Tag: Catholic Priests

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Vatican diplomat also wanted in Canada on child porn charges

A Vatican diplomat already under suspicion for child pornography-related offenses in the United States has now been accused of downloading child porn in Canada. Monsignor Carlo Capella was recalled to the Vatican, where an investigation into his alleged crimes has been initiated.

By Cindy Wooden

An arrest warrant has been issued in Canada for Monsignor Carlo Capella, the Vatican diplomat recalled from service in Washington in late August, who already was the subject of a Vatican criminal investigation involving child pornography.

Police in Windsor, Ontario, issued a statement Sept. 28 saying, “A Canada-wide arrest warrant has been issued for Carlo Capella, a 50-year-old male, for the charges of: access(ing) child pornography, possess(ing) child pornography and distribut(ing) child pornography.

“Investigators believe that the offenses occurred while the suspect was visiting a place of worship in Windsor,” the statement said. “Investigators have determined that the suspect has returned to his residence in Italy.”

Capella had worked since the summer of 2016 at the Vatican nunciature in Washington. Prior to that, he worked on the Italy desk at the Vatican Secretariat of State. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1993 for the Archdiocese of Milan.

Although the Vatican has not publicly confirmed Capella’s identity, it did not object when many news outlets identified him as the Vatican diplomat recalled from Washington.

The Vatican press office said Sept. 15 that the Vatican was notified Aug. 21 by the U.S. Department of State “of a possible violation of laws relating to child pornography images by a member of the diplomatic corps of the Holy See accredited to Washington.

“The Holy See, following the practice of sovereign states, recalled the priest in question, who is currently in Vatican City,” the press office said.

The Associated Press reported that the State Department confirmed it had asked the Vatican to lift the official’s diplomatic immunity. It said that request was denied.

The Vatican promoter of justice, the chief prosecutor for Vatican City State, “opened an investigation and has already commenced international collaboration to obtain elements relative to the case,” the Vatican said.

The Vatican press office declined to comment on the Windsor police statement.

The statement said that “in February of 2017, the Windsor Police Service Internet Child Exploitation Unit received information that originated from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police National Child Exploitation Coordination Center indicating that a suspect in the city of Windsor had allegedly uploaded child pornography using a social networking website.”

The Windsor police launched an investigation and “were granted judicial permission to review records related to the involved internet service provider address,” the statement said. The investigation “determined that the alleged offenses occurred between Dec. 24-27, 2016,” at a Windsor church.

Canada’s CBC News quoted a spokesman for the Diocese of London, which includes Windsor, confirming “that it was asked to, and did, assist in an investigation around suspicions involving Monsignor Capella’s possible violations of child pornography laws by using a computer address at a local church.”

Nelson Couto, diocesan spokesman, said that at the request of police, the diocese would not comment further.

Complete Article HERE!

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Number of new trainee priests at Maynooth hits record low

Church of Ireland has twice as many students starting ministry studies

Six men have begun training for the Catholic priesthood at St Patrick’s College Maynooth this autumn, the lowest number since its foundation in 1795.

By Patsy McGarry

Just six men have begun training for the Catholic priesthood at St Patrick’s College Maynooth this autumn, believed to be the lowest number since its foundation in 1795.

Twice as many students started training for ministry in the Church of Ireland this month, with 12 admissions, including two women, to the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in Dublin. In total there are 34 students in training at the institute, 10 of them women.

There are 41 men studying for priesthood in Maynooth.

According to the 2016 census, 78 per cent of the Republic’s population, or 3.7 million people, declared themselves Roman Catholic. The census found the Republic’s Church of Ireland population was 126,4 00, or 3.4 per cent of the population.

Pre-seminary year

The six men admitted to Maynooth include two seminarians from Killaloe diocese, and one each from Tuam, Cork & Ross, Elphin, and Kilmore.

In addition, two seminarians began training at the Irish College in Rome, one at St Malachy’s in Belfast and two at Beda College in Rome.

Earlier this year the Congregation for Clergy in Rome issued a document, The Gift of the Priestly Vocation, which strongly recommended that bishops around the world introduce a pre-seminary (propaedeutic) year for new candidates who wished to discern whether they had a vocation. Eight men have begun this propaedeutic year in locations around Ireland and abroad.

Last year 14 men began as seminarians in Maynooth. In 2015 the figure was 17, 14 in 2014 and 20 in 2013.

Controversy

In August last year the college was at the centre of controversy when it emerged the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said he was no longer going to send seminarians there because of its “poisonous” atmosphere.

He said students were accessing gay dating apps and anonymous letters were being circulated accusing seminarians of misconduct

The college administration said it shared “the concern” of Archbishop Martin about the “poisonous atmosphere”, created by anonymous correspondence and blogs. It added, however, there was “no concrete or credible evidence of the existence of any alleged ‘active gay subculture’,” at the seminary.

Last May it was announced a new president, Fr Michael Mullaney, had been appointed at the seminary and would hold office for the next three years as the Catholic bishops prepared plans to separate the seminary from the Pontifical University there.

A rector will then be appointed to oversee the seminary with a separate office of president appointed to run the associated university.

Complete Article HERE!

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Pope Francis acknowledges Catholic Church’s bad practices during the sex abuse crisis

Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley speaks as Pope Francis meets with members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors at the Vatican on Sept. 21.

By Stefano Pitrelli and Sarah Pulliam Bailey

Pope Francis acknowledged that the Catholic Church was slow to address the sex abuse crisis, including its widely criticized but not publicly acknowledged practice of moving priests who had abused children to other churches instead of reporting them to the police, saying “the church’s conscience came a bit late.”

The pope gave off-the-cuff remarks to a commission he created to tackle the issue, acknowledging the slow pace of church trials and an overall lack of awareness of the problem inside St. Peter’s walls.

“Pedophilia is a sickness,” Pope Francis said. “Today one repents, moves on, we forgive him, then two years later he relapses. We need to get it in our heads that it’s a sickness.”

The pope announced he would do away with Vatican appeal trials for cases where evidence of abuse against minors is proven. “If there’s evidence, that is final,” he said.

“Those who’re sentenced because of sexual abuses against minors can indeed appeal to the pope and ask for a pardon, but I’ve never signed one of those, and I never will,” he said. “I hope this much is clear.”

The pope’s rationale for doing away with an appeal process — according to Italian news outlets’ transcripts of his words — lies in his own experience. Faced with such a case at the very beginning of his papacy, he said he’d opted for “the more benevolent path” instead of defrocking a priest. “After two years, though, the priest relapsed,” he said, which became a learning experience for the pope.

A well-placed Vatican source confirms that these words convey the pope’s own “personal bitterness, as well as the difficulty of curing [pedophiles], as it was once thought possible, which instead ended up being quite a failure.” According to the source, the pope was probably specifically referring to the case of Mauro Inzoli, whom he “definitively” defrocked earlier this summer. An appeal trial for Inzoli, who was convicted of child sex abuse in an Italian court, began Thursday.

The pope’s comments and recent events draw attention to his larger efforts to strengthen the church’s fight against abuse, as advocacy groups have called for sweeping changes within the Vatican hierarchy.

Last week, the Catholic Church recalled diplomat Monsignor Carlo Alberto Capella back to the Vatican because U.S. investigators suspected him of crimes involving child pornography.

And earlier this year, Cardinal George Pell, one of the most powerful officials in the Vatican, was charged by Australian police for “historical sexual assault offenses,” and returned to his home country “to clear his name,” according to a statement from the archdiocese of Sydney.

The Catholic Church in some countries, including in the United States, put systems in place to protect children, and after he became pope, Francis created an ambitious reform commission addressing sex abuse.

He appointed Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who inherited the clergy abuse scandal from Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston, as president of the commission, calling him one of the church’s “prophets.”

Marie Collins, an Irish survivor of clergy sexual abuse, quit Francis’s commission in March because she thought that few of the changes they recommended were being implemented by the Vatican hierarchy. She said that when the pope makes a statement like this, it helps to break down denial from many church leaders.

“I suppose [Pope Francis is] stating what is obvious,” Collins said. Since the beginning of his papacy, Francis has spoken of the horrors of abuse and spoken to survivors of abuse, asking for forgiveness several times.

However, Collins believes this may be the first time the pope has addressed how the church handles priests. Some bishops would move priests accused of abusing children to other churches, allowing them to continue their abuse.

“We’re getting an admission of problems that were there,” she said. “The less denial there is, the more chance there is for change.”

Francesco Zanardi, an Italian survivor of clergy sex abuse, said he believes it’s the first time the pope has acknowledged the practice of moving priests around.

“It’s an admission all right, but it comes a bit too late, I just can’t be optimistic about it,” said Zanardi, president of “Rete l’Abuso” or Abuse Network, an Italian association of’ survivors of abuse by clergy.

Many people are beginning to wonder whether the pope’s rhetoric will turn into Vatican action, such as the idea of tribunals, said John Thavis, author of “The Vatican Diaries” and who was a longtime correspondent for the Catholic News Service.

“The question is whether he institutionalizes some forms of closer control over bishops who have made bad decisions,” he said. “That seems to be a sticking point.”

The pope’s defenders say he has made strides to hold bishops and priests accountable. Last summer, Francis issued a decree that diocesan bishops could be removed for failure to report suspected abuse. In 2014, he fired a bishop in Paraguay who was accused of covering up abuse, and in 2015, he accepted the resignation of a bishop in Kansas City who was convicted of covering up abuse.

Complete Article HERE!

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Vatican diplomat recalled amid child porn investigation

By NICOLE WINFIELD and MATTHEW LEE

A high-ranking priest working in the Vatican’s embassy in Washington has been recalled after U.S. prosecutors asked for him to be charged there and face trial in a child pornography investigation, Vatican and U.S. officials said Friday.

The diplomat was suspected of possessing, but not producing or disseminating, child pornography including images of pre-pubescent children, a U.S. source familiar with the case said. The source was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Vatican declined to identify the priest, but said he was currently in Vatican City and that Vatican prosecutors had launched their own probe and sought evidence from the U.S.

If the accusations pan out, the case would be a major embarrassment for the Vatican and Pope Francis, who has pledged “zero tolerance” for sexual abuse. The diplomat would be the second from the Vatican’s diplomatic corps to face possible criminal charges for such crimes during Francis’ papacy. And any trial in the Vatican would come as Francis’ own financial czar, Cardinal George Pell, is on trial in his native Australia for alleged historic sex abuse cases.

The State Department said it had asked the Vatican to lift the official’s diplomatic immunity on Aug. 21. It said that request was denied three days later. For the State Department to make such a request, its lawyers would have needed to be convinced that there was reasonable cause for criminal prosecution.

The circumstances that prompted prosecutors to make the request, however, weren’t clear. The Justice Department, which would have brought any charges, didn’t immediately comment, and the Vatican gave no details about what, if any, evidence had been provided to persuade it to recall the priest.

In a statement, the Vatican said the State Department had notified the Vatican on Aug. 21 of a “possible violation of laws relating to child pornography images” by one of its diplomats in Washington.

A U.S. official familiar with the case said the priest was a senior member of the Vatican embassy staff. The Vatican yearbook lists three counselors who work under the nuncio, or ambassador.

The Vatican said recalling the priest was consistent with diplomatic practice of sovereign states. In declining to identify him, the Vatican said the case was subject to confidentiality while still under investigation. It said the Vatican had asked for information about the case from the U.S; it wasn’t clear if any had been provided.

The Vatican has recalled envoys before, including its then-ambassador to the Dominican Republic, who was recalled in 2013 after being accused of sexually abusing young boys on the Caribbean island.

The Vatican justified its decision to remove Monsignor Jozef Wesolowski from Dominican jurisdiction by submitting him first to a canonical court proceeding at the Vatican, and then putting him on trial in the Vatican’s criminal court, which has jurisdiction over the Holy See’s diplomatic corps.

Wesolowski was defrocked by the church court. But he died before the criminal trial got underway. Dominican prosecutors initially balked at the recall, and they never filed charges because of his immunity.

After he was defrocked, Wesolowski lost his diplomatic immunity and the Vatican said he could be tried by other courts. However, it refused to provide Dominican authorities with information about his whereabouts or how even he had pleaded to the charges.

The Vatican doesn’t have extradition treaties.

The Vatican in 2013 specifically criminalized child porn possession, distribution and production in its criminal code. Possession carries a possible jail term of up to two years and a 10,000-euro fine. Distribution can be punished with a term of up to five years and a 50,000-euro fine, while the most serious offense of production can bring a 12-year term and 250,000-euro fine.

The head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, said the case was serious and that he hoped the Vatican would be “forthcoming with more details.”

“We reaffirm that when such allegations occur, an immediate, thorough and transparent investigation should begin in cooperation with law enforcement and immediate steps be taken to protect children,” DiNardo said in a statement.

Francis has a spotty record on handling sex abuse cases. He won praise from advocates of survivors of abuse for having established a commission of experts to advise the church on keeping pedophiles out of the priesthood and protecting children. But the commission has floundered after losing the two members who themselves were survivors of abuse.

Francis’ promotion of Pell to be his finance czar when allegations abounded in Australia about his past conduct, as well other appointments, in-house decisions and his scrapping of a proposed tribunal to prosecute negligent bishops also have raised questions.

Complete Article HERE!

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New round of lawsuits filed against ex-Chicago priest convicted of sex abuse

The Rev. Daniel McCormack arrives at the Cook County Criminal Courts Building on July 2, 2007. The Archdiocese of Chicago recently reached an agreement to pay $4.45 million to settle three lawsuits brought by three men who allege they were sexually abused more than a decade ago by McCormack.

By Steve Schmadeke

Three new lawsuits were filed Wednesday against a notorious former priest convicted a decade ago of molesting five boys.

The new allegations against the Rev. Daniel McCormack, who will likely be sent indefinitely to a state facility for sex offenders after a Cook County judge found him last week to be a sexually violent person, mirror those that have already led the Archdiocese of Chicago to pay out millions to victims.

Court records show some 25 boys and young men have alleged McCormack molested them in their youth, most notably at St. Agatha Parish on Chicago’s West Side, where the young priest coached basketball, taught algebra and delivered eloquent sermons. The allegations date to the early 1990s against McCormack, who became a well-known figure in Chicago’s part in the nationwide clergy sex abuse scandal.

At least 14 lawsuits have previously been filed by McCormack’s alleged victims; eight of those are still pending, records show. The archdiocese is selling off unused real estate because its insurance no longer covers such legal costs.

The new lawsuits were filed in Cook County Circuit Court on Wednesday by attorney Eugene Hollander, who said the timing was unrelated to last week’s sexually violent person ruling against McCormack.

“There are still victims out there,” Hollander said. “It’s very difficult to come forward, and everyone has their own time to do so.”

One alleged victim, 32, says in his lawsuit that he was sexually assaulted by McCormack while attending school at St. Ailbe Parish on the South Side from 1991-1996. Another, also 32 now, says he was fondled by McCormack while he played on the basketball team at St. Agatha Parish from 2000-2002. A third said he was sexually assaulted once by McCormack while attending preschool and elementary school at St. Ailbe Parish in the Calumet Heights neighborhood.

The three say they repressed the memories of the abuse until this summer.

McCormack had pleaded guilty in 2007 to sexually abusing five boys and was sentenced to five years in prison. He was later removed from the priesthood

The allegations ranged from inappropriate kissing and touching to sexual assault. According to the court records, one boy said McCormack abused him on the way back from basketball practice, another in the basement of the rectory and still another during the fourth inning of a White Sox game.

As of early 2016, the Chicago Archdiocese said it has paid out a total of $139 million in clerical sexual abuse claims, but it has declined to release the total for the McCormack settlements. So far this year alone, though, the church has agreed to pay more than $7.5 million to settle lawsuits brought by men alleging abuse by McCormack, according to attorneys for those men.

The Archdiocese does not comment on pending legal matters, a spokeswoman said in an email.

Complete Article HERE!