More Christian love.

[truetrini]

March 31, 2010

As the faithful fill churches during Holy Week, a wave of clerical sex abuse revelations is sweeping Europe. The latest allegations come from Italy, just outside Vatican walls.

As the scandal mounts, Pope Benedict XVI is under increasing pressure to give a more forceful response to the most serious crisis of his papacy.

Following weeks of media coverage of sex abuse by priests in the United States, Ireland and Germany, three deaf men from Italy appeared on national TV last week.

Gianni Bisoli, 61, entered a Catholic institute for the deaf in Verona at age 9. He described how he was subjected to three years of sexual abuse. And he listed the abusers' first names — many of whom are still serving as priests.

Bisoli described how he was often taken to the home of the local bishop, who used him as a sexual toy. The network bleeped out the bishop's last name. A total of 67 former students of the same institute for the deaf had signed similar affidavits last year.

Their story was briefly in the news but was quickly swept under the rug.

Robert Mickens, Vatican correspondent for the British Catholic weekly The Tablet, says that was possible thanks to a long entrenched code of silence.
Opinions On Abuse In The Church
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"Up until now, the hierarchy in this country has been very powerful with the press, with the courts, in society in general," Mickens says. "They only had to flex their authority, and their friends would help this go away."

In the past decade, 80 Italian priests have been found guilty of sex abuse, but analysts think the real number is much higher and that the latest allegations might trigger more revelations.

The diocese of Bolzano, where other cases emerged this month, has set up a hot line to allow more victims to come forward. It's the first such initiative in Italy, where associations of victims of sex abuse by priests are just being formed.

Roberto Mirabile, president of an association that works on behalf of victims of pedophilia, says cases of sex abuse by priests are known to have occurred in at least 30 Italian towns.

But he acknowledges that victims hesitate to go public because they do not feel protected by civil authorities.

"Apologies are not sufficient," Mirabile said. "The church has to admit that the real problem is the code of silence and hypocrisy, not the individual pedophile priest." The problem "is the silence of those bishops who transferred priests to other parishes to save the church's reputation."

The Vatican has gone on the defensive. Its official daily newspaper accused the international media of waging a smear campaign against the pope.

During his Palm Sunday Mass, Benedict made no direct mention of the crisis but said cryptically that Jesus Christ guides the faithful "toward the courage that doesn't let us be intimidated by petty gossip."

Emboldened by the new European revelations of clerical sex abuse and scrutiny of Benedict's handling of past cases, lawsuits in Oregon and Kentucky are seeking to depose the pope and his closest aides. They want to show that U.S. bishops are employees of the Holy See and that the Vatican is therefore responsible for their failure to report abuse to civil authorities.

The plaintiffs' lawyers point to a 1962 Vatican document that describes how bishops should deal with abuse of minors by priests and how abusers can be forgiven.

Texas lawyer Daniel Shea first learned of the document when it was referred to in a letter written by the future Pope Benedict.

"We have obstruction of justice," Shea said. "This demonstrates with absolute certainty that the church considers the absolution of the priest who has abused a child, to be part of the course and scope of the bishop's employment. These are crimes against humanity."

Vatican lawyers plan to argue that Pope Benedict has immunity as a head of state. But lawyers of sex abuse victims from Germany to Australia have said they also will cite the Vatican documents in similar court cases in their countries.

[pecan]

if they decide to throw the book at the Pope, will it be the Bible?

[truetrini]

Dead Marine's father ordered to pay protesters' legal costs
By Emanuella Grinberg, CNN
March 30, 2010 11:06 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- The father of a Marine whose funeral was picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church says an order to pay the protesters' legal costs in a civil claim is nothing less than a "slap in the face."

"By the court making this decision, they're not only telling me that they're taking their side, but I have to pay them money to do this to more soldiers and their families," said Albert Snyder, whose son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, was killed in action in Iraq in 2006.

Members of the fundamentalist church based in Topeka, Kansas, appeared outside Snyder's funeral in 2006 in Westminster, Maryland, carrying signs reading "You're going to hell," "God hates you" and "Thank God for dead soldiers."

Among the teachings of the church, which was founded in 1955 by pastor Fred Phelps, is the belief that God is punishing the United States for "the sin of homosexuality" through events such as soldiers' deaths.

Margie Phelps, the daughter of Fred Phelps and the attorney representing the church in its appeals, also said the money that the church receives from Snyder will be used to finance demonstrations. But she also said that the order was a consequence of his decision to sue the church over the demonstration.

"Mr. Snyder and his attorneys have engaged the legal system; there are some rules to that legal engagement," said Phelps, a member of Westboro who says she has participated in more than 150 protests of military funerals.

"They wanted to shut down the picketing so now they're going to finance it," she said.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ordered that Snyder pay more than $16,000 in costs requested by Westboro for copies of motions, briefs and appendices, according to court documents.

In a motion filed in October, Snyder's lawyer, who is representing him for free, asked the court to dismiss the bill of costs, or, alternatively, reduce the 50-cent fee per page or charge Snyder only for copies that were necessary to make their arguments on appeal.

"We objected based upon ability to pay and the fairness of the situation," Sean Summers said.

The mostly pro-forma ruling is the latest chapter in an ongoing legal saga that pits privacy rights of grieving families against the free speech rights of demonstrators, however disturbing and provocative their message.

Snyder's family sued the church and went to trial in 2007 alleging privacy invasion, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy. A jury awarded the family $2.9 million in compensatory damages plus $8 million in punitive damages, which were reduced to $5 million.

Westboro in 2008 appealed the case to the 4th District, which reversed the judgments a year later, siding with the church's claims that its First Amendment rights had been violated.

"The protest was confined to a public area under supervision and regulation of local law enforcement and did not disrupt the church service," the circuit court opinion said. "Although reasonable people may disagree about the appropriateness of the Phelps' protest, this conduct simply does not satisfy the heavy burden required for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress under Maryland law."

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case to address issues of laws designed to protect the "sanctity and dignity of memorial and funeral services" as well as the privacy of family and friends of the deceased.

The justices will be asked to address how far states and private entities such as cemeteries and churches can go to justify picket-free zones and the use of "floating buffers" to silence or restrict speech or movements of demonstrators exercising their constitutional rights in a funeral setting.

Both Phelps and Snyder's attorney said they were surprised that the 4th District chose to weigh in on the issue of legal costs when they could have waited until after the Supreme Court hearing.

Phelps believes the ruling bodes well for her side.

"It is a good harbinger of the fact that the Supreme Court will remind this nation that you don't have mob rule. The fact that so many people hate these words does not mean you can silence or penalize them. That's supposed to be the great liberty that we congratulate ourselves on protecting in this nation. We strut all around the world forcing people to give all the liberties we supposedly have," she said.

Phelps anticipated that a Supreme Court ruling in the church's favor would be unpopular, but she said Westboro's members viewed the potential outcome in Biblical terms.

"When the Supreme Court unanimously upholds the 4th Circuit, it's going to put this country in a rage, and we will be expelled," she said. "But whenever it was time for an epic event in the Bible, the thing that happened right before is the prophets were removed from the land, and that's what's going to happen to us. ... We're going to sprint to the end of this race."

Snyder claims he is unable to pay any legal costs in the case and is attempting to raise funds on his son's site, http://www.matthewsnyder.org/. He is equally optimistic that he will prevail before the Supreme Court.

"The American people keep my spirits lifted a lot and give me hope. I think most of the country is on my side on this issue," he said. "Too many people have died to protect our rights and freedoms to have them degraded and spit upon like this church does."

CNN's Bill Mears contributed to this report.

[Daft Trini]

that christian group needs to be spayed and neutered... as a prior service man... I real pissed at that shyte 

[truetrini]

A woman who described herself as a former stripper in Miami has filed a petition for a restraining order against a South Florida priest, who she now claims fathered her baby.

The woman, Beatrice Hernandez, told CBS4 News that she was a dancer at a Miami strip club, Porky's. She said she met Father David Dueppen at that strip club and started a relationship shortly thereafter.

Early this year, Hernandez had a baby and demanded Dueppen take DNA paternity tests, according to court documents obtained by CBS4 News. But, in the restraining order petition, Hernandez said that after several attempts for a DNA test, "the [priest's] rage escalated as he attacked [Hernandez], grabbing her by the throat and choking her."

"I'm afraid. I'm on the street. I'm running from people," Hernandez told CBS4's Jim DeFede over the phone. "David said to me that if I go to the media, he would make me disappear and take my baby."

Dueppen last served as an associate priest at St. Maximilian Kolbe Church in Pembroke Pines. He has been on administrative leave for one month, according to Miami Archdiocese spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta.

"It was a leave he requested. He is not assigned a parish right now," Agosta told CBS4 News. She said Dueppen asked for the leave "for personal reasons."

Agosta also confirmed that Dueppen was once the pastor at the same church in Miami Beach recently led by Father Alberto Cutié, the popular television personality who paparazzi cameras caught in an embrace with a woman on the beach.

Dueppen has also been in the news before. In 2006, The Miami Herald printed an article stating that a woman said she was abused in 2005 by Dueppen. It's unclear whether that woman is Hernandez, but the Archdiocese did confirm that a financial payment was made to Beatrice Hernandez in 2006.

"It was not hush money. There was a relationship that was an inappropriate relationship between Ms. Hernandez and Father Dueppen," said Agosta.

Asked if it was a sexual relationship, Agosta said: it was "a breach of a fiduciary relationship."

[truetrini]

He had concerns about removing Calif. cleric who molested children


Image: A detail of a 1985 letter obtained by the Associated Press signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.   
A 1985 letter signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then-head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, indicates he resisted defrocking a California priest who had a record of sexually molesting children.

By GILLIAN FLACCUS
updated 1:58 p.m. ET, Fri., April 9, 2010

LOS ANGELES - The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature.

The correspondence, obtained by The Associated Press, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church's doctrinal watchdog office.

The letter, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was typed in Latin and is part of years of correspondence between the Diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed defrocking of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle.
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The Vatican confirmed Friday that it was Ratzinger's signature. "The press office doesn't believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations," the Rev. Federico Lombardi said.

Another spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said the letter showed no attempt at a cover-up. "The then-Cardinal Ratzinger didn't cover up the case, but as the letter clearly shows, made clear the need to study the case with more attention, taking into account the good of all involved."

The diocese recommended removing Kiesle from the priesthood in 1981, the year Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican office that shared responsibility for disciplining abusive priests.

The case then languished for four years at the Vatican before Ratzinger finally wrote to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. It was two more years before Kiesle was removed.

For the good of the church
In the November 1985 letter, Ratzinger says the arguments for removing Kiesle are of "grave significance" but added that such actions required very careful review and more time. He also urged the bishop to provide Kiesle with "as much paternal care as possible" while awaiting the decision, according to a translation for AP by Professor Thomas Habinek, chairman of the University of Southern California Classics Department.

But the future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the "good of the universal church" and the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age." Kiesle was 38 at the time.


Image: Stephen Kiesle
AP
This 2002 photo shows former priest Stephen Kiesle, who had a record of sexually molesting children.
Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory.

As his probation ended in 1981, Kiesle asked to leave the priesthood and the diocese submitted papers to Rome to defrock him.

In his earliest letter to Ratzinger, Cummins warned that returning Kiesle to ministry would cause more of a scandal than stripping him of his priestly powers.

"It is my conviction that there would be no scandal if this petition were granted and that as a matter of fact, given the nature of the case, there might be greater scandal to the community if Father Kiesle were allowed to return to the active ministry," Cummins wrote in 1982.

While papers obtained by the AP include only one letter with Ratzinger's signature, correspondence and internal memos from the diocese refer to a letter dated Nov. 17, 1981, from the then-cardinal to the bishop. Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith a week later.

Fear of scandal
California church officials wrote to Ratzinger at least three times to check on the status of Kiesle's case. At one point, a Vatican official wrote to say the file may have been lost and suggested resubmitting materials.

Diocese officials considered writing Ratzinger again after they received his 1985 response to impress upon him that leaving Kiesle in the ministry would harm the church, Rev. George Mockel wrote in a memo to the Oakland bishop.

"My own reading of this letter is that basically they are going to sit on it until Steve gets quite a bit older," the memo said. "Despite his young age, the particular and unique circumstances of this case would seem to make it a greater scandal if he were not laicized."

Irwin Zalkin, an attorney representing some of the victims, said he was familiar with the correspondence but wouldn't provide documents to AP.

"Cardinal Ratzinger was more concerned about the avoidance of scandal than he was about protecting children," Zalkin said in a phone interview. "That was a central theme."

As Kiesle's fate was being weighed in Rome, the priest returned to suburban Pinole to volunteer as a youth minister at St. Joseph Church, where he had served as associate pastor from 1972 to 1975.

Kiesle was ultimately stripped of his priestly powers in 1987, though the documents do not indicate when, how or why. They also don't indicate what role — if any — Ratzinger had in the decision.

Kiesle continued to volunteer with children, according to Maurine Behrend, who worked in the Oakland diocese's youth ministry office in the 1980s. After learning of his history, Behrend complained to church officials. When nothing was done she wrote a letter, which she showed to the AP.

"Obviously nothing has been done after EIGHT months of repeated notifications," she wrote. "How are we supposed to have confidence in the system when nothing is done? A simple phone call to the pastor from the bishop is all it would take."

She eventually confronted Cummins at a confirmation and Kiesle was gone a short time later, Behrend said.

Kiesle, who married after leaving the priesthood, was arrested and charged in 2002 with 13 counts of child molestation from the 1970s. All but two were thrown out after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a California law extending the statute of limitations.

He pleaded no contest in 2004 to a felony for molesting a young girl in his Truckee home in 1995 and was sentenced to six years in state prison.

Kiesle, now 63 and a registered sex offender, lives in a Walnut Creek gated community, according to his address listed on the Megan's Law sex registry. An AP reporter was turned away when attempting to reach him for comment.

William Gagen, an attorney who represented Kiesle in 2002, did not return a call for comment.

Pied Piper
More than a half-dozen victims reached a settlement in 2005 with the Oakland diocese alleging Kiesle had molested them as young children.

"He admitted molesting many children and bragged that he was the Pied Piper and said he tried to molest every child that sat on his lap," said Lewis VanBlois, an attorney for six Kiesle victims who interviewed the former priest in prison. "When asked how many children he had molested over the years, he said 'tons.'"

Cummins, 82 and now retired, initially told the AP he did not recall writing to Ratzinger about Kiesle, but he remembered when shown the letter with his signature on Friday. He said things had changed over the past quarter century.

"When he (Ratzinger) took over I think he was following what was the practice of the time, that Pope John Paul was slowing these things down. You didn't just walk out of the priesthood then," Cummins said.

"These things were slow and their idea of thoroughness was a little more than ours. We were in a situation that was hands-on, with personal reaction."

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Documents obtained by the AP last week revealed similar instances of Vatican stalling in cases involving two Arizona clergy.

In one case, the future pope took over the abuse case of the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood.

In the second, the bishop called Msgr. Robert Trupia a "major risk factor" in a letter to Ratzinger. There is no indication in those files that Ratzinger responded.

The Vatican has called the accusations "absolutely groundless" and said the facts were being misrepresented.

[truetrini]

Predator priests shuffled around globe
Victim: Transfer of abusive clerics was called ‘the geographical cure’
Image: Rev. Mario Pezzotti stands with Kayapo Indian children in Brazil
Bresciani Missionaries / AP
In this undated photo from a 2008 newsletter by the Bresciani missionaries, the Rev. Mario Pezzotti stands with Kayapo Indian children in Brazil. His was among 30 cases uncovered by the AP of priests accused of abuse who were transferred or moved abroad.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - There he was, five decades later, the priest who had raped Joe Callander in Massachusetts. The photo in the Roman Catholic newsletter showed him with a smile across his wrinkled face, near-naked Amazon Indian children in his arms and at his feet.

The Rev. Mario Pezzotti was working with children and supervising other priests in Brazil.

It's not an isolated example.
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In an investigation spanning 21 countries across six continents, The Associated Press found 30 cases of priests accused of abuse who were transferred or moved abroad. Some escaped police investigations. Many had access to children in another country, and some abused again.

A priest who admitted to abuse in Los Angeles went to the Philippines, where U.S. church officials mailed him checks and advised him not to reveal their source. A priest in Canada was convicted of sexual abuse and then moved to France, where he was convicted of abuse again in 2005. Another priest was moved back and forth between Ireland and England, despite being diagnosed as a pederast, a man who commits sodomy with boys.

"The pattern is if a priest gets into trouble and it's close to becoming a scandal or if the law might get involved, they send them to the missions abroad," said Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk and critic of what he says is a practice of international transfers of accused and admitted priest child abusers. "Anything to avoid a scandal."

Church officials say that in some cases, the priests themselves moved to another country and the new parish might not have been aware of past allegations. In other cases, church officials said they did not believe the allegations, or that the priest had served his time and reformed.

'I overcame it'
Callander says he was 14 when he was raped three times and abused on other occasions in 1959 at the now-closed Xaverian Missionary Faith High School in Holliston, Mass. The Xaverians settled the case for $175,000 in 1993. At least two other accusations of sexual abuse were leveled against Pezzotti in the Boston area.

In the meantime, from 1970 to 2003, Pezzotti was in Brazil, where he worked with the Kayapo Indians.

In a handwritten note of apology to Callander in January 1993, Pezzotti said he had cured himself in the jungle.

"I asked to leave Holliston and go to Brazil to change my life and begin a new life. Upon arrival in Brazil, confiding in God's mercy, I owned up to the problem," Pezzotti wrote. "With divine help, I overcame it."

There is no evidence that Pezzotti, now 75, abused children in Brazil, which has more Catholics than any other nation. Brazilian law enforcement officials said they were unaware of any complaints about him.

The Rev. Robert Maloney, provincial of the Xaverians who worked closely on Callander's settlement, said Pezzotti was allowed to stay in Brazil for another decade and work with children after a psychological evaluation. He added that a Xaverian investigation into Pezzotti and his work in Brazil turned up nothing.

After Pezzotti returned to Italy in 2003, "he was constantly being asked for by Brazil and by the people he worked with," Maloney added.

In 2008, Pezzotti returned to Brazil. A few months later, Callander saw the photos of him on the Internet and complained to the church. The priest was quickly sent back to Italy.

The Xaverian vicar general, Rev. Luigi Menegazzo, said Pezzotti works at Xaverian headquarters in Parma tending to sick and elderly priests. Asked if Pezzotti had any contact with children or public parish work, he said, "Absolutely in no way."

Reached by telephone, Pezzotti said only: "I don't see why I have to talk about it. Everything was resolved and I don't feel like talking."

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'Please Father, help us'
Father Vijay Vhaskr Godugunuru was forced to return to India and then was transferred to Italy after pleading no contest to assaulting a 15-year-old girl while visiting friends in Bonifay, Fla. He now ministers to a parish in a medieval town of about 4,000 in Tuscany, where he hears confessions, celebrates Mass and works with children.

The bishops supervising him said they were aware of the case but believed he was innocent.

"The evidence that has been given does not support the accusation," Monsignor Rodolfo Cetoloni, the bishop of the Montepulciano diocese, told the AP last week.

Cetoloni said he saw no reason for any restrictions. Godugunuru, now 40, "enjoys the esteem of everybody," he said.

Godugunuru had been charged with fondling a parishioner in her family's van on June 23, 2006. The priest, visiting from India's diocese of Cuddapah, had been allowed to assist at the Blessed Trinity Catholic Church in Bonifay.

The girl, now 19, told police in a sworn statement that Godugunuru "fondled her breasts and penetrated her vagina with his fingers." In his own interview with police, Godugunuru said the girl "had taken his hand and placed it between her legs." He denied intentionally touching her.

The priest was arrested the next month for lewd or lascivious battery on a minor. He faced up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine but in exchange for his no contest plea was required to return to India, undergo counseling, not supervise minors for a year and not return to the United States.

The girl's mother brought the case to the attention of Pope Benedict XVI.

"My family and others have been forced out of our church," she wrote in an Aug. 23, 2006, e-mail obtained by the AP. "Just when our faith and our faith in our church were tested most, our Priest chose the side of silence. ... To make matters worse, it was my daughter who was the one being attacked and he just sat back and watched. ...

"This is the biggest problem my family has ever dealt with," she continued. "Please Father, help us. Remember us in your prayers, especially for the speedy healing of my daughter."

The e-mail also said she had contacted the bishop of Cuddapah, the Most Rev. Doraboina Moses Prakasam, and asked if there had been any past accusations of sexual improprieties against Godugunuru. "I have not heard back from him and I don't expect to," she said.

The pope never answered.

Prakasam told the AP he was under the impression that Godugunuru had been absolved of the charges.

"What I was told by the people looking after that case was that he was cleared and ... he was allowed to come back to India," he said.

He said he told the Italian bishop of the case when Godugunuru moved to Tuscany.

The priest of San Lorenzo parish told the AP by phone last week that Godugunuru works as his deputy. He refused further comment, except to say that Godugunuru "does what all deputy parish priests do" and "helps the parish priest."

Godugunuru declined to be interviewed by the AP.

Claiming propaganda
Clodoveo Piazza is an Italian Jesuit who ran a homeless shelter for street children and worked in Brazil for 30 years. In 2005, he was awarded $600,000 from Brazil's national development bank to set up four facilities in the northeastern city of Salvador.

Last August, prosecutors said at least eight boys and young men had come forward to say either that they were abused by Piazza or that he allowed visiting foreigners to sexually abuse boys. Brazilian police are seeking his arrest.

Piazza now works in Mozambique, according to the Catholic nonprofit Organizzazione di Aiuto Fraterno, and the church has come to his defense.

"The Italian Jesuits express their solidarity with the brother and father Piazza," reads one note on the religious order's Web site. The nonprofit adds that "the slander against missionaries is becoming an increasingly popular game."

Brazilian prosecutors say Piazza, a naturalized Brazilian, has refused to respond to the charges of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children.

Interviewed in Maputo, Mozambique, this week, Piazza said the charges were false and part of a campaign to blackmail him by "political circles" in Brazil that he did not identify. He said he had been acquitted of the charges twice in Brazil, and that there is no evidence against him.

A spokeswoman with Bahia state's Public Ministry said there were no records of Piazza ever being tried or acquitted and that the case against him is still open. She spoke on condition of anonymity, in keeping with department policy.

"This is propaganda in order to earn money," Piazza told the AP, saying people in Brazil had asked him for money, which he could not pay.

He said he has been living in a Jesuit residence in Maputo for about seven months. He said he was working with Italy's Turino University on "economic projects" and was not working with children.

Joseph was a 26-year-old student at St. John Provincial Seminary in Detroit, Mich., in 1988 when he was convicted of sexual misconduct with a 15-year-old boy. He was given three years' probation and dismissed from his seminary.

Two decades later, he lives in the Philippines, where he was ordained a priest and now serves as parochial vicar of the St. Vincent Ferrer parish in the remote town of Calape, according to the diocese directory. He is also a popular gospel singer in the heavily Catholic country.

Reached on his cell phone, Skelton declined comment.

He finished his seminary studies in Manila, the capital, and was ordained in 2001 in the diocese of Tagbilaran in Bohol province.

The bishop who ordained Skelton said he wouldn't have made him a priest if he had known about the criminal conviction.

"I ordained him because, while there was some talk about his effeminate ways, there was no case against him," Bishop Leopoldo S. Tumulak said.

Tumulak, who has since stepped down, said it would be up to his successor to reopen the case.

"The priest is trying to live well," Tumulak said. "If he has really changed, the heart of the church is compassionate — although in America, Europe, they have different ways of looking at it. Not the church, but the government, the people. In the Philippines, it's a little bit different."

The archdiocese of Detroit, after learning Skelton had been ordained, sent a letter about his conviction to the Tagbilaran diocese in early 2003. Tumulak, the former bishop, said he doesn't remember if he received the letter, and in any case it would have been too late.

Informed of the case, current Bishop Leonardo Medroso said he would investigate. But he added:

"The case has been judged already. He was convicted and that means to say he has served already the conviction. So what obstacle can there be if he has already served his punishment or penalty?"

'Geograpical cure'
Transferring abusive priests was called "the geographical cure," according to Terry Carter, a New Zealand victim. Carter won $32,000 in compensation from the Society of Mary, which oversees the Catholic boarding school outside Wellington where he was abused by the Rev. Allan Woodcock.

Woodcock molested at least 11 boys at four church facilities in New Zealand before being sent by the church to Ireland. He was extradited to New Zealand in 2004, pleaded guilty to 21 sexual abuse charges involving 11 victims and was sentenced to seven years in jail. He was paroled in September 2009.

"They whipped him out of the country to Ireland," Carter said. "They took him out of New Zealand after years of offending in different locations."

Society of Mary spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer told the AP that some families of Woodcock's victims asked that he be sent offshore.

"He was sent to Ireland for intensive psychotherapy. He had no permission to exercise his ministry or to be involved with youth," she said.

Woodcock was suspended from his ministry in the New Zealand branch of the Society of Mary in 1987, according to Freer. He was removed from the priesthood in 2001, she said.

Freer noted that even 20 years ago, it was accepted belief that "pedophilia could be cured," often with intensive psychotherapy. "Pedophilia is now seen as recidivist," she said.

Woodcock is believed to be living in New Zealand's North Island coastal city of Wanganui. A woman who gave her name as Catherine Woodcock and described herself as "a relative" said she didn't think he would want to make any comment to the media. Asked why, she replied: "It is not appropriate at this stage."

Coming forward
Back in Windsor, Vermont, Callander lives a quiet life with Sandi, his wife of 35 years. It was only last week that he told his siblings about the abuse.

Callander says he is coming forward now because the Xaverians failed to keep their promise that Pezzotti would not be around children. He wants the church to change by defrocking or isolating priests who admit abuse so they cannot work in the same positions again — anywhere in the world.

"All I want is for the church to do what is right for once," Callander said. "To end the facade that a man like that should have the right to call himself a Catholic priest."

Rizzo reported from Rome. Also contributing to this story were AP writers Daniel Woolls in Spain, Fran d'Emilio and Nicole Winfield in Italy, Angela Charlton in France, Bob Barr in Ireland, Eliane Engeler in Switzerland, Veronika Oleksyn in Austria, Matt Sedensky in Miami, Gillian Flaccus and Raquel Dillon in Los Angeles, David Runk in Detroit, Sean Farrell in Montreal, Rob Gillies in Toronto, Bill Kaczor in Tallahassee, Fla., Pat Condon in Minneapolis, Emanuel Camillo in Mozambique, Alan Clendenning in Brazil, Ian James in Venezuela, Olga Rodriguez in Mexico, Vivian Sequera and Libardo Cardona in Colombia, Michael Warren in Argentina, Eva Vergara, Federico Quilodran and Brad Haynes in Chile, Ravi Nessman in India, Hrvoje Hranjski and Teresa Cerojano in the Phillippines, and Ray Lilley in New Zealand.

[WestCoast]

NOW we talking GOOD Sense

Arresting the Pope might be the right thing to do

  By Janet Bagnall, Montreal GazetteApril 22, 2010
  News that two atheists -- British author and biologist Richard Dawkins and commentator Christopher Hitchens -- have asked lawyers to lay out grounds for the arrest of Pope Benedict XVI for complicity in covering up the sexual abuse of children has been greeted as a kind of low-minded folly.

It is anything but.

Strip away the religion and you have in the Roman Catholic Church an institution that allowed pedophiles unparalleled access to children and then, in too many cases, covered up their crimes. When they were uncovered as sexual predators, the church sent them to new parishes where they could strike again.

As this pattern of coverup has come under fire, the church has gone on the offensive, calling the abuse of children the fault of homosexuals, the ignominy heaped on the church the media's doing, and the insistence on justice a personal attack on the Pope.

It was only last week that the Vatican issued orders in plain language on the Internet, telling church authorities they are to refer cases of sexual assault or molestation of children to civil authorities.

This change comes after decades of the church trying to keep allegations of child sexual assault within the confines of the institution.

It's a change that comes too late. For too long the church has stood between men and women who were abused as children and their chance to hold their assailants to account and now many will never be able to exercise that right.

In Ireland, thousands of children were abused in Roman Catholic schools and orphanages from the 1930s to the 1990s, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse reported last year. Commission chairperson Judge Sean Ryan said the church responded to evidence of sexual abuse by moving sex offenders elsewhere, the Daily Mail reported.

No prosecutions resulted from the report, the Daily Mail wrote, because the Christian Brothers who for the most part ran the institutions secured a ruling that guaranteed that its members would not be named.

But as the Associated Press reported last week, even priests who were criminally convicted were allowed to continue working with children.

Former Quebecer Denis Vadeboncoeur is one such priest, according to AP. Vadeboncoeur was sentenced in Quebec in 1985 to 20 months after pleading guilty to sodomizing teenage boys.

After he was released, Vadeboncoeur continued in the priesthood, in France. This week, Jacques Gaillot, a former bishop of Evreux in France, said in an interview with Le Parisien that he was sorry he agreed to a request by church officials in Quebec to take in Vadeboncoeur, a request the Quebecers are reported to have denied making.

It's hardly surprising no one wants to take responsibility for Vadeboncoeur: He was sentenced in France in 2005 to 12 years in prison for raping a number of minors between 1989 and 1992.

Most recently, the culture of coverup was brought home to the Pope himself.

The Associated Press and the New York Times reported that a letter signed in 1985 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as the Pope was then, shows that Ratzinger urged that the interests of the church be placed above those of two boys who had been tied up and sexually molested by a California priest, Stephen Kiesle.

According to the reports, then-Oakland bishop John Cummins wrote to the Vatican in 1981, urging the church to agree to Kiesle's request for laicization. Ratzinger replied that a decision to defrock Kiesle had to take into account "the good of the Universal Church."

Kiesle was left in the priesthood another six years.

The question Richard Dawkins wants answered is why the church has been allowed to "get away with it."

"Suppose," he wrote in the Guardian, "the British secretary of state for schools received, from a local education authority, a reliable report of a teacher tying up his pupils and raping them.

"Imagine that, instead of turning the matter over to the police, he had simply moved the offender from school to school, where he repeatedly raped other children."

In a world where the rights of children and the rule of law take precedence over the reputation of an institution, however steeped in other-worldliness, such behaviour is unimaginable, or should be.

If crimes have been committed, there must be an accounting. And if it takes the arrest of Benedict as the head of the church, so be it.

jbagnall@thegazette.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist
http://www.timescolonist.com/health/Arresting+Pope+might+right+thing/2937628/story.html

CHOP off ALL ah dem willywonkers....ALLL

[ribbit]

Arresting the Pope might be the right thing to do

  By Janet Bagnall, Montreal GazetteApril 22, 2010
  News that two atheists -- British author and biologist Richard Dawkins and commentator Christopher Hitchens -- have asked lawyers to lay out grounds for the arrest of Pope Benedict XVI for complicity in covering up the sexual abuse of children has been greeted as a kind of low-minded folly.

It is anything but.

Strip away the religion and you have in the Roman Catholic Church an institution that allowed pedophiles unparalleled access to children and then, in too many cases, covered up their crimes. When they were uncovered as sexual predators, the church sent them to new parishes where they could strike again.

As this pattern of coverup has come under fire, the church has gone on the offensive, calling the abuse of children the fault of homosexuals, the ignominy heaped on the church the media's doing, and the insistence on justice a personal attack on the Pope.

- it's too bad that of all people is dawkins and hitchens have to be suggesting this. but those religious types stick together.
- for the church, if worse comes to worst, the pope will take the hit, but the problem remains a systemic one. the church will always attract pedophile just like politics attract tief.
- the pope is a head of state and vatican city has its own sovereignty. even if a charge is forthcoming, the pope have a place to hide. that also means no public inquiry of the church itself.

[WestCoast]

Arresting the Pope might be the right thing to do

  By Janet Bagnall, Montreal GazetteApril 22, 2010
  News that two atheists -- British author and biologist Richard Dawkins and commentator Christopher Hitchens -- have asked lawyers to lay out grounds for the arrest of Pope Benedict XVI for complicity in covering up the sexual abuse of children has been greeted as a kind of low-minded folly.

It is anything but.

Strip away the religion and you have in the Roman Catholic Church an institution that allowed pedophiles unparalleled access to children and then, in too many cases, covered up their crimes. When they were uncovered as sexual predators, the church sent them to new parishes where they could strike again.

As this pattern of coverup has come under fire, the church has gone on the offensive, calling the abuse of children the fault of homosexuals, the ignominy heaped on the church the media's doing, and the insistence on justice a personal attack on the Pope.

- it's too bad that of all people is dawkins and hitchens have to be suggesting this. but those religious types stick together.
- for the church, if worse comes to worst, the pope will take the hit, but the problem remains a systemic one. the church will always attract pedophile just like politics attract tief.
- the pope is a head of state and vatican city has its own sovereignty. even if a charge is forthcoming, the pope have a place to hide. that also means no public inquiry of the church itself.

Hear nuh
I completely forgot all ah that ya mention there
Oh well
Diplomatic Immunity in ya wire

[truetrini]

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/05/1810373/uf-muslims-fear-koran-burning.html


UF Muslims fear Koran burning may spark violence
 .A church's plans to observe 9/11 by burning Korans have students fearful of violence.
 

Photos
BY JAWEED KALEEM
jkaleem@MiamiHerald.com
GAINESVILLE -- Before she left her Miami home to return to the University of Florida this fall, Wajiha Akhtar's parents gave her some unusual advice: stay indoors as much as possible and, whatever happens, don't go near the Koran burners.

``I was fearful,'' says Akhtar, 24, a graduate student in epidemiology who says she never had any concerns as a Muslim here until recently. ``Will we get singled out?''

Far from Ground Zero, where debate over a proposed Islamic center is still roiling, a Gainesville church has aroused anger and tension among Florida's growing Muslim community and caught the world's attention -- from international headlines to rallies in Indonesia and India -- because of its pistol-toting pastor's plan to ignite a bonfire of Korans on 9/11 to protest what he calls a religion ``of the devil.''

Fearing violence, some Muslims are leaving town on the Sept. 11 weekend to avoid problems.

Last week in South Florida, 13 mosque leaders issued a call to the region's Muslims for nonviolence in anticipation of high emotions over the desecration of Islam's holy book. At UF, administrators have said they're afraid the protest at the small Dove World Outreach Center will mar the school's image, while international students and prospective foreign applicants have also expressed concern.

``Things have escalated,'' says Ismail ibn Ali, president of the university's Islam on Campus student organization, which serves about 600 Muslim students in this city with 1,500 Muslims, a population that's slowly grown over the last 30 years.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/05/1810373/uf-muslims-fear-koran-burning.html#ixzz0ylceDoL5

[elan]

Bishop Eddie Long Accused of Coercion

Posted By -  Duffie Dixon
Posted By -  Eve Chen
Last Updated On:  9/22/2010 7:15:20 AM
 

LITHONIA, GA -- Two men are accusing Bishop Eddie Long of exploiting his role as pastor of an Atlanta-area megachurch to coerce them into sexual relationships.

Maurice Robinson, 20, and Anthony Flagg, 21, had been members of Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia.

They say they were only 17 and 18 when Long abused his spiritual authority to seduce them with cars, money, clothes, jewelry, international trips and access to celebrities.

Each filed a civil lawsuit Tuesday. Their attorney, B.J. Bernstein, held a press conference shortly afterward.

Bernstein described the young men's enrollment into the Longfellow Youth Academy where they ascended to the elite group of young men known as Bishop Longs "Spiritual Sons".

According to Robinson's written complaint "...Long typically engages in a private spiritual ceremony described as a 'covenant' between himself and each young Spiritual Son..."

"[Bishop Long] would use biblical stories to talk about how important it was to follow your leader and master and let them know that the acts they were engaging in did not mean they were homosexual," Bernstein said.

She added that Bishop Long told them he was simply "releasing his passion and his love."

Robinson and Flagg detailed numerous alleged incidents where Long engaged in sexual acts with them when he took them on trips across state lines and in a church owned apartment near New Birth.

In Flagg's case, when he turned 17 he was having trouble getting along with his mom. He says Long set him up in a house on Golod Way in Lithonia--known to church members as the "Golod House". He said that's where Long slowly developed a close relationship with him that led to numerous sexual acts.

Both Bishop Eddie Long's attorney and parishioners aren't convinced of the allegations.

"Bishop Eddie Long adamantly denies these allegations," Long's attorney Craig Gillen said in a statement.

"We find it unfortunate that these two young men chose to take this course of action," Gillen said. "We will be reviewing the complaints and will respond accordingly."

Bernstein acknowledged that at least one of her clients, Maurice Robinson, was arrested for breaking into New Birth Missionary Baptist Church June 13, 2010 and stealing property. She said Robinson was lashing out after he learned Bishop Long had other relationships with other "Spiritual Sons".

The lawsuits also name New Birth and the Longfellow Youth Academy as defendants because Bernstein believes some church members and employees were well aware of Long's alleged actions.

She said her clients are not making any on camera appearances until they can tell their stories in depositions and before a judge.


(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Source Here

[pecan]

Fifteen-year search for pedophile Canadian priest ends — with him going free

Published On Sun Oct 03 2010
By Mary Ormsby Feature Writer

The bearded man stares steadily from Interpol’s “wanted” poster, his hooded winter parka unzipped, large tinted glasses shading his eyes. Canadian Eric Dejaeger was a code red fugitive, the international police organization’s highest alert.

Dejaeger’s offences were listed in capital letters: CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN.

What wasn’t listed was his profession: Roman Catholic priest.

The RCMP’s pursuit of Dejaeger, who left footprints in the Canadian Arctic, at Lourdes’ holy grotto and around a quiet Flemish Oblate house, was a fruitless 15-year hunt. The case appeared dormant. Then, on Sept. 13, the 63-year-old surrendered to Belgian police in the city of Leuven where he was interviewed — and, stunningly, released.

Belgian federal authorities said they could not begin extradition proceedings against Dejaeger — who in 1990 pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting eight children in the Northwest Territories, and who was later charged with assaults in Igloolik, Nunavut — because Canada’s Justice Department hadn’t filed a formal extradition request.

“Why? Why? Why? I just keep asking ‘Why?’” said Igloolik Mayor Lucassie Ivalu. He and others in the remote village of about 1,700 in the Northwest Passage, were unaware Dejaeger was living and working freely in Europe and that the outstanding charges had not been tried.

Source and more ...

[truetrini]

what do you guys have against good christian catholics?


steups..ah forking tired ah allyuh agenda....is jes some littel boys....dey was not even white!

[pecan]

what do you guys have against good christian catholics?


steups..ah forking tired ah allyuh agenda....is jes some littel boys....dey was not even white!

I guess he was just a little Inuit in to it.

[truetrini]

that was a groaner...lol

[truetrini]

http://news.yahoo.com/pa-monsignor-gets-3-6-years-sex-abuse-154117156.html



PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The first U.S. church official convicted of covering up sex-abuse claims against Roman Catholic priests was sentenced Tuesday to three to six years in prison by a judge who said he "enabled monsters in clerical garb ... to destroy the souls of children."

Monsignor William Lynn, the former secretary for clergy at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, "helped many but also failed many" in his 36-year church career, Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina said.

Lynn, who handled priest assignments and child sexual assault complaints from 1992 to 2004, was convicted last month of felony child endangerment for his oversight of now-defrocked priest Edward Avery. Avery is serving a 2½- to five-year sentence for sexually assaulting an altar boy in church in 1999.

"I did not intend any harm to come to (Avery's victim). The fact is, my best was not good enough to stop that harm," Lynn said. "I am a parish priest. I should have stayed (one)."

Lynn's lawyers had sought probation, arguing that few Pennsylvanians serve long prison terms for child endangerment and that their client shouldn't serve more time than abusers like Avery. They plan to appeal the landmark conviction and seek bail while the lengthy appeals process unfolds.

The judge said Lynn enabled "monsters in clerical garb ... to destroy the souls of children, to whom you turned a hard heart."

She believed he initially hoped to address the sex abuse problem and perhaps drafted a 1994 list of accused priests for that reason. But when Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua instead had the list destroyed, Lynn chose to remain in the job and obey his bishop — by keeping quiet — as children suffered, she said.

"You knew full well what was right, Monsignor Lynn, but you chose wrong," Sarmina said.

The 61-year-old Lynn was acquitted last month of conspiracy and a second endangerment count involving a co-defendant, the Rev. James Brennan. The jury deadlocked on a 1996 abuse charge against Brennan, and prosecutors said Monday that they would retry him.

In 1992, a doctor told Lynn's office that Avery had abused him years earlier. Lynn met with the doctor and sent Avery for treatment — but the church-run facility diagnosed an alcohol problem, not a sexual disorder. Avery was returned to ministry and sent to live at the northeast Philadelphia parish where the altar boy was assaulted in 1999.

Prosecutors who spent a decade investigating sex abuse complaints kept in secret files at the archdiocese and issued two damning grand jury reports argue that Lynn and unindicted co-conspirators in the church hierarchy kept children in danger and the public in the dark.

"He locked away in a vault the names of pedophile priests. He locked in a vault the names of men that he knew had abused children. He now will be locked away for a fraction of the time he kept that secret vault," District Attorney Seth Williams said of Lynn.

Defense lawyers have long argued that the state's child endangerment statute, revised in 2007 to include those who supervise abusers, should not apply to Lynn since he left office in 2004. They also insist he did more than anyone at the archdiocese to meet with victims, get pedophile priests into treatment and send recommendations to the cardinal.

"He did the best he could under absolute awful circumstances," lawyer Thomas Bergstrom said after the hearing. "If he wanted to play the game, he wouldn't have met with them at all."

Lynn was the first U.S. church official convicted for his handling of abuse claims in the sex scandal that's rocked the Catholic church for more than a decade. But he might not be the last.

Bishop Robert Finn and the Kansas City diocese face a misdemeanor charge of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse. Both Finn and the diocese have pleaded not guilty and are set to go on trial next month.

"Protecting children has to be first and foremost," said Barbara Blaine, founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "We're extremely grateful that the judge and the prosecutors did not give Monsignor Lynn special treatment because of his priestly status."

___

Associated Press writer JoAnn Loviglio in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

[Daft Trini]

like TT fund this study lol 

Study Finds People Who Believe In Heaven Commit More Crimes

http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2012/06/22/study-finds-people-who-believe-in-heaven-commit-more-crimes/



SEATTLE (CBS Seattle) — Believing if you are on a “highway to hell” could impact whether or not if you commit a crime.

A study published in the scientific journal PLoS One by University of Oregon’s Azim Shariff and University of Kansas’s Mijke Rhemtulla finds that people who believe in hell are less likely to commit a crime while people who believe in heaven more likely are to get in trouble with the law.


The two professors collected data for belief in hell, heaven and God from the World and European Values Surveys that were conducted between 1981 until 2007 with 143,197 participants based in 67 countries. They compared the data to the mean standardized crime rate in those countries based on homicides, robberies, rapes, kidnappings, assaults, thefts, auto thefts, drug crimes, burglaries and human trafficking.

“[R]ates of belief in heaven and hell had significant, unique, and opposing effects on crime rates,” Shariff and Rhemtulla found in the study. “Belief in hell predicted lower crime rates … whereas belief in heaven predicted higher crime rates.”

They also found that a recent social psychological experiment found that Christian participants who believe in a forgiving God gave themselves more money for the study.

“Participants in the punishing God and both human conditions overpaid themselves less than 50 cents more than what they deserved for their anagrams, and did not statistically differ from the neutral condition, those who wrote about a forgiving God overpaid themselves significantly more-nearly two dollars,” the study found.

Shariff and Rhemtulla believe that the study raises “important questions about the potential impact of religious beliefs on global crime.”

[truetrini]

What a seriously weird study.  I would have thought that people who believe in Heaven also believe in hell?