's conviction, they were now preparing a formal complaint seeking to have Reali charged.

Caramella Buona, a non-profit organization that has been providing legal assistance to Conti's victims, acknowledged it would be nearly impossible to see Reali charged given Italy's close institutional ties to the Catholic Church.

"I believe in Italy we're not ready to make this important step against a bishop," the group's president Roberto Mirabile said. But added it was nevertheless important to "look beyond Conti's conviction and recognize the responsibility of the bishop."

When he testified May 20 at Conti's trial, Reali defended his decision not to remove Conti from ministry, saying he investigated the accusations and even convened a church tribunal, but the accusers never showed up.

Copyright © 2011 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/cana...Id=6133560 ...

Rape International, Inc

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 03:41:17 +1100

Tag: usa

For the first time, at least in the United States, a Roman Catholic priest above the rank of parish priest has been indicted for encouraging child rape. Prosecutors are growing a spine in Philadelphia, very slowly.

The New York Times reported three weeks ago that a grand jury that indicted several priests for rape wanted to indict a cardinal:

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"The 124-page report, which contains graphic descriptions of abuse of the 9- and 10-year-old boys, said the grand jury decided 'reluctantly' not to press charges against Cardinal Bevilacqua, who stepped down in 2003 after 15 years as archbishop, even though he worked closely with Monsignor Lynn, because it did not have enough evidence."

Lynn is the first higher-up (but not that high) to be indicted.

That was three weeks ago. At the time, the current cardinal assured everybody that no priest-rapists were active in the parishes. Oops.

Today's story changes that.

Authoritarian, unaccountable systems yield results like that. People see that in Libya. When the same thing operates in Rome or Philadelphia, they find reasons not to see it.

http://www.mauinews.com/page/blogs.de...-Inc-.html ...

Vatican punishes Dutch bishop for child abuse in Kenya

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 02:23:10 +1100

Tag: vatican
Tag: kenya
Tag: netherlands

The Vatican has penalised a Dutch bishop for sexually abusing a teenage boy in Kenya.

Cornelius Schilder, who served as a bishop in Kenya until 2009, was barred from saying Mass in public by the church authorities in Rome.

This penalty was imposed 18 months ago without any public announcement.

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Fons Eppink, head of the Mill Hill order in the Netherlands, confirms that the bishop was indeed penalised by the Vatican.

He told Radio Netherlands Worldwide and Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad that the measure was taken by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples in Rome.

Schilder has been barred from “saying Mass in public and from fulfilling pastoral duties,” Father Eppink explains.

Cornelius Schilder was given early retirement on 1 August 2009, officially due to his ailing health.

Since that time he has been living at a convent that cares for the elderly, run by the Mill Hill order in the Dutch town of Oosterbeek.

Never before has a Dutch bishop been disciplined by the Vatican for sexually abusing a minor.

Rape

Bishop Schilder was accused by a 32-year-old member of the Masai tribe in the province of Ngong in southern Kenya.

The man says that as a 14-year-old boy he was raped by the bishop who was still a priest in Ngongo at the time.

The man has also accuses another Dutch missionary from the Mill Hill order, who has since died.

In January 2003, Cornelius Schilder was appointed bishop of the Kenyan diocese of Ngong, which is home to around 100,000 Roman Catholics.

No police

Like Cornelius Schilder, Fons Eppink was also a missionary in Kenya.

As head of the Mill Hill order in Kenya, Father Eppink heard the accounts of both the victim and the bishop.

“I asked the papal nuncio in Kenya and the archbishop to initiate a church investigation. This formed the basis for the Vatican’s action. The police were not informed.”

In a written statement, Anthony Chantry, the General Superior of the Mill Hill missionaries worldwide, states that the order “will cooperate fully with any legal investigation aimed at protecting the interests of children and vulnerable adults.”

Cornelius Schilder himself has declined to comment.

The Dutch Public Prosecutors Office says it is also possible to prosecute someone for sexual abuse committed in Kenya here in the Netherlands, provided that charges are brought.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/...child.html ...

The shot heard ’round the Globe — still: Boston’s Catholic Church scandal turns 10

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 01:52:03 +1100

Tag: usa

By Roy J. Harris Jr.

Looking back, it’s hard to imagine how Martin Baron, or any brand-new editor, could have had a stronger start than he did his first day at the Boston Globe. Within hours of his inaugural morning staff meeting, Baron “lit the match,” in his words, to ignite the Globe’s Pulitzer-winning investigation of sexual abuse by Catholic priests and its cover-up by church authorities.

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It happened almost 10 years ago — July 30, 2001, to be exact. Surprisingly, Baron says his days at the Globe “seemed kind of slow at the beginning.” That no doubt reflected the turbulence of his previous job, as executive editor at the Miami Herald, when that newspaper had produced Pulitzer-winning coverage of the Elian Gonzalez immigration case, and stirred investigations of the Bush-Gore presidential election that teetered on Florida’s “hanging chad” ballots. (Baron’s Boston plans also took a sudden detour, as did the work of so many journalists, just six weeks after he started his new job, when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred. As a local Boston story that trumped all others, including the church investigation, and the first priest-related pieces by the Globe’s investigative Spotlight Team didn’t actually appear in print and online for five more months, running Jan. 6-7, 2002.)

Baron’s Boston experience was different from the start. He recently reflected on what journalists a decade later can learn from the Globe’s investigation, when he spoke to a class called “Impact Journalism” that I teach at Emerson College. Baron was the seventh in a group of Globe editors and reporters who worked on the 2001-2002 project to speak with my students. His discussion stood out as unusually detailed and personal. It occurred in the same glass-walled Globe conference room where Baron had first sounded out his skeptical sub-editors about delving into reported sex crimes by priests.

The class is studying the Pentagon Papers and the Washington Post’s landmark coverage of Watergate, among other historic cases, seeking to understand not just how they changed history, but how they changed journalism.

“Super-distribution” and damning documents

“The reverberations of [the Globe’s priest investigation] story are still being felt today; the church is still trying to figure out how to apologize,” Baron told the 15 Emerson students. Indeed, the class had just examined a two-day-old front-page Globe article about Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who stepped in after the paper’s coverage drove Cardinal Bernard Law from office. O’Malley was pictured washing the feet of abuse victims in Ireland.

And Baron agreed that the Globe’s investigation made journalistic history with what New York University professor Clay Shirky has called a very early example of the “super-distribution” of news, initially through the paper’s Boston.com website. The combination of print and online publishing made the priest revelations and the cover-up “a synchronizing story [that] kicked off this rolling wave of concern that’s now gone global,” Shirky said last year at an appearance at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center.

Essential to the online reach of the story, Baron told the Emerson class, was how “we used the tool of the Internet,” still in its relative infancy for such applications, to display for readers the extensive range of damning court documents that the Globe’s lawyers had managed to get unsealed in late 2001.

“It’s not the first time people had written about abuse in the Catholic Church,” he told the students. “But it was the first time you could see everything laid out before you. And the church couldn’t deny it, because there it was.”

Since the successful challenge to the sealed documents was Baron’s idea, asked Emerson student Zachary Lucius, “to what extent do you think of the story as yours?” Baron answered, “I don’t think it’s any one person’s — certainly not mine.” He pointed instead to the research skills of the reporters on the Globe’s Spotlight Team — skills that helped identify abusive priests — and to interviewing skills that drew out so many victims’ stories. Globe lawyers deserve credit, too, Baron said, for winning the challenge that opened “a treasure trove of documents.”

Baron admitted that when he arrived in Boston in 2001, he “didn’t know about the Spotlight team at all,” although when told of it, he “thought it was a curious name.” Indeed, he said he had then and has now mixed feelings about standing investigative units in general. “I have no particular ideology about it,” he said. “Some people think they’re good and some think they’re not so good.” At the Globe, he allowed, he now has learned that “it works very well. It has a great tradition, and they produce results.”

Responding to a question from student Meena Ganesan, Baron said his direct supervision of the investigative team had been very limited. “My sense was they were digging into it and digging into it well,” he said. Having “lit the match,” he said, the team was “off and running, and eventually, you’ve got a bonfire.”

But Baron’s answers to further questions from class members suggested several other ways in which his leadership made a critical difference to the outcome of the investigation.

“What’s the truth here?”

“To have impact, you have to say, what’s the truth here?” Baron told the students. The truth that eventually emerged included at least a 40-year history of priests raping children in the Boston area under the protection of church leaders — the tip of an iceberg of abuse around the nation and the world.

Baron was determined to avoid “he said, she said” accounts. He saw that unsealing court documents would be the key to opening the fuller story about what Father John Geoghan, the subject of scores of lawsuits, along with other priests and the church itself, had done to victims over the years.

When a Globe lawyer declared the chances of getting those documents unsealed to be 50-50, Baron declared those to be good odds. He persuaded then-publisher Richard Gilman. (Baron believes in “a no-surprise rule: Don’t surprise the publisher.”) He also determined that the paper’s success was more likely because the church was handicapped by “inept legal counsel.” And he calculated that the paper would benefit from the assignment of state Judge Constance Sweeney — a Catholic woman from Springfield, not Boston — to rule on the sealed documents.

Baron also tried to set a restrained tone for the Globe’s stories. “I wanted to be careful with the language, avoiding words like ‘explosive,’ ‘stunning,’ ‘shocking’,” he said. The words applied to priests raping children, of course, but “adjectives like that are the kinds of things people seize on,” Baron told the students. “You don’t need to do that, because the story speaks for itself.” Instead, he imposed an “almost dispassionate” standard. (On the day the Globe’s public-service Pulitzer was announced in 2003, then-Spotlight team leader Walter Robinson had joked about Baron to his fellow staffers that “somewhere within sight of this newsroom there has to be a closet full of adjectives he excised from these stories.”)

Emerson student Jovvann-Dominique Cafua asked if, during the coverage, Baron had come to think of it as Pulitzer material. Baron laughed, “Oh sure, I’m not that selfless.” He recalled a January 2002 press conference in which Cardinal Law responded to the Globe stories with a mild apology, rather than the expected counterattack on the paper. Baron said then-projects editor Ben Bradlee Jr. — son of famed Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee — told him, “Marty, we hit one out of the park.” (The students, who had heard the same story from Bradlee, smiled.)

A “gratifying” feeling

Beyond the revolution in news that the Internet brought on, Baron elaborated on the evolution of investigative reporting since 2001. He noted the sharp increase in collaborative projects between newspapers and other organizations, such as ProPublica. The Globe itself has developed a close relationship with students at Northeastern University, who are guided in investigations by former Spotlight leader Robinson, now a professor there. The relationship has led to numerous front-page exposes in the Globe, where the Spotlight Team continues to operate.

Baron was also asked if it felt like a decade since the church project had started. “Yes, it does seem like 10 years ago,” he said. In fact, even some shorter stretches of time since then seemed to last forever, Baron told the students, referring to a brief period two years ago, when the Globe’s New York Times Company owners discussed shutting down the Boston paper.

The last question was one Baron often gets these days: With the financial constraints facing the paper — and all newspapers — would the Globe pursue a story like the church scandal if it came along now?

Of course, he answered without hesitating — and, Baron said, not just because he now knows the impact that the story had, and continues to have. “It was a cover-up that lasted for decades, and that would have lasted for decades more,” had the paper not done that reporting. Knowing that the Globe changed so much is “gratifying,” he said.

It was an adjective apparently understated enough to escape Baron’s closet.

Roy Harris, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is editorial director of corporate-finance online site CFOworld.com. He is the author of “Pulitzer’s Gold: Behind the Prize for Public Service Journalism” (U. of Missouri, paperback, 2010).

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