A Vatican prosecutor on Monday ordered the trial of a former Roman Catholic archbishop accused of paying for sex with children while he was a papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic and of possessing child pornographic material.
Jozef Wesolowski, a Pole who had been defrocked by a Vatican tribunal, last year became the first person to be arrested inside the Vatican on paedophilia charges.
A statement said the trial, the first on paedophilia charges to be held inside the Vatican City, would start on July 11.
It said allegations of crimes committed in the Dominican Republic were based on an investigation by police there.
The others were based on a Vatican investigation that found child pornography on his computer after he was arrested last September.
Wesolowski was recalled to Rome by the Vatican in 2013 when he was still a diplomat in Santo Domingo and he was relieved of his duties after Dominican media accused him of paying boys to perform sexual acts.
The former archbishop, who later lost his diplomatic immunity, could face up to 12 years in jail, the Vatican said at the time of his arrest. Complete Article HERE!
The Vatican on Monday (June 15) launched a major housecleaning of the scandal-plagued Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, accepting the resignation of Archbishop John Nienstedt along with that of Nienstedt’s top aide, Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piché.
The moves come little over a week after authorities charged the archdiocese for failing to protect children from an abusive priest and days after Pope Francis unveiled the first-ever system for disciplining bishops who do not act against predator clerics.
In April, Bishop Robert Finn of Missouri, who three years earlier became the first bishop convicted of failing to report a priest suspected of child abuse, was forced to resign, effectively the first bishop in the decades-long crisis to lose his job for covering up for an abuser.
bishop Lee Piche
Observers say this latest move seems to signal an unprecedented effort by Rome to hold bishops accountable in the abuse crisis.
Almost from the time he took over in the Twin Cities in 2008, Nienstedt, 68, became a polarizing figure as an outspoken conservative, especially with his focus against gay rights and same-sex marriage.
But in the past few years questions about his alleged failures to take a hardline on abusive clerics, especially a former priest not in jail, Curtis Wehmeyer, have made him a target of criticism from all sides.
Persistent questions about Nienstedt’s own personal conduct also became an issue; last year Nienstedt gave Piché, 57, the job of investigating allegations of misconduct against him, one of two separate probes of Nienstedt’s personal behavior.
In charging the archdiocese earlier this month, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said prosecutors were alleging “a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior” over the course of decades at the highest level of leadership in the archdiocese.
Nienstedt was not personally charged, but authorities said the investigation was continuing and further charges could be filed.
Francis appointed Archbishop Bernard Hebda, who is currently in New Jersey preparing to take over the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., next year when Archbishop John Myers is expected to retire, as the interim leader in Minneapolis-St. Paul until a permanent replacement is found.
A brief note from the Vatican provided no details on Nienstedt’s resignation. It said only that he resigned under under the provision of canon law that states that a bishop “who has become less able to fulfill his office because of ill health or some other grave cause is earnestly requested to present his resignation from office.” Complete Article HERE!
Pope Francis has approved the creation of a tribunal to hear cases of bishops accused of covering up child abuse by paedophile priests.
The unprecedented move followed a recommendation from the Pope’s newly created panel on clerical sex abuse.
The tribunal will have the power to punish bishops who failed to protect young victims.
Survivors’ groups have long called for the Vatican to do more to make bishops accountable for abuse on their watch.
Last year, the UN strongly criticised the Church for failing to stamp out abuse and for allowing cover-ups.
A statement from the Vatican said the department would come under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Its aim would be “to judge bishops with regard to crimes of the abuse of office when connected to the abuse of minors”, the statement added.
Catholic Church abuse scandals
•Germany – A priest, named only as Andreas L, admitted in 2012 to 280 counts of sexual abuse involving three boys over a decade
•United States – Revelations about abuses in the 1990s by two Boston priests, Paul Shanley and John Geoghan, caused public outrage
•Belgium – The bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned in April 2010 after admitting that he had sexually abused a boy for years
•Italy – The Catholic Church in Italy admitted in 2010 that about 100 cases of paedophile priests had been reported over 10 years
•Ireland – A 2009 report found that sexual and psychological abuse was “endemic” in Catholic-run industrial schools and orphanages for most of 20th Century
Father Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said bishops could also be judged if they had failed to prevent abuse from taking place.
Initially the complaints would be investigated by one of three Vatican departments, depending on whose jurisdiction the bishops were under.
They would then be judged by the doctrinal department.
“We would welcome anything which looks closely at clerical abuse and shows more openness from the Church,” she added.
NAPAC’s founder Peter Saunders is part of the Vatican advisory commission which recommended the step.
The panel was set up by Pope Francis in 2013 to help dioceses improve abuse prevention measures and support victims. It is made up of 17 clerics and lay people from around the world. Complete Article HERE!
Twin Cities (Minnesota) Archbishop John Nienstedt (below) spent years arguing against LGBT rights. In 2007, he wrote that “those who actively encourage or promote homosexual acts… formally cooperate in a grave evil and, if they do so knowingly and willingly, are guilty of mortal sin.” He condemned Brokeback Mountain when it came out. And he spent $650,000 of the Church’s money trying to convince Minnesota voters to pass an amendment banning same-sex marriage — an amendment that ultimately failed.
Cover it up, Archbishop… cover it up
It’s hardly surprisingly, then, that Nienstedt was under investigation for having sex with other priests. More importantly, he retaliated against anyone who didn’t respond in kind or questioned what he was doing. He denies all of these allegations, of course.
But there was another aspect to the story that was even more disturbing: One of the men promoted by Nienstedt to become a pastor, Curtis Wehmeyer, ended up molesting kids while in that role. If Nienstedt and his colleagues knew about it and didn’t put a stop to it, they deserve to be punished.
Prosecutors in Minnesota filed criminal charges on Friday against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, accusing church leaders of mishandling repeated complaints of sexual abuse by a priest.
…
Though there have been several allegations of sexual abuse over the years by priests in the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Friday’s charges focus on the church’s handling of “numerous and repeated reports of troubling conduct” by Curtis Wehmeyer, who was dismissed as a priest in March.
Mr. Wehmeyer, 50, was sentenced in 2013 for criminal sexual conduct and possession of child pornography. He is in prison in Minnesota, and he has been charged with sex crimes in Wisconsin.
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In a statement in March announcing Mr. Wehmeyer’s dismissal from the priesthood, Archbishop John C. Nienstedt expressed support for sex abuse victims.
“I am deeply saddened and have been profoundly affected by the stories I continue to hear from victims/survivors of clergy sexual abuse,” the archbishop said in March. “My focus, and the focus of the Archdiocese, is to do all we can to keep children safe while offering resources for help and healing.”
They’ve done a horrible job of it so far and their irresponsibility may finally be catching up to them.
For the sake of the victims, let’s hope justice prevails if the Church leaders are guilty of the allegations against them. Complete Article HERE!
During the May 31 broadcast of Australia’s 60 Minutes, a member of Pope Francis’s sexual-abuse commission described Cardinal George Pell’s treatment of victims as “almost sociopathic.” The 60 Minutes segment focused on Pell’s response to abuse allegations while he ministered in Australia, including testimony alleging that the cardinal tried to buy a victim’s silence, and that he was involved in the decision to move the nation’s most notorious abuser priest, Gerald Ridsdale, between parishes—claims the cardinal denies. Pell, former archbishop of Sydney, was criticized for appearing with Ridsdale at his first trial in 1993 (Ridsdale was eventually convicted of more than one hundred counts of assault). The cardinal has a “catalogue of denials…a catalogue of denigrating people, of acting with callousness,” according to Peter Saunders, selected by Francis to serve on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Saunders explained that he based his judgments on conversations with Australian victims. The cardinal’s position as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy—the office created by Francis to oversee the Vatican’s finances—is “untenable,” Saunders said. “I would go as far to say,” he continued, “that I consider him to be quite a dangerous individual.”
Responses from Pell and from the Vatican spokesman came quickly. Before the program had even aired (after the network released promotional material), Pell issued statements calling Saunders’s comments “false” and “outrageous”—and suggested he might take legal action. (Saunders defended his remarks on June 1, saying they were “not slanderous.”) While acknowledging “the important work Mr. Saunders has done as a survivor of abuse to assist victims, including the establishment of a victims survivors group in the United Kingdom,” the cardinal suggested that Saunders had overstepped his role as a member of the pope’s sexual-abuse commission. The statutes of that body “make it clear that the Commission’s role does not include commenting on individual cases,” according to Pell, “nor does the commission have the capacity to investigate individual cases.”
Fr. Federico Lombardi, spokesman for the Holy See, made the same point in his June 1 statement. But he went further, stating that Pell’s responses to the Australian government’s investigation of child abuse have “always” been careful and thorough. The cardinal’s recent statements about 60 Minutes “must be considered reliable and worthy of respect and attention,” according to Lombardi. No doubt the cardinal’s statements about his role in the scandal deserve both respect and attention, but have they always been reliable? An episode from the recent past suggests not.
In 1982, according to Anthony Jones, he was sexually assaulted by Fr. Terence Goodall twice in one day. Jones was twenty-eight at the time. He says that he complained to church authorities the next day, but that they failed to mention the accusation to Goodall. Two decades later, Jones wrote a letter to the Archdiocese of Sydney detailing the alleged assault. (He was suing for $3.5 million.) The archdiocese launched an internal investigation. And on February 14, 2003, Pell wrote to Jones to tell him two things: that the investigator could not substantiate the allegation, and that there were no other complaints against Goodall—neither of which was true. (In 2005, Goodall would plead guilty to indecent assault, under old statutes that outlawed homosexual sex.)
In fact, as reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2008, the investigator’s report—which of course Pell read—did substantiate Jones’s allegation, along with another man’s accusation that Goodall had molested him when he was an altar boy. Pell wrote a letter to the other victim to inform him that his accusation had been substantiated—on the same day he wrote to Jones denying his claim. What’s more, documents obtained by ABC show church investigators were aware of several accusations against Goodall. Pell later admitted that his letter to Jones was “poorly put,” explaining that he had confused Jones’s allegation of assault with rape. “I was attempting to inform him that there was no other allegation of rape,” he said. But in another letter to Jones, also reported by ABC, Pell expanded on his reason for refusing to substantiate the allegation. “What cannot be determined by me, however, is whether it was a matter of sexual assault as you state, or homosexual behavior between two consenting adults as maintained by Fr. Goodall,” Pell wrote. “In the end it is a matter of your word against his.” Yet a police wiretap revealed that Goodall admitted to Jones that he never told the church investigator that their encounters were consensual. “I certainly did not say it was consensual, I don’t know where they got that from,” Goodall said.
“I acted to the best of my knowledge,” Pell told ABC when presented with news of the recording. “My judgment was vindicated when the prosecutors never alleged rape.” The cardinal acknowledged that he had met with Goodall to discuss the case. “I’m the superior of the priest,” he explained. “I’ve always got to be open to speak with the priest, especially if I’m telling him that it’s likely his time as a priest is over.” But he did not meet with Jones. He only sent him those two letters that misstated the findings of the investigation he had commissioned. “I don’t know who was lying,” Pell conceded, Goodall or Jones. “It’s very, very difficult to find out the truth in these situations.” Complete Article HERE!
