kardinaal Mahony onvermoeibaar op zoek naar Oscar

Hoewel de Oscargenomineerde documentaire van Amy Berg Deliver Us From Evil, het bij de prijzen af legde bij een andere Inconvenient Truth, waarmee Kardinaal Roger Mahony zijn glansrol ingeperkt ziet met een aantal bioscoopoptredens, is de man alweer ijverig bezig een volgende kans mogelijk te maken.
Ditmaal in een duo-rol met collega kardinaal Norberto Rivera van Mexico.

MEXICO-US:
Bishops Contradict Each Other in Priest Sex Abuse Scandal
Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Feb 23 (IPS) - The Catholic Church's call for its bishops to be "teachers of the truth" seems to be wobbling in the case of cardinals Norberto Rivera of Mexico and Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, California.

Defending themselves from legal charges that they covered up for a priest accused of molesting boys, the two bishops have provided contradictory versions.

"One of them is lying, or at least isn't telling everything he knows," Bernardo Barranco, a columnist with several media outlets in Mexico and a sociologist of religion, told IPS. "This is an interecclesiatic dispute, which is unusual," he added.

The mutually contradictory statements by cardinals Rivera and Mahony refer to the transfer to the United States of a priest, Nicolás Aguilar, a fugitive from justice who is charged with sexually abusing dozens of boys in the United States and Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s.

Rivera, the primate of Mexico, says that in 1987 he sent a letter to Mahony warning him that Aguilar might have "homosexual problems", although he said he used a euphemism: "the motivation for Aguilar's trip to Los Angeles was ‘family and health reasons'."

However, Mahony's spokesman Tom Tamberg said the cardinal never received a letter from Rivera.

Mahony said he employed Aguilar without being aware of the allegations he was facing in Mexico, and that he fired the priest when he was accused of sexually abusing young members of his congregation in Los Angeles.

Aguilar returned to Mexico, where he remained active as a priest.

Joaquín Aguilar (no relation), a 25-year-old former Mexican altar boy, says he was raped by the priest in 1994. In September, he filed a civil suit in Los Angeles, accusing Rivera and Mahony of conspiring to protect Father Aguilar.

The lawsuit charges the cardinals with negligence, concealing evidence and conspiring to cover up the priest's conduct.

At the time, Father Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the archdiocese of Mexico, told IPS that "The motivation underlying this whole scandal is the aim of a radical group to commercialise justice and squeeze money out of the Church. Mr. Aguilar is being used to that end."

Rivera and his spokesman argued that Aguilar and his attorneys in the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) are only seeking to hurt the Church.

However, the bishop has now taken a different stance. On Wednesday, lawyers in the United States delivered to the California high court a written statement in which Rivera rejected the charges and challenged the court's jurisdiction over a Mexican bishop.

In the document, Rivera claims that he did not at any time protect Father Aguilar and that he had even informed Mahony of the suspicions hanging over the priest.

"The leadership in the Vatican could step in to clarify the contradictions between the bishops of Mexico and Los Angeles, and to investigate what happened in the case of Aguilar," said Alberto Athié, who left the priesthood in 2003.

Either of the two bishops could face a canonical trial for lying," said Athié, who as a Mexican priest represented the Church in the Catholic charity Cáritas International for Central America and Mexico in the late 1990s.

According to Barranco, "the Mexican cardinal has found himself in a huge problem in the Aguilar case."

After initially playing down its significance, "he is now recognising its importance, and in the process he has entered a terrain of statements, counterstatements and contradictions with his colleague from Los Angeles, which is just incredible," said the analyst.

"This could give rise to an enormous scandal, and the Vatican may have to intervene," added Barranco.

Testimony, evidence and confessions from bishops have clearly demonstrated that Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing minors have been transferred from parish to parish, sent to rehabilitation centres, or simply removed from the scene by their superiors to protect the Church from scandal and avoid court action. However, many simply continue their activities elsewhere.

The Church sex abuse scandal erupted in the United States in 2002, with former victims speaking out and filing around 1,200 lawsuits, and evidence emerging that bishops knowingly reassigned priests despite allegations against them.

The Vatican organised symposiums and carried out a study on the matter, and urged bishops around the world to take vigorous measures against priests implicated in the scandal, and to report the cases directly to the pope.

Cardinal Rivera said the Church in Mexico completely shares these instructions, and urged the faithful to report pedophile priests who, he assured, do not enjoy any kind of immunity. (END/2007)

IOL: Mexico tightens jail terms for child abuse

Mexico City - Mexico, one of many developing countries tarnished by a clandestine but thriving child sex industry, moved on Tuesday to tighten jail sentences for abusers of minors to up to 30 years.

The law, approved by the Senate on Tuesday after passing through the lower house last year, will lengthen prison terms and end the classing of sexual exploitation of children as a minor offence where convicts often get early release.

Priests, offenders charged with abusing underage family members and public sector employees like teachers or doctors who used their position to access children will automatically be given a double sentence, meaning up to 30 years.

Clergy convicted of abuse of minors will be defrocked.

'Sex trafficking of minors and child pornography will now be classified as organized crime'
"In almost every case, the punishment is increased and every kind of offence that has to do with child pornography or exploitation of minors will be considered serious," said Senator Alejandro Gonzalez, head of the justice commission.

Some 20 000 children in Mexico, aged mainly from 12 to 17, are believed to be victims of some kind of exploitation, from pornography to physical abuse, according to a Congress report.

The once-glamorous Pacific coast resort of Acapulco is now sullied by foreign sex tourists who lurk behind beaches to pick up skinny boys or prey on underage girls in strip clubs.

The new law means sex trafficking of minors and child pornography will now be classified as organised crime. Promoting sex tourism could earn a 12-year jail sentence.

In one of Mexico's most notorious abuse cases, the Vatican last year ordered Father Marcial Maciel, the elderly founder of the Legionaries of Christ, to retire to a life of prayer after former trainee priests accused him of sexual abuses dating back to the 1940s.

Mexican lawmakers cited UN children'a fund UNICEF as saying that human trafficking for the sex trade is the third most lucrative activity after drug smuggling and arms trading. - Reuters

Anglican Journal: 'You see the world in a different light'

General Synod archives
Unidentified children from All Saints Indian Residential School in Lac La Ronge, Sask. Banff, Alta.

Marites N Sison, staff writer, Feb 14, 2007

“This has been the most difficult piece of work that God has called me to do.” The church volunteer was speaking to a room full of sympathetic colleagues, all representatives of the Anglican Church of Canada at the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) hearings on Indian residential schools.

At the very first hearing that she attended, the claimant had lashed out at her while telling a painful story of abuse at an Anglican-run school. “It was devastating to be seen as the face of evil. I was shaking and tears were streaming down my face,” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘why are you angry at me? I didn’t do it.’”

At the end of the hearing, she recalled taking a long walk to regain her composure. “I had no one to talk to and no one asked how it went,” she said. After much reflection, she felt that having been at the receiving end of the rage had a purpose. “I guess the claimant needed to do that for the poison to leave her soul. For most of them, this is the first opportunity to talk about something they’ve held for 35 to 40 years. So this is a release for them.”

The volunteer shared her story during a two-day gathering organized by the church to honor the work and to hear the experiences and concerns of its representatives at the ADR hearings, which are administered by the federal government and have been held across the country since 2003. Aside from providing an opportunity for debriefing, the meeting was also intended to form a network for mutual support and learning models for caregiving. ADR chief adjudicator Ted Hughes was also in attendance to listen to concerns and to provide an update on the ADR. (The Anglican Journal attended the gathering, but agreed to withhold the identity of some participants for purposes of confidentiality.)

“It’s hard work. It’s emotionally draining and these people can’t really talk about it, so they need this,” said Ellie Johnson, director of partnerships, who represented the national church in the revised Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. At ADR hearings, which involve claims of physical and sexual abuse by former students at native residential schools, representatives must sign a confidentiality clause.

The most common concern raised by the representatives was the issue of whether claimants and adjudicators understand the role of the church in the hearings. Representatives also questioned whether claimants are informed that their lawyers or case workers need to notify the adjudicator at least two weeks prior if they want the church represented at the hearings.

“Each visit, I was not expected and I was asked what I’m doing there,” said one representative. “We try to be sensitive enough that we don’t stay when we feel we’re not wanted.”
Since 2003, the church has been represented in only about 20 per cent of these hearings, according to national church figures. Of 229 hearings in 2006, only 66 had church representation; in 128 others, claimants did not want the church present, while the remaining 13 said yes, but no representatives were available to attend. There is no data on how many have been turned away at the hearing day.

Mr. Hughes said that since the church is party to the agreement, it is “entitled” to be at the hearings. “But the church has been gracious in that if its representation is not wanted, they (representatives) don’t go,” he added.

Representatives agreed that lawyers bear the responsibility for informing the claimants about the presence of the church at these hearings. “The problem is we don’t know how the question is being asked by the lawyer or if the question is even being asked,” said one.

Just what is the church expected to do at these hearings? “The expectation is that a person will be there to hear the story and receive it on behalf of the church and then to speak,” said Ms. Johnson. What to say depends greatly on the moment, she added. “Some people are really happy to see a church person there and want a prayer. Other people are really angry and what they want is a chance to tell this church how badly treated they were and how rotten the church is. So in that case, you’re not going to say, ‘shall we have a prayer?’ You’re going to say, ‘I’m so sorry on behalf of the church that you had this awful experience.’”

What they cannot do is cross-examine claimants, she said, adding, “They’re not there to dispute whatever the person is saying. They’re not even allowed to speak when the claimant is telling the story. They’re not there to argue about the award and all that. The role is a pastoral role or a listener’s role. That’s it.”

Early on, the church made a decision that it would not send legal people to these hearings “because we’re not disputing this,” said Ms. Johnson. “The church has long ago acknowledged its complicity in this assimilation project that Canada had undergone. We acknowledged that we ran the schools and the system was bad and many people were damaged. So this is part of our attempt to apologize, to atone for our part.”

It is a role that church representatives take seriously. ”It’s incredibly important that the church is present. Healing is a very important part of work that needs to be done with our First Nations brothers and sisters,” said Rev. David Pritchard, who has attended 14 hearings in the diocese of Yukon; he makes it a point not to wear a clerical collar to make his presence less intimidating. “I’m aware that the (former) primate (Michael Peers) has apologized on behalf of the church, but I will venture to guess that very few people know that. It’s also incredibly important to do that face to face.”

Being present and listening to the stories has not been easy, most participants agreed. “These were six, seven-year-olds (when the abuse happened) and it’s horrific and unthinkable what they went through,” said Archdeacon Helena-Rose Houldcroft, who represents the church in the diocese of Qu’Appelle.

“The hardest ADRs are the ones where you know the claimant or you know their relatives. You had no knowledge that they were carrying this burden,” said Mr. Pritchard. “It’s a sad experience and I kept thinking that I wish I had known because it was a missed opportunity to do ministry.”

But at the same time, he said, “it made the applicant more comfortable; they saw me as someone they knew.” Mr. Pritchard added that as he listened to the stories, “I became much more concerned about what the abuse did to their lives, of how it robbed them of their potential. So many have lived horrendously dysfunctional lives as a result of that abuse.”

But while the role of listener can be difficult, most church representatives hasten to add that it is nothing compared to the experience of the former students who not only must relive the sad experience but who must share their stories with total strangers.

Questions were raised about what happens to the claimants after they are awarded their compensation, which often includes money for a treatment plan. Mr. Hughes acknowledged that no one monitors these plans. “It won’t be easy to monitor anyway, a lot of it is in remote areas,” he said. Some representatives noted that this was one of the weakest areas of the ADR process. Others said that they have offered pastoral care for claimants they meet at these hearings.

The experience of attending the hearings have been transformative, most representatives said. “It changes you. You see the world in a different light after that,” said Ms. Houldcroft. Another representative agreed, saying that after a particularly emotional hearing, she could not even go out for a cup of coffee with her friends. “I couldn’t stand the silliness of their lives.”

For Mr. Pritchard, “the most amazing thing has been to see such incredible inner strength in these people in spite of what they’ve been through.” He added: “Being able to articulate (their experience) and having so much self-awareness is an incredible source of hope for their continued healing.” He said that he makes it a point to “accentuate this positive.”

After a presentation on how to care for caregivers by Lt. Col. (Canon) Baxter Park, a chaplain for the Canadian Armed Forces, the representatives agreed that there should be better diocesan support for those who attend these hearings. Attendees from the diocese of Rupert’s Land said they would try to have a gathering and a chaplain for their own group of representatives. “It would be good to have someone we can call if things get to be a bit too much,” they said.

Ms. Johnson said the gathering was helpful since the church might need to recruit more representatives because the ADR is likely to receive two to three times more cases until the new settlement agreement, which has yet to be collectively approved by nine courts, is finalized. The agreement provides for a better and more streamlined Independent Assessment Process, said Ms. Johnson. Mr. Hughes said all sexual assault cases filed with the ADR would be automatically transferred to the assessment process, where the awards are higher, unless the claimant asks for an ADR hearing.

de rkk kardinale vraag: wie naait wie? Law 's erfenis over het misbruik en Boston

Als je goed luistert kun je het misschien wel horen knetteren in Rome, over een kardinaal met een erebaantje. Die het niet alleen mogelijk maakte dat priesters door konden gaan met het misbruiken van kinderen.
Maar zoals het er nu uit ziet ook nog gelden, naja..kapitaal : 70 miljoen$ bijeengebracht tbv en onder het mom van pensioenen en oude dags voorzieningen voor gepensioneerde priesters, heeft misbruikt.

Voor noodzakelijke kosten . voor slachtoffers van misbruik.


Wat doe je dan met een kardinaal die naar Rome uitweek om niet in de gevangenis te belanden...wanneer die eerwaarde vader zijn "beminde zonen" bejaard en wel heeft misbruikt?
Je kunt hem vanuit Rome moeilijk nog een erebaantje geven om hem te dekken.

De combinatie zou wel eens een zeer explosief mengesel kunnen worden over de inmiddels wel erg kardinale vraag in de RKK: wie naait wie?


Priests’ trust shaken: Clergy say mismanagement left pension funds in pinchBostonHerald.com

By Laura Crimaldi/ Special Report
Sunday, February 11, 2007

Hundreds of distraught Boston-area priests are facing stark cuts in their retirement benefits as the Archdiocese of Boston scrambles to shore up its teetering pension system after decades of poor fiscal management.

“I see all of this as unjust and a failure to observe our canon law,” said the Rev. Richard Craig, 71, who retired four years ago as pastor of St. John the Evangelist in North Chelmsford. “It leads me to wonder, are we, the senior priests, becoming objects of elderly discrimination?”

Church documents show that as of April 2006, the pension plan - the Clergy Retirement/Disability Trust - faced an $85.4 million gap between the money on hand and what it is expected to have to spend for hundreds of priests, active and retired.

Frightened senior priests have seen monthly stipends frozen to amounts as low as $1,889, with other benefits such as health and housing also diminishing.

In multiple interviews, retired priests described the following pinches on their already meager finances, which consist of the $1,889 monthly allowance, $600 of which is for housing:
No cost-of-living increase for the monthly stipend since 2005 and none expected soon;
A $200 cut to the housing allowance;
The end of Medicare reimbursements for eligible priests - a cash burden of almost $1,000 a year.
Archdiocese officials insist senior priests are better paid than their active counterparts.

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley “is completely committed to ensuring that we provide for the medical, retirement and financial needs of our priests, which is why he has sought the professional advice of outside experts who can assist us with strengthening the Clergy Benefit Trust,” Terrence C. Donilon, archdiocese spokesman, said in a statement.

But some priests see it differently. “I don’t have peace of mind. I won’t have peace of mind until I know that they are not going to take anything away,” said one disabled priest, who did not want to be identified out of fear the church would strip his financial support. “The priests’ morale is horrible.”

The funding gap and cost-cutting measures would not be in place if pension management had been better, according to a January financial analysis by the Council of Parishes, an advocacy group for closed churches that has been critical of the archdiocese.

The group says at least $70 million in donations collected between 1986 to 2002 from parishioners -who were often told the money would fund priests’ retirements - went instead to other purposes, notably a fund drawn on extensively by former Cardinal Bernard Law before he left Boston.

That fund - the Clergy Benefit Trust - was used to pay millions of dollars for legal bills, psychological treatment and other expenses associated with dozens of priests accused of sexual abuse, according to church documents, interviews, letters and memos signed by Law.

“The archdiocese has never explained what was done with this money,” said Peter Borre, co-chairman of the Council of Parishes, which has been documenting pension fund troubles and demanding the release of audited financial statements of the two trusts set up to pay for the priests’ retirement.

“The net result,” he added, “is that many, many retired priests who have served honorably and faithfully are suffering economically because monies donated for their retirement went instead to fund priests accused of sexual abuse who had been placed on leave.”

The Rev. Mark O’Connell, who supervises the Clergy Retirement/Disability Trust, vigorously defended the diversion of millions in holiday collections. He saidthatduring that 16-year period, archdiocesan actuaries said the retirement fund was fully funded and even overfunded, and did not require a transfer from the Clergy Benefit Trust, the account that takes in the Christmas and Easter donations.

The retirement fund faltered, he said, after nursing-home costs, previously taken from a medical fund, were reassigned to the pension account and new actuaries started accounting for the likelihood that retired priests would live longer than expected.

“To think that something bad happened to that money or that it was used for something else that the good people of the archdiocese gave it for is simply false,” he said.

In recent months, the archdiocese has taken steps to catch up on the underfunding. It cites a $10 million reduction in the shortfall between planned assets and liabilities, and another $5 million infusion from the Clergy Benefit Trust. The church has named former Boston Red Sox [team stats] executive John S. Buckley and former interim archdiocesean finance director James K. Hunt as advisers, according to a January letter signed by O’Connell.

O’Connell said the cost-cutting measures, especially the shift from making cost-of-living increases annually to doing so on an as-needed basis, will save millions. “The recent letter was designed to say to the senior priests, ‘Don’t worry,’ ” said O’Connell. “We are going to rethink it, we are going to have new financial help from experts.”

Serbian priest sentenced to jail for sexual abuse of boys - International Herald Tribune

The Herald tribune
The Associated Press
Friday, February 9, 2007
BELGRADE, Serbia

A Serbian Orthodox Church priest has been jailed for a year after being convicted of sexually abusing boys in 2001, a court announced Friday.

Jovan Misic, also known by his church name Ilarion and the former abbot of the Hopovo monastery in the northern Vojvodina province, was found guilty of "lewd behavior and sexual abuse" of several underage boys in monastery grounds, the court said.

The boys were aged between seven and eleven years old.
No furthers details were revealed because of the need to protect the victims and their families.

There was no immediate comment from Misic or his lawyer.

The District Court in Novi Sad, 60 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Belgrade, first ruled in the case in October last year, finding Misic guilty and sentencing him to 10 months in prison.
The court confirmed the verdict on appeal and increased the prison term to 12 months.

Whitbourne abuse cases can't be tried together: court

Last Updated: Friday, February 9, 2007 9:36 AM NT
CBC News

The Newfoundland Supreme Court has ruled that a string of civil lawsuits involving physical and sexual abuse at a boys' correctional facility cannot be tried together.
Twenty-two former residents of the former Whitbourne Boys Home are suing over abuse they said happened decades ago.

The suits name various parties. The Newfoundland and Labrador government is named in all of them. Most suits name now-deceased Roman Catholic priest Ronald Bromley and the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corp. of Grand Falls, which supervised Bromley.
One suit is against the Salvation Army, while two actions name two former employees at the Whitbourne Boys Home.
In a recent decision Justice James Adams rejected an application to have all of the cases heard at one time, noting that the actions are in various states of readiness for trial, and not all of the suits have common issues.
Adams ruled that the suits can be handled relatively expeditiously on an individual basis.

"The issues are not particularly complex," he wrote.
"They relate to allegations of sexual and/or physical assaults occurring decades ago, in addition to allegations of vicarious liability, negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. While serious in nature, they are matters which have come before the court quite often in the past and the law is fairly well settled in respect of the issues raised."
A key figure in many of the suits was Bromley, who provided pastoral care at Whitbourne Boys Home.
Bromley was killed in a September 2004 car accident. He had been convicted in 1998 on 31 counts of sexual assault, but subsequently was found not guilty after a second trial was ordered.
The Whitbourne Boys Home was replaced by a Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Centre, a correctional facility in Whitbourne for young offenders.

Priest killed in highway
accident
Last Updated: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 CBC News

One of the people killed in a traffic accident near Badger Tuesday was a Roman Catholic priest.
Ronald Bromley, 68, was travelling east on the Trans-Canada Highway when his vehicle was struck in a head-on collision.
From Sept. 21, 2004: Two dead in highway accident
The 31-year-old driver of the second car, Craig Jacobs of Lumsden, also died. His wife was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

In the late 1990s, Bromley was charged and initially convicted on 31 counts of sexual
assault. He was sentenced to six and a half years in prison.
After winning an appeal, Bromley had another trial and was acquitted on all charges.
The Bishop of the Diocese of Grand Falls, Martin Currie, says Bromley was just
settling back into his ministry when he died.
"It was a terrible ordeal for him and a terrible suffering you know after all those years and finally the courts — the appeals — said he was not guilty which was a great relief to him, " he says.
"He was just starting now to, you know, to get back into active ministry again which was a great delight to him."
Currie says a special ceremony will be held in Bromley's memory this week.

info zaak 2001:

Oorzaken van het misbruik

New Study Will Look At Homosexuality, Dissent
BY WAYNE LAUGESEN
REGISTER CORRESPONDENT
February 11-17, 2007 Issue

NEW YORK — The U.S. bishops are undertaking a second study of the priest abuse scandal. Those conducting the research say hot button issues such as homosexuality and dissent will be part of the study.
The first phase of the study, conducted in 2004 by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, was considered a landmark in its field.

John Jay’s first report called for a more searching examination of the effects of homosexuality on the priesthood. It stated, “For those who choose to ordain homosexuals, there appears to be a need for additional scrutiny and perhaps additional or specialized formation to help them with the challenge of priestly celibacy.”

The bishops in November allocated funding for a follow-up on causes and context. It’s expected to be similarly groundbreaking.

Teresa Kettelkamp, executive director of the Office of Child and Youth Protection of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, pointed out that in the first phase of the study John Jay proved its “open, objective, thorough, impeccable and professional.”

She said the follow-up wouldn’t pull any punches when it comes to tough issues like homosexuality.
“Their reputation is on the line at a very high level, and they are not willing to risk their reputation by getting steered by external forces of political correctness,” Kettelkamp said. “I’m convinced they are seeking truth, and know how to find it.”

Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist and the author of the book Homosexuality and Hope, said that, after the first study, “the facts speak for themselves: Seventy-five percent to 80% of victims in the sex abuse crisis were adolescent males, so the cause is primarily the homosexual predation of adolescent males.”
He said John Jay researchers “were a good choice for that study of statistical data, and those findings are what confirmed for us that this is a homosexual crisis.”

The first report by John Jay, which is part of the City University of New York, found that at least 10,667 boys and girls were abused by Catholic clergymen in the United States between 1950 and 2002, and between 75% and 80% of the abuse involved adolescent male victims.

Margaret Smith, data analyst for John Jay on the causes and contexts study, said John Jay would look at every factor.
“I’m a researcher,” she said. “I have no interest in being politically correct.”

It was Smith’s analysis of Church personnel files and complaint files by parents and grown victims of prior sexual abuse that established the statistics regarding adolescent male victims.

Yet Smith takes issue with Fitzgibbons’ assertion that homosexuality is a cause for major concern. Smith said sexual preference or inclination may be largely “irrelevant” to the causes and contexts of sexual abuse of children.
“In secular society, the majority of men treated for sexual abuse of adolescent boys consider themselves heterosexual, so you cannot make this problem go away by saying the problem is homosexual priests,” Smith said. “That’s overly simplistic. Very many heterosexual men engage occasionally in homosexual behavior.”

Smith said while some psychologists and psychiatrists see a distinction between adults having sex with children and adults having sex with adolescents, the law sees it all as child abuse.
“If the victim is under the age of consent, it’s child abuse. That simple,” Smith said. “When someone abuses a child, it usually has little to do with sexual preference. It’s about abusing a child.”

In the study, however, Smith and other researchers will try to determine how many priests who have abused children identify themselves as homosexual.
Karen Terry, the principal investigator on the causes and contexts study, responded that there is “nothing in our data to indicate that this is or is not a crisis of homosexuality.”

“Although 81% of the victims in our study were male, it is not clear whether this is due to a sexual attraction to the male victims or whether the priests primarily abused males because this is the population to whom they had access,” she said.
“For instance, in prison,” she said, “many individuals of the same gender have sexual relationships even though most would identify themselves as heterosexual.”

.....
The “historical context and influences” portion of the study will look at the Church and society “to frame our analysis of sexual abuse by priests.” One hypothesis researchers plan to explore is whether social changes of the 1960s and ’70s increased sexual attraction by adults to children.

Among four hypotheses researchers will explore while examining the response by Church leadership is that a “higher tolerance for non-traditional sexual behavior (adult heterosexual and homosexual relationships) will have a higher tolerance (and slower response) to abuse of children.”

Researchers also want to know if beliefs opposed to Church doctrine played a role in sexual abuse.
....

A priest has been charged with sexual abuse

By m.p.Thu, 08 Feb 2007, 22:01

The Archbishopric of Granada has temporarily removed public duties from a semi-retired priest in La Zubia who is accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy.

They added in the press release informing of their decision that the accusations have not been proved, and ask for respect for the presumption of innocence.

The 72 year old priest, who has not been named, was arrested on Monday following an official complaint by the 14 year old boy’s parents. He has now been released with charges, and must report back to the courts when called to do so.

© typicallyspanish.com

En opnieuw: wat wist die Paus?

Opnieuw die vraag: wat wist die Paus?
Nu niet over Muriel Maciel Dellgolado, die niet van zijn seminaristen af kon blijven, door JP II als zijn vriend en trouwe medewerker betiteld, over wie B XVI nooit het schuldig uitsprak maar de man dringend verzocht zich terug te trekken in een leven van penitentie.

Nu opnieuw die vraag over uitgerekend, inderdaad: Polen.

Pederastia en la Iglesia católica(Delitos sexuales del clero contra menores, un drama silenciado y encubierto por los obispos)

¡¡¡Un libro que la cúpula de la Iglesia católica teme tanto que ordenó a los medios de comunicación que controla que lo silencien absolutamente!!!
© Pepe Rodríguez © Ediciones B., Barcelona, 2002.



Polish prelate who resigned in 2002 meets with Pope Benedict
Rome, Feb. 2, 2007 (CWNews.com) -

Archbishop Julius Paetz, the Polish prelate who resigned in March 2002 amid sexual-abuse allegations, met quietly with Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) after the Pope’s weekly
audience on January 31, observers report.

Archbishop Paetz relinquished his leadership of the Poznan archdiocese after he was accused of making sexual overtures toward seminarians. After insisting that the charges were false, Archbishop Paetz submitted a letter of resignation to Pope John Paul II (bio - news) on March 28, 2002.

The Pope immediately accepted the resignation, thereby fueling speculation that Archbishop Paetz had stepped down on orders from the Vatican.

Accusations against the archbishop had reportedly surfaced as early as 1999, and the rector of the archdiocesan seminary instituted a policy requiring supervision of the prelate during all
visits. Yet Catholics in Poznan complained that the Vatican had failed to take
action until the scandal burst into public view.

Shortly after the archbishop’s resignation, several priests and laymen from Poznan said that they had delivered a warning to the Vatican in 1999, to no avail.

At that time, the Poznan Catholics did not identify the Vatican officials with whom they had conferred. But in January of this year, during the unrest that followed the forced resignation of Warsaw’s Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus, the Polish newspaper Glos Wielkopolski reported that the warning had been delivered to Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz-- who was then
the personal secretary to Pope John Paul II, and is now Archbishop of
Krakow.

According to the Glos Wielkopolski, Msgr. Dziwisz did not pass the information along to Pope John Paul.

Zaak Paetz onder toezicht Vaticaan (bron: Katholiek Nederland) februari 2002

De Poolse kerkprovincie heeft bevestigd dat het Vaticaan de zaak ‘Paetz’ in behandeling heeft.

Julius Paetz, aartsbisschop van Poznan, wordt beschuldigd van seksueel misbruik van zijn priesters en seminaristen.

"Nu de onderhavige zaak onder toezicht is van het Vaticaan, zal ze ongetwijfeld worden opgehelderd en opgelost," meldde de persdienst van de Poolse kerk. Verder commentaar werd niet gegeven.

Mgr. Julius Paetz ontkent alle beschuldigingen en zegt dat zij deel uitmaken van een campagne tegen zijn persoon. "Ik heb nooit geestelijken of priesters aangerand", zei hij in een verklaring. "Ik kan niet de namen noemen van hen die mij beschuldigen, omdat ik verplicht ben hun goede naam te respecteren."

Paetz werkte in de periode 1967-1976 in het Vaticaan voor het secretariaat van de bisschoppensynodes. In 1982 werd hij bisschop gewijd en in 1996 werd hij door zijn landgenoot Johannes Paulus II benoemd tot aartsbisschop.

Volgens het dagblad Trouw weet de paus al langer dat Paetz van ontucht wordt beschuldigd. De paus zou in Krakau door een vertrouweling op de hoogte zijn gebracht. "Naar verluidt reageerde de paus geschokt", schrijft Trouw. "Op 29 november vorig jaar stuurde hij een speciale onderzoekscommissie naar Poznan. De bevindingen van de commissie zijn geheim, maar volgens bronnen binnen de kerk bevestigen ze de aantijgingen." Aldus Trouw op 25 februari.

Mexico

Extradition red tape stalls hunt for fugitive priest Ochoa
By MARTIN ESPINOZA THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

It has been nine months since the Rev. Francisco Xavier Ochoa slipped across the U.S.-Mexico border after admitting he had sexual contact with three boys, an admission that led to 10 felony charges.

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David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a national support group known as SNAP, said a lengthy extradition process is not unusual.

But he said the Catholic Church should be doing more to locate him.

"California bishops and Mexican bishops could and should put notices in every parish bulletin, diocesan newspaper, diocesan Web site immediately, begging church members and staff to speak up if they know anything about his possible whereabouts," Clohessy said.

Bishop Daniel Walsh could not be reached for comment through Santa Rosa Diocese spokeswoman Deirdre Frontczak. Walsh is participating in a court-ordered diversion program, undergoing counseling for failing to report Ochoa's activities in a timely manner to law enforcement authorities.

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Eric Barragan, director of SNAP's operations in Mexico, said he traveled to Mexico in early November to ask that Mexico's highest-ranking church official, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, do more to locate Ochoa and other fugitive priests.

Barragan said he reached out to members of Mexico's congress for help in finding not only Ochoa, but such fugitive priests as the Rev. Nicolás Aguilar, who has been accused of molesting and brutally raping dozens of children in Los Angeles.Members of the Mexican congress, said Barragan, "are aware and they said they're waiting for action from the United States."