Clergy Abuse Survivors – Page 207

June 22, 2011

Jesuits remove popular Maryland priest

A prominent Jesuit priest has been permanently barred from public ministry for allegedly improperly touching a minor in the 1980s.

The Maryland Province of the Jesuits said Tuesday that it removed the Rev. James Glenn Murray from church work after an investigator hired by the Roman Catholic order found evidence supporting the allegation. Murray is living in a monitored Jesuit residence.

The Jesuits sent notice of their action to dioceses and high schools where Murray has served since his 1979 ordination.

Murray is a liturgy specialist who helped draft a 1990s document for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on African-American worship in the Roman Catholic Church.

The priest could not be reached for comment. The religious order did not release Murray’s location, but a spokeswoman said they would try to reach him.

http://tinyurl.com/5v7roel

June 17, 2011

Bishops Empower Themselves Not to Report Abuse Allegations, Catholics Speak Out

Statement from Call To Action Regarding

Bishops’ 2011 Spring Assembly:

Bishops Empower Themselves Not to Report Abuse Allegations, Catholics Speak Out

After this year’s revelations that the Philadelphia Archbishop and Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop failed to report sexual abuse allegations to their review boards and to civil authorities, Catholics of good will expected the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to revise their sexual abuse policies at this week’s Spring General Assembly. Today, the bishops conclude their gathering without making any substantive changes to their sex abuse policies.

The bishops did manage to authorize work on a new preaching document, issue a policy statement and approve new musical translations of the new liturgy to begin in September.

However, when it came to changing and further strengthening the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and its related Essential Norms, they added little and made minor tweaks to dates and numbers. One bishop even suggested that some of those who have abused should be able to return to ministry. Equally egregious, the bishops did not add a section to the charter that would mandate Bishops share sexual abuse allegations with their own diocesan review boards and, thus, potentially keep known abusers in ministry.

As a result, the power to keep a pedophile religious leader away from children continues to rest in the hands of the bishop–the same place it has always rested. Based on the last fifty years of scandal, we know this only leads to additional abuse victims and greater harm to the Church as a whole.

Call To Action encourages fellow Catholics to continue to speak up about any signs of abuse and direct their concerns, not only to church authorities, but to civil authorities. For assistance, contact SNAP, the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests, http://www.snapnetwork.org

June 17, 2011

Bishops Won’t Focus on Abuse Policies

Despite recent cases in which Roman Catholic bishops failed to report or suspend priests accused of child sexual abuse, the bishops head into a meeting in Seattle on Wednesday proposing no significant revisions to the abuse prevention policies they passed in 2002 at the height of the scandal.

The bishops had promised that they would take a hard look at their policies in light of new accusations in Philadelphia and Kansas City, Mo., that have shaken many Catholics, not just in those dioceses, but across the country as well. The incidents have led some Catholics to question whether bishops are complying with their own policies, and whether there is any accountability for bishops who do not.

In the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Bishop Robert W. Finn admitted last month that he allowed a priest who had taken pornographic pictures of parish girls to continue celebrating Mass and having access to children.

http://tinyurl.com/6kr8zb4

June 16, 2011

Catholic bishops gather in Seattle, amidst new sex abuse allegations

Nearly 200 Catholic bishops gather in Seattle Wednesday for a three day conference, amidst new allegations of ongoing sexual abuse by priests.

The church leaders from all over the country will discuss potential changes to new rules put in place in 2002 aimed at curbing rampant sexual abuse spanning decades, resulting in thousands of complaints and over $2 billion in legal settlements.

“It’s little more than show. They’ve done virtually nothing to change things,” alleges John Shuster, director of Seattle’s Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Shuster says the reforms are meaningless, because they don’t carry any real power to remove pedophile priests.

Shuster accuses the church of continuing to cover up ongoing abuses, and his group is calling on the church to open its records and subject guilty priests to criminal prosecution. “This is criminal sexual abuse of children,” he complains. “If this were a plumber, he’d be locked up in a minute.”

But Catholic Church leaders insist guidelines put in place the last decade have drastically curbed abuse cases and no further rules are needed.

The gathering comes just days after three men filed new lawsuits against the Seattle archdiocese, alleging rampant abuse and cover up in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

http://tinyurl.com/65zd4vh

June 15, 2011

US Catholic Church study blames 1960s permissiveness for rise in sexual abuse

A report on the child abuse scandal in the US Catholic Church has provoked condemnation for concluding that the permissive society of the 1960s was to blame for the rise in sexual offences by priests.

The investigation commissioned by Catholic bishops said that the peak incidence of sexual abuse by priests in the 1960s and 70s reflected the increased level of other deviant behaviours in American society in the period, including “drug use and crime, as well as social changes, such as an increase in premarital sex and divorce.”

Researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice said most of the abusive priests were ordained in the 1940s and 50s and were not properly trained to confront the social upheavals of the 1960s.
http://tinyurl.com/625twhb