Posts

Posted on

10 out of 10 Church of England Dioceses vote for women bishops

The first ten Dioceses in the Church of England to vote on women bishops have all voted in favour – almost all by an overwhelming majority.

They have all also turned down requests for extra provision for opponents, mostly by huge margins.

In every Diocese there have been separate votes of bishops, clergy and lay members.

Taking the votes of all the Dioceses together, over 80% of lay members, over 80% of clergy and over 80% of bishops have voted for the proposed law, which also makes provision for those opposed to women being ordained as priests and bishops.

Parishes will be allowed to opt for a male bishop and/or a male vicar.

Hilary Cotton, Head of Campaigns for WATCH, said, “Across the country Church members are saying, ‘Please just get on with making women bishops’. They are voting overwhelmingly in support of the legislation that will make that happen, and also creates space within the Church for those who will not accept women bishops. They do not want any more wrangling or delay.”

All 44 Dioceses have to vote on the draft legislation for women bishops by November 2011.

It will then face a final vote in General Synod in York 2012 where there will need to be 66% of members of each of the three Houses of Bishops, Clergy and Laity, for it to be approved.

It will then proceed to Parliament for final endorsement.

For more detailed figures look HERE!

http://tinyurl.com/65jd6p7

Posted on

Catholic Church Denies Legal Responsibility For Abuse

A hearing into whether the church has the same legal obligations towards priests as employers towards employees, could have massive ramifications.

The Roman Catholic Church is taking the unprecedented step of arguing in court that is is not responsible for sexual abuse committed by its priests, arguing that the relationship between a Catholic priest and the bishop of the local diocese is not an employment relationship and therefore the diocese does not have vicarious liability.

There have been thousands of accusations around the world of abuse by priests but the majority of legal cases have been settled out of court or withdrawn.

This is thought to be the first time that the Church has gone to court to defend itself against accusations specificially relating to liability.

The three day hearing, started last Tuesday, is part of a wider civil action being brought by a woman known only as Miss JGE.

She claims to have been sexually abused while living in a children’s home run an order of nuns, the English Province of Our Lady of Charity.

She alleges that she was sexually abused by a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth, Father Baldwin, who died in 2006.

The claim in that case, due to start in December, will be that the nuns were negligent and in breach of duty, and that the diocese was vicariously liable for the abuse because Father Baldwin was a Catholic priest engaged within the work of the Portsmouth diocese.

However the hearing this week will not deal with the allegations of abuse at all, but will centre on the ‘corporate responsibility’ of the church in abuse cases.

If the claim is upheld, the church will be found legally responsible for the sexual abuse committed by their priests.

The solicitor representing Miss JGE, Tracey Emmott, said: “The most astonishing point to me to emerge from this tragic and sordid case is that the Catholic church is claiming that it isn’t legally responsible for the behaviour of its own priest.

“We need to show that while Father Baldwin wasn’t strictly an employee of the church, he was acting on the bishop’s behalf and that the bishop clearly had a degree of control over his activities.”

Ms Emmott said that the consequences of the Catholic Church winning the point was that they would be able to avoid compensating all victims of sexual abuse by priests.

The Catholic Church and the Portsmouth Diocese said they would not comment until the end of the hearing.

http://tinyurl.com/6bzn6sl

Posted on

Order accuses Father Corapi of sexual, financial wrongdoing, falsehoods

Father John A. Corapi was involved in “years of cohabitation” with a former prostitute, repeated abuse of alcohol and drugs and “serious violation” of his promise of poverty, according to a fact-finding team appointed by his religious order.

Father Corapi, who recently announced he would leave the priesthood because he could not get a “fair hearing” on misconduct allegations against him, has been ordered by the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity to return to live at the order’s regional headquarters in Robstown, Texas, and to dismiss a lawsuit against the woman whose accusations prompted the investigation.

“Catholics should understand that (the order) does not consider Father John Corapi as fit for ministry,” said a July 5 news release from Father Gerard Sheehan, regional priest servant for the order, commonly known as SOLT.

Although Father Corapi’s ministry “has inspired thousands of faithful Catholics,” the news release said, he is “now misleading these individuals through his false statements and characterizations.”

“It is for these Catholics that SOLT, by means of this announcement, seeks to set the record straight,” it added.

There was no immediate response to the announcement from Father Corapi.

The order said its three-member fact-finding team had gathered information “from Father Corapi’s emails, various witnesses and public sources” and had concluded that the priest:

— “Did have sexual relations and years of cohabitation (in California and Montana) with a woman known to him, when the relationship began, as a prostitute.”

— “Repeatedly abused alcohol and drugs.”

— “Has recently engaged in sexting activity with one or more women in Montana.”

— “Holds legal title to over $1 million in real estate, numerous luxury vehicles, motorcycles, an ATV, a boat dock and several motor boats, which is a serious violation of his promise of poverty as a perpetually professed member of this society.”

Although he did not name them, Father Sheehan said the fact-finding team was made up of a priest specializing in canon law, a psychiatrist and a lawyer, each of whom has a national reputation and “substantial experience in ecclesiastical processes related to priest disciplinary issues.”

Two of the three were members of religious orders, and the third was a layperson. Two were men and one was a woman, he said.

As the team was carrying out its work, Father Corapi filed a civil suit against his principal accuser and then offered $100,000 for her silence, the news release said. Other key witnesses who “may have negotiated contracts … that precluded them from speaking” with the team declined to answer its questions or provide documents, it said.

When the fact-finding team asked Father Corapi to dismiss the lawsuit and release individuals from their contractual obligations to remain silent, “he refused to do so and, through his canonical advocate, stated, ‘It is not possible for Father Corapi to answer the commission’s questions at this time,'” the news release added.

Father Corapi, 64, announced June 17 — two days before the 20th anniversary of his priestly ordination — in a YouTube video and blog posting that he would leave the priesthood.

“For 20 years I did my best to guard and feed the sheep,” he said in the blog posting. “Now, based on a totally unsubstantiated, undocumented allegation from a demonstrably troubled person I was thrown out like yesterday’s garbage. I accept that. Perhaps I deserve that.”

Father Corapi had been highly visible for several years as a speaker and preacher, including a program on the Eternal Word Television Network. EWTN took his show off its schedule shortly after his suspension, saying it would not knowingly put on the air a priest whose faculties had been suspended.

The SOLT news release said Father Sheehan would not be available for further comment because of the order’s general chapter July 5-23.

http://tinyurl.com/5rjxfc3

Posted on

Dutch bishop investigated for alleged abuse in Kenya

The Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office in Arnhem is investigating whether there is enough evidence to prosecute Bishop Cornelius Schilder for the sexual abuse of an underage boy in Kenya 18 years ago, a spokesperson has confirmed to Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

Bishop Schilder, now living near the Dutch village of Oosterbeek, has been interrogated by the police, according to an insider. On Monday his lawyer told RNW that Schilder denies all allegations against him.

The Dutch Public Prosecutor launched an investigation after a report surfaced earlier this year through the Deetman Commission, which is researching abuse in the Dutch Catholic Church.

Complicated

The Commission refused to comment directly on the matter, but confirmed that it submits serious complaints to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The police officially logged the accusation following a request to investigate from the Public Prosecutor.

Spokesperson Ellen Prummel confirmed that the Arnhem Public Prosecutor’s vice squad is considering whether or not the case “truly indicates a criminal offence, and if there are enough leads to warrant further investigation”.

Prummel could not confirm how long this will take. The fact that the victim is living in Kenya and has not notified the police in the Netherlands makes it a “complicated case.” It is also unclear whether the abuse happened too long ago to be prosecuted under Dutch law.

‘Passed on’

The accuser, 32-year-old Michael ole Uka, claims he was abused for years by various foreign priests in Kenya. He came forward in 2005 and informed the church authorities of his allegations when he suffered such severe injuries from abuse that he required urgent medical treatment.

The treatment was paid for by the Mill Hill Missionaries, the congregation to which the accused priests and Dutch bishop belong. Uka also received financial compensation and further aid.

The congregation expatriated an Irish priest involved in the abuse. Mill Hill has relieved the priest of his duties but is still waiting for a Vatican decision to laicise him.

Uka says the abuse started when he was seven years old.

Several members of the clergy allegedly ‘passed him on’ to each other.

The abusers paid Uka’s school fees, which made him feel obliged to permit the abuse, although he says: “I knew it was wrong what they were doing.”

In addition to Schilder, Uka says he was also abused by another Dutch priest who has since passed away.

“He gave me a coffee, showed me my room and started touching me immediately” says Uka, describing his first encounter with Cornelius Schilder.

Touch him

Uka told of his apparent ordeal in a documentary shown on Irish television last month and says the bishop began abusing him in 1993 when he was 14 years old.

At the time, Schilder was a priest in the Kenyan diocese of Ngong.

In 2003, he was promoted to bishop in Ngong.

“He asked me whether this other priest had touched me as well, and I said yes. Then he told me to touch him too and do the same things I had done to the other priest. At the time I thought all priests did these kinds of things.”

The documentary on the Irish RTE network also quoted the father superior of the Mill Hill Missionaries, Anthony Chantry.

According to Chantry, the case has not been reported to the Kenyan police because homosexuality is still a crime in Kenya.

Serious conversation

Mill Hill earlier told Radio Netherlands Worldwide that a congregation official in Kenya had discussed the accusations with both the bishop and the victim.

It was then decided to ask the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Kenya and the Papal Nuncio, the Ambassador to the Vatican in Nairobi, to conduct an ecclesiastical investigation.

Both declined to take action.

After repeated failed requests by the Mill Hill Missionaries, the Vatican finally intervened three years later, according to an insider.

In August 2009 the Dutch bishop was summoned to Rome for a “very serious conversation”.

He did not return to Kenya but went into immediate retirement in a Mill Hill home in the Dutch town of Oosterbeek.

False and inappropriate

Rome’s official line is that Bishop Schilder has health problems.

Since 2009 he has no longer been allowed to carry out the duties of a bishop and as a priest he has been placed under supervision of Mill Hill.

This makes him the first Dutch bishop to be punished by the Vatican for sexual abuse of a minor.

As Michael ole Uka sees it, justice has not been done. His life has been ruined, “while the bishop enjoys his pension in Europe”.

Bishop Schilder denies the accusation and has until now been unwilling to speak to the media.

On Monday, however, he told RNW via his lawyer that “Michael ole Uka’s accusation of sexual abuse is false.”

Bishop Schilder also added that he “considers it inappropriate to issue a statement as long as an investigation is ongoing.”

He says he regrets that the media have publicised the matter before investigations are completed.

http://tinyurl.com/6ghbpfn

Posted on

Massachusetts diocese mourns loss of priest who committed suicide

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (CNS) — Many Catholics in the Springfield Diocese mourned the loss of Father Paul J. Archambault, a 42-year-old priest who was found dead July 3 at the rectory of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Parish in Springfield.

Springfield police confirmed that the priest, a chaplain at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield and a part-time parochial vicar at St. Mary Parish in Hampden, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“We are all diminished by the tragic death of Father Paul Archambault. He was a good and pastoral priest, a caring chaplain and a devout man,” said Springfield Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell in a statement.

“Yet he was not immune to illness,” he added. “Most of us realize that physical illness can be fatal; we sometimes forget that the same is true of illnesses that have no physical cause but wrack the spirit still.”

He prayed that God would bring the priest “safely home, rewarding all the good he accomplished and relieving the burdens he found unbearable.”

Bishop McDonnell was scheduled to celebrate a funeral Mass for Father Archambault July 12 at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Northampton, to be followed by burial at St. Mary’s Cemetery there.

Mark E. Dupont, diocesan spokesman, said Father Archambault celebrated 4 p.m. Mass July 2 at St. Mary Church in Hampden and was later called to Baystate Medical Center’s emergency department to minister to a Catholic patient. He was last seen leaving the hospital at 6:45 p.m.

“We know that he had been quite busy performing his priestly duties throughout the holiday weekend, which was very typical as he was a very dedicated and devout young priest,” said Dupont.

Father Archambault was scheduled to celebrate Mass at St. Mary’s again July 3. When he didn’t show up, friends and family members became concerned and started a search.

“Throughout the day Sunday, with assistance from Springfield police, calls were made to anyone who might have had contact with Father Archambault. Later, in the afternoon, based on some information that had been received, another search of the rectory was conducted and his body was discovered,” Dupont said.

George D’Astous, Father Archambault’s cousin, said his family is devastated. “Father Paul was a people’s priest,” D’Astous told the diocesan news website, www.iobserve.org.

The priest graduated from St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, Mass., in 2000 and was ordained in the Diocese of Springfield in 2005.

For the last several years he led a eucharistic rosary procession through the streets of Northampton, where he grew up. The priest was also very involved in the diocesan pro-life efforts. He took part in prayer vigils for life and was often seen praying in front of the Planned Parenthood League of Springfield.

Robin Sheehan, who knew Father Archambault through the pro-life community and the rosary procession, said he gave many Catholics the courage to witness for Christ.

“He was so consistent. He didn’t mince his words. That’s what I saw in him,” said Sheehan.

http://tinyurl.com/3tu2j8q