Tag: Avoiding Corporate Responsibility

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BREAKING: Episcopal Church suspended from Anglican Communion

File under:  Oh SNAP!

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(RNS1-may13) England’s best-known cathedral and mother church of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion will stay open to the public despite the fact that two-thirds of the historic building is in urgent need of repair. For use with RNS-CANTERBURY-BRIEF, transmitted on May 13, 2013, Photo by Trevor Grundy.
England’s best-known cathedral and mother church of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion will stay open to the public despite the fact that two-thirds of the historic building is in urgent need of repair. For use with RNS-CANTERBURY-BRIEF, transmitted on May 13, 2013

In a move that took some by surprise, the Anglican Communion voted to censure its American branch, the Episcopal Church USA.

At a private meeting in Canterbury, England, the home of the Anglican Communion, leaders voted Thursday  (Jan. 14) to suspend the Episcopal Church from voting and decision-making for a period of three years.

The move is a reaction to a string of Episcopal Church decisions stretching back to 2004 when it elected Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as a bishop. In July, the Episcopal Church voted to allow its clergy to perform same-sex marriages, something the majority of the other churches in the communion do not approve.

“Given the seriousness of these matters we formally acknowledge this distance by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies . . . ” a statement issued by the Anglican Communion reads. “They will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity.”

“The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union,” the statement continues. “The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching.”

The Anglican Communion consist of 44 member churches from around the world, representing about 85 million Christians. The Episcopal Church has about 1.8 million U.S. members, who now find themselves without a voice in denominational decisions.

The suspension comes after four days of discussions among church leaders — known as “primates” in church parlance — over the Episcopal church’s position on homosexuality in relation to the position of the broader Anglican Communion. The meetings apparently got testy — British Christian media reported the Archbishop of Uganda, among the most conservative of Anglican branches, walked out amid disagreements.

Jeffrey Walker, the Anglican program director at the Institute for Religion an Democracy in Washington, D.C., said the suspension of the Episcopal Church is significant, but does not, at this point, represent a schism, or irreparable rupture, within the Anglican Communion.

“This is not kicking the Episcopal Church out of the Anglican Communion, but it is saying is that by making these decisions for the past 12 or so years the Episcopal Church has created this distance and there will be consequences to those decisions.”

 

The Anglican Communion consist of 44 member churches from around the world, representing about 85 million Christians. The Episcopal Church has about 1.8 million U.S. members.

The Lambeth Palace press office did not respond to requests for comment about the vote, which was leaked to the media.

Complete Article HERE!

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Over 200 Members of German Choir Were Abused, Investigator Says

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Pope Benedict XVI with the Regensburg choir in Bavaria in 2006. The former pope’s brother conducted the choir from 1964 to 1994, a period that coincides with accusations of abuse.
Pope Benedict XVI with the Regensburg choir in Bavaria in 2006. The former pope’s brother conducted the choir from 1964 to 1994, a period that coincides with accusations of abuse.

At least 231 children who sang in a boys’ choir led for 30 years by the brother of former Pope Benedict XVI were abused over a period of almost four decades, a lawyer investigating reports of wrongdoing said Friday.

The lawyer, Ulrich Weber, who was commissioned by the choir to look into accusations of beatings, torture or sexual abuse, said he thought that the actual abuse was even more widespread.

At a news conference in Regensburg, Bavaria, where the choir traces its roots to the year 975, Mr. Weber estimated that from 1953 to 1992, every third member of the choir and an attached school suffered some kind of physical abuse.

He attributed the beatings and other mistreatment mostly to Johann Meier, director of a lower school attached to the choir from 1953 until his retirement in 1992. Mr. Meier died suddenly later that year, Mr. Weber said. A 1987 investigation of reported abuse did not prompt the choir’s leaders to remove Mr. Meier or take other action, the lawyer said.

Asked whether Benedict’s brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, who conducted the Regensburg choir from 1964 to 1994, had known of the abuse, Mr. Weber said, “After my research, I must assume so.”

 

Ulrich Weber is investigating accusations that children who sang in a German choir led by Georg Ratzinger were abused.

Father Ratzinger, who turns 92 this month, is the older brother of Joseph Ratzinger, who served as pope from April 2005 until he stepped down on Feb. 28, 2013, saying he was too frail to fulfill the full range of his duties. Now known as the pope emeritus, he still lives in the Vatican; his brother resides in Regensburg.

Mr. Weber noted that, as conductor of the choir, Father Georg Ratzinger sat on a three-person supervisory body, along with the directors of the high school and the boarding school attached to the choir, that was supposed to oversee the lower school where Mr. Meier worked.

Mr. Ratzinger, the brother of the former pope, Benedict XVI.

Mr. Weber started investigating the Regensburger Domspatzen, as the choir is known, in 2015 and said he had interviewed dozens of victims and figures in charge. He said at least 40 of the 231 abuse cases also involved sexual violence, “from fondling to rapes.” Most cases are too old for legal action now, he said.

The choir has been run since 1994 by Ronald Buchner, who is not associated with the Roman Catholic Church.

The first accusations of physical punishments and sexual abuse in the choir surfaced in 2010, in connection with other reported abuses in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, Belgium and Austria. The Diocese of Regensburg last year spoke of 72 victims and offered about $2,700 in compensation.

Mr. Weber said that after his report Friday, at least eight people who had not previously come forward with accusations of abuse had contacted him.

Complete Article HERE!

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Italian bishop protected paedophile priest: Report

An Italian bishop aided and abetted a paedophile priest, telling him to avoid the police and shrugging off warnings the prelate was meeting teenage boys on Grindr, Italian media reported on Sunday (Dec 20).

priest

Priest Antonello Tropea, 44, was arrested after a police investigation allegedly uncovered he was using the US-based gay dating app to pick up the teenagers, with whom he had sexual relations in his car or his rectory in Calabria.

Bishop Francesco Milito was accused by a prosecutor of failing to investigate widely-spread reports of the priest’s activities and encouraging him to “continue as before”, according to the reports.grindr

Police suspicions were raised after officers found Tropea in a car in a secluded spot with a teenager, and the priest not only said he was a physical education teacher but had suspicious objects in his rucksack.

An investigation was launched and wiretaps revealed not only Milito’s anger over an anonymous letter about Tropea, believed to have been written by a nun, but also how the bishop warned his charge to “avoid speaking to the police”.

According to La Repubblica newspaper, the two-month probe allegedly found that Tropea picked up boys on Grindr under the name Nicola, the same name as the patron saint of his parish in Messignadi in southern Italy, San Nicola di Mira.

Complete Article HERE!

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Priest paid his male ‘sex master’ from collection plate: lawsuit

By Julia Marsh

Miqueli​​:Crist
Rev. Peter Miqueli​​ (right) and his “master” Keith Crist.

A Catholic priest swiped collection-plate donations to pay for drug-fueled sex romps with a heavily muscled S&M “master,” a new lawsuit charges.

Parishioners claim the Rev. Peter Miqueli has stolen at least $1 million since 2003 while leading churches on Roosevelt Island and in The Bronx, where he is currently pastor of St. Frances de Chantal in Throggs Neck.

Peter Miqueli
Rev. Peter Miqueli in 2003.

Their suit alleges he used the money to act out unholy fantasies as a sexual “slave,” blowing $1,000 at a time on bondage-and-discipline sessions where a “homosexual sex ‘master’ ” — identified in court papers as Keith Crist — “would force Father Miqueli to drink Keith Crist’s urine.”

Miqueli also spent $60,000 in 2012 alone for “illicit and prescription drugs” he used with Crist, bought a $264,000 home in Brick, NJ, and paid $1,075.50 a month for his master’s East Harlem apartment, court papers say.

Plaintiffs’ lawyer Michael G. Dowd also said that Miqueli at one point had Crist living in the rectory at St. Frances de Chantal but that Crist had since been kicked out.

The suit, which was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court Thursday, also charges that the Archdiocese of New York and Timothy Cardinal Dolan knew about Miqueli’s “illegal scheme” and did nothing to keep it from growing into “the monster it is today.”

“This lawsuit seeks to finally put an end to this truly sinful conduct so that St. Frances de Chantal parish can regain the strength, spirituality and faith it once had before Father Miqueli arrived,” the court papers say.

St. Frances de Chantal
St. Frances de Chantal Roman Catholic Church in the Bronx.

The suit says that during the summer of 2014, maintenance workers at St. Frances de Chantal saw “several unstacked piles of cash, each approximately one foot high, scattered throughout Father Miqueli’s rectory residence.”

In addition to skimming $20 bills from the collection plate there, Miqueli ripped off money raised to buy a new pipe organ at his former church, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini on Roosevelt Island, according to the suit.

He also put Crist in charge of the Cabrini thrift shop, where Miqueli “misappropriated and diverted money . . . for his own personal use” and destroyed financial records to cover up the theft, the suit says.

An on-and-off girlfriend of Crist’s, Tatyana Gudin, told The Post that the hulking bodybuilder once hurt his knees while having sex with Miqueli in a bathtub.

The suit seeks unspecified damages from Miqueli, Crist, Dolan and the archdiocese on grounds that include negligent supervision, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud and unjust enrichment.Crist

Dowd said, “I feel really bad for the parishioners,” and he estimated that Migueli “had to have taken $1 million from each parish.”

“We’ve done a lot of homework. This is a bad guy,” Dowd said.

He added, “The thing that’s really amazing to me is: How could this guy be acting this way for nine years or so and the archdiocese does nothing?”

A spokesman for the archdiocese said it “has . . . taken these allegations seriously and has been investigating them.”

Crist hung up on a reporter, and Miqueli declined to answer a call through a church receptionist.

Complete Article HERE!

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Pope Orders Audit of Church’s Wealth as Whistleblowers Pursued

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st peters

Pope Francis, galvanized by a scandal over Vatican finances, has ordered the most powerful bodies in the city-state to launch an unprecedented audit of its wealth and crack down on runaway spending.

At the suggestion of his economic chief, Cardinal George Pell, Francis has set up a “Working-Party for the Economic Future” which brings together the Secretariat of State, or prime minister’s office, the Vatican Bank and other agencies.

Francis has told the panel “to address the financial challenges and identify how more resources can be devoted to the many good works of the Church, especially supporting the poor and vulnerable,” Danny Casey, director of Pell’s office at the Secretariat for the Economy, said in an interview.

The pope’s initiatives come as five people stand trial in the Vatican over the leak of confidential documents in two books published last month that described corruption, mismanagement and wasteful spending by church officials. Those on trial deny wrongdoing.

Francis, 78, has pushed for more openness and transparency in Vatican financial and economic agencies but he has faced resistance from the Rome bureaucracy.

Seek Corruption

On the flight back to Rome on Monday after a visit to Africa, Francis told reporters that the so-called Vatileaks II scandal was an indication of the mess that he’s trying to sort out. The trial of two former Vatican employees alongside the books’ authors highlighted Church efforts “to seek out corruption, the things which aren’t right,” he said, according to a transcript provided by the Vatican.

The working group, which held its first meeting last week, will study measures to cut costs and raise revenue as part of a long-term financial plan.

“This will include comparing actual expenditure against budgets at a consolidated level, which is a new initiative,” Casey said.

As officials try to drag the Vatican’s financial management into the 21st century officials will appoint one of the world’s top-four accounting firms to review the Church’s processes, Casey said. The audit will look at financial investments, real estate and cultural assets. The four biggest firms are PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Deloitte & Touche LLP, EY LLP and KPMG LLP.

Assets that would never be sold and thus have no market value — including St Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and priceless art treasures by Michelangelo — will be included in financial statements though the Vatican is still considering whether and how they should be valued.

While Casey declined to speculate on overall asset values, Pell, his boss, said earlier this year that the Vatican’s total assets were worth more than $3 billion. Separately, the Institute for the Works of Religion, better-known as the Vatican Bank, has 6 billion euros ($6.4 billion) in deposits, and assets under management and custody for clients.

Real Estate

According to the two books which triggered the latest scandal — Avarice, by Emiliano Fittipaldi, and Merchants in the Temple, by Gianluigi Nuzzi — the Vatican’s assets are massively under-valued. For Fittipaldi, its real estate holdings alone are worth an estimated 4 billion euros, four times as much as their book value.

The two volumes relate that Francis himself has denounced costs as being “out of control” and that St Peter’s Pence donations go not to the needy but to Vatican departments. Many cardinals live in apartments of some 500 square meters (5,400 square feet) waited on by aides and surrounded by Renaissance art.

The Australian Pell, prefect at the Secretariat for the Economy, has been drawn into the controversy. Avarice alleges that Pell and three aides, including Casey, accumulated expenses totaling 501,000 euros between July 2014 and January 2015 for costs including business class flights from Rome to London, Munich and Malta.

Resistant to Change

Pell, who denied the allegations when they first surfaced in the Italian magazine L’Espresso in February, declined to respond to a request for comment. Casey said it was “ridiculous” to suggest the spending was for personal expenses.

“The Cardinal is committed to cost-management as is his whole team,” he said. “Unfortunately every leader working on the financial reforms has at some stage been criticized either personally or professionally — this is a classic diversionary tactic and perhaps a sign that good progress is being made.”

While Francis recruiting experts from outside the Church is a step in the right direction, the pontiff may not be around long enough to see through his reforms, according to papal biographer, Austen Ivereigh. Francis has told his entourage that he plans to remain pontiff until 2020, Ivereigh said — an indication he may then resign, like his predecessor Benedict XVI.

The Vatican can be reformed “but it will take a generation because the existing practices and mindset are so well-established,” Ivereigh said. “The Curia is built to resist change. Historically it was designed to be impervious to outside influence.”

Complete Article HERE!