Religious freedom run amok
UN panel confronts Vatican on child sex abuse by clergy
The Vatican is being confronted publicly for the first time over the sexual abuse of children by clergy, at a UN hearing in Geneva.
Officials faced a barrage of hard questions such as why would they not release full data and what were they doing to prevent future abuse.
Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said such crimes could “never be justified” and every child should be “inviolable”.
A fellow official said “things need to be done differently”.
The Vatican earlier refused a request from the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) for data on abuse, and was accused of responding inadequately to abuse allegations.
The Vatican came to Geneva expecting a rough ride and so far it is getting one, the BBC’s Imogen Foulkes reports.
Victims say they hope the hearing, which is being broadcast live, will prompt the Church to end its “secrecy”.
Pope Francis announced last month that a Vatican commission would be set up to fight sexual abuse of children in the Church.
The Holy See is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a legally binding instrument which commits it to protecting and nurturing the most vulnerable in society.
It ratified the convention in 1990 but after an implementation report in 1994 it did not submit any progress reports until 2012, following revelations of child sex abuse in Europe and beyond.
‘No cover-ups’
Members of the CRC asked about the Church’s practice of moving priests suspected of abuse and allegations that it had concealed such abuse.
Why, it was asked, did the Vatican continue to describe such abuse as an offence against morals rather than a crime against children?
“Does the Holy See believe that paedophilia is something that can be successfully overcome?” was one question.
How, the Vatican was asked, did it go about training priests for work with children? What oversight was in place for Catholic institutions such as schools?
“The best way to prevent new offences is to reveal old ones,” one of the questioners said.
Archbishop Tomasi, who is the Vatican’s envoy to the UN, said that it was important to note that priests were “not functionaries of the Vatican but citizens of their countries and fall under the jurisdiction of their own countries”.
Bishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former chief prosecutor of clerical sexual abuse, insisted it was “not the policy of the Holy See to encourage cover-ups”.
But he added: “The Holy See gets it that there are things that need to be done differently.”
Archbishop Tomasi said no profession was immune from producing sex offenders but the fact that there were cases in the Church was very damning: “Abusers are found among members of the world’s most respected professions, most regrettably including members of the clergy and other church personnel.
“This fact is particularly serious since these persons are in positions of great trust and they are called to levels of service that are to promote and protect all elements of the human person, including physical, emotional and spiritual health.”
‘We request justice’
While Thursday’s questions were numerous and far-ranging, they were asked in blocs, with the Vatican delegation given time to retire to prepare its answers.
Observers vented frustration at the lack of specific answers.
“Holy See: ‘We get it’ in UN review on child sexual abuse Catholic Church,” wrote the children’s rights watchdog CRIN in a tweet. “Do you? Why then don’t you make statistics public?”
Barbara Blaine, president of a group representing US victims of abuse by priests, told BBC News that the hearing had brought “hope to victims across the globe”.
But it would also stand, she said, as a “record of how the Church officials refused to answer the questions, how they claim to be open and transparent, and yet they don’t live up to that ideal”.
The hearing in Geneva was welcomed by Teodoro Pulvirenti, an Italian who was abused by a priest as a teenager in Sicily.
Mr Pulvirenti, who now lives in the US, told the Associated Press it was time for the Vatican to end its “secrecy” over a global sex abuse scandal.
“I’m not coming out against the Vatican and I don’t want the Church to think the victims are against the Church, against the Vatican,” Mr Pulvirenti said. “We are standing up for our own survival, but we request justice.”
Complete Article HERE!
Maine Catholic Church versus gay rights advocates
Maine’s Catholic Church and a coalition of gay rights advocates are once again fighting an emotional battle over same sex marriage.
Supporters delivered signatures to the Secretary of State’s office in Augusta Thursday and officially launched a new campaign to give same sex couples the right to marry in Maine.
From Cumberland to Caribou, these boxes contain the signatures of more than 100,000 Maine voters.
All of them gathered by gay marriage supporters who want the issue on the November ballot.
“It is never too late for justice never too late to do the right thing, time to end discrimination against Maine same sex couples and their families,” said Shenna Bellows with Maine’s Civil Liberties Union.
This new campaign comes three years after a stinging defeat for gay marriage supporters when Maine voters overturned a same sex marriage law passed by the legislature.
Back in 2009, gay marriage supporters needed to lobby lawmakers. This time around, they are going directly to Maine voters.
Advocates say they have knocked on more than 100,000 doors in the past year, trying to change hearts and minds one person at a time.
Lucy Bauer and her partner of nearly 20 years, Annie Kiermeyer, are hopeful this more personal campaign will have a different result.
“Nothing will please us more than to have the commitment made to each other acknowledged and honored by people here in our beloved state,” said Bauer.
Maine’s Catholic Church, which played a big role in the campaign to overturn the law three years ago is gearing up for another battle, albeit reluctantly.
“Quite frankly, we don’t think we should have to go through this again,” said Church spokesperson Brian Souchet. “It’s divisive and contentious lot of money spent on both sides.”
Gay marriage advocates believe the campaign will cost their side between four and five million dollars.
They are encouraged by internal polling that shows 54 percent of Mainers now support the issue.
But polls aren’t votes and, over the next 10 months, both sides expect it’s going to be a difficult and emotional debate.
Complete Article HERE!
September trial date set for KC bishop, diocese
The trial of Bishop Robert W. Finn and the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., the first bishop and diocese to face criminal charges in the decades-long clergy sex abuse crisis, has been set for September.
Finn and the diocese were charged in October by a grand jury in Jackson County, Mo., with separate counts of failing to report suspected child abuse in the case of Fr. Shawn Ratigan, a diocesan priest who was arrested last May for child pornography.
Lawyers for Finn and the diocese met with Jackson County Judge John Torrence on Thursday to set a Sept. 24 trial date in the case. Finn and the diocese have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Speaking to NCR after the meeting, which was held in the judge’s chambers, Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters-Baker said Torrence also set the next pretrial hearing for March 27, when the court would deal with motions from the defense.
Gerald Handley, one of three lawyers representing the diocese, said the judge had given defense lawyers until early February to file motions in the case, which the prosecution would have to respond to by March 9. Two other lawyers were also present to represent Finn.
News of the trial date comes after the diocese confirmed Wednesday that it placed another diocesan priest on administrative leave pending a review by the diocesan review board into unspecified allegations.
In a press release, no details about that case were available because the review board’s investigation is still under way.
“While this investigation is in a preliminary phase, the diocese urges everyone to understand that further information only can be made available once the facts are known,” the statement reads.
The trial date also comes as Finn is undertaking court-mandated parish visits to parishes in Clay County, Mo., as part of an agreement with the county prosecutor there to avoid charges in the Ratigan case.
The diocesan chancery is located in Jackson County. The parish where Ratigan last served as pastor is in Clay County.
The Clay County agreement between Finn and prosecutor Daniel White allowed the bishop to avoid criminal charges if he agreed to meet with diocesan parishes in that county to outline diocesan reporting procedures for suspected child abuse.
Finn also agreed to meet monthly with White to discuss all reported suspicions of abuse in the county and to appoint a new director of child and youth protection.
The second in a series of visits to county parishes took place Jan. 14 at St. James Church in Liberty, Mo.
Complete Article HERE!
Lawyers: Prosecutors hanging blame for Philly church abuse on 1 monsignor; March trial looms
Prosecutors are trying to hold a single Roman Catholic church official responsible for the priest abuse scandal in Philadelphia, defense lawyers argued Tuesday at a key hearing in a novel clergy-abuse case.
City prosecutors want to include accusations against dozens of priests when Monsignor William Lynn stand trial on child endangerment and conspiracy charges in March. Most of the cases stem from a 2005 grand jury report that blasted church officials for keeping 63 problem priests on the job — but yielded no criminal charges.
Now, prosecutors are pushing to include about 30 of those cases in Lynn’s trial. Lynn served as secretary of clergy for the archdiocese from 1992 to 2004.
Prosecutors say the 61-year-old Lynn kept priests in ministry and around children despite explosive allegations in secret church files. Those files are now in prosecutors’ hands — and some of them are being aired in court.
Defense lawyers argued Tuesday that Lynn took orders from Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and several bishops above him in the church hierarchy. They said prosecutors should have indicted the archdiocese and others if they wanted to attempt a broad conspiracy case.
Lynn, they said, was doing his job as ordered in the era before 2002, when Catholic bishops nationwide, battling scandal, adopted formal rules on how dioceses should handle accused priests.
Church files “show when his marching orders changed,” defense lawyer Jeffrey Lindy argued Tuesday. “They can complain about his job. They can complain about the (archdiocesan) rules. … But the archdiocese is not charged.”
Prosecutors call the archdiocese “an unindicted co-conspirator” in the case. Bevilacqua is now 88 and in failing health. His successor, Cardinal Justin Rigali, retired last year after a second grand jury returned charges against Lynn and four others. The co-defendants — three priests and a teacher — are charged with raping boys.
Lynn is the first church official in the U.S. ever charged over his alleged administrative failures.
Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina is hearing arguments this week on what evidence should be included at his trial. Lynn will be tried with two of the co-defendants; the others will be tried separately.
Prosecutors are detailing accusations against various priests who remained in parish work despite complaints they had abused and sometimes raped boys on overnight trips, in schools and rectories, and even in the church sacristy. Prosecutors also allege that Lynn did little to ensure that priests sent for sex-therapy treatment were supervised upon their release.
Sarmina didn’t indicate when she would rule. But she tipped her hat on her view of the church’s oversight of its priests when Lindy suggested that Lynn was just one part in a strict chain of command.
“It doesn’t sound like it. Even though priests take vows of obedience, (and break them), … nothing happens,” Sarmina said, referring not just to accused molesters but also to priests who moonlighted as disc jockeys or who were accused of living with former students. “But that’s not what this trial is about.”
Sarmina could rule Wednesday on how many, if any, of the 2005 grand jury cases will find their way into Lynn’s trial.
The first case outlined was that of now-defrocked priest Stanley M. Gana, a one-time chaplain for the Boy Scouts of America. The 2005 grand jury said he abused “countless” boys at various parishes.
Lynn, when he served as dean of men at an archdiocesan seminary, knew Gana was frequently visiting a seminary student. The seminarian told Lynn in 1992 that Gana had been abusing him since he was 13, Assistant District Attorney Mariana Sorensen said.
Gana denied the rape accusation, but admitted he had given another accuser $12,000, she said. Gana was left in ministry, and continued to assault boys, until 2002, prosecutors said.
In a case described Tuesday, prosecutors said a priest went for inpatient psycho-sexual treatment after an abuse allegation surfaced, and was given female hormones that serve as chemical castration, but remained in parish work for years.
Other times, Lynn and others in the archdiocese investigated accusers, not the alleged molesters, and withheld information from families and parishes.
“They’re not concerned about the victims, they are just concerned about the almighty dollar, and the mother church,” Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington argued Tuesday.
The archdiocese cannot comment on the pretrial hearing because of a gag order, spokeswoman Donna Farrell said this week.
Complete Article HERE!
The end of the mystique
A Philadelphia prosecutor has decisively — and good for him — ended 2000-years of unwarranted deference to the Catholic Church.
Prosecutors on Monday accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of being an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a clergy sex abuse case and said the Roman Catholic Church fed predators a steady supply of children.
Everybody willing to know the truth has known the truth for a long time: The Catholic Church has masterminded a global criminal conspiracy centered on the sexual abuse of children for a long time.
What is so striking is that now a state prosecutor is saying so, too, instead of a few hundred cranky bloggers. However naturally this may follow from the past decade of revelations, however easily it may be overlooked in the cataracts of abuse stories, this is a milestone.
And it might be that the pews are at last waking-up, too. Notice this comment at Andrew Sullivan’s blog:
It’s funny that you linked to the story regarding the Catholic Church’s position on the birth control under the health care insurance rules. My wife, daughter and I went to mass on Long Island on Saturday night at 5PM, a mass that tends to be an older crowd though some families are mixed in. Our pastor was the celebrant and his sermon amounted to him yelling for 15 minutes about abortion, the administration’s anti-religious attacks, and contraception. He was particularly upset about the contraception rules – yelling about taking money out of his insurance premiums to subsidy the pill – to the point that he took the Lord’s name in vain as he walked in front of the altar. When he was screaming about the money, the only thought that went through my mind was the amount of money I’ve put into the collection box that was used by the Church to cover up pedophile priest cases.
This is the tipping point. Prosecutors will no longer go after just a single priest, but those who protected him, too. And they’re not going to have to worry any longer about public blowback, either.
Complete Article HERE!
Mrs. Santorum, Can We Talk?
COMMENTARY — Kate Kendell
On a recent campaign stop, Karen Santorum accused LGBT activists of “backyard bullying” against her husband in the presidential race. National Center for Lesbian Rights executive director Kate Kendell responds.
Someone’s been using the extra bit of cash he got from his surge in Iowa to buy some spin doctor advice. Earlier this week, Rick Santorum, his wife, Karen, and their oldest daughter, Elizabeth, were all talking about how much Rick “loves gay people” and that his opposition to our right to marry is a “policy difference.” Karen then added to the obscenity of this utter claptrap by suggesting that gay activists were being “backyard bullies” in our attacks on her husband and his policies.
Karen, we need to talk. And by that, I mean that I need to talk and you need to listen.
You love your husband — I get that. You love your faith — fine by me. But when you pretend that hate is love, that lies are truth, and that victims are oppressors, you have become inane.
Your husband believes that LGBT people cannot be trusted to serve in the military, raise children, form stable relationships or be fully respected under the law. According to you, Rick may love us, but honey, his love is killing us, and we want nothing to do with this abusive relationship. Our community has endured expulsion from family, mass firings, daily epitaphs, assaults, harassment, humiliation, death, and suicides. We know that if your husband becomes president of our country our long suffering will only deepen and magnify.
So yes, we are calling him what he is: a sanctimonious bigot who believes that we are dangerous, sick, and evil. We are telling the truth about his vision and his beliefs about us. That is NOT bullying, it’s about saving our own lives. Your husband would erase the landmark and life-saving changes we have seen over the past few years, and revisit the hell of a government that does not see us as fully human. Given what so many of my brothers and sisters live through daily, you calling us bullies is contemptible.
It did not have to be this way. Many people of faith truly and authentically do love the LGBT people in their lives. They also love fairness and equality and inclusion. They do not live in fear of those who are different. My mom was such a person, and I am sure you could have been too.
In some ways, it’s very sad. In another two or three months, the cameras will be gone, and the press will not care about you or Rick. The march of justice will continue, leaving you and your family a forgotten footnote on the wrong side of history.
I’m glad we talked, Karen. I feel better now. While I know you will keep saying whatever that reprobate PR firm is telling you to say, at least we understand each other.
You and Rick are the haters. My community is the victim, and anyone paying attention knows the truth.
Complete Article HERE!
Minn. archbishop warns priests to toe line
Catholic Archbishop John Nienstedt has warned a Minnesota priest to toe the church line in support of a marriage amendment referendum or face the consequences.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Sunday Nienstedt sent a letter last fall to the Rev. Mike Tegeder, the pastor at St. Frances Cabrini and Gichitwaa Kateri churches in Minneapolis who has voice opposition to the proposed amendment to the state Constitution that goes before Minnesota voters in November.
Nienstedt told Tegeder unless he desists in opposing the amendment that would define marriage as a union only between a man and woman he would strip the priest of his “faculties to exercise ministry” and remove him from his “ministerial assignments.”
Tegeder said he doesn’t believe the church should be actively campaigning in support of the amendment. Minnesota has about 1.1 million Catholics.
“That’s not the way to support marriage,” Tegeder said. “If we want to support marriage, there are wonderful things we can do as Catholic churches and ministers. We should not be focused on beating up a small number of people who have this desire to have committed relationships.”
But Nienstedt has told Catholic clergy across the state there is to be no “open dissension” of the church’s support for the measure. As the archbishop sees it, the very existence of marriage hangs in the balance.
“The endgame of those who oppose the marriage amendment that we support is not just to secure certain benefits for a particular minority, but, I believe, to eliminate the need for marriage altogether,” he said in a letter to the state’s clergy.
“As I see it, we have this one chance as Minnesotans to make things right. The stakes could not be higher.”
Nienstedt is marshaling his forces, sending priests and married couples to Catholic high schools to talk about marriage and having parishes organize committees to work for the amendment’s passage, the Star Tribune said.
Complete Article HERE!
Same-Sex Marriage Endangers Humanity, Says Pope
Pope Benedict XVI today unleashed some of his strongest antigay rhetoric yet, telling diplomats from about 180 countries that same-sex marriage threatens “the future of humanity itself.”
In some of his strongest antigay rhetoric yet, Pope Benedict XVI said today that same-sex marriage threatens “the future of humanity itself.”
The Catholic pontiff made the comment in his annual State of the World address to the diplomats from about 180 nations who are assigned to the Vatican, Reuters reports. He said the traditional family, “based on the marriage of a man and a woman,” is “not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.”
Benedict has a long history of staunch opposition to gay rights, both before and since he became pope in 2005. Also, next month he will bestow the title of cardinal on New York City archbishop Timothy Dolan, who strenuously fought his state’s marriage equality law (which nonetheless passed last June) and in September sent a letter to President Obama criticizing his administration’s decision to no longer defend the antigay Defense of Marriage Act.
Complete Article HERE!